Out of Pod Experience

I've never tried heroin myself, but I've heard that addicts get a wonderful experience from it at first, and basically spend the rest of their lives fruitlessly chasing and trying to recreate that initial awesome feeling once again...

Sounds pretty similar to how I've felt when it comes to MMOs: those first times when I started playing UO, Everquest 1 and Anarchy Online back in the day, were truly magical. And every time since then, when I try a new MMO, the pleasure centers in my brain are trying to re-live that original feeling, only to be disappointed.

I think both because no matter how good they make a new MMO, that initial sense of wonder and discovery when setting foot for the first time on an online world, will never come back.

And also because back then they crafted those worlds as living breathing entities that seemed to exist for their own sake, and you were invited to explore and discover as you wished, and at your own peril. Since the WoW formula took hold, online worlds just come across as a linear patchwork of quest areas haphazardly put together to burn through while you level, with everything finely tuned to simply service the levelling treadmill.


That being said, if you are looking for something different in the MMO space, give Age of Wushu a try: while it's not perfect, it does completely do away with the WoW formula. So much so that your first dozen hours or so you will be pretty confused, while you try to figure things out (a clunky interface and translation from the original Chinese don't help either).

There are some lacklustre quests at the beginning, but these are simply extended game tutorials to (badly) introduce game concepts and mechanics, and progressively give you the starter set of skills and some cash to spend: once you complete them (after a couple hours), you won't see quests again, and face a sandbox PVP world to do as you will.

It also features some form of offline skill training (though not exactly in the same way as EVE), and you don't have to grind on PVE mobs to level (actually, killing PVE mobs is worthless, aside from gathering some crafting mats).

Ironically i just downloaded that today.. started it up was pretty confused heh.

But whats explained is i guess what i keep looking for.. i have been for years my first MMO was SWG and whenever a new MMO comes out i hop on and try to recreate that feeling and it never happens... and like is said probably will never happen :(

I honestly dont even know why i try all the mmos, out of WOW/RIFT/AOC/TERA/TSW/ Insert all the 60 that came out since SWG ive never been able to recreate the feeling... the highest level i actually got in any of those was 35 and that was in WoW when it came out and never went back

i actually started to play SWG and EvE at the same time in 2003. Once the NGE hit is when i swapped over to EvE for good. Funny how one derped and one is becoming more successful as time goes on :)

I played the original EQ for three 3-month stetches in 2000, 2001, and 2003. The first two times I quit, I sold off all my gear for plat, and RMTed it. Got my original eBay account banned because of it. I got my dwarf paladin up to level 40 but was more into wheeling and dealing in the East Commons tunnel than grinding levels.

The whole summer of 2003 playing EQ, I ran an RMT operation where I did this /random 1000 casino gig. 650 or better, double your money, 950 or better, triple it. I started with 2pp I begged off someone and eventually earned a few million plat, which I then sold off to EQ plat resellers. Of course, I'd never do that in EVE. My biggest single sale was 450,000pp for about $500.

I've played WoW free up to level 20 a few years back. It's just seemed like an addictive cycle of getting better loot, linear progression, etc., so it didn't hold much for me.

Played a couple trial accounts of EVE in 2008 and 2010. I remember rushing back to the station as soon as I had enough ISK to get the next best Gallente frigate and modules. I thought my Tristans were absolutely the pimpest thing ever. I had absolutely no concept that the game was anything more than shooting rats in space and using the money to get better ships/modules. I basically played the game exactly like how I'd played BC3000AD in the late 90s, but was too busy in life at the time to sub or find out what more there was to the game.

Anarchy Online I played briefly for a couple stretches. Really cool at first, the whole sci-fi concept was a big turn-on, but it didn't really seem any different than EQ, except that you used guns. Also tried Asheron's Call for a trial period.

I also played in the original Shadowbane beta test, SB being a PvP high fantasy MMO with player cities, in which I think I was a pretty productive tester. Although I never played after release, I was able to get on the test team for the more recent emulator project, which I'm currently on. My work there has primarily centered around discovering methods to dupe gold and items, of which I was the first on the SBemu team to accomplish. I've also done work in helping get cities and their functionality working.

None. EVE makes other mmo not very appealing. Although...as many times as I've been told I should be playing hello kitty, maybe I should check that out...must be good...

Have you followed SWGEmu at all? I keep thinking about checking it out. I know it won't fully bring back the fresh experience of the game when it was new, but it's still the best crafting system I've ever experienced.

My kids and I play SWTOR. I am wondering if TESO will be worth it. Might try that when it comes out.