General Discussion

Hi! I have played some MMORPGs (Anarchy Online, Ryzom, DAoC, WoW, LotRO) and am checking the game list and announcements here at mmorpg.com regurlarly. But still have not found the game I am looking for. I would like to describe what kind of game I would love to play - if you have a idea which game might fit that description (or at least as close as today's games can get to this), I would be thankful for any suggestions.

Basically, I "just" want REALISM. This may sound a bit odd, as we all play games to escape from the boring and troublesome reality (at least partially), but I am perfectly happy with playing a char in a world I will never be able to live IRL (fantasy setting preferred). Ok, very hard death penalties aren't exactly fun, but apart from that, a game cannot be too realistic for my taste.

What I would love to see in an MMORPG:

• Graphics with realistic colors, models and animations. No chars looking like Super Mario or bubble gum colored skies.
• Free character development without predefined classes.
• A working economic system.
• Game infrastrucure to do realm-wide politics, not just guild-wide (e.g. realm-wide elections, taxes or notifications for all to opt in).
• Many craftable items.
• Aging (possibly eventually dying) characters.
• Construction and destruction of buildings or even villages and towns.
• The possibilty to do roleplay (need some emotes and items for that, many existing MMORPGs meet this).
• Randomness in mob strength, roam paths, behaviour.
• Randomness in quests.

What I hate to see in MMORPGs:

• Having to decide about my char's final abilities after 0 - 20 playing hours.
• Tons of drops that make crafting pointless. Looting something better than crafters can produce should be a rare exception.
• Tons of glowing weapons and other equipment (really, really hate those. Yeah, I know, graphics cards can do these kinds of effects, no reason to make every other item look like a blue torch). Also, glowing melee effects.
• Mobs that spawn at exactly the same place over and over again.
• Completely predictable mob behaviour, even if I have never encountered that mob.
• OOC NPC (and PC) names or OOC items (like the robots in WoW).
• Every mob being huge (i.e. insects).
• Cheap and easy teleportation throughout the whole world.

Any ideas which existing or announced game comes close to this? Suggestions appreciated.

Well darkfall fits your criteria quite well i guess? but for now i would say try out Atlantica online, it's a strategy game like final fantasy and quite fun if you ask me

As the guy above said Darkfall will have most of those things hopefully.

I doubt it has aging though.

You can sign up for the beta on their website.

aging and dying characters would make a lot of gamers depressed i think (recalling the "tamagotchi" era). but it would be cool to see your character age over time. hair turns grey, face becomes wrinkled etc.

darkfall. mortal online. take your pick. either way, you're gonna have to wait.

Originally posted by Sweeeet

What I would love to see in an MMORPG:

• Graphics with realistic colors, models and animations. No chars looking like Super Mario or bubble gum colored skies. (the beta client was just full of awesome but the new one won't hurt your eyes at all unless you're looking at a human)
• Free character development without predefined classes.
• A working economic system. (economic system is very lol, the only purpose of money is to feed deeds and for large transactions.  It's based way to much on realism instead of fun)
• Game infrastrucure to do realm-wide politics, not just guild-wide (e.g. realm-wide elections, taxes or notifications for all to opt in).  (well there are town to town raids where you end up getting a lot of players raiding a town based on RvR and then some politics outside that)
• Many craftable items.
• Aging (possibly eventually dying) characters.
• Construction and destruction of buildings or even villages and towns.
• The possibilty to do roleplay (need some emotes and items for that, many existing MMORPGs meet this).
• Randomness in mob strength, roam paths, behaviour.
• Randomness in quests.

What I hate to see in MMORPGs:

• Having to decide about my char's final abilities after 0 - 20 playing hours.
• Tons of drops that make crafting pointless. Looting something better than crafters can produce should be a rare exception. (monsters don't drop items besides fur, meet, and a few other things, even the epics IE dragons just drop their scales that you need to craft)
• Tons of glowing weapons and other equipment (really, really hate those. Yeah, I know, graphics cards can do these kinds of effects, no reason to make every other item look like a blue torch). Also, glowing melee effects.   (well even if the graphics were donish those effects wouldn't be there)
• Mobs that spawn at exactly the same place over and over again. (they do and don't these little house thingies spawn which is where creatures spawn from.  the spawn house eventually dies and spaws elsewhere randomly and players can destroy them early if they decide they don't want them there)
• Completely predictable mob behaviour, even if I have never encountered that mob.
• OOC NPC (and PC) names or OOC items (like the robots in WoW).
• Every mob being huge (i.e. insects).
• Cheap and easy teleportation throughout the whole world. (massive world two maps that are 256KM Sq.   with no teleportation at all.  even death only gives you very very limited extra mobility)

Any ideas which existing or announced game comes close to this? Suggestions appreciated.

WurmOnline has the green stuff to a great extent.  granted it's very indy,  repeat after me "this is an indy game I will not go in with false expectations I realize that the engine was originally made by 2 programmers in their hobby time therefore I will not go in with false expectation"  however that said it's more bug free than most AAA mmos are when they release and for a few while(sometimes long) after their release just lacks a lot of polish you're used to.

Isn't realistic fantasy an oxymoron?

Also you might wanna look into MORTAL ONLINE - it sounds fantastic with the exception of one feature which unfortunately is a deal breaker for me - it's in First Person View play.

http://www.mortalonline.com/ = Cinematic trailer through in-game footage.

http://www.mortalonline.com/features features.

Phantasy star online, and FFXI have some of what you are looking for.