Is there an MMO out there that hasn’t got raiding at its high level heart?
It seems the need to feed the content hungry level cap seekers to ensure your subscription money stream is ultimately what drives the heart of many MMO’s.
uh… yea… but is it Art?!
City of Heroes, it has a raid but it certainly isn’t the big thing. CoH is a game that’s more about the journey (and many many alts) than the end.
Free realms.
Warhammer Online. I don’t consider the fort and city pushes raiding, really. They’re much, much too uncoordinated and pickup-group centered to be traditional raids. Generally, you just scrounge for a warband to join and go for it. The limitations are usually population caps, not not having a raiding guild.
Guild Wars. Other than moving from 4/6/8 players in the campaign missions, the format is pretty much the same. You can even play it single player if you so wish.
Eve Online has no raiding either. How many do focus on raiding besides Everquest (2) and WoW?
I’ll point you at the 18 hour boss fight from Final Fantasy 11. :)
It depends on how you define raiding.
Eve online is probably even “worse” than wow since from what i’ve seen the “end game” of eve is corp warfare (think raiding against other raids). Corp everything really with the general thought line (which i follow) being that if you aren’t prepared to put time in to being a member of a corp, it will be a 3rd rate game to you.
Warhammer online… surprised it is still alive. lots of focus on outdoor events/missions that are basically pick up raids. That and pvp, but the early game was such a wow lite that i couldn’t get too far in it.
Not sure why having “end game” content is a bad thing. It is nice not to have to start a new character once you hit that magical level. wow right now is probably exactly what you’re looking for as it has a lot of content before the level cap and not a ton of it at the level cap. Also have the arenas/bgs as well now.
That wasn’t a raid in the traditional sense, though.
This also holds true for Final Fantasy 11. The True Game in ffxi is leveling, where as with WoW the True Game doesn’t start until you’re done leveling.
I don’t know whether that’s completely true. It seems to me that the other game in FFXI is Getting Good Gear–and that often involves activities that are considered ‘endgame’; e.g., Dynamis, Limbus, Salvage, Nyzul Isle, and other things like HNM farming in Sky, Sea, and elsewhere.
But yeah… there always seems to be a job to level. :)
Dark Age of Camelot. It’s old and mostly dead though. You’ll notice the games that don’t concentrate on raiding tend to concentrate on PvP (Eve, DAoC, Guild Wars, etc)
I think it’s debatable if Warhammer does or not
The new free expansion for Warhammer Online that introduces PvP dungeons is mainly designed for a single party.
Warhammer Online has zero raids. There are a couple of level cap PvE dungeon instances but they are really aimed at a single group, not a raid. It also means that there’s nothing much to do at level cap except PvP.
I believe most, if not all, of the free-to-play ones lack a raiding endgame. ToonTown, surprisingly, is one of the exceptions. The various cog hqs need as many as 12 toons to complete.
Lord of the Rings Online has a few raids in it, but it’s definitely not the focus. The regular instances can be plenty hard enough as it is. Quests (storyline and otherwise) and deeds are all ways to work on your character at max level. And there’s always Monster vs. Player play.