Wanted: Suggestions for the Saturday Night Game May 13, 2011
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, EverQuest II, Instance Group, Lord of the Rings Online, World of Warcraft.trackback
The Saturday night instance group had committed itself to EverQuest II Extended a few weeks back.
And then came the great haxoring of Sony and the disappearance of all SOE games from the face of the internet.
Raptr shows total playtime for EQ2X in the last week as “two minutes,” and I am not sure how somebody got that much time to register. You generally have to get past the launcher for Raptr to start counting time, and you can’t really get by the launcher these days.
So the game of choice will not be available to us, a couple of us… well, Potshot and I, the usual suspects… are looking for something else for the group to play on Saturday night while we wait for SOE to return, and I am throwing it open for suggestions.
There are some parameters around what game will be acceptable.
- The game should seat at least five, and ideally, six players. Meclin might come along.
- Those five or six players should be able to play as a group. No repeat of our Battlefield Heroes experience where we were all playing, but not in the same match.
- The game should not use up a significant percentage of our 3 hour play budget installing or patching. This lets out most of the competing MMOs, so if you were going to chime in with Rift yet again, save it. We’d be installing and patching all evening.
- The game should be free or relatively inexpensive. I think we would all throw down $5-10 for something good, but beyond that it would have to really sell us.
With those parameters in mind, who has a choice idea?
The default answer for the group would be to head back to WoW. It has been the main game for the group for most of the last four years. I would guess that most of our accounts are still active.
However, as a group we live in the shadow of WoW and its smooth and responsive interface. One of the reasons I doubt we will ever go back to LOTRO as a group is that it does feel rough around the edges and somewhat awkward when you are used to WoW. LOTRO would be an option for us. We all have it installed. It is free to play. But WoW is forever the yardstick for us on these sorts of things, and LOTRO’s feel doesn’t measure up for part of the group.
I fear that the same thing would come to pass if we went back to WoW before we got ourselves invested as a group in EverQuest II. With the awkwardness we have faced running New Halas as a group, going back to WoW could kill Norrath as an option.
And, to be selfishly honest, I want to play EQII with a static group! I want to succeed or fail based on how we do outside of New Halas, not because the UI isn’t as silky smooth as Blizzard would make it.
Anyway, since it appears that SOE will be down again this weekend, we are looking for another destination and I am looking for one that won’t derail our Norrathian adventures and leave us back in Azeroth.
So who has a suggestion?
Potshot and I have been exploring the possibility of playing Risk online, so don’t think the game has to be anything hardcore. Simple fun would work.
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Toril Diku MUD.
Age of Conan?
@Gaff – You know, we talked about that, Potshot and I. We talked, we laughed, we agreed never to consider that option again. You and I and Potshot, yes. The rest of the group, not so much.
@Spinks – I am going to take a wild guess that AoC isn’t going to make the cut when it comes to the 3rd and 4th parameters. Can AoC go from nothing installed to ready to play in 30 minutes or less?
I guess I did not state my intentions clearly. This will be something of an interim game until SOE comes back to life. AoC would be a group investment in another path altogether.
I knew what I meant to say. I just didn’t say it well. Let me see if I can fix that with an edit or two.
If you’re not dead set on an RPG or MMO then League of Legends could be an enjoyable past time for you folks. You can play 5×5 matches as a full team or, if you do have six, then 3×3 in-house matches tend to be a ton of fun.
I assume this is only valid if you’re willing to download now. Installing should be pretty quick, no idea how bad patching would be on a clean install, but I’d like to assume not too bad (it’s not an MMO, after all.)
Not sure about whats on steam, I always enjoy a few rounds of MTG: Dual of the Planeswalkers or Catan on the 360. Also been playing that new Might and Magic arcade title, quite fun.
I would suggest Guild Wars.
Team size is 8 normally, although some of thr earliest parts have smaller sizes. Any empty spots can be filled up with NPC heroes.
Patching/loading is really quick – everything is loaded on-demand as needed only, unless you force it to get everything right away.
There is not really any grind or anything required, you can just focus on the main story line which is generally quite good in all of the campaigns in the game.
Buying the game nowadays is quite cheap, including all of the campaigns, and there is of course no subscription fee.
The game world looks quite nice and system requirements are low by todays standards.
I second League of Legends.
Free, quick download/patching, you can play in-house 3v3s, 5v5s vs bots (which play really well on the higher settings btw), or venture into the deep end and play with however many you have (up to 5) against random other players. If you have all 6 online you can always split up into 3s or something and face randoms.
Plus you would get to see F2P done right.
I’ll second Guild Wars. If you start in Factions or Nightfall, you will be able to group in fours (two groups) and move to eights rapidly (day 2, probably). Installing and patching is a breeze. Movement is a bit weird, you might want to suggest turning off “click to move.” Good storyline and no subscription to worry with.
I know you said not to mention it but you really should give Rift a try! Just start that download already if you have a slow connection. I have seen their patcher fetch the files at a constant speed of 11MB/s. You should also be able to play it for free with the new 7 day trial. But then again… it might make you not want to go back to EQ2 and wow ;)
Since you really have your heart set on going back to EQ2 when the service comes back up I’d mess around with something FTP. That way you don’t invest too much into something you may not stick with.
I’ve been playing around with a lot of FTP games over the past few months and enjoying myself with several. I’d suggest Mythos or Runes of Magic, maybe even Forsaken World. With RoM or Mythos though you’d be able to jump in and really start grouping faster though. RoM has instances at level 10 and Mythos at any level. I’m currently playing RoM and really enjoying it, very smooth combat and the UI is fluid- Something that really is a plus with me.
Guild Wars would be good too but unless you all don’t have it, there is the initial purchase to play it.
Good luck with the search!
@Syncaine and Quain: Thirding LoL. The bots are jolly good fun, don’t tell you which lane to go in, don’t tell you “ZOMG U HAZ ITEM XYZ!!!??!?!!?” and are actually fairly competent, but beatable. Quick install, quick registration and you needn’t spend a penny.
It does require some frantic clicking at times, and if you end up being focussed and killed a few times in a row it can get very annoying, but it’s still fun all the same.
Minecraft! Something totally different for your group to play for a few weeks. Easy to get in and out, there’s no leveling to worry about, and you can play with as few as no one else or play with a whole bunch of people. No canceling if one or two people can’t make it that week.
One of you should setup a private server and go to down. It’s an awesome game.
Fourthing LoL.
I have never played the bots, and instead dove head first into the game versus real players, but it’s an insanely addictive, incredibly deep game that is the only F2P game I’ve ever actually considered handing over cash to. I haven’t actually done it, but I’m honestly considering it.
Addendum: I just did a clean download/install a week ago, and I THINK it took 45 min, but I can’t really remember, as three fingers of Jameson were helping keep me distracted.
Dungeons and Dragons Online maybe.
I’ll pile on with LoL… been playing it a fair amount and it does work well. Just expect a couple of things:
1) New champs coming out every 2 weeks, who have no balance whatsoever until 70% of the population gets raped repeatedly by them and the “NERF!” comments come out – usually deservedly so. (Rumble anyone?). Seriously Riot, do you playtest these champs at all? :)
2) Players who will call you rage-induced words that you probably haven’t heard before. (What exactly is the N word tied with an offensive word for a woman?).
3) Several evenings of “wow, that was cool!” moments when your teamwork allows you to win over “more skilled” opponents… like when your friend comes over to help out and what would have been a 4 v 2 stomping becomes a triple kill for your team, and then you push 2 towers instead :)
Barring that, I would say DDO – can pre-make a party, and just run the dungeons for the free entertainment. Or, if you have those turbine points, can put them into DDO instead of LOTRO.
My 2 thoughts.
Maybe kongregate has something for you guys. Sounds like a low effort event.
I agree with the few votes for Runes of Magic. Forsaken World would be a good one, too. Instances start around level 20, which isn’t really that hard to get to, especially if you have a group to help get the experience faster.
Van Hemlock mentioned Anarchy Online. FTP and sci-fi, which will be a nice counterpoint to your EQ2 fantasy fix
Well, the “no install and patch time” requirement kind of limits your choices. Guild Wars is a good choice, but I’ve found it can be hard sometimes to keep a group together properly.
What about World of Tanks? I know you have it installed already at least. Have at least one person go premium and form a platoon then queue together. Sounds like fun to me.
Let me get this straight:
1) A free game …
2) … that requires no download …
3) … and features a polished UI and gameplay (Blizzard Standard)
Uh, how about Ventrilo + Chrome + tandem viewing and discussion of Free Adult content. This has worked for years in our guild!
Or Puzzle Pirates!
@Ludo – Corrections to your list based on what I actually wrote in the post or in the comments above:
1) $10 or less, or so compelling that we willingly spend more
2) Download of 30 mins or less, which is to say no heavy client downloads
3) Polished UI not required, that was a side issue about not wanting to go back and play WoW, lest we get stuck back there for another 6 months
But Puzzle Pirates might be a possibility.
I think DDO does actually cover all of these:
1) A free game …
2) … that requires no download …
3) … and features a polished UI and gameplay (Blizzard Standard)
@Stabs – Is there some magical version of DDO I am missing here that requires no download? Because “Play Now” had me download the launcher and it is now downloading quite a bit more than nothing.
Currently it says it will be ready to play by Sunday morning.
League of Legends appears to be a 1.2 GB download, which with my internet connection is an over night commitment. AT&T says I can get up to 1.5 Mbps down… but the day I see half of that I’ll throw a party.
Well, LoL said it needed 1.2GB, but then downloaded about 10% of that and kicked off. I suppose I should be happy, but why post the big number?
Atlantica Online? Though I have not played it myself, I have heard good things from those who have. And they have a “lite” client that clocks in at 735mb so that shouldn’t be too bad.
Wizards 101, Mount and Blade, Star Trek Online, or the big ticket Starcraft 2.
I’d recommend Eve Online. It’s a difficult game to get into without a good group, and that is exactly what you’d have.
Running missions together as newbies is pretty fun at first, especially as you won’t have access to powerful battlecruisers and battleships for a while. Or if one of you has an established character who can fly a ship able to tank a level IV, it’s fun to take newbies in and show them a good time.
But the real group fun in Eve comes from PvP as I’m sure you know. Small gang PvP in lowsec is great fun – go roam around looking for trouble, and you’ll find it easy enough.
Have everyone go through the tutorials (which provide a wealth of skills and free ships) while you’re all on voice so you can help, then meet up and start having fun.
Eve may not be the obvious choice for your plans, but it is totally possible to have a bunch for fun for only a few hours a week. For making ISK to fund your fun in such circumstances, I recommend research, as it’s almost all passive income, which with a little initial investment in time, can easily pay for a ship and fit a week to get blown up, heh. You could make the rep grind for high quality research agents easier by starting out your group on combat missions for a research corp (see http://eve-agents.com).
If you do go with Eve, take note of the buddy programme which can save every second member of your group 30days paid play after the trial expires. Don’t all just rush in and pay.
I downloaded LOL just a second ago at around 300k when I was getting much higher on my 1.5 connection at other things right before. I think the LOL servers might be slowing it down for some reason.
@Wizardling – My main in EVE has 65 million skill points, my second account is somewhere close to 40 million and has a Drake that tanks like no other, but I am waiting for Incarna to come out before I go back for a look.
But for our group… not so much. 3 hours on a Saturday night doesn’t get you much in EVE.
What about Mythos? You have to play on the European servers at this point but I’ve heard some good things about it.
I think the smallest download option for DDO is somewhere around 2.8 GB. So if that initial download size rules it out, it’s out. No patching required though. (I just downloaded the game myself about two weeks ago when EQ2 went down.) I am actually trying to get a group of friends together for exactly this game. It seems like it is almost tailor-made and specialized to that part of the MMO gameplay that you prefer with your group: instanced dungeons spawned for your group.
Also, it seems it’s much easier to enjoy the game with less-than-full groups, which is one of the selling points for my friends and me, but that won’t be a deciding point for you, because your group is large enough.
So this is officially temporary?
If so, try Istaria. Perfect time to be amazed that the game still exist, people still play it, and that it has some pretty neat content.
Free if you play as a human.
AoC has a streaming client (sort of, more modular than streaming) that will download only Tortage Island (that is actually F2P)
Runes of Magic, Allods Online, Champions Online
Or (if polish isn’t much of a requirement) you could have a blast at EQemu o SWGemu (Pre-CU SWG)
First off, skip Forsaken World and probably Runes of Magic. If LotRO is 1600×1200 to WoW’s 1920X1200, then RoM and FW are 1024@800 by comparison. Good concept, but horrendously grindy and FW commits the sin of handholding you in the extreme.
So with that said, I’ll second World of Tanks. I found it compelling enough to pony up for gold, and you can buy a ton of gold up front, then trickle it out for a day of premium here and there so you can clan up and play together on Saturday nights. Took me about 40 minutes to download the other night, but I’m also on a pretty solid connection where I’m at. Beyond that, WoW isn’t a bad idea in the least, I’ve started playing that again myself recently. LotRO or DDO are pretty fantastic IMO as well, but if you’re looking to avoid a download, then that’d likely kill them.
@Wilhelm regarding Eve – I have to disagree. Three hours in Eve will get you several level four missions (you can really pound them out as a group), time to invade a WH and attack the occupants, or if there are none take on sleepers, and a bunch of fun in low sec as a small gang out for trouble. Think small. Sure, you won’t ever be a part of a massive 0.0 corp fighting it out for sovereignty, but three hours as a mission/WH sleeper site runner and pirate – you’re set :-)
Well since SoE seems to be breathing again this is a little late but the Battlestar Galactica game is browser based with no DL, F2P and is something entirely different than what most of your group is used to so they could maybe overlook the “This is not WoW’s polished form”
Basically it fits all the criteria you posted .
Indeed, SOE came back online unexpectedly, so I will have to store some of these suggestions away for another time. Thanks to those who took the time to suggest something.