No, UO isn't a big enough name on the MMORPG market. Everquest is number one, but I predict, especially based on statistics from this chart that both UO and EQ will meet their demise within a year. Not a total failure of course, just a dramatic drop in subscribers or at least in growth. Want big names? Final Fantasy XI. Star Wars Galaxies. Those are big names. Everyone knows what Star Wars is and almost everyone knows what Final Fantasy is. They'll dominate the MMORPG market while obscure-titled names like Everquest and Ultima Online are left in the dust.
Is that the way it should be? No.. but that's probably the way it will be. Consumers buy into titles more than anything else.
Unrestricted players' behavior did not result in healthy grow of communities, but instead a living hell of PK-everywhere.
While this failed to lure the masses into the great game and only paved the way for Everquest's monumental success, this "PK Hell" of your's created the largest MMORPG niche of pure dog eat dog PVPers ever seen. UO started out as a PVP game and slowly became more and more impotent in that area. Gone are the days in UO where all you needed was a mildly developed character and equipment that was easy to come by. These days in UO in order to PVP successfully you have to have a full 5 characters and farm gold full time in order to keep yourself properly armed.
As for UXO? I don't know what they're trying to do but I think it's a bad idea. The only generic 3d MMORPGs that are going to succeed these days are the ones with the big names.
If you don't respect the copyrights of others why should anyone respect yours?
From the bottom of every page on your site.
Site version 5.3, design 10
(C) 2003 Eric Newport. All rights reserved?
Go ahead and pirate yourself as many copies as you want of all the stuff I offer on my website for free. =P
I get a Score:0, Flamebait for posting an opinion based on experience? Try underrated. Got some pretty bias mods floating around here. Maybe I should have opened the post with a tell tale "This will probably get modded down but..." because it seems like that's all it takes to get a +5 insightful these days.
I rent games. Why? Because I don't like paying for them. If I want myself a copy of a brand new Playstation or Nintendo game, all I have to do is pay a few dollars to rent it, take it home, and rip it into a ROM. This can be done with any console game, provided of course you have the accomodating hardware to rip it with, and it's much cheaper than actually buying it. It's also much more reliable than searching for hours on Kazaa. Especially if it's one of those DVD games or multi CD games like Playstation 1 and 2.
Since Smash Bros is one of the bigger titles that N has had the past few years. Loss or significant degeneration could mean less sales of their next console, or something like that. Then again, I never bought SSB:M, so maybe it wouldn't be that bad after all.
You guess correctly. SSB:M isn't half of what the original is. All the characters are nothing but doubles of eachother and you spend more time trying to keep yourself alive while the levels try ceaselessly to kill you than you do smashing your opponents. The N64 SSB is a true classic. The sequel is a joke and is one of the reasons I haven't bought my own GC yet. (Although, Metroid Prime is quite tempting.)
Yeah. Besides, the name "Phoenix" should have been reserved by NASA, or rather by Zephram Cochrane, for the name of the first starship with warp drive.
Of course, this isn't supposed to happen until after the third world war so I'm sure that all records of Mozilla Phoenix/Firebird and all the conflicts will have been lost by then, seeing as how a nuclear holocaust can easily facilitate such a loss of data.
Recently I went on a little Greyhound bus trip across half the US. During reboarding procedures at one of my stops, there was a complete inspection of all the carry on luggage. Being over 24 hours sleep deprived and these security procedures making me later than I already was, I was more than uncooperative. As a response to my inquiry, this goes on randomly across bus stations across the US, according to the inspector. After (what seemed like) a lengthy inspection of my, and all other passenger's carry on luggage, we boarded the bus and off we went.
What's the point? This disturbs me. I can see why people might be getting a bit paranoid with air planes and all, but buses?! What the hell can I do with a hijacked bus in the middle of Missouri? Ram the bus into the giant arch in St. Louis? The US is becoming way too paranoid about terrorists these days.
I just kind of wish they hadn't wasted a number on it. They've done FF:Tactics, FF: Mystic Quest, FF: Legends, and FF:Crystal Chronicles, why not FF:Online?
Mod parent up! That's exactly what I mean by this. FF games *with numbers* are all about singular RPG. A FF number can't be MMO. It just can't! That's why true FF fans skip XI.
It's no laughing matter. Making XI an MMORPG was the single worst thing they could have possibly done. The FF series has always been about RPG and RPG alone. Throwing in the psudo RPG qualities that come with MMORPG makes us true FF fans skip number 11 when we count FF games.
Of course Square seems to be kicking themselves in the face lately with FF games. The series reached it's apex with VII. VIII was good but the overcomplicated card system was discouraging and the GF system was lame. IX was too cartoony and the story too lame. X was too much graphics and minimal gameplay and the ending was terrible. X2 was the worst idea Square ever came up with at this point. You never make a sequel to an FF!! And they bottomed out at XI being even worse than a sequel.
Conclusion: let's hope Square has learned from their string of bad games and let's hope XII is a return to what made them great. Oh how I long for another game as good quality as IV, VI, or VII.
Mass media's doing to Tolken's fine works as they do to everything else that's "popular". They're Over-saturizing his books.
I wouldnt be surprised in 2 years, most people will hate the "Lord Of the Rings" series of books. In a way, It's kind of sad.
Yeah. And imagine how repulsive it is for people like me who hated it before it was popular? Nothing worse than a bad trend.
Oh yes, do that. Freeciv is terrible compared to the real thing. I still play the badly programmed crappilly skinned Civ1 originally designed for Win95 because it's better than Freeciv. Of course I'm weird like that. I despise all civilization games after the first one. So take my opinion with a grain of salt.;)
The French language borrows quite heavily from other languages; most noticeably Latin, seeing as how it's Latin based. Since English is also Latin based, many English words are bound to be similar.
Key: English/French
bus/autobus adore/adorez meeting/réunion
All those French equivalents are very easy to understand for English speakers. There are so many English/French similarities that saying French and English never borrow from each other is quite a falsity
In fact, the new French word "courriel" for E-mail is not too much different for their word for mail, that being "courrier". They probably did this to make it easier to understand what email is.
Think of it like us changing our word "resumé" to "qualificationsbill". Now, any frenchman who knows what the word "courrier" means, will instantly know that "courriel" must be a type of mail. It's simply a matter of clarification.
Doesnt it always go that advertisements carry some degree of falsity and the viewer must exercise his/her own good judgement ? If there is a similar ad on a television stating that if you sweat profusely after a small walk you could be suffering from high blood pressure, would it warrant a class action suit ?
There's a difference. These advertisements carry the highest possible degree of falsity possible. Because of that, non computer-savvy people find them confusing and computer-savvy people find them infuriating because they have to take 5 minutes to explain to their less computer-savvy friends/family that their computer is not, in fact, in any danger by "broadcasting an IP address."
Even if there is no monetary settlement from this suit (AKA DoubleClick winning), at the very least it'll make this "FUI" trend take one hell of a downturn. A judge might order DoubleClick to stop this practice even if they don't have to pay a cent in compensation.
Casual PVPer is like saying a casual serial killer.
You know, this statement just proves to me how bias you are. Coupled with "If people want to PK then they should be playing Quake/Halflife/etc" you couldn't be more wrong. If quake was doing it for me why would I be paying a monthly fee for UO at all?
PvP is the scourge that prevented UO from growing and why EQ has over 300,000 subscribers
UO should have focused on PVP and not PVM or PVE. Everquest clearly kicks UO's ass in that department. Now because UO tried to do both and failed at both, it's suffering a loss of all its PVPers and slowly all its PVMers. Saying things like "PvP is the scourge that prevented UO from growing" is clearly bias and makes me wonder why you got modded +4 insightful.
As if bias is insightful? Someone mod him overrated.
This article is quite true and I can support it with experience. I used to play Ultima Online and had been a long time player. I was part of the PVP (player vs player) niche of the game. While it is true that we were the minority, we still payed our monthly fee and deserved to have fun. Gradually over the years, the developers continued to make changes forcing PVPers to quit. Instead of listening to the overwhelming cries to make a server just for us, they continued to make the game cater to people who enjoyed farming gold and items. The casual PVPer was left in the dust
To make a long story short, they did try to make a server just for us, but they failed to listen to what the PVP customers were trying to tell them. We wanted casual PVP; we didn't want to spend 10 hours a day trying to farm gold and items in order to compete! So because of developer ignorance and failure to listen to customers, they've all but lost their PVP minority. Now the difference between UO and Everquest is minimal and UO's days are quite numbered now that SWG and FFXI are rolling in.
If they wanted to save their game and make it unique they should have offered what no other game had: casual PVP. But it seemed they were more concerned with the short term business model than the long term business model. Drop an insignificant minority here, gain some newbies there, raise subscription rates for 3 months. Seems okay on the surface, but by shunning long time players and relying on a constant flow of newbies, your game is destined to fail.
named as such, since a survey showed the average user found the word 'blog' to be confusing
The average user also thinks creating a buzzword for keeping a journal, an idea that has existed for centuries, is stupid.
Gah....! Exactly! I've despised the word "blog" ever since I first heard it. I tolerage weblog, but the last thing we need is a buzzword for a buzzword.
how hard would it be to slap on an TCP/IP protocal and run it through the users' ISPs?
Not hard at all. But that would require me actually buying a GC which I refuse to do. Console games are great, but I'll never buy a console. Computers are so much more useful. So until Nintendo starts selling their games for computers, I'm going to continue to use emulators and play my bought/rented games that way.
yeah, but anyone who felt so inclined could run a quake3 server, which probably isn't going to be the case with console online games. Serving all has to be done by the publisher or whoever, and they aren't going to incur that cost for free.
You're probably right, but that's not how it should be. Online games should always remain decentralized in order to thrive. Nintendo makes online game, Nintendo sells online game client, Nintendo distributes free server program for Win/Linux/Mac/etc. That way anyone and everyone can make a server but the means by which the game is played is still sold. Ultimately, by allowing the masses to setup servers, they save money while still turning a nice profit by selling the game client. Want to profit off the internet? Get the users to do all the work for you!
The console public really is not ready for online gaming
While that may be true in some circles, I can tell you that I, and friends of mine, have wanted Nintendo to start making online versions of their games for a very long time. Imagine a game as chaotic and infinitely fun as Super Smash Brothers or Goldeneye 007 in a MMO scene and tell me that wouldn't be badass.
Online gaming in general is a really neat sounding idea, but its just not what its cracked up to be. No one wants to pay 40-50 for the game then also have to pay a monthly fee to play online on top of their internet costs.
Last I checked, Quake3 didn't have a monthly fee. People don't want MMORPGs, people want MMOGs. There's a difference. Take a game like Subspace/Continuum. It's MMO, but it's not a monthly fee (hell, it's free to boot!). These are the kinds of games people want. The majority of console and casual gamers don't have time to play MMORPGs in which subscription ensues. They want a good fighting game. Something quick and dirty to pass the time between the erratic work/college shifts.
The analyst is wrong. Game consoles are NOT home entertainment devices, they are game consoles. Everyone who has tried to make them more than that have failed in the extras.
Here's where I agree with you. But I don't agree with your "solution" per se, which is to do nothing. Nintendo may make consoles, but that doesn't mean they are restricted to just that. They could port their games for the PC and develop an online scene. The profit margin of such an undertaking is clearly in their favor, so it's beyond me as to why they don't try it out. Super Smash Brothers or Goldeneye 007 may not be your favorite games, but at least in my area it'd be a big online hit. Case in point, Nintendo should start making online games for the PC. They're quality game makers and they need to crawl out from under the console-only rock. Computers have a future. Consoles do not.
They have unlimited budgets, pannels of payed experts, focus groups and statistical research firms.
You have jack shit.
I'll tell you what he has. He has the ability to whatever the hell he wants with hardware he legally bought. If I buy an Xbox I have a legal right to do whatever the hell I want with it. If I want to wipe its OS and throw Linux on it, I can do that. Microsoft trying to tell you what you can and cannot do with hardware you legally buy is quite frankly absurd.
Example: if I buy an IBM computer from Gateway with Windows on it, I'm not restricted by law to keep Windows on it. If I want to wipe the hard drive and install Linux or FreeBSD I can do that. It shouldn't be any different on a console. After all, a console is nothing more than a dumbed down computer.
Slashdot Mirror
Uh, no. I'm not.
No, UO isn't a big enough name on the MMORPG market. Everquest is number one, but I predict, especially based on statistics from this chart that both UO and EQ will meet their demise within a year. Not a total failure of course, just a dramatic drop in subscribers or at least in growth. Want big names? Final Fantasy XI. Star Wars Galaxies. Those are big names. Everyone knows what Star Wars is and almost everyone knows what Final Fantasy is. They'll dominate the MMORPG market while obscure-titled names like Everquest and Ultima Online are left in the dust.
Is that the way it should be? No.. but that's probably the way it will be. Consumers buy into titles more than anything else.
As for UXO? I don't know what they're trying to do but I think it's a bad idea. The only generic 3d MMORPGs that are going to succeed these days are the ones with the big names.
I get a Score:0, Flamebait for posting an opinion based on experience? Try underrated. Got some pretty bias mods floating around here. Maybe I should have opened the post with a tell tale "This will probably get modded down but..." because it seems like that's all it takes to get a +5 insightful these days.
I rent games. Why? Because I don't like paying for them. If I want myself a copy of a brand new Playstation or Nintendo game, all I have to do is pay a few dollars to rent it, take it home, and rip it into a ROM. This can be done with any console game, provided of course you have the accomodating hardware to rip it with, and it's much cheaper than actually buying it. It's also much more reliable than searching for hours on Kazaa. Especially if it's one of those DVD games or multi CD games like Playstation 1 and 2.
Yeah. Besides, the name "Phoenix" should have been reserved by NASA, or rather by Zephram Cochrane, for the name of the first starship with warp drive.
Of course, this isn't supposed to happen until after the third world war so I'm sure that all records of Mozilla Phoenix/Firebird and all the conflicts will have been lost by then, seeing as how a nuclear holocaust can easily facilitate such a loss of data.
If you're looking for a good free one then I suggest Subspace/Continuum. It's free and has been going strong for years.
Recently I went on a little Greyhound bus trip across half the US. During reboarding procedures at one of my stops, there was a complete inspection of all the carry on luggage. Being over 24 hours sleep deprived and these security procedures making me later than I already was, I was more than uncooperative. As a response to my inquiry, this goes on randomly across bus stations across the US, according to the inspector. After (what seemed like) a lengthy inspection of my, and all other passenger's carry on luggage, we boarded the bus and off we went.
What's the point? This disturbs me. I can see why people might be getting a bit paranoid with air planes and all, but buses?! What the hell can I do with a hijacked bus in the middle of Missouri? Ram the bus into the giant arch in St. Louis? The US is becoming way too paranoid about terrorists these days.
It's no laughing matter. Making XI an MMORPG was the single worst thing they could have possibly done. The FF series has always been about RPG and RPG alone. Throwing in the psudo RPG qualities that come with MMORPG makes us true FF fans skip number 11 when we count FF games.
Of course Square seems to be kicking themselves in the face lately with FF games. The series reached it's apex with VII. VIII was good but the overcomplicated card system was discouraging and the GF system was lame. IX was too cartoony and the story too lame. X was too much graphics and minimal gameplay and the ending was terrible. X2 was the worst idea Square ever came up with at this point. You never make a sequel to an FF!! And they bottomed out at XI being even worse than a sequel.
Conclusion: let's hope Square has learned from their string of bad games and let's hope XII is a return to what made them great. Oh how I long for another game as good quality as IV, VI, or VII.
Hah. Guilty as chargned. ;)
The French language borrows quite heavily from other languages; most noticeably Latin, seeing as how it's Latin based. Since English is also Latin based, many English words are bound to be similar.
Key:
English/French
bus/autobus
adore/adorez
meeting/réunion
All those French equivalents are very easy to understand for English speakers. There are so many English/French similarities that saying French and English never borrow from each other is quite a falsity
In fact, the new French word "courriel" for E-mail is not too much different for their word for mail, that being "courrier". They probably did this to make it easier to understand what email is.
Think of it like us changing our word "resumé" to "qualificationsbill". Now, any frenchman who knows what the word "courrier" means, will instantly know that "courriel" must be a type of mail. It's simply a matter of clarification.
Even if there is no monetary settlement from this suit (AKA DoubleClick winning), at the very least it'll make this "FUI" trend take one hell of a downturn. A judge might order DoubleClick to stop this practice even if they don't have to pay a cent in compensation.
All versions of Kazaa and Kazaa Lite work 100% perfect in VMWare on Linux and MacOSX.
UO should have focused on PVP and not PVM or PVE. Everquest clearly kicks UO's ass in that department. Now because UO tried to do both and failed at both, it's suffering a loss of all its PVPers and slowly all its PVMers. Saying things like "PvP is the scourge that prevented UO from growing" is clearly bias and makes me wonder why you got modded +4 insightful.
As if bias is insightful? Someone mod him overrated.
This article is quite true and I can support it with experience. I used to play Ultima Online and had been a long time player. I was part of the PVP (player vs player) niche of the game. While it is true that we were the minority, we still payed our monthly fee and deserved to have fun. Gradually over the years, the developers continued to make changes forcing PVPers to quit. Instead of listening to the overwhelming cries to make a server just for us, they continued to make the game cater to people who enjoyed farming gold and items. The casual PVPer was left in the dust
To make a long story short, they did try to make a server just for us, but they failed to listen to what the PVP customers were trying to tell them. We wanted casual PVP; we didn't want to spend 10 hours a day trying to farm gold and items in order to compete! So because of developer ignorance and failure to listen to customers, they've all but lost their PVP minority. Now the difference between UO and Everquest is minimal and UO's days are quite numbered now that SWG and FFXI are rolling in.
If they wanted to save their game and make it unique they should have offered what no other game had: casual PVP. But it seemed they were more concerned with the short term business model than the long term business model. Drop an insignificant minority here, gain some newbies there, raise subscription rates for 3 months. Seems okay on the surface, but by shunning long time players and relying on a constant flow of newbies, your game is destined to fail.
Example: if I buy an IBM computer from Gateway with Windows on it, I'm not restricted by law to keep Windows on it. If I want to wipe the hard drive and install Linux or FreeBSD I can do that. It shouldn't be any different on a console. After all, a console is nothing more than a dumbed down computer.