After playing Neverwinter all night last night, I gotta say I agree and disagree with a few points here.

It reaffirms why I believe F2P quality is absolutely subpar to P2P first of all, and while I had no problem with any sort of lag or rubberbanding (quite smooth actually), waiting an hour to login everytime you want to play so far svcks, but I assume its because they only have 3 servers and the devs are smart enough to know they don't need more than that after the hype dies down and aren't spending to get more.

I didn't mess with the crafting at all so I can't comment on it, but I like the combat for the most part. If nothing else its atleast sort of challenging, I felt I wanted a tank or a healer while soloing with my wizard. The game doesn't remind me of a moba but it did remind me of like...a hybrid of Guild Wars 2 and Torchlight 2. I was just clearing dungeons and identifying loot. I wouldn't categorize the game as an MMO but I don't use the term for every game that has multiplayer like some people do.

The game was clearly designed to be cheap to make and maintain since its a F2P, but overall its pretty decent as far as F2P games go, and the Foundry system has potential to keep people playing with their love of designing and playing custom campaigns.

Honestly, not going to play it if it has a subscription fee. I am kind of done with games with sub only. WoW I think is the only game that can get away with it. But I am just not going to invest that time and money like I did WoW. I don't mind paying 60$ plus Expansions.

to be honest this is perfectly reasonable and i fully understand you and knights not wanting to pay a sub but it most cases (not knights) i think not wanting the sub has more to do with the amount of time people have invested in the past than any other reason. i understand that. some people have subbed wow since launch. others did the same with EQ up to and through wow. the one thing with a sub is i think many people feel the need to play daily if they are paying the sub which i personally dont understand. to me thats like saying you have to watch TV for a certain amount of hours per day to make the cable bill worth it. at 15 a month even if you only play on weekends its worth the cost. like i have said in previous threads my wow, DAOC, EQ subs have saved me a huge amount of money. each night i did not go out cause i wanted to stay home and play the game saved me money. i mean the very first night i did not go out to the bar so i could play EQ saved me the costs of the game +xpacs (i did not come in at launch) + the first month at least.

The "EQN crappy discount game" comment is as far as i got with his post lol.

There's plenty of sub games that are doing well for themselves.

In my mind Dota 2 kicks PS2's system of "pay-to-skip grind" system with ease. The game only sells cosmetics which by no means alter the game play at all. And it appears to be making them quite amounts of profit. I'd see this system being the only real working F2P model, cosmetic upgrades only.

Completely personal

I only play one at a time, whether or not this will work for me depends on how my friends and I like the game. If not, maybe another. If so, no amount of budging will make me change until I want to.

Maybe EQN, maybe Archeage, maybe FXIV:ARR, maybe even Neverwinter; depends entirely on preference, and I suspect the author of the OP already has an idea of how they feel of ESO and other games.

Speaking of which, I've been horribly time consumed and haven't tried Neverwinter beta. Does anyone have thoughts on it?

i only pay for one sub at a time myself, hell i usually only play 1 game at a time but for sure only 1 sub.

as for neverwinter i am downloading the beta now so i can give you my thoughts tomorrow or friday to add to those i am sure will reply before then

welcome to the club, I hope your download is faster than mine

just finished. took about 6 and a half hours. not sure if thats good or not. from what i have read it looks like i will be waiting in a que anyway lol

Why did it take so long?

I downloaded it from torrent in about 20 minutes, and there was no queue at all

It's neat so far.

I watch this ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtZQAHbwoVo ) after watching some gameplay footage from the above mentioned games and there is not a single doubt in my mind that eso is far far more game.

well i got a crap internet. i think you and me actually had talks about this a few months back about how i know my provider is throttling my service. still 20 mins? damn

The maintenance today dropped the queue from 7kish last night to nothing today, pretty good fix imho. Also took me about 2 hours with very good internet to download, lol.

Finally got around to posting here. I was excited about Neverwinter when I got the email last night, but comments on here have tempered that considerably. Besides, I've got svcked into Marvel Heroes pretty good. Not heard much about ArcheAge, but after this thread, I'm gonna have a look. FFIV is a write-off. This is essentially their third attempt at an MMO, and their stories started getting tired by IX. Also, I have seen some videos of it, the UI was overpowering.

K, considering that I've been devouring every scrap of info ZOS has put out since the rumours started in March 2012. Heck, I even visited elderscrollsonline.com a week after it got registered. Incidentally, how thick were we for not realizing how much of a given ESO was after they did that? Kicked myself once it was announced for not realising how inevitable it was. Anyways, I think it's a valid question for me to look at why I'm tying my hopes to this post. Thanks Archie.

So I tried WoW's trial. I found the lack of voice acting made the text-walls boring and unimmersive. Cooldowns and a lack of any active dodging/blocking meant that I was just clicking on the next bad guy and then staring at my UI to get the timing right. There was a crippling lack of choice; once I'd got past character creation, I was just using whatever skills I was fed. A tiny inventory meant that I couldn't hoard every scrap I found. The world was fairly inventive, but I couldn't bring myself to care about it, especially since many of the characters looked so ridiculous (the ears on those elves are a friggin' foot long!). The quests were uninspired. I didn't have to think, I just trugged along to where I was pointed and collected what I was told. Felt too much like work. Finally, I always get really into crafting, and I want something that requires skill and research, not something that again feels like a monotonous chore.

That's all I can think of for now. ESO has, as far as I know, elements that solve each of these problems. If anyone knows of something that better meets this criteria, please let me know. Bearing in mind that it being set in Tamriel weighs very heavily, so it would have to be a pretty awesome world to top that.

There are a couple of reviews above your post.

Oh, almost forgot : had the rug pulled under er my gaming feet before, I want an MMO that's gonna be around for the long run. And extensive character creation. k, im done.

Looks like I killed the thread.

From everything I have been hearing about Archage I will most likely want to try it out, another game I might try next winter when I get laid off is Age of Wushu I really like some of the things you can supposedly do in that game. As for ESO I will be checking it out but it is really starting to look like its going to be way to themepark for me to really invest a lot of time in it.

See, I haven't found the game challenging at all. I've taken four classes into the teens (all but the guardian fighter), and at no point have I been worried about dying. Just clickaclickaclicka, Q,E,R and occasional blow the 'daily' nuke when it seems amusing. Damage happens because all attacks root you, but healing potions are on such a short cooldown (and plentiful in the extreme) that it isn't an issue.

Its fairly weird, because the combat is much quicker than 4e D&D it is based on (which is good), but it still feels like spam_attack = win. On the other hand, despite the quests being flat kill stuff (and occasionally item-fetch through rapidly respawning mobs, which amounts to the same thing), there is at least some background. The 4e reset of the Forgottten Realms didn't really convey any sense of anything happening, while this partially ruined city actually touches on the disaster, the spellscarred and other stuff that the 4e books campaign books really didn't. It is just a shame that the gameplay devolves into just murdering hordes of enemies, 3-5 at time.

But there are some good lessons about server stability (it died again tonight) and fundamentals of action-based combat that can be learned. At no point should a game encourage players to let trash mobs hammer on them because you just don't care about their existence. At the same time, the boss monsters should be a real threat. My (3rd) dungeon run of the Cloak Tower, involved being the main target for the final boss. Her attacks were so telegraphed (and I drew all the threat because I was overspamming damage on her, and the guardian couldn't really tank, though that didn't actually matter), that out of 12 charge attacks that were aimed at me, I got hit by one of them, at the bare end of the fight (with less than half her last damage box left). The funny thing is, I consider myself a fairly mediocre player for group play, especially in action games, and I was routinely 1st or 2nd in damage dealing (even when out-leveled by rogues). The game shouldn't be this easy for me. But I can play and watch videos at the same time, because the normal content is really that simple.

At its best Neverwinter is a cheap diversion. But the gameplay is really shallow and easy, so don't spend money on it. And be prepared to get bored of it after a week or so, even with the player-made quests.

@Sparhawk - well, for now you're really going to want to avoid neverwinter if you want character creation. Decent selection of races, but there is effectively one build for each of the five classes. (Or 4.5 classes, depending on how you think of the guardian fighter (sword and board) or greatsword fighter (yeah, thats what they use. There are a couple 2 handed axes and greatclubs in the game, but you're really going to be using a greatsword 90+% of the time). You can tweak a few things, and swap out powers to some extent, but many of the lower level ones are just plain better than others.

After playing a bit more I still retain that if you run out of potions you'll probably get clowned alot by mobs. But yeah being able to spam potions pretty much means you're ok, I still think its slightly "challenging" but at the same time I've never died so take that however you want it.

I think the Foundry is a genius idea for a free to play game, prolonging content by letting players make their own. This game isn't anything stellar but it'll last for awhile just because of that system alone I'd wager.

The foundry is definitely helping prop it up. Someone did a version of the old AD&D module 'Keep on the Borderlands.' Minimal dungeon crawl version, but amusing all the same.

I just finished the second skirmish and the end boss (Malus Blackdagger) was probably one of the most tedious fights in any game I've played. I charged up and used my daily power 5 times during the course of the fight. No one in the group came anywhere close to dying, it was just a matter of burning through his giant pile of hit points. It may have had something to do with the one level 28 player in the group (the rest of us were level 20), and the game adjusting to his level, but wow it was boring.

IMO FFXI was successful, I guess it depends on the definition. By your definition, you can call WoW an attempt at a MMO simply because Blizzard is making a newer MMO. MMOs get outdated, calling them failures because of that is a little too much. I can't blame you for 1.0 of FFXIV though, completely right, and I guess we'll have to wait for the NDA of ARR to be removed before any final opinions are made. They're what.. in phase 2 right now? Last I checked it's fairly limited in # of areas to explore + how many classes can be played. From what I've heard the combat needs work though. The combat really isn't its selling point to me though, which I think is why it will be more successful than those judging it at a quick glance. Combat really does make the game more entertaining though, so let's hope it gets polished by release. I'm not too invested in FFXIV, it's just on my radar, nor am I some fan boy who is going to defend it excessively, but it's not open beta yet so nothing is final/clear to the public yet.

FFXI Was very successful.

XIV remains to be seen.

Okay, yeah, fair cop. Guess I went a bit overboard because of how trite I found the storyline in the more recent single-player incarnations. FFXI does deserve more credit than I gave it. And honestly, some early screenshots I saw many years ago were the first to plant the seed of my desire to play an MMO in the first place.

Regardless though, this is too much:
http://www.mystina.ffxivmaps.com/2.0%20concept.png