Hello again! I've spent most of this
week playing MMO games that are either free, or do not require a
subscription. Well, I just finished playing each game to level 10 so
I thought I'd write down my first impressions of the games. It should
be noted that I'm not trying to prove the superiority of any
particular game. I'm also not trying to review the high end content
such as high level PvP and Raids. I'm just recording my thoughts as I
play these games very casually. This is more for the person that only
wants to spend an hour or a little more a day playing doing mostly
single player questing. Today I'll be reviewing Wildstar, Rift, and
Elder Scrolls Online.
Wildstar :
First up we have a game that I was very
excited to play as it was made by a lot of people that worked at
Blizzard in the past. The game as you'd expect is highly
customizable. If you have the Twitch Desktop app you can
automatically install and keep up to date with several user made mods
that can improve your experience in the game.
During my time with this game I played
as a Mechari Engineer. If I had realized that this was a tanking
class I probably would have picked a different class as I'm pretty
burnt out on tanking for good. However, as a tanking class you can
handle many mobs at the same time without any real fear of being
killed. I did an instance by myself, but I think that was intended.
It did feel nice to take out a flock of monsters with powerful
abilities though. Quest tracking was amazing if you get really lost
you can just click on the quest in the tracker and you'll be provided
with a glowing blue set of arrows to point you in the right
direction.
Graphically the game is great and has a
surprising amount of detail considering how cartoony the game is. I
actually joked with one of my friends that I felt like I was playing
a Sly Cooper MMO. I ran this game on ultra with a GTX 970 and it ran
great never dropping below 30 FPS. The gear is nice and detailed. I
haven't looked into it yet but I'd like to have the option of
coloring my gear later on as it looks mismatched otherwise. In the
end I don't consider the multi colored gear a big negative cause I'm
only like level 12, and the gear is going to change frequently
I had a lot of fun with this one and I
can't wait to review the housing aspect of this game. I've never
played an MMO other than Final Fantasy XI that let you customize your
own space.
Rift:
This one has been around for a while
and I did play it back when it first came out. I will say this. The
customer service is awesome I got locked out by an authenticator on
the account that I had many years ago on an old phone, and the
customer service team at Trion got back to me in about a day and
helped me through the process of removing the device.
Graphically the game looks a little
dated, but the graphics are still very nice. If you're on an older
machine this game has some major late night grind potential. I played
this game with mostly the highest settings on my Nvidia 9500 GT back
in the day. This game is also very customizable so you can link it to
your Twitch Desktop and install mods in a flash.
I actually played this game past level
10 to level 15. At first I felt a little bored by the game but once
you get into the questing grind it gets better. It actually reminds
me of old World of Warcraft where quests were more hub based than
story line based. You go to a hub, and pick up 2 to 5 quests and
explore the zone while completing them. You're going to have to make
good use of the map in the game to get quests done, but that's part
of the fun.
As far as the free to play aspect of
the game I did a little research on the steam store. There's a lot to
purchase to open up every aspect of the game if you want to play end
game PvP and Raids. Looking at the user reviews there are a lot of
people expressing hate for this game because of the huge price tag.
At the end of the day It's not about that for me anyway, so I could
care less. If you're bored and feel like hitting up some MMO style
questing late at night then this game is a pretty solid choice.
The Elder Scrolls Online:
This game is not exactly free to play.
You have to pay for the initial game and you can either buy the DLC
or pay a subscription fee to access all DLC. I'm including it because
there's not subscription fee for basic play. I actually played this
game for 2 months as my main MMO back before I decided not to focus
too much time on them, and play other games, so I have a lot to say
but I'll try to keep it short and sweet here.
One of the great things about this game
is the level of customization. Any class can wear any type of armor,
and there's not really a set spec to play unless you're trying to do
a lot of solo PvP, and be a top end raider. My main character in this
game is an Orc Dragon Knight. At first I was a complete noob at this
game and was using a two handed weapon. I later switched to dual
wield.
This brings me to my next point:
crafting. Crafting is a really big part of the game and it is very
useful. From potions to armor, and enchantments your bag should
always stay stuffed with crafting materials. If having a cluttered
inventory bothers you then subscribe and you'll get a large crafting
bag among other things.
Even though I'm not taking on this MMO
as a hardcore end gamer I hold it in very high regard. I'm going to
play it all the way through for the main story quest and maybe even
go completionist and try to finish every free to play zone. I'll also
say that the game is very close to being an Elder Scrolls 6. If
you're bored with Skyrim give it a try. It's the closest thing to an
Elder Scrolls 6 that we're going to have for a few years.
---
Anyway, these are my first impressions
of the games above. I'll be back in a day or two to talk more about the other
games I've been keeping myself busy with. I'll be reviewing: Arche Age, Firefall, Tera, Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons
Online, Neverwinter, Path of Exile, and Runescape. See ya around!
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