10 Combat-Free MMOs

[Morreion]

Perfect Ten: Combat-free MMOs (MOP)

3. Wander

I can get behind a lush-looking game that’s all about exploration and secrets. I really can. But to play as a slow-moving tree-thing? Um, that might take some selling on the studio’s part. At least give the tree pants! Or a chainmail bikini!

4. A Tale in the Desert

This long-running MMO has forever been the niche of the niche, but it’s been admired even so for a devotion to progression via crafting and socializing instead of combat. Working together in a six-times rebooted Egypt, players strive to complete tests (challenges) that come in a wide variety of formats. Also, there’s a lot of sand. It gets in everything.

5. Myst Online: Uru Live

Could a multiplayer Myst work? It can and it has. Myst Online takes players from our world into the realm of puzzles, mysteries, and Age-hopping. Its art design is one of the game’s biggest strengths, as is the option to solve puzzles solo and with friends. There’s also a suprisingly involved story that is revealed as a player makes progress through the caverns underneath New Mexico.

6. Star Stable

I can’t tell you how creepy it feels to be a middle-aged man visiting this website. But maybe it would make anyone feel creepy, because there is an awful lot of horse admiration and love going on here. “Find your destiny!” this game exclaims. Well, I’m pretty sure that if I’m playing Star Stable, then my destiny will be the same as anyone else: riding ponies and trying hard not to think about how every fantasy MMO out there also lets me go equestrian trotting.

[Laethaka]

how have I never heard of ATITD?? It sounds cool! All the games on this are interesting (except Sims haha)

Unless being industrialist-pacifist in Eve Online counts, I think my only non-combat MMO has been The Endless Forest. Oh, and Time of Defiance should count since the insane travel times and byzantine MDNs made me never actually fight anyone.

There was a late-2004 X-Play review of Time of Defiance that was just 7 minutes of ingame footage following a scout ship crawling along in transit while Adam Sessler screamed and moaned in boredom. I can't believe it isn't on youtube...

[Loendal]

Mar 27, 2015 3:04:10 GMT -5 Laethaka said:

how have I never heard of ATITD?? It sounds cool! All the games on this are interesting (except Sims haha)

Unless being industrialist-pacifist in Eve Online counts, I think my only non-combat MMO has been The Endless Forest. Oh, and Time of Defiance should count since the insane travel times and byzantine MDNs made me never actually fight anyone.

There was a late-2004 X-Play review of Time of Defiance that was just 7 minutes of ingame footage following a scout ship crawling along in transit while Adam Sessler screamed and moaned in boredom. I can't believe it isn't on youtube...

I apologize for doing what appears to be a necroposting

I played the first and second and part of the third ages of ATITD and it's quite an experience, if you have the time to invest into it. The game is so relaxing and peaceful, just growing flax can soothe you to a state of calm unlike alot of other games. The scenery is beautiful, the concept is superb and the atmosphere is wonderful.

One of the main problems I had with it was the absolute MUST for a guild to get anywhere near the end game puzzles. My wife and I enjoyed our time there, but we (being fairly non-social online) got really frustrated when we would hit a wall that we simply could not get past without support of other people. As an example, there's a test you can take, the Test of the Obelisk where you must build an Obelisk of a certain height using certain materials in a limited amount of time. Once this test has been ran through a few times, the Obelisks have to be HUGE (On the count of hundreds of bricks, tons of thatch and other assorted materials, all of which must be hand crafted by you) because the only way to win is to have the largest in the region. There's no way a simple one or two man team could possibly build one of these things in the time allotted, demanding that you need an entire guild to help you. "Ok, we'll schedule your Obelisk building for next Thursday, can you make it at 9 PM? No? Ok, we'll have to do Steve's then, maybe we'll get to yours next week"

Also, each iteration started getting a bit on the repetitive side. As time goes on and the game advances, a monetary system comes into play and it's no longer a case of "Well, what do we do now?", it became "Ok, when is Guild X going to set up their trade shop again? I can't get this stuff myself, I need to trade for it". It seemed to me that the same people always got to the same high echelons of the game system and there was never anyone else that could get into those roles (Like Demi-Pharoh, for example) because they already had a heavy support backing from the last iteration and have brought the whole gang back with them into the next one.

In one of the Ages I played in, you had to eat a certain set of foods to increase your perception skill in order to find better minerals to mine via divining skill. People figured out the sequence and basically set up a conga line of food dishes. "Pay us a certain number of resources and you can walk down the line and eat each of these foods as you go along. You will have a Perception of 6 by the end of the line".

Now, admittedly, the awesomeness of having an entire game community working towards solving a puzzle or finding out a secret by way of process of elimination, control testing and random documented experimentation cannot be understated. It was fascinating watching the community work out problems through notation on the forums and it always felt like a great discovery when someone finally found something out.

Now, grain of salt time, I haven't played ATITD for a few years now, so some of these perceptions may have changed but I wouldn't think so, since the entire game was designed around the same concept. However, if you enjoy crafting items (Which can, at times take a great deal of time to do), and then using those items to make further items and building up (literally) from nothing to a massive complex then ATITD is an awesome game. I always liked going out into the middle of nowhere with some trees and a bit of water nearby and building up from absolutely nothing but sand to a small fortress with a complete set of crafting equipment and storage with my nice, shiney, non-passing-of-the-test Obelisk built outside the door