Ah, thanks mightily for that list of links, Chris...
I've actually found a new MMORPG because of it!
Well, ok.. it's not new... but it's new to me. And it might appeal to some of you folk who are into retrogaming too! Plus, it runs on Linux!
It's called "Eternal Lands"..
LinkIt's a totally free MMORPG, and fully Open Source (from what I understand).. It appears to be the result of some guy's attempt to build a homebrew MMORPG, and it's been around for several years now.
The best description I can give of this game is "Oldschool" I mean, honestly.. it seems much more like an evolved sort of "Graphical MUD" than one of the modern, fully polished, uber-eyecandy mmorpgs.. And, being kind of a "homebrew" project.. the interface is a little... well.. clunky... by most modern gaming standards, especially in the realm of combat.. and the graphics are fairly crude.. (not like, 8 bit nintendo level crude.. but like.. maybe Sega Genesis sort of crude.. lol)
But it's a nice little game.. very nostalgic, for me. There's obviously been some thought put into making it, and designing things.. There are no classes.. you just allocate what are called "pick points" into stats or "perks" or things called "Nexus" (which are needed for certain kinds of crafting and wearing of armor types).. and you learn experience totally by doing things, which is cool.
The game has a pretty extensive and rather well developed crafting system.. that's the real big point in its favor, from my view.. Most free to play MMORPG's really *suck* when it comes to crafting systems, and a good number of pay-to-play ones do too.. It's kind of addictive, in a very oldschool sort of way.
The community is heavily moderated, from the looks of things.. the developer guy is also head admin, and he and his partner-person, along with some trusted staff, keep things on a pretty tight leash. There's none of the usual potty-mouthed little 14 year olds spewing garbage and trash-talk in the channels, and the community seems pretty mature and rather cool.
It really rather reminds me of the old days.. when "online" was a local BBS system run out of somebody's house, or, if you were really lucky, with a telnet or usenet portal, or banks of modems and multiple phone lines for multi-node capacity.. It's quite fun, and I've been enjoying it mightily.
If you're into really fast-paced, high intensity gaming... it'll bore you to tears.. But if you like the old sort of "nostalgic rpg" feel like I do.. you just might feel at home there.
If anybody decides to try it out, and gets into it, I'll post up a thread with some good resource links
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