MMORPGS - Pros and Cons [or] Which MMO to play?

[Dralnu]

Well, its official - MMOs have taken over. WoW, Guild Wars, amoung many others that are floating around.

Anyways, what MMOs do you play/have played? Any you would suggest to another gamer that would either run in Wine, Cedega, or something else?

Prefer post in the form of:

Name - how it runs (Wine, Cedega, Native, Port)

Price (If any)

Description

Commentary

I'll go first here.

HellWars - net-based

Free generally (you can pay-to-play if you want to support the devs and whatnot)

You command an army and can invade other players

Not too impressive, but you can kill some time playing. I went from 0 to #2700something in a night, so it isn't exactly hard. Might be totally dead for all I know. Its net-based, and overall, like I said, not too impressive. Being web-based, you could play some on any system.
Not really a true MMORPG, but it would classify as an attempt, at least, at an MMO.

Dark Swords - runs under Wine

Free. Think you could donate, though

You play one of three classes

Again, not too impressive. Its a step up from Hell Wars in that it could almost classify as an RPG. Bit lame, but seems to have a few more players.

[cchildress]

I would suggest taking a look at cedega.org, and checking out their game compatibility list. This will give you a good idea of what MMORPGs are actually available to you in a practical sense. I believe that WoW plays better than many, although I think Everquest is supposed to play well also.

[chrismcdirty]

A Tale In The Desert I & II- Native
$10/month (?)
Description: Not a battle-oriented MMO. It looks to be more involved with social action.
Commentary: I've not actually played it. Planned on it a while ago, then got tired of MMOs.

[tabanus]

Vendetta-Online. Linux native including AMD64
$10 US per month
Space pilot simulation
You can be a trader, miner, pirate, privateer, whatever you want in an entirely space environment. PvP heavily involved

I love it, at less than the cost of two packets of cigs (in the UK). Plenty of Gentoo users online, the devs use Gentoo and it's even in portage

[cchildress]

Wow I might have to check that out myself

[GNUtoo]

what about planeshift(its engine get 1.0)
i wasn't able to play it inside gentoo but windows(the problem is that the windows computer isn't mine)
i just tryed it rapidely(i had bad luck and i always get stuck somewhere=>i needed to die)

and what about ethernal lands(i didn't read the licence yet)?
i'm seeking a good game with an aceptable licence(Free software or quite)

[Yggdrasil]

Guild Wars:Wine works ok I guess

Price:~$40/$50 (American) to buy it, no monthly fee

Description: A combat-oriented MMO, everything outside of a city is instanced so you'll never see people who aren't in your group in the wild. Level cap at 20 and limit of 8 skills usable at once to balance more for skill than play-time.

Commentary: Starts out pretty well, but unfortunately it became progressively more boring/repetitive as the campaign went on; at the same time the general quality of players went down. I don't have any interest in pvp per se so that didn't help me either. If you like pvp, and think a fantasy setting for it sounds great; or you don't mind constantly going out killing a bunch of random mobs, wash rinse repeat; than this may be for you. I on the other hand, never even managed to play fully through the campaign

[Dralnu]

Guild Wars:Wine works ok I guess

Price:~$40/$50 (American) to buy it, no monthly fee

Description: A combat-oriented MMO, everything outside of a city is instanced so you'll never see people who aren't in your group in the wild. Level cap at 20 and limit of 8 skills usable at once to balance more for skill than play-time.

Commentary: Starts out pretty well, but unfortunately it became progressively more boring/repetitive as the campaign went on; at the same time the general quality of players went down. I don't have any interest in pvp per se so that didn't help me either. If you like pvp, and think a fantasy setting for it sounds great; or you don't mind constantly going out killing a bunch of random mobs, wash rinse repeat; than this may be for you. I on the other hand, never even managed to play fully through the campaign

They have two expansion packs, as well. I played it before. Got almost every skill for Ranger, and got sick of it fairly soon. PVP is a joke on there, as is PvE. No real story line, though.

[Koradji]

Guild wars: I seem to remember having to use cedega (rather than wine) to play on amd64, worked well.
Price ~$50 per expansion
Description: Diablo 3 Online
Commentry: Wanted to play with my board gaming group, brother, and gf. Didn't work out so i'm not playing. I enjoy it, it's technically quite good, and will play again if i can convince friends to join me.

World of Warcraft: Worked well with wine, you may need to refer to the howto in this forum.
Price ~$50 + $15 per month
Description: Diablo 2 3D online, Warcraft world and warcraft 1 pathfinding, coupled with diablo 2 network lag.
Commentary: Not playing any more due to loot lock (bag lag?), and high erratic pings from Australia making skilled play very difficult. Expensive. Artistically very good for such a graphically low-spec game. I spent too much time playing this. I'll happily play again if there is a local server.

Wurm Online: Worked native, but i think needed some mucking around with x86 sun java to get it to work on amd64.
http://www.wurmonline.com/
Price: Basic is free
Description: Um. Maybe like playing a sim game crossed with a FPS? I didn't play enough to know, try and see?
Comments: I only tried it briefly due to frame rate issues. And only before it went gold. It allows a lot of interaction with the world, and appears to be driven by personal goals rather than a story and events to follow. If you break computer games up into story, game, and toy. this Wurms tends to (complex) toy while GW and WoW tend to story.
I'll test it again if i can get playable performance.

Utopia: text based web browser MMOG
Price: Free
Description: Text war game. Train and send armies to take land from those weaker than you, thieves to take gold, mages to do nasty stuff to them and helpful to you. Help your kingdom do the same.
Comments: I stopped playing Utopia and similar games because i couldn't manage the time commitment. Similar games include Dominion and Battlemaster (which is graphical enough to have a map). Good points include that you can actually interact violently with other players unlike GW and WoW, and that they can be played from anywhere.

Nation States: web browser game. sort of MMOG
http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi
Price: Free
Description: amusing government simulation game.
Comments. Well worth playing around with for a few weeks until it gets repetitive. I haven't tried participating in the multiplayer aspects, but last i played there was no war. Originally built as advertising for a book which i also found worth reading. Every now and then i play it again for a bit to see the new events.

I'm going to have to take a closer look at vendetta, thanks for mentioning it.

[Koradji]

Got almost every skill for Ranger, and got sick of it fairly soon.

"Every skill for ranger" is playing for a lot longer than me, i'd would hardly call getting every skill "fairly soon" :p

I couldn't play GW without people i knew outside the game, i got sick of it before level 20, let alone all the skills. In GW's defence, however, i think there is a lot of play in guild wars as a team game, every thursday night with (and/or against) a group of friends, or whatever.

[Lloeki]

FWIW gw 'expansions' are not, they're standalone, though they complement each other.
game works best with cedega, timidly begins working on wine.
- prophecies (1st one): PvE great with friends, good story but now feels dated.
- factions: aimed at GvG and AvA
- nightfall: aimed at PvE, with heroes (not mercenaries) micromanagement
lots of improvements have been backported from one to the other too.

what's more, game really begins when you reach level 20 (levels 1-20 are considered as 'training') and you can't have all skills (e.g with capture seal) before being 20. going to droknar's forge etc. is a pain even with 8xlv20. ranger is one of the most easy classes to master, and quickly the most 'yawning'.

that said, gw is not for everyone. it strays quite a lot from RPG standards (this is what people either like or dislike), and I find it quite refreshing. it also fits my kind of play: fairly casual. I like the fact that levels mostly don't matter (since reaching lv20 is just 'training', everything is based on you skill choices).
as you probably guessed, this is for those exact reasons that I dislike WoW. I really think they don't compete: they target a different audience.

back in the day, I played other MMO games among which ragnarok online (works really good on wine, on some really good french 'free server', enjoyed it for some very long time), lineage II (got sick of it really quick), tried some free stuff mentioned above, but was not convinced.

[Yggdrasil]

I guess the main problem I have w/ GW is that they seemed to be forcing PvE into PvP, if that's actually what's going on now I have no clue. I stopped about a year ago now when I went fully linux; and don't really have the drive to go back. Last thing I remember was the big hubbub about "nerfing" the AoE spells, which sucked 'cuz I was a Elementalist/Ranger (I know, I know...). I had hoped that the story would pick up after lvl 20, but up to around infusion (which I'll grant isn't that much further, for those who haven't played) that wasn't happening.

It's also up to silver on wine's appdb...

[Lloeki]

It's also up to silver on wine's appdb...

on mine: lots of sound issues, random crashed, and no shaders yet...
perfect (with dx9 shaders) under cedega.

as for the issues, lots of balancing took place, PvP is available right off the bat, and if you don't want to hunt skills via PvE and play 100% PvP, you can get skill packages for a small fee (iirc it even allows you to have prophecies/factions/nightfall skills, even if you don't have one of them, and if you don't want to spend much more cash and you care less about pve). Not only that, but factions progression is aimed at pvp, even in pve (that's exactly the opposite for nightfall, which brings nothing to pvp players).
whatever, I can't tell much more, I'm more into PvE than PvP. what I like most is cooperation (through a scenario), which offer is scarce nowadays, incl. on consoles, and even more in the RPG genre... and gw is dubbed as a CORPG (as in coop), not MMORPG

well, anyone has other CO/MMO RPGs suggestions?

[ffaerton]

http://www.tibia.com - Native

You have the option of being a premium player which is 19.99Euro for 3months. But aside from that, the free areas are great until you decide you want the premium options

Description: It's the same deal as most MMORPGs: 4 character classes, hunt stuff to gain levels, skill your char etc.. but there are no restrictions! So you can play all day for a few years to become level 380 or whatever how you play the game is entirely up to you. You can be a trader, chat fiend, thief or pger - its upt to you.

Commentary:

Tibs is a little sad on the graphics - it's not a 3D world, though it has it's own swing on things. Oh and when you start playing it, just keep going until you get out of rookguard - then the game becomes fun.

http://www.kindomeofloathing.com - web based

Free. You donate to obtain rare items

Description: just have a look - it's pretty fun and not too serious. it's great for something to do when your meant to be working. It's got enogh smarts to be interesting, and there are a huge amounts of quirks to make it addictive.

[tylerwylie]

I'm about to try to put together a new PC and should be dual booting XP/Gentoo(or Fedora) and I'm going to try to find a good MMO as well. What I've looked at so far Dralnu is Eve Online. It looks like a lot of fun, I'm goign to try to get it to work again in Cedega(many failed attempts)

[ChristyMcJesus]

http://mudconnect.com/

[Dralnu]

I'm about to try to put together a new PC and should be dual booting XP/Gentoo(or Fedora) and I'm going to try to find a good MMO as well. What I've looked at so far Dralnu is Eve Online. It looks like a lot of fun, I'm goign to try to get it to work again in Cedega(many failed attempts)

Neverwinter Nights 2 looked interesting. I was thinking of WoW for awhile (still am), but I don't know if I want to jump into an MMO that late in its development...

[Phenax]

http://mudconnect.com/

++;

[Dralnu]

http://mudconnect.com/

++;

We should find an (un)Official Gentoo MUD...

[gregf]

Name - Savage native linux, macosx, windows

Price Free (binary only)

Description: Two clases, human and alien. Can be commander or in fps mode. Great game. It is in portage. games-strategy/savage-bin. I am not using the version in portage though since i have found a more updated version some of the original developers of the game are working on. It can be found here. http://www.notforidiots.com/. Theres a changelog at the bottom of the page for anyone that is interested.

[broken_chaos]

WoW isn't hard to jump into right now, what with the release of Burning Crusade and all. Also, try to find a nice server (I suggest one of the ones labelled RP or RP-PvP, depending on which style you really want - these are less populated, particularly with idiots - still pretty large populations, but more manageable).

[rei1974]

I've played the whole Everquest series (up to EQ2) and DAOC. I never played WoW... and I fear to do it because MMORPG are really cool but they can take you too much time! I just ordered Vanguard (from EQ original creators) because I've read that you can do very good "SOLO" mode play, that might seems crazy but is what I'm looking for right now.
Relying to other people in online play often is a pain... wait for this, wait for that, in the end you waste 1h just standing still in front of monitor to do a "big raid". No thanks, have enough!!!!

[Saint1911]

Cool, I have begun playing vanguard aswell and I have a great time there, Eve Online is good and all, but when you've been in so many wars and won/lost one sector after the other in 0.0 space, well at one point it just becomes so pointless and unfulfilling :p
Yes I was in ASCN, the ASCN which recently got destroyed by BoB who as it turned out had a dev on their side giving them rare t2 bpo's - but thats another discussion and one with many opinions and views, suffice it to say I no longer care
Vanguard allows me to have some fun with other people and continually level my charecter without too much work invested into it, which is what works for me right now.

[thesquib]

>>well at one point it just becomes so pointless and unfulfilling :p

just thought i'd note here that all the MMORPG's i've played exactly this.. WOW was so much more than a pointless waste of time, it was COMPLETELY pointless. They just somehow manage to get an addiction in before you release how easy, repetitive and boring it actually is.

Its hard to find an MMORPG that thinks out of the square eh

[bazouu]

DOFUS

Free or 5€/months to discover the whole world

It's a very amazing Flash game, so it works well on all arch.

MMO RPG. Huge univers, very nice design and a big active community (more than 1 million account). Several servers in English (international), French, German and Spanish.

Very addictiv!