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It's too bad many companies still don't understand that more important to know how to find ad affiliaties and where to show the ads is where to not show the ads, and which style of ads to pick. I can imagine them needing ads, sure, but although both these sites cover e.g. Computer RPG news and reviews, there's a difference between using IGN.com and RPGDot to get them. I couldn't even see much but ads on the entire front page of IGN.

"Square Enix, the company that founded the genre"?!?!?!

BS, BS and more BS. The CRPG genre was well established before Square or Enix were even founded as companies. Heck Ultima III (Richard Garrot's forth CRPG) had already been released before those companies came into being, Ultima IV was out before the first Dragon Quest, and Ultima 5 was out before the first Dragon Warrior Game.

Dragon Warrior was a dumbed down newbie to a mature and established CRPG genre when it was released.

"Square Enix, the company that founded the genre"?!?!?!

BS, BS and more BS. The CRPG genre was well established before Square or Enix were even founded as companies. Heck Ultima III (Richard Garrot's forth CRPG) had already been released before those companies came into being, Ultima IV was out before the first Dragon Quest, and Ultima 5 was out before the first Dragon Warrior Game.

Dragon Warrior was a dumbed down newbie to a mature and established CRPG genre when it was released.

"Square Enix, the company that founded the genre"?!?!?!

BS, BS and more BS. The CRPG genre was well established before Square or Enix were even founded as companies. Heck Ultima III (Richard Garrot's forth CRPG) had already been released before those companies came into being, Ultima IV was out before the first Dragon Quest, and Ultima 5 was out before the first Dragon Warrior Game.

Dragon Warrior was a dumbed down newbie to a mature and established CRPG genre when it was released.

I love games that make you feel like you're in a HUGE, diverse world. Any recommendations are very welcome.

I get the feeling the MMOs are the gaming industry equivalent of the .COM companies in the 90s, and we're starting to see the fallout (no pun inteded), with all the announced cancellations.
Once UO and Everquest hit it big, so many game companies drooled at the cash cow of MMOs. So they all scrambled to create their own MMOs to grab a piece of the market. I mean Motor City Online?
Browsing this list of just RPG related MMOs to be released, it looks like too many companies are just grasping at straws. Is there a huge pirate afficionado market just clamoring for an MMORPG to meet their needs? Do we really need another MMO in a high fantasy setting... or 10 more?
These are the most expensive games to develop, and the most difficult to attract players to. These are the types of games that can destroy companies. I am just worried that like in the .COM era, alot of money is being thrown at alot of doomed projects.
You are basically playing the MMO lotto, unless you have a solid license like matrix online, a rabid community asking for a game like City of Heroes; and even then MMO players have become very picky and if the game isn't that good you will have problems like Star Wars Galaxies.

Here's Garriott's take on Tabula Rasa about a year ago.

I believe that the market will force the MMOG industry to abolish the up-front fee within a few years. Some publishers are already doing that (and more), but the majority seem dead-set on requiring me to pay $49.95 to test the waters. This has kept me away from some that I might otherwise enjoy. Those that offer free trials are in the minority, and should do more to tout their low-barrier-to-entry. Horizons, made by the same folks who brought us the excellent Mordor, might be good, but until about ten minutes ago, I had assumed that they, too, required the initial investment to try out.

Commercial and shareware demos exist because there's so much competition there -- consumers can usually overlook a title that doesn't allow them to kick the tires. Given the sheer number of MMORPGs that exist, I think it it won't be long before their publishers follow suit. Guild Wars' model -- free play, with sales generated from expansions -- is a great way to differentiate it from other games. And what better way to hook someone? C'mon, man. The first one's free.
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Amusing trivia: Will Wright on his first game, Raid on Bungeling Bay: "I found that I was having more fun actually creating and editing these islands than I was actually bombing them in the game."

Although the storyline isn't completely plastic (none of them are or could be, alas), IMO Pirahna Bytes made a really smart design choice: at a point in the game, you can choose between three branches to continue the story. Although the locations from that point on are all the same (Gothic is a big persistent world, plus a couple of separate dungeon "levels"), the way you experience them depends on the branch you take, and also in a large extent depending on what you invest your skillpoints in. This is probably the best tradeoff between spending valuable time on making branch-specific content and providing a non-linear/replayable game.

Because the main world is a single map, the monsters and natural flora/items are kept track of. At one point in the game, I was running through the forest and realised that I actually ran out of things to kill for the experience/food/valuable items. I felt kind of bad for hunting out all of the wolves.

The best thing about the game is that all this was done with a real-time combat system - not point and click mind you, but a real beat-em-up combat system that felt like it. I guess I should stop frothing at the mouth and say that there are still good RPGs being developed, and the future looks good.

Might as well mention Morrowind, which went gold last week and is expected in stores late next week. According to the many previews out there, Morrowind looks to be more open-ended and immersive than any other RPG to date. It's only single player, but given the joys of many multiplayer RPGs, that's probably a good thing. In addition to the official site and forums, there's a good RPGPlanet site that collects most relevant information. Look for the water screenshots; they use pixel shading to get some truly impressive effects.

Might as well mention Morrowind, which went gold last week and is expected in stores late next week. According to the many previews out there, Morrowind looks to be more open-ended and immersive than any other RPG to date. It's only single player, but given the joys of many multiplayer RPGs, that's probably a good thing. In addition to the official site and forums, there's a good RPGPlanet site that collects most relevant information. Look for the water screenshots; they use pixel shading to get some truly impressive effects.