He's basing it on the 'slippery slope' argument that 'well, if it can be used for this...then it can be used for THAT too, and then THAT, and then THAT, and eventually you're just a mind controlled advertising slave". While technically a possability, there isn't any evidence that it's being used for this.
And to this I ask you, how many times have you activated Windows XP?
Rose-tinted glasses. After playing Halo I couldn't go back to Goldeneye.
1. FPS issues. Hard to accurately hit someone at 2FPS with millions of explosions going on. 2. Ridiculous objectives in single player that required wandering around in a single level for hours until you found where that one objective was. It was OK on agent, but if nobody had told me about how to complete some of the other objectives on a greater difficulty level I would have never gotten it. 3. Straferunning. Straferunning is great when you are allowed the reaction time to hit something going that fast. Unfortuniatly, goldeneye's FPS problems combined with the system designed for you to stand still in order to get any accuracy, and it was just harder than hell to hit anyone.
Wrong. I've gotten hundreds more hours out of my old copy of Doom 2 than I have with pretty much any other game. Still play it to this day. A good story might contribute to an RPG, but who says that run and gun shoot-em-ups or arcade 'get a higher score' games aren't good games?
Hmm, WoW doesn't seem to have that problem. Then again, the game is so enjoyable
Says you. WoW was my first MMORPG and I was bored stupid at level 35 because of the lack of interaction with other players. Vanguard looks like it will be a breath of fresh air and a step back in the right direction.
You haven't actually read through what Vanguard is supposed to be in much detail, then, have you.
It seems cookie cutter at first, but as I was reading through the developers responses to the questions posed, it seems like they wanted to do what has been done before, but *correctly* and with game longevity in mind.
(And by longevity I don't mean six hour long raids, though they may exist, the devs have stated that they want their game to be primarily group focused. Not so lonely that you're soloing, not so big that you're just a faceless guy in a 40 man crowd)
Then by your logic, the PS3 is even worse off. I mean, it doesn't even have anything sorta-interesting, like Xbox Live Arcade.
I'm probably going to wait a year for the 360 to get a few decent games and for it to drop in price. After owning a DS and loving it, a Revolution is a launch day buy for me.
You couldn't pay me enough to buy another Sony product though, overhyped, underdeliverd, unreliable bullshit is all they've represented for the past couple of years.* That, and stupid DRM.
* (Yes, even worse than Microsoft. I was quite satisfied with my Xbox, and Windows XP SP2 is quite nice when I boot into it to play CoV and make Doom maps, although I use Debian testing as my primary "get shit done" OS.)
The Gamecube was Yamauchi's baby. He really dropped the ball on that thing, and arguably the Nintendo 64 too. Iwata, on the other hand, seems to know when his company is fighting a losing battle, after all, how can he hope to compete when his company has had a history of subpar consoles past the SNES? When the current console generation is about "MY GRAPHICS ARE BETTER THAN YOUR GRAPHICS" dick waving, how can you get ahead, other than creating a bigger, badder console than your compedators, while costing some obscene amount of money?
So they went off to their only remaining stronghold, the portable market, and created something so goddamn insane that no other company would even consider copying it. Two screens? A touchscreen? How the fuck are you supposed to play a game with THAT? A graphics chip that only looks marginally better than the N64?
Their insane gamble paid off. The Nintendo DS is now in 13 million hands worldwide, and even prompted an apology on January 5th of this year from Nintendo because the damn thing was SOLD OUT THROUGHOUT JAPAN.
After the Nintendo DS was annouced, I couldn't figure out how Nintendo was going to use it to pull out of its slump. Now I'm convinced. If they can make a long shot like the DS sucessful, I now have no doubt in my mind that they can do amazing things with the Revolution.
Not quite. There's no such thing as protected speech in Second Life, if you say something that pisses off a large majority of the population, the administrators will start looking for excuses to shitcan you. Friend of mine made a "fetus cannon" as a joka, and was perminently banned from SL for it.
It really sounds like MMORPG's aren't really for you, then. The thing is, group content, when DONE RIGHT, can be the best MMO experience you can have. Unfortuniatly, Everquest was the one that got closest to it, and all subsquent games in the genre have moved away from the harsh death penalities (which doesn't beat good habits into players) instead of making the group content in and of itself more managable.
However, if you really miss SOME things about MMORPG's, then here are some alternatives that you might like...
Shards of Dalaya A free Everquest server that is hosted in another country, preventing Sony from shutting it down. It has much accelerated XP gain, and the world is smaller, so your chances of meeting other players is much increased, making LFG much less painful. http://www.shardsofdalaya.com/ is where you should go to take a look.
Ultima Online: Redemption A free UO server, which is fantastic if you never played UO back in the 'golden era' of UO. You will need to learn how to macro, but out of the MMO's I've played so far, that was the one that kept my interest the longest. http://www.uoredemption.com/ for this one.
Guild Wars Not really an MMORPG, but the PvE is pretty fun, and the storyline progression is obvious once you get to post-searing (just do the co-op missions), and the fact that NPC party members can fill in for missing roles, even all other party members, is a neat fact. Couple that with a FANTASTIC PvP system, and incredably responsive developers, and you've got yourself a winner. Only problem is that a good portion of the game is instanced, so you dont see many other players outside of towns.
Neverwinter Nights Now, this isn't really an MMORPG, but it's really damned close when you're playing on servers that support running logins. Almost all of the servers use content that is created by the player, and while they kinda sorta do look alike (because of the tile-based nature of the level creation), there is still tons of room for creativity. There is a server for everyone here. Like PvP? There's a few servers dedicated to creating a max level charactor from scratch. with some of the imbalances of 3e D&D taken into account. Like PvE? There are plenty of servers with vast amounts of dungeon crawling content, either solo-able or able to be handled in groups? Like crafting? Some servers have a fully fleshed out crafting system. Like socializing or IC roleplaying? There are plenty of servers with that avalable too. Best of all, since the servers are smaller, you get to know people a lot quicker, and run-in's with DM's and GM's are a lot more common, or you might even get caught up in a DM-run world event. I've played on many servers in this game, but this is the game that has almost always had a place on my hard drive since I purchased it (I can't remember when, but it was before the platinum pack came out, so I had to buy Gold and then Hordes of the Underdark seporately). Highly recomended, the only complaint I have with it is that the linux port is really half-assed when it comes to organizing its files, but the fact that it even HAS a linux port puts it above the other three games on this list.
EVE essentially boils down to being a Trade Wars type game. If that floats your boat, great. If not, there are numerous problems with the game.
EVE had an 'automatic skill gainer'. Similar to how macroing in UO worked, except you didn't actually have to DO anything to gain the skill, it kind of gained by itself. The only problem is that unlike old UO, you can't have a max level charactor within a week...you know...in order to have fun. In EVE, if you know EXACTLY what you're doing, you can be flying a combat-ready ship within a day. It's the shittiest combat-ready ship, though, don't expect to be able to PvP unless you - again - know exactly what you're doing and pick and choose your targets. You're essentially stuck doing small time jobs until you can get into Battlecruisers, which can take MONTHS, assuming you know EXACTLY what you're doing. And trust me, the small time jobs suck. The PvE is absolutely terrible and tacked on, and even if you somehow get into a player run corperation at this point, you're pretty much stuck doing menial work.
There is also NOTHING else to do other than 'make money, make more money, repeat'. Exploration is nonexistant, there are very very few unique places to visit in EVE, almost all of the places look very similar to one another, and all of the interesting points are mapped out on your radar. Imagine plaing an MMORPG that was just an endless expanse of similar-looking-grasslands and you essentially had the entire continent mapped out with every single interesting point with a shiny red star over it, and every single point that WASN'T that red star was precisely flat, with no hills, trees, or ANYTHING. There is no place to simply idle and chit chat with other players...well, actually there is, but since you can't actually see anyone else while you're in a spaceport, it's essentially IRC. Not that anyone wants to talk to you, they're all too busy doing other things.
You're better off playing any numerous web-based trade wars based game. The only thing you're missing out on is PvP, which consists of you being ambushed and not being able to do anything about it, or you chasing after someone and not being able to kill them.because they've got 2 years on you and already have a dozen safespots made in the system and a lightining quick ship. Oh, the EVE fanboys will tell you about huge fleet battles. Those NEVER happen where you happen to be. And if you do somehow get in a huge corperation and participate with one, it consists of you being 30km away from all of the primary targets the squad leader calls, and you're stuck sitting there running between dead ships because you're still trying to fumble around with the interface and you're too far away from them all anyway. And then you get podded out of fucking nowhere. Yay, fun.
I gave this game multiple tries, as I had a bunch of friends who play the game. No more.
EVE Online. The players, quite literally, make the storyline. Not EVERY single player, but large player run corperations figure in prominantly into the ongoing storyline.
He was too busy playing Deathmatch and living like a rock star (or at least the mentality) to make maps or do useful work. Read "Masters of Doom", it's almost tragic how sidetracked he got.
I agree with you that some of Doom 2's maps were kind of bland looking, blame Sandy Peterson for that, but Romero's eight map magnum opus that is Episode 1 of Doom has yet to be topped in terms of level design, in my opinion. And I guarentee you that most any Doom 1 or 2 map was more interesting and fun to play and explore than Doom 3's linear, boring, monster-closet-a-thons.
Second Life. Great concept, aboslutely ruined by the people. With no such thing as protected speech, if you create something funny that offends someone, you're crusin' for a banning when offended parties complain to Linden Labs. I've seen it happen to a number of people I used to know, and I subsquently quit Second Life in disgust.
If I had any mod points, you'd defeniatly get a +1 insightful. Sadly I used them all up, so I'll just sign in agreement with you.
A perfect example of what you're talking about is present in two different forms right now.
1. The First Person Shooter 2. The MMORPG
First, the FPS. If you want an example of a deep FPS, the games you're looking for are Doom 2, QuakeWorld, Quake 2 and Quake 3's CPMA mod. There is a reason people are still playing all of those games today Unfortuniatly, CounterStrike came along and absolutely killed this genre. Why? It was more pubbie friendly. Complete newbies to the game could get a few kills on even the most experienced pros through dumb luck. Yet you'd be lucky to get a single frag on an experienced Doom or Quake pro. (Nightmares of losing 50-0 on Doom2 Map01...-_-) The skill curve for those two games are much higher, but unfortuniatly, because of this, newbies would rather go play a game they can occationally get a kill in then try and improve their skills.
Second, the MMORPG. Three words: World of Warcraft. Now, I'm a big fan of Total Annihilation, and while Blizzards's RTS's were very well produced and had great stories, their actual gameplay always felt a little limited compared to TA. However, apparently the huge crowd who adores Blizzard now loves their new MMORPG, World of Warcraft. Unfortuniatly, WoW has several gameplay problems.
1. There is no incentive to group. In 35 levels, I never once felt like I HAD to group with players. However, I was totally turned off when I found out that... 2. Once you reach Level 60, forget about grouping anywhere, except as prerequisites for raids. You're doing raids, my friend, until you bleed from every orface.
On one hand, soloing gets very boring. On the other, getting together a cohecive raid is very very time consuming and usually involves a guild or schedule of some sort. Where is the content for people who want to play in a group but don't have the time to set aside for 3+ hour raids? The problem with WoW is that PuG are absolutely terrible because it's rare that you find people who knows how to play their class, myself included. Why? Meaningless death penalty. Your items have to be repaired, but I guarentee you that if something like XP debt/loss and the possibility of losing hard earned items was implemented, you would be MUCH more careful about where you went instead of brute forcing your way through a mission. Strangely, I arrived at this conclusion before trying Everquest. Unfortuniatly, when I did try EQ on a freeshard, it was impossible to get a group anywhere, mainly because of population issues, and I also couldn't get past its clunky interface and very dated graphics. Thankfully, I doubt Vanguard will have that sort of problem.
What did I take away from those two examples? Essentially, gamers rarely think about the long term implications of implimenting certain things. All they want to do is feel like winners. The less of a skill curve your game has, the shorter span of time it will entertain people before they move on to the next "hot game".
Anyway, those are my two cents on the matter, my opinion based partly on observation, partly on experience, so take that as you will.
You solo guys have plenty of content. It's called Levels 1-60.
Lack of proper group content is what made me quit. With death being so meaningless in World of Warcraft, it was rare when I came across anyone in a PuG who knew how to play their class. This game needs experience debt so very very badly.
It's not like they'll be able to tell anyway. Can you honestly say that not being in a gay friendly guild makes you less likely to be called a "faggot" or a "cocksucker" by other players?
I've had a less than satisfactory experience with Xfire. It doesn't detect a good number of games I play, even if they're supported. I remember Ultima Online and many Half Life mods having problems, along with many lesser well known games not being supported at all. Eventually, I quit using it, because all I really used it for was statistics tracking on my games, and since it didn't work on many of the games I play, why bother?
To be honest, the real step up is being accessable to all ages, thorugh the Xbox Live Arcade. Every time I see an Xbox 360 in a gaming store, I ALWAYS quit CoD2 and boot up Hexic HD. At first it was to piss off passerbys who wanted GOOD GRAPHICS LOL. But I found that the game turns many more older people's heads that go "Oh hey, that looks fun" or "I think I have that on my computer! What else does this thing have?".
Xbox 360 didn't just do the same thing, but better graphics. I'm really impressed with the XBL Marketplace, where you can buy a bunch of older or simpler games for really cheap. It's a fantastic idea, it's great for indie developers, and I really hope it catches on.
(Oh and by the way, you may point to the Revolutions ability to download NES games as Microsoft stealing ideas again. I honestly think that the two companies reached a similar conclusion seporately, as the ability to download NES games was only 'rumor' until it was way too late in the 360's dev cycle to add Live Marketplace. And I don't think Revolution will have newer indie games for download, just old ones from their own companies)
This is a bug with the high score table that was so obscure that it didn't pop up until the holiday weekend. How is this something they could have forseen ahead of time, again?
Protected Speech doesn't exist in Second Life. Make sure that your creations are completely and 100% free of everything that anyone might possibly find offensive. Something like...say...a cannon that shoots fetuses...has gotten people banned.
What's wrong with that? I was playing M rated material such as Grand Theft Auto, Perfect Dark and Duke Nukem 3D long before I was of legal age. Hell, my parents bought me a copy of Doom II when I was 12 and Duke Nukem 3D a year later, and didn't even bother to set the adults only password..
Now look at me. I'm a well adjusted adult that is three semesters away from graduating from college. I drink responsibly, I don't smoke, and I have no interest in owning a gun. M rated games share the same category with Pornography and "Explicit Lyrics" music. It's harmless. And I'm not alone, many of my friends went through the same gaming habits I did, and they're all off doing their own thing as well.
The only one of your credentials that is relivent to the discussion is the one about managers in your area. And that's still only relivant to the area in which you live in.
Slashdot Mirror
And to this I ask you, how many times have you activated Windows XP?
Yeah...
Rose-tinted glasses. After playing Halo I couldn't go back to Goldeneye.
1. FPS issues. Hard to accurately hit someone at 2FPS with millions of explosions going on.
2. Ridiculous objectives in single player that required wandering around in a single level for hours until you found where that one objective was. It was OK on agent, but if nobody had told me about how to complete some of the other objectives on a greater difficulty level I would have never gotten it.
3. Straferunning. Straferunning is great when you are allowed the reaction time to hit something going that fast. Unfortuniatly, goldeneye's FPS problems combined with the system designed for you to stand still in order to get any accuracy, and it was just harder than hell to hit anyone.
Wrong. I've gotten hundreds more hours out of my old copy of Doom 2 than I have with pretty much any other game. Still play it to this day. A good story might contribute to an RPG, but who says that run and gun shoot-em-ups or arcade 'get a higher score' games aren't good games?
Says you. WoW was my first MMORPG and I was bored stupid at level 35 because of the lack of interaction with other players. Vanguard looks like it will be a breath of fresh air and a step back in the right direction.
The problem with this is that making content too easy means the longevity of the game is decreased. Your game can't survive on newbies forever.
It seems cookie cutter at first, but as I was reading through the developers responses to the questions posed, it seems like they wanted to do what has been done before, but *correctly* and with game longevity in mind.
(And by longevity I don't mean six hour long raids, though they may exist, the devs have stated that they want their game to be primarily group focused. Not so lonely that you're soloing, not so big that you're just a faceless guy in a 40 man crowd)
I'm probably going to wait a year for the 360 to get a few decent games and for it to drop in price. After owning a DS and loving it, a Revolution is a launch day buy for me.
You couldn't pay me enough to buy another Sony product though, overhyped, underdeliverd, unreliable bullshit is all they've represented for the past couple of years.* That, and stupid DRM.
* (Yes, even worse than Microsoft. I was quite satisfied with my Xbox, and Windows XP SP2 is quite nice when I boot into it to play CoV and make Doom maps, although I use Debian testing as my primary "get shit done" OS.)
So they went off to their only remaining stronghold, the portable market, and created something so goddamn insane that no other company would even consider copying it. Two screens? A touchscreen? How the fuck are you supposed to play a game with THAT? A graphics chip that only looks marginally better than the N64?
Their insane gamble paid off. The Nintendo DS is now in 13 million hands worldwide, and even prompted an apology on January 5th of this year from Nintendo because the damn thing was SOLD OUT THROUGHOUT JAPAN.
After the Nintendo DS was annouced, I couldn't figure out how Nintendo was going to use it to pull out of its slump. Now I'm convinced. If they can make a long shot like the DS sucessful, I now have no doubt in my mind that they can do amazing things with the Revolution.
Not quite. There's no such thing as protected speech in Second Life, if you say something that pisses off a large majority of the population, the administrators will start looking for excuses to shitcan you. Friend of mine made a "fetus cannon" as a joka, and was perminently banned from SL for it.
However, if you really miss SOME things about MMORPG's, then here are some alternatives that you might like...
Shards of Dalaya
A free Everquest server that is hosted in another country, preventing Sony from shutting it down. It has much accelerated XP gain, and the world is smaller, so your chances of meeting other players is much increased, making LFG much less painful. http://www.shardsofdalaya.com/ is where you should go to take a look.
Ultima Online: Redemption
A free UO server, which is fantastic if you never played UO back in the 'golden era' of UO. You will need to learn how to macro, but out of the MMO's I've played so far, that was the one that kept my interest the longest. http://www.uoredemption.com/ for this one.
Guild Wars
Not really an MMORPG, but the PvE is pretty fun, and the storyline progression is obvious once you get to post-searing (just do the co-op missions), and the fact that NPC party members can fill in for missing roles, even all other party members, is a neat fact. Couple that with a FANTASTIC PvP system, and incredably responsive developers, and you've got yourself a winner. Only problem is that a good portion of the game is instanced, so you dont see many other players outside of towns.
Neverwinter Nights
Now, this isn't really an MMORPG, but it's really damned close when you're playing on servers that support running logins. Almost all of the servers use content that is created by the player, and while they kinda sorta do look alike (because of the tile-based nature of the level creation), there is still tons of room for creativity. There is a server for everyone here. Like PvP? There's a few servers dedicated to creating a max level charactor from scratch. with some of the imbalances of 3e D&D taken into account. Like PvE? There are plenty of servers with vast amounts of dungeon crawling content, either solo-able or able to be handled in groups? Like crafting? Some servers have a fully fleshed out crafting system. Like socializing or IC roleplaying? There are plenty of servers with that avalable too. Best of all, since the servers are smaller, you get to know people a lot quicker, and run-in's with DM's and GM's are a lot more common, or you might even get caught up in a DM-run world event. I've played on many servers in this game, but this is the game that has almost always had a place on my hard drive since I purchased it (I can't remember when, but it was before the platinum pack came out, so I had to buy Gold and then Hordes of the Underdark seporately). Highly recomended, the only complaint I have with it is that the linux port is really half-assed when it comes to organizing its files, but the fact that it even HAS a linux port puts it above the other three games on this list.
EVE had an 'automatic skill gainer'. Similar to how macroing in UO worked, except you didn't actually have to DO anything to gain the skill, it kind of gained by itself. The only problem is that unlike old UO, you can't have a max level charactor within a week...you know...in order to have fun. In EVE, if you know EXACTLY what you're doing, you can be flying a combat-ready ship within a day. It's the shittiest combat-ready ship, though, don't expect to be able to PvP unless you - again - know exactly what you're doing and pick and choose your targets. You're essentially stuck doing small time jobs until you can get into Battlecruisers, which can take MONTHS, assuming you know EXACTLY what you're doing. And trust me, the small time jobs suck. The PvE is absolutely terrible and tacked on, and even if you somehow get into a player run corperation at this point, you're pretty much stuck doing menial work.
There is also NOTHING else to do other than 'make money, make more money, repeat'. Exploration is nonexistant, there are very very few unique places to visit in EVE, almost all of the places look very similar to one another, and all of the interesting points are mapped out on your radar. Imagine plaing an MMORPG that was just an endless expanse of similar-looking-grasslands and you essentially had the entire continent mapped out with every single interesting point with a shiny red star over it, and every single point that WASN'T that red star was precisely flat, with no hills, trees, or ANYTHING. There is no place to simply idle and chit chat with other players...well, actually there is, but since you can't actually see anyone else while you're in a spaceport, it's essentially IRC. Not that anyone wants to talk to you, they're all too busy doing other things.
You're better off playing any numerous web-based trade wars based game. The only thing you're missing out on is PvP, which consists of you being ambushed and not being able to do anything about it, or you chasing after someone and not being able to kill them.because they've got 2 years on you and already have a dozen safespots made in the system and a lightining quick ship. Oh, the EVE fanboys will tell you about huge fleet battles. Those NEVER happen where you happen to be. And if you do somehow get in a huge corperation and participate with one, it consists of you being 30km away from all of the primary targets the squad leader calls, and you're stuck sitting there running between dead ships because you're still trying to fumble around with the interface and you're too far away from them all anyway. And then you get podded out of fucking nowhere. Yay, fun.
I gave this game multiple tries, as I had a bunch of friends who play the game. No more.
EVE Online. The players, quite literally, make the storyline. Not EVERY single player, but large player run corperations figure in prominantly into the ongoing storyline.
He was too busy playing Deathmatch and living like a rock star (or at least the mentality) to make maps or do useful work. Read "Masters of Doom", it's almost tragic how sidetracked he got.
I agree with you that some of Doom 2's maps were kind of bland looking, blame Sandy Peterson for that, but Romero's eight map magnum opus that is Episode 1 of Doom has yet to be topped in terms of level design, in my opinion. And I guarentee you that most any Doom 1 or 2 map was more interesting and fun to play and explore than Doom 3's linear, boring, monster-closet-a-thons.
Second Life. Great concept, aboslutely ruined by the people. With no such thing as protected speech, if you create something funny that offends someone, you're crusin' for a banning when offended parties complain to Linden Labs. I've seen it happen to a number of people I used to know, and I subsquently quit Second Life in disgust.
If I had any mod points, you'd defeniatly get a +1 insightful. Sadly I used them all up, so I'll just sign in agreement with you.
A perfect example of what you're talking about is present in two different forms right now.
1. The First Person Shooter
2. The MMORPG
First, the FPS. If you want an example of a deep FPS, the games you're looking for are Doom 2, QuakeWorld, Quake 2 and Quake 3's CPMA mod. There is a reason people are still playing all of those games today Unfortuniatly, CounterStrike came along and absolutely killed this genre. Why? It was more pubbie friendly. Complete newbies to the game could get a few kills on even the most experienced pros through dumb luck. Yet you'd be lucky to get a single frag on an experienced Doom or Quake pro. (Nightmares of losing 50-0 on Doom2 Map01...-_-) The skill curve for those two games are much higher, but unfortuniatly, because of this, newbies would rather go play a game they can occationally get a kill in then try and improve their skills.
Second, the MMORPG. Three words: World of Warcraft. Now, I'm a big fan of Total Annihilation, and while Blizzards's RTS's were very well produced and had great stories, their actual gameplay always felt a little limited compared to TA. However, apparently the huge crowd who adores Blizzard now loves their new MMORPG, World of Warcraft. Unfortuniatly, WoW has several gameplay problems.
1. There is no incentive to group. In 35 levels, I never once felt like I HAD to group with players. However, I was totally turned off when I found out that...
2. Once you reach Level 60, forget about grouping anywhere, except as prerequisites for raids. You're doing raids, my friend, until you bleed from every orface.
On one hand, soloing gets very boring. On the other, getting together a cohecive raid is very very time consuming and usually involves a guild or schedule of some sort. Where is the content for people who want to play in a group but don't have the time to set aside for 3+ hour raids? The problem with WoW is that PuG are absolutely terrible because it's rare that you find people who knows how to play their class, myself included. Why? Meaningless death penalty. Your items have to be repaired, but I guarentee you that if something like XP debt/loss and the possibility of losing hard earned items was implemented, you would be MUCH more careful about where you went instead of brute forcing your way through a mission. Strangely, I arrived at this conclusion before trying Everquest. Unfortuniatly, when I did try EQ on a freeshard, it was impossible to get a group anywhere, mainly because of population issues, and I also couldn't get past its clunky interface and very dated graphics. Thankfully, I doubt Vanguard will have that sort of problem.
What did I take away from those two examples? Essentially, gamers rarely think about the long term implications of implimenting certain things. All they want to do is feel like winners. The less of a skill curve your game has, the shorter span of time it will entertain people before they move on to the next "hot game".
Anyway, those are my two cents on the matter, my opinion based partly on observation, partly on experience, so take that as you will.
Lack of proper group content is what made me quit. With death being so meaningless in World of Warcraft, it was rare when I came across anyone in a PuG who knew how to play their class. This game needs experience debt so very very badly.
I'm only half kidding.
I've had a less than satisfactory experience with Xfire. It doesn't detect a good number of games I play, even if they're supported. I remember Ultima Online and many Half Life mods having problems, along with many lesser well known games not being supported at all. Eventually, I quit using it, because all I really used it for was statistics tracking on my games, and since it didn't work on many of the games I play, why bother?
Xbox 360 didn't just do the same thing, but better graphics. I'm really impressed with the XBL Marketplace, where you can buy a bunch of older or simpler games for really cheap. It's a fantastic idea, it's great for indie developers, and I really hope it catches on.
(Oh and by the way, you may point to the Revolutions ability to download NES games as Microsoft stealing ideas again. I honestly think that the two companies reached a similar conclusion seporately, as the ability to download NES games was only 'rumor' until it was way too late in the 360's dev cycle to add Live Marketplace. And I don't think Revolution will have newer indie games for download, just old ones from their own companies)
Yeah, we can just file that next to the "Gamecube came out in second place! Really!", and "Linux is ready for the desktop".
I bet you're a blast at parties too.
Why is it any surprise that people can't play their class? When there's barely any penalty for death, good habits don't get beaten into you.
Protected Speech doesn't exist in Second Life. Make sure that your creations are completely and 100% free of everything that anyone might possibly find offensive. Something like...say...a cannon that shoots fetuses...has gotten people banned.
Now look at me. I'm a well adjusted adult that is three semesters away from graduating from college. I drink responsibly, I don't smoke, and I have no interest in owning a gun. M rated games share the same category with Pornography and "Explicit Lyrics" music. It's harmless. And I'm not alone, many of my friends went through the same gaming habits I did, and they're all off doing their own thing as well.
The only one of your credentials that is relivent to the discussion is the one about managers in your area. And that's still only relivant to the area in which you live in.