Spoon's MMORPG Experience.

[SpoonFox]

Name an MMORPG and I've probably played it and know about/of it. I can give accurate ratings of the game by the following categories: Story, Gameplay, Music, Sound, Graphics, Community. Ratings will be 1-10 and I'll review my reason if needed.

Examples.

Name: Aion
Publisher: NCSoft (Korea)
Story: 8 (Very well done, great potential, but also kinda cliche, the world was beautifully done, but physics... Do you know them?)
Gameplay: 5 (Became dull after a while, everyone chose the class that was overpowered at the time, balancing never worked, only made classes worse. This is a PVP ONLY Game! Which means a level 50 (max level) can camp you at any level, anywhere in the world, as long as they want! Sad thing is, at the time it seemed like 50 level 50s would camp a single person. Worse was the grind! They went through 'weekends' once a month for x2 EXP, then it was every weekend for x2 EXP, FINALLY they went all out and did x2 EXP constantly... Still slow grind...)
Music: 8 (Nicely done, catchy, and some casts beautiful.)
Sound: 4 (Poorly done, cliche, even some of the mobs shared sounds from other games!)
Graphics: 9 (Very well done, very beautiful, shame you rarely got to see other people because in raids, all the players were forced to turn "White" (no skin) to reduce lag!)
Community: 4 (Poor community at best. Those who did stay, slowly turned into war wagers. There was a LEADER BOARD for PVP in player and guild! So guilds constantly fought one another for first place. You even got huge benefits for being best, like turning into a raid boss... Like that's an awesome thing... Rewards for grinding PVP and camping people just to camp them more!)
Overall: 6 (Nice game if you like pretty graphics... Otherwise, avoid)

Name: World of Warcraft (WoW) (Games will be rated by expansion packs. Regular, Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, and I didn't/don't want to be play the latest, So Cataclysm has no rating)
Publisher: Blizzard (USA)
Story: 9/6/4 (At first it had a great story and followed the path from the game Warcraft 3. The fans loved it, it was nice, the end game wasn't a gear fest (no elitists YET). Then Burning Crusade came... The story gained one full page of Retcon within a week of release. Retcon is basically "You're going off the story's path" or "You said X was Dead, but in this X is alive now!", I forgot the meaning of Retcon at this time. It was odd, it became too sci-fi for most fantasy RPGers, and it also had just plain stupidly abstract weapons and armor that made no sense. The arena was even more breaking of the sense, because magically you could be in gear that is epic, held by Arena, to do Raids for artifact gear... Now then... Why doesn't the arena just done the damn gear and save the world, huh? >.> Anyways! Wrath was worse. It was a test of design, not story. They tried to go off the story of the Lich King and started to break some more, adding more retcon since the original writers are gone (to my knowledge) The story became chaotic and many cases they needed new stuff, so they added to the 'lore' of the past and took from fan made books.)
Gameplay: 8/5/3 (The gameplay that you call 'WoW' now-a-days, as in "That MMO is like WoW" is simple and yet any casual gamer can play. I lowered ratings because as new expansions came out, they dumbed the game down more and more so that even an eight year old could play and be good. Why? Don't know... They needed money. In the expansions they made end game entirely gear dependant. You could have no skill, hell, sometimes no smarts, and be geared and do just fine. Some classes were just two button presses... Not worth it. And mods made it worse, you could macro a whole set up for one mouse click and just repeat. Boring, stupid, worthless. The PVP gameplay was never balanced. The game was originally intended for PVE. When PVP was added, all the classes started to break. They kept trying to counterbalance PVP and PVE. Overall, they fucked up.)
Music: 7/5/2 (The music was decent, not the best, but well done. A few songs added in burning crusade were great, but still poorly done. The wrath expansion's music... I gotta admit, in my opinion it sucked. They didn't have the original music people to make the music wonderful, they recycled alot of music, and in some cases, just didn't work.)
Sound: 8/5/3 (Just as music, it was nice in the beginning, but quickly became recycled, not well done, every boss and special encounter had almost the same sound effects. No original sounds for most bosses. Other than new voice acting, it wasn't exactly that good.)
Graphics: 9/6/2 (The graphics when the game came out were great, they were cutting edge, and broke molds in some cases. Even when the expansion came out... Sure alot of it didn't make sense, but it was well done! But then wrath come along... Suddenly these rusty pieces of shit were more powerful than the magical technological weapons from outlands. The graphics were horrible. They only updated ONE skin and that was for druids. The rest left to look like shit. They needed to revamp every skin properly to keep up to date... They didn't.)
Community: 7/2/2 (In the beginning people were nice, and worked together. This was also a time when MMO players weren't trolls and douchebags. Then when the expansion came out... So did gear scores, and raids that required strong gear... People became separated between three types of gamer. The PVPer who was hardcore into 'pwning noobs', especially if they were twinks who never made it past 19... The PVEer who was all about the best gear, rare gear, and beating everything, they discriminated anyone who wasn't geared (Even if they were skilled!) and called everyone a noob for not having epic gear the moment they hit cap. And Finally the casual player... The kind who makes money on auction house, the kind who does dailies and dungeons, yet never really raids or PVPs. There are hybrids of these three of course, but they were the three major populations. Oh yeah, a fourth... Gold Farmers... Bots who sold gold... Which made up roughly 25% of Blizzard's massive population. Not to mention that when my account got hacked when I was inactive for a few months, it was also sold! And blizzard said until the guy stops paying for my account, I cannot have it back since I never used a credit card. Tough shit.)
Overall: 8/5/3 (This game might be good for hardcore MMO players or casual gamers, but not the people inbetween. I do not like a game where I'd have to spend 40 hours a week online just to be in average gear for subpar praise by idiots who spend 80 hours a week for their shiny shit with diamonds in it. Try a private server if you want a better community or to spice things up.)

Name: Rift
Publisher: Trion Worlds (USA)
Story: 8 (It's different, well done, and has a few cliches to it. I like the idea of the invasions!)
Gameplay: 10 (Yes... TEN out of TEN! Constantly changing world, live invasions where your quest area could be there one moment, gone the next. Diverse Soul System for classes! Each class (Cleric/Rogue/Warrior/Mage) has 9 souls (Subclasses) EACH that you can combine into 3 souls at a time. Endless combinations. It is alot like WoW in some aspects, but it's ALOT like MANY MMORPGs on the market today! It took from many MMOs' positives! You can be a rogue who tanks or heals, or a mage who can heal or damage, maybe even a cleric who can tank! Many posibilities from the cliche class set up! At end game, for now gear means nothing for raids. It's good to be geared, but you could be in average gear and still be able to do your part! What's best is, PUBLIC GROUPS! That's right, you can join a public group temporarely to complete things such as closing a raid-like rift, or doing a special quest! The PVP is one of the basics of the game, so they work hard on balancing both PVP and PVE. Another interesting note is that the warfronts (PVP Areas in different maps from the normal) Are very basic and down to the point, but they're spiced up. They have a capture the flag where one team holds the flag and the person gets damaged over time (not just from the other team either!), this was very different! The gameplay is well done.)
Music: 7 (The music isn't the best, but it's much better than some MMORPG's out there. Some of it is beautiful and some makes it gloomy. most will not hear the music over the sounds of slaying foes.)
Sound: 9 (The voice acting is new and well done, but the main part of the sound is character sounds. They're nicely done, simple, and yet they still have a variety. Some sounds are recycled though, so they lost the point on that. Most of the points go into the voice actors.)
Graphics: 9 (The graphics are beautiful. The scenes and maps are beautiful. The entities, mobs, characters, all very well done. There's one major problem they've not fixed. The latest version of some graphics cards make the map look like Rainbow Noise and Jumbled up! It's very hard to navigate with this... That's where they lost the point.)
Community 8 (A majority of the players are very nice, and many cases the community helps itself... It has to... Two points taken off for POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE! If you put in a GM ticket, you might not get a reply for a good week! Maybe longer! Why is this? They have about 100 GMs in a game of almost 2 million active players! The programmers, scripters, and other workers don't seem to -work together- because many of their skills, items, and such don't change with patch changes, by that I mean the text could be wrong for the effect, the text unchanged from a patch, or Hell in recent, the wrong values for the patch notes! They need to get themselves in gear!)
Overall: 8 (it's a well done game, I'd advise it if you want a game that's not too complex, but has alot of interactive abilities in it.)

[BoB Dolen]

Debating if I wish to do a rebuttal to some of your points.

[Amplify]

Ragnarok Online
2moons/Dekaron
Maple Story
Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine Online

[VoltySquirrel]

I would disagree with you on the Rift and WoW front. Tbh, never played Vanilla, but I have played since BC. Story isn't my thing in an MMO, so eh, but I have disagree with you on all other point. A) Gear does play a factor, but at a certain point your stats sort of plateau. By that point, most people have the pvp/pve sets, and anything beyond that is pointless because it is still skill based. Yes, in the pre-Cata days it was mostly facerolling to win, but it changed in Cata, which you say you haven't played. They revamped basically every aspect of the game. Classes aren't rotation based anymore, the world is the best looking it has ever been, and the story is actually really good, with cutscenes during quests and dungeons. Quests don't just consist of go here, kill 8 rats, take their guts, give 'em to me. Whether it be sneaking into one of Deathwing's stronghold to gain information or holding a dwarf over a turbine in order to gain information, the story telling is just plain better. Although, I have to somewhat agree with you on the raiding community aspect, their kinda douchebags.

Rift, I gotta say, I completely disagree. This game is exactly like WoW. It really is. UI, basic classes, combat system, even its guild leveling system isn't unique. The story is the bland "You're the only hope for the world" variety present in most MMOs. Really, I'm the only hope, and all these other people are being lied to, just me? Bullshit. Invasions are cool for a little while, but at a certain point, its a bore, and at higher levels its actually a detriment to the game. Yes, the graphics are pretty, whoopdie fucking doo. I'm sorry, comparing a game released in 2011 to a game that still runs on a engine developed in 2003 is like saying my Porsche can go faster than your bicycle. Of course it can, but one thing that Rift doesn't have is charm. I just don't like the world. Only one race to choose from, cheesy ass dialogue, an almost nonexistent endgame, etc. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to waste my time on a game that is at its core the same damn game that it so clearly is competing with. "Were not in Azaroth anymore"? Seriously, fuck you. If that isn't being a tryhard, I don't know what is.

[SpoonFox]

Rift, I gotta say, I completely disagree. This game is exactly like WoW. It really is. UI, basic classes, combat system, even its guild leveling system isn't unique. The story is the bland "You're the only hope for the world" variety present in most MMOs. Really, I'm the only hope, and all these other people are being lied to, just me? Bullshit. Invasions are cool for a little while, but at a certain point, its a bore, and at higher levels its actually a detriment to the game. Yes, the graphics are pretty, whoopdie fucking doo. I'm sorry, comparing a game released in 2011 to a game that still runs on a engine developed in 2003 is like saying my Porsche can go faster than your bicycle. Of course it can, but one thing that Rift doesn't have is charm. I just don't like the world. Only one race to choose from, cheesy ass dialogue, an almost nonexistent endgame, etc. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to waste my time on a game that is at its core the same damn game that it so clearly is competing with. "Were not in Azaroth anymore"? Seriously, fuck you. If that isn't being a tryhard, I don't know what is.

Have you played many MMORPGs? WoW stole from many other MMOs at its time. The class system has been around since before WoW, WoW just made it look pretty and cleaned it up and dumbed it down. WoW Also did one thing I find incredibly offensive... Dumbing classes... "DPS, HPS, TPS." The three 'rules' of MMOs now... Damage output, Healing Output, Threat Output... Well, some MMOs are trying to add tool classes back in (LotRO did it beautifully in its lifetime), where a class doesn't have to be pure damage/healing/threat to be good at its damn job.

The class concept is what caught me on rift. There are 6 races (3 per side). The stories are still being developed (Idiot trion tries to put things out immediately and fix it later... I told them to wait a month before release, but they needed money -now-. They didn't have enough hands and still had bugs after beta...)

Anyways, I haven't played Cata or I would've added a 4th rating. I do not like their merger at all myself, but who knows, might be for the better. (Square Enix put out worse FF titles and better DQ titles example)

We all have differing opinions. I've seen people call games 'WoW Clones' without realizing WoW itself is a clone.
Rift has many more aspects than just taken from WoW. They took from Aion, Lord of the Rings Online, several free to play MMOs, mainly because their company consists of ex-employees of NCSoft, Ubisoft, Blizzard, and so on.

[Infamous]

WORLD OF WARCRAFT IS BEST MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMFFFFFFFFFF

[SpoonFox]

Ragnarok Online
2moons/Dekaron
Maple Story
Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine Online

Name: Ragnarok Online
Story: N/A (Never got into the story long enough sadly, cannot rate)
Gameplay: 7 (Was interesting when it came out, trying to get away from 3D MMOs and focusing on 2D aspects was new to me. It was much different from normal MMOs, so the game play caught my interest for a while. I didn't play it very long though.)
Music: 6 (was nice if I remember correctly... Was a long time ago.)
Sound: N/A (I do not remember the sound effects well enough to rate this.)
Graphics: 8 (For a 2D Sprite Game it was very good! It was beautifully done, and I am always going to be loyal to sprite games at heart. I still play SNES games!)
Community: N/A (I had no interaction with the community what so ever. Cannot apply my opinion to this.)
Overall: N/A (Cannot fully apply an overall experience. My stay in RO servers were too brief.)

2 Moons... I played for 10 Minutes, lost interest. I cannot rate it appropriately.

Name: Maple Story
Story: N/A (it had a story..? I'm sorry, I played when it had weird translations at the time. Not applicable.)
Gameplay: 8/2 (At first it was amazing to see a side scrolling MMO game, but after playing it for extended periods of time, it grew into a problem just to play. Players tended to get in the way of things at certain levels too.)
Music: N/A (... Did it have music?)
Sound: 8 (Silly sounds were what made it a humorous game to play. A shame that the game's potential was wasted.)
Graphics: 4 (While they're cartoony 2D graphics, it's just that. Most enemies (at the time) only had a few true animations and didn't really seem impressive at all.)
Community: 1 (... 90% Farmers, 9% Douches, 1% Awesome... Gives it a 1. The GMs at the time were non-existant and people tended to killsteal, insult you, and overall were immature.)
Overall: ... 3? (I guess it wasn't a good game in my eyes. I didn't enjoy it at all... Good concept, poor game.)

Name: Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine Online (Digital Devil Story)
Story: 7 (Very interesting take on the DDS storyline, but at the same time it had many flaws in its creation. It didn't have many roots to past games, but it seemed to be a game of its own type in the DDS world.)
Gameplay: 9 (Followed DDS style very well, you had your own pets, your own abilities, but in the end, you relied more on yourself than your monster. A bit like DDS itself. The experience gain of the game was too farm and grind based, so I lost interest at that point.)
Music: 7 (The music was quite well when you could hear it beyond the booms, buzzes, and zings!)
Sound: 7 (It was decent, very well done, but since many spells and abilities recycled their sounds, it sometimes felt overdone.)
Graphics: 6 (It had beautiful 3D versions of the DDS monsters, but the characters felt too bland. The backgrounds were neat. But the game felt it belonged on an early PS2.)
Community: 7 (I encountered some assholes, but very few. The GMs were actually active and some even showed up out of town. One was once my friend and I helped him GM once in a while by giving my opinions on actions.)
Overall: 7 (Not too bad, it was fun, if it was improved, and actually FINISHED I would probably play it again!)

[SpoonFox]

WORLD OF WARCRAFT IS BEST MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMFFFFFFFFFF

Reaper, stay out of my posts if you're going to be immature >.>

[Ackybur]

.

The story is the bland "You're the only hope for the world" variety present in most MMOs. Really, I'm the only hope, and all these other people are being lied to, just me? Bullshit.

I think i cried a little when I laughed at this. Volty I miss you!

[Amplify]

Name: Ragnarok Online
Story: N/A (Never got into the story long enough sadly, cannot rate)
Gameplay: 7 (Was interesting when it came out, trying to get away from 3D MMOs and focusing on 2D aspects was new to me. It was much different from normal MMOs, so the game play caught my interest for a while. I didn't play it very long though.)
Music: 6 (was nice if I remember correctly... Was a long time ago.)
Sound: N/A (I do not remember the sound effects well enough to rate this.)
Graphics: 8 (For a 2D Sprite Game it was very good! It was beautifully done, and I am always going to be loyal to sprite games at heart. I still play SNES games!)
Community: N/A (I had no interaction with the community what so ever. Cannot apply my opinion to this.)
Overall: N/A (Cannot fully apply an overall experience. My stay in RO servers were too brief.)

Name: Ragnarok Online
Story: 7 (Most quest had a cool story, no major quest tough.)
Gameplay: 7 (Was interesting when it came out, trying to get away from 3D MMOs and focusing on 2D aspects was new to me. It was much different from normal MMOs, so the game play caught my interest for a while. I didn't play it very long though.) Agree, I did get addicted for years tough.
Music: 8 (Each maps had it's on music. Most of them were orchestra made for the game itself.)
Sound: 7 (Decent enough)
Graphics: 8 (For a 2D Sprite Game it was very good! It was beautifully done, and I am always going to be loyal to sprite games at heart.) Agree
Community: 9 (Played with an awesome guild for 5+ years, we were the assholes if you wonder. Yet we brought the competitive to some high level.)
Overall: 8 (Solid 8. It was a must and I would play again if I had the time and will to be WoE ready each week twice a week.)

Pretty much what I think of my fav MMORPG of all time.

[BoB Dolen]

Alright, I care nothing for the sound+music since I play every MMO with no sound so I can listen to music and vent.

Aion: pretty good on it, but would have just focused more on how you have to love grinding to do anything with that game and the crafting was kinda annoying.

WoW: The story went to shit when BC released when they decided to retcon anything they liked to make content that required less work. The gameplay was steadily nerfed into easier mode from BC somewhat and then wrath took that to a whole new level.....but Cata was bringing back a more skill based gameplay but some recent things are showing that it doesn't last long. Now for Community I think you missed some groups and went to a the extremes on others, on note with your account seems you got a shitty person to talk to. All you needed to do was provide the CD keys and would be fine. WoW is firmly more for the casuals and more in-betweens really. Its not for hardcore PvPers. Really WoW's 2 biggest strength are time polish and Addons, I swear other mmos need addons.

Rift: Now this makes you sound like a "fanboi" no offense. You focused on the best part of the game, which though is kinda shallow still which is the "souls" aka talent trees. Also its really not like a lot of MMOs, its exactly like a WoW+WAR mix. Game very much had one of the best beta's/releases I've seen for a MMO very low on the bugs, even though they had some very "exploitable" bugs in beta that I was amazed to see. Overall though its just a different version of WoW overall which is good and bad. But really time will tell how it goes.

[VoltySquirrel]

.

The story is the bland "You're the only hope for the world" variety present in most MMOs. Really, I'm the only hope, and all these other people are being lied to, just me? Bullshit.

I think i cried a little when I laughed at this. Volty I miss you!

I still play Tf2....

[BoB Dolen]

I would disagree with you on the Rift and WoW front. Tbh, never played Vanilla, but I have played since BC. Story isn't my thing in an MMO, so eh, but I have disagree with you on all other point. A) Gear does play a factor, but at a certain point your stats sort of plateau. By that point, most people have the pvp/pve sets, and anything beyond that is pointless because it is still skill based. Yes, in the pre-Cata days it was mostly facerolling to win, but it changed in Cata, which you say you haven't played. They revamped basically every aspect of the game. Classes aren't rotation based anymore, the world is the best looking it has ever been, and the story is actually really good, with cutscenes during quests and dungeons. Quests don't just consist of go here, kill 8 rats, take their guts, give 'em to me. Whether it be sneaking into one of Deathwing's stronghold to gain information or holding a dwarf over a turbine in order to gain information, the story telling is just plain better. Although, I have to somewhat agree with you on the raiding community aspect, their kinda douchebags.

Ok, sorry but you seemed to have gotten the wool pulled over the eyes.

Classes are solid rotation based pretty much still, WoW is still low end on the "skill" base of the spectrum. Not saying it doesn't take any but its not as much as people think more so in PvP when compared to others. As for the world its 50/50 really, but as for the cut scenes they took it a little far with some of them. Really those different quests are few and far between. Really the douchebags are just more vocal then the non-douchebags.

Rift, I gotta say, I completely disagree. This game is exactly like WoW. It really is. UI, basic classes, combat system, even its guild leveling system isn't unique. The story is the bland "You're the only hope for the world" variety present in most MMOs. Really, I'm the only hope, and all these other people are being lied to, just me? Bullshit. Invasions are cool for a little while, but at a certain point, its a bore, and at higher levels its actually a detriment to the game. Yes, the graphics are pretty, whoopdie fucking doo. I'm sorry, comparing a game released in 2011 to a game that still runs on a engine developed in 2003 is like saying my Porsche can go faster than your bicycle. Of course it can, but one thing that Rift doesn't have is charm. I just don't like the world. Only one race to choose from, cheesy ass dialogue, an almost nonexistent endgame, etc. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to waste my time on a game that is at its core the same damn game that it so clearly is competing with. "Were not in Azaroth anymore"? Seriously, fuck you. If that isn't being a tryhard, I don't know what is.

Very alike to WoW in many areas but also the same as WAR in the same way. Really its a WoW+WAR baby of a game. But as I think was said WoW has been jacking features and ideas from other games for a while so its what ever. Thing is Cata was shallow on content and rift offers something new at least. Not sure how the invasions become detrimental to the game. ummmmm rift has 6 different races all with useful racials at least lol.

[Smeemo]

I enjoyed Everquest II until I came out of my bedroom and realized August had begun and ended since I started playing.

[Nikki Wolf]

Played Perfect World International?

[SpoonFox]

Played Perfect World International?

Perfect world was fun for a short while, but at the time I played it was a grindfest and lost interest, playing it again, still seems neat, but meh...

EQOA is my favorite MMO >.>