You have to be nuts. Yeah, we don't know for sure how much it costs Sony to manufacture this thing. But it has a BluRay player and a Cell processor. Seriously, try to build a computer (because that is all it is) with those components and try to get it down to $600. Of course the retailers are making a profit...but Sony? No way...price it out yourself.
That and the US dollar is backed by the US Government and its financial institutions. I have a lot more faith in that than in Second Life...which only seems good for generating hype.
Just because it is the same genre doesn't mean it can't be innovative. Seriously, play warcraft 1 and then play startcraft and tell me it isn't innovative. But really...who pays attention to PR anyways. Wait for the game to come out, see if it gets good reviews, if so, then play it. Everything else is just noise.
You can create something of the same genre and still have innovation. Even if it is a sequel. But if you don't think WoW is innovative, then you are a moron. It has nothing to do with Warcraft 2 or 3 other than it being in the same universe. Blizzard takes popular genres and adds innovations that make them better. Innovation doesn't have to be Katamari Damacy (which of course has a sequel). People on here whine too much about lack of innovation when they have no idea what they are talking about. You can't expect innovation to keep up from 20 years ago. It was impossible not to innovate then because nothing else existed.
Because then they wouldn't be games. What makes Guitar Hero fun is that you can play music like a rock star without actually having to learn the instrument. You stick a real instrument in the mix and it becomes a lot more complex. Guitar hero has 5 different buttons you can press. A real instrument has 100s. When you mess up in real life, you can hear it. You don't need an audience booing at you to know you miss notes. If you want to get better at a real instrument, you just practice. You play it slower, you skip some notes in a chord, and you do it over and over until it sounds like it is supposed to.
But the reason Guitar hero has an "addictive pace" is because it has a very simple interface where you can improve quickly. Real instruments are more complicated and it takes more work. Thus, it won't be as fun and addictive. If you get a private teacher they can introduce you to music at your level and gradually build you up so that you are improving. There really isn't a good virtual replacement for that and good ol' practicing.
Maybe they should never have a sequel, just keep releasing expansion packs. Upgrade the graphics, keep upping the level cap. It's hard to see people stopping if content like this continues to be added.
I am not anti-FPS...quite the opposite as I was quite competitive in FPS's a few years back. But I think you have PvP wrong in MMORPGs. Good gear makes a difference, this is true. But skill does play a huge factor in PvP. Say you don't have good gear, that just ups the challenge. You could turn this around on FPSs even. FPSs are not a good environment for PvP because it all depends on your system specs and how you tweak your configuration. If you really want to be competitive you need to turn off all the pretty to make your foes as visible as possible.
The OP talks about Eve being harder and more complicated. I have played both for awhile and that just isn't the case. PvP in WoW is fast paced with little loss. PvP in Eve is slow but with the loss being much greater (depending on how you fit your ship). Eve is only more complicated because its UI sucks and people in that game equate something that takes a lot of clicks as "skill". Eve IS interesting since it is basically a space MMO sandbox. But ultimately, compared to WoW it is just really boring to play (with little bits of excitement when you get to war).
In any case, you come off as a bit of a FPS snob. I agree that FPSs are nice because you start out on an even or balanced playing field. I think WoW will implement something here soon that will make everyone have standard equipment for certain PvP instances. But really, skill makes a huge diffence and is on par with a good FPS experience.
and don't seem to be interested in fighting for players from World of Warcraft or Second Life
Did anyone else find it really strange the person even mentioned Second Life? The only thing that game seems good for is generating press. And for some reason, Zonk has to post about 3 articles a day about it. The concept behind Second Life is interesting...sure. But beyond that it really isn't much of a game and it begs for someone to do it a lot better. Second Life doesn't have enough players that anyone would want to steal from them. It would be like saying a new FPS company wants to model it's game after the success of Half-life or Daikatana. The first one I get...the second one...huh????
Oooh, that must hurt, I just put Second Life on the level of Daikatana. For some reason that just gives me a warm happy feeling this morning.
Clearly Nintendo has an advantage with its price and controller. But that really doesn't explain the difference in enthusiasm. The one major difference is that Nintendo came out with Zelda. With a few exceptions, the other games launched on Nintendo are not worth the time and are only slightly interesting due to the control scheme. The PS3 launch titles were crap as well with the exception of Resistance: Fall of Man. But let's face it, a great game that has tons of fanboys behind it compared to a great game that does not have a history is not going to move as many consoles. What will be interesting is when the next Final Fantasy comes out. I think that was Sony's big mistake. They should have made FFXII a release title for the PS3. I still think Nintendo would have the edge based on price, but I don't think any PS3s would be sitting on shelves.
You are talking as if all the consoles were easily available to people who want them. This is not the case. The Wii and PS3 are selling out everywhere. Nintendo has less of a problem with production than Sony does so obviously it is going to sell more consoles.
It is cliche, but true, that it is all up to the games. The PS3 doesn't really have a title with herds of fanboys behind it. The Wii released with Zelda. Having this franchise at launch was a brilliant move by Nintendo. It will be really interesting to see how the PS3 sells once Final Fantasy XIII is released. Keep in mind, the Xbox was "inchworming along" until it started to get major exclusive hits (e.g. Halo).
Sony would not be so dumb as to pull the plug on something that has become as profitable as the PS2. It would be interesting if the numbers above showed PS2 sales along side the now current gen systems. The other thing that could dramatically increase PS3 sales is if BluRay wins the media war. The PS3 is an incredibly cheap BlyRay player.
It will be interesting how the end of this life cycle plays out as well. There is already a huge difference in graphical capabilities between the 360/PS3 and the Wii. Obviously, graphics != gamplay. But a good game with great graphics is better than a good game with mediocre graphics. This gap will only widen as developers figure out how to use the 360/PS3 hardware. Of course, the Wii will always have its unique controller and price point. And if they sell enough consoles early and a lot of third party developers get on board....the snowball might become an avalanche that can't be stopped.
In the game industry, it takes multiple years just to make a game. So no, that isn't very long. Particularly for a company that has been around as long as Rare.
You make a big deal that Oceanic servers have the same maintenance time. But it makes sense for them to do this. It's easier to schedule one time for all of their staff to be there working on the server rather than having multiple ones to server a much smaller population.
So it's good for you, but I don't think what they did was really that bad. Besides...when you look at it...maybe forcing everyone to take a break one night a week isn't such a horrible thing. And if you do feel it is horrible, you need to really think about how much the game is consuming you. (Spoken from someone that played too much in the past)
Not that I agree with the lawsuit...but give me a break. So you and a few of your friends haven't broken the strap...that doesn't mean that it isn't an issue.
Then you just get rediculous. I have watched the youtube videos. Even if these things were super hi-def, how in the world could you know how sweaty their hands are.
The simple fact is that Nintendo encourages people to do these sort of immersive movements. So when you are pitching a baseball, you want to throw as hard as you can. If the wrist strap can't handle a slip, then what is the point of the wrist strap?
Now I don't agree with the lawsuit since Nintendo alread took steps to improve the strap. But the arguments "it never happened to me" and "these people are just stupid" really doesn't cut it. At least Nintendo is doing the right thing. If it was up to Slashdotters they would just call these people morons and there would be more issues.
I enjoy Game Informer. I have been going through a lot of their highly rated games and so far I have enjoyed each one. They have a decent sense of humor and tend to rate games pretty well. They are really cheap too, so I can't complain.
In FFXI you can build all your characters any way you want with the license board. It is like a chess board but there are two boards and they are oddly shaped. You can unlock the squares next to licenses you already obtained. So if I really liked spears, all my characters could be built to use spears (though for various reasons its optimal to build each character out in a different direction).
But yeah, I do feel a little cheated. If there was someone in game that hinted about the spear and to not touch certain treasures, that would be fine. But this was just too blatant. It is clearly forcing you to use an external source. Fortunately, it is a great game. But if you are a completist (i.e. someone who wants to experience everything in the game), then you are going to need to pick up a guide or get your printer ready to shoot out a gamefaqs walkthrough.
FFXII is a very good game. It is what happens when someone takes ideas from another genre (in this case, MMORPGs) and applies them to their own game. Most of it is very good...I wish I had more power with the Gambits (sort of if-then statements that you use to control your characters basic functionality) but I think with time we will see that system be more fleshed out.
What really concerns me about this game, though, is that it takes some ideas from MMORPGs too far (or so I thought at first). For example, some treasure chests have a chance to drop really good loot. This sounds really good, but it isn't. Early on in the game you encounter an optional boss. If you choose to defeat this very tough boss, you are rewarded with access to a treasure. The problem with the treasure is that it has something like a 30% chance to drop a really good sword or a 70% chance to drop garbage. This makes getting it a pain as you need to save your game and try a few times before you get it.
I at first thought this was just an MMORPG concept that went too far. But after thinking about this, and finding out some other things about the game (e.g. that to get the best spear you have to not open 4 treasure chests in the game) is that this has nothing to do with MMORPGs. This has to do with selling strategy guides. There is no way you would even know to do a lot of these things without a guide or by going on gamefaqs. And this really bothers me. It's fine if you have some secrets in the game. But there should be some in-game hints that will lead you down that path. Making a game have secrets that you can only find out by forcing a player to buy a guide is wrong.
Other that that, I really don't have any complaints. It is a great game that I am enjoying. It is just slightly diminished because I know I am missing content that there is no way to know unless I rely on external sources.
He was playing tennis...he wasn't pitching. Anyways, it didn't look like he was doing anything too crazy. This is the sort of behavior Nintendo shows in their commercials. Maybe not quite to that level...but still. I think the video shows that this is a problem and good that Nintendo is making them better.
Were now buying beta versions of games on disk with final patches that get patches made for them.
The reason that console games in the past were "that's it" is because there was no effective way to patch them. If you believe past console games shipped with no bugs, then I don't know what sort of fantasy world you live in. The fact that consoles now have internet connections and hard drives allow them to be patched. A game in the past would have annoying UI issues and people would just have to accept it. But now, if the developer realizes they can improve something, they have a mechanism to do it.
Not saying that it has the possibility of companies using the ship it now, fix it later method...but I am really not seeing people putting out games that should still be in beta.
Is Wii sports not bundled in Japan? Because if you are counting what is included with the console, I don't really count that as sales. If they are "real" sales, I would be impressed and surprised. Wii Sports is little more than a technology demo. It's fun to play around with at first, but the games are very shallow. It is excellent at what it does though. I think it will appeal to a lot of non-gamers and gamers alike.
But it really doesn't matter that the sales are that high just for the week. The fact that they sold 80,000 units in a climate that is typically hostile or disinterested is remarkable.
Aha! But God is above the law of non-contradiction and thus can construct a world where he is both God and not God. But if he can't, then he isn't all powerful. If he isn't all powerful, there could be a God above him, besides him, or none at all. The problem is you are trying to use logic to justify your religon. Religion is all about belief and has nothing to do with logic. Any time you try to apply logic to the situation, you come to the conclusion that Christianity has a very small probability of being true.
I think FFXI did the best job of integrating the feel of making a difference in an environment where single players making a huge difference would ruin the game. The way they did this was cut scenes for special quests. Yes, other people have done the quests before you, but with the cut scene, it makes it seem like you are an important person who saved the city from destruction (or whatever).
WoW has some of this too where single players triggered certain event that changed the game. But these were integrated with a patch and only the smallest percentage of people would be the ones who get to implement the change. That's cool, but not something any but the most hardcore would get to be involved with.
WoW did not have cutscenes...and somehow for me it just made it a grind to get more exp and rewards. FFXI allowed me to progress an interesting story. While FFXI is horribly tedious compared to WoW, I did think they did that element a lot better.
If it is better than WoW, people will switch. If the market was based on brand awareness, then SWG would be the most popular MMO. It's not like Everquest was something anyone heard of when it came out. I would worry about making the game fun for casuals but still giving content to the hardcores (like WoW does but do it better somehow - if I knew how I would be working in the industry).
You are right that branding can make a difference...but I honestly believe that if the build it bigger and better, the players will come. But I agree with you totally on HP...if I were blizzard I would license Harry Potter and create a huge money vault where I could swim in the billions of dollars worth of paper cash and gold.
I guess I don't see firearms as being any different than a hunter would be in WoW. Each gun has a certain range, a rate of fire, and potential damage. You buy ammo for your weapons that have different statistics on it. I just use WoW as a comparison since it is currently the hottest MMORPG out there. But it doesn't seem like it would be too hard to translate. Levels don't really have to give stats...but they could at least give health and skills. Make leveling fast and fun like in WoW and have tactical PvP grouped by levels to make it fair and interesting (obviously I am referring to instanced PvP...world PvP is a different beast).
Look at the Warcraft games...they made that in to WoW when it doesn't have items and is a RTS. The most important thing is that they stay true to the story and the atmosphere of the game. It isn't going to be 3D Fallout with multiplayer.
Slashdot Mirror
You have to be nuts. Yeah, we don't know for sure how much it costs Sony to manufacture this thing. But it has a BluRay player and a Cell processor. Seriously, try to build a computer (because that is all it is) with those components and try to get it down to $600. Of course the retailers are making a profit...but Sony? No way...price it out yourself.
That and the US dollar is backed by the US Government and its financial institutions. I have a lot more faith in that than in Second Life...which only seems good for generating hype.
Just because it is the same genre doesn't mean it can't be innovative. Seriously, play warcraft 1 and then play startcraft and tell me it isn't innovative. But really...who pays attention to PR anyways. Wait for the game to come out, see if it gets good reviews, if so, then play it. Everything else is just noise.
You can create something of the same genre and still have innovation. Even if it is a sequel. But if you don't think WoW is innovative, then you are a moron. It has nothing to do with Warcraft 2 or 3 other than it being in the same universe. Blizzard takes popular genres and adds innovations that make them better. Innovation doesn't have to be Katamari Damacy (which of course has a sequel). People on here whine too much about lack of innovation when they have no idea what they are talking about. You can't expect innovation to keep up from 20 years ago. It was impossible not to innovate then because nothing else existed.
Because then they wouldn't be games. What makes Guitar Hero fun is that you can play music like a rock star without actually having to learn the instrument. You stick a real instrument in the mix and it becomes a lot more complex. Guitar hero has 5 different buttons you can press. A real instrument has 100s. When you mess up in real life, you can hear it. You don't need an audience booing at you to know you miss notes. If you want to get better at a real instrument, you just practice. You play it slower, you skip some notes in a chord, and you do it over and over until it sounds like it is supposed to.
But the reason Guitar hero has an "addictive pace" is because it has a very simple interface where you can improve quickly. Real instruments are more complicated and it takes more work. Thus, it won't be as fun and addictive. If you get a private teacher they can introduce you to music at your level and gradually build you up so that you are improving. There really isn't a good virtual replacement for that and good ol' practicing.
Maybe they should never have a sequel, just keep releasing expansion packs. Upgrade the graphics, keep upping the level cap. It's hard to see people stopping if content like this continues to be added.
I am not anti-FPS...quite the opposite as I was quite competitive in FPS's a few years back. But I think you have PvP wrong in MMORPGs. Good gear makes a difference, this is true. But skill does play a huge factor in PvP. Say you don't have good gear, that just ups the challenge. You could turn this around on FPSs even. FPSs are not a good environment for PvP because it all depends on your system specs and how you tweak your configuration. If you really want to be competitive you need to turn off all the pretty to make your foes as visible as possible.
The OP talks about Eve being harder and more complicated. I have played both for awhile and that just isn't the case. PvP in WoW is fast paced with little loss. PvP in Eve is slow but with the loss being much greater (depending on how you fit your ship). Eve is only more complicated because its UI sucks and people in that game equate something that takes a lot of clicks as "skill". Eve IS interesting since it is basically a space MMO sandbox. But ultimately, compared to WoW it is just really boring to play (with little bits of excitement when you get to war).
In any case, you come off as a bit of a FPS snob. I agree that FPSs are nice because you start out on an even or balanced playing field. I think WoW will implement something here soon that will make everyone have standard equipment for certain PvP instances. But really, skill makes a huge diffence and is on par with a good FPS experience.
and don't seem to be interested in fighting for players from World of Warcraft or Second Life
Did anyone else find it really strange the person even mentioned Second Life? The only thing that game seems good for is generating press. And for some reason, Zonk has to post about 3 articles a day about it. The concept behind Second Life is interesting...sure. But beyond that it really isn't much of a game and it begs for someone to do it a lot better. Second Life doesn't have enough players that anyone would want to steal from them. It would be like saying a new FPS company wants to model it's game after the success of Half-life or Daikatana. The first one I get...the second one...huh????
Oooh, that must hurt, I just put Second Life on the level of Daikatana. For some reason that just gives me a warm happy feeling this morning.
Clearly Nintendo has an advantage with its price and controller. But that really doesn't explain the difference in enthusiasm. The one major difference is that Nintendo came out with Zelda. With a few exceptions, the other games launched on Nintendo are not worth the time and are only slightly interesting due to the control scheme. The PS3 launch titles were crap as well with the exception of Resistance: Fall of Man. But let's face it, a great game that has tons of fanboys behind it compared to a great game that does not have a history is not going to move as many consoles. What will be interesting is when the next Final Fantasy comes out. I think that was Sony's big mistake. They should have made FFXII a release title for the PS3. I still think Nintendo would have the edge based on price, but I don't think any PS3s would be sitting on shelves.
You are talking as if all the consoles were easily available to people who want them. This is not the case. The Wii and PS3 are selling out everywhere. Nintendo has less of a problem with production than Sony does so obviously it is going to sell more consoles.
It is cliche, but true, that it is all up to the games. The PS3 doesn't really have a title with herds of fanboys behind it. The Wii released with Zelda. Having this franchise at launch was a brilliant move by Nintendo. It will be really interesting to see how the PS3 sells once Final Fantasy XIII is released. Keep in mind, the Xbox was "inchworming along" until it started to get major exclusive hits (e.g. Halo).
Sony would not be so dumb as to pull the plug on something that has become as profitable as the PS2. It would be interesting if the numbers above showed PS2 sales along side the now current gen systems. The other thing that could dramatically increase PS3 sales is if BluRay wins the media war. The PS3 is an incredibly cheap BlyRay player.
It will be interesting how the end of this life cycle plays out as well. There is already a huge difference in graphical capabilities between the 360/PS3 and the Wii. Obviously, graphics != gamplay. But a good game with great graphics is better than a good game with mediocre graphics. This gap will only widen as developers figure out how to use the 360/PS3 hardware. Of course, the Wii will always have its unique controller and price point. And if they sell enough consoles early and a lot of third party developers get on board....the snowball might become an avalanche that can't be stopped.
I'm 29 and I still don't understand teletubbies. Is it some sort of horror show?
In the game industry, it takes multiple years just to make a game. So no, that isn't very long. Particularly for a company that has been around as long as Rare.
You make a big deal that Oceanic servers have the same maintenance time. But it makes sense for them to do this. It's easier to schedule one time for all of their staff to be there working on the server rather than having multiple ones to server a much smaller population.
So it's good for you, but I don't think what they did was really that bad. Besides...when you look at it...maybe forcing everyone to take a break one night a week isn't such a horrible thing. And if you do feel it is horrible, you need to really think about how much the game is consuming you. (Spoken from someone that played too much in the past)
The poster didn't ask that...Zonk did. And you would think he would know better.
Not that I agree with the lawsuit...but give me a break. So you and a few of your friends haven't broken the strap...that doesn't mean that it isn't an issue.
Then you just get rediculous. I have watched the youtube videos. Even if these things were super hi-def, how in the world could you know how sweaty their hands are.
The simple fact is that Nintendo encourages people to do these sort of immersive movements. So when you are pitching a baseball, you want to throw as hard as you can. If the wrist strap can't handle a slip, then what is the point of the wrist strap?
Now I don't agree with the lawsuit since Nintendo alread took steps to improve the strap. But the arguments "it never happened to me" and "these people are just stupid" really doesn't cut it. At least Nintendo is doing the right thing. If it was up to Slashdotters they would just call these people morons and there would be more issues.
I enjoy Game Informer. I have been going through a lot of their highly rated games and so far I have enjoyed each one. They have a decent sense of humor and tend to rate games pretty well. They are really cheap too, so I can't complain.
In FFXI you can build all your characters any way you want with the license board. It is like a chess board but there are two boards and they are oddly shaped. You can unlock the squares next to licenses you already obtained. So if I really liked spears, all my characters could be built to use spears (though for various reasons its optimal to build each character out in a different direction).
But yeah, I do feel a little cheated. If there was someone in game that hinted about the spear and to not touch certain treasures, that would be fine. But this was just too blatant. It is clearly forcing you to use an external source. Fortunately, it is a great game. But if you are a completist (i.e. someone who wants to experience everything in the game), then you are going to need to pick up a guide or get your printer ready to shoot out a gamefaqs walkthrough.
FFXII is a very good game. It is what happens when someone takes ideas from another genre (in this case, MMORPGs) and applies them to their own game. Most of it is very good...I wish I had more power with the Gambits (sort of if-then statements that you use to control your characters basic functionality) but I think with time we will see that system be more fleshed out.
What really concerns me about this game, though, is that it takes some ideas from MMORPGs too far (or so I thought at first). For example, some treasure chests have a chance to drop really good loot. This sounds really good, but it isn't. Early on in the game you encounter an optional boss. If you choose to defeat this very tough boss, you are rewarded with access to a treasure. The problem with the treasure is that it has something like a 30% chance to drop a really good sword or a 70% chance to drop garbage. This makes getting it a pain as you need to save your game and try a few times before you get it.
I at first thought this was just an MMORPG concept that went too far. But after thinking about this, and finding out some other things about the game (e.g. that to get the best spear you have to not open 4 treasure chests in the game) is that this has nothing to do with MMORPGs. This has to do with selling strategy guides. There is no way you would even know to do a lot of these things without a guide or by going on gamefaqs. And this really bothers me. It's fine if you have some secrets in the game. But there should be some in-game hints that will lead you down that path. Making a game have secrets that you can only find out by forcing a player to buy a guide is wrong.
Other that that, I really don't have any complaints. It is a great game that I am enjoying. It is just slightly diminished because I know I am missing content that there is no way to know unless I rely on external sources.
He was playing tennis...he wasn't pitching. Anyways, it didn't look like he was doing anything too crazy. This is the sort of behavior Nintendo shows in their commercials. Maybe not quite to that level...but still. I think the video shows that this is a problem and good that Nintendo is making them better.
Were now buying beta versions of games on disk with final patches that get patches made for them.
The reason that console games in the past were "that's it" is because there was no effective way to patch them. If you believe past console games shipped with no bugs, then I don't know what sort of fantasy world you live in. The fact that consoles now have internet connections and hard drives allow them to be patched. A game in the past would have annoying UI issues and people would just have to accept it. But now, if the developer realizes they can improve something, they have a mechanism to do it.
Not saying that it has the possibility of companies using the ship it now, fix it later method...but I am really not seeing people putting out games that should still be in beta.
Is Wii sports not bundled in Japan? Because if you are counting what is included with the console, I don't really count that as sales. If they are "real" sales, I would be impressed and surprised. Wii Sports is little more than a technology demo. It's fun to play around with at first, but the games are very shallow. It is excellent at what it does though. I think it will appeal to a lot of non-gamers and gamers alike.
But it really doesn't matter that the sales are that high just for the week. The fact that they sold 80,000 units in a climate that is typically hostile or disinterested is remarkable.
Aha! But God is above the law of non-contradiction and thus can construct a world where he is both God and not God. But if he can't, then he isn't all powerful. If he isn't all powerful, there could be a God above him, besides him, or none at all. The problem is you are trying to use logic to justify your religon. Religion is all about belief and has nothing to do with logic. Any time you try to apply logic to the situation, you come to the conclusion that Christianity has a very small probability of being true.
I think FFXI did the best job of integrating the feel of making a difference in an environment where single players making a huge difference would ruin the game. The way they did this was cut scenes for special quests. Yes, other people have done the quests before you, but with the cut scene, it makes it seem like you are an important person who saved the city from destruction (or whatever).
WoW has some of this too where single players triggered certain event that changed the game. But these were integrated with a patch and only the smallest percentage of people would be the ones who get to implement the change. That's cool, but not something any but the most hardcore would get to be involved with.
WoW did not have cutscenes...and somehow for me it just made it a grind to get more exp and rewards. FFXI allowed me to progress an interesting story. While FFXI is horribly tedious compared to WoW, I did think they did that element a lot better.
If it is better than WoW, people will switch. If the market was based on brand awareness, then SWG would be the most popular MMO. It's not like Everquest was something anyone heard of when it came out. I would worry about making the game fun for casuals but still giving content to the hardcores (like WoW does but do it better somehow - if I knew how I would be working in the industry).
You are right that branding can make a difference...but I honestly believe that if the build it bigger and better, the players will come. But I agree with you totally on HP...if I were blizzard I would license Harry Potter and create a huge money vault where I could swim in the billions of dollars worth of paper cash and gold.
I guess I don't see firearms as being any different than a hunter would be in WoW. Each gun has a certain range, a rate of fire, and potential damage. You buy ammo for your weapons that have different statistics on it. I just use WoW as a comparison since it is currently the hottest MMORPG out there. But it doesn't seem like it would be too hard to translate. Levels don't really have to give stats...but they could at least give health and skills. Make leveling fast and fun like in WoW and have tactical PvP grouped by levels to make it fair and interesting (obviously I am referring to instanced PvP...world PvP is a different beast).
Look at the Warcraft games...they made that in to WoW when it doesn't have items and is a RTS. The most important thing is that they stay true to the story and the atmosphere of the game. It isn't going to be 3D Fallout with multiplayer.