Help me find an RPG that my partner and I can play co-op by tonight!
July 17, 2012 12:52 PM Subscribe
Help me find a PC-based RPG that my partner and I can play co-op by tonight!
We happen to have a little free time and we want to use it doing something fun together. We've played WoW before (hardcore for a while before our son was born), and we still have a subscription (until the end of the month), but we've discovered that we get bored with it if we're not doing endgame stuff, as it's all the same content over and over.
Any game we get needs to run on a slightly older Windows computer--I bought mine in 2007 or 2008, and some games we've looked at want me to have a service pack (3) that I can't get--and I want to be able to download it within an hour or two so we can play it tonight. We like games like WoW, Baldur's Gate, and Diablo, but we're open to other games that we can play co-op. We prefer a fantasy-ish genre.
Neverwinter Nights 2 would probably be perfect, but we only have one copy of NWN 2 and I can't find a way to purchase it online.
I think my ideal solution right now would be a very cheap cute little co-op RPG that we can play tonight, and then we'd buy NWN 2 and have it in a few days.
I tried downloading LOTRO, but I am having technical problems and I am just out of time to try to resolve them. Diablo III is right out because of my old computer, even though we do have a code for a trial.
Help? Otherwise, we might just end up playing WoW tonight, and I'm not sure I can handle another trip through the Outlands.
We happen to have a little free time and we want to use it doing something fun together. We've played WoW before (hardcore for a while before our son was born), and we still have a subscription (until the end of the month), but we've discovered that we get bored with it if we're not doing endgame stuff, as it's all the same content over and over.
Any game we get needs to run on a slightly older Windows computer--I bought mine in 2007 or 2008, and some games we've looked at want me to have a service pack (3) that I can't get--and I want to be able to download it within an hour or two so we can play it tonight. We like games like WoW, Baldur's Gate, and Diablo, but we're open to other games that we can play co-op. We prefer a fantasy-ish genre.
Neverwinter Nights 2 would probably be perfect, but we only have one copy of NWN 2 and I can't find a way to purchase it online.
I think my ideal solution right now would be a very cheap cute little co-op RPG that we can play tonight, and then we'd buy NWN 2 and have it in a few days.
I tried downloading LOTRO, but I am having technical problems and I am just out of time to try to resolve them. Diablo III is right out because of my old computer, even though we do have a code for a trial.
Help? Otherwise, we might just end up playing WoW tonight, and I'm not sure I can handle another trip through the Outlands.
Check out Spiral Knights, basically, online co-op zelda. Plays great, charming visual design, helpful community. It runs through java, so it's totally playable even on my 5-year-old dell at home.
It's free up to a certain amount of play on a daily basis (usually 1-2 hours, depending on how good you are), and you can buy more "energy" to keep playing at pretty decent prices. You can grab it right off of steam, or log in through facebook and get it through their website.
posted by Oktober at 1:05 PM on July 17, 2012
It's free up to a certain amount of play on a daily basis (usually 1-2 hours, depending on how good you are), and you can buy more "energy" to keep playing at pretty decent prices. You can grab it right off of steam, or log in through facebook and get it through their website.
posted by Oktober at 1:05 PM on July 17, 2012
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/arcanum_of_steamworks_and_magick_obscura is fairly excellent, and has multiplayer.
posted by ellF at 1:07 PM on July 17, 2012
posted by ellF at 1:07 PM on July 17, 2012
Titan Quest! Diablo-ish (but does some things better), supports local LAN, is a couple of years old so not uber-taxing on your PC. It's a 4GB download so factor that in, depends how fast your connection is.
posted by samj at 1:21 PM on July 17, 2012
posted by samj at 1:21 PM on July 17, 2012
Are you sure you can't play Diablo 3 on its lowest settings? It's playable (with all the settings turned down) on my 2009 Macbook Pro, which I can't imagine has better video capabilities than the average Windows PC circa 2007/2008.
posted by strangecargo at 1:29 PM on July 17, 2012
posted by strangecargo at 1:29 PM on July 17, 2012
Terraria might fit the bill. Cheap, will run on old hardware, multiplayer, tiny download. People often sell it to others on the minecraft-ish building elements but there's tons of exploring and levelling up and monster-slaying as well.
posted by Freon at 1:38 PM on July 17, 2012
posted by Freon at 1:38 PM on July 17, 2012
EQ2 is free to play, and has a really cool quick download that downloads content as you need it. Should tide you over for a few days.
It also runs OK on older machines.
posted by effigy at 1:43 PM on July 17, 2012
It also runs OK on older machines.
posted by effigy at 1:43 PM on July 17, 2012
I can't guarantee it'll run on your machine, but DeathSpank is fun, hilarious, has co-op, and is on sale.
posted by Sibrax at 2:27 PM on July 17, 2012
posted by Sibrax at 2:27 PM on July 17, 2012
Magicka is totally fantastic, but it can also be a total fucking nightmare to get working multiplayer so I'd be hesitant to recommend it unqualified.
Torchlight 2 would be perfect but it's not out yet (silly devs! get releasing!).
Titan Quest is a good recommendation.
Also: Diablo 2, though you might need a screensize mod.
Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War 2 is sci-fi actually brilliant as coop and has strong RPG elements - it's more Diabloesque than
Also: how about Minecraft?
posted by Sebmojo at 3:01 PM on July 17, 2012
Torchlight 2 would be perfect but it's not out yet (silly devs! get releasing!).
Titan Quest is a good recommendation.
Also: Diablo 2, though you might need a screensize mod.
Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War 2 is sci-fi actually brilliant as coop and has strong RPG elements - it's more Diabloesque than
Also: how about Minecraft?
posted by Sebmojo at 3:01 PM on July 17, 2012
Realm of the Mad Gods? It's a light RPG, more focused on action, and it's a jump-in MMO done in Flash (and free!). Absolutely fantastic for short bursts of coop, kind of like arcade-WoW. Might hold you over til you get NWN2. And you don't need to download or install anything.
Seconding Spiral Knights is lots of fun and worth trying out together. Magicka is also built for this, and I didn't have any problem with getting a friend to join with me (but I didn't really play it coop much). Both of these are on Steam.
posted by subject_verb_remainder at 4:15 PM on July 17, 2012
Seconding Spiral Knights is lots of fun and worth trying out together. Magicka is also built for this, and I didn't have any problem with getting a friend to join with me (but I didn't really play it coop much). Both of these are on Steam.
posted by subject_verb_remainder at 4:15 PM on July 17, 2012
Also, Dungeons and Dragons Online is free to play and pretty solid.
posted by Sebmojo at 5:41 PM on July 17, 2012
posted by Sebmojo at 5:41 PM on July 17, 2012
Haven and Hearth? It's free to play on line, but lately has been rather slow as the server is in need of an upgrade. They may have fixed that. You'd start in survival situations. It would be a while before you could effectively fight or kill anything at all so the beginning challenges are finding enough food and not being killed by a bear, or a boar, or a fox, or drowning, or starving to death. Or being killed by another player.
If you try H & H have one of you log on and create your character first, then set a hearth secret. Once the hearth secret is set, your partner can create a character, tell the hearth secret to the guy in the upper right corner of the character creation room and go down the stairs and so be able to begin at the same location. If you fail to do this you will both end up in some random part of the world, quite likely several hours travel from each other.
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:19 PM on July 17, 2012
If you try H & H have one of you log on and create your character first, then set a hearth secret. Once the hearth secret is set, your partner can create a character, tell the hearth secret to the guy in the upper right corner of the character creation room and go down the stairs and so be able to begin at the same location. If you fail to do this you will both end up in some random part of the world, quite likely several hours travel from each other.
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:19 PM on July 17, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by valkyryn at 12:59 PM on July 17, 2012 [1 favorite]