I'm considering playing an MMO again...

[Nev]

Oh dear lords in heaven...help me...

I would like to try FFXI or Guild Wars. Anyone playing either of those that can tell me what to expect?

[Flip]

I've been burned by 3 MMO's now... and i just got a free trial to WoW that i'll start tomorrow, hopefully i'll hate it.

[kali o.]

You'll like WoW, I'll pray for your social life. FF sucks and GW is great for casual playing.

[the Gray]

I'm a Guild Wars fanatic, been playing since day one.

It's not a MMO in the traditional sense I think. It's more along the lines of Diablo or Dungeon Siege. Sort of. I find it far more fun.

There's completely seperate, yet integrated, PvP/PvE area's to the game. Basically, anything you 'Unlock' in the PvE game can be used in PvP.

I'm just starting to get into PvP right now btw. It's intense. With only eight skills to choose from, you need the right mix and you need to complement your teamates well.

I'm a Mesmer/Necro (support) but there are many ways of playing each combination. You can see a Monk and may think immediately that he/she is a healer. In fact, it could be a Monk/Warrior using Smiting spells and Sword skills. Very deadly. I HATE Balthazar's Aura....

The biggest selling point is the cost. A one time fee, and nothing after that. No monthly fee's. There's even an new update/expansion coming out any week now. Also for free.

I give it a solid 4/5, my only gripe is navigating can be harder than some other 'Large World' games. But it's not gamebreaking.

[SineSwiper]

Fuck all of that and play Gunbound. Still has some MMO elements but the gameplay is actually better. Plus, you don't have to stay commited to maintain the same level as your friends, or any bullshit like that.

[Tortolia]

I tried Guild Wars in beta, and found that I'd be better off playing Dungeon Siege. It felt the exact same.

FFXI is good if you're in a good guild, but it's the biggest timesink of a MMO I've ever played. Plus it's entirely too dependent on group/alliance content, so soloing really isn't an option.

Best bet if you're a casual player is WoW, really. Maybe City of Heroes, though I haven't checked up on that lately.

[Flip]

To answer a part of your question, though, i did play FFXI and i liked it for a while, then it just got slow. Maybe it was because i didnt have a guild or was not willing to invest a ton of my time, i dunno.

The game is complicated and has many angles in which to play which is fun. The towns are huge with lots of quests and the main story line keeps you somewhat focused. I think my problem is when i step back and realize the world is just too huge for me to ever do everything and get recognized, i lose interest. I like games like Diablo and RTS's with ladders because i can be ranked and become a strong player much easier.

[Andrew, Killer Bee]

How come you didn't list WOW to start with? Have you played it before? If not, you really can't go past it. It's the bizness.

I haven't tried FFXI, but GW is more Diablo than MMO.

[Nev]

Might be better. I'm looking for very casual. I don't have the time to support a serious MMO. Maybe Guild Wars is the way to go then.

[Garford]

I kind of find the current gen of MMORPG to be unsuitable to me. I practically play healer/support class only though, so my views are skewed towards that.

WoW is good if you are casual, but at 60, it's a whole different experience. You need to raid to make progress, which goes against the casual model

As a priest, raid = flash heal/dispel and with all the UI mods out there, it get insanely repetitive and even an untrained monkey can do it. Everything you do as a priest while leveling from 1-59 becomes useless and the god damn holy tree is useless.

Any class being able to solo means a tight community doesn't really exist in game. If you have a friend to 2 to play with WoW is interesting for casuals I guess, else it's practically a glorify single player RPG.

Didn't really play WoW much after my first couple of MC clearing months back.

EQ2 tried to implement too much stuff from other games, ending up in a game that is very mudane.

Lineage 2 = by far the biggest time sink. No end game, nothing, just grind till your balls drop off. The combat system is interesting, but it's totally not casual friendly. Pretty much need 9 man to do anything. 59->60 took me 3 weeks to reach. I did 1-60 in WoW in 17 days.....

FFXI has some interesting end game element, but a large amount of time needs to be place into it and entering FFXI now is really a bad timing as you won't find much lower level people and such to group with, less alts.

CoH has no clear end game goals, heck skills barely improve and there's no equipment. It gets very boring fast.

GW as most said, is more Diablo like but PvP is not really my thing so I didn't experience with it much.

[Don]

I'm surprised in WoW they don't have UI mods that just play the game for you instead.

If you're looking for a MMO-lite, it sounds like you really should be playing Diablo 2.

[Derithian]

Light fun MMO's I'd definitely say Guild Wars. I finally started playing again and it's well worth whatever play time you sink into it. there is a fun and actually pretty interesting story as well as complex PVP which is awesome. Plus it's easy to solo as you can just bring along the towns mercs and go out to kill stuff if you don't want to wait for a party.

CoH is damn fun. I've been cracked out with it since day one. and there is some fun little endgame things. firsty the option to open up 2 new classes and the PvP arena is pretty fun. But I would wait for City of Villains as that is a damn fun game as well. I've layed off recently though until they add a damned archer.......fuckers not allowing me to shoot boxing glove arrows and stuff. Although that will probably never happen with the DCU MMO that is coming from Sony or the Marvel MMO from Microshaft.

WoW is pretty easy to solo through many areas but others will require a team. it's still pretty fun but can be a time sink. It's beautiful but nowhere near as complicated as FFXI was with it's crazy combo system. WoW just seems a little stale to me after a while.

[Nev]

Hmmm, righty then. Guild Wars it shall be, if I actually decide to make the plunge.

I'd play Diablo II again, but I don't think I could stand the memories of my erased level 49 hardcore archer...

[Oracle]

I hate Guild Wars :p

I loved FFXI, only reason I quit is because I got up to like lvl 62, left town for two weeks, and my regular group got a couple levels ahead of me. I didn't really want to catch up alone. (level gaps are a big deal in that game).

I just got WoW this week, I really like it so far.

Other than that I've been playing Dark Age of Camelot since release. As far as PvE goes it's pretty lame, but I play it for the PvP aspect. No game (at least for me) has presented an enjoyment level as high as DAOC has with respec to PvP.

[Oracle]

Oh and Garford, I'd like to know what you did to get to 60 in WoW in 17 days. I started on Monday and my Undead Shadow Priest is level 20 at the moment.

[Don]

In MMORPG lingo, 17 days played means 17 X 24 hours played, not "I did this while playing over a span of 17 days'.

[kali o.]

Grind quests and level, move into Scarlet as soon as invitable, by the time you get all your gear from there you'll prolly get invites for mara. Run instances till 60 and grind the occasional solo quest (when low on time).

As for priests in general...mind numbingly boring in high end raids (we haven't bothered with BWL yet though, Frostwolf has been 500+ queue Crashwolf since the patch), but in PvP they are pretty fun. I wouldn't just Flash though, waste of mana...at best we'd rotate 90% cutoff flash on the MT, then fall back on the standard 60% cuttoff GHeal.

Right now I'm levelling my Hunter...I'm having a lot more fun with her (hunters are actually pretty diverse...sure their pets start to dwindle, but it's more a case of hunters being used to solo equal level+ elites till about 45ish or so).

[kali o.]

In MMORPG lingo, 17 days played means 17 X 24 hours played, not "I did this while playing over a span of 17 days'.

My playtime on my 48 hunter is 7days 2hours+, so I can easily see someone hitting 60 in 17 RL days. I think my Priest hit 60 under the 11 day mark (granted, over 2 months RL when I took a vacation). But to be fair, I abused the "crash-in-instance-get-full-rest-XP" bug everytime.

[Oracle]

I asume that bug no longer exists :p

[Tortolia]

Given how responsive Blizzard is, it very well may be.

[Garford]

17 days RL, not played. Played is slighly over 6.

I duoed with a rogue all the way and we had some prior beta knowlege(yes, this includes bugs) So, it was pretty much just a mad rush.

[SineSwiper]

If you're looking for a MMO-lite, it sounds like you really should be playing Diablo 2.

Nice. Switching from an MMO with simplistic gameplay to a non-massive with even more simplistic gameplay. I don't think that's the direction he wants to go in.

[Don]

There is nothing massive about a game like WoW if you're not playing with friends.