Hello, anons I've been thinking of starting an MMO since I haven't played one in like a decade and can't decide between Final Fantasy 14, Elder Scrolls Online, New World and maybe Guild Wars 2.
What are the differences and which you would suggest?
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U really want to come here and listen to some shill tell you how to love your life and play their game? They are all F2P besides new world, just try them and see which one you like the most
What you want out of a MMO?
GW2 is probably the best beginner MMO. It's good at everything but excels at nothing. It's a great MMO if you have no idea what you want.
this is a joke right? I feel like GW2 is way too overwhelming once you get to the first Major City, specially with how they expect you to realize on the minimap that the quest objective can be on an upper level, but the game doesn't fricking tell you that, no you have to have random people who talk like npcs tell you where to go, its an embarrassment.
They all have their own merit.
FFXIV has a good story and great music but isn't very good with the actual MMO part.
ESO has great exploration, some good quests, and fun PvP. But the combat is not super fun, and it can get expensive buying all the content.
New World has some of the best life skills in any MMO I've played. But lots of copy paste content, very little build variety, and a lot of people are super negative on it due to the awful launch.
Guild Wars 2 has very fun PvP, pretty good exploration, okay story. But the PvE is repetitive and boring at endgame. It's more of a journey game to me.
Out of those I'd probably say try the trial for XIV first, if the story doesn't hook you drop it since it's the best the game does. Then try GW2.
>Guild Wars 2 has very fun PvP
do you mean wvw? where everyone just joins a zerg rush group to complete dailies and then leaves?
gw2 is probably the best out of those 3 but it's still pretty shit
no I mean the 5v5
i replied to the wrong post
i'm very dumb
is meant for
>FFXIV has a good story
kek
unironically this
14's story is a watered-down Zilart copy-paste.
its not even original.
you should pick the one you like 🙂
Pirates of the Burning Sea Legacy if a boatkinoautist
Frick, marry, kill, in that order
Marry, Marry, Marry I don't do what you tell me.
It really depends on what you're trying to get out of it and whether or not you have friends in communities. Also how much you're willing to spend. If you're just starting out with MMO's GW2 for sure. Elder Scrolls Online is scuffed GW2 so wouldn't recommend unless you're into Elder Scrolls itself. New World has some good production but the game felt shallow to me imo. FFXIV is the hardest to recommend since you don't really play an MMO for 2-4 months. You have to beat all the previous campaigns to actually play with anyone so it's actually a JRPG until you catch up to everyone.
In terms of cost they're all going to eventually cost you if you want to enjoy their offerings. FFXIV requires you to buy the game + expansions + monthly sub. If you want to skip the campaigns they charge for that too. Elder Scrolls I think gives you access to the whole game as long as your subbed, all though you can buy the stuff at a much higher price to never have to pay the sub again (might be outdated info haven't touched the game since 2018sh). New World is a flat buy to play. GW2 is free to try but after the first campaign you have to buy the other campaigns (no monthly sub though).
Best advice, find a community, make friends in the game you play. I find myself enjoying MMOs when I actually engage with a guild or have some friends all with similar goals. World tends to feel empty and alone otherwise regardless of the game I play.
Thanks for the advice anons. If it helps the only other MMOs I've played are LOTRO and Age of Conan. I much preferred AOC because of the worldbuilding, music, quests, combat etc although the dungeons in LOTRO were better. Also the f2p of LOTRO sucked compared to AOC.
So I'd say I'm most interested in worldbuilding, atmosphere, sense of adventure, questing etc but I guess since it's an MMO socializing too.
How do you even make friends in these games?
joining a guild is probably your best bet these days
You literally only have 2 choices. Its WOW or FFXIV.
yes i know its depressing and makes you want to fricking die but you have to pick one.
this is a moron opinion from someone that doesn't like mmos.
You will never ever see and interact with millions of players
Having a small ish community also builds an actual community
oh that XninjagayAZN I killed him yesterday and he flamed me let's not group up with hin
instead of "never seen these guys before. why isn't anyone talking?"
they not talking because they and you know that you'll never see each other again
this is a moron opinion from someone who doesn't realize that there's nothing released within the last like 5 years that isn't just a singleplayer game with other people present.
FF14 and WoW are dead because the open world is no more than a groupfinder waiting room.
FF14 in particular is the safest and most soloplayer-friendly MMO you can possibly play. It also has a ton of low capacity servers so you will never meet anyone outside of instanced content.
i've been playing a maplestory private server with only like 900 players and it feels way more alive than ffxiv, gw2 or wow do. people do pqs and bosses together since they're too hard for most ppl to solo and there's an actual economy where people bid on each other's items instead of buying it from a menu shop, leading to more interactions with ppl. I played gw2 casually for a month, fricking nobody talks on that game and I barely saw people except for at bosses, heart of thorns and the starter zone. the other 2 expansions were dead as shit literally less than 10 players. i don't think socialization has anything to do with pop numbers, more to do with game design. gw2 is also boring as frick
literally the stupidest post of the thread
Wow is literally unplayable and FF14 is a dated looking shitfest
>14
not a mmo, more like single player story heavy rpg game with coop
>ESO
decent
>new world
dead vaporware garbage. devs already confirmed they're working on a new project.
>gw2
ok
I like LotRO
What server are you playing on?
go picrel or WoWclassic if you want the original theme-park MMO
all the games you listed are singleplayer adventure games
>EvE
Stagnant growth
>FF11
Dying/low pop to begin with
>Ragnarok
Dead
I agree they're good MMORPGs. But they also represent why developers don't try to make "good" mmorpgs anymore.
ff11 and ragnarok are just old and outdated. it has nothing to do with "good" mmorpg design
eve has a massive barrier to entry so it's no surprise that it's stagnant. the same people who played it at launch are probably the same people still playing it. again, nothing to do with the actual game design. i guarantee if the real life money costs were lower from launch, it would be THE mmo right now
Blue Protocol JP. Releases next week.
WoW private servers
OSRS is the best MMO on the market right now. Addictive game loops, zero microtransactions and zero p2w.
>zero microtransactions and zero p2w
xD
>osrs
>zero p2w
is this a joke? more than half the game is behind a paywall and members play freely among non-members
>OSRS is the best MMO
>zero microtransactions and zero p2w.
filtered
Return of Reckoning. Don't bother with xiv, everyone just uses 3rd party cheat tools to literally play the game for them in both end game pvp and pve.
Seconded. Play Return of Reckoning, OP.
Final Fantasy 14 is imo the best mmo you can play right now and the population is really high.
I'm a MMO addict sadly. I've probably invested a 200+ hours minimum in most MMORPGs out there.
>Elder Scrolls Online
The most controversial thing about this game is its combat. Its this weird mix of tab targeted and action combat. Feels a bit floaty/spammy by many and the light attack weaving aspect (animation cancelling via light attacks) is an acquired taste for some. That being said if you love the elder scrolls world (morrowind, oblivion, skyrim, etc) it can be a very fun game. Having that singleplayer series support for its world building does it a lot of favors. Other things I like about it is that it has a first person view which makes it feel more like the singleplayer games. Has "light" quest choices. "Tried" to have crafting retain its value via timegating. Has a stealing and crime system (not PvP related). Many people play ESO as a singleplayer MMORPG. Kind of horizontal endgame.
>Gw2
I do enjoy the combat more than ESO, its much more action combat. The pvp is more skill based as gearing is easy (horizontal focused endgame) or things are standardized in their version of arenas. It has some of the best open world content in my opinion. Story is so so, not horrible, some parts are good, but good for a mmorpg. The best mount system out of them all. Fairly extensive F2P version of the game.
>FF14
This is the only one I couldn't get 200+ hours into. I've never been into the theme/world of that game. That being said, the endgame that I did do heavily reminded me of WoW and such. Very raiding and instance focused.
1/2
2/2
>New World
Yeah this is the "work in progress" of the bunch. They did a 180 in design a year from release and are still trying to polish things out. I actually really like the combat itself. I just wish they had more archetypes in there. Vertical endgame which I don't mind. However they've got this weird ass horrible gearing system that I despise called Gypsum. Basically each gear slot has an artificial number for that slot that determines how powerful gear for that slot drops + how powerful the gear you wear is. So lets say you buy gear with an item level of 600 for your helm. However your gypsum level for the helm slot is 510. That means any gear that drops for that helm is 510. If you equip that item level 600 helm, it actually gets downgraded to like 520. The ways you raise it is that there's a rare chance that when something drops, it "upgrades" that slot to a higher ilvl. Or you do certain content, get these gypsum crystals, craft them into a specific slot, and then they raise that slots item level 5-10 points. Then once you get everything to level 600, you then have to get a special currency called umbral shards to get it to 625. And now i hear the next major expansion/content drop they will be raising the item level past 625 with yet another different progression system. I don't mind the umbrayl shards as much. But god damn I will never not hate the gypsum system. It feels so...artificial and bad. Great gathering system. Fairly good PvP. If you asked me out of this list you have, which two had the best PvP; I'd say gw2 and new world. World building is ok? Kind of there. But it still feels very rough. They way they present the world is very early 2000s/1990s I guess you could say. You basically have NPCs standing stationary and lore drop on you. The recent content is making it a bit more interesting. But we will have to see. Because they did the 180 during development, they didn't have enough time to properly build out a story.
MMOs are a dead genre i prefer single player games lately specially with how fricking woke the industry is getting. WoW has body type 1 and 2 instead of male and female now. It really is a joke. Get yourself some emulators and play games that are actually finished and can't be changed.
Play on Warmane private servers for WOTLK WoW without having to bay Bl*zzard.
warmane sucks though. it's filled with spammers and they, like most private servers for some reason, have bullshit speech moderation rules. i guess it MIGHT be the best private server but that's not saying a whole lot
chromie craft is best come
>All kinds of derogatory or explicit language here are forbidden
i guess at least they're upfront and clear about it. still a shit rule though. any server where i cant say Black person is a garbage server
GW2 is the only one where they haven't completely fricked the system with bad design and server lag.
ESO would be great but their server tech is abominable.
WoW is ok if you're some kind of sicko from the self-hate pain dimension and are looking for like-minded entities to hang out with in a torture garden for the soul.
gw2's design fricking sucks, dude. it's decent as you play through 1-80 and the expansions for the first time and then it drops off a cliff once you get to fractals, strike missions, wvw, etc. it's an actual nightmare
not anon but not that horrible. Its on par with all the other MMORPGs out there. Which is a very low bar to reach. Gw2's instanced game is honestly no better or worse than most out there. Only props i give is some of the open world events. At least they try to keep them active and fun. Instead of games like WoW where they're a small step in gearing and get forgotten about 3 months after release.
GW2 didn't have a proper zone events since Heart of Thorns, both expansions after it has frick all to offer, especially reward wise.
When I played gw2 I made a few lv80 characters and barely saw anyone except for starter zones. High level zones were mostly dead except for heart of thorns. A lot of the times I'd be doing an event with like 3-6 people and most of them would just leave like halfway through.
Yeah it really depends on where the content is in the life span of it. Because theres so much open world content and it is all relevant, the population can be spread out. However, usually if you go to the latest content release areas you will see people. Also going to open world events like world bosses will often have a lot of people.
i havent played since End of Dragons released but i saw people almost everywhere constantly. maybe it's a region thing? i'm in eastern US and it was actually kind of annoying how many people were cluttering my screen sometimes
still not a good game but i wouldnt say population is one of its issues
I ran through EoD and I saw literally like five people, didn't have anyone to do events with the entire time so I just slogged through it all alone. even in HoT there would be times where I'd wander around for an hour or two and see hardly anyone while other times it would be spontaneously packed even at odd hours of the day. The game as a whole felt like that, like a switch would randomly flick on and then all of a sudden I'd see people everywhere for maybe an hour, then the switch flicks off and I won't see a soul for hours. It was a very odd experience.
probably because people log on for specific events that always happen at a certain time of day. it's one of the many things about gw2 that are kind of shit: almost every single aspect of the game is timegated somehow
that being said, i didnt have your experience while i played about half a year or so ago. maybe the game's population drastically died down since EoD came out. id find that weird but it would explain why i cant get along with what youre saying
The vanilla zones are dead as there is no reason for players to hang out there 10 years after release. If you're hardcore into GW2, you go for 100% map completion which takes a weekend and then never go back. Veteran players don't even level in the vanilla zones anymore since they have accumulated hundreds of tomes of knowledge over the years so they can instantly boost a new character to 80. The most active zones in the game continues to be Heart of Thorns zones due to the engaging level and event design and the lucrative meta events. After that, it's the other fun and lucrative meta event maps (namely Silverwastes, Dragonfall, and Drizzlewood Coast). After that, you have the living world patch zones like Bloodstone Fen which you still have veterans hanging around in trying to farm for their legendary accessories or their elder dragon sword skin. Lastly you have the PoF and EoD expansion zones, which offer zero incentive to stick around and play them after you go through the story once, but they are still more populated than vanilla zones for that reason since you can't just skip them unlike the vanilla zones.
FFXIV has the best programming. I can get a custom window resolution by dragging the corners like any other window and the amount of keybinds allows me to play without the trackpad for camera controls. IMO it has the best isekai immersion feel to it as well. Your character spawns from a spark of light in an opening cutscene.
yea programming you into a troony