I need a new MMO

[Zan the Avitar]

Ok, EQ lost my interest LONG ago and so did EQ2, in fact I ignored EQ2 since right before KoS came out. Now I need a new game to play that'll grab my interest. Mind you I liked EQ2 MUCH more then EQ. I want something that's fast leveling. at two hours a night three nights a week I want more then half a level a month. I want to sit down and at the higher levels gain a level in a six hour day or even four hours if I really bust my ass. I've heard CoH levels fast so someone please tell me is that true and are their accualy any games where this would work? Also.. the best way to say this is to quote Fighter from 8-bit, "I like swords" I want to be a swordsmen but will settle for martial arts if I have to. Guns and magic don't interest me.

[DemonMage]

CoH levels ... fairly decently. Probably can hit your target amount, of course it's quite a change from the style of EQ(2) so you may not like it much. WoW is another one that would work.

[Zan the Avitar]

What's the play style like? I want combat to but at least a little more then point, click, then sit on my ass and see if i win.

[Koskun]

I got to hate CoH fast, as did Swarfy. The leveling, while was pretty quick (and seems to have gotten quicker when last I played), but you can get hit pretty hard with a couple of consecutive deaths.

See CoH has a death penalty. There is no corpse runs, but what you get hit with, and my math may be off being that is has been over a year since I played for any amount of time, is about a 20% XP penalty. So after you die say you kill something that gives you 100 XP, half that goes to the penalty and half goes towards the next level.

This might sound rather small, but like I said, get two or so deaths right in a row and that next level is quite a ways off.

Now CoH (and CoV) did put in a teaming system (I can't remember the name anymore) that as an example:

You are level 10 and have XP penalty, you team up with someone that is level 5 they bring you down to level 5 (you have access only to the abilities you did at that level) and all XP you get is applied to the penalty. If you have no penalty it is turned into money.

You can really rip thru the penalty in a short amount of time that way.

That said, the game has no crafting (it is planned I believe), no armor, weapons, and you can only change your costumes at level 20, 40, and 60 (last one might be 50) and have to pay a boat load for total costume changes, but there are only three things in the game that you spend money on anyways.

CoH is a nice simplistic game but that is also it's fault, it can get really simplistic really quick. It also uses the same "warehouse" layout over and over and over.

Combat is just about select target, and hit buttons. There is no auto-attack in the game. The only time you hit a target is when you select an attack.

You can make a character in CoH/CoV that uses a sword, and with different backstory as to what you are, but only a few use "ninja" styles at all.

Have you considered World of Warcraft?

You can easily level, really easily from 1-20, it has warriors and rogues (your swordsmen requirement). At the higher levels of about 45 - 60 it can be done in 4 hours a day, but ohhh boy do you never stop killing. The last 5 levels on my rogue I did in about 7-9 hours a day, with normal food breaks and getting up and walking around, between questing and killing.

Your first character can hit level 60 in probably 20 days played (total combined play time), so do the math for how long that works out. Second character can be done in under 15 days played.

Is there anything beyond "swordsman" you want?

[Zan the Avitar]

Only other thing is I would like to be a dragon

With WOW, I'm not going to have to worry about hunting down a thousand of a rare spawn just to get one peice of gear like i did in EQ am I? That's one of the biggest things that annoyed me. I hate spending countless hours hunting gear.

[One-Winged Angel]

Actually, I hear that high-end WOW is rife with spawn-camping and raids. Never played it though.

[bob the goat]

WOW is quick to level. The day I installed I hit level 10. It's a logrythmic experence. The levelup from 59-60 was about 8 hours. I was playing a hunter, which level abnormally fast, so that could be a little misleading at the highest levels, but the low levels always go fast. My mage and Warlock are 40 and 32, and I can level them in 1-2 hours of focused play.

You can get good gear at the Auction House all the way to 60. WOW has done a really good job of making a place for casual players. A good player in AH gear can compete with a mediocre player in raid gear. Also, there is PVP armor sets that are easily attainable by a casual player.

As for the camping of rare spawns, there is not much of it. There are a few things that are camped, but not anything that is essential for playing the game.

[Zan the Avitar]

That works cause EQ and EQ2 are sure as hell not casual player friendly.

[Koskun]

I have to agree with Bob there.

I just leveled my second 60, a rogue, in less than 15 days played.

While hunters are a quick level grind to 60 solo, they get quite expensive at 60. Constantly buying ammo, food for you and your pet, mana potions and water. They made it easy to level them because you are spending so much to work them out.

The PvP gear, while it is nice, with the new combined server Battlegrounds, makes it take a bit longer to get the gear. The change coming with the expansion looks to make getting the PvP gear a lot easier.

I will also agree that WoW can be either friendly to casual gamers or to hardcore. The Guild that me and Swarfy are in (I run as well) is almost completely a family and real-life friends group. We have gotten a few people we know only through the game, but it is getting there.

The end level in WoW is a double-edged sword though. There are plenty of things a casual gamer can do, a partial downside is it can be the same thing you were doing up to 60. The rare-spawning is not something you really see at all, unless perhaps you are on a PvP server, then it is more gankfest at times. And if you want to go hardcore there are guilds that will do so (search Death & Taxes for how long they have been going after the bosses in Naxx).

I think WoW will suit you just fine. Bob will disagree with my here, but stray away from Alliance, they are just too pretty and pansies. For the Horde! (god I am a geek).

[DemonMage]

One of the PvP sets is "easily" attainable. The other is stupidly insanely time consuming, and is not applicable to a time-limited player let alone a casual one.

As for the raiding, it's currently capped at 40 man, there are three of them in the game and that's all there will be, and one 10 man. The expansion caps future raids at 25 or less, and also has a focus more on winged dungeons. Such that you have an instance broken up into 3 or 4 parts each managable in an hour or two. So you'll have a couple of the wings be 5 man, maybe one 10 man, and then a 25 man or something vaguely similar to that.

And yeah, there are very few rare spawns outside that are worth camping, none of them all that important (this includes the raid ones that people just do because they exist). Especially if you dont like production tradeskills. Speaking of tradeskills, I'd recommend picking one of: mining, herbalism. And then adding one of: leatherworking, (dis)enchanting. Selling what you gather from these will get you the money you need for your mount at level 40 with money to spare. Do not try and raise enchanting, you can disenchant anything with 1 skill. It will cost you huge amounts of money to raise it (I've done it before =-p). However, selling the items will work pretty well for money.

[Edit] I vote for picking whatever race appeals to you, if you dont have friends on any WoW servers that dictate your faction choice for you. Don't end up with a character you hate at 60. I've done Horde and Alliance at various times, and other than suggesting you stay far away from Silvermoon Horde, I've seen equal amounts of idiots and good people on both sides on multiple servers.

Also, if you did 59-60 8 hours, that's about average, regardless of class. The rest of your numbers seem about right too. If you focus you can hit 10 in 3 hours, if not, prollly take you 5. Once you hit into the mid-high 20s you should aim for about a level a day without putting too much pressure on yourself. 40+ prolly better to aim for once every other day, but you can still manage one a day without toooo much trouble.

[Zutan]

in WoW if you want the best looking with exceedingly high stats you gotta get in a guild to raid. which is generaly going through a high lvl dungeon with high lvl bosses that can drop an assortment of things but only drop 2-4 things at a time.

depending on how the guild works, and how many of your class is in the guild it can take a LONG time or a short time.

[Kaziel]

Also for WoW, if you like having a sword in your hand, go Warrior. This will give you a lot of flexibility in your playstyle. If you enjoy tanking (or find that you enjoy tanking in WoW), Warriors are pretty much the best tanking class in the game, esp. later on. They are also one of the better DPSing jobs, with many different play styles available.

As for endgame and high level gear, for the most part, they are correct that you need a raiding guild to get it. But there is very little spawn camping, b/c most of the raid content is done in instances. The only thing that keeps players from getting "too much" gear is that each raid instance is on a timer that resets every 3-7 days depending on it's difficulty and the number of people who can enter it.

Also, DemonMage has the right idea about picking races. Go for what appeals to your visual senses. The racial bonuses and stats almost never turn the tide of battle since most of them can be balanced out through gear or talent specs.

[bob the goat]

Some of the racial stats don’t play a big part in the game (i.e. gnome +10 arcane resistance), but some make a huge difference out of combat (human 10% bonus to rep bonus), and some do play a huge part in combat (undead Will of the Forsaken).

Personally, I choose my character based on what I want to be looking at the back end of for the next year, as well as racial stats. I also look at the starting zones. I personally don’t like the Night Elf starting area, so I don’t have a Night Elf toon. I started a gnome and a dwarf and ran them both through the human areas as soon as I could get to Ironforge and get on the tram to Stormwind.

The WOW main page is a great read on the different classes and their strengths and weaknesses. Because of the limited time you have, you may want to play a class that is better at solo play. Hunters and warlocks with their pets are extremely good at solo play. Mages are as well because of their good escape abilities (they can run when overwhelmed). All of the other classes have ways of getting away also, but these three classes really excel at solo play.

And for the record, I completely agree with Koskun when he said he was a geek. ;) (but then again, I can recite all of my hunters gear, but not my family’s phone numbers...so I guess I am too.)

He did bring up a good point though, the alliance players outnumber the horde players by quite a bit. This means more people to play with, but also more competition for resources. Horde players pay MUCH less for crafted goods from gathered items (i.e. herbs and ore) than alliance do because there isn’t as many people farming them on that side, so they are easier to come by, so they sell for less. I also like the mobs in the horde zones. I have had a much easier time leveling over there because the mobs are usually more spread out, so there are not as many accidental pulls.

Another suggestion is to not make a decision on liking a character or not until lever 20-25. I got bored of my hunter at level 9, and had never gotten to experience a pet. I finally played it a bit more and learned that it is my favorite.

[KaiTenSatsuma]

lots of free MMOs online now, and then you have the mainstream stuff, WoW, EQ, and whatever else.

i suggest looking through the list of MMOs you can get first, then compairing them, no real sense in asking people who love their game to tell you all of the good things about it.

WoW varies depending on what server youre on, i suggest grabbing the newest server possible because youll be able to AFFORD things, and GROUP, but if you get an old server expect the game to get old, FAST. i cant even get a group for anything below BRD on mine, let alone anyone who is at endgame, wasting time on an alt character, to help me with killing things for quests.

Editted - Captain Faboo - Violation of Easy Way #8 removed.

i should add this: unless you intend to enjoy being chased by the opposing side at all times of playing this game, go on a RP server, PvP is overkill most of the time.

[NmEnforcer]

After reading this thread, I would definitely reccomend you play WoW. It has the obvious fixes you need.

YES, WoW has a lot of end game content and newly released content is targeted for the high-end gamer.

YES, WoW's playing field is overall smaller than EQ's so there is less to explore.

but....

WoW levels significantly faster. At some points I thought it might have a been a bit too easy. There are no "hell levels," just a few points where its hard to find the next place to go. Quests are WORTHWHILE. You don't get some 2 cent reward that you wouldn't use even if you wree 10 levels lower. You get some decent items that can disenchant for stuff, but you get gold and you get LOTS (I need to repeat that, LOTS) of experience. My record is 1-8 in 45 minutes. I've gotten a Druid, Hunter, and Priest to level 60. If I have rested XP on any of those tuns I can average between 50,000 and 90,000 experience per hour (depending on time of day, quests, zones, etc...). In Everquest I probably leveled about 1/6th as quickly.

The game has a lot to offer to the casual player. Unlike Everquest (or Everquest back in the day when I played it), you can solo yourself from 1 to 60, in fact, it is faster (IMO) to level to 60 solo then it is in a group. You get way more experience per kill, and dungeons in WoW offer very little experience. They have some nice quests though, so it is worthwhile to go through at least once. Dungeons (all instanced, i.e. no spawn camping or trains) are the place to be if you want better gear. The scale as you go up in level. There is a dungeon you can do with a full group at level 8-15. (A lot of my numbers are going to be guesses because I havent played in a while)

Once you get to 60, the game re-opens, just like any other MMO. There is tons of things to do. Whether its a quest you can do alone, or you jump into a group to go through a dungeon to get better gear, you can always find something. Getting into a good guild or finding a solid group of people with similar play times can be tricky, but you can't expect it to be easy in any game. During peak hours there are more people playing WoW than ANY OTHER MMO, so you have a lot of people to choose from. Instances range in difficulty even at the end game. There are a few 5 man instances and then some that are 10 and a pair of 20 mans. After that you need a guild to be effective (40 man raid instances). The gear available to the casual player is pretty decent, I would say that camping spawns forever and ever in Everquest with a group of people my yield slightly better gear, but doing instances with a 5 man is considerably faster and more fun. Every boss will always be there for you to kill.

I personally got my character into a high-end guild and raided alot to get some pretty decent gear, but I have friends that play just a few hours each night and their gear is nothing to laugh at. the PvP portion of the game greatly imrpoves upon what Everquest really never had. You can go into Battlegrounds where you are in a Capture the Flag, Conquest, or "Hold the bases" situations of game play. The games always have the same number of players on each side and its quite fun to run around killing other players and gaining "honor points." Honor Points translate into a PvP ranking system and subsequently allow you to upgrade your gear. The PvP gear is targeted for PvP though, lots of stamina and one DPS stat. the second tier of PvP gear is quite impressive. The downfall (IMO) of the PvP system is the ability to join battlegrounds as a raid. When this happens, you get a bunch of guys that are all on teamspeak and have really awesome gear and they just roll everyone. It isn't too bad, but after about 4 hours of getting '5 capped' over and over, you just don't feel like playing anymore.

Another interesting thing with WoW is the mod community. Blizzard allows their users to mod the game extensively. From mods that can help you cast spells to heal more effectively to mods that give you boss timers and then some that just make your hitpoints bar look a little bit cooler, there is stuff out there that everyone can throw onto their game and make a bit more enjoyable. Some mods make the game too easy, and Blizzard usually finds them and finds a way to 'dissallow' them. (If that's a word.)

I ended up leaving WoW, I get bored with high-end gaming after awhile and need to move on...plus I had to get a job.

Like many other games, WoW has a free trial period (http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/worldofwarcraft/trial/wow_nonreg.aspx). You should definitely give it a go.

Hope it's helpful,

-King Jason

[Grand Puppeteer]

If my brother, cousin, and friend slowly losing their lives to WoW is any kind of factor (The first two are 12 and 16 years old and yet everything on their past 1 birthday lists and past 2 christmas lists have included only merchandise with "World of Warcraft" in the title. No joke. The friend's grades dropped rapidly the moment he hit 50 because he spent 8 hours a day playing,), I'd say go with CoH/CoV because it's more casual-friendly. Frankly I prefer CoV because for some reason leveling just seems more balanced. In CoH at times it goes REALLY quick and at times it goes REALLY slow. Remember, don't go for a game that will eat your life.

[DemonMage]

CoV is much better than CoH for casual. Though CoH is getting a lot of the good leveling and interesting features CoV has had since release and up till now with Issue 8. You still have to raid if you want the "uber" enhancements, and PvP is becoming more of an important thing to the devs it seems, which is sort of at odds with how the game as progressed even if the original idea was to have Heroes vs Villains, they took way too long to do it. Remember, don't go game, or drink, or step outside, if you dont know the meaning of the words "self-control", "moderation", and "personal responsibility".

[KaiTenSatsuma]

I like Silkroad, a free chinese MMO.
Editted - Captain Faboo - Removed violations of Easy Way #8
sorry faboo.

[Zan the Avitar]

Well, CoH and CoV does sound interesting as far as customization goes but i'd had trouble with the fact you the 'superhero' using a pistol would always be doing less damage then average joe using a pistol. WoW might well be my next step them if for nothing then because i can give it a try for two weeks and see if I like it or not.

[$tormin]

You can also try Dark Age of Camelot. Fast leveling because there are instanced "Task Dungeons" that are usually near towns with important services (such as trainers) that scale the level of the mobs inside based on party size and level. If you get bored of these, there are many dungeons and open areas where you can exp. A camp that hasn't been farmed in a while will have doubled xp because of "Camp Bonus".
Since you like swords I could suggest playing a heavy tank such as an Armsman, Warrior or Hero. These classes are always in demand for pve and are welcome in most pvp group setups.

[Techguy101]

If you are a former EQ and EQ2 player I STRONGly reccomend at least visting the Vanguard site ( vanguardsoh.com ) and looking around, it is basically EQ with a VAST remodel. The game is not going to be released untill late this year or early next, and it still in private beta. There is a lot to see and the graphics are truely amazing (better graphics on normal than wow has on it;s highest setting). If you are looking for a fresh start in new community just take a look.

Best Regards
Venerable Elte Sa`Tazi 70 Prelate of Tunare RETIRED
Glorrfinndell Zorander 59 Wanderer of Tunare RETIRED
Thugulugugo 70 Warlord of Rallos Zek RETIRED
Currently not playing any MMO

Can't wait till Vanguard!