Let me clarify. Players make virtual products which they can sell in the virtual world. Real estate in the virtual world had value based on it's visability in the game world. Basically, highly travelled areas had high visibility and high value. P2P travel completely eliminates that dynamic from the meta-game. With such travel, area is completely valueless from a visibility standpoint, as noone will see it unless it's their destination.
What are the intended benefits of this change? What was the developer trying to accomplish?
What was the motivation behind this change? In just about any MMO, being able to travel anywhere instantly is a BAD thing, and is avoided. Hell, in Eve Online they have actively tried to increase how much people have to travel to break up the major trade hubs into more regionalized markets.
There seems to be some major problems with instant travel, so what are the benefits?
While I hated having to go into Ironforge during peak hours, at least I could auction during non-peak hours...if I can't get around Stormwind/Darnassus on a day-to-day basis, that's going to suck.
Why would you need to? It's the same auction house in all three cities.
other than revamping the Priest talents (btw...check your talents when you log in, I noticed they refunded all priest's talent points because they completely redid the tree)
They didn't touch priest talents. Unless you think priests are the guys running around in plate and blessing everyone. Heres a hint: Those are PALADINS.
Hunters will enjoy considerable changes in 1.9 No longer will pets have unique abilities because of who they were before training. Players sought out special pets, sometimes at great time expenditure, to give themselve something fairly unique and an advantage. This has been lost as pets are now differentiated only by type and skin texture. Type being wolf,cat, and etc. Skin texture as the only difference between any two wolves will be the texture, same for cats and so on. Used to be you could find pets with fast pursuit speeds, odd attack types, or even slower speeds. No more. Beastmastery specialist top tier power, Bestial Wrath, got the nerf stick as too many cloth wearing PvPers complained it wasn't fair that a pet could kill them.
Pet changes are good. It will mean that I won't see 10 copies of 'The Rake' in a BG anymore. I can pick a pet I like, and give him the abilities I want to make him unique. I also don't think the Bestial Wrath change is a nerf. Yes, the damage mod is dropped, but the DURATION is increased. To me, that means my pet is in the fight longer. If he's on a caster, it means the target can't do anything for longer. That's a buff in my mind.
I don't know if you've ever played one of these games, but I can assure you that it is VERY obvious when you're playing with an someone who ebayed their character. Even in WoW which is a relatively simple game, there is quite a bit of complexity that just have to be learned by experience. The character progression is designed to slowly introduce you to your different abilities, and give you a chance to digest them before adding more to the pile. You also learn about other classes capabilities through this progression by playing with other players. Then of course there are general tactics, gear, etc that you are expected to know about when you've reached a high level.
The end result is that you should have intimate knowlege of your characters gear, items, and abilities, as well as a good general idea of how the other classes work and interact by the time you hit max level. People who 'buy in' to the endgame lack this knowledge, and it is painfully obvious to the rest of us. I've got a blacklist of characters I refuse to party with after bad experiences, and while it sounds elitist it's actually very practical. I'm not going to risk wasting 3+ hours in a dungeon because another party member doesn't know what the hell they're doing and keeps getting everyone killed.
Make sure you play DDO to level 2 or 3 before you give up any of your money. The combat system is awful. Spellcasting is almost pointless, because the game is so melee focused. You can sometimes literally circle strafe a mob and never take any damage while still dealing damage and occasionally getting +2 to hit for facing the mob's back. Not to mention the buggy collision detection.
This is actually consistent with normal D&D character scaling. In the early levels, casters are quite weak compared to melees, but as they progress the casters end up on top. Significantly.
Later you run into one of the games other problems. Eventually you can no longer solo most dungeons.
Ironically, this is one of the features of the MMO. It is not solo friendly. (Personally, I think that's a good thing, but that's just my opinion)
Plus you run out of quests before you reach the next level, meaning you have to repeat dungeons you've already completed. So instead of grinding mobs out in a field for a few minutes, you have to do an entire dungeon which generally takes a minimum of 30 minutes (not counting time spent to get a party together), for an ever decreasing amount of XP.
Again, our opinions may differ, but I like the fact that just mindlessly killing mobs is not a way to advance. I always thought that was a very stupid and boring game mechanic.
Rogues were never supposed to be uber-damage dealers. This happened because SOE could not implement rogues correctly, and had to give them something to make the class viable. The rogue as it is being implimented in DDO is what they were supposed to be in the first place.
MMO's are hosted by the game developers. Live! games are hosted by the Xbox itself. I would imagine an MMO with it's massive database server requrements is much more expensive to run than Live! which just serves as a way to get Xboxes connected to each other.
Microsoft is trying to tap into this with their Live! Arcade titles. A friend of mine got a 360, and I swear the first thing I want to play on it is Geometry Wars. Popcap was smart to offer stuff on there too. (Zuma anyone?)
The biggest flaw with their attempt to reach this market is that the hardware is so damn expensive. A casual gamer isn't going to purchase a $400 console to play Bejeweled.
This is one of the qualities I like about the lore. There really isn't as much of a good/evil split as an us/them split. Superficially, Horde appear 'evil' and Alliance appear 'good'. But a little research reveals that both sides have had their high points and low points throughout their history.
I'm shocked that this was modded insightful. Play is an essential part of our mental and physical development. (Just like any other complex animal) It's just that human forms of play have evolved to include physical skills and cognitive skills, and the benefits are less direct because of the increased complexity.
Of course like anything, moderation is key. Indulging in any one activity to excess will be detrimental. But saying that games do nothing good is rediculous.
And a teaser trailer shows ALL of the new content in the expansion that is still a good 6 months from release. Riiight.
despite the content of the expansion, there is still no reason to make the users pay for it again since they have so many suscribers.
I think Ford has made enough money selling cars already, so they should give me a new Mustang for free.
the reason tehy are doing this is because they want more money
They are a business, the whole point is to make more money.
and because they know people will buy it
Is there any better reason to charge money for your product?
and the expansions for p2p always existed even before WoW and people are used to the idea, but it still doesn't make it right.
I don't see what makes it wrong. It's an established business model that is accepted by their consumers. No company is obligated to give you anything for free. It is not wrong to charge for a product. You may disagree with it, but don't take some misguided moral high ground because a company doesn't want to give you something for free. Seriously, get over yourself, you aren't entitled to anything.
Look at WoW right now, they are making so much more money than they need for server maint and salaries and they still want people to pay for expansion for content that was already part of the game at release.
Umm, WoW hasn't released an expansion yet. So far they have added significant amounts of content free of (extra) charge. It's kind of harsh to complain about an expansion that doesn't EXIST yet. Why don't you wait until it's released before commenting on it's contents.
Being unrated would carry as much, if not more, negative connotations as a mature rated game. The same thing happens to unrated movies.
The result of such a law would be indirect censorship. Retailers would stop carrying mature and unrated games to avoid the hassle. Publishers would put pressure on developers to only develop content the retailers will carry. In the end, creativity will be stifled because of all this.
We see the same thing happening in the movie industry where a NC-17 rating is almost a deathmark.
Almost a year ago, I helped found the largest and strongest economic special interest group in World of Warcraft. We have representatives on nearly every server and constantly monitor and share information on WoW's economy.
WoW actually does a suprisingly good job of limiting the secondary market. A vast majority of good gear drops in instances, so the mobs can't be monopolized, and is Bind on Pickup, and therefore can't be sold. Most of it is not that difficult to obtain either, it just takes a couple instance runs to get them. Honestly, once you get to higher level stuff you just can't buy anything that's worthwhile, it's all loot.
Tradeskills are another matter. I can see sinking TONS of gold into materials for high end tradeskilling.
Slashdot Mirror
Mind actually answering my question?
Let me clarify. Players make virtual products which they can sell in the virtual world. Real estate in the virtual world had value based on it's visability in the game world. Basically, highly travelled areas had high visibility and high value. P2P travel completely eliminates that dynamic from the meta-game. With such travel, area is completely valueless from a visibility standpoint, as noone will see it unless it's their destination.
What are the intended benefits of this change? What was the developer trying to accomplish?
Disclaimer: I don't play the game personally.
What was the motivation behind this change? In just about any MMO, being able to travel anywhere instantly is a BAD thing, and is avoided. Hell, in Eve Online they have actively tried to increase how much people have to travel to break up the major trade hubs into more regionalized markets.
There seems to be some major problems with instant travel, so what are the benefits?
They didn't touch priest talents. Unless you think priests are the guys running around in plate and blessing everyone. Heres a hint: Those are PALADINS.
I like my games cheat-free. You will not be missed.
I don't know if you've ever played one of these games, but I can assure you that it is VERY obvious when you're playing with an someone who ebayed their character. Even in WoW which is a relatively simple game, there is quite a bit of complexity that just have to be learned by experience. The character progression is designed to slowly introduce you to your different abilities, and give you a chance to digest them before adding more to the pile. You also learn about other classes capabilities through this progression by playing with other players. Then of course there are general tactics, gear, etc that you are expected to know about when you've reached a high level.
The end result is that you should have intimate knowlege of your characters gear, items, and abilities, as well as a good general idea of how the other classes work and interact by the time you hit max level. People who 'buy in' to the endgame lack this knowledge, and it is painfully obvious to the rest of us. I've got a blacklist of characters I refuse to party with after bad experiences, and while it sounds elitist it's actually very practical. I'm not going to risk wasting 3+ hours in a dungeon because another party member doesn't know what the hell they're doing and keeps getting everyone killed.
Rogues were never supposed to be uber-damage dealers. This happened because SOE could not implement rogues correctly, and had to give them something to make the class viable. The rogue as it is being implimented in DDO is what they were supposed to be in the first place.
Yeah, I can't believe the number of times we wiped in a WoW instance because we couldn't disarm traps...
Wait, what traps?
It's not tacking on added tasks, it's returning the class to it's intended form before it was slaughtered by EQ.
Why would Microsoft want to dilute their brand recognition? Why would they want to help a competitor?
MMO's are hosted by the game developers. Live! games are hosted by the Xbox itself. I would imagine an MMO with it's massive database server requrements is much more expensive to run than Live! which just serves as a way to get Xboxes connected to each other.
Microsoft is trying to tap into this with their Live! Arcade titles. A friend of mine got a 360, and I swear the first thing I want to play on it is Geometry Wars. Popcap was smart to offer stuff on there too. (Zuma anyone?)
The biggest flaw with their attempt to reach this market is that the hardware is so damn expensive. A casual gamer isn't going to purchase a $400 console to play Bejeweled.
This is one of the qualities I like about the lore. There really isn't as much of a good/evil split as an us/them split. Superficially, Horde appear 'evil' and Alliance appear 'good'. But a little research reveals that both sides have had their high points and low points throughout their history.
I'm shocked that this was modded insightful. Play is an essential part of our mental and physical development. (Just like any other complex animal) It's just that human forms of play have evolved to include physical skills and cognitive skills, and the benefits are less direct because of the increased complexity.
Of course like anything, moderation is key. Indulging in any one activity to excess will be detrimental. But saying that games do nothing good is rediculous.
just close all the windows, turn off the car, start it back up, and open the windows again. That should fix ya.
I think Ford has made enough money selling cars already, so they should give me a new Mustang for free. They are a business, the whole point is to make more money. Is there any better reason to charge money for your product? I don't see what makes it wrong. It's an established business model that is accepted by their consumers. No company is obligated to give you anything for free. It is not wrong to charge for a product. You may disagree with it, but don't take some misguided moral high ground because a company doesn't want to give you something for free. Seriously, get over yourself, you aren't entitled to anything.
Do tell me what Outland was like, since you've been there.
Being unrated would carry as much, if not more, negative connotations as a mature rated game. The same thing happens to unrated movies.
The result of such a law would be indirect censorship. Retailers would stop carrying mature and unrated games to avoid the hassle. Publishers would put pressure on developers to only develop content the retailers will carry. In the end, creativity will be stifled because of all this.
We see the same thing happening in the movie industry where a NC-17 rating is almost a deathmark.
WoW actually does a suprisingly good job of limiting the secondary market. A vast majority of good gear drops in instances, so the mobs can't be monopolized, and is Bind on Pickup, and therefore can't be sold. Most of it is not that difficult to obtain either, it just takes a couple instance runs to get them. Honestly, once you get to higher level stuff you just can't buy anything that's worthwhile, it's all loot.
Tradeskills are another matter. I can see sinking TONS of gold into materials for high end tradeskilling.
Personally, I bet they're making popcorn for the festivities. It's not often that a shareholder meeting has so much entertainment potential.
"All right Jack, that it!" :puts 3rd star up on board: "Now we're going to have to call security!"