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Reader Comments (67)

Posted: Feb 26th 2012 8:02AM odericko said

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EVE's for sure.

Posted: Feb 26th 2012 8:10AM smartstep said

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Lotro did WHEN it still was P2P. I've bought game just days after I started playing.

I did do small research before I started playing it though. I always do.

Game went downwards in last 2 years though ,and I've quit several months after it's transition to f2p / freemium.

------

For nom mmo games ,I remember Fallout 1 demo blown me away and since then I am big Fallout 1 & 2 fan.

Posted: Feb 26th 2012 9:12AM drginger said

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@smartstep Exactly the same for me with LOTRO, when it was still P2P. I hadn't considered trying the game out, until a friend suggested rolling a hobbit mini. I gave the trial a shot and was absolutely blown away by the polish in the starting area(s).
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Posted: Feb 26th 2012 9:24AM ShivanSwordsman said

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@smartstep

Forgive me but... why is the game so bad 2 years later? I don't understand. Is it because it's no longer an exclusive club where you can lord over everyone because you pay the monthly fee? All I've seen are big, rolling, new changes that improved the game... and elitist people that can't seem to gather that DDO and LOTRO NEEDED this swap over, and all the crying about how Free to Play is the evil of all evils is one of the stupidest arguments I've ever seen.

Then again, I'm from the old school of gaming. We didn't pay monthly to play our games, and they all ha single player that didn't require an online connection. I see no sanity in monthly subscriptions, especially when all the sub games only get 3 - 6 month updates, which Buy to Play games like Guild Wars already give me. I loved LOTRO in fact... spent $30 on it, just to fill in some of the places that Turbine Points wouldn't get me. I did the same with DDO.

I see so many people screaming about how freemium killed their precious wittle livefest. No, it didn't. You quit because other people were having fun, you couldn't stand elite over others waving your pretend magic swords going "NONE SHALL PASS BECAUSE I PAY THE $15 FEE HAHAHAAAAA". Can't be the community either, unless you forgot how to use the ignore button...
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Posted: Feb 26th 2012 11:58AM laelgon said

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@ShivanSwordsman Yup, you nailed it on the head. We all stopped playing because of players who didn't pay a monthly fee. It had nothing to do with the buggy content that ruined my kinship's raid nights, imbalanced pvmp, or simply lackluster content. I've played the most recent expansion and it simply doesn't compare to the content from Shadows of Angmar.
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Posted: Feb 26th 2012 12:04PM smartstep said

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@ShivanSwordsman

I think you must really calm down man and stop taking these things so seriously / personally.

I am allowed to have my own opinion man and for your information - I don't care about exclusivity, isolation - besides I don't see sub or any other type of game as exclusive.

Game just gradually started to look worse and worse even BEFORE switch to f2p. More and more focus was put into instances , open content was trivialized , soloized and quality of zones went downhill as well. Grind also increased. (with exceptions).

F2P / Freemium switch was just "nail in the coffin". At first I gave it a try - I was playing as VIP for over half-a-year after switch to freemium, but inreased changes to game in order to tie it to store (which was logical move for this business model) gradually ruined those rest of fun I still had playing this game.

As for your GW example - actually I am going to try GW2 to forge my own opinion about this B2P model.


For 'old school' player - well I will not assume anything ,but I am considered 'old school' as well by many especially younger players sice I play games for more than 20 years already - starting with C64 compuiter.

Besides f2p / freemium models also charge you over time exactly same way as p2p mmorpg do. Just by diffrent means.

There is no mmorpg that is like single player game when you buy box and that's it. Even GW2 will not be like that even though it might be closest to this at least for now.

So pls get off your high horse. Being so judemental is not really nice you know?
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Posted: Feb 26th 2012 1:53PM Stanimir said

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@ShivanSwordsman No. Shadows of Angmar was fun, enthralling, challenging. I have never felt better than when we and my friends toppled the rift. The quests have become literally cardboard in terms of how fun it is. In mines of moria, the quests were fun. They had stories within them. Funny dwarfs, important actions. RoI has utterly putrid quests. It takes "collect 6 boar hides" and multiplies it by 200. It is hands down the worst content that has ever been released in LOTRO.
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Posted: Feb 26th 2012 3:58PM DarkWalker said

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@smartstep

I got into LotRO exactly because it changed most/all of the main story to be soloable, and thanks to the solo skirmishes. It meant even if I didn't have a friend available at the very same instant, I can still progress.

One of the main reasons I'm going to get GW2 is because that game, for the most part, should be playable either solo or in groups. The way events work, players in GW2 should always be able to do content and advance their characters, no matter if they are playing solo or in groups. Also, I don't think grouping for events in GW2 will trigger my usual fear of PUGs thanks to the informal grouping; the way XP, Gold, and Loot are handled; and the absence of any kind of loot rolls.
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Posted: Feb 26th 2012 4:14PM smartstep said

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@DarkWalker

When I was still playing it went to a situation that ALL of story line was soloable. Every single quest. Is that good or not? Well it may depend.

But that not mainly about story quest line. Almost all of quests in open world became solo quests. Like 99% of them.

Besides that is not about solo / group quests only. What happened is that game focus went almsot entirely to isntances.
Open world only was left as mean to level by grinding quests. Nothing else.

Game went to instances mode. Where you just grinded instances over and over. Lotro always had instances ,but well open world zones had itneresting and challanging content sometimes + there were things to do in open world as well apart of questing.
Not anymore.

Crafting was simplolified as well.

Well if that work for you then it is great (really no irony here) - more power to you.

I won't touch Lotro ever again and propably won't touch WoW / Lotro / Rift kind of themepark ever again.

GW2 I will try - will see with my own eyes how this game play's out.

For long term mmorpg waiting for ArcheAge though.
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Posted: Feb 27th 2012 4:20AM Lenn said

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@ShivanSwordsman The game really isn't bad. There have been changes, and not everyone can cope with these as well as others, but the core of the game hasn't changed much. It's still one of the better MMOs out now. Smartstep is just disilusioned and has to remind everyone of that every time LotRO is brought up (or when he brings it up himself, as in this case).
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Posted: Feb 27th 2012 10:47AM Deliverator said

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@Lenn
No, the core of the game is gone. There's no achievement left, there's nothing to attain that you can't buy in the item shop, they've 'tuned' the mobs and grind to encourage XP and other buff sales and they've started gimping an already decimated crafting system to encourage low level armor purchases by killing materials drops.

The game is not the same and it has absolutely nothing to do with elitism. It's gone to shit because of the F2P item shop encouraging tuning.
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Posted: Feb 26th 2012 8:23AM (Unverified) said

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Ryzom, EVE, Horizons/Istaria, Fallen Earth when it was P2P...

FFXI's "free" trial blew me away too, but in a very bad way.

Posted: Feb 26th 2012 8:28AM Menx said

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It was Aion for me. I tried the free trial and liked it so much I bought the game a few days after.

Posted: Feb 26th 2012 11:59AM J45neoboy said

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@Menx

Same here!
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Posted: Feb 27th 2012 1:39AM Zyrusticae said

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@Menx

Same here, although in my case it was the closed beta (the Chinese one, at that!), not the trial.

I'll note that I was going into it with no or low expectations. That seems to help.
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Posted: Feb 26th 2012 8:39AM (Unverified) said

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Blew me away? Hmm... not sure any ever did that to me. But I was really suprised with Champions Online's impressive character creator. And I suppose Haven and hearth being an actually deep game was the exact opposite of what I expected when I saw it was java based.

Sadly nothing has ever "blown me away" in mmos. Other genres sure, but never mmos.

Posted: Feb 26th 2012 8:42AM BaneBergan said

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"We all form opinions about games we don't play. That's just good sense -- it lets us figure out what games we're probably going to like or dislike based on what we've heard."
I totally disagree, and want to clarify why. While I do form opinions about some games based on art style, core design and the directions a developer states they intend to take a specific MMO, I refuse to form a concrete opinion about a title until I have spent a sizable amount of time with the game. To do anything less would just be unfair to both myself and the game.
Otherwise, I would still be of the opinion that SW:tOR was a truly great game (because it seemed to be, for the first 30 or so odd hours...), and I would still claim Rift has a large enough number of differences to set it apart from the pack (that was my honest opinion until I was 100-ish hours into my time with the title... somewhere along the way I realized it was *ALOT* more like WoW than I wanted to admit).

Anyone stating an opinion without having spent actual hands on time with a title should qualify their viewpoint with a reality check. Without enough time invested, they lack enough experience to form a solid opinion, and instead are just basing their opinion on... let's call it, "hot air". It is still their opinion, and they have every right to it, but an opinion based on nothing but "hot air" should be seen as nothing more than that, and we should all be honest enough to admit to ourselves (even if we refuse to admit it to anyone else) when we are full of it.



The MMO that most turned my head with a "free trial" was Guild Wars. I never touched the game prior to 2009, and the 10 hour trial was like a smack in the face and a wake up call. I might have spent only 6 months actively playing, but the free trial was enough to get me to make the purchase.

Torchlight (on the XBox 360, I actually game on all platforms, not just the PC) was the title that most caught me by the shorthairs and gave me no choice but to buy the game. That free trial was better than 90% of the other games I played that year.
In fact, I would put Crimson Alliance (also for 360) in the same category. Played the trial, and felt like not buying the game would be the worst mistake I made that month.

...in fact, I wish every game (MMO and otherwise) had some sort of trial...

Posted: Feb 26th 2012 9:58AM mogchar said

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@BaneBergan
I completely agree with your points regarding game opinion. I often wish that at least a few reviewers would hold that position and truly play a game long enough to provide this level of an honest evaluation. Short cursory reviews and opinions of games people havent played equate to obnoxious white noise.
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Posted: Feb 26th 2012 10:43AM vann said

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@BaneBergan

And I will flamed at the stake for heresy, but I tried gw1 free trial and couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about. In short, I was uninspired and did not buy.

but swtor still has me well in it's clutches...
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Posted: Feb 26th 2012 10:51AM KvanCetre said

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@vann
I guess it depends when you played GW1. The game is something like 7 years old and certainly has a dated feel to it. But I remember playing that public alpha back in 2004... And that blew me away. I knew then I would buy every expansion ever.
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