Regardless of who is 'in the lead', the US government will likely be heavily involved if not directly controlling a space elevator. Cheap transportation into space is far too lucrative, not to mention useful, to ignore.
So in other words, you had preconceptions about this game which weren't met and therefor you set it aside. Personally, I found the element of surprise to be the main attraction. This is a horror game, along the lines of the original Resident Evil games and the like. Doom and Doom2 were full on FPS games with no 'terror moments', but Doom3 is full of them. The spawning monsters are anything but surprising; the teleportation process takes a second or 2 and by then you should be in a good vantage point to mow them down with whatever weapon you choose. The real fear comes from the creatures that are already there, lurking in shadows and not making BAMPH noises when they attack.
Try playing it when you're in the mood, and with a bit of effort put into getting absorbed in the game such as a darkened room, headphones, etc. Also, try not to make broad generalizations such as saying "when you pick up that 'too good to be true' item you get blitzed by 10 monsters". This game is anything but a one trick pony and if that is all you saw I really wonder if you spent any time at all examining the game. Doom3 is rich with backstory, interwoven into the game System Shock2 style with logfiles and email communications, not to mention the videos explaining the whole purpose of the lab installation.
Its too bad you couldn't look at the game carefully enough to notice these things. Doom3 is a work of art.
We've already got video game characters making the movies (Tomb Raider et al), next we'll just have professional gamers playing thru a title with a full crowd watching. Games will have a playing time of about 2 hrs, and everyone will be able to participate in some small way.
Uh, we've just lost the picture, but what we've seen speaks for itself. The Corvair spacecraft has apparently been taken over -- 'conquered' if you will -- by a master race of first person shooter sequels. It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive earth men or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the sequels will soon be here. And I for one welcome our new gaming overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground data mines."
...Especially when we have spyware which is much more malacious. Spyware steals bandwidth, processor cycles, and drive space without proper consent; why this is legal I'll never understand.
EA has been dangling its toes in the online market for too long. They've taken a few strange steps in that way, and have not supported sure fire winners (Hello, EA Sports on XBOX LIVE? Cmon, even I'd buy an XBox to play that).
UO was published by Origin in the right place at the right time, and that sort of success is very hard to mirror. EQ has done it, as has DAoC to some degree. There is also Ragnarok and Lineage (1, not 2) to remember, so don't even begin to suggest that there isnt money out there to support these games. a subscription of about 20,000 is the magic number that these companies are aiming for to break a profit, and with a bit of imagination and a bit of risk, thats not a problem.
I can't really argue with that, and I agree with your correction. Still, one thing which is less challenging than playing a duel with another player is playing a duel with an NPC. Also, once you start playing on the 'free for all' kind of PVP servers, you get a group dynamic which introduces a lot of strategy and also some vaguely militaristic approaches.
Its sort of sad to see games moving in this direction. There is nothing more challenging than playing vs another human being, and nothing more boring than fighting the same NPC mobs over and over to get the ph4t l00tz. I belong to a PvP guild, and our average member age (of around 140 members) is about 25 years old. I can assure Sony that none of my guild will be playing this game. To be honest, none of us were really considering playing it in the first place, because the EQLive team has never given any serious consideration to the PvP crowd as their crappy PvP servers can attest to. There are much more interesting PvP games on the way (Darkfall, Dragon Empires, or Guild Wars to name a few) to want to lose a few pounds on this level treadmill.
To the people who feel that 'pvp attracts the immature crowd', mabye you're just a bit too old (or too mature) to be playing video games. We'll be all practiced up and waiting for you when you get bored of kiting a_hill_giant01 for the 100th time to get that last bubble of lvl 35.
Obviously you haven't played in many betas. Normally, even during the last days of a beta (the 'stress test' days), the game plays far more stable than it does on the first days after release. Also, I would remind you that the day 1 release of Dark Age of Camelot went without a hitch and is widely considered the best launch of any mmporg. It wasn't until people started reaching the Realm vs Realm levels that the servers began to crunch.
I've been playing this game from alpha, and while I love it, I wont be subscribing until the second month at least. I've watched the performance slowly degrade as they let more people into the game, and I expect another 'Anarchy Online' launch.
Wait patiently for the.torrent to appear; considering the target audience of this show, I'm sure it will appear within a few minutes of the shows ending.
Who knows? The only people who can actually witness the people who both complain about the game and play the game are the people who play the game as well; the forums are subscriber only, so no outsider can really see what the issues are. Instead we have to take the words of the reporters and the developers, which this article clearly shows as being questionable.
Just to reply to your mention of Half Life 2 (a title which isnt even available yet), if you're going by the games history, most of the events which gave the original its 'wow' were scripted events. The non scripted AI was unremarkable.
I dont know what the hype is for Mozilla/Firebird/Firefox/Netscape. I gave this browser a month to win me over, and aside from tabbed browsing and being able to actually save tabbed window layouts, I hated how it couldnt manage to actually become a default browser without me changing file associations myself... it was prone to crashing (yes its beta, I know), used a larger memory footprint on average (because I opened many more 'tabs' than I would normally open windows), has a messy bookmark system, and a longer startup time than IE. I am now currently giving opera the same chance, and although I still prefer IE in general, Opera is MUCH better than Firebird.
A company like Blizzard, with the hype machine they can generate and their long list of popular products, does not need the slashdot marketing that the many MANY other mmporg games that are already in open beta could sorely use. What about Freeworld, Biosfear, or even quirky titles like Socioltron (just to name a few)?
Anyone whos interested in MMPORG games is already well aware of the WoW beta, and anyone who ISN'T shouldn't be competing for those rare few beta slots in WoW.
From the information that has been released about WoW and from what I've heard about from alpha testers, the graphics are fabulous but there is nothing much new here. The same problems exist as they do in other mmporg games: level treadmill, convoluted classes unable to compare to the uber classes, poor to no PvP, and a never ending quest for the uber item. I fully expect Blizzard to deliver a beautiful world to play in for a while, but this is still a first generation mmporg.
I think that Marvel has exploited its proerties as much as they possibly can. Of course, since Marvel appeals to a young audience, there is constantly new people to take money from... people who wont learn of the constant re-use of these properties until later in life.
It's pretty much a given that Marvel isnt interested in their unused properties. The properties that are out there are working well, are selling, and will continue to appeal to a broad slice of their target audience. The Hulk, Spiderman, X-Men... all winners! Even the Fantastic Four is getting a new shot, although the only success I ever saw for them outside of the comics was in the Fox cartoon in the 90s. Marvel has been exploiting their comic characters on TV since the 60s (or earlier?), and with video games since the 80s. They're certainly not going to take a break now that they've broken into the mainstream with hit movies.
Fortunately for Marvel, they've a huge universe of characters and stories to draw from. This doesnt make them any more special than anyone else who wants to licence a story to make a game, mind you... but for the Marvel fans, rest assured that no matter who your favorite character may be, he or she will end up costing you even more money in the form of a new video game.
Games should have a preset 'Open Beta' for everyone who wants to download the game to participate in the test, because the most common crushing factor in a game at release is an overload on one factor in the network (usually a router somewhere down the line). This is often overlooked somewhat because the game developers are trying to perfect The Game (tm) and dont seriously factor in the network... which is surprising to see even after so many dismal launches of titles (AO, SB to name a couple).
IMHO, a beta truly ends when the servers are capable of staying online and providing a 'persistent world' for a week. That would put many games which are currently 'Live' back into beta.
Slashdot Mirror
... yea, and 640K should be enough memory to run any application.
Regardless of who is 'in the lead', the US government will likely be heavily involved if not directly controlling a space elevator. Cheap transportation into space is far too lucrative, not to mention useful, to ignore.
So in other words, you had preconceptions about this game which weren't met and therefor you set it aside. Personally, I found the element of surprise to be the main attraction. This is a horror game, along the lines of the original Resident Evil games and the like. Doom and Doom2 were full on FPS games with no 'terror moments', but Doom3 is full of them. The spawning monsters are anything but surprising; the teleportation process takes a second or 2 and by then you should be in a good vantage point to mow them down with whatever weapon you choose. The real fear comes from the creatures that are already there, lurking in shadows and not making BAMPH noises when they attack.
Try playing it when you're in the mood, and with a bit of effort put into getting absorbed in the game such as a darkened room, headphones, etc. Also, try not to make broad generalizations such as saying "when you pick up that 'too good to be true' item you get blitzed by 10 monsters". This game is anything but a one trick pony and if that is all you saw I really wonder if you spent any time at all examining the game. Doom3 is rich with backstory, interwoven into the game System Shock2 style with logfiles and email communications, not to mention the videos explaining the whole purpose of the lab installation.
Its too bad you couldn't look at the game carefully enough to notice these things. Doom3 is a work of art.
We've already got video game characters making the movies (Tomb Raider et al), next we'll just have professional gamers playing thru a title with a full crowd watching. Games will have a playing time of about 2 hrs, and everyone will be able to participate in some small way.
Sign me up!!!
Uh, we've just lost the picture, but what we've seen speaks for itself. The Corvair spacecraft has apparently been taken over -- 'conquered' if you will -- by a master race of first person shooter sequels. It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive earth men or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the sequels will soon be here. And I for one welcome our new gaming overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground data mines."
I suppose next we'll start seeing Columbine or Waco re-enacted with the Doom3 engine.
...Especially when we have spyware which is much more malacious. Spyware steals bandwidth, processor cycles, and drive space without proper consent; why this is legal I'll never understand.
EA has been dangling its toes in the online market for too long. They've taken a few strange steps in that way, and have not supported sure fire winners (Hello, EA Sports on XBOX LIVE? Cmon, even I'd buy an XBox to play that).
UO was published by Origin in the right place at the right time, and that sort of success is very hard to mirror. EQ has done it, as has DAoC to some degree. There is also Ragnarok and Lineage (1, not 2) to remember, so don't even begin to suggest that there isnt money out there to support these games. a subscription of about 20,000 is the magic number that these companies are aiming for to break a profit, and with a bit of imagination and a bit of risk, thats not a problem.
Irrelevant. Game reviews are subject to the same sort of bias as are news reports on TV. Welcome to modern day media! I expected more from slashdot.
It will make them more elite and thus more sought after by release groups.
I just finished watching this movie, and its amazing how well it relates to this article.
I can't really argue with that, and I agree with your correction. Still, one thing which is less challenging than playing a duel with another player is playing a duel with an NPC. Also, once you start playing on the 'free for all' kind of PVP servers, you get a group dynamic which introduces a lot of strategy and also some vaguely militaristic approaches.
Its sort of sad to see games moving in this direction. There is nothing more challenging than playing vs another human being, and nothing more boring than fighting the same NPC mobs over and over to get the ph4t l00tz. I belong to a PvP guild, and our average member age (of around 140 members) is about 25 years old. I can assure Sony that none of my guild will be playing this game. To be honest, none of us were really considering playing it in the first place, because the EQLive team has never given any serious consideration to the PvP crowd as their crappy PvP servers can attest to. There are much more interesting PvP games on the way (Darkfall, Dragon Empires, or Guild Wars to name a few) to want to lose a few pounds on this level treadmill.
To the people who feel that 'pvp attracts the immature crowd', mabye you're just a bit too old (or too mature) to be playing video games. We'll be all practiced up and waiting for you when you get bored of kiting a_hill_giant01 for the 100th time to get that last bubble of lvl 35.
This sort of arrogance is the main reason I have a growing hatred for everyhing Apple.
Obviously you haven't played in many betas. Normally, even during the last days of a beta (the 'stress test' days), the game plays far more stable than it does on the first days after release. Also, I would remind you that the day 1 release of Dark Age of Camelot went without a hitch and is widely considered the best launch of any mmporg. It wasn't until people started reaching the Realm vs Realm levels that the servers began to crunch.
I've been playing this game from alpha, and while I love it, I wont be subscribing until the second month at least. I've watched the performance slowly degrade as they let more people into the game, and I expect another 'Anarchy Online' launch.
Wait patiently for the .torrent to appear; considering the target audience of this show, I'm sure it will appear within a few minutes of the shows ending.
Who knows? The only people who can actually witness the people who both complain about the game and play the game are the people who play the game as well; the forums are subscriber only, so no outsider can really see what the issues are. Instead we have to take the words of the reporters and the developers, which this article clearly shows as being questionable.
Just to reply to your mention of Half Life 2 (a title which isnt even available yet), if you're going by the games history, most of the events which gave the original its 'wow' were scripted events. The non scripted AI was unremarkable.
I dont know what the hype is for Mozilla/Firebird/Firefox/Netscape. I gave this browser a month to win me over, and aside from tabbed browsing and being able to actually save tabbed window layouts, I hated how it couldnt manage to actually become a default browser without me changing file associations myself... it was prone to crashing (yes its beta, I know), used a larger memory footprint on average (because I opened many more 'tabs' than I would normally open windows), has a messy bookmark system, and a longer startup time than IE. I am now currently giving opera the same chance, and although I still prefer IE in general, Opera is MUCH better than Firebird.
That should answer all your questions.
A company like Blizzard, with the hype machine they can generate and their long list of popular products, does not need the slashdot marketing that the many MANY other mmporg games that are already in open beta could sorely use. What about Freeworld, Biosfear, or even quirky titles like Socioltron (just to name a few)?
Anyone whos interested in MMPORG games is already well aware of the WoW beta, and anyone who ISN'T shouldn't be competing for those rare few beta slots in WoW.
It wont be long before (buffering...)the 'casual game' market (buffering...) leaks into (buffering...) the 'hardcore game' mar(buffering...)ket.
From the information that has been released about WoW and from what I've heard about from alpha testers, the graphics are fabulous but there is nothing much new here. The same problems exist as they do in other mmporg games: level treadmill, convoluted classes unable to compare to the uber classes, poor to no PvP, and a never ending quest for the uber item. I fully expect Blizzard to deliver a beautiful world to play in for a while, but this is still a first generation mmporg.
I think that Marvel has exploited its proerties as much as they possibly can. Of course, since Marvel appeals to a young audience, there is constantly new people to take money from... people who wont learn of the constant re-use of these properties until later in life.
It's pretty much a given that Marvel isnt interested in their unused properties. The properties that are out there are working well, are selling, and will continue to appeal to a broad slice of their target audience. The Hulk, Spiderman, X-Men... all winners! Even the Fantastic Four is getting a new shot, although the only success I ever saw for them outside of the comics was in the Fox cartoon in the 90s. Marvel has been exploiting their comic characters on TV since the 60s (or earlier?), and with video games since the 80s. They're certainly not going to take a break now that they've broken into the mainstream with hit movies.
Fortunately for Marvel, they've a huge universe of characters and stories to draw from. This doesnt make them any more special than anyone else who wants to licence a story to make a game, mind you... but for the Marvel fans, rest assured that no matter who your favorite character may be, he or she will end up costing you even more money in the form of a new video game.
Games should have a preset 'Open Beta' for everyone who wants to download the game to participate in the test, because the most common crushing factor in a game at release is an overload on one factor in the network (usually a router somewhere down the line). This is often overlooked somewhat because the game developers are trying to perfect The Game (tm) and dont seriously factor in the network... which is surprising to see even after so many dismal launches of titles (AO, SB to name a couple).
IMHO, a beta truly ends when the servers are capable of staying online and providing a 'persistent world' for a week. That would put many games which are currently 'Live' back into beta.