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The [Free MMO Überlist]

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Posts

  • MorkathMorkath Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    STO is now free to play. Also they are going to be giving away a free high level ship for anyone who completes a mission between the 2nd and 6th. So if you think you will ever have interest in the game, now is the time to download it and give it a shot.

    You need to be level 5 to do the mission, and it is a level 45 ship (final tier basically).

  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    Hm, is my old STO login still valid? What with the game being owned by another company now, it seems...

  • heenatoheenato Alice Leywind Registered User regular
    Nah. Cryptic is still running it. They're just owned by perfect world now. Your login should work fine.

    M A G I K A Z A M
  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    Ah, fair enough. I'll need to remember to give it a spin tomorrow then, I did actually quite enjoy the game when I subbed to it about half a year ago, the space combat was really fun.

  • Fartacus_the_MightyFartacus_the_Mighty Brought to you by the letter A.Registered User regular
    Glal wrote:
    Ah, fair enough. I'll need to remember to give it a spin tomorrow then, I did actually quite enjoy the game when I subbed to it about half a year ago, the space combat was really fun.

    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.

  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    Ah, cheers, had to dig around to find the place on the website that even asked for that, just hitting Play Free either lets you make a new account or use an existing PW account, no choice of existing Cryptic account.

  • Magic PinkMagic Pink Tur-Boner-Fed Registered User regular
    So I tried Maple Story for the first time last night and I didn't hate it.

    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?

  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    I really can't stand Maple Story's player sprite art. It has such nice backgrounds, then in come these MS Paint-ish sprites with like 4 frames of animation total to ruin the effect.

  • Gigazombie CybermageGigazombie Cybermage Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    LaTale is a better Maple Story than Maple Story anyways. Prepare to get diabetes from all of the cuteness, however. Expect engrish too, but that goes without saying for a lot of these F2P games.

  • EliminationElimination Registered User regular
    LaTale is a better Maple Story than Maple Story anyways. Prepare to get diabetes from all of the cuteness, however. Expect engrish too, but that goes without saying for a lot of these F2P games.

    http://mmohuts.com/news/aerias-latale-shutting-down

    LaTale closed down a long time ago.

    PSN: PA_Elimination 3DS: 4399-2012-1711 Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/id/TheElimination/
  • heenatoheenato Alice Leywind Registered User regular
    LaTale is a better Maple Story than Maple Story anyways. Prepare to get diabetes from all of the cuteness, however. Expect engrish too, but that goes without saying for a lot of these F2P games.

    http://mmohuts.com/news/aerias-latale-shutting-down

    LaTale closed down a long time ago.
    In Europe.

    M A G I K A Z A M
  • NerdtendoNerdtendo Registered User regular
    Any recent experience with Black Prophecy? I decided to give it a shot, and it's a rather gorgeous game with a nice sense of scale. The combat seems lacking at the moment, but I'm still rather early in the game, and I'm wondering if the PvE ever gets more interesting. The intro sequences led me to believe that I might eventually see some more epic space battles involving taking down systems on enemy capital ships.

    I remember some PAer's being fairly unimpressed with it when it was first released. I'm curious if opinion has changed.

    IHZR47b.png
  • EliminationElimination Registered User regular
    Nerdtendo wrote:
    Any recent experience with Black Prophecy? I decided to give it a shot, and it's a rather gorgeous game with a nice sense of scale. The combat seems lacking at the moment, but I'm still rather early in the game, and I'm wondering if the PvE ever gets more interesting. The intro sequences led me to believe that I might eventually see some more epic space battles involving taking down systems on enemy capital ships.

    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.

    PSN: PA_Elimination 3DS: 4399-2012-1711 Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/id/TheElimination/
  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    Massively's Karen Bryan recently talked about raiding. She is very happy about improvements on the "playing together with actual humanoids" front and I couldn't agree more. In many MMOs it is so much easier to play group content. In fact: we are so used to LFG-tools, remote queuing and global chat channels that Star Wars: The Old Republic is now an outdated game.

    "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)

  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    Realm of the Mad God is now on Steam
    http://store.steampowered.com/app/200210/

  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    More so than changing raiding content I'd like them to change how they perceive doing solo content in groups. This arbitrary "party size is X, anyone over that doesn't get quest credit". Yeah, sure, it can be abused, but how is letting 5 people do content scaled to 1 person balanced? So why are you screwing over the 6th person arbitrarily?
    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.

  • Al BaronAl Baron Registered User regular
    edited February 2012
    So yeah Aion's going F2P in the US too with its 3.0 patch.

    Al Baron on
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  • AaronKIAaronKI Registered User regular
    edited February 2012
    I checked out Ragnarok Online and it's made a lot of changes in the last several months to try to bring it in line with newer MMOs. Plus it's truly free to play now with only a few minor penalties for not subscribing. The most inconvenient being that accessing storage costs 500z (normally 40 to 150z) and there are no safe upgrades on items. It's nowhere near as bad as the Halved XP/Drop Rates and jacked up NPC prices it had when it first got a free server

    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.

    After killing a million billion of them through the years, it's still satisfying to smash porings.

    OS9lM.gif

    AaronKI on
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  • EliminationElimination Registered User regular
    Al Baron wrote:
    So yeah Aion's going F2P in the US too with its 3.0 patch.

    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.

    PSN: PA_Elimination 3DS: 4399-2012-1711 Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/id/TheElimination/
  • Al BaronAl Baron Registered User regular
    edited February 2012
    NA's probably going to get the better deal, too since they haven't said anything about different XP rates and other stuff like Gameforge is doing for the EU sector.
    AaronKI wrote:
    Ragnarok Online
    I'm seriously wonder how Gravity's going to handle localizing the sequel. It's definitely going to be F2P, though.

    Al Baron on
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  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    edited February 2012
    At some point I played RO on a private server, with hyper-inflated EXP gains, just to see what the game is like without investing 100 hours into its lower levels. Unfortunately, after having played other MMOs, I found it mildly nostalgic, but still terribly lacking in actual content. You're still more or less grinding mobs to get EXP so you can go grind bigger mobs with fuck-all reason to do so otherwise.
    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".

    Glal on
  • mjekmjek Registered User regular
    Do you guys think it's worth it to subscribe to Champions Online? I've got some ideas for custom heroes, but I'm not sure about spending the extra money.

  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    mjek wrote:
    Do you guys think it's worth it to subscribe to Champions Online? I've got some ideas for custom heroes, but I'm not sure about spending the extra money.

    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.

  • KadokenKadoken Giving Ends to my Friends and it Feels Stupendous Registered User regular
    edited February 2012
    DCUO, I find, is the better Hero MMO.

    Edit: However, DCUO does not allow me to recreate Funk Man from Champions :(.

    Kadoken on
  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    Thank God, finally a free MMO that is not a big budget title going free or an uninteresting Asian grind MMO.

    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.

  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    edited February 2012
    Seven Souls CBT is starting, but not for people from my region. Here's the beta key I already grabbed from Massively.

    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". :x

    Aldo on
  • guruslothgurusloth Registered User regular
    so Fallen Earth went free-to-play on Steam recently, is it worth trying?

  • DocshiftyDocshifty Registered User regular
    gurusloth wrote: »
    so Fallen Earth went free-to-play on Steam recently, is it worth trying?

    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.

  • DocshiftyDocshifty Registered User regular
    Aldo wrote: »
    Seven Souls CBT is starting, but not for people from my region. Here's the beta key I already grabbed from Massively.

    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". :x

    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.

  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    Docshifty wrote:
    Aldo wrote: »
    Seven Souls CBT is starting, but not for people from my region. Here's the beta key I already grabbed from Massively.

    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". :x

    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?

  • DocshiftyDocshifty Registered User regular
    Aldo wrote: »
    Docshifty wrote:
    Aldo wrote: »
    Seven Souls CBT is starting, but not for people from my region. Here's the beta key I already grabbed from Massively.

    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". :x

    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?

    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.

  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    Docshifty wrote:
    Aldo wrote: »
    Docshifty wrote:
    Aldo wrote: »
    Seven Souls CBT is starting, but not for people from my region. Here's the beta key I already grabbed from Massively.

    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". :x

    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?

    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.

  • DocshiftyDocshifty Registered User regular
    I will say this, when you go into rage mode, the game makes goddamn sure you fucking know it. Just guitar riffs everywhere.

  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    Docshifty wrote:
    I will say this, when you go into rage mode, the game makes goddamn sure you fucking know it. Just guitar riffs everywhere.

    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.

  • DocshiftyDocshifty Registered User regular
    Oh man, blood everywhere even without rage mode. I don't know what causes a mob to explode into gibblets, but it does happen.

    I've got the first 10 minutes or so processing on youtube, I'll link it once its done.

  • DocshiftyDocshifty Registered User regular
    Alright, if you'll just bear with me here. Started a new guy to go through what I payed of Seven Souls. Here's the first little bit.

    http://youtu.be/LnvfSNWpomc

  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    Docshifty wrote:
    Alright, if you'll just bear with me here. Started a new guy to go through what I payed of Seven Souls. Here's the first little bit.

    http://youtu.be/LnvfSNWpomc
    I have already played this game. o_O But it was called Martial Empires and published by Gamigo (German company).

    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.

  • DocshiftyDocshifty Registered User regular
    edited February 2012
    Haha, going to your link, they even have the goofy axe bladed pauldrons there that you get for hitting level 5 in Seven Souls. Like, the exact same. That's a little sad to hear though.

    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

    Docshifty on
  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    Docshifty wrote:
    Haha, going to your link, they even have the goofy axe bladed pauldrons there that you get for hitting level 5 in Seven Souls. Like, the exact same. That's a little sad to hear though.

    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.

  • DocshiftyDocshifty Registered User regular
    Yeah, I know that, its just weird to me to completely ignore the fact that it's little more than a localized version of a different game. Unless they're actively trying to avoid the previous game's reputation, which is really inspiring confidence.

This discussion has been closed.