What killed them for me was simply that the local arcades did not have Tekken 4 or Soul Calibur 2, and the Tekken/2/3 and Soul Blade/Calibur games were set to 'kill player instantly on 4th round' because any other setting would mean that any good player could beat the game on 1 play in a couple minutes. Even my local laundry has a Soul Blade cabinet that'll kill me on the 4th round, but at least there I'm pretty much a captive audience unless I remembered my GBA
If there is a sticker with the vending companies phone number on the Soul Blade machine call them up, or if the address is there write them and tell them to turn the difficulty down. They will do it for you. If you want to go through all that trouble:)
And here's an important feature, young man: GIRLS. Girls will play Pac-Man and Galaga. Girls will play DDR. Girls won't play Street Fighter II...and there goes half the population, and your argument.
The amount of girls I see playing DDR aren't that many more than I saw playing mortal kombat/street fighter way back then. Granted I don't go to arcades as much I used to. I don't think DDR is the type of game that will draw girls into an arcade that wouldn't have gone in the past. Even if it does, it doesn't make up for the players it puts off. I'm not saying I think it's a bad thing, I think it's great. The Industry needs more though. DDR isn't the saviour
If there has been a spike in the last 3 years, it doesn't show around here (NY/NJ area). In 1995 I had at least 10 arcades within a 45 minute drive of my house. Now I have 3. There is a huge population of video game players here, the East Coast Street Fighter Championship has been held at one of those arcades...if arcades are dying here I can't think they are doing much better anywhere else. I think the dave and busters/Chuckie Cheeses/Arcades in the mall/boardwalks will always have their place but the other ones are dying (sadly)
Also as a moral equivalent, would you allow Iraq to have WMD due to your view of the second amendment? Should the second amendment apply to only non-crazy people? Or should crazy people also be allowed to have WMD?
The constitution only applies to US citizens. I'm not trying flame you, but I don't know why so many people don't understand that.
IRAQ is an interesting case study. The problem (or America's good fortune) is that not every Iraqi was armed. For the most part, only Sunni's were, which are a small percentage of the overall population (somewhere in the 20% bracket?)
If every Iraqi citizen was armed, Sadaam and his sons would have been dead long ago because the majority of the people would have had the correct equipment to overthrow him.
If they didn't want to overthrow him, and America or any other army came in they would have a hell of a time trying to occupy Iraq.
I think this was the point our founding fathers were making, if the citizenship is armed the government will always have to do the will of the people and any invading force will have one heck of a time.
I worked in several arcades in my teen - early 20 years, and I can tell you that 1993-1996 when fighting games were peaking were pretty damn good years for arcades. You may think DDR is helping arcades, but it is not. There are a lot of players who won't even TOUCH DDR machines. It's very much a niche market, unlike the early fighting games which casual players would enjoy.
What killed the fighting games IMHO was the more and more complicated control schemes (ki, wargods). Early fighting games were simple to learn, difficult to master which is the correct formula for any game.
Arcades can still enjoy a return to glory, it will take a new genre or something radical (a internet connection in every major arcade and tournaments for money? A new VR game that can only be played in arcades?)
I think the arcades flux a lot more than the console/PC market especially in the past 10 years because they really have to innovate to get people to play. Also, I think internet gaming is killing them. 10 years ago, you had to go to an arcade to play other people. Now everyone I know that was into the arcade scene plays at home..(mostly FPS games, some MMO's). The fact is, they still play they just have no reason to go to the arcade anymore except to re-live the glory years.
Re:Terminator is trying to
on
Saving the Net
·
· Score: 1
Time to start paying attention to news sites other than Slashdot. Orrin Hatch (Senator from Utah) is pushing an ammendment to allow US Citizens that were not born in the US but have been citizens for a decent amount of time (I believe 20 years) to be eligible to be president. It's actually a good idea in my opinion, the requirement that you were born in the US is outdated.
Talk about your all time bad ideas, It's only been a little over a year and a half...has everyone forgotten what a sleeper cell is?
the rich are getting rich, the middle class are now the working poor. And the dirt poor? They reap the HUGE benefit of a cheque for a hundred bucks from the Dems by accident.
The dirt poor can get a lot more than a hundred bucks from the Dems, I know enough people on welfare in real life to realize this. They are by no means living better than me, but they aren't that much worse off either....and they don't have to work
Basically it comes down to, the republicans will take my money and give it to the rich and I might see a little of it back. The Dems will take my money and give it to the poor, I wont see any of it but it's nice on case I suddenly become dirt poor one day for some reason.
Will there ever be a political party that caters to the middle class? I think the lower middle class, and middle class makes up the majority of the county, yet we seem to always get screwed.:)
The first Mortal Kombat movie wasn't that bad. The ones after that were aweful. The Street Fighter movie was bad, but the original Japanese Anime movie was awesome. The american dub isn't very good IMHO.
If you ever get a chance to watch the original Japabese Street Fighter Anime movie (not the TV series) check it out. It has an awesome fight scene between Chun li and Vega which ends with Chun li kicking Vega through a brick wall and down 6 stories. A cool Charlie, Ryu, Ken vs Bison scene, an Akuma Cameo and Chun li naked!
I have to disagree with you there, for their time I've thought the following games that I have played were good...Every SW game on the Atari 2600, The SW side scrolling games on the SNES, and Jedi Knight II on the PC.
Also, I've heard a lot of people praise the old tie fighter/xwing games.
Keep in mind, I have played SWG and it's not on this list:)
Sorry I missed this follow up until now, but you wrote..
If you take a look at the book "Developing Online Games", they've published the results of some surveys taking by online players about how they play.
According to those results, 30% of players are "explorers", 25% are "socializers", 23% are "achievers", and 22% are "killers".
So, assuming PvP means "killers", this *does* put PvP players squarely in the minority.
First off, lets look at who the book was written by. Two women. You can take this a troll if you like, but it is not. I have never run into a female PvPer. I think the authors are biased against PvP types.
Also, where did they take the survey from? Current MMO players? Of course most of them don't PvP because most MMO's aren't geared twards that and drive PvP players out. My point is the market is untapped for the most part.
I also don't think much of the RPG "What player type are you test". I forget the guys name who made it, and I don't care much. Why? Because it's simple, I fall into at least three of those four catagories. If I don't have anyone to kill, I get bored easly. Why? Because killing humans is a lot harder and more rewarding than killing NPC's in any game IMO. If I don't have "Achievments" that I can make I don't bother playing, because I can't get any better. It doesn't matter if that achievment is the next skill in a RPG or being able to use a sniper rifle better in a FPS, I want to have room to get better at something. If there is nothing new to explore, I'll leave a game too, because it will become boring. I don't need new worlds, maps etc...but I do need depth. I'd rather have one full, rich world than 6 empty ones.
Also, even with their surveys of online players (MMO players I'm betting, most of which are everquesters who hate PvP) 22% of them came out as killers. You state that this squarely puts PvPers in the minority. Now, I would argue that not only are the statistics biased, the authors biased and the questions flawed but that 22% isn't that far from 23 or 25% and 22% of the MMO market is enough to develop a game for.
not to pick nits or anything, but in episode two right at the beginning a rocket launcher is used to destroy a ship...
Damn you, I forgot about that. Actually I think I blocked it out on purpose, like many things in episodes 1 and 2. Seriously though, if they have lightsabres and blasters, dont you think they could come up with something a little more advanced for heavy weapondry? A shoulder mounted ion cannon or something?
I didn't mention the "bone" armor that is so popular in SWG. You really have to see it to believe it, a bunch of guys running around in bone armor with lances and swords in the Star wars galaxy. It looks more like it should be set in a midevil time period than a starwars time period
I've been playing SWG since it came out. I've only taken one day "off". I have a few observations...
1. The server caps are at 3500. If 3500 people are on a server then you can't log in and access your main character. I've found no way to transfer my character from a populated server to a less populated one.
2. Even When around 3500 people are logged on to a server, some of the planets/towns are empty. Most people hang out in the same main towns (Anchorhead, Mos Eisley and Bestine on tattoine) for example.
3. There are plenty of bugs other than the disappearing house. I've had things randomly disappear from my Inventory...Including a Vibro axe I bought for 2/3rds of my credits I've had my corpse disappear for hours and thought all my items were gone. There are parts of the map in town that you should be able to run through but can't (ie an invisible wall). If you use the "burst run" command in combat, your character will still stop and get into a battle stance when attack. So you try to run away, and a monster melee attacks you, your avatar will stop so the nice monster can get closer and kill you. On that note, monsters can melee attack from very far away for some reason while you can not.
4. It takes too long to walk around, or to do anything.
5. You are totally dependant on other players to have your wounds healed. So if you go into a hospital and there is only one medic there and 10 players you are in for a wait. Same thing goes for weapons. For example I am at "level 3" on the melee brawler skill tree. My weapon certification is for a "vibro axe". I need to find a artisan (crafter) who is at "level 8" (there are only 9 levels up) Once an artisan reaches "level 4" on the tree they can choose between 4 different elite professions, Droid Engineer, Architecht, Weaponsmith, and Chef. Then in the sub tree of Weaponsmith they can pick from 4 different branches, melee weapons, firearms, munitions and crafting techniques.
Since there are a lot more firearms users than melee, I had a lot of trouble finding that axe. Basically only two people were selling it, if that. The player driven economy is a fun idea, but having to find a level 8 artisan to get a level 4 weapon is a bit shortsighted. This might work out where there are hundreds of high level artisans running around months from now, or maybe not.
6. The missions are really boring, they come in two themes "destroy" or "deliever" They are pretty generic and mostly the same outside of the theme parks.
7. The grind. It takes forever to get anywhere, or gain any experence.
8. The Jedi scam. It's really such a joke that the devs are saying "well, for the time period, the Jedi were very rare so it will be hard to become one". Please. It's such a money making gimmick it's not funny. Let me tell you some of the things that are out of the "time period" in SWG.
We've seen 1 "creature handler" in the movies, in the game, I run into them all the time. We've seen once Rancor in the movies, all of the creature handlers I see are toting around 3 of them.
This is the one that bugs me the most..Here are some of the weapons in SWG: Stone knife, sword, dagger, heavy axe, lance, survival knife, curved sword, wood staff, metal staff, Fragmentation Grenade, flamethrower, ROCKET LAUNCHER...
Yes, that is right a rocket launcher in SWG. Welcome to Star Wars: Quake Strikes back.
Is it just me, or from watching the movies did it seem like a rocket launcher just wouldn't fit? Did I miss the scene where Darth Vader yells "Who's your daddy" at Luke and fires a rocket launcher at Luke? What is more out of character for the Star Wars Universe? 100 Jedi running around with different color lightsabres like attack of the clones, or 100 people running around mos eisley with rocket launchers and three rancors a piece yelling "N E ONE WANT 2 GO HUNTIN"?
I'll take the Jedi, thanks.
9. The lack of PvP support. It's such a pain in the butt to PvP and y
If people want to PK then they should be playing Quake/Halflife/etc. where the environment is set up for them to kill each other and leave the rest of us MMORPG players to explore the world, group up, research, tradeskill and try to have a good time.
PvPers ARENT the minority, PvE'ers are and that is a big reason why MMORPGs haven't caught on big with the mass market. Most video games that are played online are about playing AGAINST someone else rather than the computer. That is the joy of online gaming. Now, there are a lot of other reasons MMORPGs don't catch on with the mass market...(Monthly fees, Too much Grinding)
And to say, well go play quake if you want PvP is just silly. You are comparing two different Genre of games. Fighting in quake is nothing like doing so in a RPG. Ever think that maybe some people want combat, but don't want to have everything depend on fast twitch skills?
Also, the Everquest argument is bogus. EQ doesn't attract true PvP players. There may have been some players that are PvE and PvP so they play on the EQ PvP server but most players who want PvP action know not to go in that direction.
And if companies want to cater to the casual gamers explain EQ? Are you telling me EQ players are casual players? Surely, you jest.:)
I personally am using "Ubel Enis" right now which in German Translates to "Evil One"
I also have Nasser Traumn (wet dream) and Hand Solo in Star wars galaxies.
Here are some of the other SWG names that people have taken...mind you that the EULA and the character creation screen STRESS that you can not name yourself after any real life person, anything offensive, or any fictional characters from star wars or any other movie or TV show..
Sorry for the crappy format, slashdot needs to turn down their filters!
Barris Fueller. Penny Poopiepants. Fat Marksmen. Bones HesDeadJimDead. Longdyk. chu'baca. Cat Woman. I-Crave Power. PooMAN. Smokabola. -B-O-N-G -M-A-S-T-E-R-.Stonecold Steveaustin. Error Loading. Jozeph Stalin. Fellof Theledge. Ivana humpalot. Dir-T Undies . Rush Limbaugh. Fuzz Nu'tz ( a wookie). kewl dude. Emperzizle Palpazizle.Fifty Cent. Grouper sandwich (Mon calmedic). Super'Fly (twilekentertainer). Dustmop (wookie). Silly Doggie (bothan scout). Chewintobacca. Rosham Bo. Cow Vomit. Worf (a wookie). WOOT NOOB. Bigwiener. Shaeven McGroyne. Jheebus Crimnee". "Union Leader", "Oscar Grouch". "Juan Valdez" (you know, the coffee guy).
"Venn Detta. "Seal Clubber". Indiana Jones.Tony Danza. Ivegotagun Andimnotafraidtouseit -Marksman. Ivana Humpalot - Entertainer. Juge Dreade - Marksman (Probably an aspiring Bounty Hunter or something). Stonecold Steveaustion - I forget the profession. F-aggot F-aggot. Break Windu (the best star wars themed name yet...). Bloody Pee. ICUP. RobinWilliams. Alota Fagina. Ivana Humpalot. Look Skywalka. Bobba Phett. Doesit Hurt. Canyew Feelthepowah. BigPimpn. Marth Daul Gen'Aside. SHEWBACCA. Dark Helmet Poocacca ( a wookie) Led Zepplin BJ's Everyone. iwantyourbabies oriwilltakethem Douche Baggins Pennie Sillin (a medic) ikickyou indanuts. Thuggin Hard ICU Too . Fuzzy. Beeeeaaaaarrrr (yet another wookie). Uterus Maximus (reported according to a friend) Luda Kris Scruffy Nerf-Herder, Mike Hunt, Allota Weiner Mech Anized, Two Pac Romulis, Poppa Capp San Holo, Huck Finn. Mitsubishi Galant, buildushytqyk Undercover Brother, Craptastic Software. Appolo Creed.Rape Tana Kleenex Box. DAARTH VAADAR Futher Mucker (Wookiee, kinda funny) Snow Chainz (Albino Wook) Deez Nutz Britney Spears. Dancing with Men (female entertainer) megaHurtz (wookiee). Lando (have no idea how this got through the filter). Bucacca. ChewinTobacca Tupacca Darfh Mall, Trixar Fo'Kids SloppyTaco, Daaaaaaaaaaaaarth Maaaaaaaaaaaaul Hung So'loo., wolverbacca, lol brb, Newbacca. Hunglika Horse, The Biznicht, Number One the hizzle, Jason F'ett, Sithlord Mike (I believe) Bill Clinton (seriously), Kwame Kilpatrick Pucking Funk, Chewbacon WraithofMaul, Pay Mee(female entertainer) Sky Lukewalker., Jebus Haxxor. Dirty Sanchez, Wookie, Whoosha Daddy. Mark Sman, Jenna Jameson( a female entertainer) Montgomery Burns, afk'S ampler, Chia Phett Pink Undies, FatAlbert, SloppyTacoEater, CamelToeLicker, SlipperyHole. OldFart, Chowbacca Bobbacca, noobbacca
There's static missions at the Theme Parks which you can do. The ones you're doing are ones the devs labelled as "for newbies" and to make easy money to start off with... and yeah, the Theme parks were meant to be a little challenging. You said you have a brawler... not even a master brawler or anything, which means that right now you're the combat equivalent of a Care Bear.
Yes, I haven't put in my 100 hours yet to get to Master Brawler. I am at Expert 2H though, and I still don't kill things on the destroy missions unless I use the "unequip my weapons to get an easier mission" Bug..Or is that a feature FanBoi?
Faction points are easy to get if you kill the right stuff. Do you think the Empire will like you better if you kill Rebels, or if you deliver a paper for them?
Sure, you can kill stuff if you exploit bugs, or put in 100 hours. The Destroy missions don't net many more faction points than the delievery missions on most levels. Maybe you got all your faction points before the nerf of the exploit for them? You sound like one of those beta testers from SWGPVP.com so it wouldn't suprise me.
Anyway, those are the obvious parts you haven't picked up on yet. The rest comes as you actually play:P
Yeah, I guess about 60 hours isn't playing. Give it a rest fanboi and work on your sarcasm skills. Throw away the game and buy an english book.
I mean come on... whining about recovering from three bars when they all regen at the same time, how is that any longer than having one bar? Geez...
Simple, you don't lose them all at the same rate. Not to mention you lose different bars for different things. Maybe if you played the game you would pick that up.:x
***Character Design*** Amazing, the amount of options you have is insane. You could walk around and never see the same looking person twice. Of course 90% of the people are either wookies or humans though.
***Graphics*** Very good for a MMO. Not the best ever, but for having so many people running around at the same time they are damn good.
***Interface*** It tooks me about 6 hours to get used to the interface. I still find new things every day, and yes I did read the manual. Think Ultima IV's interface only with holding down control and control shift sometimes, and the function keys sometimes, etc.
***Missions*** They are really, REALLY boring. Basically you do delieveries which means run from NPC to NPC... You can also do destroy missions which are equally boring.
***Combat*** Combat is aweful. NPC's can shoot you through mountains and trees. When you fight melee it doesn't even look like you are hitting each other sometimes. Melee fighters almost always lose duels to ranged weapons because melee was nerfed before beta was released. The ranged weapon character can just run circles around the melee'er and shoot him/her/it.
***Player Vs Player*** Aweful, there is no point since faction points are so hard to get. You have no hope of taking over another factions town, let alone planet. You mean nothing in the galactic civil war, and you have to run 20 of those boring delievery missions just to get into it.
***Theme Parks*** I've only seen one, Jabba's palace which was nice but I couldn't even come close to doing the missions with my brawler character.
***Crafting*** Awesome, the crafting system is insanly deep. The economy is totally player driven so the crafters have some real power. Not to mention, with the built in macroing system, crafters can get their materials easily when they are at work, or sleeping
***Content*** Doesn't seem like there is much. If you run into a criminal giving you a mission on Naboo in theed, you will run into a criminal giving you the same mission in Mos Eisley in tattoone. Go to watto's junkyard and you can laugh at how they blocked off anakin's old hut. God forbid you should have a cool chance at seeing what was left in there.
***Goodies/Loot*** There are none, you get everything from the crafters who have formed guilds and gouge prices. They charge insane prices for high level items.
***Classes*** The Classes are ok, but unbalanced. A marksmen has a big advantage over a Melee fighter, and a Artisan (crafter) has a big advantage over a scout. Basically the Artisans and Entertainers have very big advantages since their professions are easly macro-able allowing 24 hr play. Well, 20 hour play since the servers are down 4 hours a day (no, I'm not kidding)
***Immersion*** Other than being in Jabba's Palace and the Cantina in Mos Eisley, SWG is really lacking here. Most of the guys look like they fell out of a midevil game with swords, axes, stone knives and bone armor.
***Downtime*** Your character purposly walks slow, and you have three bars to recover, which makes it take longer to do anything, which means you sick around longer. Thanks Luca$.
***Jedi*** The biggest money making scheme in the game is to make Jedi an Unlockable slot that you can get randomly. They say it's because they wanted to make Jedi "rare" and they didn't want a bunch of them running around because of the time frame they didn't want to break story line. Give me a break, like there were guys running around in bone armor with stone knives everywhere in the star wars galaxy. Yeah, I'm sure you always saw wookies named "50 cent", "Smokebacca", and "Tu-Pac". The Jedi scam is just a money making machine for this game to keep fanboi's interested. Ooh, there is a secret way to unlock them that is different for everyone! Maybe just maybe if you keep playing for that extra month you will unlock that force sensative slot! Imagine the money you will make on EBAY!
The best analogy I heard is how can it be Star Wars when there are no ships (no stars) and no wars (no open PvP)
The best part is the people running around with axes and knives and "bone armor" it looks more like a midevil setting than the star wars universe.
but I'm enjoying it other than the downtime since its the first MMO I really played.:)
So from everything you've listed it sounds like you are basically saying you can live with the exploits because they make you more powerful instead of playing fair.
The last line was a joke. I can live with the bugs because they were bound to happen and I knew they would be in there. I didn't expect 15% downtime on the good days. Sure, I knew there would be some downtime, but 4 hours a day?
If you had read the comments posted by beta testers right here on slashdot, you would have known that the game was a buggy piece of shit.
At least 5 testers posted previously.
I can live with the bugs I've run into myself, such as:
1. The I bought my stuff from the bazaar but can't actually get it bug.
2. The I can get a NPC character to keep giving me dark Jedi Amulets for free which I can then turn around and sell to n00bs for 3000 credits bug.
3. The Faction points bug that some exploiters found which had them walking around with armies of storm trooper pets on the second day
4. The Mission bug where you can unequip your weapons and you will get lower level missions which you can beat for almost the same money
5. The flying NPC bug where enemies will just hover above you outside of town.
6. The bug (feature?) where NPCs can shoot through solid objects to kill you (ie, trees, hills, George Lucas's money clip)
I don't mind the bugs, I mind the downtime which prevents me from finding more bugs!
If you're quitting because of downtime in the first month of play and not because you dislike the actual gameplay then you're being foolish. These kinds of games are always going to experience downtime at first because it seems that it's impossible to project what's going to happen in the game once 125,000 accounts are created and played, and because these games are invariably overhyped early and thus bug-fixing delays get progressively more unacceptable so that they have to get the game out the door, flawed or not.
First thing, networking terminology is funny. It's always becomes "downtime" if it's more than 1%. You always hear we have 99.6% uptime. You wont hear the SWG teams saying, yeah we have 70-85% uptime this month. Ok I'm done with that rant
I can deal with the bugs, and even with the servers coming down for a patch every few days. But every day? The number of accounts is irrelevent since they have a server cap of 3500 and quite a few servers. It's not like the machines are overloaded with users. The fact that they bring the things down every day at 4am PST (they think the whole world is on PST, if your on the east coast it's from 8AM -12 Noon which means no gaming in the morning, too bad if you have a night job). The best part about it is there are "East Coast" Servers and they could bring the servers down at different times for the different time zones, they just don't care.
So on Sunday, the servers go down again at 5pm. Nobody from SOE bothers telling the players for 3 hours what is going on and players who try to log in just see their character bald in his or her underwear. The Messageboards quickly pile up with Fanboi's crying that their lives are over. SOE didn't care about informing their users.
The fact that SOE just doesn't seem to care about their customers bothers me.
Slashdot Mirror
If there is a sticker with the vending companies phone number on the Soul Blade machine call them up, or if the address is there write them and tell them to turn the difficulty down. They will do it for you. If you want to go through all that trouble
The amount of girls I see playing DDR aren't that many more than I saw playing mortal kombat/street fighter way back then. Granted I don't go to arcades as much I used to. I don't think DDR is the type of game that will draw girls into an arcade that wouldn't have gone in the past. Even if it does, it doesn't make up for the players it puts off. I'm not saying I think it's a bad thing, I think it's great. The Industry needs more though. DDR isn't the saviour
If there has been a spike in the last 3 years, it doesn't show around here (NY/NJ area). In 1995 I had at least 10 arcades within a 45 minute drive of my house. Now I have 3. There is a huge population of video game players here, the East Coast Street Fighter Championship has been held at one of those arcades...if arcades are dying here I can't think they are doing much better anywhere else. I think the dave and busters/Chuckie Cheeses/Arcades in the mall/boardwalks will always have their place but the other ones are dying (sadly)
IRAQ is an interesting case study. The problem (or America's good fortune) is that not every Iraqi was armed. For the most part, only Sunni's were, which are a small percentage of the overall population (somewhere in the 20% bracket?)
If every Iraqi citizen was armed, Sadaam and his sons would have been dead long ago because the majority of the people would have had the correct equipment to overthrow him.
If they didn't want to overthrow him, and America or any other army came in they would have a hell of a time trying to occupy Iraq.
I think this was the point our founding fathers were making, if the citizenship is armed the government will always have to do the will of the people and any invading force will have one heck of a time.
I worked in several arcades in my teen - early 20 years, and I can tell you that 1993-1996 when fighting games were peaking were pretty damn good years for arcades. You may think DDR is helping arcades, but it is not. There are a lot of players who won't even TOUCH DDR machines. It's very much a niche market, unlike the early fighting games which casual players would enjoy.
What killed the fighting games IMHO was the more and more complicated control schemes (ki, wargods). Early fighting games were simple to learn, difficult to master which is the correct formula for any game.
Arcades can still enjoy a return to glory, it will take a new genre or something radical (a internet connection in every major arcade and tournaments for money? A new VR game that can only be played in arcades?)
I think the arcades flux a lot more than the console/PC market especially in the past 10 years because they really have to innovate to get people to play. Also, I think internet gaming is killing them. 10 years ago, you had to go to an arcade to play other people. Now everyone I know that was into the arcade scene plays at home..(mostly FPS games, some MMO's). The fact is, they still play they just have no reason to go to the arcade anymore except to re-live the glory years.
Talk about your all time bad ideas, It's only been a little over a year and a half...has everyone forgotten what a sleeper cell is?
The dirt poor can get a lot more than a hundred bucks from the Dems, I know enough people on welfare in real life to realize this. They are by no means living better than me, but they aren't that much worse off either....and they don't have to work
Basically it comes down to, the republicans will take my money and give it to the rich and I might see a little of it back. The Dems will take my money and give it to the poor, I wont see any of it but it's nice on case I suddenly become dirt poor one day for some reason.
Will there ever be a political party that caters to the middle class? I think the lower middle class, and middle class makes up the majority of the county, yet we seem to always get screwed.
And if you want to lose more faith in movie-game ports, go buy Star Wars Galaxies!
The first Mortal Kombat movie wasn't that bad. The ones after that were aweful. The Street Fighter movie was bad, but the original Japanese Anime movie was awesome. The american dub isn't very good IMHO.
If you ever get a chance to watch the original Japabese Street Fighter Anime movie (not the TV series) check it out. It has an awesome fight scene between Chun li and Vega which ends with Chun li kicking Vega through a brick wall and down 6 stories. A cool Charlie, Ryu, Ken vs Bison scene, an Akuma Cameo and Chun li naked!
You must be a mac user...get it...CISC blow? Aww never mind...
I have to disagree with you there, for their time I've thought the following games that I have played were good...Every SW game on the Atari 2600, The SW side scrolling games on the SNES, and Jedi Knight II on the PC. Also, I've heard a lot of people praise the old tie fighter/xwing games. Keep in mind, I have played SWG and it's not on this list
Is there going to be a counter strike 2 with the half life 2 engine? Will it come with a built in wallhack?
First off, lets look at who the book was written by. Two women. You can take this a troll if you like, but it is not. I have never run into a female PvPer. I think the authors are biased against PvP types.
Also, where did they take the survey from? Current MMO players? Of course most of them don't PvP because most MMO's aren't geared twards that and drive PvP players out. My point is the market is untapped for the most part.
I also don't think much of the RPG "What player type are you test". I forget the guys name who made it, and I don't care much. Why? Because it's simple, I fall into at least three of those four catagories. If I don't have anyone to kill, I get bored easly. Why? Because killing humans is a lot harder and more rewarding than killing NPC's in any game IMO. If I don't have "Achievments" that I can make I don't bother playing, because I can't get any better. It doesn't matter if that achievment is the next skill in a RPG or being able to use a sniper rifle better in a FPS, I want to have room to get better at something. If there is nothing new to explore, I'll leave a game too, because it will become boring. I don't need new worlds, maps etc...but I do need depth. I'd rather have one full, rich world than 6 empty ones.
Also, even with their surveys of online players (MMO players I'm betting, most of which are everquesters who hate PvP) 22% of them came out as killers. You state that this squarely puts PvPers in the minority. Now, I would argue that not only are the statistics biased, the authors biased and the questions flawed but that 22% isn't that far from 23 or 25% and 22% of the MMO market is enough to develop a game for.
I've been playing SWG since it came out. I've only taken one day "off". I have a few observations...
1. The server caps are at 3500. If 3500 people are on a server then you can't log in and access your main character. I've found no way to transfer my character from a populated server to a less populated one.
2. Even When around 3500 people are logged on to a server, some of the planets/towns are empty. Most people hang out in the same main towns (Anchorhead, Mos Eisley and Bestine on tattoine) for example.
3. There are plenty of bugs other than the disappearing house. I've had things randomly disappear from my Inventory...Including a Vibro axe I bought for 2/3rds of my credits I've had my corpse disappear for hours and thought all my items were gone. There are parts of the map in town that you should be able to run through but can't (ie an invisible wall). If you use the "burst run" command in combat, your character will still stop and get into a battle stance when attack. So you try to run away, and a monster melee attacks you, your avatar will stop so the nice monster can get closer and kill you. On that note, monsters can melee attack from very far away for some reason while you can not.
4. It takes too long to walk around, or to do anything.
5. You are totally dependant on other players to have your wounds healed. So if you go into a hospital and there is only one medic there and 10 players you are in for a wait. Same thing goes for weapons. For example I am at "level 3" on the melee brawler skill tree. My weapon certification is for a "vibro axe". I need to find a artisan (crafter) who is at "level 8" (there are only 9 levels up) Once an artisan reaches "level 4" on the tree they can choose between 4 different elite professions, Droid Engineer, Architecht, Weaponsmith, and Chef. Then in the sub tree of Weaponsmith they can pick from 4 different branches, melee weapons, firearms, munitions and crafting techniques.
Since there are a lot more firearms users than melee, I had a lot of trouble finding that axe. Basically only two people were selling it, if that. The player driven economy is a fun idea, but having to find a level 8 artisan to get a level 4 weapon is a bit shortsighted. This might work out where there are hundreds of high level artisans running around months from now, or maybe not.
6. The missions are really boring, they come in two themes "destroy" or "deliever" They are pretty generic and mostly the same outside of the theme parks.
7. The grind. It takes forever to get anywhere, or gain any experence.
8. The Jedi scam. It's really such a joke that the devs are saying "well, for the time period, the Jedi were very rare so it will be hard to become one". Please. It's such a money making gimmick it's not funny. Let me tell you some of the things that are out of the "time period" in SWG.
We've seen 1 "creature handler" in the movies, in the game, I run into them all the time. We've seen once Rancor in the movies, all of the creature handlers I see are toting around 3 of them.
This is the one that bugs me the most..Here are some of the weapons in SWG: Stone knife, sword, dagger, heavy axe, lance, survival knife, curved sword, wood staff, metal staff, Fragmentation Grenade, flamethrower, ROCKET LAUNCHER...
Yes, that is right a rocket launcher in SWG. Welcome to Star Wars: Quake Strikes back.
Is it just me, or from watching the movies did it seem like a rocket launcher just wouldn't fit? Did I miss the scene where Darth Vader yells "Who's your daddy" at Luke and fires a rocket launcher at Luke? What is more out of character for the Star Wars Universe? 100 Jedi running around with different color lightsabres like attack of the clones, or 100 people running around mos eisley with rocket launchers and three rancors a piece yelling "N E ONE WANT 2 GO HUNTIN"?
I'll take the Jedi, thanks.
9. The lack of PvP support. It's such a pain in the butt to PvP and y
I thought they were making a fallout MMORPG?
I personally am using "Ubel Enis" right now which in German Translates to "Evil One"
. .
I also have Nasser Traumn (wet dream) and Hand Solo in Star wars galaxies.
Here are some of the other SWG names that people have taken...mind you that the EULA and the character creation screen STRESS that you can not name yourself after any real life person, anything offensive, or any fictional characters from star wars or any other movie or TV show..
Sorry for the crappy format, slashdot needs to turn down their filters!
Barris Fueller. Penny Poopiepants.
Fat Marksmen. Bones HesDeadJimDead.
Longdyk. chu'baca. Cat Woman.
I-Crave Power. PooMAN. Smokabola.
-B-O-N-G -M-A-S-T-E-R-.Stonecold Steveaustin.
Error Loading. Jozeph Stalin.
Fellof Theledge. Ivana humpalot.
Dir-T Undies . Rush Limbaugh.
Fuzz Nu'tz ( a wookie). kewl dude. Emperzizle Palpazizle.Fifty Cent.
Grouper sandwich (Mon calmedic).
Super'Fly (twilekentertainer).
Dustmop (wookie).
Silly Doggie (bothan scout).
Chewintobacca. Rosham Bo.
Cow Vomit. Worf (a wookie).
WOOT NOOB. Bigwiener. Shaeven McGroyne.
Jheebus Crimnee". "Union Leader",
"Oscar Grouch". "Juan Valdez" (you know, the coffee guy).
"Venn Detta. "Seal Clubber".
Indiana Jones.Tony Danza.
Ivegotagun Andimnotafraidtouseit -Marksman.
Ivana Humpalot - Entertainer.
Juge Dreade - Marksman (Probably an aspiring Bounty Hunter or something).
Stonecold Steveaustion - I forget the profession.
F-aggot F-aggot.
Break Windu (the best star wars themed name yet...).
Bloody Pee. ICUP. RobinWilliams.
Alota Fagina. Ivana Humpalot.
Look Skywalka. Bobba Phett
Doesit Hurt. Canyew Feelthepowah.
BigPimpn. Marth Daul
Gen'Aside. SHEWBACCA.
Dark Helmet Poocacca ( a wookie)
Led Zepplin BJ's Everyone.
iwantyourbabies oriwilltakethem
Douche Baggins Pennie Sillin (a medic)
ikickyou indanuts. Thuggin Hard
ICU Too . Fuzzy
Beeeeaaaaarrrr (yet another wookie). Uterus Maximus (reported according to a friend) Luda Kris
Scruffy Nerf-Herder, Mike Hunt, Allota Weiner
Mech Anized, Two Pac
Romulis, Poppa Capp
San Holo, Huck Finn.
Mitsubishi Galant, buildushytqyk
Undercover Brother, Craptastic Software.
Appolo Creed.Rape Tana Kleenex Box.
DAARTH VAADAR Futher Mucker (Wookiee, kinda funny)
Snow Chainz (Albino Wook) Deez Nutz
Britney Spears. Dancing with Men (female entertainer)
megaHurtz (wookiee).
Lando (have no idea how this got through the filter).
Bucacca. ChewinTobacca Tupacca
Darfh Mall, Trixar Fo'Kids
SloppyTaco, Daaaaaaaaaaaaarth Maaaaaaaaaaaaul
Hung So'loo., wolverbacca, lol brb, Newbacca.
Hunglika Horse, The Biznicht, Number One
the hizzle, Jason F'ett, Sithlord Mike (I believe)
Bill Clinton (seriously), Kwame Kilpatrick
Pucking Funk, Chewbacon
WraithofMaul, Pay Mee(female entertainer)
Sky Lukewalker., Jebus Haxxor.
Dirty Sanchez, Wookie, Whoosha Daddy.
Mark Sman, Jenna Jameson( a female entertainer) Montgomery Burns, afk'S ampler, Chia Phett
Pink Undies, FatAlbert, SloppyTacoEater, CamelToeLicker, SlipperyHole.
OldFart, Chowbacca
Bobbacca, noobbacca
There's static missions at the Theme Parks which you can do. The ones you're doing are ones the devs labelled as "for newbies" and to make easy money to start off with... and yeah, the Theme parks were meant to be a little challenging. You said you have a brawler... not even a master brawler or anything, which means that right now you're the combat equivalent of a Care Bear.
:P
:x
Yes, I haven't put in my 100 hours yet to get to Master Brawler. I am at Expert 2H though, and I still don't kill things on the destroy missions unless I use the "unequip my weapons to get an easier mission" Bug..Or is that a feature FanBoi?
Faction points are easy to get if you kill the right stuff. Do you think the Empire will like you better if you kill Rebels, or if you deliver a paper for them?
Sure, you can kill stuff if you exploit bugs, or put in 100 hours. The Destroy missions don't net many more faction points than the delievery missions on most levels. Maybe you got all your faction points before the nerf of the exploit for them? You sound like one of those beta testers from SWGPVP.com so it wouldn't suprise me.
Anyway, those are the obvious parts you haven't picked up on yet. The rest comes as you actually play
Yeah, I guess about 60 hours isn't playing. Give it a rest fanboi and work on your sarcasm skills. Throw away the game and buy an english book.
I mean come on... whining about recovering from three bars when they all regen at the same time, how is that any longer than having one bar? Geez...
Simple, you don't lose them all at the same rate. Not to mention you lose different bars for different things. Maybe if you played the game you would pick that up.
Ok everyone is complaining about up time but except for the minor glitch when everyone gets booted
That is a "minor glitch"?
and then gets right back in the server I play on has always been available......just can't please all the ppl all of the time
people in Eclipse and Bloodfin had 10 hours of downtime to deal with yesterday. What server are you on?
***Character Design***
Amazing, the amount of options you have is insane. You could walk around and never see the same looking person twice. Of course 90% of the people are either wookies or humans though.
***Graphics***
Very good for a MMO. Not the best ever, but for having so many people running around at the same time they are damn good.
***Interface***
It tooks me about 6 hours to get used to the interface. I still find new things every day, and yes I did read the manual. Think Ultima IV's interface only with holding down control and control shift sometimes, and the function keys sometimes, etc.
***Missions***
They are really, REALLY boring. Basically you do delieveries which means run from NPC to NPC... You can also do destroy missions which are equally boring.
***Combat***
Combat is aweful. NPC's can shoot you through mountains and trees. When you fight melee it doesn't even look like you are hitting each other sometimes. Melee fighters almost always lose duels to ranged weapons because melee was nerfed before beta was released. The ranged weapon character can just run circles around the melee'er and shoot him/her/it.
***Player Vs Player***
Aweful, there is no point since faction points are so hard to get. You have no hope of taking over another factions town, let alone planet. You mean nothing in the galactic civil war, and you have to run 20 of those boring delievery missions just to get into it.
***Theme Parks***
I've only seen one, Jabba's palace which was nice but I couldn't even come close to doing the missions with my brawler character.
***Crafting***
Awesome, the crafting system is insanly deep. The economy is totally player driven so the crafters have some real power. Not to mention, with the built in macroing system, crafters can get their materials easily when they are at work, or sleeping
***Content***
Doesn't seem like there is much. If you run into a criminal giving you a mission on Naboo in theed, you will run into a criminal giving you the same mission in Mos Eisley in tattoone. Go to watto's junkyard and you can laugh at how they blocked off anakin's old hut. God forbid you should have a cool chance at seeing what was left in there.
***Goodies/Loot***
There are none, you get everything from the crafters who have formed guilds and gouge prices. They charge insane prices for high level items.
***Classes***
The Classes are ok, but unbalanced. A marksmen has a big advantage over a Melee fighter, and a Artisan (crafter) has a big advantage over a scout. Basically the Artisans and Entertainers have very big advantages since their professions are easly macro-able allowing 24 hr play. Well, 20 hour play since the servers are down 4 hours a day (no, I'm not kidding)
***Immersion***
Other than being in Jabba's Palace and the Cantina in Mos Eisley, SWG is really lacking here. Most of the guys look like they fell out of a midevil game with swords, axes, stone knives and bone armor.
***Downtime***
Your character purposly walks slow, and you have three bars to recover, which makes it take longer to do anything, which means you sick around longer. Thanks Luca$.
***Jedi***
The biggest money making scheme in the game is to make Jedi an Unlockable slot that you can get randomly. They say it's because they wanted to make Jedi "rare" and they didn't want a bunch of them running around because of the time frame they didn't want to break story line. Give me a break, like there were guys running around in bone armor with stone knives everywhere in the star wars galaxy. Yeah, I'm sure you always saw wookies named "50 cent", "Smokebacca", and "Tu-Pac". The Jedi scam is just a money making machine for this game to keep fanboi's interested. Ooh, there is a secret way to unlock them that is different for everyone! Maybe just maybe if you keep playing for that extra month you will unlock that force sensative slot! Imagine the money you will make on EBAY!
The best analogy I heard is how can it be Star Wars when there are no ships (no stars) and no wars (no open PvP) The best part is the people running around with axes and knives and "bone armor" it looks more like a midevil setting than the star wars universe. but I'm enjoying it other than the downtime since its the first MMO I really played. :)
So from everything you've listed it sounds like you are basically saying you can live with the exploits because they make you more powerful instead of playing fair.
The last line was a joke. I can live with the bugs because they were bound to happen and I knew they would be in there. I didn't expect 15% downtime on the good days. Sure, I knew there would be some downtime, but 4 hours a day?
If you had read the comments posted by beta testers right here on slashdot, you would have known that the game was a buggy piece of shit. At least 5 testers posted previously. I can live with the bugs I've run into myself, such as: 1. The I bought my stuff from the bazaar but can't actually get it bug. 2. The I can get a NPC character to keep giving me dark Jedi Amulets for free which I can then turn around and sell to n00bs for 3000 credits bug. 3. The Faction points bug that some exploiters found which had them walking around with armies of storm trooper pets on the second day 4. The Mission bug where you can unequip your weapons and you will get lower level missions which you can beat for almost the same money 5. The flying NPC bug where enemies will just hover above you outside of town. 6. The bug (feature?) where NPCs can shoot through solid objects to kill you (ie, trees, hills, George Lucas's money clip)
I don't mind the bugs, I mind the downtime which prevents me from finding more bugs!
If you're quitting because of downtime in the first month of play and not because you dislike the actual gameplay then you're being foolish. These kinds of games are always going to experience downtime at first because it seems that it's impossible to project what's going to happen in the game once 125,000 accounts are created and played, and because these games are invariably overhyped early and thus bug-fixing delays get progressively more unacceptable so that they have to get the game out the door, flawed or not.
First thing, networking terminology is funny. It's always becomes "downtime" if it's more than 1%. You always hear we have 99.6% uptime. You wont hear the SWG teams saying, yeah we have 70-85% uptime this month. Ok I'm done with that rant
I can deal with the bugs, and even with the servers coming down for a patch every few days. But every day? The number of accounts is irrelevent since they have a server cap of 3500 and quite a few servers. It's not like the machines are overloaded with users. The fact that they bring the things down every day at 4am PST (they think the whole world is on PST, if your on the east coast it's from 8AM -12 Noon which means no gaming in the morning, too bad if you have a night job). The best part about it is there are "East Coast" Servers and they could bring the servers down at different times for the different time zones, they just don't care.
So on Sunday, the servers go down again at 5pm. Nobody from SOE bothers telling the players for 3 hours what is going on and players who try to log in just see their character bald in his or her underwear. The Messageboards quickly pile up with Fanboi's crying that their lives are over. SOE didn't care about informing their users.
The fact that SOE just doesn't seem to care about their customers bothers me.