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Corp takeover. Grabbed an incredible ammount of items. If it had happened to me, I probably would have quit the game instead of trying to start over from scratch.

Then again, my submission is still sitting in the queue and hasn't been rejected so... who knows.

Then again, my submission is still sitting in the queue and hasn't been rejected so... who knows.

Then again, my submission is still sitting in the queue and hasn't been rejected so... who knows.

There is so many MMORPGs in the market very different from what you described. A Tale in The Desert http://www.atitd.com/ for example, or EVE-Online http://www.eve-online.com/

I agree. I play a completely different MMORPG. http://www.eve-online.com/
The game is fairly complex has a completely different style of interface, great graphics, but the reason I keep playing (and coughing up $20/mo) is the people in my Corporation (evespeak for guild). Upgrading ships and fitments to take on ever increasing scores of NPCs and the occasional pvp is fun, but the people make the game.
19,000 simultaneous users in the same "world" is nice too rather than "shards" like in Ultima Online".
this is starting to sound like an ad.

D&D was about imagination and getting together with friends. Many said that Baldur's Gate was a good PC version of the D&D concept, but it fell drastically short because it was very scripted and you used graphics instead of imagination. Part of the reason I prefer the text based version of nethack.

are the best devs in the industry... http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topi c&threadID=253111&page=3#65

Other than that, I think that for me, they are close enough.

Nice idea, but do you really want to be 15xp from the next level and be told, "Sorry, your time has expired. You may finish your level in 36 hours"?
Better, you could remove the tedium of "grinding", and give those people who can't play 8 hours a day a reasonable edge, by removing the whole concept of leveling. Fights would train you directly, not your character. Your character would always be training for the next more powerful sword, gun, or spell, logged on or not. In this way, you would lose a portion of the unhealthy obsession, and there would no longer be an "addictive" requirement to the game. Well, beyond the fact that the game is probably really good, and that's addictive in itself.
Anyways, if you want to try a game that has managed to miss most of Blizzard's mistakes, try EvE.

The "Great Scam" was pretty much entirely fictional, an entertaining story written and inspired by a much more simple scam where someone got investments, paid 50% on top back for a while and then ran off with all the money once he got some publicity and massive investments.

Quote from thread: "Haha, oh Nightfreeze. You wonderful "goon", people still think your piece is real."

The stuff about the Ubiqua Seraph "job" is for the most part true, apart from a couple of minor points, such as the article writer overestimating the rarity of Mirial's Apocalypse Navy Issue (about 2 billion worth), the Apocalypse Imperial Issue used to destroy it is indeed a unique item in the game, only two of which still exist, and no more of which will be released according to the devs (estimated value 15-25 billion isk).

GH-SC's Press Release on the EVE forums at the time; http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topi c&threadID=172529

The heist and assassination were extensively covered by PCGamer UK in the september edition and have been all over the news ever since, here's a link to online scans of the article:

http://eve.klaki.net/heist/

I'm pretty sure that'll stand up to being slashdotted ;p

PS. I'm the CEO of GH-SC.

Err reposted, because I'm a dumbass, can previous post be deleted or something ? :/

The "Great Scam" was pretty much entirely fictional, an entertaining story written and inspired by a much more simple scam where someone got investments, paid 50% on top back for a while and then ran off with all the money once he got some publicity and massive investments.

Quote from thread: "Haha, oh Nightfreeze. You wonderful "goon", people still think your piece is real."

The stuff about the Ubiqua Seraph "job" is for the most part true, apart from a couple of minor points, such as the article writer overestimating the rarity of Mirial's Apocalypse Navy Issue (about 2 billion worth), the Apocalypse Imperial Issue used to destroy it is indeed a unique item in the game, only two of which still exist, and no more of which will be released according to the devs (estimated value 15-25 billion isk).

GH-SC's Press Release on the EVE forums at the time; http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topi c&threadID=172529

The heist and assassination were extensively covered by PCGamer UK in the september edition and have been all over the news ever since, here's a link to online scans of the article:

http://eve.klaki.net/heist/

I'm pretty sure that'll stand up to being slashdotted ;p

PS. I'm the CEO of GH-SC.

Err reposted, because I'm a dumbass, can previous post be deleted or something ? :/

Here's a topic about the article on the EVE-Online forums; http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topi c&threadID=248136 The "Great Scam" was pretty much entirely fictional, an entertaining story written and inspired by a much more simple scam where someone got investments, paid 50% on top back for a while and then ran off with all the money once he got some publicity and massive investments. Quote from thread: "Haha, oh Nightfreeze. You wonderful "goon", people still think your piece is real." The stuff about the Ubiqua Seraph "job" is for the most part true, apart from a couple of minor points, such as the article writer overestimating the rarity of Mirial's Apocalypse Navy Issue (about 2 billion worth), the Apocalypse Imperial Issue used to destroy it is indeed a unique item in the game, only two of which still exist, and no more of which will be released according to the devs (estimated value 15-25 billion isk). The heist and assassination were extensively covered by PCGamer UK in the september edition and have been all over the news everywhere since, here's a link to online scans of the article: http://eve.klaki.net/heist/ I'm pretty sure that'll stand up to being slashdotted ;p PS. I'm the CEO of GH-SC.

While you're there, check out the new video they did. Very nice space scenes and combat shots, all in-engine and a great electronica soundtrack.

The only reason I dropped out is because I wanted to play lone wolf and the gameplay turned into corp v corp so a solo player had no chance.

Ever looked at eve? The skill system makes it so that almost anyone can kill almost anyone else depending on what ships they're each flying and how its set up. Theres no sharding and I love the skill system so much I could never go back to a level grind...

http://www.eve-online.com/

A game that currently has a really good and detailed market system is EVE-Online. It's a space-based MMO that doesn't have server sharding. With peak concurrent connections of up to 17k and an (active) subscriber base of roughly 70k.

The economy is primarily player controlled with blue prints, manufacturing, refining, mining, escrow player made missions, bounty hunting (yes, really), and of course...being a pirate and smuggling illegal goods. Trading is also another thing can affect the market. Players are constructing huge stations in the far reaches of the systems for trade hubs and it's pretty cool. You can track prices and volume sold/bought per region/system/station. You can also place buy and sell orders for player materials, ore, equipment, ships, trade goods, etc.

So, if corporations instead of Guilds are your thing...check it out.

Slightly unrelated, but if your talking about games and "market/economy" stuff, this is probably worth something to someone out there...

In the game I play, a certain player, named 'SweatySack' had his name changed by GMs. After a week or two of arguing, he was granted his name back.

Fight for your SweatySack!

I then sumbitted a third support request, and to this day I have not received any support from Blizzard addressing my problem. I then stopped all future payments to my WOW membership and I no longer playing it. I stated the explicit reasons to Blizzard as to why I was cancelling my membershop but honestly, I expect it to be ignored just like I was previously.

I very much doubt I will ever purchase anything from Blizzard again if this is the level of respect I receive from them as one of their customers. Which makes the size of the list of game companies I do not buy anything from 2. I am back playing the very improved EVE Online.

Sorry but the idea of selling in-game stuff for RL cash is just wrong.
At least to me. It takes away a part of the game where you just play to have fun.

Take a look at Everquest. Go with a party and you wont get the people who think "Wow, I'm going out to have fun with my friends bashing a couple of mean nasties". No you'll get the people who think "I wonder how much dollar I can sell this rare item for..."

It's just taken a turn for greed in games where they encourage or allow people to sell stuff for RL money.

That's why I love EVE-Online so much, not only do CCP (company who runs the game) prohibit ISK (the ingame currency) selling, but they crack down hard on those who sell. But I can actually be evil in this game and loot pillage and plunder, meaning if I find a macro-player I'll just take him down myself...

It's an ultra-capitalistic in-game world where there are no entirely safe-zones. Macro isk-farmers live a dangerous life since "pirates" (a class of players who live outside the in-game law to plunder very much like 17th century pirates) love to go after players who arent watching their client just sitting there macroing away.

Sorry, messed up the url, it's http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topi c&threadID=228135.

Why does no one release an MMORPG with at least some complexity and less grind....

It's far smaller than WoW/GW (we just hit 70,000 subscribers) but there is no sharding - everyone who is online is in the same world (top so far is 15000 online at once).

There is also a free 14 day trial program, any current subscriber can send you a code. Drop me a reply/email if you'de like to try it. If we're in the same area of space I may even drop by and run you throught the basics.

http://www.eve-online.com/

Is any leading publisher willing to take a risk of no initial income and bank on the monthly subscription?

Eve is like that.

But don't go there man, I'm warnin' ya! I know people who've seriously lost their baseball playing that game. A friend of mine knows some dude with ~10 accounts and 10 computers online dedicated to Eve.

Cheers
Stor

I'm curious - whats your opinion of eve? Its not sharded (14,200 people on the same server yesterday) and has player set prices on most everything. PvP also has real impact on other players and politics and etc.

Take a look at eve online. It doesn't rely on skill grinding to advance your character. PvP can have a major effect on other players - more so than a little bit of damage and a respawn. Its pretty nifty.

Personally, in the the year and half since I started playing Eve-Online (http://www.eve-online.com/ the only games that I've spent money on have been for PS2 or XBox. For PC gaming, Eve has satisfied all my gaming needs. I can jump for a quick half hour of missions or mining, or spend hours involved with team operations. The only other PC based games that I go to now and then is Flight Simulator or Empire Earth. And Eve is updated enough to keep it challenging and interesting.

...everyone's favorite MMORPG

I went to a lecture given by one of the top guys of CCP, an Icelandic company that developed the MMORPG Eve-Online. For those who have no idea, Eve basically creates an alternate persona for its players. You can choose a profession (everything from a miner to a pirate) and you basically earn your living inside the game. Well, that's what they thought to begin with at least... until they heard of a man in Eastern Europe who got up at 9 a.m. to play Eve. He stopped playing at 6 p.m. after a whole day of mining minerals from astroid belts (or something). Then he went to ebay and sold his "space bucks" (or whatever the currency in Eve is) for real money, went out and bought his family some food!

In a very interesting lecture he also told us about how the economy in Eve-Online is being researched by economists to monitor the "birth" of an economy.

So I guess the virtual world is closing in on us.

Believe it or not, there are a few massives out there that actually incorporate these things as gameplay already. Take, for instance EVE Online, where you have an entirely player-created politicking game, which is supported, but not enforced, by the game engine. It also has systems for stock markets, a robust market system, and full-rights zone-based PvP. (E.g. You can lose everything, if you're not careful).

It's not the real world... but it does give you the same appeal.

You might be interested in eve online - You only pay the monthly fee (the game itself is a free download), and if you stop paying, they will hold your character in case you decide to reactivate the account later. Granted, it doesn't actually follow the fantasy theme (it's in space, with ships and such), but it's pretty neat all the same.

I haven't played too many MUDs but the ones I tried I didn't enjoy as much. I think the thing with me is that I don't really like RPing. A decent balance between MUDs and MMORPGs I found is a little gem called EVE Onlinehttp://www.eve-online.com/. In there you have a very rich and detailed back story, a completely player driven market, huge galaxy, small and tight-knit community of around 13,000 or so. People become known throughout the galaxy or you can do your own thing with a few friends and strive to become great. It leans towards the MMORPG side but I find elements of MUDs lingering in there.

If you liked Elite/Frontier, and are into MMO games, you might enjoy EVE Online -- it's a rather beautiful and complex space trading MMO game from a small company in Iceland.

I've been playing it for about a month, and it is the closest thing i've found to a modern version of Elite/Frontier.

EVE online

For what it's worth EVE just put out a new content patch as well. Added a metric fuck-ton of new content including new ship classes, new styles of PvE story-line encounters and some new Player Manufactured stations which will give the already amazing PvP system even more strategic (and yes I mean strategic) depth. The game just flat out owns. And I'm not afraid to say that since it's almost 14-year-old proof. People tired of meaningless arcade PvP in other massives should try out EVE, where your actions actually make a difference.

-Pinkoir

Eve Online could be the answer to a few, on top of great graphics, an amazing economy, and very social setting, there is no grind at all, skills are learn in real time. Some skills take 15 minutes to learn, others can take as long as 60 days to learn. After the first month of playing, you could not log in for two weeks and still advance the same as if you played 24/7 with the exception of making money, which is not very hard to do.

Well, not to plug anything, but eve has a slightly different take on it. Experience is gained over time, whether you're logged in to play does not matter, each month you'll get about 1million skill points (more depending on base attributes and implants). Due to specialization and so forth, a 2million skill point player can be 90% as effective as a 30 million skill point player. Skill of the player thus takes more of an effect than the skill of the avatar in most cases.

The game has some other nifty features, like a real market, and I really like it since I don't have to login and grind 100s of MOBs to keep up with the rest of my friends. In game money is what things are based upon, and thats not as bad to deal with as skill. Just something to look at if you don't like some of the more traditional RPGs.

"The problem with MMOGs is that casual players cannot compete with those who dedicate a significant portion of every day to playing."

EVE Online doesn't have this problem. Skills increase, whether you are online or offline, at a rate which you have no affect over.

http://www.eve-online.com/

http://www.puzzlepirates.com/

Or Eve Online if you like that sort of thing...

I've been playing about 6 months and it's awesome. The client software is a free download, you only pay monthly fees (US$15/m or so). There is no levelling grind as skills train whether you are online or not. Thus a player who can only commit for 1h/day will build up their stats (almost) as fast as a 15h/day power gamer.

And the best part for you ... there is a free trial system. Any current subscriber can send you what's called a "buddy" invite. You get full access to the game for 2 weeks, no restrictions on what you can do (bar the fact that in 2 weeks you simply cannot gain enough skill for the high echelon gameplay). At the end of the trial, if you wish to continue, you just pay the fee (discounts for paying 3+ months in advance) and you can continue with your character (or characters, 3 per account) from the trial or start again. Also, anytime RL gets too busy, you can suspend your account and pick up again when you have the time/money.

The game itself has a huge universe (5000 star systems iirc) and all players are hosted on one server (record is about 12000 online at once). No fighting over popular servers or artificial population controls here. A major content patch is coming up in the next month or so. EVE supports a wide range of professions, we have miners, manufacturers, NPC hunters and PvP combat in 1v1, small groups and full fleets (40 battleships pounding on each other is a sight to behold).

Reply or PM/email me if you would like a trial invite.

NOTE: I am not affiliated with CCP games/EVE Online in any way. Just a big fan.

Uh huh. I recently reinstalled Windows XP Pro. It was an SP1 install CD, so I figured, first thing I should do is go update to SP2, etc. By the time I had gotten to the windows update website, I already had something like 15 pieces of spyware/malware/viruses on my machine, and that's not even an exageration. I had the built-in Windows firewall enabled as well. (Don't be silly and suggest ZoneAlarm or the like since I'd still have to download those.) But hey, fortunately, Microsoft makes that nifty new Anti-spyware program. It works great! (No, really it does. But you have to wonder why we couldn't have just been secure from the start.)

In any case, I went and got a PowerBook instead. The windows machine pretty much just only runs EvE now. It feels really good to be evil-software-free without having to download 800 updates to my operating system. Though really, none of that had anything to do with why I switched. It's just a nice bonus.

Sent to both of you. One thing I forgot to mention in the email is that you should find a player corporation to join (corp=guild/clan). It helps tremendously and makes the game a lot more fun. There's plenty of corps that will recruit newbs and give them $$$ and items. Offical Corp recruiting forum

"Entitled The Colonies, the game was intended to provide a massive world space where repercussions from player actions could be felt and maintained."

Eve is a massive world in space and it's entirely pvp based with pvp occupations other than fighting. Has a playerun economy with prices that fluctaute based on player supply and demand (also greed :p).

Stated goals from site:"1 Create a world in which the players had genuine effect on the worldspace. 2 Create a world large enough that it would never feel small. 3 Enable game world interaction beyond the 3-d game client. 4 Encourage a sense of ownership in the player. 5 Develop a crafting system that would allow seeming limitless invention and creation of items. 6 Develop a real money transaction system that would allow players to make money but never cause players to feel that they had to spend money to play. 7 Create a story arc that would lead naturally to expansion."

Can players effect the world? Yes player run economy. Is it large? It's fucking huge. It could take me literally a real life day to go from one end to the other in a slow ship. But it's not so big that you're spending all your time traveling since most of the action takes place in the centerish. Interaction beyond the game client? I'm not sure what that means, if you aren't playing the game you aren't interacting with it and that takes a client.

Encourage a sense of ownership? Yup. This is MY ship, MY blueprint, MY resources, MY station, MY space, MY market etc. The crafting system is the only thing it doesn't quite meet. It works and is functional but to there is no true invention. You can modify blueprints so they are more resource effiecient etc. but you can't create your own item. #6 balance between earning $$$ and the need to have $$$ to play? It's there. Because skills train in real time you should never need more money then you can spend (no point buying a battleship if you can't use it for another month). #7 does it have a good story that we can mess with? Yes Right now we just finished a story arc involving a stolen dreadnought.

I'm betting it was never published because they realized it already exists and unlike traditional fantasy mmorpgs a game like this is a niche game so it wouldn't have trouble competing.

If you're interested in trying eve-online after hearing this shameless plug for it send me a PM with a email address or post it in a reply to me and I can give you a free 14 day trial key (no CC needed).

Sophisticated games won't be found on consoles. Consider this game. The vendor is oblivious to consoles because their customers aren't interested in accepting the necessary compromises. It requires more capacity, performance and flexibility (running multiple clients and third party software (teamspeak, web browsers) distributing software updates, etc.) than a console will provide. The game will always utilize whatever capacity a high-end PC can provide (a moving target,) which will always place it beyond the means of consoles.

Will consoles continue to displace high-end PCs for less sophisticated games? Yep. Will this eliminate non-console gaming? Nope. Developers, naturally, will gravitate toward platforms that offer the largest audience. This is driving unification between the platforms. This is why contemporary consoles all use essentially the same graphics hardware as found in PCs.

Imagine a more spread out game were you cannot reach every corner in a few minutes. Perhaps it even takes hours if not days to go into the deep. ... ... Add a third group, the money grabbers and they might get their fun out of buying low and selling high. Travelling the lands in search if items to buy.

http://www.eve-online.com

great space game. had some bugs in beta, but has become really solid and fun. I've been active since late 2002 or something. Check out the features and the give it a try, free month trial.

I wonder why developers haven't clued in to this. I can only assume it's the publisher's fault.

CCP, developers of EVE Online, dumped their old publisher and got themselves the right to distribute their own game. They put the client up for download (a few hundred megs) and bam, instant international release. No delays due to localization of packaging, etc. It worked amazingly well for them, but for some reason the big boys like physical media better.

I can never get over small the scope is when determining what games are eligible for winning. World of Warcraft winning for visuals? Ok it runs smooth and the environments are well constructed, but look no further than EVE Online for a game that literally looks like space art in motion. Put simply, the game is beautiful, and doesn't require a top of the line computer to run properly. Technically speaking, that alone is an achievement in engine design.

I guess if a game doesn't have a huge following or massive launch it's not win worthy?

Ah, but then you have MMOs like EVE Online, a game that is virtually "path-less". PVP is there, but it's there as a reality of venturing into unregulated space. You don't HAVE to participate in PVP, you can stay in relatively comfy empire space and pursue a research career, manufacturing, etc. There's no singular path defined for a character at all. Sure you can put more skill into science rather than combat skills, but that doesn't mean you can't fight.

Essentially what we have here is a virtual sandbox consisting of thousands of star systems and a player driven economy (that works). So why isn't it as hugely popular as others? If I were to venture a guess, it's that when people play these games they NEED that direction, some path laid out for them to follow. I've heard EVE being described as being "hardcore", and I'd have to agree -- beyond the initial tutorials, you're thrown out into the universe to make your own way. Those of us who play it love it, but I can definitely see a segment of the gamer populace shying away from it for that simple fact.

And you thought the Oscars were bad...

What a popularity contest. I do not see any signs that this was anything other than an exercise in people voting for the game they were playing at the time they took the poll. The clincher for me was the comparison between the results for "Best Overall MMORPG" and "Biggest Dissapointment". It would seem that while EQ2 is the second best MMORPG of the year it is also the biggest dissapointment and WoW while being the best was the runner-up for biggest dissapointment...hmmm.

Possibilities:
-Voters have absurdly high expectations and even awesomeness is not good enough for them.
-Voters are die-hard partisans and vote against the enemy for the negative award.
-Voters have never heard of any MMORPG other than EQ2, WoW or CoH

I think it's the last option. The hype machines for those three games pwn all and in a popularity competition it isn't even about popularity anymore, just hype.

Anywho, there are other MMORPGs out there. If you are interested in a well developed, balanced, mostly bug-free game with a superb market-driven economy and the kind of meaningful PvP that WoW and EQ2 only dream about then I suggest you give EVE a look-see.

-Pinkoir

If you're looking for a multiplayer game that is mouse friendly and has plenty of interaction. Try EVE which can be found at EVE Online. The interface is 99% mouse driven and should be very friendly for a HeadMouse. The other 1% is typing but if you have a two screen setup I think it would work out great. The game functions fine in window mode as well.