I have been looking at Albion Online, but haven’t tried it yet. It goes live in July? I would be interested to hear your thoughts on it, @Banzai. Do we have a thread somewhere on it?
It feels like a lot of MMOs focus on open world PVP these days. FFXIV didn’t but it was missing something, and so much of the content is instanced.
Ultima VII, Oblivion or Freespace 2.
I’ve been playing EQ yet again…prompted by this thread actually. I started over on the newest TLP server, from scratch. It’s awesome. Because EQ was offering level 85 characters for free, there are a lot of people on right now. I’ve been able to play more or less “classic” EQ, in groups with real people that aren’t botting, and don’t have gear 15 expansions out of era to trivialize content. It’s actually the closest I’ve gotten to how original EQ was, it’s very very good.
I’ve come to the conclusion that I just don’t like Everquest past about level 65-70. I have zero problems rolling new characters on whatever new TLP server they release, and experiencing that game world with people in crap gear lol.
The real magic of Everquest, is how much time it gives you to communicate with other people. You really need other people to do anything, especially on the TLP that limits boxing to actual separate computers for every account. It’s the same thing I’ve always known about EQ, and why I like it so much. I make friends with people, I meet great people, and that’s the actual fun. I’ve met some really genuinely funny, nice people that last week or so, and have a growing friends list in game. THAT is exactly what’s missing in every modern MMO, where you can solo to max level and never talk to a single person.
The game that I nominated, that got me hooked 18 years ago, has done it again.
Oblivion over Skyrim. Why is that? I don’t have any time in either game (always waiting for mods) so I’m genuinely curious.
Not because it’s better (it’s not), but as a long-time fan of the series I really enjoyed seeing the central province “Roman Empire” setting of Tamriel, and finally adding in the Ultima-style NPC schedules and the somewhat restrained “motivation system” added so much life to the world - it was fun, for me, to just watch NPCs go to visit friends in neighboring towns, or finding out little stories such as the fact that an NPC in Skingrad was having an affair, etc.
Only the Gothic series had picked up the baton on that feature of Ultima V-VII, and its worlds were also cool but less ambitious and nowhere near the scope of Oblivion’s (with a couple dozen NPCs instead of hundreds).
Didn’t they do that for Skyrim? I also love things like NPC schedules and independent story snippets.