Re:Current MMORPGs are doing just fine
on
MMORPG Evolution
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· Score: 1
"I know nothing of the code behnd WoW, but perhaps they could make the entrance to the guild house an instance, where you enter a portal in a major city (Stormwind, Undercity, etc.) and appear automatically in the house of your guild (similar to the officer's quarters portal I've seen in Stormwind, perhaps)."
This is exactly how City of Heroes (another game that had no "building" component) has implemented super group bases with the addition of City of Villains. It's certainly not as "natural" as having an actual building out on the environment, but it's a decent compromise.
Well, that also stems from the fact that most Asian MMOs don't use a paid monthly subscription model. They frequently use a pay as you go system where players purchase game time at an Internet cafe or via their cell phones.
And with Apple you get a 1 year warranty as well and pay to extend it. With ibuypower you also have the manufacturers warranty on the components if you don't want to send it back to them. They also will ship out replacement parts on exchange if you know what needs replacing.
Try going to www.ibuypower.com and pricing a comparable system. I configured one and the cost came out to $819 + shipping. The dual layer drive upgrade is $35 as is the HD drive (from 80 and CDR normal). They aren't barebones equipment. I built a quite nice computer for $1500 last year which included a very expensive ($430) 6800GT video card. The core components aren't made by "you never heard of em" brands either, all good equipment.
Actually, I didn't bother building my last PC because there are plenty of companies that will do it for you at barely more than you can purchase the parts for yourself. Plus they assemble, test and warranty the computer. A system with comparable specs to the one outlined previously will run you about $820 + shipping from ibuypower.com. As for the "it will be a tin can". That's the real argument, people buy Macs because they WANT a Mac. Not because they want a computer. There are a lot of real benefits. Of course there are benefits going the other way, it just depends on what you want to do with a computer. I use my home computer mostly for gaming and Internet access with a bit of "work from home". Since gaming is my primary usage, a PC makes sense for me. The choice of games is more important than the OS. But on the otherhand if you needs are different, a Mac may be appealing. Personally I can't even look at an iMac as being an option because it's a completely inflexible design. You can't change the video card, you only have 2 slots for upgrading memory, you can't upgrade to a larger monitor later, you can't run 2 monitors unless you hack your firmware, you need to use external drives to expand your storage, if your monitor fails you can't fall back on your old CRT until it gets fixed, the whole computer has to go to the shop etc. So then for my needs the PowerMac would be the system I would need to get, and now you are talking a substantial difference in cost from a PC. I spent $1500 on my last PC and that included $450 for the brand new (at the time) 6800GT video card. The cheapest comparable PowerMac was about $1000 more expensive at the time.
Well, actually now it is, sort of. Originally it was being developed by Nihilistic Software:
"During the summer of 2002, the entire Nihilistic Software development team, the original developer of the game, quit en masse after an internal power struggle with Blizzard Entertainment. At the time, Slashdot and Penny Arcade reported that the team had already completed more than 85% of the game engine and 40% of all level design." Wikipedia Starcraft Ghost
So now Blizzard has purchased Swinging Ape studios and integrated them into Blizzard as their console division. This is the team that is working on SC Ghost and now they are a part of Blizzard. So you can expect a greater degree of Blizzard influence on the game, it's been brought into the fold.
People pay for Usenet services because they're own ISP's service has crappy retention of binary files. Given how huge the Usenet feeds are now, that's not really surprising. This service adds a web interface for Usenet. It lets you not only search, but just click to download the file. No downloading of headers, no using par and rar to fix and unpack. You can even view the videos via flash straight off the site. It's the most blatant copyright violation I've seen in a net service in years. Go browse through and see for yourself. Oh yeah and for searching the binary groups Newzbin is quite decent.
Right, but this service puts a searchable web interface on it. So you go and search "multimedia" and clicky to download the video. It's an interface to a binary archive. You don't need a news client. Check it out, you can even download (or watch online via flash):
Gee I bet they're licensed to distribute that. I've noticed they are not including music, movies and software groups. Just the multimedia, music videos and TV ones. I guess they are trying to avoid the MPAA and RIAA's attentions. Yeah, that'll work... not.
"Personally, I think most web interfaces suck for searching, but only slightly less than downloading 500K headers in a binary group looking for something... interesting."
Newzbin is a great resource for searching binaries. You can search "posts" which are manually added groups of files (so you don't see a million rar files), or you can search for files. At least you can find out which group something... interesting is posted in before you download those bojillion headers.
"similar mods exist for selecting the correct rank of healing spell to not waste any healing."
For a Druid at least (haven't played a priest), it's not just to not waste healing, it's because my higher level heals won't work on lower level players. So if I want to assist lower level player I have to reconfigure my spell bar. If I'm in a mixed level group I have to have multiple levels of spells available. If I'm in a mixed level outdoor PVP raid, I might need to use almost all the spell levels. The same thing applies to my buffs. It's irritating.
Well then do ZG - half the size of an MC raid. Scarlet Monestary is a 5 man instance from the start. I do consider doing a 5 man Scholo, Strath or LBRS more challenging than a 10 man. I've done UBRS in 8 man and it required much more coordination than doing it in 15.
Actually, Valve has stated that this freebie stuff is a chance for them to play with new Source engine features, put it out to the public and see how well it works (tecnically and artistically). They are planning to release pay expansions via Steam - but they will be longer than Lost Coast (shorter than HL2 however).
Sure. Philosophy and science are two different things. This statement:
"Moreover it is not probable due to irreducable complexity and the probability of everything being present for the spontaneous start of life. Life has never spontanously started."
is known as an opinion. These are also useful. They are not however facts, and people can argue that they are not true. Science starts with a hypothesis, which is not an opinion or philosophy and can be tested against. As our knowledge increases new and better theories are tested and a lot of old ones thrown out. Science is not static and it shouldn't be influenced by pure opinion (in the ideal sense, of course there are unfortunate politicisms within science). This is in fact why so many scientists have problems with String theory, because there is no real way to test it at this point and maybe ever. So some scientists believe it is in the realm of metaphysics. Anyway, in a nutshell, since Intelligent Design is more of a philosophy it shouldn't be taught in a science classroom.
And if you believe the coming of the end times leads to heaven on Earth - it makes sense. Revelations is a scary part of the bible because people believe it. They believe it's the inevitable future. I had a neighbor give me some book relating the bible to what's happening currently in the world. She said "this explains why things are happening the way they are in the world today". What? And you don't think Medieval Europe during the plague thought they were experiencing the end times as well?
Well one would assume that you could have socketed items + enchantents. At least I would hope so. I wonder if you will be able to sell jewels, and can anyone just buy them off the AH and use them - or will a Jewelcrafter set them for you. I think it's kind of a pain that enchanters can't put their enchants on scrolls to sell them. I realize that this is how Blizzard wants it, but boy is it a pain to sell or buy enchants. You either need to sit and hawk your wares or you have to track down on the few people on your server that might have a high end enchant.
By increasing the level cap they make the current high end content more accessible to less hardcore players and smaller guilds. So effectively they make this stuff "more casual" and push the high end guilds on to new challenges. I mean if you got XP for all that running through MC or whatever I'm sure you'd roll through the levels pretty quick.
I recently started playing w.o.w., but one of the things that impresses me about it is that they way it acheives the appropriate level of challenge is by leaving many levels of challenge open for the player to find the right one. Rather than trying to predict exactly how difficult each task needs to be, the player naturally finds the tasks that are at the right level. There are goals and sub-goals, rewards little and small, all aimed at giving you opportunities to engage yourself.
This is really what's great about WoW during the levels from 1-60. You can log on and solo stuff and make progress. You can join up with a couple people to do a little harder stuff. You can join a full group and take on a Dungeon. All the time you are getting a little better and moving forward through the world. The post 60 game is considerably more hardcore. The only real progression is through itemization and getting those items is very difficult. The amount of grind scales way up and there is very little you can accomplish by yourself. You'll need groups of at least 5 players for the dungeons, more commonly 10-15 and 20-40 for the epic dungeons (Molten Core, Zul Gurrab, Black Wing Lair). You will need to have good players, as a single bad player can easily cause a party wipe. You will probably be pigeon holed into a specific roll (main tank, healer, area of effect spells, pulling mobs etc.). If you want to get those high end items, you'll need to do this repeatedly. For example most piece of the blue class sets you start getting in the level 50-60 dungeons have very low drop rates from specific mobs. So for example everyone needs to get their chest piece from the end boss of Upper Black Rock Spire. Their is a roughtly 8% chance he will drop the chest piece for your class. You are probably in a 15 man RAID and may have up to 3 other RAID members that need that item as well. So even if the piece you need does drop, you may need to "roll" for it - with a 1 in 3 chance of winning it. These dungeons take anywhere from an hour to 3 hours to run, depending on the quality of the group. And that's just the blue set items are. I won't even go into the Epic purple item sets. It's even worse to a degree with high end crafted items. You'll need to jump through hoops to get the plans and recipes to craft the items. You may need to get your faction reputation up with a group before you can purchase the items. How do you do that? Repeating quests that require you to grind for the quest items to turn in. And grind and grind and grind. And after you learn to make the items you'll need to grind for the materials or purchase them for tons of money. Then to make the items you may need to go to a specific location within a high level dungeon to craft them. I've never made the one alchemist flask I have a recipe for because I keep forgetting to bring the materials with me to the alchemist's lab in the Scholomance instance. To be fair, this is the high end stuff and many people feel that to get it you should have to endure this kind of "work". And that's fine really. The content is designed for players who want that high level of challenge (although I don't see doing the same thing over an over again as much of a challenge personally, I can sleep walk through most of the high level instances). And if everyone could get or make those high end items, well they wouldn't be very unique or special would they? But you may find that you are in fact someone who doesn't have the time or patience for the lvl 60 game. Or maybe you don't want to join a huge guild to raid because you have a close knit group you enjoy playing with and the high end raiding guilds feel too much like joining the military. I myself don't have the patience and time for it. I applaud the increase in the level cap, because then maybe weenies like me can do 10 man Zul Gurrab runs or have a better shot at completing my blue sets. The high end guilds will pound through Black Wing Lair and move on to the level 70 content. And that's the way it should be. The high end game gets
Considering the cost of a movie for 2 hours of entertainment is $9 here (I won't include food or drinks, just talking the price of the entertainment itself) - if you get 4 hours of enjoyment a month out of playing it, you are at a better cost for fun than seeing a movie. Or take for example, DVDS. They usually cost around $20, yet most DVDs are probably not watched more than a couple times. I have my classic DVDs I've watched maybe 10 times at most, but I have many that I have only watched a couple times. There aren't that many movies worth watching over and over. So no I don't really feel like I HAVE to play to get my moneys worth. If I'm not playing it enough for the cost, well then it's time to cancel the subscription and play something else.
Yeah I think they are trying to give the horde a pretty race to attract more people. I also wouldn't be surprised if the Alliance gets Pandarens as a counterpoint to the fuzzy Taurens.
Seeing as the release date hasn't even been announced... don't you think you might be a bit bored of running BWL, ZG and MC by then? Maybe looking for some fresh new dungeons? New content? High end 60+ quests in the new zone? Not to mention that it will get easier to get everyone in your guild their 60 level epic gear with a team of 61+ in the high end raids. I don't know about you but I'm kind of getting bored of running the same dungeons over and over again. I mean yeah it's great to make progression through them at the high end, but sometimes it just seems pointless and repetitive.
Absolutely - the FPS generated is determined by the complexity of the scene rendered and how taxing it is on the system. The question is WHAT can it render at that speed. Hell any reasonably modern video card and run Quake 3 at considerably more than 120FPS. I love when Sony spouts off about how amazingly amazing so amazing you've never seen how amazing the amazingness of the new amazing chip is amazingly going to be. I'm surprised they haven't said it has a subatomic pixel display resolution.
Slashdot Mirror
"I know nothing of the code behnd WoW, but perhaps they could make the entrance to the guild house an instance, where you enter a portal in a major city (Stormwind, Undercity, etc.) and appear automatically in the house of your guild (similar to the officer's quarters portal I've seen in Stormwind, perhaps)."
This is exactly how City of Heroes (another game that had no "building" component) has implemented super group bases with the addition of City of Villains. It's certainly not as "natural" as having an actual building out on the environment, but it's a decent compromise.
Well, that also stems from the fact that most Asian MMOs don't use a paid monthly subscription model. They frequently use a pay as you go system where players purchase game time at an Internet cafe or via their cell phones.
And with Apple you get a 1 year warranty as well and pay to extend it.
With ibuypower you also have the manufacturers warranty on the components if you don't want to send it back to them. They also will ship out replacement parts on exchange if you know what needs replacing.
Try going to www.ibuypower.com and pricing a comparable system. I configured one and the cost came out to $819 + shipping. The dual layer drive upgrade is $35 as is the HD drive (from 80 and CDR normal).
They aren't barebones equipment. I built a quite nice computer for $1500 last year which included a very expensive ($430) 6800GT video card. The core components aren't made by "you never heard of em" brands either, all good equipment.
Actually, I didn't bother building my last PC because there are plenty of companies that will do it for you at barely more than you can purchase the parts for yourself. Plus they assemble, test and warranty the computer.
A system with comparable specs to the one outlined previously will run you about $820 + shipping from ibuypower.com.
As for the "it will be a tin can". That's the real argument, people buy Macs because they WANT a Mac. Not because they want a computer. There are a lot of real benefits. Of course there are benefits going the other way, it just depends on what you want to do with a computer. I use my home computer mostly for gaming and Internet access with a bit of "work from home". Since gaming is my primary usage, a PC makes sense for me. The choice of games is more important than the OS.
But on the otherhand if you needs are different, a Mac may be appealing. Personally I can't even look at an iMac as being an option because it's a completely inflexible design. You can't change the video card, you only have 2 slots for upgrading memory, you can't upgrade to a larger monitor later, you can't run 2 monitors unless you hack your firmware, you need to use external drives to expand your storage, if your monitor fails you can't fall back on your old CRT until it gets fixed, the whole computer has to go to the shop etc.
So then for my needs the PowerMac would be the system I would need to get, and now you are talking a substantial difference in cost from a PC. I spent $1500 on my last PC and that included $450 for the brand new (at the time) 6800GT video card. The cheapest comparable PowerMac was about $1000 more expensive at the time.
I've never SEEN one in a store. And I've looked for it too.
"iirc, it isn't being made by Blizzard anyways"
Well, actually now it is, sort of. Originally it was being developed by Nihilistic Software:
"During the summer of 2002, the entire Nihilistic Software development team, the original developer of the game, quit en masse after an internal power struggle with Blizzard Entertainment. At the time, Slashdot and Penny Arcade reported that the team had already completed more than 85% of the game engine and 40% of all level design." Wikipedia Starcraft Ghost
So now Blizzard has purchased Swinging Ape studios and integrated them into Blizzard as their console division. This is the team that is working on SC Ghost and now they are a part of Blizzard. So you can expect a greater degree of Blizzard influence on the game, it's been brought into the fold.
People pay for Usenet services because they're own ISP's service has crappy retention of binary files. Given how huge the Usenet feeds are now, that's not really surprising.
This service adds a web interface for Usenet. It lets you not only search, but just click to download the file. No downloading of headers, no using par and rar to fix and unpack. You can even view the videos via flash straight off the site. It's the most blatant copyright violation I've seen in a net service in years.
Go browse through and see for yourself.
Oh yeah and for searching the binary groups Newzbin is quite decent.
Really?
Try this sample link:
an episode of the Simpsons
If clicking to download the avi file is too hard you can click "Watch now in Flash!".
Right, but this service puts a searchable web interface on it. So you go and search "multimedia" and clicky to download the video. It's an interface to a binary archive. You don't need a news client.
Check it out, you can even download (or watch online via flash):
a sample episode of the Simpsons
Gee I bet they're licensed to distribute that.
I've noticed they are not including music, movies and software groups. Just the multimedia, music videos and TV ones. I guess they are trying to avoid the MPAA and RIAA's attentions.
Yeah, that'll work... not.
"Personally, I think most web interfaces suck for searching, but only slightly less than downloading 500K headers in a binary group looking for something ... interesting."
Newzbin is a great resource for searching binaries. You can search "posts" which are manually added groups of files (so you don't see a million rar files), or you can search for files. At least you can find out which group something... interesting is posted in before you download those bojillion headers.
"similar mods exist for selecting the correct rank of healing spell to not waste any healing."
For a Druid at least (haven't played a priest), it's not just to not waste healing, it's because my higher level heals won't work on lower level players. So if I want to assist lower level player I have to reconfigure my spell bar. If I'm in a mixed level group I have to have multiple levels of spells available. If I'm in a mixed level outdoor PVP raid, I might need to use almost all the spell levels. The same thing applies to my buffs. It's irritating.
Well then do ZG - half the size of an MC raid.
Scarlet Monestary is a 5 man instance from the start. I do consider doing a 5 man Scholo, Strath or LBRS more challenging than a 10 man. I've done UBRS in 8 man and it required much more coordination than doing it in 15.
Actually, Valve has stated that this freebie stuff is a chance for them to play with new Source engine features, put it out to the public and see how well it works (tecnically and artistically). They are planning to release pay expansions via Steam - but they will be longer than Lost Coast (shorter than HL2 however).
Sure. Philosophy and science are two different things. This statement:
"Moreover it is not probable due to irreducable complexity and the probability of everything being present for the spontaneous start of life. Life has never spontanously started."
is known as an opinion. These are also useful. They are not however facts, and people can argue that they are not true.
Science starts with a hypothesis, which is not an opinion or philosophy and can be tested against. As our knowledge increases new and better theories are tested and a lot of old ones thrown out. Science is not static and it shouldn't be influenced by pure opinion (in the ideal sense, of course there are unfortunate politicisms within science). This is in fact why so many scientists have problems with String theory, because there is no real way to test it at this point and maybe ever. So some scientists believe it is in the realm of metaphysics.
Anyway, in a nutshell, since Intelligent Design is more of a philosophy it shouldn't be taught in a science classroom.
And if you believe the coming of the end times leads to heaven on Earth - it makes sense.
Revelations is a scary part of the bible because people believe it. They believe it's the inevitable future. I had a neighbor give me some book relating the bible to what's happening currently in the world. She said "this explains why things are happening the way they are in the world today". What? And you don't think Medieval Europe during the plague thought they were experiencing the end times as well?
Well one would assume that you could have socketed items + enchantents. At least I would hope so. I wonder if you will be able to sell jewels, and can anyone just buy them off the AH and use them - or will a Jewelcrafter set them for you. I think it's kind of a pain that enchanters can't put their enchants on scrolls to sell them. I realize that this is how Blizzard wants it, but boy is it a pain to sell or buy enchants. You either need to sit and hawk your wares or you have to track down on the few people on your server that might have a high end enchant.
Along with all the elf rogues named Drizzt, Drizt, Drizzit etc.
By increasing the level cap they make the current high end content more accessible to less hardcore players and smaller guilds. So effectively they make this stuff "more casual" and push the high end guilds on to new challenges.
I mean if you got XP for all that running through MC or whatever I'm sure you'd roll through the levels pretty quick.
I recently started playing w.o.w., but one of the things that impresses me about it is that they way it acheives the appropriate level of challenge is by leaving many levels of challenge open for the player to find the right one. Rather than trying to predict exactly how difficult each task needs to be, the player naturally finds the tasks that are at the right level. There are goals and sub-goals, rewards little and small, all aimed at giving you opportunities to engage yourself.
This is really what's great about WoW during the levels from 1-60. You can log on and solo stuff and make progress. You can join up with a couple people to do a little harder stuff. You can join a full group and take on a Dungeon. All the time you are getting a little better and moving forward through the world.
The post 60 game is considerably more hardcore. The only real progression is through itemization and getting those items is very difficult. The amount of grind scales way up and there is very little you can accomplish by yourself. You'll need groups of at least 5 players for the dungeons, more commonly 10-15 and 20-40 for the epic dungeons (Molten Core, Zul Gurrab, Black Wing Lair). You will need to have good players, as a single bad player can easily cause a party wipe. You will probably be pigeon holed into a specific roll (main tank, healer, area of effect spells, pulling mobs etc.).
If you want to get those high end items, you'll need to do this repeatedly. For example most piece of the blue class sets you start getting in the level 50-60 dungeons have very low drop rates from specific mobs. So for example everyone needs to get their chest piece from the end boss of Upper Black Rock Spire. Their is a roughtly 8% chance he will drop the chest piece for your class. You are probably in a 15 man RAID and may have up to 3 other RAID members that need that item as well. So even if the piece you need does drop, you may need to "roll" for it - with a 1 in 3 chance of winning it. These dungeons take anywhere from an hour to 3 hours to run, depending on the quality of the group.
And that's just the blue set items are. I won't even go into the Epic purple item sets.
It's even worse to a degree with high end crafted items. You'll need to jump through hoops to get the plans and recipes to craft the items. You may need to get your faction reputation up with a group before you can purchase the items. How do you do that? Repeating quests that require you to grind for the quest items to turn in. And grind and grind and grind. And after you learn to make the items you'll need to grind for the materials or purchase them for tons of money. Then to make the items you may need to go to a specific location within a high level dungeon to craft them. I've never made the one alchemist flask I have a recipe for because I keep forgetting to bring the materials with me to the alchemist's lab in the Scholomance instance.
To be fair, this is the high end stuff and many people feel that to get it you should have to endure this kind of "work". And that's fine really. The content is designed for players who want that high level of challenge (although I don't see doing the same thing over an over again as much of a challenge personally, I can sleep walk through most of the high level instances). And if everyone could get or make those high end items, well they wouldn't be very unique or special would they? But you may find that you are in fact someone who doesn't have the time or patience for the lvl 60 game. Or maybe you don't want to join a huge guild to raid because you have a close knit group you enjoy playing with and the high end raiding guilds feel too much like joining the military. I myself don't have the patience and time for it. I applaud the increase in the level cap, because then maybe weenies like me can do 10 man Zul Gurrab runs or have a better shot at completing my blue sets. The high end guilds will pound through Black Wing Lair and move on to the level 70 content. And that's the way it should be. The high end game gets
Considering the cost of a movie for 2 hours of entertainment is $9 here (I won't include food or drinks, just talking the price of the entertainment itself) - if you get 4 hours of enjoyment a month out of playing it, you are at a better cost for fun than seeing a movie.
Or take for example, DVDS. They usually cost around $20, yet most DVDs are probably not watched more than a couple times. I have my classic DVDs I've watched maybe 10 times at most, but I have many that I have only watched a couple times. There aren't that many movies worth watching over and over.
So no I don't really feel like I HAVE to play to get my moneys worth. If I'm not playing it enough for the cost, well then it's time to cancel the subscription and play something else.
Yeah I think they are trying to give the horde a pretty race to attract more people. I also wouldn't be surprised if the Alliance gets Pandarens as a counterpoint to the fuzzy Taurens.
Seeing as the release date hasn't even been announced... don't you think you might be a bit bored of running BWL, ZG and MC by then? Maybe looking for some fresh new dungeons? New content? High end 60+ quests in the new zone? Not to mention that it will get easier to get everyone in your guild their 60 level epic gear with a team of 61+ in the high end raids.
I don't know about you but I'm kind of getting bored of running the same dungeons over and over again. I mean yeah it's great to make progression through them at the high end, but sometimes it just seems pointless and repetitive.
Absolutely - the FPS generated is determined by the complexity of the scene rendered and how taxing it is on the system. The question is WHAT can it render at that speed.
Hell any reasonably modern video card and run Quake 3 at considerably more than 120FPS.
I love when Sony spouts off about how amazingly amazing so amazing you've never seen how amazing the amazingness of the new amazing chip is amazingly going to be. I'm surprised they haven't said it has a subatomic pixel display resolution.
Red rocket! Red rocket!