My MMO List for 2015!

It's been a busy 2014 for me with my daughter being born and all, however I am planning to take somewhat of an interest in a number of games in 2015. Their names and my thoughts on them are as follows.....

• Albion Online

Is that you Death..

I've been looking forward to this for quite a while now, it reminds me of so many different games that I enjoyed playing years past from Ultima Online to Diablo and a touch of Dark Age of Camelot too. It's going to be free to play and the developers have confirmed that the in-game shop will be cosmetic only, but if I'm honest I can see some of my coin going into their coffers as I'm a sucker for looking good :p.

The crafting and housing elements should be refreshing and fun, but it's the Guild Vs Guild that I'm looking forward to the most - it's going to be best suited for guild groups of smaller numbers, which is great and there will be times during the day when your land can't be pillaged, so you won't log off to sleep to wake and find your castles and keep razed and your land in the hands of another.

• Camelot Unchained (2015 release unlikely)

Extra sharp sword!

I am a backer of this title up to the sum of around 55 bucks, which is around 35 units of real money (i.e, Sterling!). The main driver for me wanting to put my own money into a game that was way off at the time, and still is at least a year off now was due to Mark Jacobs. He was one of the guys behind Dark Age of Camelot and I spent many years in my 20's playing and thoroughly enjoying that game. Although he isn't squeaky clean when it comes to some of the failures of DAoC and it's sister game Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (RIP!) I'm willing to give him another shot at re-creating the lore, community and unrivaled realm pride of DAoC in Camelot Unchained. /fingerscrossed

CityStateEntertainment YouTube Channel

• EverQuest Next

No obesity here!

I must admit, I never did play the original EverQuest and this was solely down to one of the above linked MMO's (DAoC). I thought about it on numerous occasions, but in the end always ended up in another title. 

Another reason for never dipping my toe into the EQ bath (hmm, ok...) was my disregard for the look of the game - it all looked a little too friendly if you know what I mean. Take DAoC as a comparison, that was not as pretty to look at, but it had jagged edges, chiseled character features and that really did help you immerse yourself into the world - in my mind anyhow.

My main drivers for trying out EQN are notably the look of it which I like, the fact that the whole environment is destructable and also that it's going to be free :).

Ish

There's no WAAAAAGH Left

It has happened, one of the most enjoyable MMO's I ever played -  Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has closed. As of December 18th the last WAAAAGH bellowed throughout the lakes, never to be heard again. I have many fond memories of my time in WAR and I made some great friends too so I am sad to see it go, however it had been on the cards for some time so I'm not going to kid myself that it was going to continue battling on.

It was by no means a perfect game, but what it lacked in (and it lacked in quite a few areas) it made up for in lore, looks, game-play and how it made you feel when you logged in - it was like you were part of something greater than just you, a real struggle between good and evil. Yes the PvE was mediocre (although there were some innovative and very enjoyable elements like Public Quests) and it was plagued with bugs, *cough* TotVL, *cough*, but you could forgive that, to an extent because it was so much fun to play and the RvR was unrivaled and still is to this day in my opinion.

Praag RvR in all it's glory! - @Facebook Group

I'm not going to pick up on all of the reasons for it's failure, i.e. Producers talking complete tripe, ZERO (or very, very, limited) communication from the development team after the first 6 months, limited patch cycles, not enough bug fixes or a movement of critical man-power when the game needed it the most. But instead focus on the positives and what I got out of playing the game and the legacy it leaves behind.

Titchy git!

If I had to pick a side I'd have to go for Destruction, and to be even more precise, the Greenskins. The Goblins in particular were just superb, from the way they were animated to the hilarious things they said. I've never enjoyed playing a class so much as I did with that little Gobbo above. Don't get me wrong though, I did enjoy playing Order and rolled many characters, but I always found myself being drawn back to my Greenies :).

Kill or Die, the Choppa mentality!

My Choppa was a close second place, but to really get the best out of this grunt you had to be in a solid group and unfortunately by the time I managed to get him into the higher echelon's the game was already starting to dwindle and guild's/friends were moving on.

I hope that one day I'll find another MMO I enjoyed as much as WAR and with a few promising titles on the horizon you never know, but until then I'll look back and ponder about what could have been if the right people had managed the title all the great times I had roaming the RvR lakes, all the PvE dungeon runs and just chatting to friends in guild chat......... Goodbye WAR, you will be missed, WAAAAAGH!

Here's a really nice tribute video by an ex-player.

Ish

Uthgard - A Free DAoC Server

Pew pew :)

Well, what a busy month it has been. Not only did the Camelot Unchained Kickstarter fund, I have found my way back in to Dark Age of Camelot - albeit on a popular free server called Uthgard.

Firstly the CU KS. There was some worried people, of which I was one that thought with 5 or so days to go that the project wouldn't fund as it still needed a good $650k, however come the last 72 hours there was a big push to get the word out - both by City State themselves but also the large fan base that had been created and it made it, and then some!

A Herald at launch, woohoo!

The final total on the KS page hit $2,232,933 but Paypal was also opened up to the masses (notably EU'ers with no credit cards) and that pushed the grand-total well clear of the second Stretch Goal.

Although this is great news, it's also disappointing as it's penciled in  for a Q4 2015 release, which is about 200 years off :(. However I'm not one to wish time away so although I'll keep an eye on the game and take part as much as possible on the Backer forums, I won't begin salivating just yet.

Now to the present. During my frequenting of the Backer comments section on the CU KS page it became apparent that there were a large number of DAoC players both backing and interested in CU, a number of which were still actively playing the game, just not by official means but instead on a free-to-play server.

So far so good.

The server itself goes by the name of Uthgard and on the face of it seems really well run. There are anywhere between 600 - 1200 players online most days/nights and I'm having great fun at present leveling a little Kobold Huntress - with the help of our CU inspired guild!

The biggest draw to the server has to be that it's of a Classic rule-set, therefore there are fewer classes, better RvR zones and Archery is back to how it should be (and not completely gimped by being classed as magic...). If you've played DAoC in the past or fancy giving it a go I'd recommend Uthgard for sure - it's certainly better than paying £12, not including tax that's for sure.

Oh - and dual accounts/buff botting is forbidden too so that's a win-win :)

Ish

Some footage I found from last year. Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is the game and mullering Orderlings was our game.

Contains some swearies, just so you know.

Fun times :)

Ish