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loramil

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  1. Well, the "Baby's first MMO" article motivated me to dust off my old tipit password and comment. I'm one of the very old timers; I got my start playing LPmuds. For those who don't remember these, they were text based, single instance (no multiple worlds here) and a large one had perhaps 300 players at a time. They also had pretty much all types of game styles - solo and team play; pure combat and skill based; quests and grinds; etc. Some had good newbie training areas; others pretty much assumed you'd played before. From that background, I find that at least half the things mentioned in the "Baby's first MMO" article have nothing to do with accessibility or newbie appeal. Areas requiring huge teams are a matter of taste. Some love them; some hate them. Much depends on the player's schedule. (I have too many RL interruptions for effective teaming, as my pitiful dungeoneering level demonstrates.) Races are also a matter of taste. More interesting is the question about whether one character can experience the whole MMO. Some games restrict the number of things a single character can learn - a healer will never be a good tank, and vice versa. Others, like Runescape, do not. Each type has its advantages and its problems; neither one is more primitive than the other. Other aspects do make Runescape more newbie friendly and more child friendly. Other games have some of them too. Many games only require payment when you get serious, though Runescape does this better than most, IMO. Many games allow payment without credit cards; check the relevant section of your local store. Some have decent newbie tutorials, though that seems a bit less common ;-) Many make things easier for a new character, so first levels come encouragingly fast. Some even play in a browser without requiring this year's hardware for non-frustrating performance. What Runescape has that others of this type don't have is depth. It's more than just a killing fest, and new content doesn't just mirror the old with a new name. (Compare e.g. flyff for an example of the opposite.) I'd go so far as to class many of the others as more primitive, because of their lack of depth and variety. Thus Runescape can be both baby's first MMO, and grandfather's mainstay. Very few games can say that, sa I discover whenever I go shopping for a bit of variety in my game play; I've tried and rejected a lot of MMOs in the time I've been playing Runescape.
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