Greetings Gamers!

Like many of you, I have been really enjoying the gaming experience provided by GameTap. This platform has really helped me in a much needed hiatus from total immersion, 3 and 1/2 year gaming adventure in a guild driven MMO game. Now that I have rested, I find myself ready for yet another round of altered reality, but just cannot find the game that presses the envelope of realism/fantasy enough to get excited about. And so I come to you, my fellow gamers, in the hopes that someone may provide the www on a new adventure. Content, Open PvP, minimal 'Toonishness' (no big-eyed anime), and a bot/hack/e-bay free economy are crucial, while genre, galactic location, or time-scape are not important.

Games I've already played and/or sampled :
EverQuest
Eve
LineageII (zomg)
KnightOnline
WoW (pffft)
Star Wars
Camelot

So tell me about the MMO's you folks have played. What did you really think about the experience? Do you belong to a gamers guild of any sort?

Thank You All In Advance!

P.S: Food for thought: GameTap has an outstanding client base, and should GT select some really good MMO's, it would create an entire new access concept to mmo gaming.

Shemptastic, since you appear to be a Gametap member and a fan of MMORPG's, I would suggest you try Myst Online: Uru Live. It is a different kind of MMORPG. It is the online game in the Myst series of games that included Myst, Riven, Exile, Revelation and End of Ages. Take a look at the description of the game in Gametap and watch the Uru 101 video on Gametap.

The basic idea of the game is that the players are explorers called to help with the restoration of an ancient civilization within a cavern deep within the ground under New Mexico. There are fantastic ages that require puzzle solving. It is a nice alternative to the usual shoot em up MMORPG's. It's not everybody's cup of tea, but the ages are quite interesting. The avatar customization allows for you to look as much like yourself as you desire. There is a very active community within the game, and you should find someone to give you assistance in the Guild of Greeters neighborhood or the Beginner's neighborhood (Bevin). There are many Uru related forums dating back to the beginning of the game.

I'm a big fan, having played the offline game in Fall of 2003, and participated in the short-lived first go of Uru Live in early 2004. Gametap stepped up to give the game new life in fall of 2006, and the game was active most all year. They moved to an episodic format for delivering new content in mid year, and have not announced when the new season will begin. You can get more information at the official MOUL website and forum at [http://www.mystonline.com] and [http://www.mystonline.com/forums/index.php]. There's a tremendous amount of information about Uru at the Uru Obsession forum and website at [http://www.uruobsession.com/]

[b]An important note, the game is currently down for a server move, but should be up by the end of the week.[/b]

I've played City of Heroes a good bit and I quite recommend that game. Its a very nice break from the stock fantasy settings of all the Everquests and World of Warcrafts of the world.

I've played Guild Wars for two and a half years now (read: since launch) and I still play it. Great gameplay, beautiful graphics.

I tried Wow, hated it. Boring gameplay, horrid graphics, freakin expensive, 0 skill pvp.

I noticed you said you have played Eve Online.Does that mean you dont anymore?The last expansion (Trinity) is beautiful beyond compare (if you have the system to run it).

Played EQ a bunch.

playing LOTRO at the moment, which is a pretty cool game.

I am still... subscribed to World of Warcraft. (I pay via time cards so I have to make an affirmative action to continue to play.)

There are a few space-based MMOs that are in development. Supposedly they would be more action oriented in combat, but still an RPG at it's hart (kind of like Planetside).

Try Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst (which is playable on a free private server, since the real servers were shut down) or Phantasy Star Universe. Both are pretty fun.

If your looking for what will be a PvP experience far beyond what is now available, check out the upcoming Darkfall Online.
(darkfallonline.com)

I think that the type of PvP involved will negate all the gold sellers, item sellers out there. (Full loot, no safe zones, and more means you can easily lose or gain everything in a minute).

It also based on more "twitch" skill, so even though its an RPG, combat feels more like first person. Casting a fire ball is more aim and shoot, then select a target and push a button...oh and friendly fire is ON...which will get hectic when your sieging a player city with a hundred guild mates.


But until that comes out I admit I still play (and like) WoW. I dont pretend to be all anti-WoW like everyone else out there(who stil probably play). Its an entertaining game if you dont try to get to deep and its the one rare MMO that is accesible and easy enough for my wife to play.

I've played
archlord
World OF Gayness (WOW) for 2 years and was in top notch end game guild. "Wrecked"
Lineage 1-2
Maplestory (Can you play this game more then a day?)
a bunch of other freebes
Diablo 1-2 expansionpack
everquest line
Guild wars

YaYA if your lookin for a good promising game. I would keep an eye out for WarHammer Online (Age of Reckoning) which is due to release in 2008.
They have put alot of time and research into making this MMO with about a year of beta testing and its still going on. Already like 497,037 ppl have applied to beta test it too.
It has content for PVP and Players that find themselfs to dungeon crawl or do quests. Anyhow check the site out and see if it intrests you. Its what im going to geek out on when they finally release. I'm done window shopping on gay lame MMO's. I had a lvl 70 orc warlock on WOW with t6 gear and epic flying mount. Sold that account =) but yea check this out
www.warhammeronline.com

they update the site very often to let you know how close they are to getting done

Tabula Rasa was just released too...Sci-Fi mmorpg

RGTR.com

I played a few MMO's and I still play WoW. It fills the boredom void for abit but it gets old fast.
But here be the list. Yaaarrrr.

1.) Everquest 1 & 2 (Played every expansion for 1.)
2.) Diablo 1 & 2 (Expansion as well.)
3.) Maple story
4.) Ragnarok
5.) Bounty Bay Online (Play & beta tested.)
6.) Puzzle Pirates (Play & beta tested.)
7.) Armada online
8.) Sword of the New World
9.) Archlord
10.) Not sure if it counts but Netdragons. (It may be text based but it was fun to play at school!) lol
11.) World of Warcraft and the Expansion.

I've always said that if i won the lottery I'd pay tog et Earth and Beyond restarted. Sure it wasn't that much different then most RPG's just with a space based skint o it but I liked some fo the experience related ideas and the palyer community was really cool. Speaking of which ahs anyone heard of any player run servers for that? I heard EA killed a few in the cribs but didn't know if they were still doing so.

Planetside for me will always be the little game that shoulda coulda woulda. Great potential but like all SoE stuff lousy execution. The bases themselves arn't defensable and that really takes a lot of the fun out of when it becomes less squad tactics and more of a pure numbers game. Also they didn't even try and balance some of the playstyles and their fixes (yay mechs in a FPS) was rather dumb.

Let's see if I can remember all the ones I've played at one time or another, in no particular order

EverQuest
Dark Age of Camelot
World of Warcraft
Vanguard
Myst Online: Uru Live
Star Wars Galaxies
D&D Online
Jumpgate
Planetside
A Tale in the Desert
Puzzle Pirates
The Sims Online (but only while it was in free beta, lol)

And back in the days before the term "MMORPG" had been invented, I used to play BatMUD.

I think that's all of them :)

Of these, I'm currently playing Vanguard and Uru. Hard to say which one's my favorite - a lot of these were my favorites at the time I was playing them, but even still, I don't feel motivated to go back to them for a variety of reasons. Each of them (well... maybe not all) has strengths and weaknesses, and in a few cases the strengths were replaced with weaknesses or vice versa, influencing my decision to play or quit. I could go into detail, but it'd be a very very long post ;)