Yeaaaah, I screwed up. I got roped into watching an old Final Fantasy XI video (and then another, and then one more) and nostalgia has got a hold on me, now. I contemplated going back to it, but, ironically, it's changed so much and new players are so hard to come by now that I seriously doubt I would find that genuine original experience I'm looking for, there. But where else can I find it? Can anyone suggest a MMORPG similar to what FFXI was like back in the day?

Things I really don't want to do without:

- MMORPG that encourages group play (not just in endgame or in once-in-every-few-level instances/dungeons)
- slow (dare I say "grindy"?) leveling
- somewhat active low-level playerbase
- PvE >>>>>>> PvP

Not real dealbreakers:

- no action MMORPG
- no too cartoony style
- no fluid classes, rather, classic archetypes (DPS, Healer, Tank)

So... does anyone have any suggestions?

 

Because, unfortunately, it lacks two of the four key elements I don't want to do without: there's no group leveling (not in ways that actually matter to me - at least at the moment) and getting to the cap is a very fast process.

 

Runescape?

 

WoW.

Still going strong, and Warlords of Draenor is due in a few months.

 

You're never going to replicate your first MMO. Honestly, I would go with Wildstar.

Reasons why:
- GROUP play. Oh is there group play. Challenging, difficult bosses. You need to actually have players pay attention otherwise you'll miss MoO's (moments of opportunities to correctly coordinate right amount of stuns etc).
- Grindiness: They have a decent amount of grind. They're trying to cater to the hardcore players, so yeah you'll fit in just fine.
- Relative newness. You said that the reason why you couldn't get back into FFxiv was because there were no other nubs. Well, Wildstar launched <5 months ago and has had most major issues kinked out. Goldilocks period of an mmo imo.
-PVE >>>>>>> PvP: Well they've got some pretty nifty adventure mode + raids. If I had time to play this genre, Wildstar would totally hit my sweet spot. (the majority of complainers are the pvpers atm. That aspect needs to be fixed abit supposedly)

Cons for you:
- Its an Action Rpg. But most of the shit makes sense and is intuitive. You can't just face roll + wank in raids.
- Has fluid classes.
- Its cartoony.

Disclaimer: I haven't played since open beta. I have since mosey'd on over to tier 3 internet, aka China... Great Firewalls of Doom.

 

I tried it once and just couldn't get into it. Also, it was solo play basically all the time.

Wow is definitely lacking group and grindy leveling.

After a few brief searches, it appears that group play is rare and/or penalized (at least before the end game), the speed of the leveling process is very fast, plus like you said it's action, cartoony and has hybrid classes. I'm not convinced, although I will need to look for more info or wait for the game to fix issues and balance things, first. It's a very young MMORPG, after all, like you said.

 

Mmmm, most of those posts are a bit old. From a quick perusal of the wildstar subreddit, it doesn't seem to have as many uber negatives as Elderscrolls did at this point of launch.

They've got a free trial promo incoming, http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/news/free-trial-giveaway/ . Community is always gonna make or a break a game for me though. What are your old guildies doing? Are they still playing FFxiv?

Youngish MMO's are best. I absolutely loathe ghost town servers. I like the C.R.E.D.D. system that they're implementing which is like plex for eve online. Basically, people with copious amounts of free time can directly sell their gold for subscription time. This, I feel is a good way to irritate gold farmers and keep game economies vibrant.


Do keep us posted on what game you eventually play.

 

WoW is still good. Leveling can be as grindy as you want (without heirlooms and not spamming dungeons it will be moderately grindy), and group play is facilitated (but again, if you want slow leveling, then recruit a friend aint for you).

There's always a low level playerbase as well, and I don't even know how people exist on the lower half of the sliding scale of skill in WoW, but they do. Despite what people like to say, there's an extraordinarily steep skill curve in wow, and the difference between the best players and the second best players is much larger then you'd think, much less between the best and the meh people. (I speak of this from the point of view of someone in a top 5 US/top 20 world guild, and has hardcore raided since Ulduar).

You could try SWTOR (they still have expansions coming out, though their microtransaction system confused teh hell out of me when I went back to play during a double xp weekend for the lulz), that's an amazingly grindy game that definitely encourages group leveling. Also, the leveling process is far more interesting then actual endgame, and the story is actually the most compelling part of the game. Some classes are less interesting then others (fuck the sage/shadow story), but it is all pretty fun.


Rift is actually still around, and that game is grindy as fuck. Also free. It isn't bad, and with the talent tree system it's actually really dynamic on how your character does his shit, but still keeps to clearly delineated rolls like you want.


But honestly, if you want the best mmo experience, WoW is the way to go simply because if any other mmo comes up with a good idea, wow incorporates it eventually, while no other mmo has the support structure set up to do that.

 

I haven't played it for a while so I guess things might have changed, but from what I remember Lord of the Rings Online fits almost everything you were asking for.

- It's certainly possible to level solo by skipping it, but there's group content all over the place.
- Levelling in LotRO was definitely on the slow end of the scale. And it's really grindy if you're going the free to play route.
- There's only one faction, so PvE rules the day here. PvP is confined to one zone where the opposing faction play entirely different classes based on the monster races.

- It's a traditional, WoW-style MMORPG as far as gameplay goes.
- The art style is realistic. Y'know, considering you're dealing with elves and trolls and shit. The characters are looking a little dated now, but the environments are still beautiful.
- There are four roles - Tank, DPS, Healer and Support - and each class has a primary and secondary role. And secondary actually means secondary. Sure, you can tank things as a Captain or Champion, but you're shit at it compared to a Guardian or Warden.


The only thing I'm not sure about is the low level player base. Low level areas have always seemed fairly busy on the larger servers, but it's difficult to tell how many of those people are actually intending to level through the content to max level and how many are perfectly content with sitting around in Bree-town.

 

The leveling speed one was made in July and the others in June (so up to date), April and March (definitely old, all things considered).

Agreed, but in my experience, communities are rarely as tight and almost never last as long as in a game where group play is pretty much enforced from early levels. If it isn't, in many cases it becomes basically a side thing, rather than intrinsic to the gameplay.

I played FFXI. And very few (two plus an occasional third), as far as I know.

That's the most interesting piece of info I found while researching Wildstar, but there are too many things pushing me away at the moment. We'll see.

Yeah, I want slow and group leveling together. Also, I want a game that makes every level somewhat hard earned, meaning that I want to work hard to gain relatively little (it's probably an absurd notion to most, I know). That rules out the simple "taking it slow" approach. I don't want to take it slow, I want it to be slow. Somewhat gimping myself would work, but there's not gonna be a group of gimps with me. So... is there a solution to this or is WoW just not the game I'm looking for?

I'm tempted to try this, but (and here I'm opening myself up to being lynched) I really don't like the franchise. Maybe I should give it a go anyway...

I played Rift and it really isn't grindy (which makes me worry about your definition of "moderately grindy" for WoW). Also, it's all solo leveling.

I will look into LotRO since I know very little about it and it sounds promising. Thanks, ElDee. Thanks, everyone, actually.

 

Meh, I've played FFXI and LotRO and they're a far cry from each other. You can easily play through LotRO solo if you want where you're pretty much forced to join a group if you want to advance in 11.

 

Yeah, I doubt I'm going to find a MMORPG that forces you to group, unfortunately. That's why I put it as "encouraging" in the opening post.

So, you can easily solo in LotRO (you can easily solo in everything nowadays). But is grouping viable? Is it used? Is it easy? Pretty much the only thing I wouldn't miss of FFXI is how long it sometime took to find a party (although I look back at that aspect nostalgically too...). There was no LFG, for example, but I think every MMO has one such feature now.

 

Actually, Swtor and FFXIV sound like what you want. SWTOR, if it was a single player game rather then an mmo, would have been game of the fucking year. Pair up with a buddy and hit every planet, and you will have a blast. If you don't like the franchise it's not the biggest deal, as the game takes place 3000 years before Episode 4, so lore is significantly different and hasn't quite evolved into what you see in the movies.

In fact, NOT paying the microtransaction fees and playing it for free will actually make the experience even more like you want (less xp, more grinding, having to do everything on a planet including all bonus quests to be at the minimum level to move on without getting faceraped on the next planet). And the various class stories are amazing. I mained a Sith Juggernaut when I played, and the story as leveling was pretty awesome.

Each story is tailored to each class, so you get radically different class quests (which drive the plot on each and every planet you go to, it's not a little side thing, it's the central facet of leveling that character) and thus an extremely different leveling experience each character you play. There are effectively 8 classes in the game (each faction has the same 4 base jobs mirrored onto each other, and each class has 2 advanced classes that you choose one of. One time choice, can't switch it.), and 8 class stories (class story is based on base class, not advanced, so each faction has 4 class quests).

The Agent for example has a really Bond-esque feel to his story, with a lot of spying, counter-intelligence, and other shit going on that I don't want to spoil. His counterpart, the Smuggler, has a freaking hilarious story that's like the comedic relief of the game.

Sith Warrior is all about surviving your master, killing him, and taking his place. Sith Inquisitor is radically different, and iirc you don't even become gain the Darth title as one. The Republic Commando (or whatever the base class is called) has a really cool buddy army story going for it, whereas the Bounty Hunter is exactly what you expect.

It's a really fun game to level in, and meets all your requirements for slow grindy (like without paying money, you level so much slower) while actually being free per month vs havign to pay for conveniences you don't even want. You would probably want the extra bag space, crafting, etc. shit, but you won't have to pay for leveling bonuses.




FF14 is rather similar, except you don't have alts, its all on one character. That one character can switch class at pretty much will, and the classes will all have their own leveling setup, so if your dragoon is lvl 45, you can switch over to black mage and be level 30. Grinding out all your classes is actually hard because you only get all the story/zone quests once, so you actually HAVE to grind out with real time events and such to get xp. Those Real time events (forgot what the game calls em) are a zone thing, so its very social in the sense that a lot of people will be running over to do them with you, becuase its a group activity.

It's a slow progression game too, as far as I remember. Takes a lot of time to gear up at max level.

 

I've no idea if grouping is still common, but it was when I last played. It's certainly viable. As for easy, I guess that depends on how many people are in your zone and how good you are at making friends. There's an LFG system, but I've never seen anyone use it.

Have a look at Dungeons & Dragons Online too. Same developer (Turbine), but with a stronger focus on group content. And it's D&D, so you know those class roles are set in stone. It's an older game though, I'm not sure how busy it is these days.

If you really want a needlessly punishing MMO with forced grouping, you won't find it in any western developer's game. You'll need to try looking at Asian MMOs.

Oh, unless you count Eve?

 

I'm going to recommend Diablo 2 though it probably fits very few of your requirements. Could be that i just recorded a Let's Play of it >_>. Shameless plug.

Firstly, is that it's not technically an mmorpg.

It's an old game, but there's still several tens of thousands of people who play it. A good first time experience is still possible, you just have to wait until the ranked ladder resets. Otherwise, there's going to be a lot of bots. Or, you can do what I did last year, and get a bunch of people from here on DLP who want to revist some nostalgia, and play through the game with them.

The game does encourage group play. Monster difficulty, and monster XP gains, go up with the more characters in a group.

It can be a very grindy game, depending on your own choice. It's completely possible to beat the game with the minimal of grinding (if you have a high level friend), or you can spend a lot of time grinding, going back and rekilling bosses for better gear, or just grinding an area over and over again for XP. Also, levelling from 95-99, not really necessary, but huge time sink. Most people probably do it with bots these days, but it used to be a real feat back in the day.

There game doesn't really rely on the classic archtypes. Instead, each class has its own way to survive, and deal damage, with some being better than others. Barbarians have a better vitality modifier, so they get more max health with each point spent, as well as strength, so they wear heavier armor. Sorcerers can teleport around and cast magic sheilds on themselves to absorb damage, or just not get hit in the first place. amazons will max out their dexterity, or block chance, so they just never get hit. a necromancer can summon an army of skeletons to swarm enemies. At extreme high level though, most classes can pretty much just do what they want, with certain runeword gear (enigma, cough cough)

 

You make a good case for SWtOR, even though a cursory search points to difficulty to find low level players. I'm gonna research it some more, but I'm warming up to the idea, I have to say.

As for FFXIV, what you're referring to when talking about group events is FATE and I saw what it consists of most of the time: people in the same instanced area running around and each basically killing their own mobs. I don't find it very appealing, I have to say. Also leveling is very fast (it's irrelevant that you have many classes/jobs/paths to level if you want).

That's obligatory PvP, no? Not my kind of stuff.

I played Diablo II and it's fun, but not what I'm looking for currently.

 

Not sure about how grindy it is, or how much it requires group play, but you might want to keep an eye on Archeage. It's not out yet, but it looks like it's ramping up to be a pretty damn amazing MMO.

It's got PvP that actually affects the world supposedly, a completely player driven economy, naval combat... It's got lots.

http://www.archeagegame.com/en/

 

It's a really fun game and I'm having a lot of fun with it, but going by what Uncle Stojil asked for there's no way Wildstar should be recommended.

- Grouping is virtually non-existent outside of a few group quests in each zone and endgame instances. Adventures and Dungeons are a lot of fun, but they're nowhere near rewarding enough to be worth doing while levelling up.
- Levelling itself is fast. I did it in around 50 hours of playtime and at least half of that was spent in my housing plot.
- It's not just an action MMORPG, it's the most action of all the action MMORPGs. By far. It makes Neverwinter and TERA look practically turn based.
- The art style (which I adore) can never, ever be argued as anything but cartoony. The writing is clever and the tone is quite dark, but this is absolutely a cartoon world.
- While the classic Holy Trinity of Tank, DPS and Healer does exist in Wildstar, each class is 100% viable as a DPS and one of the two support roles. Hell, you even get a second spec to switch to early on, just to make sure everyone can Tank or Heal.

It's a fantastic game, but the only requirement it fulfils is that there's a very active low level player base. I guess maybe PvE > PvP... but then again, update 2 is adding a new battleground, PvP is currently the best way to get endgame gear and Carbine is already balancing classes around PvP.