Whether this is the first game to do this or not is irrelevant. My point is that it runs counter to the entire spirit of the original works (the books).
2.0 ghz, 512 megs SDRAM, ATI Radeon 9600. My computer's no slouch in the graphics department. However, I shouldn't be expected to be running a 3.2 ghz with a gig of DDR and a Radeon 9800 Pro to participate in an MMO event.
I'd just like to point out that this event wasn't all peaches and cream. I've got a less than spectacular PC, and 100+ heroes within a 100 yard area is not a good thing. Lag and framerate issues made it impossible for me to even take part in the event, and I really hope Cryptic will do better in the future. What they could have done instead of having them all show up in the same place is just to temporarily replace the normal thug spawns with alien spawns, but I guess that would have made too much sense.
I played FFXI from the first week it was out, and canceled my subscription this month. Here's why:
1. Level grind, level grind, level grind... there was almost nothing else to do in the game but fight monsters for xp.
2. The game's quest system sucks. Sure, there are a few quests that give you some really cool reward, but most just increase your "Fame" an invisible number somewhere in the computer that determines what other quests you can get. See a pattern?
3. As awful as this will sound, the Japanese players. Servers are factionalized into Americans and Japanese, and until the high levels the two groups don't tend to party together for the most part. Also, it's really annoying to go to Jeuno (the world's main city, it's where you have to go to get gear past a certain point) and have every line of your chat constantly spammed with Kanji. I'm not saying the Japanese are bad people or anything of the sort, I'm just saying that cultural differences combined with a 1 year head start on Americans make them not much fun to play with.
4. The game is far too dependant on being able to find a white mage (healer). If your party doesn't have a white mage, you're not getting any xp. Period. Add to that the fact that white mages were hard to come by and tended to get really jaded due to people treating them like nothing but heal batteries and raisers. All in all, it's a sucky situation, because everyone's fun depends on finding someone to heal the party.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that FFXI is a bad game through and through, but I honestly don't see how anyone could stand to play it for long lengths of time. I'm sorry, but it's just not good game design to build your game on the assumption that _every_ _single_ _party_ will have a member of a given class.
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Whether this is the first game to do this or not is irrelevant. My point is that it runs counter to the entire spirit of the original works (the books).
I can feel Tolkien turning in his grave right now.
2.0 ghz, 512 megs SDRAM, ATI Radeon 9600. My computer's no slouch in the graphics department. However, I shouldn't be expected to be running a 3.2 ghz with a gig of DDR and a Radeon 9800 Pro to participate in an MMO event.
When I say I played it from the US launch, I mean the PC version.
Excuse me? I played heavily for nearly 7 months, since the US launch in early November. These aren't assumptions, they're facts.
I'd just like to point out that this event wasn't all peaches and cream. I've got a less than spectacular PC, and 100+ heroes within a 100 yard area is not a good thing. Lag and framerate issues made it impossible for me to even take part in the event, and I really hope Cryptic will do better in the future. What they could have done instead of having them all show up in the same place is just to temporarily replace the normal thug spawns with alien spawns, but I guess that would have made too much sense.
I played FFXI from the first week it was out, and canceled my subscription this month. Here's why: 1. Level grind, level grind, level grind... there was almost nothing else to do in the game but fight monsters for xp. 2. The game's quest system sucks. Sure, there are a few quests that give you some really cool reward, but most just increase your "Fame" an invisible number somewhere in the computer that determines what other quests you can get. See a pattern? 3. As awful as this will sound, the Japanese players. Servers are factionalized into Americans and Japanese, and until the high levels the two groups don't tend to party together for the most part. Also, it's really annoying to go to Jeuno (the world's main city, it's where you have to go to get gear past a certain point) and have every line of your chat constantly spammed with Kanji. I'm not saying the Japanese are bad people or anything of the sort, I'm just saying that cultural differences combined with a 1 year head start on Americans make them not much fun to play with. 4. The game is far too dependant on being able to find a white mage (healer). If your party doesn't have a white mage, you're not getting any xp. Period. Add to that the fact that white mages were hard to come by and tended to get really jaded due to people treating them like nothing but heal batteries and raisers. All in all, it's a sucky situation, because everyone's fun depends on finding someone to heal the party. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that FFXI is a bad game through and through, but I honestly don't see how anyone could stand to play it for long lengths of time. I'm sorry, but it's just not good game design to build your game on the assumption that _every_ _single_ _party_ will have a member of a given class.