On Crafting Wars

Written by Mark Mackay

March 12, 2009 | 15:03

Tags: #ac2 #mmo #mmorpg #wow

Ever since my first MMORPG, Asheron’s Call 2, I’ve had a deep fondness for the genre. AC 2 was closed some years ago after it lost too many subscribers due to developers (initially Microsoft and then Turbine) making a pigs ear of the code, causing the servers to become unstable and unreliable.

If I was ever in love with a game it was AC 2 so naturally I was gutted when it closed down. I'm no graphics whore but I think the way an MMO looks is very important and to my eye AC 2 looked nothing short of incredible.

Since then I’ve tried practically every MMO out there and none of them have come close to the feeling created by AC 2 in terms of gameplay, visual appeal or the immersive feeling of the game world.
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On Crafting Wars
2002 release, Asheron's Call 2 is the best looking MMO ever made

In fact for me, one of the main problems with MMOs these days is the way they look. Sure Age of Conan might have been more advanced than most MMOs but I just didn’t like the artistic direction. It just wasn’t to my taste. Same for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning and the fact it had no AA options and I couldn’t make Catalyst Control Centre force AA made it all the worse.

After trying many others including Lord of the Rings Online, Neocrom 2, Everquest (which I actually quite enjoyed but it just looked too old) Everquest 2, Vanguard, Rising Force Online, Guild Wars and a few others that are less well known and I don’t really remember, I decided to give World of Warcraft a shot.

Yes, I’m now just a statistic, one of the 11 million subscribers and counting. I have to say though; I’m quite enjoying the game so far. I’ve been playing for about five weeks and have a level 34 Priest that I’ll probably stick with until he is at least 70 before starting a new character.

On Crafting Wars
World of Warcraft with it's undemanding graphics engine and consisten design style looks also awesome.

There are a lot of people that say stuff like ‘pfft aaaawww nooooo World of Warcraft? Omg…’ that have scarcely played it or don’t know anything about MMOs, but don’t let them put you off giving it a shot.

Because it’s an older, less demanding game you can crank all the settings to max on a modern mid-range GPU which makes for smooth edges and smooth framerates. Sure there is a level of repetitiveness but there always will be in any MMO. Because it's more mature the servers are stable and the mechanics are balanced. WoW is the only fantasy MMO I've tried that’s felt remotely worth playing in the long term since AC 2.
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