Advice on an MMO for a novice player.

Hi,

First off thank you for any replies to my questions, It's appreciated, Also a lot of this topic is just back story and context about my gaming history with MMO's and probably not vital to read to help me out so if your someone that does not like reading a wall of text you can scroll to the last sentence.

I have been wanting to get into an MMORPG for years now but always felt overwhelmed, I would call myself a veteran gamer as I have been gaming since the first home consoles arrived in the U.K, My dad loved space invaders in the arcades and my mum loved pac-man so after seeing me mesmerized with the pixels on an arcade cabinet at the young age of about 4-5 my parents bought an Atari 2600 for the family and since that day I have been hooked and have owned just about every system and handheld device that released over the years, The Amiga 600+ being the system I have the fondest memories of, Anyway enough of the pointless back story.

The reason I give a little background info is because I play just about every genre and am able to get to grips with new genres quite quickly with the exception of RTS games and MMO games, I have recently got the hang of RTS games thanks to games like Company Of Heroes and Startcraft 2 but the one genre that is my kryptonite is the massively multiplayer online game.

My first foray into the MMO world was Age Of Conan, I started with this game as WOW had been going for a couple of years and I am the type of RPG player that researches a game to death before jumping in and after reading a lot of the info available for WOW back then I got scared as I had no clue what any of the MMO lingo meant and with a game like wow being so deep I got overwhelmed and chickened out, I thought starting a new MMO from release date was my best bet and I played the game up to about level 25 but it just never clicked, I was forcing myself to play as I had paid for the game plus subscription.

Since then I have wanted to invest some time into an MMO as I know if I just passed that initial entry barrier and got familiar with the mechanics of an MMO I would seriously enjoy it.

I was planning on making Star Wars: The Old Republic the MMO game I finally got into but today I noticed Rift is on sale through steam for £5 and I thought about giving it a try so I did my usual thing and started reading up about the game, Going through all the classes and races and their skills and after an hours reading I got overwhelmed again, But since I had that urge to want to play an MMO I went and read a bit about WOW and since you can play to level 20 for free I was thinking maybe that will be a good choice to start off with.

I also looked at Lord Of The Rings Online.

So after all that I am after a bit of advice from gamers that have played these games, Which game do you think would be best for someone like myself to jump into for a couple of months before SW:TOR comes out as that's another reason I want to get into an MMO now so I am up on the mechanics of how to play an MMO and educated in all the lingo and strategy of an MMO.

I am happy to look into any game premium or free to play, Thanks for any advice and I apologise for the long post that was probably unnecessary as I could have just wrote one sentence asking the main question but that's just me I end up adding context to things that don't really need it.

Most MMO's will have a wiki somewhere, and if they are any good there will be a page with all the lingo spelled out for ya. If that fails, well there's always asking about what specific lingo doesn't make sense to you and we can try to pretend it does long enough to tell it to you. City of Heroes came out free the other day, and I'd say that one has a simple enough system that you can get used to MMO's from it and work your way from there.

My advice if you are looking for a good mmo to get into right now..... don't. Wait for SWTOR or Guild Wars 2. One of them will land in december and the other likely early next year. It is always better to be there on day one of an mmo than day 3267. That way you can learn the game with everyone else, level up and meet people while you do it, etc etc. If you really are a "mmo novice" that will be a much better experience for you than diving into some game that has been out for years and has 1-3 expansions already with a metric crap ton of stuff to learn and a mostly empty leveling population.

It's also helpful if you're jumping in with a friend or two or five (easier to do on a free to play game), so you all can goof off and figure it out together.

Age of Conan is still great IMO and weathered time nicely due to the fact the game has atmosphere and a soul. If you've never played MMOs before, then Rift or Star Wars will be perfect for you as they offer pretty graphics but pathetic gameplay and pvp. WOW is still the total package and best experience for new players by a MILE but WOW has also turned its back on the core gamers who supported it for years so expect to catch shit from friends if you decide to jump into candy land with the rest of the kids. Speaking of obnoxious kids, avoid most F2P mmorpgs. They either suffer from horrible communities (Guild Wars, Rune Scape) or they are buggy Korean grinders designed to irritate you as much as possible with their cash shops and pay gates. Extra advice is avoid asian mmos all together unless you want to gain about 5 levels of experience per year you've subscribed. They are called grinders for a reason.

MMOs to look at In my Opinion:

Star Wars: The Old Republic

• Pros: Sound / Music is your typical Star Wars fare, Voice Acting, Atmosphere, Story design team comes from a long history of success, dedicated community.
• Cons: Art doesn't follow Star Wars canon well, Poor gameplay, Generic mmo quests, PvP design team comes from a long history of failures, rigid character classes, fanatical community, "Hutt" Ball. Investing a ton of cash on something that's mostly Hype. Jeff Gerstmann is on the record for saying he does not want to play SW:ToR after an extended viewing at E3. Trying too hard to be like WOW. 2 factions. Crafting Unknown.
• End Game: Unknown.

RIFT

• Pros: Eye popping graphics, Constant updates, Flexible character classes, Ease of use, fast leveling, Staffed by MMO legends from the industry, Stable with few bugs. A high value for your money, Monthly world events, Rift invasions that make the world feel more dynamic. No Cash Shop.
• Cons: Lacks atmosphere, Lore barely makes it into the game, Heavily recycled art assets, Lots of instances, Tiny world, PvP is an absolute disaster / failure, in-game community non existent across the majority of active servers, Generic MMO style quests, Repetitive. Tried too hard to be like WOW. Crafting system generic and lacking. Dungeons that don't inspire you to return after having completed them. Lacks holiday events. Rift invasions are more annoying than fun and players avoid them for the most part. 2 factions.
• End Game: A brick wall. Nothing to do but grind raids or pvp with lots of content gates.

Age of Conan

• Pros: Established world with lots of content, World drips with atmosphere, Sound / music is perfect for the setting, Unique combat system with Fatalities, Big world to explore. Perfect game for historians or history buffs with real world references mixed in with fantasy. Mature content. Mature friendly community, Guild cities, offers a F2P pricing model. Fun dungeons that make you want to explore them. Holiday world events. Caters to roleplayers. No factions.
• Cons: High learning curve. Still requires a decent system to run. DX10 optimized poorly. PvP started as a disaster and is now mediocre at best. Crafting system very poor. Still expensive for the game's age if you want access to all content. Massive grind using the alternate advancement system. Extremely long / time consuming dungeons and raids. Cash Shop. Slow Updates.
• End Game: A handful of raids and fairly harsh grind.

FireFall

• Pros: FPS Sci-fi MMO, Action oriented (think planet side), dynamic worlds with invasions, F2P business model, Unique art style / cell shading, John Wick (legend of the 5 rings) is on the staff so it's going to have some good gameplay mechanics and lore.
• Cons: More casual than a real MMORPG, lacks community building tools, heavily asian influenced with possible grind, obnoxious Pax Booth. Does not cater to roleplayers. Unknown factions and PvP experience. Crafting Unknown. Cash Shop. Lots of Instances.
• End Game: Unknown

World of Warcraft (aka WOW)

• Pros: WOW provides everything a western mmo has to experience with high quality. Runs on just about any machine. Expensive for how old the title is but still a good value compared to the content you get. Countless user supported addons. Huge World and content. Crafting is superb.
• Cons: Horrible community, Persistent gold farmers when other companies found solutions, Arena, Colorful youthful graphics for all ages, moronic pop-culture references, invasive battle.net. Cash Shop, Slow updates, Elitism, 2 factions. Horrible community. (yes it has to be said twice)
• End Game: They wrote the book on it. Enjoy until you burn out.

The Secret World

• Pros: Cool modern world with a lovecraft theme to it. No classes, you gain skills the oldschool way (think Ultima Online style), Graphics and Sound fit the world nicely.
• Cons: No idea how big the world is or how instanced it is. They are behind in production and time. EA is rushing it out the door before Christmas and it's not even in open beta yet. Funcom has a long history of poor launches. Crafting unknown. Cash Shop.
• End Game: Unknown

Guild Wars 2

• Pros: F2P business model. Graphics, Sound, Bridging the gap between asian and western mmos, Ree Soesbee is the head writer so the game is going to drip with atmosphere and lore. Ree writing for GW2 also means it will attract a great deal of female gamers which improve the overall health of mmorpgs. It has loot this time! PvP is rock solid. Server vs Server 3 way conflicts.
• Cons: Fanatical community, too much power in the player's hands / game become disengaging for thinking individuals. Generic mmo quests. Unique skill oriented grinding system, but still a grind, Cash Shop.
• End Game: Unknown

Warhammer Online

• Pros: F2P business model Still online, Best world PvP of any MMO by far.
• Cons: Everything else, Cash Shop, Most of the staff quit, were let go, or absorbed into Bioware to work on Star Wars so expect failure to follow.
• End Game: Guarding the Mailbox.

Star Trek Online

• Pros: Star Trek universe, Graphics, Sound, Atmosphere, Canon is dead accurate, decent community, steady updates, player generated content, the Giantbomb crew loved it. Caters to Roleplayers.
• Cons: PvP is abysmal, Ground combat still very broken, Very rushed game that still has a metric ton of bugs despite the title's age, Crafting is a clusterfuck and nuisance, Poor customer service, Cash shop, Small world, Cryptic studios was sold to the asians.
• End Game: Mostly broken / grindy with players having a poor grasp on proper mmo roles and basics.

Ok I'm burned out on typing for now. Need to reset my brain on a few fresh subjects then I'll be back to expand on this one.

@Buzzkill: Woah Woah, did you really just list arena as a con for WoW?!?!?

@plop1920: Indeed I did. Arena is the abortion of an egotistical Dev and was never designed with the intention of enjoyment for the player. Arena is why the term "welfare epics" exist in MMO lingo and set back game balancing development half a decade due to brats and loopholes when they could have been focusing on world content, encounters, and raiding.

Blizzard used the Arena to create an Esport and failed, just like the XFL did.

@TaliciaDragonsong: I didn't suggest Lord of the Rings because I have a sever allergic reaction to anything Turbine. Nothing about their products have ever rubbed me the right way so in order to be as respectful as possible I simply say nothing about them at all. :)

@Buzzkill: There are plenty of people who enjoy arena, even in the f'ed up state it's in right now. True, when arena came out the gear was fairly easy to get and could be used for raiding, but that isn't the case anymore. I think arena was the best thing to happen to WoW pvp, it's a shame blizzard just can't balance pve and pvp seperately

If you want something that is less "click and wait for animation" combat I would recommend Fallen Earth. There's a lot of crafting, the world is rather large, there are a number of factions, and it seems like a good place for roleplay.

Though don't expect the gun-play to be amazing, this is still an MMO.

I'd suggest dungeon fighter but that's basically a beatemup with an mmo surrounding it. A very good beatemup mind you. Anyway there is champions online, Rusty Hearts, and the first 20 levels of wow to try, not all mmos are the same and there are many, many good free ones. Just try them and see what grabs you.

@TaliciaDragonsong: I didn't suggest Lord of the Rings because I have a sever allergic reaction to anything Turbine. Nothing about their products have ever rubbed me the right way so in order to be as respectful as possible I simply say nothing about them at all. :)

@TaliciaDragonsong: My will is not so easily bent. Tested's Will on the other hand...