Current Events > Which MMORPGs did you enjoy the most at their peak?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Ultima Online. There's just something special about that game and how it chose to be an MMO that feels like it's lost to time because nobody ever tries to emulate it.

ultima online caught my interest for its murderer system. it's basically a precursor to souls invasions, as far as i'm concerned -- with the point being how hands-off a system it is, it lets the game play out and tell a story that way.

it sounds like you played it. do i have the wrong idea about skara brae? it sounds like a city for murderers.

i guess there was also a bounty system. all of that is awesome.

I dunno if I ever played it at its peak, but TERA remains my number one MMO. I played it off and on for most of its existence, even when all I had was a janky laptop that shouldn't have been able to run it. It's also where you could say I found myself~

I was really sad to hear it was getting shut down, and I kinda regret not going back to spend its last few months with it. I'm gonna miss that game...

I also have a lot of really fond memories of Ragnarok and Aura Kingdom. RO was my first MMO experience, and in AK, I was part of probably the best guild I've ever been in. Unfortunately, my laptop decided to stop being able to play it all of a sudden one day, and by the time I was able to get back in, the guild seemed to have totally died...

...uh, wow, my MMO experiences are sadder than I thought!

Fluttershy posted...

Ultima Online. There's just something special about that game and how it chose to be an MMO that feels like it's lost to time because nobody ever tries to emulate it.

ultima online caught my interest for its murderer system. it's basically a precursor to souls invasions, as far as i'm concerned -- with the point being how hands-off a system it is, it lets the game play out and tell a story that way.

it sounds like you played it. do i have the wrong idea about skara brae? it sounds like a city for murderers.

No, that's the right of it. In the original version of the game you had always on world pvp, but also a dynamic wanted and guards system. Commit a crime in a city and the guards will basically just murder you on the spot. Kill somebody outside the city walls and your character would be marked gray for a short period of time. While your character is gray other players could kill you without consequence and guards would attack you, but it would fade away with time. Murder too many people too often and your character would go red and be permanently marked by guards outside of a pirate City you could go to. I think there is a way to repent and get your non-murder status back but I don't know what it was.

Also keep in mind that because it had in-world player housing and a lot of land between cities, you could have players who had a shack out in the woods that would just murder newbies that are walking between town and a low level dungeon who would then flee back to their private residence to resupply. You could also buy a boat and sail the ocean, which I think might have been the only way to get to the Pirate Island unless someone had marked a summoning stone for that location.

The game required reagents to cast spells. It didn't even have a leveling system.. you had a point cap and a list of skills that went up or down with use or lack of use. There are so many things about that game that I really wish modern MMOs at least tried.

I've tried a few different MMOs, some by friends trying to drag me, some just giving them a shot. The only two I've stuck with for more than a month were FFXI and FFXIV.

I can't imagine trying to go back to XI these days. Took way too much time to get anything done and everything took so many people to do. Supposedly those things have been improved upon since I quit, but I struggle to think the sub fee would be worth it to go back.

Currently playing XIV, and it does a much better job of respecting players' time. Enjoy it overall, and the way instanced content works makes it easier to jump in without needing to piece together a group. I started during Shadowbringers.

Tera made it about a month, trying to get to the point it felt more like Monster Hunter, but I just got bored around Lv50 or so. And then there were a ton of others like Perfect World, D&D Online, etc. Those lasted like a week at most.

Most of that stuff came after quitting XI and trying to find a new MMO to get into, with nothing sticking. I even tried early XIV in this period, but I didn't really like how it started. Eventually I just decided I was fine without having an MMO to play, until a friend pushed be into trying XIV with her. I expected to hate it, remembering my earlier attempt, but wound up loving how it works now.

Runescape 2

Osrs

WoW
I still enjoy it

Murder too many people too often and your character would go red and be permanently marked by guards outside of a pirate City you could go to. I think there is a way to repent and get your non-murder status back but I don't know what it was.

i love the idea of that. i would rather keep my red mark at any cost, though. but it makes me think there's the space to actually form murderer groups and to network lol.

is the pirate city skara brae?

I think there is a way to repent and get your non-murder status back but I don't know what it was.

i think it said that you must say 'I must consider my sins.' and then that lets you do something else, but i never played it and i'm going off of something i read a while ago.

i just adore the idea that the game gives you that kind of playspace. like, i saw a video a long time ago where this dude coordinated a strike against some known murderers for their bounty and there was like, thrown dynamite and managing egos and voice chat and ooooh

Fluttershy posted...

is the pirate city skara brae?

That sounds right, but it's been a long time and the game split the servers into PVP and non PVP decades ago so who knows how it works today.

Fluttershy posted...

i just adore the idea that the game gives you that kind of playspace.

It was the ultimate sandbox MMO.

vycebrand2 posted...

I played it too. What server?

I was on Hodstock. Had a really nice community

Tales of Pirates

I'm still playing WoW, so WoW

EQ2 when it was 7 or 8 of us all sitting in the LAN Cafe that one of our group owned. It didn't last more than a year of all of us playing but it was still great times. Some of us played EQ2 for a while after.

WoW and maybe SW:ToR.

EverQuest 2 I played a lot in college back in 2008. Most I've played one

Dark Age of Camelot

Ragnarok Online
Asda Story
Grand Fantasia
FlyFF
Runes of Magic
Perfect World Online
Rappelz
Luna Online
Fiesta
Grand Chase
Rumble Fighter
S4 League
The mid-late 2000s up until around the mid 2010s was essentially like the Golden era for MMOs. There was so many fucking MMOs to play and all of them had such lively communities. It's pure nostalgia-fuel for me to remember those days+ makes me sad of the current state of MMOs.

That sounds right, but it's been a long time and the game split the servers into PVP and non PVP decades ago so who knows how it works today.

i've really wanted to pick the brain of someone who has played it for a while.

ever since i heard about skara brae i wanted to rule it like i do anor londo.

it sounds like if i had the talent i could amass a small army of like-minded murderers and get stuff going.

Jiek_Fafn posted...

I was on Hodstock. Had a really nice community

Me too. Small world

RuneScape (OSRS) is still the biggest MMO in the world.

Anyone who doesnt play OSRS in 2023 isnt even a gamer in my eyes.

Like What are you even doing with your (gamer) life?

Playing cookie cutter AAA games that predicate on micro transactions?

Noooooo thanks.

Graalonline
Wow

Final Fantasy XI for the world and community.
Vanilla WoW for the world and adventure.
Modern WoW I get some enjoyment out of pushing high keys, but don't really treat it like an mmorpg.

Fluttershy posted...

That sounds right, but it's been a long time and the game split the servers into PVP and non PVP decades ago so who knows how it works today.

i've really wanted to pick the brain of someone who has played it for a while.

ever since i heard about skara brae i wanted to rule it like i do anor londo.

it sounds like if i had the talent i could amass a small army of like-minded murderers and get stuff going.

Hey, feel free to keep asking questions and I'll answer how I can.

Another fun thing (and something WoW absolutely borrowed) is that when you died you became a ghost and had to go find a monk to resurrect you. What they did differently, though, is you could make yourself visible to players and talk to them, only all they would hear is "OOoOoOoO". BUT, if they trained up the right skill, the game would translate back to regular text, so if you really wanted you could have your army of murder hobo pirates that scouted out potential trouble using an army of ghosts. Oh, and player housing went all the way up to castle, so you could have your murder hobo ghost pirate fortress with its own vendors and a drawbridge you could lock to keep other players out.

Of course, when you died you dropped everything you had on you, so you were heavily encouraged to keep stuff in the bank vault, but depending on how you died it would also flag as a crime if someone looted your body (using the same system as the murder system), which also meant the risk of being a murderer is anyone could take your stuff penalty free if they killed you. Luckily most equipment was affordable at town and the game didn't really have an iLevel system or anything like that, so death was always more of a frustration and less of a total account ruiner.

Also, dungeons were unmarked in the world. You either had a rune to teleport to one, or you just wandered into caves and sometimes found a multi-level cave system.

Oh, and you could train up animal taming and tame ANYTHING, so high level tamers often stood outside the main town bank with like 5 dragons in tow that they could then sell to other players who could use them as pets until they died, although below a certain animal handling level they were likely to just run away.

I swear, the more I remember Ultima Online, the more it pisses me off that modern MMOs haven't tried to steal any of it.

maplestory ez

NittanyLions23 posted...

RuneScape (OSRS) is still the biggest MMO in the world.

Anyone who doesnt play OSRS in 2023 isnt even a gamer in my eyes.

Like What are you even doing with your (gamer) life?

Playing cookie cutter AAA games that predicate on micro transactions?

Noooooo thanks.

I quit in 2021 it not good for my mental health

modena posted...

Graalonline
Wow

Graalonline, hell yea

A friend of mine was into dot hack.

NittanyLions23 posted...

RuneScape (OSRS) is still the biggest MMO in the world.

Anyone who doesnt play OSRS in 2023 isnt even a gamer in my eyes.

Like What are you even doing with your (gamer) life?

Playing cookie cutter AAA games that predicate on micro transactions?

Noooooo thanks.

Holy crap, SMAL managed to get an account on CE again.

WoW.

Specifically Wrath and Pandaria expansions. But I still enjoy going back occasionally for a few weeks to months at a time.

ellis123 posted...

Holy crap, SMAL managed to get an account on CE again.

That's not SMAL. He's a known troll from the Football board. He somehow found his way over here and won't leave.

MatzoTov posted...

That's not SMAL. He's a known troll from the Football board. He somehow found his way over here and won't leave.

I see.

It's pretty wild how similar the two are. I guess it's just a "struggle to keep an account troll" thing.

Verdekal posted...

A friend of mine was into dot hack.

Wasn't .Hack MMO JP only? And it was poorly received that it's closed within two years.

ellis123 posted...

Holy crap, SMAL managed to get an account on CE again.

SMAL's last alt was TuckerCarlson, and it seems it's also banned. Would take a month to post in CE if he make another new alt.

Wish I got to experience FF11 back then

LordYeezus posted...

Wish I got to experience FF11 back then

It was something else. It's one of those very few things I would give in to nostalgia for if I could go back and get to play it again.

SydnieStarlight posted...

I dunno if I ever played it at its peak, but TERA remains my number one MMO. I played it off and on for most of its existence, even when all I had was a janky laptop that shouldn't have been able to run it. It's also where you could say I found myself~

Tera has the best healing of any MMO I've ever played. I miss my Mystic ='(

Answering the topic.
Well the ones I played.
PSO (its lobby based but you play and see other people)
EQoA(it had sorta low numbers but 05-06 would be just before WoW got hot. I played from beta to 2010
FF11 (08 was the peak). I played at the start for 2 months, 08-10, then late 2014-16 at the console cut off. Completed 100% of all content
Elite Dangerous. Game came out in 2014, consoles 2017. Loved it. Life took me away from it 2020-21. Came back in 2022. They announce they are pulling console development. I've never been so angry at a game company before. I will never have a kind word to say about them. Great game, terrible company.

The answer had to be EQoA 05-07 after the release of Frontiers

Tree of savior was an interesting RO clone, lost interest pretty quickly though lol