Prepare for Starfield and upgrade your PC with AMD rebrand.ly/PreachGaming-YT As part of a bit of a refocus on the youtube front we really wanted to push for making some bigger and more ambitious videos which we've not done as much of lately. If you want to see more outtakes and behind the scenes, consider supporting us on preachgaming.com . Just $1 will give you access to our premium content and you can help make videos like this happen.
The part where you talk about going in to a new game, blind kind of resonated with me because I prefer to do that on most of the games I play, which is why when I recently started BG 3 I forgot that this game even existed. I didn’t look up anything for play into any of the hype and I’ve been having a pretty good time.
Play destiny again, recently I a Returning player brought a New player into Destiny. Despite my years of experience up to the Black Armory expansion, NEITHER of us could even play the game.
I really appreciate how fair you guys have been with your GW2 playthrough. You guys were able to appreciate the game for what it is as it is so different from others. You guys highlight it's strengths, while giving completely fair criticism where it needs it (and funnily enough, coming to similar conclusions to long-enfranchised players in the community)
Project MMO is such a magical project thank you for this Mike. I love the thought of MMO players being gamers again and just taking their time and playing games
About going in blind. Guys, remember, you only have ONE chance to experience specific MMO for the first time. You'll have many years to be good and knowledgeable about that game, but you can feel new and lost only this one time. Don't take it away from yourself.
Yeah, Me, when I started FFXIV - coming from WoW - for the first 2 or 3 days: "This is so much worse than WoW." "Urgh, this is made so bad." "This Map is so terrible." "So Cringe." But I tried to be open-minded and fell in love with it! (started FFXIV just a week or 2 before you did btw!)
I feel that second skit in my soul. The turbo elite super pro friend that wants you to start a new MMO, then always flakes because you're not caught up at the same level of everything they're doing and you're there all alone again, at the mercy of PuGs.
Had one of those, he eventually gave up on the mmo thing. Most the time, they're just very hyped about a new thing because they want to recapture that old feeling they used to have, sooner or later they realize it's not the games, but themselves, that's causing it to feel so dull. It's not the mmo's that changed per. say, they've just grown up
Had one of those (knew him from a different game) bug me for weeks on end until I bought a 6 month package from wow, made sure the referral went through, then ditched. Promised "we'll do dungeons together", but every time I asked, he was doing some high end stuff with his other max level friends. Or even Torghast. Disgusting.
honestly, I jumped on FF14 alone, barely knowing a thing, as my first MMO, just because the opening cinematic is amazing, and because it has amazing soundtracks even though I'm still playing solo, 230 hours in a month, I having a great time on the game
Outtakes are always welcome and appreciated. And the boys are lookin good! I love where Preach Gaming is these days and all the encouragement for people to try different things. So much happiness has come from all of this, mine included.
It's true, playing with friends is so much better. I finally found a group of people to play with in FFXIV, and they have made me log in and stay logged in for 8-10 hours every day for over a week now. It has been super fun just hanging out and playing together. I even started doing ocean fishing and fishing in general, just because they did it, and it has been really fun. And I am now even dipping my toes back into housing, which I never had a reason to even do before.
PREACH!!! I can't express how glad I am that you are back! I have watched every single video you made of GW2 since I moved on to that one after WoW but I love everything you are doing with every game and how your video skits are progressing. I actually laugh out loud to some of them. Keep up the GREAT work mate.
I relate to this so much coming from FFXIV into GW2. As well as trying to initially play GW2 like it was FFXIV back in 2016. I also made what I feel was a mistake of choosing a combat profession based on what I enjoyed playing in FFXIV. The problem with that philosophy of mine was that these two games play very differently from each other. So I soon dropped GW2 because I didn't take the time to learn its systems and mechanics. It wasn't until spring of last year that I decided to give GW2 another try since I was burning out from FFXIV post Endwalker. (I now only sub for new major patches since I'm caught up. I still very much love the game; I just don't have any reason to stay subbed year round) and wanted to try another MMO. I remembered GW2 and even though I still had an active account and character around lvl 25; I decided to make a new character of a different combat profession and race (both choices because I thought they seemed cool on their own merits; not because I was trying to emulate my enjoyment of FFXIV again) as a fresh start to the game. After taking my time learning the game, it finally clicked with me within two days. I've since recently finished Icebrood Saga and have two lvl 80 characters with more to come since I'm hooked on the combat (my lvl 80 alt is my OG character mentioned earlier).
The biggest issue is that finding people to play with can be very difficult to do. Sometimes I want to push rating in PvP, so I'll host some 2s or 3s groups, add a couple people that I mesh well with, but then they invite me to do stuff every day and I don't enjoy logging in to just want to do some dailies and chill, while getting invited by my guild to do M+ or the megadungeon, or some BGs or arenas. Some weeks I don't even like playing the game and take a break, it feels impossible to find a group of people to do things with in MMOs unless you are HYPER focussed into a certain niche or you're friends with them 24/7 outside of the game too. My social battery is already limited being split between the friend groups I've had since school, a guild, and irl stuff. M+ is fun, but not when you spam it all day, and if you don't then the people you could add to ask to do random keys are going to be doing them when you aren't around and want to do keys a lot higher than your comfort zone.
Loved it Mike and Crew. I know this must have been tough doing everything at home, excited to see what you can do once you're back in the office. See at the sub-a-thon!
To explore a new MMO without prejudice and allowing the world and music to envelope you is a magical feeling. Broadening your horizons to see what other games prioritized to cater to their niche will also rejuvenate your passion and love for your first MMO as you see begin seeing it in a new light. Being from FF14 and playing GW2 has been an enlightening experience for me and, despite being drastically different, they compliment what the other game lacks because it is not a particular focus in that game, such as open world for FF14 and instanced content for GW2. MMORPG endgame loop is not for everyone but the first time you experience the expansion or story is always worthwhile regardless of game, so I hope other players take the bold approach of trying a new MMO just to get the newfound perspective and feeling of wanderlust once more.
@@Velshin1986 I'd disagree with that to a certain extent. My raid experience are FF14 savage and some ultimates and CE raiding in WoW, you will absolutely need 3rd party tools, read guides and minmax in both games. But the extent is vastly different, in WoW you'll master and progress through a hard fight with a lot of addons, raid notes, weak auras and timers (or even crazier stuff like fatescribe WA or echo of neltharion map WA), so generally a metric f@ckton of 3rd party visual and audio cues. This is not the case in FF14 at all, you can learn the hardest fights there by heart and without needing all that 3rd party crap (that to be fair also exists) because the fights have adequate visual and audio cues that make those plugins not necessary. Guess which game has way more immersive fights even in a long winded progress? Like, there is a certain point of mastery in FF14 fights where I just start vibin to the banger music, never had that at a mythic boss in WoW lol.
@@k9tirion927 You clearly missed my entire point. I never said FF14 or any other mmo didnt have immersive feeling. I specifcally said min/max attitude+addons = immersive diminished. Key word here is diminished I never said gone. That is from my own experience as a gamer of the 80s generation and a player who used to play hardcore raiding in WoW from 2005 to WoD expansion (I became filthy casual afterward and now in Dragonflight I am just a heroic raider).
@@k9tirion927 and I wasnt talking about FF specifically I was talking in general video games in general the moment you care about numbers and output = diminish immersive. That is why I said you missed the point. You talk about one game, and I am talking about in general here...
I completely agree with enjoying each MMO for what it is. Going to another MMO and playing it like WoW (insert other MMO's) is like going to a chinese restaurant and ordering a hamburger - just go to McDonalds. People don't want to go in blind because of 16:33 and partially because the word "failure" is assumed to be only negative. Failures, even in the research field, are not a negative if you can glean some information and learn from them. So if you fail a mechanic in the game, think about why you failed it and if you can't figure it out ask others or look it up. I think this is one reason I started disliking DBM - in my career an experiment "fails" and we learn more about our subject. If I can do it IRL, then I don't think doing it in a game is a big deal. People also want to reflect an appearance of being a hardcore or professional gamer when they are not. The only hardcore raiders (to me) are in the WFR - I view everyone else as casuals trying to keep up an appearance. Playing with others does not always make your life easier - it's easy for a streamer to say this since everyone wants to play with them. Please remember we don't all get welcomed as much as you or other streamers do (even if FFXIV).
Oh god, That 3:45 stirs up so many bad memories. WoW, Rift, BDO and Final Fantasy. Always getting roped into the games where the guys think of the game as a second job.
Quite the 'Preach!' video this! I've loved the MMO project. I've played a bunch of them myself and I always like to discover new ones. It's always interesting seeing your progress as a newcomer.
Preach (like normal) is correct in all of this. To not write my own essay, I'll just pick out the going in blind part. For the most part I can't understand why everyone Googles "Best build in X". Type any game name in Google and one of the first autocomplete is "best build" or "strongest class". The only exception for me would be if you literally have never played a certain genre before. For example, I quit Pillars of Eternity after five hours because I had never played DnD nor a CRPG, so my party was trash and basically bricked my playthrough. As a gamer dad I didn't want to replay five hours of a game with a very slow start so I just quit. Luckily the hype behind BG3 got me to replay Pillars and after a few hours learning DnD mechanics on the wiki I played and had an absolute blast. I still didn't use anyone else's build though, I just came up with my own composition.
Great video Mike and team. I definitely agree with your point about playing with others. There are so many times where I wish I could run some group content outside of spamming the dungeon/raid finder. I just have horrible anxiety about playing with others over the fear of messing up and getting flamed.
"your friends in the end game will always be there" that's the thing mike, all of my friends quit a month after starting to play a game, so I never rush because they'll be gone anyway
MMOs are like the Chinese restaurants of gaming, Everyone has THEIR restaurant, no matter how much your friend raves about their place you'll go there maybe once there with them just to humor them but you never have any real intention on switching. Unless your Chinese restaurant starts skimping on the meat and loading the box full of just veggies or you get sick from there 3 or 4 times in a row no one is actually going to stop going to theirs.
Bro the preconcep is so true. I don't know if other ppl realize it but you actually have your own notion or standard of what an mmo should have and behave like. That alone may make you hesitant to try others over your main. This idea affected me liking guild wars 2 for years and thought (ff14 does it better). I was so wrong 😂 and now I'm making up for all the years I lost not playing gw2
15:07 --- I play for over 3 years now and I agree: the map (coloring) is bad. There is no reason at all why you cant decern landmass from the ocean or see rivers! As for navigating the city... it could be improved... I find my way around easily now, but only since I finished all job quests and other side content in every city: leaning it on the go is the only way - and you will get lost constantly in the beginning. The teleport network in every city is a life saver but it should be possible to traverse the cities without keeping ones eyes glued to the minimap. I hope (we can always hope, right?) that with the grafics update in 7.0 all old cities get updated as well and "knit" together. After all, it was the PS3 limitations that made them cut the city maps in half from the start. Amen to each and every of your points. I would like to write an essay of how often I hear about people who try to rush through only to get burned out and quitting... but its late and i'm tired so... :)
I still massively disagree with the playing with other people part. It has the attitude of "it's a massively multiplayer game for a reason." Okay and who is anyone to tell me I can't try and play a game by myself? You don't get results by just telling those people to just do it. Ever. Some people just don't want to, and you have to accept those people exist and stop treating some of those categories like they're some kind of problem. Yeah, some people are shy. So...what is yelling at them to force them to break out of that going to do other than basically telling them "this game isn't for you, go away"? That's why trying to play WoW is absolute hell for me. It relies on letting people deny you from playing content for reasons they can just make up, while FF14, Destiny, ESO- Actually, you know what, here's my overall hot take: People who hate matchmaking systems for MMO's and always say things were better when things were forced to be more social hate introverts and would rather they just leave and never come back. They're mad because I'm actually allowed to play FF14's entire story as an actual RPG instead of yanking an introvert out and expecting them to function. I got around to an FC in FF14 *because the game let me play it* a ton to get a feel for it while at no point saying it's damn near required to get ANYTHING done. It's literally only convenience factors. That's how you get people to socialize. Not by not letting them play shit, and certainly not by telling them to just get over it. And it's kind of ironic to demonstrate the good point of trying to queue for M+ while also missing massive reasons why people play solo. The whole segment comes off as "just get over it" to me. No, you can't just expect that.
I would hereby like to DEMAND that outtakes are included as much as possible from now on (either in the videos they were shot for, or separate ones), because that was very enjoyable! Well done, great video, Mike and team!
The thing that made me enjoy MMOs was to stop listening to people's opinions about them, especially well informed people. I like going in blind and just enjoying myself until I stop enjoying myself. There are so many MMOs that I've played and enjoyed for hundreds of hours and then learned afterwards that they were "bad" because the endgame content was lacking or it was pay to win or it was needlessly grindy or the community was toxic, and I think if I had heard that beforehand, I wouldn't have played. I've realised that I don't care about any of that. I just like playing MMOs and I will usually quit when I reach the end game, and sometimes long before that.
'the flying like dragonflight, but worse' bit: yeah, you got me with that one. First video I've seen of your channel, and was thinking "maybe that was a joke, let's see how this plays out." I really need to try Guild Wars 2 again. That flying serpent thing was much, much more interesting than anything I did in GW2 (though I never collected the glider. Did one of the expansions, got the gryphon, and quit shortly after). What I played was fun, but that looked very cool.
And Mike Preach I love content like this. I've been debating what to do now on my channel for content... Because of this, I'm thinking about going in blind for Baldur's Gate III and recording my experience...almost like full blown streaming but without the audience. Thank you Mike, for your outlook, humor, (you constantly crack me up) and honesty. The best you are!!!!
Regarding the topic about boosts for a game: GW2 is different and I would highly advise taking the boost. This is because of how "questing" works and how it works to play old content. A lvl 80 boost in gw2 doesn't take away ANY content in the game. It simply allows you to get right into customizing your character the way you want and then going from there. The lvling in GW2, even though it's fun, I would say is not even close to the fun experience you can have in endgame.
Number 2 is the most important part!! I told everybody I know to not follow a wowhead guide when classic launched and rather experience the game. All who did thanked me - all others quite rather early because they didnt understand what the game was about.
Going in blind is the best..It’s why I always play FF14’s new 24 man raids the moment it comes out, it’s so much fun dead bodies laying around and everyone screaming and laughing together
I feel like being a multi-MMO vet has made me a much happier player. I have vast hours in more than half a dozen MMOs (and smaller playtimes in a dozen other MMOs) and you can see how every MMO is good at doing 75% of what we imagine a perfect MMO to be, but each MMO covers a different 75% than its companions. It makes you more understanding of an MMO's failures and more appreciative of its benefits. You often go to MMO "communities" and listen to deranged fans who only play one MMO with absolutely ZERO sense of relativity and sometimes they are complaining about that one feature of that MMO which is actually its strong point putting it ahead of its competition. They haven't learned any mistakes from the past or have a broad enough perspective and don't understand why the devs made a choice to go X way because the alternative is WAAAAY worse. I highly recommend and don't regret moving around MMOs because ALL the large successful ones are doing SOMETHING right and you don't need to be a demented tribalist.
Honestly, if you just want a beautiful world to explore with a ton of different activities and a feeling of life to your surroundings, then guild wars two is the way to go, because while World of Warcraft is pretty to look at in many respects, most of the zones are dead, and you would be hard-pressed to find anybody in any of them except the latest expansion zones
I did not expect you to try runescape in the future. I'm looking forward to it. Old school runescape is my most played MMO, even more so than wow. Maybe even get some Jagex staff on since they are English as well
So happy to hear you will be playing Runescape! I can’t wait to see you in game Mike and happy to know you’ll be applying these principles to the experience. Really hope that you enjoy it!
I played ff14 when alot of WoW people came to the game and damn, doing all those dungeons blind was so much fun especially because everyone in my party was always new to the game and we had to figure everything out ourselves. Playing ff14 was one of the best mmo experiences I had in a long time because it didn't feel like I had to rush to endgame as fast as possible and even if I wanted to rush, it would take a really long time to get through it unless I'm buying a boost. After playing ff14 I tried WoW classic and while the leveling was alot of fun, the dungeon experience was horrible. Not only were the dungeons really confusing, alot of people didn't even wanted to do the whole dungeon they just rushed to the boss and rushed out of it again. Afterwards I played WoW retail, the leveling was horrible, the dungeon was less confusing but people rushed through it even more, without even saying hi. I might as well could have played with bots, in classic we at least had to stop to refill mana and this at least made us talk to each other.
@dafire9634 every expansion is the same thing for me, and I just got tired of playing it. That's all. I tried quitting before but it didn't work as good as I wanted it to, but this time I don't plan on coming back
I had to laugh out loud when you said lfr wasn't stressful. I've never had more toxic encounters in wow than whenever I ventured into lfr. It SHOULDN'T be stressful, but holy god the people in those groups are actually insane on all levels of experience. The players there just because it's their main source of endgame are rude, the experienced players just there to flex or farm an op trinket are rude, the people farming xmog are mostly fair but even they have had moments of pure psychotic toxicity lol p.s. great video, lots of great points especially about grouping with people. You don't have to love everyone, but find your people! It makes every game so much better.
i've been playing mmos pretty much since i was a kid because i used to play free realms religiously. i appreciate all mmos for the individual experiences and fun that i get from the time that i play them. i enjoy general gameplay loops within mmos for what they are. the only mmo in recent memory ive avoided is new world & that's because of my own gripes with amazon (and also because my dad played it and i didn't feel interested), and lost ark because i try to avoid pay to win mmos as i have adhd. i've recently started playing the palia open beta, and its been my favourite cozy experience whilst still keeping the mmo aspect of video games that usually keeps me invested. i like the social experience of doing tasks with other people, and seeing places be genuinely populated rather than artificially populated.
This is my first preach video, HOLY SHIT IM FUCKING LOSING IT. THIS WAS TOP TIER. WERE BLOOD BROTHERS ID NEVER LEAVE YOU BRUV, *drops dead* howd you even type my name with that io score omfg im DYING. SUBBED.
9:28 was that death number edited in or did u make a group just to bump up those numbers that amount of times for this video? If so thats some dedication dude. Loved the Eve Online segment and unfortunetly its true. That game is very brutal on the new player experiance after u finished its revamped starter section.
MMOs have been giving us more and more and more tools to play alone, and that is a good thing, some people want that, sometimes I want that. However, notice how none of them give you tools for finding friends. You can run around in circles just trying to talk to people, most of whom will ignore you, some of whom will be irritated and/or confused as to why you are trying to talk to them and a couple of whom might try and help you out, or you can close the game and google it and find external websites and discord channels where you can apply to join groups or just put your name out there and hope people approach you. The latter usually involves interview processes etc, etc and whilst I have done it and come through the other side, I can tell you for somebody like myself who loves to be social but is cursed with being somewhat introverted, it's really fking stressful. I always compare MMOs to living in London. There's people everywhere, you lay in bed at night and you can probably hear people at any hour of the night, but finding somebody to talk to... yea that's often a tough one. I think people are aware of this problem but they often put it on the player. I don't, I put it on the game. It's an MMORPG. Forget the RPG part for most of these games, compared to a decent single player RPG they are way below the par. So I'm playing for the MMO part right? Very few of them really take advantage of the MMO part. These so often do not feel like social games or at least not any kind of society I would like to live in. It's all roses whilst you are playing with a group that you like, but as soon as that group disappears, oof, time for misery. The last MMO in which I made friendships in the game that lasted was classic wow and yes I mean the classic remake not the original vanilla. However in no way am I advocating for that to be the model because I also can't stand my time being wasted and classic WoW (I would say to a lesser but still very real degree this is an issue with retail as well) had absolutely no respect for my time at all. There was something going on there that needs to be looked at and picked out but in general it's not as simple as "classic did it right", it did something right because I made tons of friends compared to my 0 after 2 years of playing FFXIV (I came into that game with pre-existing friends who later fell out with each other and quit) and outside of the friends I made in my guild in retail, a guild I applied to join through an external website so I aint giving the game credit for that, I'm pretty sure I never made any friends in retail WoW either. I've pretty much come to the conclusion that the right MMO for me doesn't exist, yet at least. I hope one day I get to play it and whilst I often end up being a bit sweaty in MMOs, setting myself lofty goals and trying to find a group to achieve those goals with, it's the with that really makes in interesting. I've failed more goals than I've achieved but I never really cared because I ended up failing with with people I liked, just a shame that they feel so hard to find.
It is so important to find games that you like! My fiance and me both game, she really likes ESO, I like WoW, we tried each others game and realised nhaa, we like the other one more fair. We still enjoy seeing what we do in each others game :)
some games expose you to progression decisions that may end up very bad unresearched and get a tons of regrets. esp in 10 years old sandboxes, like eve, bdo or even albion.
16:22 is the thing that has kept me from really being able to truley push to get back into WoW again. I know that as someone who hasn't played actively since MoP and with no friends who play the game the most i'd be able to do is level a character in the open world and not be able to do any of the endgame content.
That's why I enjoyed Dragonflight at launch and then never looked back. I got a halfway decent main story path involving some cool characters and the game slammed the brakes on me and said "okay now team up with dozens of people. No you don't get to matchmake raids yet, you gotta get better gear. How? Doing M+ dungeons. No you don't get to matchmake those at all. Make friends or get out."
@@UltimaKeyMastersee the thing is it's not even a matter of making friends. If the community was approachable that would come naturally. The issue is is that everybody that is in those contents has what they consider to be reasonable expectations but to a new player or returning player is completely unreasonable of you. Having all these logs and being geared higher than the content that you're trying to run is set for and it just becomes discouraging to try and actually do anything in the game
Prepare for Starfield and upgrade your PC with AMD rebrand.ly/PreachGaming-YT
As part of a bit of a refocus on the youtube front we really wanted to push for making some bigger and more ambitious videos which we've not done as much of lately. If you want to see more outtakes and behind the scenes, consider supporting us on preachgaming.com . Just $1 will give you access to our premium content and you can help make videos like this happen.
The part where you talk about going in to a new game, blind kind of resonated with me because I prefer to do that on most of the games I play, which is why when I recently started BG 3 I forgot that this game even existed. I didn’t look up anything for play into any of the hype and I’ve been having a pretty good time.
so have you given up on destiny 2 rofl?
Sounds like a waste of money to me nothing worth playing out there.
Play destiny again, recently I a Returning player brought a New player into Destiny. Despite my years of experience up to the Black Armory expansion, NEITHER of us could even play the game.
Man it feels like it's been years since we've gotten a proper video with skits and a script and extensive editing. Missed these kinds of videos.
Like the Legacy videos of WoW classes/expansions. Still the best playlist on the channel.
Shame the jokes/characters/silly voices are literally the exact same as they were 10 years ago but yeah.
@@bewm m8, bet you don't even pvp tho do you mate *in preaches skit voice*
I really appreciate how fair you guys have been with your GW2 playthrough. You guys were able to appreciate the game for what it is as it is so different from others. You guys highlight it's strengths, while giving completely fair criticism where it needs it (and funnily enough, coming to similar conclusions to long-enfranchised players in the community)
As an ex wow player and a gw2 player, i think they did a great job.
Project MMO is such a magical project thank you for this Mike. I love the thought of MMO players being gamers again and just taking their time and playing games
The jailer was so kind as to release them from their chains
"This is just wow with guns" fucking killed me.
It's funny because there are people out there that actually say that.
About going in blind. Guys, remember, you only have ONE chance to experience specific MMO for the first time. You'll have many years to be good and knowledgeable about that game, but you can feel new and lost only this one time. Don't take it away from yourself.
You also only get one first impression. It would be nice if there was a perfect balance of guidance without being spoiled.
Yeah, Me, when I started FFXIV - coming from WoW - for the first 2 or 3 days: "This is so much worse than WoW." "Urgh, this is made so bad." "This Map is so terrible." "So Cringe." But I tried to be open-minded and fell in love with it! (started FFXIV just a week or 2 before you did btw!)
I feel that second skit in my soul. The turbo elite super pro friend that wants you to start a new MMO, then always flakes because you're not caught up at the same level of everything they're doing and you're there all alone again, at the mercy of PuGs.
Had one of those, he eventually gave up on the mmo thing. Most the time, they're just very hyped about a new thing because they want to recapture that old feeling they used to have, sooner or later they realize it's not the games, but themselves, that's causing it to feel so dull. It's not the mmo's that changed per. say, they've just grown up
Had one of those (knew him from a different game) bug me for weeks on end until I bought a 6 month package from wow, made sure the referral went through, then ditched. Promised "we'll do dungeons together", but every time I asked, he was doing some high end stuff with his other max level friends. Or even Torghast. Disgusting.
honestly, I jumped on FF14 alone, barely knowing a thing, as my first MMO, just because the opening cinematic is amazing, and because it has amazing soundtracks
even though I'm still playing solo, 230 hours in a month, I having a great time on the game
As a pvp player, me too
Outtakes are always welcome and appreciated. And the boys are lookin good!
I love where Preach Gaming is these days and all the encouragement for people to try different things. So much happiness has come from all of this, mine included.
"But now its all like yellow.. and rubbish.. and weeb" with that facial expression actually had me in tears 🤣🤣🤣
It's true, playing with friends is so much better. I finally found a group of people to play with in FFXIV, and they have made me log in and stay logged in for 8-10 hours every day for over a week now. It has been super fun just hanging out and playing together. I even started doing ocean fishing and fishing in general, just because they did it, and it has been really fun. And I am now even dipping my toes back into housing, which I never had a reason to even do before.
PREACH!!! I can't express how glad I am that you are back! I have watched every single video you made of GW2 since I moved on to that one after WoW but I love everything you are doing with every game and how your video skits are progressing. I actually laugh out loud to some of them. Keep up the GREAT work mate.
I relate to this so much coming from FFXIV into GW2.
As well as trying to initially play GW2 like it was FFXIV back in 2016. I also made what I feel was a mistake of choosing a combat profession based on what I enjoyed playing in FFXIV. The problem with that philosophy of mine was that these two games play very differently from each other. So I soon dropped GW2 because I didn't take the time to learn its systems and mechanics. It wasn't until spring of last year that I decided to give GW2 another try since I was burning out from FFXIV post Endwalker. (I now only sub for new major patches since I'm caught up. I still very much love the game; I just don't have any reason to stay subbed year round) and wanted to try another MMO.
I remembered GW2 and even though I still had an active account and character around lvl 25; I decided to make a new character of a different combat profession and race (both choices because I thought they seemed cool on their own merits; not because I was trying to emulate my enjoyment of FFXIV again) as a fresh start to the game. After taking my time learning the game, it finally clicked with me within two days. I've since recently finished Icebrood Saga and have two lvl 80 characters with more to come since I'm hooked on the combat (my lvl 80 alt is my OG character mentioned earlier).
Oh shit, SWG? Keen to see your take on that, it's where I first started my MMO life back in the day.
The biggest issue is that finding people to play with can be very difficult to do. Sometimes I want to push rating in PvP, so I'll host some 2s or 3s groups, add a couple people that I mesh well with, but then they invite me to do stuff every day and I don't enjoy logging in to just want to do some dailies and chill, while getting invited by my guild to do M+ or the megadungeon, or some BGs or arenas. Some weeks I don't even like playing the game and take a break, it feels impossible to find a group of people to do things with in MMOs unless you are HYPER focussed into a certain niche or you're friends with them 24/7 outside of the game too.
My social battery is already limited being split between the friend groups I've had since school, a guild, and irl stuff. M+ is fun, but not when you spam it all day, and if you don't then the people you could add to ask to do random keys are going to be doing them when you aren't around and want to do keys a lot higher than your comfort zone.
Loved it Mike and Crew. I know this must have been tough doing everything at home, excited to see what you can do once you're back in the office. See at the sub-a-thon!
To explore a new MMO without prejudice and allowing the world and music to envelope you is a magical feeling. Broadening your horizons to see what other games prioritized to cater to their niche will also rejuvenate your passion and love for your first MMO as you see begin seeing it in a new light. Being from FF14 and playing GW2 has been an enlightening experience for me and, despite being drastically different, they compliment what the other game lacks because it is not a particular focus in that game, such as open world for FF14 and instanced content for GW2.
MMORPG endgame loop is not for everyone but the first time you experience the expansion or story is always worthwhile regardless of game, so I hope other players take the bold approach of trying a new MMO just to get the newfound perspective and feeling of wanderlust once more.
I agree up until you start min/max then all that immersive unfortunately get diminished.
@@Velshin1986 I'd disagree with that to a certain extent.
My raid experience are FF14 savage and some ultimates and CE raiding in WoW, you will absolutely need 3rd party tools, read guides and minmax in both games.
But the extent is vastly different, in WoW you'll master and progress through a hard fight with a lot of addons, raid notes, weak auras and timers (or even crazier stuff like fatescribe WA or echo of neltharion map WA), so generally a metric f@ckton of 3rd party visual and audio cues.
This is not the case in FF14 at all, you can learn the hardest fights there by heart and without needing all that 3rd party crap (that to be fair also exists) because the fights have adequate visual and audio cues that make those plugins not necessary.
Guess which game has way more immersive fights even in a long winded progress? Like, there is a certain point of mastery in FF14 fights where I just start vibin to the banger music, never had that at a mythic boss in WoW lol.
@@k9tirion927 You clearly missed my entire point. I never said FF14 or any other mmo didnt have immersive feeling. I specifcally said min/max attitude+addons = immersive diminished. Key word here is diminished I never said gone. That is from my own experience as a gamer of the 80s generation and a player who used to play hardcore raiding in WoW from 2005 to WoD expansion (I became filthy casual afterward and now in Dragonflight I am just a heroic raider).
@@Velshin1986 Why did I miss the point? I just said that (in my opinion only ofc.) it doesn't get diminished if done right like in FF.
@@k9tirion927 and I wasnt talking about FF specifically I was talking in general video games in general the moment you care about numbers and output = diminish immersive. That is why I said you missed the point. You talk about one game, and I am talking about in general here...
I completely agree with enjoying each MMO for what it is. Going to another MMO and playing it like WoW (insert other MMO's) is like going to a chinese restaurant and ordering a hamburger - just go to McDonalds.
People don't want to go in blind because of 16:33 and partially because the word "failure" is assumed to be only negative. Failures, even in the research field, are not a negative if you can glean some information and learn from them. So if you fail a mechanic in the game, think about why you failed it and if you can't figure it out ask others or look it up. I think this is one reason I started disliking DBM - in my career an experiment "fails" and we learn more about our subject. If I can do it IRL, then I don't think doing it in a game is a big deal. People also want to reflect an appearance of being a hardcore or professional gamer when they are not. The only hardcore raiders (to me) are in the WFR - I view everyone else as casuals trying to keep up an appearance.
Playing with others does not always make your life easier - it's easy for a streamer to say this since everyone wants to play with them. Please remember we don't all get welcomed as much as you or other streamers do (even if FFXIV).
Absolutely love the outtakes at the end!!! plz include them in all your videos!!
I fuckin love Mike's "pvp mate" voice, it's so funny 😄
Oh god, That 3:45 stirs up so many bad memories.
WoW, Rift, BDO and Final Fantasy. Always getting roped into the games where the guys think of the game as a second job.
I do have to say, seeing Mike with a beanie again? It's just so nostalgic!
Quite the 'Preach!' video this!
I've loved the MMO project. I've played a bunch of them myself and I always like to discover new ones. It's always interesting seeing your progress as a newcomer.
Preach (like normal) is correct in all of this. To not write my own essay, I'll just pick out the going in blind part. For the most part I can't understand why everyone Googles "Best build in X". Type any game name in Google and one of the first autocomplete is "best build" or "strongest class". The only exception for me would be if you literally have never played a certain genre before. For example, I quit Pillars of Eternity after five hours because I had never played DnD nor a CRPG, so my party was trash and basically bricked my playthrough. As a gamer dad I didn't want to replay five hours of a game with a very slow start so I just quit. Luckily the hype behind BG3 got me to replay Pillars and after a few hours learning DnD mechanics on the wiki I played and had an absolute blast. I still didn't use anyone else's build though, I just came up with my own composition.
Great video Mike and team. I definitely agree with your point about playing with others. There are so many times where I wish I could run some group content outside of spamming the dungeon/raid finder. I just have horrible anxiety about playing with others over the fear of messing up and getting flamed.
can't wait to see what you think of Runescape, I think you're in for a bit of culture shock on that one
Loving the direction of the content, keep it up!
16:57 love the little easter egg in intonation :D
EMOTIONAL DAAAMAGE
Mike you need to compile all your bloopers and put that out as a video. Love them!
"your friends in the end game will always be there" that's the thing mike, all of my friends quit a month after starting to play a game, so I never rush because they'll be gone anyway
MMOs are like the Chinese restaurants of gaming, Everyone has THEIR restaurant, no matter how much your friend raves about their place you'll go there maybe once there with them just to humor them but you never have any real intention on switching. Unless your Chinese restaurant starts skimping on the meat and loading the box full of just veggies or you get sick from there 3 or 4 times in a row no one is actually going to stop going to theirs.
EchoPreach is best Preach 😂🤣 The hell man!! Good show! Amazing video!
This was an amazing video, great job preach and team!
Eve Online truly is a... unique experience. It's made for a very specific variety of people, in my opinion. xD
Bro the preconcep is so true. I don't know if other ppl realize it but you actually have your own notion or standard of what an mmo should have and behave like. That alone may make you hesitant to try others over your main. This idea affected me liking guild wars 2 for years and thought (ff14 does it better). I was so wrong 😂 and now I'm making up for all the years I lost not playing gw2
Great video Mike! thanks! Agreed
15:07 --- I play for over 3 years now and I agree: the map (coloring) is bad. There is no reason at all why you cant decern landmass from the ocean or see rivers! As for navigating the city... it could be improved... I find my way around easily now, but only since I finished all job quests and other side content in every city: leaning it on the go is the only way - and you will get lost constantly in the beginning. The teleport network in every city is a life saver but it should be possible to traverse the cities without keeping ones eyes glued to the minimap. I hope (we can always hope, right?) that with the grafics update in 7.0 all old cities get updated as well and "knit" together. After all, it was the PS3 limitations that made them cut the city maps in half from the start.
Amen to each and every of your points. I would like to write an essay of how often I hear about people who try to rush through only to get burned out and quitting... but its late and i'm tired so... :)
I still massively disagree with the playing with other people part. It has the attitude of "it's a massively multiplayer game for a reason."
Okay and who is anyone to tell me I can't try and play a game by myself? You don't get results by just telling those people to just do it. Ever. Some people just don't want to, and you have to accept those people exist and stop treating some of those categories like they're some kind of problem.
Yeah, some people are shy. So...what is yelling at them to force them to break out of that going to do other than basically telling them "this game isn't for you, go away"?
That's why trying to play WoW is absolute hell for me. It relies on letting people deny you from playing content for reasons they can just make up, while FF14, Destiny, ESO-
Actually, you know what, here's my overall hot take: People who hate matchmaking systems for MMO's and always say things were better when things were forced to be more social hate introverts and would rather they just leave and never come back. They're mad because I'm actually allowed to play FF14's entire story as an actual RPG instead of yanking an introvert out and expecting them to function.
I got around to an FC in FF14 *because the game let me play it* a ton to get a feel for it while at no point saying it's damn near required to get ANYTHING done. It's literally only convenience factors. That's how you get people to socialize. Not by not letting them play shit, and certainly not by telling them to just get over it. And it's kind of ironic to demonstrate the good point of trying to queue for M+ while also missing massive reasons why people play solo.
The whole segment comes off as "just get over it" to me. No, you can't just expect that.
Great video guys - really enjoyed this one
I would hereby like to DEMAND that outtakes are included as much as possible from now on (either in the videos they were shot for, or separate ones), because that was very enjoyable! Well done, great video, Mike and team!
Love the outtakes at the end lol Please keep doing more outtakes
Hahaha this was a great video, i missed these so much and the outtakes were so good im dying
The thing that made me enjoy MMOs was to stop listening to people's opinions about them, especially well informed people. I like going in blind and just enjoying myself until I stop enjoying myself. There are so many MMOs that I've played and enjoyed for hundreds of hours and then learned afterwards that they were "bad" because the endgame content was lacking or it was pay to win or it was needlessly grindy or the community was toxic, and I think if I had heard that beforehand, I wouldn't have played. I've realised that I don't care about any of that. I just like playing MMOs and I will usually quit when I reach the end game, and sometimes long before that.
'the flying like dragonflight, but worse' bit: yeah, you got me with that one. First video I've seen of your channel, and was thinking "maybe that was a joke, let's see how this plays out."
I really need to try Guild Wars 2 again. That flying serpent thing was much, much more interesting than anything I did in GW2 (though I never collected the glider. Did one of the expansions, got the gryphon, and quit shortly after). What I played was fun, but that looked very cool.
The skit had me in tears “you’re gonna ditch me” “I won’t, you’re my brother and my soul”
Thanks for the video. These are really true. May everyone find their wonderland and share some good life. Stay peace and safe.
And Mike Preach I love content like this. I've been debating what to do now on my channel for content...
Because of this, I'm thinking about going in blind for Baldur's Gate III and recording my experience...almost like full blown streaming but without the audience.
Thank you Mike, for your outlook, humor, (you constantly crack me up) and honesty. The best you are!!!!
Regarding the topic about boosts for a game: GW2 is different and I would highly advise taking the boost. This is because of how "questing" works and how it works to play old content. A lvl 80 boost in gw2 doesn't take away ANY content in the game. It simply allows you to get right into customizing your character the way you want and then going from there.
The lvling in GW2, even though it's fun, I would say is not even close to the fun experience you can have in endgame.
Eve Online skit was only 8 seconds long, but showed new player experience in that game perfectly. xD
Take my like and sub!
Number 2 is the most important part!! I told everybody I know to not follow a wowhead guide when classic launched and rather experience the game. All who did thanked me - all others quite rather early because they didnt understand what the game was about.
Going in blind is the best..It’s why I always play FF14’s new 24 man raids the moment it comes out, it’s so much fun dead bodies laying around and everyone screaming and laughing together
Love this form of videos!
Kinda wonder if there are MMOs left in the series?
this video was absolutely amazing. the editing was so good. great job!
Phenomenal vid mate! Thnx
I really enjoy your long form content. Keep up the great work!
I feel like being a multi-MMO vet has made me a much happier player. I have vast hours in more than half a dozen MMOs (and smaller playtimes in a dozen other MMOs) and you can see how every MMO is good at doing 75% of what we imagine a perfect MMO to be, but each MMO covers a different 75% than its companions. It makes you more understanding of an MMO's failures and more appreciative of its benefits. You often go to MMO "communities" and listen to deranged fans who only play one MMO with absolutely ZERO sense of relativity and sometimes they are complaining about that one feature of that MMO which is actually its strong point putting it ahead of its competition. They haven't learned any mistakes from the past or have a broad enough perspective and don't understand why the devs made a choice to go X way because the alternative is WAAAAY worse.
I highly recommend and don't regret moving around MMOs because ALL the large successful ones are doing SOMETHING right and you don't need to be a demented tribalist.
Honestly, if you just want a beautiful world to explore with a ton of different activities and a feeling of life to your surroundings, then guild wars two is the way to go, because while World of Warcraft is pretty to look at in many respects, most of the zones are dead, and you would be hard-pressed to find anybody in any of them except the latest expansion zones
I love these types of videos man, this reminds my of the ghost + preach days.
I did not expect you to try runescape in the future. I'm looking forward to it. Old school runescape is my most played MMO, even more so than wow. Maybe even get some Jagex staff on since they are English as well
So happy to hear you will be playing Runescape! I can’t wait to see you in game Mike and happy to know you’ll be applying these principles to the experience. Really hope that you enjoy it!
Awesome content as always!!!
I love the skits, this was a great video, gonna give GW2 another try after watching this
Fantastic Video, the little skits inbetween are really nice :D Also love that you guys included the outtakes at the end!
I played ff14 when alot of WoW people came to the game and damn, doing all those dungeons blind was so much fun especially because everyone in my party was always new to the game and we had to figure everything out ourselves. Playing ff14 was one of the best mmo experiences I had in a long time because it didn't feel like I had to rush to endgame as fast as possible and even if I wanted to rush, it would take a really long time to get through it unless I'm buying a boost.
After playing ff14 I tried WoW classic and while the leveling was alot of fun, the dungeon experience was horrible. Not only were the dungeons really confusing, alot of people didn't even wanted to do the whole dungeon they just rushed to the boss and rushed out of it again.
Afterwards I played WoW retail, the leveling was horrible, the dungeon was less confusing but people rushed through it even more, without even saying hi. I might as well could have played with bots, in classic we at least had to stop to refill mana and this at least made us talk to each other.
i been playing final fantasy for 34 days on average of 6 hours a day after playing World of warcraft from 2005-2006 to 2023. Im glad i quit.
If you're open to talk, would you be willing to elaborate on what made you quit
@dafire9634 every expansion is the same thing for me, and I just got tired of playing it. That's all. I tried quitting before but it didn't work as good as I wanted it to, but this time I don't plan on coming back
I had to laugh out loud when you said lfr wasn't stressful. I've never had more toxic encounters in wow than whenever I ventured into lfr. It SHOULDN'T be stressful, but holy god the people in those groups are actually insane on all levels of experience. The players there just because it's their main source of endgame are rude, the experienced players just there to flex or farm an op trinket are rude, the people farming xmog are mostly fair but even they have had moments of pure psychotic toxicity lol
p.s. great video, lots of great points especially about grouping with people. You don't have to love everyone, but find your people! It makes every game so much better.
Would love to see you try Old School RuneScape! I've dabbled in a lot of MMOs and it's definitely one of my favorites. Very unique perspective.
Great video Preach!
Preach mate… you’ve gotta finish up some of the legacy videos. Even the last video when was it best about the Moonkin, so good.
"What do I even do here? Why is Star Wars here?" Was the fucking funniest line I've ever heard lmao.
i've been playing mmos pretty much since i was a kid because i used to play free realms religiously. i appreciate all mmos for the individual experiences and fun that i get from the time that i play them. i enjoy general gameplay loops within mmos for what they are. the only mmo in recent memory ive avoided is new world & that's because of my own gripes with amazon (and also because my dad played it and i didn't feel interested), and lost ark because i try to avoid pay to win mmos as i have adhd. i've recently started playing the palia open beta, and its been my favourite cozy experience whilst still keeping the mmo aspect of video games that usually keeps me invested. i like the social experience of doing tasks with other people, and seeing places be genuinely populated rather than artificially populated.
#1 looks incredible, very excited for this!! so hyped to see even more of the ps1/n64 aesthetic
That was really fun and entertaining! Thank you for the content!!! :D
Thanks as always, Preach.
Man you had a complete riot with the "elite voice" lol.
Loved the video so much, super entertaining and insightful at the same time!
Great stuff. Love the comedic bits mixed in with a lot of good info.
Preach playing OSRS? my man! I'm here for it!
Great video, will take this going forward and try be more open minded
I love how New World doesn't exist in the world of Preach, and I support that reality
The "this is World of Warcraft but with-" had me laughing good!
This is my first preach video, HOLY SHIT IM FUCKING LOSING IT. THIS WAS TOP TIER. WERE BLOOD BROTHERS ID NEVER LEAVE YOU BRUV, *drops dead*
howd you even type my name with that io score omfg im DYING. SUBBED.
That highly edited FF14 video made me cry. It was such a good video. So glad you guys added a clip of it towards the end.
@@Drawingtheplanet The clips in question are from a very well done and heartfelt short film someone made in ffxiv titled "/emote"
9:28 was that death number edited in or did u make a group just to bump up those numbers that amount of times for this video? If so thats some dedication dude.
Loved the Eve Online segment and unfortunetly its true. That game is very brutal on the new player experiance after u finished its revamped starter section.
the deaths are accurate, he did it on stream lol
My first MMO was GW2. i bounced off of it within the free trial that came with the original physical box. Jumped into ff14 years later and was hooked.
MMOs have been giving us more and more and more tools to play alone, and that is a good thing, some people want that, sometimes I want that. However, notice how none of them give you tools for finding friends. You can run around in circles just trying to talk to people, most of whom will ignore you, some of whom will be irritated and/or confused as to why you are trying to talk to them and a couple of whom might try and help you out, or you can close the game and google it and find external websites and discord channels where you can apply to join groups or just put your name out there and hope people approach you. The latter usually involves interview processes etc, etc and whilst I have done it and come through the other side, I can tell you for somebody like myself who loves to be social but is cursed with being somewhat introverted, it's really fking stressful.
I always compare MMOs to living in London. There's people everywhere, you lay in bed at night and you can probably hear people at any hour of the night, but finding somebody to talk to... yea that's often a tough one.
I think people are aware of this problem but they often put it on the player. I don't, I put it on the game. It's an MMORPG. Forget the RPG part for most of these games, compared to a decent single player RPG they are way below the par. So I'm playing for the MMO part right? Very few of them really take advantage of the MMO part. These so often do not feel like social games or at least not any kind of society I would like to live in. It's all roses whilst you are playing with a group that you like, but as soon as that group disappears, oof, time for misery.
The last MMO in which I made friendships in the game that lasted was classic wow and yes I mean the classic remake not the original vanilla. However in no way am I advocating for that to be the model because I also can't stand my time being wasted and classic WoW (I would say to a lesser but still very real degree this is an issue with retail as well) had absolutely no respect for my time at all. There was something going on there that needs to be looked at and picked out but in general it's not as simple as "classic did it right", it did something right because I made tons of friends compared to my 0 after 2 years of playing FFXIV (I came into that game with pre-existing friends who later fell out with each other and quit) and outside of the friends I made in my guild in retail, a guild I applied to join through an external website so I aint giving the game credit for that, I'm pretty sure I never made any friends in retail WoW either.
I've pretty much come to the conclusion that the right MMO for me doesn't exist, yet at least. I hope one day I get to play it and whilst I often end up being a bit sweaty in MMOs, setting myself lofty goals and trying to find a group to achieve those goals with, it's the with that really makes in interesting. I've failed more goals than I've achieved but I never really cared because I ended up failing with with people I liked, just a shame that they feel so hard to find.
The description of Eve Online's new player experience sounds about right.
Yo nice vid. Do u guys plan on doing more destiny 2 raids?
speaking as an ff14 player, i would and do support newer players getting all the optional dutyfinder tasks each expansion before proceeding
It is so important to find games that you like! My fiance and me both game, she really likes ESO, I like WoW, we tried each others game and realised nhaa, we like the other one more fair. We still enjoy seeing what we do in each others game :)
Being a Manc myself, I loved the arguments you made, felt so real to me 😂😂😂
Hi, I'm a former WoW and current GW2 player who also tried ESO and FF14, and I approve of this message.
Guild Wars 2 is the BEST MMO currently out there. It respects your time and money. And it an amazing game! Give it a shot.
16:09 I imagine this is how Preach was when he was young, fun part :)
Got me from the start.
"What is this? It's just like dragonflight?"
*Beautiful griffon dive*
"...but it's worse?"
some games expose you to progression decisions that may end up very bad unresearched and get a tons of regrets. esp in 10 years old sandboxes, like eve, bdo or even albion.
Awesome video! More like this would be fantastic, but I know its a much bigger time commitment.
The eve online bit was great haha
16:22 is the thing that has kept me from really being able to truley push to get back into WoW again. I know that as someone who hasn't played actively since MoP and with no friends who play the game the most i'd be able to do is level a character in the open world and not be able to do any of the endgame content.
That's why I enjoyed Dragonflight at launch and then never looked back. I got a halfway decent main story path involving some cool characters and the game slammed the brakes on me and said "okay now team up with dozens of people. No you don't get to matchmake raids yet, you gotta get better gear. How? Doing M+ dungeons. No you don't get to matchmake those at all. Make friends or get out."
@@UltimaKeyMastersee the thing is it's not even a matter of making friends. If the community was approachable that would come naturally. The issue is is that everybody that is in those contents has what they consider to be reasonable expectations but to a new player or returning player is completely unreasonable of you. Having all these logs and being geared higher than the content that you're trying to run is set for and it just becomes discouraging to try and actually do anything in the game
@@Xilibrius Hence why FF14 or probably any other game on the planet is easier to reach out instead of Wow, no matter how good the actual game even is.