Multi-Player Video Games

[WendyDarling]

Any recommendations? Especially for open world games?

[Mitra-Sauwelios]

I'd think for you, Elder Scrolls Online, but that sucks, man, so you should probably play WoW instead. I could hook you up with a friend of mine who's played that on and off with his wife.

[fuse]

Minecraft. I thought it looked dumb before I tried it. It's pretty great. I liked playing survival mode and running a super simple server (basically keep a program running on your computer to host your world for your friends to join and play even when you're not playing) to build a world and go on adventures w/ friends.

[WendyDarling]

I'd think for you, Elder Scrolls Online, but that sucks, man, so you should probably play WoW instead. I could hook you up with a friend of mine who's played that on and off with his wife.

Why does Elder Scrolls suck? That surprises me. I gifted that to Joker to play when he buys his Xbox One since he loves Skyrim. I always thought that WoW was more of a strategy game where you build cities and conquer neighboring kingdoms, as you may guess I've never played it. Is it a free play now?

So far (through Steam), we have the free plays:
Star Trek Online
Conan The Barbarian: Age of Conan
Rift

[Silhouette]

Why does Elder Scrolls suck? That surprises me. I gifted that to Joker to play when he buys his Xbox One since he loves Skyrim. I always thought that WoW was more of a strategy game where you build cities and conquer neighboring kingdoms, as you may guess I've never played it. Is it a free play now?

Nope, that's Warcraft. World of Warcraft is an MMORPG, an open world adventure game based on the strategy games. It used to be better imo, they watered it down, but it's probably still worth looking into since it sounds like the kind of thing you're looking for. New expansion coming out soon too.

Incidentally the trailer is jaw-dropping.

Personally though, I replaced that kind of game with MOBAs, multiplayer online battlefield arenas. If you're not familiar with them, you pick a character to play alongside others against an enemy team, each of you using abilities unique to your selected character, to try and eventually complete an ultimate objective like destroying the enemy's main structure to win the game. Popular examples include League of Legends, DOTA 2, and the one I play, Heroes of the Storm, which is made by the same company, Blizzard, that created WoW, Starcraft, Overwatch, Hearthstone and Diablo. The characters in HotS are all picked from or inspired by those other games that Blizzard developed.

[WendyDarling]

Sil ,
Read a bit about HOTS. Once I acquire a new PC, I may download that and give it a whirl. Not too keen on monthly pay to play games, Rift, a free play, has turned out to be encompassing, probably modeled after EverQuest and WoW. I'd barely began playing and I was challenged to a duel. What does it mean to duel? I had no clue about what was involved with accepting that challenge, so I chickened out. They have guilds there too. Maybe Joker and I will start a philosopher's guild to discuss life in Telara.

[WendyDarling]

This website http://www.mmohuts.com offers an impressive selection of memory and moba gaming choices that are rated by players and or the site.

[Silhouette]

Sil ,
Read a bit about HOTS. Once I acquire a new PC, I may download that and give it a whirl. Not too keen on monthly pay to play games, Rift, a free play, has turned out to be encompassing, probably modeled after EverQuest and WoW. I'd barely began playing and I was challenged to a duel. What does it mean to duel? I had no clue about what was involved with accepting that challenge, so I chickened out. They have guilds there too. Maybe Joker and I will start a philosopher's guild to discuss life in Telara.

Just looked at some Rift gameplay, honestly it looks exactly the same as WoW. Like, exactly the same. I can't tell you which one is better though.

A thing about MMOs, there is PvE and PvP: player versus environment and player respectively. A "duel" will no doubt be a request to challenge another player to a 1v1 fight. Unless you are fluent with the game mechanics, you probably won't enjoy it because human players (PvP) are a lot more creative, mobile and aggressive than the game's AI that works through the regular enemies that you'd come across in normal gameplay (PvE). Only once you have mastered the latter should you attempt the former, unless you're simply curious or you just want to have some fun. But in my experience, other players will only challenge if they already have experience in such fights and they will slaughter you if you don't have the same experience. Happily with these kinds of MMOs there tends not to be much of a penalty for losing beyond a regular PvE death, and I believe winning only really benefits players in advanced content. I've not really explored PvP to much of an extent in MMOs.

MOBAs however, there usually are options to play only vs AI, but for me it's all about the PvP. But it's not random people asking you to duel, the game's algorithms work to select similarly able and experienced players to play with and against. Bare in mind that experienced players can create new accounts that aren't able to track their previous experience such that they can carry their team through what might be an unpleasant experience for the opposing team that is entering the game without any such prior experience, but afaik that will be a rare encounter. Assuming that the algorithms are working as intended, it can be very satisfying to outsmart progressively capable real people in a game as well as on a philosophy forum

Back to MMOs, guilds can be very useful to help new players, particularly if one of the main reasons you play games is for the community. True story: I once jokingly invited enough people to enable me to establish my own guild in WoW, and as soon as I met the minimum requirement, I kicked them all leaving only me. That guild's name was "Solipsism". A philosophy joke that until now I had kept just to myself A more sociable philosopher's guild would no doubt be fun - there is so much to the world of MMOs that is not only interesting in itself, but also interesting upon potential application to this "irl" world I hear so much about