So I'm gonna be getting back into one shortly. Here's what I'm looking at:
Galaxies/JtL; I already own galaxies, and JtL looks fun. Bear in mind that I'm one of those rare people who genuinly enjoyed galaxies, so I'm basically asking for a comparison of what it's like now compared to the state it was at 2 or 3 months after vehicles were added.

FFXI: Betad for a few weeks, seen some people play it. It looks fun, pros/cons?

WoW: Heard it's great, but also kind of a timesink. Love the art-style though.

CoH: Honestly, this doesn't look all that appealing to me...but still taking it into consideration.

And if anyone can offer other suggestions, that'd be great. Right now I'm leaning towards Galaxies or WoW. Bear in mind when offeering suggestions or whatnot that the actual role-playing aspect of a game is very important to me, as is PvP.

THANKS IN ADVANCE!!!

Crpss CoH off the list, it's just not worth it. All it was was a filler until WoW came out. I'd say go with WoW. I can't imagine even thinking about playing SWG again, it was that bad to me...

I'm greatly enjoying WoW. It isn't a timesink except unless you make it one. I got sucked in my first week but I've calmed down now. I'm still having fun, but I can set work first and play in my free time. Rested experience really keeps you from being boned from not having enough playtime. I recommend it.

I've been playing Galaxies, it's pretty fun. I bought JTL about 3 weeks ago.

havent' had much time to play it cause of work but i play on the weekends alot. dunno what's changed but my buddies are jealous cause i get stuff as a newb that they never got. XD

oh btw i play on starsider

WoW!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(I'm such a fanboy :()

No stomach, interesting.

I didnt like WoW taht much. Although it was a nice feature, I didn't like the whole when you die you have to literally walk miles upon miles just to get to your body to revive it thing.


I'm waiting anxiously for Middle Earth Online and Matrix ONline.

Middle Earth Onlin being my preferred one,is gonna rock WoW offthe block.

Replace miles and miles with a couple. The farthest I've had to corpse run was from the middle of the map to a top corner, which still isn't too far.

It's really down to FFXI and WoW, two completely, COMPLETELY different games.

FFXI is a team based game. You cant get anything done without a party of a few people (4-6), and most of the more advanced stuff take large alliances (12-18), and alot of the "End Game Bosses" take around 18-32 people. This leads to a more communitive nature than you see in WoW, as people are forced to work together to achieve a common goal. You can not solo to increase in level, only 1 job really can. The game has a deep job system, which allows you to change your job whenever you want, without any consequences what-so-ever, and along with the subjob system (Equal to half the level of your current job), it allows for alot of freedom in terms of characther creation.

WoW is more of an "alone" game. You can get from 1-60 without ever talking to another human ever. Sure, you can team up if you wish, but thats not required. The feel of a "community" is limited to "WHO WANTS TO GO TO XXXX DUNGEON FOR XXXX QUEST!!!!111" or limited to your guild.
The Guild structure in WoW is much more structured then in FFXI. You join a guild, you get a tabard and thats it, you cant switch, you stay or leave. In FFXI, its a more freeform guild system in the terms of "Linkshells". Basically little chat rooms/guilds. You can switch your linkshell at any time, but the system of a LS leader, sackholders (Those who can give out pearls to join the LS) and regular members allows for a guild to create. Most people at the higher levels have 3 or 4 linkshells. (Usually 1 High Level players LS, which work together on a daily basis to do high level quests, or take out the huge notorious monsters for leet loot, 1 Dynamis Linkshell (A high level, alternate dimension of the main towns), and 1 or 2 chat linkshells, with friends.)

So... FFXI = Communitive, WoW = More solo geared.

Any other questions about FFXI, please ask, I've played FFXI for a year now, and WoW for only about 2 months (I quit, wasnt my style of game)

Also, if you start, I can get you on my server, and get you on my linkshell to start you off on the right foot ^_^.

I dunno.. I've found WoW to be VERY communicative. If you've played on a PvP server, you'll know what I mean. Huge raids of 40 people is always fun, and you obviously need to communicate.

Also, in FFXI, teaming up is needed don't care what. It's reccomended in WoW because the (elite) quests and instances can't easily be done until you're nearly double the level of the mobs inside, or you have a LOT of patience. FFXI you stand there asking for a group, and not getting things done. If you're doing a quest and happen to find someone there in WoW, ask them to join your party and it'll get done twice as fast. Soloing in a lot of areas in WoW requires a lot of pulling enemies on your own, and hoping that things don't aggro you. If you are a rogue or druid with cat form, this means stealthing into enemey territory then waiting in a corner for a monster or whatever to walk away from the main group. This can take a LONG time.

There are also the high level instances, where you simply can't solo. I'd love to see someone take on Onyxia by themselves. Hah.

*Cough Ragnarok Online*

Intensely popular throughout the world right now (Easily beats FFXI, WoW, and CoH), and a lot of fun.

The best thing about the game is the fact that they give updates about every month. Now these aren't small wimpy updates, we're talking whole new cities and dungeons, with spell adjustments, graphics improvements, new quests, etc. You'll never run out of things to do.

However, a lot of people here seem to think the game is crap, but you can play a trial of it for 15 days without paying, something you might want to look into. Just go to http://iro.ragnarokonline.com

---------------

Otherwise, I recommend FFXI. WoW is just way too much like Diablo for its own good, in my opinion.

How is WoW like Diablo where Guild Wars is not...

WoW isn't devided into 'acts' where you are forced to go to a certain area, WoW isn't a bunch of seperate games, it's a huge world.

WoW has more classes, it has races, it has factions, it has guilds, it has quests that don't involve running by huge numbers of enemies, chugging potions and killing a 'final boss' in a couple hits.

Honestly I had more fun playing CoH than I am playing WoW. WoW is great and I'm enjoying it muchly, dont get me wrong, guess it's just the subject matter. Being a superhero was cool

It's also hard to play WoW with friends, unless you start at exactly the same time. Firstly if one of you wants to go Horde and the other Alliance you cant even talk to each other. Secondly, if there's more than 3 or 4 levels between you then you'll never get the chance to group. CoH was awesome like that, any levels could play together. With WoW, I find it rather frustrating.

I'd get JtL. If not for just the Veteran Reward (Luxary Ship). It's a 6 month reward on top of the new 3, 6, 12 month verteran rewards (and soon to come 24 month reward).

The Jedi system is much better. There's now a streamlined, non holo-grinding, system to becoming a Jedi in place. However, be warned, your looking at a min of 20 weeks to get Jedi Initiate (If you don't have any free unlocks from doing 3+ Holo professions).

The GCW major update is in Test Center now. It removes Temporary Enemy Flags (TEF) and makes major changes to the GCW in general. For example, there's no long Overt and Covert. It's now PvP or PvE. If your in a faction, you'll be attacked by the opposing faction NPC's requardless of your choice of Special Forces or Combatant. Luckily, you can now also go On Leave and become temporarily neutral (until you attack an opposing faction Player or NPC). Planetary control will now be determined by a point system and major cities will now actually switch affiliation (Some cities will remain the same, for example, Theed will remain Imperial and Coronet will remain Rebel). Banners will be replaced to represent which faction controls the city (though, during a switch in faction, even though the new banners are showing, the old NPC personel of the opposing faction still has to be flushed out and will be replaced by the new controling faction NPC's). Also, police forces such as CorSec will act as an extention to whatever faction controls the city (as far as support and scans). Cantina's will be raided far more often by the controling faction NPCs. From my understanding, the point system is largely determined by how many factional bases are on the planet with the PvP factional bases representing the largest amount of points. Factional bases will still be taken down the same way except that PvE players cannot take out a PvP base.

Not sure how long it's been since you played, but you can now ride bantha's and Cu'pa's.

On top of the major GCW publish, there is a very large Combat Upgrade Beta that will be starting soon. With tons more weapons added to the game, as well different classes (which will play heavy in the GCW as it could determine what type of factional armor your eligible for...including (but not limited too) imperial scout armor). It's also supposed to finally balance out combat across the board.

Haha, Middle Earth online is going to be terrible, I'd put money on that. Cheap knockoff, now in MMO form!

Matrix Online has more promise, it could easily be CoH style and be quite successful, but I wouldn't expect too much from it.

The serious players are EQ2 and WoW, and both are very good.

World Of Warcraft.
Or if you're the grouping kind of person, EQ2.
Both are great games.

I got FFXI and I love it. Fishstickz preaches, but join Kujata. It's a lot better.

Pfft... Ragnarok and DVAS pwn you.

DVAS = Deadly Viper Assaination Squad = My Linkshell

When me an' Tom created charactrers, we wanted to land on Ragnarok. It housed Ian McConville.

Anyway, yeah. 'Tis a good game.

What level are those who play FFXI?

I just hit 58 RNG/NIN

Stop making me post. I'm a 42BLM/21RDM on me way to getting AF1.

I'm currently playing WoW and I'm very much enthralled with the whole game. I love always having quests to do and I belong to a very large guild. Though I don't party often, there is always a helping of people looking to do quests you are also trying to complete..

I played CoH for a month. It was cool being a superhero, but it wasn't something I found as engrossing.

SWG didn't interest me at all, and I love Star Wars.... I just couldn't get into it at all.

FFXI: Fishstickz pretty much summed it up. I played FFXI during the PS2 beta, and then again when the game launched. I quit last summer since I couldn't continue playing with school coming up. I really loved FFXI. I'm such a fanboy of the FF games, but I made some cool friends through the game and even now I still talk to them. You _have_ to party or you'll be screwed. I spent hours in Valkrum Dunes (Bloody sandbox) trying to get a decent party. But no matter how bad it gets there are always really great players out there.

WoW or FFXI, you can't go wrong.

EQ2 is too volatile for me. 3 months into the game, they COMPLETELY changed crafting. It isn't even recognisable as how it was at launch. They completely, I mean completely overhauled a major aspect of the game with little notice. It pisses me off. And damn, Friend14, you're starting to make SWG sound good. Stop it.

You can play WoW either soloing most of the way or grouping most of the way. It doesn't favor one way over the other. One thing that influences how often you find a group with is your faction and class. On all the servers except Illidan there is a substantial Alliance majority, so being Alliance would be better for grouping(but this also comes with more lag at the auction house). Also, if you want to do mostly grouping, being a priest or druid(and shaman and paladin to a lesser extent) makes you very valuable in groups since you are a primary healer and fewer people play those classes than any other. If you want to solo more, be a hunter or warlock (and to a lesser extent Mage and Rogue). These classes are very good at soloing. However, any class is pretty good soloing and in groups as long as each person knows how to play their character(ie Warriors are NOT damage dealers and Rogues are NOT tanks).

lol, can't anyone come up with unique class names anymore? All those classes are in EQ and daoc.

Yes, I want an Oompa Loompa class. You'd stab people with chocolate daggers.

Can't EQ get original class names any more? *cough D&D*

Some good information here, but I'm still very torn between SWG/FFXI/WoW.

I've played ragnarok for quite a while (not very lately, though), and I just couldn't get into it. It was very much like diablo to me. I enjoyed it but wouldn't play much longer than the free trial anyways.

One of the big things to me is not having to use a credit card. I know SWG has playcards, do WoW and FFXI?
And even if I do end up with WoW or FFXI, I'll be doing SWG once that combat patch hits too .... oh god

Teamplay is also important to me (opens up many doors for RPing), and so in that aspect of things FFXI appeals to me.

Hmmmmm any more opinions out there?

That's why I like iRO. They have some really original classes.

First you have your basic classes like most games:

Swordsman
Theif
Archer
Acolyte
Mage
Merchant (Haven't seen this class in other games)

Then you have the advanced classes from those:
Swordsman -> Knight
Swordsman -> Crusader (Newie)
Mage -> Wizard
Mage -> Sage (Newie in the sense of how they work. They got some wacky and cool spells :D)
Archer -> Hunter (Really supercool archer, with a falcon :D)
Archer -> Bard (Males only. Plays songs, just like FFXI.)
Archer -> Dancer (Females only. Newie. Dances to boost stats. Can do ensembles with Bard to do really powerful spells, including one of the most prized: "Mental Sensing" which boosts experience by 180%)
Merchant -> Blacksmith (I think this is a newie, but it's cool.)
Merchant -> Alchemist (I think this one is too. Makes potions, which are highly valued because they are much cheaper than store-bought versions.)
Thief -> Assassin (My fav. Freakin awesome duel-weilding character class that has sweet stealth moves and attacks.)
Theif -> Rogue (Before WoW ripped them off, but he's really different. He's like a pimped out version of a thief, with much more stealing skills. He also has a fairly varied amount of spells, allowing to be a swordsman, an archer, or an assassin pretty well. Not to mention, it has a spell called "Gank". How awesome is that? :D)
Acolyte -> Priest (The usual healing job. Interestingly, they make good tanks at higher levels)
Acolyte -> Monk (Hardcore hand-to-hand fighters. These guys are able to perform combos (like game recognized ones, one is called Asura for example), and oftentimes are close to death. Their skills become more powerful at lower HP levels, which is why a fully healed monk is rare.)
Novice -> Super Novice (Basically a class for those who like things hard. Super Novices can use a lot of spells from all sorts of classes, but have much weaker stats. When you see these guys, you know its a hardcore player.)

Aside from all that, the thing that seperates RO from most games is the amazing variety of spells. Each class has 10-15 skills to use, which get built upon when going to advanced classes. This means one person can accumulate up to 30 skills, all of which are completely unique. The sort of spells you see in iRO you won't see in any other game. About the only spells even partly related are the early Mage spells, but those go old quickly.

<3 iRO & FFXI

WoW has gamecards, 60 days for 30 dollars. Dunno about EQ2

Also, there are server dedicated to role playing, just.. leave the general chat, there is little to none there.

SOE has gamecards that cover multiple games. I got one that works for EQ2, EQ, and PlanetSide all at once. Once you use it for one game, you can't use it for the others though. :p

FFXI doesnt have game cards, but you could use a visa buxx card, that works well.

World of Warcraft.

I Don't know how far SWG has come since 8ish+ months ago, but after playing that terrible game for 1..5 years, I can honestly say it was a waste of my time. At times, it was fun, but the fact that it took like 1-2 years for it to get this far, and have this many changes, only means that hte game was basically...unfinished. SEriously, from when it first came out, there is what, like a gig or two of updates? Absolutely ridiculous. Even if it is a better experience, I'm never going to do some crappy game where I spend 2-3 weeks nonstop to get mastering entertainment or dancing BS. I mean seriously, that's not even fun, it's like playing Progress Quest, the game where the whoel game was run on its own, you jsut let the program run while your computer was on.

WoW is my choice. CoH was sweet, but I never got past like level 10 or 15, then my subscription ran out.

WoW has been definately the best MMORPG I've seen. It does take alot of time to play, but at least you don't regret the time spent playing like you would in SWG. Wow is fun, it's diverse, it's vast, it's fun, it has very few flaws, it has enough to surprise you even at later levels, and it's just allaround a unique experience that is better than the likes of many other MMORPG's... in my experience anyway.

So to conclude, I'd have to say: Get Graal.

Why would you master dancer or musician when it wasn't fun? That sounds like a personal issue to me.

And yes, graal is also a consideration as you get graal classic unlimited for free after you subscribe....dunneh though

World of Warcraft 100%. It really is the best MMORPG I have ever played. It's one of the only MMO's that I am never bored with.

I've played

WWII Online
DAoC
SWG Trial
EQ Trial
Runescape
PlaneShift
Beta Tested Lineage II

I've never stuck to any of these games, and what made me stick to WoW initially was...the trial. So it'd be unfair not to mention that it at least drew me in.

I've had it about 2 weeks and I'm showing no lack of interest, only lack of obsession from the first week. I like this MMOG very much.