As soon as a court precedent is set concerning virtual currency, and I dont think it will be much longer considering how bad the scamming is getting, all these people can sue the piss out of this guy.
If you've ever played Eve, you'll know (or you should know) that this is what the game is all about. It's about lying, cheating and stealing. All the other activities of the game are there only to give context to the end game - PvP. Every ship, missle, player corp - whatever - represents hours and hours of dull, repetitious effort and it's designed to do that to make PvP - in whatever form, combat or boardroom - that much more viseral.
The guy didn't do anything outside the rules of the game. What he did is nothing different then winning a PvP combat fight. That's the way Eve was designed to be played. You can't sue a guy for beating you at a game.
I'm sure they're lovely people but the editorial overlooks a fundamental aspect of publishing on the web - the ease of publication. The only cost to a reader in stating their opinion -and stating in vehemently - is time. You can't publish a review on the web, include a ' comments' field or a link to the site's forums and then act surprised when people use them. Reviews are controversial simply because the controversy is free. Add some sort of barrier or formality to the reply process and I'm willing to bet you'll see a ten-fold drop in "controversy."
Just to clarify - my earlier comments about web reviews being drival wasn't directed specifically at GamerDad. Again, I'm sure they are fine folks.
WHA-huh?
Talk about your non-sequiter...
If you believe that the vast majority of game review sites have anything to do with real criticism or journalism then your the naive one.
The GamerDad writer should stop thinking about his reviews in the same manner as a print reviewer. Web reviews are fundamentally different from print precisely because they are on the web. Rather than a statement of opinion they are the first salvo of a discussion. The web makes it easy to reply and for the subsequent replies to carry the same weight as the original review. These people aren't so much "fanbois" as they are users doing what comes natural.
Further, reviewers of any subject who use the web as their primary means of distribution are crippled because there are so many web critics out there. So much of what is written for the web is terrible drivel! Most of it seems to be thinly veiled commercials for the games and hardware they are suppose to be "reviewing." It's like radio in the 50s, 60s and 70s - it's all about the graft and swag offered by the publishers.
If you can put together a review site and get a few thousand unique visitors a month, I doubt you'll ever need to purchase a game again.
If you want to have your reviews read without comment. Get a job writing for a newspaper or magazine. While I'm sure there will be a few "letters to the editor" it won't begin to approach the volume of response from something posted on the web.
My claim was not that it isn't done it was a reply to the original poster's retorical question. Also, some of the games you mentioned aren't controlled in any way by the american legal system, which is what the original article is discussing.
So please think before you flame.
Because then the company would acknowledge that they item has value outside the confines of the game and that would make them liable for maintaining and protecting that value.
There are too many uncontrolled variables in MMO games as it is. I hope that game companies continue to enforce their EULAs and keep real lfe legal issues out of my entertainment.
I mean, if the ultimate goal is to draw crowds large enough for the network to bring back the series (is it?)
I doubt they would try to bring back the series ever. If the film is a success, they'll want to make more movies because that's the way they'll make the most money off the IP.
Either way, the profiles of the cast will be raised considerably so making a TV series with them all will be a tad more expensive than the first go around.
My concern for the film is that it won't really be Firefly - a show largely about this ensemble traveling around space together. Action movies give very little time to the development of the lead characters, much less 9.
Look at the Star Trek films. Each one is largely about the captain du jour and his closest side kicks. The rest of the crew pops up for a line or two and dresses the set for the rest of the film. There's no time for anything else. It's a shame. I really like the ensemble chemistry of Joss Weadon's shows. I don't find Buffy/Angel/Captain Reynolds all that interesting on their own but when put in context with the ensemble along with some of Wheadon's dialoge and it's a pretty good hour of TV.
I look forward to the movie - the producers can count on my $10 but I'm willing to bet that this won't be the same show.
Mmmmm I like CoH and all but I find the SWG more news worthy when placed in context with SOE's notorious customer service. EQ delayed (or at least talked of a delay. I don't play it so I only read a quick article) an expansion based on the demands of their current customers and I think the players hope SWG are hoping they'll do the same here. THat's big news for a publically traded company.
THe bugs in Galaxies are significant enough to warrent a recall on Sony's part. If SWG was a TV or DVD player, 60 Minutes would be knocking on the CEO's door asking for an explanation.
I'll counter your assertion that focusing on one aspect is a good thing
I agree that CoH is shallow. I played up until level 24 and stopped because the level 24 game is the same as the level 1 game.
That being said, I still maintain that what makes CoH brilliant is not the game itself but rather the execution. Cryptic/NCSoft has taken the opposite tact from every other game out there. Rather than release a feature rich, buggy game with the promise of fixes down the line, they've instead released a tight game, with a fun, fast paced core and the promise of more content to be added down the line.
It's the antithesis of Star Wars Galaxies.
Most of SWG's features have bugs associated with them and many of professions are useless. SWG continues to promise both bug fixes and additional content - neither of which they've gotten right in the year plus that it's been up and running.
All CoH has had to promise is a little balancing and more content.
So the question seems to be - which is better? Both methods put developers under the gun. Both methods run the risk of losing customers either from boredom or frustration. It will be interesting to see where CoH is on their first anniversary.
I'm not a developer but I am a project manager and I can tell you that one of the keys to managing any project is managing stakeholder expectations. CoH has done that in spades. They've also set themselves up for many, many change orders - what you developers call expansion packs. If CoH continues to succeed, I'm sure they'll add every feature SWG has but as expansion packs and their clientele will pay for them happily.
Contrast this again with SWG. Their first expansion pack is coming up and while many people will buy it, many will assert that it's just more features that should have been in at launch. SWG failed to manage the expectations of their stakeholders.
Getting back to the original thread- the same argument could be made for WWIIOL. They released a feature rich, bug heavy game and it's taken them a couple of years to work it out.
Since these games are so much more complex to make in comparison to single-player games - the lesson seems to be start small and grow into something grand.
I think that games like Eve Online, Meridian 59 and the other smaller MMORPGs have all proven that attentive developers and a dedicated community can keep any game alive. That's the benefit of the monthly subscription model. Even games like Anarchy Online - the game that everyone cites when they talk about bad launches - can not only survive but thrive if the developers make an effort to build community.
Games are complicated to make and MMORPGs are even harder because of the added technical, socialogical and (in-game and out) economic hurdles. Since gamers have proven that they are willing to wait around for the developers to work the bugs out, the practice of releasing an MMORPG at the point of minimal stability has become an industry standard.
It's also the reason that these games will never reach main-stream acceptance. Only a bunch of geeks would be willing to put up with this sort of behaviour.
I've played quite a bit of City of Heroes lately and what really makes it brilliant is not so much the game play (which is good) but rather the way the game is being managed. First - and this is the key to their success - they avoided "feature creep." City of Heroes does one thing - combat - and does it very well. It's tight, fast and resonably balanced but that's it - that's the entire game. No crafting, no economy, no loot, No PvP. THey've avoided 90% of the trouble most other MMORPGs get into by making the choice to put it in at a later date. I'm sure that each of these areas will be added eventually, but in the form of expansion packs and additional revenue.
Next, they planned a staggered release. Rather than delivering boxes to all the stores at once and throwing open the servers, they let the pre-order customers ( read "the hardcore") start three days before the official launch. THen they staggered the delivery of the boxes to retails over the period of about a week. SO there was no real launch day rather they planned and executed "launch week."
Cryptic Studios ( the developers) also did a very bright thing by lopping off a good bit of the game (levels 41-50) and patching it in to the game about 6 weeks after launch as it's first official content patch. Most of the player population couldn't get near level 40 in that time period so patching this bit in later gave Cryptic a chance to focus on the the newbie experience for launch and polish the high end game for later. It also made them look good by adding a good chunk of content just a few weeks after launch.
I could cite a few more examples suffice to say that I consider City of Heroes the first true "second generation" MMORPG not because of any game play or technological innovation but because they're the first MMORPG to look at the predecessors and impliment the lessons learned.
If WWIIOL and the other troubled MMORPGs had been managed so well, I'm sure they would have no trouble surviving.
Hmmmm, that's tough, you're right. You're probably asking this question retorically but I'll give it a shot.
I'm currently playing City of Heroes and like many people I enjoyed the character creation process. It offers lots of choices - enough so that if you have a particular idea for a hero in mind, you can come pretty close to making it happen.
Combat in CoH has also been a positive. While it still relies on the turn based mechanic required by most MMORPGs, they've tuned it in a way that makes it seem "live" - like a first person shooter.
I'm also a fan of Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates and a big part of it's charm is the pixel art/Lego- people production design
Arguing what the term "treadmill" really means I think, misses the point of the parent post. All games are treadmills sure, its when they're boring treadmills that we have a problem.
Treadmill = = boring.
Here's the thing about treadmills though - ANY game will get boring if you play it 40+ hours a week. You cannot create any form of activity that can hold up to that kind of attention.
Heck even sex starts to chafe a bit if you do it often enough.
Our expectations for the genre is too high. If the game gets boring after you've played it for 100 hours, it's not the game's fault. Go play something else.
I don't believe that all PvPers are Sociopaths. I think it's possible to seperate griefers from PvPers.
I think Eve Online does a pretty good job of encouraging the kind of dynamic that I'm trying to illustrate. The game is incredibly dull taken at face value - the worst of the "treadmill grind" that these games have to offer. However, if you choose to throw caution to the wind and take a few pot shots at people, the game changes drastically. It suddenly has all the aspects of MMORPGs that gamers claim to hope for. Players develop personal reputations, form alliances, create enemies, become heros or villians and actually affect their environment. Is it the game's back story or universe? No but their actions affect the parts of the game that really matter.
That being said - I'd have a hard time recommeding Eve to anyone because you have to do a lot of really boring work to get to the fun stuff. The game systems also give players many opportunities to cause grief. It's far from perfect but it does promote "roleplay" by my definition.
Griefing is another problem altogther. Any game mechanic you develop to stop it seems to hinder the rest of the game. Dark Age of Camelot and Anarchy Online come to mind - they place so many anti-griefing rules on top of PvP that you almost need a lawyer to navigate them all. It would be nice if you could remove a few of them but as you've pointed out, human nature won't allow it.
Both of these guys have specific axes to grind. Schild is clearly responding to the mess that is SWG. He continually calls for the removal of "treadmills," etc. without offering clear alternatives. Rather than adding additional insight to the discussion, his entire rant could have been cut-n-pasted from any one of a thousand message boards.
Snowspinner is a bit more interesting and his statement that "Stories aren't the fun parts about games any more than worlds are. Play is" should become the marquee screensaver for game developers every where.
F13.net, Corp News, et.al. continue to try and fill the shoes of the original rant sites like Lum the Mad and they constantly come up short. I'm sure these guys are all clever and smart people but it's all pretty much been said - and said better - when the MMORPG genre was a little more fresh.
On a side note: I think the player base should expand their definition of what "roleplay" is. Lots of people "roleplay" in these games, its just not the sort that was intended or expected. Look at PvP in any form - FPS or MMORPG - and you'll see people acting and talking in ways they would never dream of in real life. Alliances are formed. Arch enemies are made. Roleplay driven by the environment rather than some hackneyed back story. It's much more interesting and you never hear a thee or a thou uttered once. That's the sort of roleplay that these games should encourage.
Games made from licensed IP aren't as good because a sizable portion of the budget goes to pay for the IP. Say the average game costs 2 million to make, so that's the budget given to it by the publisher. The IP license costs 1 million so you now have half the budget of any normal game, plus a tighter deadline and twice as many suits looking over your shoulder.
It keeps happening over and over again though because people buy these pieces of crap because they have a recognizable name. So, rinse and repeat.
I didn't have a problem with lag. Also, with level 7 powers I was actually able to perform the occasional "knock-down" on the higher level invaders.
After we banded together to kill their commander however, a group of aliens showed up that had obviously been dial up a bit. They proceeded to wipe us all out and then camp the hospital entrance. It was literally in the last hour before the servers were to be shut down so my guess is they were sort of the party clean up committee. They clearly were telling us to "get the hell out" since no one in the newbie zone had a chance in hell of surviving their attacks.
I had a good time last night. Having been a paying participant in many a lack luster MMORPG (SWG comes to mind)City of Heroes is a breath of fresh air. It's actually fun to play! I highly recommend it.
It was a great event and actually high-lighted one of my favorite aspects of the game - no down-time.
Being a newbie, I died about every 30 seconds but it took about that long to get back into action.
I'm a big fan of this game. I only got to play it for a couple of days but it's got the finest low-level game of any MMORPG currently running. It will be interesting to see if the quality of the gaming experience continues as you progress.
The fact that people don't read the review has very little to do with Ritalin. I personally don't read them because it's bad writing.
Here's how they usually go:
Paragraph one - a brief introduction usually involving some bad puns using the game's name, characters or developers.
Paragraph two through twenty - an overwrought synopsis of the game's plot and back-story, usually cut and pasted from the press release or another review. Sometimes both.
Paragraphs twenty-one through forty-five - A careful consideration of the game's graphics and frame-rate in which the reviewer compares it to the frame-rates he usually gets while playing a five year old first person shooter down at the local Lanwerks. Usually a reference or two is made to the reviewer's expensive, over clocked computer system and a plug for the latest NVIDIA or ATI product. This usually comes with a thinly veiled request for more free products from NVIDIA or ATI.
Half of Paragraph forty-six - a comparison between the product being reviewed and the game-play of some other game in a different genre made in the previous decade. This serves as the "meat" of the review and in the reviewer?s mind gives him ?street-cred.?
2nd half of Paragraph forty-six through paragraph two-hundred and fifty ? Now that the reviewer has revealed to the world, his clear and encyclopedic knowledge of all things game he tells us what he would have done differently had he been allowed to design the game. This usually includes some ranting about not being allowed to rebind his keys and further rebuffs of the games graphics and framerates.
Paragraph two-hundred and fifty one - The reviewer makes reference to the bad puns in paragraph one, inserts a poorly considered sentence about the "meaning" of the game and it's place in pantheon of games that have come before it and then wraps the whole thing up with another bad pun.
Then he gives the game a 9.
I only had to read 5 or 6 billion of those reviews before I figured out I don?t have to read them at all. In short, what passes for game criticism isn?t criticism at all. It?s a thinly veiled ad for the product and the hardware that runs it. It?s also bad writing.
It sounds like you?re a game reviewer. I?m sure your reviews are great. Sorry, no offense. Looks good on you.
I like PA's sense of humor but it annoys me to no end that they plug their advertisers so heavily. THat being said I don't really consider them journalists or critics. They make it very clear that Penny Arcade's purpose is to satirize and to entertain. THey don't represent themselves as critics or jounalists.
I would like a clear, ethical disconnect between advertisers and content from sites that represent themselves as "news" orgainzations.
I find on many of the big gaming sites, you can take the critic's word if they hate a game. It's the ones that recieve a positive review that I've been burned on many occasions.
You could say it's a matter of taste but when the critic never mentions game-stopping bugs or overly complex control schemes in their 5 page review of the newsest game from Electronic Arts, you have to wonder.
I'll state the obvious - I question any type of "award" when the declared winner - Final Fantasy, the best MMORPG - has a big throbbing Final Fantasy banner ad right next to the article declaring it's "unbiased" greatness.
Any "journalist" that can say Star Wars Galalxies is worth playing with a straight face has got to be taking some kind payoff.
Here's a question for Slashdot readers - Are there any web based news and review organizations that you would consider a "trusted source" for information about games and the industry that creates them?
This is pretty typical for the web, although it's not always so blatent. Think of how many sites have stolen Amazon's folder tab navigation or Yahoo's portal link design. The web full of plagerized sites. The bad just out and out steal while everyone else steals it and changes the colors.
Good god the entire Comcast system is horrible! The remote is a mess plus the onscreen interface is a joke. If you happen to want to flip through all the channels at the top of the hour - good luck! If the show hasn't quite started yet, the default function is to ask you if you'd like to set a "reminder" for the show! So to flip channels you actually have to point the channel guide back to the previous half hour and flip through the channels that way.
The list goes on and on but it's obvious that Comcast has put no thought into their remote or on screen interface what so ever. There is no excuse for it in this day and age.
Tivo on the other hand, is a joy to use.
I'd say from reading through this thread that actual costs vary from compnay to company depending on how ready they are to handle something like this.
As far as the CNN story goes tho - it's in everyone's best interest to run up the impact that this sort of thing has on a company because it makes your bottom line look better at the end of the quarter.
" Sorry profits were down this quarter but that virus really hit us hard."
or
"Our crack management team kept profits the same inspite of that dreadful worm that crippled the company for weeks on end! Just imaging what we would have been able to do if it hadn't hit us!"
And of course the IT guys all play along because it means an increase in their budget for next year. Sooooo WIN WIN!
Slashdot Mirror
If you've ever played Eve, you'll know (or you should know) that this is what the game is all about. It's about lying, cheating and stealing. All the other activities of the game are there only to give context to the end game - PvP. Every ship, missle, player corp - whatever - represents hours and hours of dull, repetitious effort and it's designed to do that to make PvP - in whatever form, combat or boardroom - that much more viseral.
The guy didn't do anything outside the rules of the game. What he did is nothing different then winning a PvP combat fight. That's the way Eve was designed to be played. You can't sue a guy for beating you at a game.
I'm sure they're lovely people but the editorial overlooks a fundamental aspect of publishing on the web - the ease of publication. The only cost to a reader in stating their opinion -and stating in vehemently - is time. You can't publish a review on the web, include a ' comments' field or a link to the site's forums and then act surprised when people use them. Reviews are controversial simply because the controversy is free. Add some sort of barrier or formality to the reply process and I'm willing to bet you'll see a ten-fold drop in "controversy."
Just to clarify - my earlier comments about web reviews being drival wasn't directed specifically at GamerDad. Again, I'm sure they are fine folks.
By way of example, I offer this literary masterpiece found over at PixelRage: http://www.pixelrage.ro/users/viewart.php?&artid=1 69&gid=27&type=4&back_page=/users/viewfeatures.php ?&game_loc=5&gid=27/
WHA-huh? Talk about your non-sequiter... If you believe that the vast majority of game review sites have anything to do with real criticism or journalism then your the naive one.
Further, reviewers of any subject who use the web as their primary means of distribution are crippled because there are so many web critics out there. So much of what is written for the web is terrible drivel! Most of it seems to be thinly veiled commercials for the games and hardware they are suppose to be "reviewing." It's like radio in the 50s, 60s and 70s - it's all about the graft and swag offered by the publishers.
If you can put together a review site and get a few thousand unique visitors a month, I doubt you'll ever need to purchase a game again.
If you want to have your reviews read without comment. Get a job writing for a newspaper or magazine. While I'm sure there will be a few "letters to the editor" it won't begin to approach the volume of response from something posted on the web.
My claim was not that it isn't done it was a reply to the original poster's retorical question. Also, some of the games you mentioned aren't controlled in any way by the american legal system, which is what the original article is discussing. So please think before you flame.
Because then the company would acknowledge that they item has value outside the confines of the game and that would make them liable for maintaining and protecting that value.
There are too many uncontrolled variables in MMO games as it is. I hope that game companies continue to enforce their EULAs and keep real lfe legal issues out of my entertainment.
I doubt they would try to bring back the series ever. If the film is a success, they'll want to make more movies because that's the way they'll make the most money off the IP.
Either way, the profiles of the cast will be raised considerably so making a TV series with them all will be a tad more expensive than the first go around.
My concern for the film is that it won't really be Firefly - a show largely about this ensemble traveling around space together. Action movies give very little time to the development of the lead characters, much less 9.
Look at the Star Trek films. Each one is largely about the captain du jour and his closest side kicks. The rest of the crew pops up for a line or two and dresses the set for the rest of the film. There's no time for anything else. It's a shame. I really like the ensemble chemistry of Joss Weadon's shows. I don't find Buffy/Angel/Captain Reynolds all that interesting on their own but when put in context with the ensemble along with some of Wheadon's dialoge and it's a pretty good hour of TV.
I look forward to the movie - the producers can count on my $10 but I'm willing to bet that this won't be the same show.
Mmmmm I like CoH and all but I find the SWG more news worthy when placed in context with SOE's notorious customer service. EQ delayed (or at least talked of a delay. I don't play it so I only read a quick article) an expansion based on the demands of their current customers and I think the players hope SWG are hoping they'll do the same here. THat's big news for a publically traded company.
THe bugs in Galaxies are significant enough to warrent a recall on Sony's part. If SWG was a TV or DVD player, 60 Minutes would be knocking on the CEO's door asking for an explanation.
I agree that CoH is shallow. I played up until level 24 and stopped because the level 24 game is the same as the level 1 game.
That being said, I still maintain that what makes CoH brilliant is not the game itself but rather the execution. Cryptic/NCSoft has taken the opposite tact from every other game out there. Rather than release a feature rich, buggy game with the promise of fixes down the line, they've instead released a tight game, with a fun, fast paced core and the promise of more content to be added down the line.
It's the antithesis of Star Wars Galaxies. Most of SWG's features have bugs associated with them and many of professions are useless. SWG continues to promise both bug fixes and additional content - neither of which they've gotten right in the year plus that it's been up and running.
All CoH has had to promise is a little balancing and more content.
So the question seems to be - which is better? Both methods put developers under the gun. Both methods run the risk of losing customers either from boredom or frustration. It will be interesting to see where CoH is on their first anniversary.
I'm not a developer but I am a project manager and I can tell you that one of the keys to managing any project is managing stakeholder expectations. CoH has done that in spades. They've also set themselves up for many, many change orders - what you developers call expansion packs. If CoH continues to succeed, I'm sure they'll add every feature SWG has but as expansion packs and their clientele will pay for them happily.
Contrast this again with SWG. Their first expansion pack is coming up and while many people will buy it, many will assert that it's just more features that should have been in at launch. SWG failed to manage the expectations of their stakeholders.
Getting back to the original thread- the same argument could be made for WWIIOL. They released a feature rich, bug heavy game and it's taken them a couple of years to work it out.
Since these games are so much more complex to make in comparison to single-player games - the lesson seems to be start small and grow into something grand.
Games are complicated to make and MMORPGs are even harder because of the added technical, socialogical and (in-game and out) economic hurdles. Since gamers have proven that they are willing to wait around for the developers to work the bugs out, the practice of releasing an MMORPG at the point of minimal stability has become an industry standard.
It's also the reason that these games will never reach main-stream acceptance. Only a bunch of geeks would be willing to put up with this sort of behaviour.
I've played quite a bit of City of Heroes lately and what really makes it brilliant is not so much the game play (which is good) but rather the way the game is being managed. First - and this is the key to their success - they avoided "feature creep." City of Heroes does one thing - combat - and does it very well. It's tight, fast and resonably balanced but that's it - that's the entire game. No crafting, no economy, no loot, No PvP. THey've avoided 90% of the trouble most other MMORPGs get into by making the choice to put it in at a later date. I'm sure that each of these areas will be added eventually, but in the form of expansion packs and additional revenue.
Next, they planned a staggered release. Rather than delivering boxes to all the stores at once and throwing open the servers, they let the pre-order customers ( read "the hardcore") start three days before the official launch. THen they staggered the delivery of the boxes to retails over the period of about a week. SO there was no real launch day rather they planned and executed "launch week."
Cryptic Studios ( the developers) also did a very bright thing by lopping off a good bit of the game (levels 41-50) and patching it in to the game about 6 weeks after launch as it's first official content patch. Most of the player population couldn't get near level 40 in that time period so patching this bit in later gave Cryptic a chance to focus on the the newbie experience for launch and polish the high end game for later. It also made them look good by adding a good chunk of content just a few weeks after launch.
I could cite a few more examples suffice to say that I consider City of Heroes the first true "second generation" MMORPG not because of any game play or technological innovation but because they're the first MMORPG to look at the predecessors and impliment the lessons learned.
If WWIIOL and the other troubled MMORPGs had been managed so well, I'm sure they would have no trouble surviving.
I'm currently playing City of Heroes and like many people I enjoyed the character creation process. It offers lots of choices - enough so that if you have a particular idea for a hero in mind, you can come pretty close to making it happen.
Combat in CoH has also been a positive. While it still relies on the turn based mechanic required by most MMORPGs, they've tuned it in a way that makes it seem "live" - like a first person shooter.
I'm also a fan of Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates and a big part of it's charm is the pixel art/Lego- people production design
How did I do?Treadmill = = boring.
Here's the thing about treadmills though - ANY game will get boring if you play it 40+ hours a week. You cannot create any form of activity that can hold up to that kind of attention.
Heck even sex starts to chafe a bit if you do it often enough.
Our expectations for the genre is too high. If the game gets boring after you've played it for 100 hours, it's not the game's fault. Go play something else.I don't believe that all PvPers are Sociopaths. I think it's possible to seperate griefers from PvPers.
I think Eve Online does a pretty good job of encouraging the kind of dynamic that I'm trying to illustrate. The game is incredibly dull taken at face value - the worst of the "treadmill grind" that these games have to offer. However, if you choose to throw caution to the wind and take a few pot shots at people, the game changes drastically. It suddenly has all the aspects of MMORPGs that gamers claim to hope for. Players develop personal reputations, form alliances, create enemies, become heros or villians and actually affect their environment. Is it the game's back story or universe? No but their actions affect the parts of the game that really matter.
That being said - I'd have a hard time recommeding Eve to anyone because you have to do a lot of really boring work to get to the fun stuff. The game systems also give players many opportunities to cause grief. It's far from perfect but it does promote "roleplay" by my definition.
Griefing is another problem altogther. Any game mechanic you develop to stop it seems to hinder the rest of the game. Dark Age of Camelot and Anarchy Online come to mind - they place so many anti-griefing rules on top of PvP that you almost need a lawyer to navigate them all. It would be nice if you could remove a few of them but as you've pointed out, human nature won't allow it.
Both of these guys have specific axes to grind. Schild is clearly responding to the mess that is SWG. He continually calls for the removal of "treadmills," etc. without offering clear alternatives. Rather than adding additional insight to the discussion, his entire rant could have been cut-n-pasted from any one of a thousand message boards.
Snowspinner is a bit more interesting and his statement that "Stories aren't the fun parts about games any more than worlds are. Play is" should become the marquee screensaver for game developers every where.
F13.net, Corp News, et.al. continue to try and fill the shoes of the original rant sites like Lum the Mad and they constantly come up short. I'm sure these guys are all clever and smart people but it's all pretty much been said - and said better - when the MMORPG genre was a little more fresh.
On a side note: I think the player base should expand their definition of what "roleplay" is. Lots of people "roleplay" in these games, its just not the sort that was intended or expected. Look at PvP in any form - FPS or MMORPG - and you'll see people acting and talking in ways they would never dream of in real life. Alliances are formed. Arch enemies are made. Roleplay driven by the environment rather than some hackneyed back story. It's much more interesting and you never hear a thee or a thou uttered once. That's the sort of roleplay that these games should encourage.
Games made from licensed IP aren't as good because a sizable portion of the budget goes to pay for the IP. Say the average game costs 2 million to make, so that's the budget given to it by the publisher. The IP license costs 1 million so you now have half the budget of any normal game, plus a tighter deadline and twice as many suits looking over your shoulder. It keeps happening over and over again though because people buy these pieces of crap because they have a recognizable name. So, rinse and repeat.
I wish I had mod priledges so I could give that the "funny" it so righly deserves.
I didn't have a problem with lag. Also, with level 7 powers I was actually able to perform the occasional "knock-down" on the higher level invaders. After we banded together to kill their commander however, a group of aliens showed up that had obviously been dial up a bit. They proceeded to wipe us all out and then camp the hospital entrance. It was literally in the last hour before the servers were to be shut down so my guess is they were sort of the party clean up committee. They clearly were telling us to "get the hell out" since no one in the newbie zone had a chance in hell of surviving their attacks. I had a good time last night. Having been a paying participant in many a lack luster MMORPG (SWG comes to mind)City of Heroes is a breath of fresh air. It's actually fun to play! I highly recommend it.
It was a great event and actually high-lighted one of my favorite aspects of the game - no down-time. Being a newbie, I died about every 30 seconds but it took about that long to get back into action. I'm a big fan of this game. I only got to play it for a couple of days but it's got the finest low-level game of any MMORPG currently running. It will be interesting to see if the quality of the gaming experience continues as you progress.
The fact that people don't read the review has very little to do with Ritalin. I personally don't read them because it's bad writing.
Here's how they usually go:
Paragraph one - a brief introduction usually involving some bad puns using the game's name, characters or developers.
Paragraph two through twenty - an overwrought synopsis of the game's plot and back-story, usually cut and pasted from the press release or another review. Sometimes both.
Paragraphs twenty-one through forty-five - A careful consideration of the game's graphics and frame-rate in which the reviewer compares it to the frame-rates he usually gets while playing a five year old first person shooter down at the local Lanwerks. Usually a reference or two is made to the reviewer's expensive, over clocked computer system and a plug for the latest NVIDIA or ATI product. This usually comes with a thinly veiled request for more free products from NVIDIA or ATI.
Half of Paragraph forty-six - a comparison between the product being reviewed and the game-play of some other game in a different genre made in the previous decade. This serves as the "meat" of the review and in the reviewer?s mind gives him ?street-cred.?
2nd half of Paragraph forty-six through paragraph two-hundred and fifty ? Now that the reviewer has revealed to the world, his clear and encyclopedic knowledge of all things game he tells us what he would have done differently had he been allowed to design the game. This usually includes some ranting about not being allowed to rebind his keys and further rebuffs of the games graphics and framerates.
Paragraph two-hundred and fifty one - The reviewer makes reference to the bad puns in paragraph one, inserts a poorly considered sentence about the "meaning" of the game and it's place in pantheon of games that have come before it and then wraps the whole thing up with another bad pun.
Then he gives the game a 9.
I only had to read 5 or 6 billion of those reviews before I figured out I don?t have to read them at all. In short, what passes for game criticism isn?t criticism at all. It?s a thinly veiled ad for the product and the hardware that runs it. It?s also bad writing.
It sounds like you?re a game reviewer. I?m sure your reviews are great. Sorry, no offense. Looks good on you.
I like PA's sense of humor but it annoys me to no end that they plug their advertisers so heavily. THat being said I don't really consider them journalists or critics. They make it very clear that Penny Arcade's purpose is to satirize and to entertain. THey don't represent themselves as critics or jounalists. I would like a clear, ethical disconnect between advertisers and content from sites that represent themselves as "news" orgainzations. I find on many of the big gaming sites, you can take the critic's word if they hate a game. It's the ones that recieve a positive review that I've been burned on many occasions. You could say it's a matter of taste but when the critic never mentions game-stopping bugs or overly complex control schemes in their 5 page review of the newsest game from Electronic Arts, you have to wonder.
I'll state the obvious - I question any type of "award" when the declared winner - Final Fantasy, the best MMORPG - has a big throbbing Final Fantasy banner ad right next to the article declaring it's "unbiased" greatness. Any "journalist" that can say Star Wars Galalxies is worth playing with a straight face has got to be taking some kind payoff. Here's a question for Slashdot readers - Are there any web based news and review organizations that you would consider a "trusted source" for information about games and the industry that creates them?
This is pretty typical for the web, although it's not always so blatent. Think of how many sites have stolen Amazon's folder tab navigation or Yahoo's portal link design. The web full of plagerized sites. The bad just out and out steal while everyone else steals it and changes the colors.
Tacheon fields - don't forget the tacheon fields. Clearly someone left the warp engines routed through the deflector dish.
Good god the entire Comcast system is horrible! The remote is a mess plus the onscreen interface is a joke. If you happen to want to flip through all the channels at the top of the hour - good luck! If the show hasn't quite started yet, the default function is to ask you if you'd like to set a "reminder" for the show! So to flip channels you actually have to point the channel guide back to the previous half hour and flip through the channels that way. The list goes on and on but it's obvious that Comcast has put no thought into their remote or on screen interface what so ever. There is no excuse for it in this day and age. Tivo on the other hand, is a joy to use.
I'd say from reading through this thread that actual costs vary from compnay to company depending on how ready they are to handle something like this. As far as the CNN story goes tho - it's in everyone's best interest to run up the impact that this sort of thing has on a company because it makes your bottom line look better at the end of the quarter. " Sorry profits were down this quarter but that virus really hit us hard." or "Our crack management team kept profits the same inspite of that dreadful worm that crippled the company for weeks on end! Just imaging what we would have been able to do if it hadn't hit us!" And of course the IT guys all play along because it means an increase in their budget for next year. Sooooo WIN WIN!