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The [Free MMO Überlist] Back in action
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You need to be level 5 to do the mission, and it is a level 45 ship (final tier basically).
Make sure when you log in (on the site or via the launcher) that "Cryptic" and not "Perfect World" is selected as your account type.
But lord it's not good.
I really liked the uber-kawaii crap design and the 2-d, jumpy slashy gameplay and I actually really enjoy heavy grind in my games. Is there any game out there similar to Maple Story but, ya know, good?
http://mmohuts.com/news/aerias-latale-shutting-down
LaTale closed down a long time ago.
MechWarrior Online: Khyber Pryde
I remember some PAer's being fairly unimpressed with it when it was first released. I'm curious if opinion has changed.
I tried it for a bit, it seemed ok, but I couldn't really get into it personally. I found the ship customization to be really bland and took a very long time to even be able to get out of the beginner ship stuff. I also had nobody to play with either which added to the it not being so fun thing.
MechWarrior Online: Khyber Pryde
"What do you mean, I have to run my character to the actual entrance?? We're not at mo-fuckin' Disney Land."
Now I started raiding in World of Warcraft's Molten Core. A raid that required 40 people, most of the time the fights were complete no-brainers for all but 3 or 4 of the players. One of the hunters told me that he once cleaned out the dish washer while his character was fighting an eldrith horror from the very core of Azeroth. That's where we're coming from, people.
With improvements in MMOs developers have ditched the requirement for very large groups of people to cooperate. This choice is is given in by the sheer fact that a lot of customers do not have the time and/or patience to get 40 people together. This is an understandable solution to the problem: lower the warm bodies requirement and you will improve the percentage of customers who will play the content you develop for them.
So now you have raiding in the Lord of the Rings Online that requires 12 people, Star Wars has raids for 8 people and I'm sure there's plenty of other games with different numbers for stuff that is called "raid" by the developers.
But how are we defining a raid anyway? I can identify two different explanations:
1. Very tough group content.
2. Content that requires more players than all other group content.
The first explanation is silly: some group content that only requires 2 or 3 people can be a lot tougher than stuff you're supposed to face with 40 folks, this is entirely in the hands of the developers. Why does the toughest content even have to be for larger groups only? Maybe me and my buddy want to be challenged without having to team up with people we don't know.
The second is so broad it becomes useless, yet this is how raids are usually explained to the uninitiated: "so we are playing this game together with other people and when there's only a few of us we call it an "instance/flashpoint/dungeon" and when there's more of us we call it a "raid""
When [potential] customers demand "more raid content" they could mean one of two things. They might want more challenging content: when you've been playing the same MMO for more than 40 hours you have become quite competent at it and many players will want to see the difficulty of what the game throws at them ramp up. Or they might want more challenges that require a larger group of people to participate. When you're playing with 5 friends and every instance is made for 4 people, you will want stuff that will allow you to go with all of you. Same goes for larger guilds: it's nice to have a chat room for everyone, but when you've got enough people together, it would be fun to play the game with all of you.
Neither of these demands require "raids" to be made in the way we're seeing them in now. If players want more challenges they could get tough solo/small group challenges just as easily and when people want to do stuff in larger groups it does not automatically have to be the toughest content in the game at the same time. They're not a two-for-one deal.
While we are at it: we can do away with the MMO logic that the more people there are playing together the better the loot should be. The best rewards should be offered for the biggest challenges and there is no reason this should be the content you are required to play with the most people. Why not give awesome rewards for challenging solo challenges? What's stopping developers here?
Not every game has to be the same, but it would be very refreshing if developers took a step back and think about how they want to provide challenges and large group content without automatically ignoring the fact that challenges and group content can be two different things entirely. It's OK to move away from raids and provide desired content to your customers in other ways.
(http://freemmouberlist.blogspot.com/2012/02/lets-not-have-raids.html)
Free MMO Überlist
http://store.steampowered.com/app/200210/
Free MMO Überlist
It's not usually a problem, but our SWTOR group fell apart because there were 5 of us and the game has a max party size of 4. And having one dude either doing SP content separately or having to fight with the rest of the group for spawns is zero fun.
And while we're on the subject, oh for the day when mentoring is considered standard, rather than the exception.
The training grounds have been streamlined with quests to get you to Job Level 10 really fast and they teleport you straight to the job change NPC of your choice (who will instantly change you). Near the start they give you huge stack of weightless red potions, free storage and Kafra teleport vouchers, fly wings, and butterfly wings, and nice a nice weapon/body armor (45 armor points!) you can keep using into your first job.
Last month they added some better repeatable monster-slaying quests that give a ton of XP. There are even relatively easy quests every 15 to 20 levels that give you free gear that's some of the best in the game for PvE. Leveling feels much, much faster now.
The downside: Nothing has changed at all on the Botting and Gold Spammer front, so forget about participating in the economy with the resulting inflation. In fact, it may be worse than ever. There are even some gold spammers standing in Prontera and Payon that have been in the same spots for at least a week. I'm starting to wonder if the game even has GMs anymore.
Dead Branch and Hocus Pocus shenanigans seem worse than ever, too. My deaths from DBs/HP compared to my regular deaths is in the 10 to 1 range after playing for a few days.
So... highly improved from 2003 and a nice burst of nostalgia, but still a wretched hive of scum, villainy, and ^_^ emotes.
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Thats awesome. I was a little cheesed off when europe got it f2p and NA didn't. I'm sure I am not the only one. I think the game will do really well as f2p, its a good game that a lot of people were scared to try for whatever reason. Now that it's free I think a lot of people will jump onboard.
MechWarrior Online: Khyber Pryde
I'm seriously wonder how Gravity's going to handle localizing the sequel. It's definitely going to be F2P, though.
It's a shame, because despite being repetitive the game is nostalgic and mechanically fun enough for me to enjoy, but when it's just boiled down to combat (as there's like 5 quests in the game total) it's not enough to keep my interest.
Kind of like Horizons (now Istaria)- there's a gem of an old school MMO in there and I enjoyed my trial, but once you leave the first area you suddenly find yourself in the big world, not knowing where to go and with no obvious content to guide you along. There might've been excitement about exploring a vast, mostly-empty world and clicking on every NPC in hopes of content back in the day, but there sure isn't now.
And even having said that, I'd probably play it if they had a sensible F2P model in place (maybe pay money for QoL enhancements and so on), rather than "either subscribe or be limited to the most uninteresting race in the game".
I immensely enjoyed making my own character, during a free weekend they had ages ago. I think I spent half my time dicking around making the perfect Bollywood inspired superhero. But unless you also enjoy the other aspects of the game, you probably won't get your money's worth. That's why I decided against subscribing back then. I would have loved to play Dosai-man man more, but that was only because I enjoyed the character I had made up and not so much because I enjoying the game itself.
Free MMO Überlist
Edit: However, DCUO does not allow me to recreate Funk Man from Champions
Missing Ink
Sandbox-y game in Unity. Characters are cardboard 2D, while the environment is in rudimentary 3D, besides building stuff there's regular MMORPG features such as fighting, trading and exploring. It is currently in Open Alpha, as the indie developer needs to crowd-source the fuck out of this.
In other news, I still haven't found the time/energy/motivation to put the list on the internet again in a decent fashion. This project really is on the backburner after I got full-time employment.
Free MMO Überlist
BK7U2RESCBUK
Use it on http://www.sevensoulsonline.com/ . And this is why I fucking hate the multiplayer games market. "Oh you want to play this game, no! you have to wait until a company near your location decides to buy it from us".
Free MMO Überlist
I'll tell you the same thing I tell everyone else.
Its a fun game, but with all the quality f2p games out now and coming it out, you're going to have to really like the mechanics and setting to stick with it.
I got in and have played about 20 minutes, I can try to put a little video together if you want to see it playing.
Is it interesting enough to warrant one?
Free MMO Überlist
So far I don't see a whole lot to make it a standout, but I can't find a reason to really pass it up either. I'm only at like level 6, so I'd need more time to really judge it.
I'm perfectly capable of judging free MMOs by their cover, but the better judgements are usually made on either a hands-on or videos.
Free MMO Überlist
Hahaha, is there also lots of blood? I think I played a game like that, but the actual effect on my character was just that I could one-shot everything for a minute.
Free MMO Überlist
I've got the first 10 minutes or so processing on youtube, I'll link it once its done.
Well then, I can tell you it won't get much better than what you've already seen. There's some flashy effects for sure, but it's completely uninteresting.
Free MMO Überlist
Edit: Wow, yeah, its the same fucking game. Here's the login screen from Martial Empires
http://assets.cdn.gamigo.com/snippets/games/me-en/images/screenshots_big/010.jpg
It's not so weird, there's an Asian developer who sells the publishing rights to different companies in different regions. Normally the localisation is done by the publisher, but everything else they just grab from the developer. That includes all art. Maybe they'll add a little sepia layer or a little lens flare if they're feeling creative, but usually there's no reason to as the publisher is the only legal reseller in a region.
Free MMO Überlist