This Week in MMOs

[DasBroot]

True free is pretty limited but preferred (ie you have spent money on something at some point ever) isn't so bad - as long as you don't want to play the expansion content.

 

It's still a heavily subscription based game - it would probably cost you more than $15 a month to individually buy all the passes, content access, etc that come with being a sub.

 

I drop to preferred between major expansions and the most annoying thing is the credit cap (and only because it basically tells you in the chat channel 'you gained 2500 credits, but can't access it because you're at the credit cap. We'll hold onto it until you sub.' 

 

Every. Single. Time you earn a credit over the cap.

[Pattern Ghost]

I've been mostly messing around with Champions Online. It still has content I haven't done, and has been adding some new end game stuff. I got five more archetypes to 40 and then used the time card I got for Christmas. 

 

I've had to retcon (respec) a bunch of my Gold characters due to power set changes. They've been doing overhauls on all of the power sets, and with them, the associated ATs. Mostly for the better, I think.

[CptPatriot]

Hey, PG, if you ever want company when you do the content, feel free to ask, ok?

[Pattern Ghost]

Will do! I just need to find time. I'm still mostly just doing quests and alerts and tweaking characters, since those are things I can do in small doses.

[Nolgroth]

I loaded up Champions Online recently, only to find that all of my characters were gone. I built a new character but got about as far as blowing up some Qularr egg sacks in the tutorial. I was amused that the whole Qularr invasion is now a training simulation. I really wish they would ditch the cell-shaded graphics. DC Universe Online did just fine without trying to make the characters look like they popped out from the pages of a comic book.

 

I've been playing Star Trek Online. Functionally, it has (maybe had) a great balance between flying around in a starship shooting things and wandering around on ground missions shooting things. I really enjoy the crafting system and the new-ish admiralty system. Overall, I think that it is my favorite MMO. Then they announce a "rebalance" of the mechanics. I want to remain hopeful but I am fully expecting the Nerfhammer to come crashing down as if Grond was wielding it after being boosted in Strength by some mechanism of Dr. Destroyer. I will try to remember to keep folks posted.

 

I want to try Star Wars: The Old Republic again, but I got so burnt out after playing the last time. Part of the problem is me. I want to run every class so I end up building too many characters and I get burnt out trying to keep up with all the maintenance that an MMO character needs to stay viable. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

The biggest drawback with SWTOR is that it takes ages to ready after each patch, so if you've been gone a while, be ready for a half hour prep time just to log in.

[Cygnia]

Another year without a Big Pink Love Rocket in WoW...

[Greywind]

https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/neverwinter/news/detail/10376803-announcing-neverwinter-%E2%80%93-the-cloaked-ascendancy

 

New Neverwinter content.

[DasBroot]

 

I want to try Star Wars: The Old Republic again, but I got so burnt out after playing the last time. Part of the problem is me. I want to run every class so I end up building too many characters and I get burnt out trying to keep up with all the maintenance that an MMO character needs to stay viable. 

 

These days there's all kinds of levels of viable in SWTOR.

 

I have ONE character who is 'hardest difficulty end game' ready with near top of the line gear.  It takes a lot of effort so it's really reserved for my absolute favorite - a Sith Juggernaut tank.

 

I have 12 others (altoholics represent, woo) who are just fine for running heroics (solo or team), pvp queuing, story missions, uprisings, and anything else I feel like.  PvP and group finder (for random 'dungeons' like other MMO) artificially boosts your gear to be viable. People complain that it's 'too  casual friendly', truthfully - it's like they would rather wait for two hours waiting for a match or team.

[Vanguard]

The biggest drawback with SWTOR is that it takes ages to ready after each patch, so if you've been gone a while, be ready for a half hour prep time just to log in.

 

1/2 hr if your lucky.

 

Everytime I try to start playing SWTOR again, the patcher goes into "verifying files" (or something to that extent) and I give up after about 45m.

 

I wouldn't mind it too much if it was only the one time.  But it seems to want to do it every time I launch the patcher.

[Pattern Ghost]

Champions Online rolled out some new content, a new premium archetype (Gunslinger), and more power set and archetype updates. I haven't done the new content yet.

 

The AT updates look mostly OK. They updated the Soldier, the Specialist, the Blade and the Unleashed. Of note, the Blade got a heal (BCR), and the Unleashed got a lunge (finally!) and an energy unlock. Not too sure if I like the Soldier or Specialist changes yet. Blade and Unleashed seem for the better. Specialist got a CON superstat, which is nice, but lost Bullet Beatdown to the new Gunslinger AT, so if you go melee it looks like swords and more swords.

 

Oh, they also fixed the diminishing returns to work on all of the updated archetypes. Some people who were exploiting that are up in arms, but the build improvements are worth it IMO.

 

Linkage.

[Enforcer84]

My guild needs their Zava back. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah I go off and do something else while SWTOR tries to get its self ready.  Takes ages, for no good reason.  I enjoy the game in stretches, but not enough to play continually, so I gotta do that dance very year or so.

[Pattern Ghost]

My guild needs their Zava back. 

 

Thinking about it. The main problem I have is that I need to level up enough guys to farm gold to pay for sub tokens. I have a supply of them, but I haven't had time to level a bunch of guys to 110 lately. I was thinking of coming back after 7.2 drops. The time frame should work.

[Christopher R Taylor]

If you want to play, I mean a MMOG costs 15 bucks a month.  That's cheaper than a night at the movies, and its all month long.  Really an entertainment value.

[Pattern Ghost]

If you want to play, I mean a MMOG costs 15 bucks a month.  That's cheaper than a night at the movies, and its all month long.  Really an entertainment value.

 

Finances are actually that tight.

[Greywind]

Neverwinter Online, Champions Online, Star Trek Online are all free to play.

[Pattern Ghost]

Thanks. (The next part may sound snippy, but since this is an MMO thread I thought I'd mention my current options. I do appreciated the post.) I play CO, don't like the other two, have Wildstar (now FTP) and three other buy to play MMOs installed (GW2, TESO, and TSW). So, I've got plenty of no-sub options available. Even DDO with a lot of content unlocked, though I don't like the level cap raises past 20.

 

Now, WoW can be free to play (really playing on someone else's dime) buy buying WoW tokens. I have 8 or 9 in my bags. Someone who wants gold buys a token to sell on the AH for 20 bucks (five bucks more than a month of time), while someone who wants game time but has gold can buy the time token on the AH for around 40-50k gold (average last time I played, not sure where the prices currently sit). The game handles all the transactions, and sets the AH pricing according to some calculation behind the scenes.

 

The issue I currently have is threefold:

 

1. I'm more than a bit bored with the game, and dislike most of the class changes the nimrod devs have pushed out this expansion. This makes it hard for me to get around to leveling my horde of alts to the new cap.

 

2. The way I usually make gold is the inefficient way, which is grinding old instances and raids. So, I need at least a fair number of those alts.

 

3. I'm low on the time required to level up some alts, because of multiple family emergencies. Low on funds for much the same reason, to the point that we've cut every entertainment subscription out, like games, Netflix, etc. One game is chicken scratch, but if you cut everything out, then you've saved enough for some groceries.

 

Currently, I'm on Gold (subscribed) status in Champions Online. The mother-in-law got me a time card for Christmas. I was able to level up a few characters to 39 over the holidays while watching my father-in-law in the skilled nursing/rehab facilities (on spotty wireless), so activated it earlier this month to ding those to 40 and grab some free character slots. The sub runs out a couple of days into April, so I'm just popping on and off it, doing alerts, doing the new event a little, and messing around with builds and gearing (minimally) my fresh 40s. I needed a break from WoW anyway, and CO fits my schedule, since I just pop on and off a bit whenever and still get stuff done.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Actually, its super easy to make money in World of Warcraft right now, without grinding any old content.  Just run through daily quests every day and do the Suramar chain while picking up trade supplies and you can make huge amounts of cash every month.  Its crazy, I'm richer than I ever have been, so much so I'm looking at maybe buying tokens instead of paying every month with my meager budget.

[Pattern Ghost]

I might try that. I find it boring as heck, but I might give it a shot when/if I resub.

[Pattern Ghost]

Speaking of The Secret World, it looks like it's getting a reboot sometime soon. This is about all that's known, a .jpg ripped by someone from Funcom's latest (?) financial report PDF. Spoilered for size.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. It kind of smells like a bad thing, as in, "We're going to toss money at the game to try to bring in more revenue, but if it doesn't work, we're pulling the plug." I haven't even gotten around to finishing the tutorials on it. I hope it sticks around long enough fore me to at least play through the main storyline once.

[Greywind]

Today's Cryptic patching has put both NWO and STO beyond my ability to play at this time. Need a newer comp.

[Pattern Ghost]

That sucks. I built mine in 2010, and NWO has never run very well on it. STO is (at least was) OK, but I never got into it.

[Pattern Ghost]

So, I was looking around for info on The Secret World's "relaunch" and found some info on Dungeons and Dragons Online.

 

Apparently, Turbine has divested itself of all of its MMOs. Anarchy Online is going to shut down. DDO and Lord of the Rings Online are both with Standing Stone studio, which is all of the prior Turbine MMO devs, plus a few more. The publisher for DDO and LOTRO is now Daybreak Games, who publish Sony's cast off MMOs. I read an interview with a couple of the honchos (sorry, don't have link handy) that makes it seem like they're intent on keeping both games running, not on life support, and that IPs are secure for the foreseeable future. They're also planning on a character model update for LOTRO.

 

Also, it's DDO's 11th Anniversary. If you're an intermittent player, be sure to log in the game before April 2nd to claim your 11 Year Old Birthday Cake. You must use the cake before the 2nd as well, or it'll go bad. The cake items aren't as good as last year's free raid loot, but consist of a lot of stuff people farm for leveling and TRing. Helpful and good for many levels types of items, which most vets have already farmed. For generic rewards, there's 100k XP (instant, not affected by the +1 level max thing) and 10 of some kind of commendations that upgrade raid loot. (Not sure what's up with that, DDO loot systems are numerous and confusing. Kind of like old school D&D's many tables, I guess.) There's another catch: You only get two cakes per account. Not one per character as prior years. All the loot items are bind to account, though. You claim the cakes through an item shop coupon code (HAPPY11TH, not case sensitive.) The details are here.

 

EDIT: Oh, yeah, and DDO is supposed to be getting sentient weapons.

 

I should probably have put more white space in this post. Sorry. Here....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

have some white space.

[Greywind]

That sucks. I built mine in 2010, and NWO has never run very well on it. STO is (at least was) OK, but I never got into it.

 

Their latest update requires DX11/D3D11. Chip set on this apparently can't handle the D3D11.