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What's a good mmorpg for a first-timer? Anybody play Eve Online or Starcraft?
I'm looking for something fun and relaxing after poker. Preferably space themed, good back story, open-ended.
Do you like mmorpg's? Are they fun or a massive time sink? Never tried one but thinking of trying EVE online.
I've never got into them because I always assumed they were both.Quote:
Originally Posted by abelardx
Yeah that's what I thought too. But I keep coming back to thinking about it. I used to play chess which is a massive time sink too. The problem with chess is you never really get much better which is discouraging. Eve Online looks suitably complicated.Quote:
Originally Posted by d0zer
Here's a thought... volunteer at a local organization that helps people in need. Like rape victims, or homeless people, or hungry people. It's nearly all the things you are looking for: Massive issue, Multiple people, you can even take on an alter ego... ya know, somebody that actually gives a shit about other people. You might feel good for legitimate reasons, and not just because your green bar is slightly higher than it used to be... granted, it's probably still a bit of a time sink.
/rant
and, no, this in now way is directed at you personally I'm just yelling at the world. Good luck with your game!
Pretty sure he's looking for a game to fit in around his altruistic activities. They aren't mutually exclusive.Quote:
Originally Posted by kingnat
That said, you go feed the stinky hobos and I'll go slay some orcs
Pretty sure I said this:Quote:
Originally Posted by Luco
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and, no, this in no way is directed at you personally I'm just yelling at the world.
I actually want to do this in the UK, any suggestions for good causes to look into?Quote:
Originally Posted by kingnat
edit - Sorry for continuing the derail.
Anybody played any mmorpg's? Did you like it? What are some good ones?
Point taken, Nat, but that's a separate issue.
If you're Catholic you might check out the Catholic Worker. I enjoyed working with them. You will see some crazy shit. There are invisible people out there who are basically stray dogs. I don't know if they're in the UK though, probably.Quote:
Originally Posted by ImSavy
edit: You don't have to be Catholic.
I don't know of specific groups in the UK. It's usually not too hard to find something, but if you want to be a bit more selective, i.e., an organization who provides food/shelter/counseling/support without throwing jeebus in your face, it sometimes takes a little more looking. Good on ya!Quote:
Originally Posted by ImSavy
It's true that mostly churches do this kind of thing. Most don't evangelize when they do outreach though. The Catholic Worker doesn't. Do you live in a city? Do you ever see impromptu bread lines? Ask them who they're with. Probably it'll be a church/synagogue/temple. Maybe not though.
I don't mind the derail. It's a worthy topic. But if you do have a favorite mmorpg or have ever played EVE Online please give a shout. I'm curious about other people's opinion before investing any real time and/or using up the free trial.
I played that Star Wars one a couple years ago. It's space themed and it was pretty fun. Supposedly it's free now too.
I don't know how it stacks up against other MMORPGs though because I'm not a fan of that game genre, it was just a Christmas present I received so I naturally tried it out.
Eve online is extremely good but it is an incredibly complex game in which you can never hope to do "everything." It demands specialization and there's a period of time where one has to "pay one's dues." The impatient gamer will find this tiring. I have a several year old character and there are still only a few of the myriad options that I can do well.
My favorite thing about EVE is the hyper-realistic and robust economy. Nearly every item in the game is produced exclusively by players. All of the subscribers play (and trade) on the same server, unlike other games like world of warcraft. The WOW and D3 auction houses are a joke compared to the EVE market. My second favorite thing is that there are harsh consequences for death. It is quite easy to lose your ship and it SUCKS to lose your ship. You aren't whisked away to a graveyard where you can then roam around the spirit realm to find your corpse with your entire inventory intact. You lose that ship and all the cargo and equipment, and if you get your escape pod blown up you literally die which has even harsher consequences.
Yeah I read they hired an economist to help with the in-world economy. That was really cool and one of the things that got me excited about it. That and the recent accounts of the mega-battle involving a couple hundred thousand real-life participants.
came here to say renton favored eve and i favored wow at earlier points in life
Diablo looks interesting. That's really the same thing as WoW right? But just with a different world/backstory?
With WoW you start off playing PvE and do quests, and then maybe later try PvP? What happens if you die? Do you get an unlimited number of characters as long as you have a subscription?
EVE looks like it's always player vs player right from the start. EVE seems to be a little more 'meta' with more of an emphasis on trading and group play than WoW. That's my impression from reading about it anyway. Also it seems like in EVE the little stuff is more automated, like moving around the world. You tell your ship you want to orbit a planet and it just goes there. Maybe WoW is like that too.
Hmm I'm just going to have to try these. I've never done them before so it should be pretty cool. I'll probably do the free trials for Diablo and EVE.
Diablo isn't an mmorpg, its just an action-rpg with co-op and trading. MMO's are generally persistent worlds, i.e. life goes on after you log off. EVE takes the persistent world concept to its logical conclusion, as many things in the game take hours, days, even weeks.
When you die in WoW you are inconvenienced slightly for like 5-15 minutes. And if you have a warlock in your party you can resurrect so its only a problem when the whole party gets wiped out. WoW is a pretty fun game but its not pvp oriented at all and the quests are repetitive and not particularly rewarding. Crafting and trading are really dumbed down. It's just a grind to get experience and loot.
EVE is pvp-dominated but there are vast swaths of space that have security; computer-controlled ships that insta-pwn you for aggressing someone who you aren't formally at war with and who hasn't agreed to a duel. Secure space isn't 100% safe though, very often people use cheap ships to "suicide gank" people who travel through secure space with precious cargo. But long story short, if you aren't interested in pvp there's still a lot to do. The grindy aspects of WoW don't really exist in EVE. In EVE your character advances passively over time. Grinding tons of hours of time will only allow you to accumulate money or items, but it will still take real time to advance your character's skills.
Attachment 591Quote:
Originally Posted by kingnat
Cool, thanks for the info, Renton.
I stress tested WoW before it's release. I was incredibly bored. I just didn't get the appeal at all. I just got the feeling that the open world was an interactive lobby with mini games. The actual game came in the form of instanced dungeons. I couldn't get over this glaring loophole that seemed to be an excuse to charge you $15 a month. I thought it was going to be like Diablo, just bigger and better, but it just wasn't. Sure there were big expanses, but the detail in those expanses was sorely lacking.
I also beta tested Eve Online. Now that is a remarkable game. I didn't stick with it, because I never really found a Corp I clicked with, but even in the early days with a lot less of the game implemented than is today, it was pretty much amazing. One server for all players, almost entirely player driven, absolutely massive-- probably the only true sandbox MMO (WWII Online was close, but it's been offline for a long time.) If you want to be a pirate, you don't go find some NPC to talk to who will give you a "pirate" quest. You just go find a merchant convoy (which is comprised of actual players) and fucking rob them. Corporate espionage? Gain trust and status in your corporation, then sell out to the competition. I mean, the possibilities are just endless.
All that being said, like Renton mentioned, it is not a game for someone who just wants to tune out. Roleplaying is essentially a must. They give you the framework, and an excellent one at that, but you need to create your own missions, excitement, entertainment, etc within the framework. There is a fairly steep learning curve, and it requires a good bit of time dedication.
I also saw you mentioned Starcraft, presumably you were talking about Starcraft2. This is not an mmorpg, but playing some Bronze League ladder could be the perfect fix for you. Starcraft can be a time sink if you want it to be, but with the way they have ladder setup, you can also compete casually.
Thanks, boost. I'm going to try out the EVE Online free trial. I've been looking at some of the FAQs. OMG that is a lot of information.
I can't speak for mmorpg's, but I do see a good bunch of people switching from those to league and dota. You loose the universe, but what you gain is a lot depth. I hesitate to say strategical depth because a lot of it is just hand eye coordination and memorizing the most stupidly convoluted damage system in all of computer games, but I digress.
You don't build guildes. As you play games you can add people to your steam friends who you enjoy playing with, and those who you don't enjoy playing with you call a 'gg noob uninstall now pls faggot', as is customary.
Starcraft 2 is the best competitive game ever made and it can be hugely rewarding, however it has the highest skill cealing which reads: you'll be pudding around bottom 20% for hundreds of hours, if not forever, AND you'll know it because the game tells you that you suck by rewarding you with a bronze badge of shame. Great esport, but not a social game.
Starcraft hype:
Dota hype:
Wow there's a lot of options. When I was a kid there was only D&D with the icosahedral dice or whatever it was. Now you have all these awesome games with physics engines and all that riding the wave of modern computation. It's like an interactive Hollywood movie really. In the future you'll put on a helmet and actually be there. No one will take the red pill except to come out and eat and make babies.
I used to play WoW ages ago and it's a very good game. The PvE in the end game (when you hit max level) was great, difficult, and well thought out. Playing in big raid groups of 16 people and working together to try and defeat dungeons was good fun. Yes, it was repetitive, but it was still very enjoyable. You can do a lot of PvP stuff too, in arenas and battlegrounds, although it's less natural and inbuilt into the game than eve even on a PvP server. If I wanted to play an MMORPG again it would definitely be WoW
If you play EVE, try not to follow my example and fall into the trap of only staying in secure space and running missions. I missed a lot of what is fun about the game. Your best bet is to spend the first 4-6 weeks learning how to fly a specific ship reasonably well and then joining a corporation right away. The best way to experience everything is to be in a group of people with diverse backgrounds, as in real life. Trying to be a jack of all trades will just delay the time when you will actually be good at something.
Is it a must for it to be an MMORPG? Check out the Don't Starve thread, a great game that will kill at least a couple of weeks while you decide on a game
I had a girlfriend that played that fish breeding game where you try to breed the magic fish or something. That was the first time I'd seen a game where events happened in real time. It sounds boring but it was really captivating.
I'm going to check out the EO trial after this weekend but honestly I probably won't subscribe because of other projects I need to complete. My goals with trying Eve are twofold: 1. play an mmorpg and see what the fuss is all about (I expect it to be pretty cool), and 2. virtually fulfill my unattainable real-life goal of floating around in space and gawking at the cosmos, kinda like the presence in Schismatrix.
Any tips on which race to join? I'd be more interested in exploration than politics I think. I was thinking of joining the Caldari because they sound like Zaibatsu which is pretty cool, maybe do exploration/mining. I'd like to be a Jovian but those are only NPC right?
MMOs are shit though unless you dedicate time to them, you aren't going to get anywhere in a couple of weeks. I have half heartedly played WOW twice now and both times it's been boring because I've not got to level 80 which is where the game begins.
What race you choose isn't all that relevant, it just determines where your initial few days worth of skill points get distributed. From there you can learn whatever racial skills you want.
Caldari is the most popular. Caldari primarily uses missiles and missiles are very user-friendly. Missiles allow you to choose exactly which damage type you want to do which is a plus. Caldari ships are strong for PVE (missions, etc). Caldari also has the best electronic warfare ships. Most caldari ships shield-tank meaning they use shield boosters or passive shields to mitigate damage. This is as opposed to armor tanking which is more dangerous and has less room to make mistakes. Caldari ships look the most "conventional."
Amarr ships are pretty good at everything, they use laser turrets and drones primarily to do damage and usually armor tank. Lasers don't have much flexibility in choosing damage type but do very high damage. Amarr ships look monolithic and minimalistic. Amarr has strong pvp ships.
Minmatar ships are the fastest. Most minmatar ships uses projectile turrets which are medium-strength and have a lot of flexibility in damage type as there are many different types of ammo. Many minmatar ships also use missiles. About half the minmatar ships shield tank and the other type armor tank, and on some ships you can go either way. For this reason Minmatar is criticized for being too skill intensive and lacking focus, but by the same token its a more flexible race. Minmatar ships look like makeshift steampunk scrapheaps, but they have a lot of the coolest looking ships imo. Minmatar is very strong for pvp as well.
Gallente ships are pretty good at everything like Amarr, and specialize in drones and hybrid turrets (which are like a 50/50 of projectile and laser turrets). Most gallente ships armor-tank. Their ships look smooth and organic.
I'mSavy makes a good point. You spend the first like month in WoW just levelling to get to end game. Sure, it's fun, but it's also a massive time sink where you're waiting to be max level so you can take advantage of all the cool stuff like raiding etc. I imagine EVE is the same
I really enjoy Firefall. It's an early beta but they have a good community and it's not all about massively leveling up. You actually get different frames you progress with new guns, abilities, etc but most of the in world activities and missions don't require you to be highly progressed. Just makes it easier and more badass.
While out of date content wise (many improvements since then), this is a good overview.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTuoqthVhok
And an objective review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEJqx5ZbbY0
It's not really the same. In eve you're limited by real time more than anything else. You don't have to grind to level 80 to have fun, but you do need to wait a few weeks of real time before you're competitive at something. For example to get a battleship flying skill from level 1 to 5 takes about 6 weeks. This might seem worse in away but it sort of forces you to do things within your paygrade while you wait to get to the advanced stuff. That said, within a few days you can have skill enough to be a valuable asset to a crew. To fly a small ship well takes virtually no time at all, its the highly specialized stuff that takes weeks or months to arrive to.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pascal
OK I am now a Caldari Achura monk graduate of the School of Applied Science named Abelard Lindze. Woot!
Strange how no one mentioned SWTOR
*School of Applied Knowledge
Don't gank me bro!
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Originally Posted by Jack Sawyer
http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i1...psea65bc1c.jpgQuote:
Originally Posted by Galapogos
OK So I tried Eve Online. Not very much but at least I now have some minimal experience with an mmorpg.
Results:
It's cool. I can see how many people like it. Personally though I didn't care for it and I probably won't try any more. It's just too much like real life but without any real life payoff. I'm going back to learning programming, and I'm also really interested in bird watching, classical music, and most recently ballet. I should be spending all my non-poker time learning data analysis but tbh it's not that fascinating.
I'm becoming increasingly convinced this is one of the best things anyone with their spare time.Quote:
Originally Posted by abelardx
Yeah, I didn't want to completely piss on your dreams of finding solace in an MMO, but when it's all said and done, video games do seem like just a huge huge time sink with relatively no redeeming qualities...Quote:
Originally Posted by abelardx
I would probably love these games if I was retired or set for life or something like that, but right now I just feel guilty about it.
Codecademy looks cool. I've heard good things about them. Mostly I've been taking a lot of programming mooc's. I really got excited about learning programming when I took Peter Norvig's Udacity mooc. It was all in Python but very challenging for a newcomer like me. Since then I've worked most of the exercises in SICP using Racket. It's kinda died since I got back into poker though. Check out my learn programming blog http://prigoginic-leap.blogspot.com/
I'm incredibly biased but I would go for python. You can do web dev (django) or you can do heavy data analysis via pandas. It's quite versatile. I'm by no means an expert, but if you have any question feel free to post them here.
Python is such a great language, I wish people had heard of it when I first learned to code so I coulda learned an actually useful language.
I'm leaning towards learning data analysis using a Python/R setup. My dream is to do prediction modeling and maybe use machine learning algorithms to do sports betting. Kinduva moneyball thing. It's been put on hold for a bit since poker re-entered the picture but I'll get back into it. First step: do a kaggle competition.
Two words. Ipython notebook. GG.
http://nbviewer.ipython.org/4121857
If you learn one language you've learned them all. With Google and StackOverflow it takes no time to find a new languages equivalent of a function from your old language. Within a week that new languages syntax starts becoming comfortable.Quote:
Originally Posted by d0zer
You probably already know that, just putting it out there for those afraid of starting with the wrong language.
I read an interesting Wired (I think?) article about a guy that did this. It sounds intense, but was pretty cool. Iirc the problem is with the advances he makes the odds makers are not too far behind so it's harder to find holes in their predictions each year. If I find it I'll come back and post it.Quote:
Originally Posted by abelardx
What you're saying is obviously true to an extent, but I will say that if you've been working with a mature language for years and run across code written by mr "comfortable in a week", there will inevitably be much cringing. Especially if python was their first language and they're a week into c++. Less so the other direction as the learning curves are different.Quote:
Originally Posted by Galapogos
You really think you find a lot of cringe worthy stuff from a guy that can code but just isn't familiar with the language? I tend to find a good coder might take the long way around sometimes in a language they're not familiar with because they aren't aware a certain utility function might exist. But the logic is still sound so not really anything I think is awful.
Unless you mean something like a php coder tries his hand at c++ and the result is ugly because he's used to the sloppy style allowed by php then I definitely see your point. But that's more the result of a sloppy programmer, php might have enabled it, but there's no reason someone cutting their teeth on php can't or shouldn't learn how to code properly.
Tl;dr: I guess I see your point.
Everyone I've ever considered to be a "good coder" has had at least a year or two of experience with the big languages (C++, Java, python) so I suppose the hypothetical is moot.
You could always tell him to learn lisp ((((((((())))))))))) :)