Sci Fi brings loads of races, weapons, ships, worlds, languages, cultures.
Uh, I'm not the biggest fantasy fan, but fantasy can give you everything you list there just as easily as sci-fi. Wanna know why?
BECAUSE THEY'RE BOTH MADE UP!!!!
One guy has wires sticking out of him the other horns.
One guy fires a laser, the other shoots a magic missile.
One guy flys to the "3rd moon of Anall 7", the other takes an ancient teleport to the "Crypt of Mount Dew"
Buddy, they're the same thing with different skins. Reading the Eve Online forums the other day a person was explaining what a newbie could do to help their corporation. To help the newbie understand why it was important to have ships transfer shield power to other ships amongst other things, the person told them to think of it like buffing, healing, tanking etc from other games. And you know what? She was right. My repair droid repairing the armor of my buddy's ship who is taking the brunt of the attack is no different than my wife healing my mercenary with her cleric in DAOC.
Different skins and different immersion types that is all. The mechanics of these games until someone has an epiphany are all the same when you cut right down to it. Deriding someone because they chose a fantasy skin over a sci-fi skin is something most sexually active people see as idiotic.
BTW, SWG is set in a very limited time-frame, with a finite amount of lore, planets, factions, and characters that will piss off and has pissed off the hardcores if it is strayed from. Kinda like the idiotic way SOE has done. (First missions way back when, no shit, had me killing some kind of flea or rat non-stop. Wow wait'll Han hears about this. Its so different from EQ)
Ok, first off, talk about that Gamespot article being nothing but pure rhetoric and fluff. For God's sake, they barely even touched on the pure unadulterated mess SWG is in right now instead focusing on how much Korean's like to smoke. I'm pretty sure the average SWG player for the last 2.5 years could care less. Amidst the ruin and rubble of their pissed away efforts I'm almost sure of it. Oh well, won't be the first time a game review site sold their souls for some ad cash.
Second, there is no way SWG will more than likely ever be able to compete with even 2 WoW servers much less the game and I'll tell you why...2 things.
1. Word of mouth 2. Corporate idiots getting in the way.
On word of mouth. Folks the reason WoW is such a juggernaut is not necessarily because of ease of leveling, better graphics, or even gameplay. As mentioned here before, Blizzard has borrowed heavily from other games for all the above. The main reason for their success, IMO, is word of mouth.
The buzz in the circles these games float in is that WoW is the game to buy. You have friends telling friends telling friends telling co-workers telling grandparents, etc. They did put out a solid game that doesn't try to corner the 16-25 male demographic exclusively. There's some saying that always floats around discussions about word of mouth being something like its 10x harder to acquire new customers than keep old customers. Don't know if it's true but heaven help SOE if it is.
Which makes the NGE decision so incomprehensible. Somebody somewhere had to actually think that people would forget 2.5 years of incompentence and rush out and buy SWG based on what? I don't know. The flashy commercials that have no relevance to actual gameplay whatsoever? The bugged quest following LA's Julio Torres on G4TV? Some marketing idiot (or CEO) probably was using the phrase "finger on the pulse of something" when they presented this tripe to whoever was dumb enough to digest it. Killing off 200,000 subscribers so you can appeal to a 13 year old who already has much better games to play and only has to bug mom and dad once a year for 50 bucks for xbox live? Hoping the same 13 year old will stay seeing that there allowance money is being wasted on something that is not even half as good? Right, that's gonna work.
Which brings up my second point, corporate idiots. If Roger Ebert wants any more proof that games are art then SOE is giving him proof by the shovelfuls. For they are a shiny beacon on what happens when you replace ingenuity, imagination, and artistic integrity with memos, meetings, and morons in marketing telling you to swing the game the direction of the pre-pube set.
Can you imagine Leonardo da Vinci working for SOE? The memo from marketing might look something like this...
Leo,
About the Mona Lisa project. We feel that our target audience would like to see maybe a lower cut blouse and we've also included some pictures of our favorite hooter's girls to take care of the face problem.
By the way, we realize that you have a few more months to complete but with the holiday season coming up do you think you could get us a product on oh, let's say, 3 days? Thanks I knew you could.
Regards, Raymond Babbitt Marketing
P.S. We're putting new coversheets on the TPS reports. Did you get the memo?
Just in case you may not know. SOE has failed to retain an amount of customers that would even warrant an itch in the jockstrap of WoW. Technically none of their products could be deemed long term successes. EQ was not their baby from the beginning and anyone will tell you that was around that it seriously went downhill after they took full control. Wanna know why? They injected into the whole creation process a plethora of yes men, middle managers, buck passers, meeting whores, and marketing morons. For some reason (hmm maybe greed) they weren't content with publishing EQ and leaving the creative side alone. As a result...
My intent here is not to flame but to educate so whatever I say here following is not a flame but rather something you can take back to the friend who originally raised the point.
Inevitably, anytime someone even so much as mentions soloing in a thread discussing an MMORPG there will be someone who does this ---->"Doesn't the name mean massively MULTIPLAYER????. Yes that is what the acronym means but you are sadly misinterpreting what the word MULTIPLAYER means (for some strange reason it is always in caps).
The EARTH is multiplayer by definition. Does this mean I have to go grab five people when I decide to do the "Bathroom Quest"? Or make sure that my bed's big enough for 8 people for the "sleep adventure"? I'm hoping that my wife is not up for the 72 people it takes to do the "Epic Sex Quest".
The point is that multiplayer just means that you share a WORLD with many other people. Much like you do in real life. It does not mean that you have to have a set number of people to do everything, once again just like real life. A game can be group-oriented or a game could be solo-oriented but that is not the same as a requirement that most people who quote the tired "massive MULTIPLAYER" seem to think it is.
See, here's the dealio, the getting a group experience in these games can either be real easy or a real hassle. Usually in these types of threads some lamebrain says something to the effect of "get some friends" or "or I get groups in my guild all the time". Well duh, its not impossible to get groups its just that some people either a) don't have the playtime to put together a group b) don't have the proper character class that other players prefer or c) feel like dealing with people at that moment on such a close basis that a group demands.
So a smart game company will include solo-oriented content to keep those people happy. And by "those people" I mean pretty much everyone that plays an MMORPG at some point and time.
There are times when being in a group is a lot more fun, just like in real life. Imagine a party and you were the only one there type of thing. There are also times when you just wanna hang alone and logout with some sense of progress. It's up to the game designer to find the proper balance. If they go to far either way (as in WoW 1-59 vs. WoW 60) then they alienate a large amount of CUSTOMERS.
Your failing to see the point as have many people in the past who have highlighted the word multiplayer. Solo playing in an MMORPG is not the same as soloing in a single player. In a single player I have NO chance of being able to interact with others. In a MMORPG I have that choice. The problem most people can't wrap their brains around, and please let me repeat, is that multiplayer does not inherently mean I HAVE to GROUP every playing moment.
Maybe this will put it in perspective. People go to the movies all the time. Some people don't mind going alone. Some people won't go unless they are with someone else. Some people don't care either way. Regardless they all experience the content (the movie) pretty much the same. It doesn't mean the loner was hoping to watch the movie in an empty theatre. It doesn't mean the loner didn't get annoyed at cell phone jerk. It doesn't mean the loner didn't fork over 9 bucks for some nachos. Which, by the way,all the above is some form of social interaction no matter how slight that interaction may appear to you or me.
What your suggesting is that the loner waits for the dvd. But what if the loner enjoys what little social interaction is achieved by going to the movies instead of staying home all the time? It doesn't matter what your answer is, for thousands of people thats the level of interaction they chose and I don't feel its either stupid or a waste of money.
Will you people please quit perpetuating the myth that you must GROUP to do anything in an MMORPG?
Interaction can include many things besides getting together with four other strangers to kill gnolls. I like the feel of a big marketplace in Ironforge or Ogrimmar. I occasionally toss a helpful nuke or heal to a younger player getting his ass handed to him by a "bat or rat". I like to play the auction house. I like the fact that if I have the time or inclination I can go help others in need, or just have a chat. There are plenty of ways to interact with the world without having to resort to pick up or guild groups.
I have a 60 hunter on the alliance side in a guild with people I enjoy and I have a 55 shaman on the horde side that I play simply for the solitude. Never once have I felt that I was playing a single player game on either character. Look at it this way, you want a cheeseburger from McDonalds, does that mean you have to go gather 4 random people to accomplish that task? Are you interacting with others in an environment (i.e. the kid taking your money, other's in the restaurant, etc.)? Then why do you people want to insist that soloing is for some freakin' hermit in a cave playing Gran Turismo 4.
So please lose the "but MMORPG means massive MULTIPLAYER" bunk because it doesn't necessarily mean what you think it does.
The actual shame in the whole MMORPG industry is that hardcore is defined by 40-80 person raids where leaders bark explicit orders and automatons press buttons at predetermined times.
Slashdot Mirror
You can't.
This guy should really just shut up.
Hehe Yeah right
BECAUSE THEY'RE BOTH MADE UP!!!!
One guy has wires sticking out of him the other horns. One guy fires a laser, the other shoots a magic missile. One guy flys to the "3rd moon of Anall 7", the other takes an ancient teleport to the "Crypt of Mount Dew" Buddy, they're the same thing with different skins. Reading the Eve Online forums the other day a person was explaining what a newbie could do to help their corporation. To help the newbie understand why it was important to have ships transfer shield power to other ships amongst other things, the person told them to think of it like buffing, healing, tanking etc from other games. And you know what? She was right. My repair droid repairing the armor of my buddy's ship who is taking the brunt of the attack is no different than my wife healing my mercenary with her cleric in DAOC.
Different skins and different immersion types that is all. The mechanics of these games until someone has an epiphany are all the same when you cut right down to it. Deriding someone because they chose a fantasy skin over a sci-fi skin is something most sexually active people see as idiotic.
BTW, SWG is set in a very limited time-frame, with a finite amount of lore, planets, factions, and characters that will piss off and has pissed off the hardcores if it is strayed from. Kinda like the idiotic way SOE has done. (First missions way back when, no shit, had me killing some kind of flea or rat non-stop. Wow wait'll Han hears about this. Its so different from EQ)
Ok, first off, talk about that Gamespot article being nothing but pure rhetoric and fluff. For God's sake, they barely even touched on the pure unadulterated mess SWG is in right now instead focusing on how much Korean's like to smoke. I'm pretty sure the average SWG player for the last 2.5 years could care less. Amidst the ruin and rubble of their pissed away efforts I'm almost sure of it. Oh well, won't be the first time a game review site sold their souls for some ad cash.
Second, there is no way SWG will more than likely ever be able to compete with even 2 WoW servers much less the game and I'll tell you why...2 things.
1. Word of mouth
2. Corporate idiots getting in the way.
On word of mouth. Folks the reason WoW is such a juggernaut is not necessarily because of ease of leveling, better graphics, or even gameplay. As mentioned here before, Blizzard has borrowed heavily from other games for all the above. The main reason for their success, IMO, is word of mouth.
The buzz in the circles these games float in is that WoW is the game to buy. You have friends telling friends telling friends telling co-workers telling grandparents, etc. They did put out a solid game that doesn't try to corner the 16-25 male demographic exclusively. There's some saying that always floats around discussions about word of mouth being something like its 10x harder to acquire new customers than keep old customers. Don't know if it's true but heaven help SOE if it is.
Which makes the NGE decision so incomprehensible. Somebody somewhere had to actually think that people would forget 2.5 years of incompentence and rush out and buy SWG based on what? I don't know. The flashy commercials that have no relevance to actual gameplay whatsoever? The bugged quest following LA's Julio Torres on G4TV? Some marketing idiot (or CEO) probably was using the phrase "finger on the pulse of something" when they presented this tripe to whoever was dumb enough to digest it. Killing off 200,000 subscribers so you can appeal to a 13 year old who already has much better games to play and only has to bug mom and dad once a year for 50 bucks for xbox live? Hoping the same 13 year old will stay seeing that there allowance money is being wasted on something that is not even half as good? Right, that's gonna work.
Which brings up my second point, corporate idiots. If Roger Ebert wants any more proof that games are art then SOE is giving him proof by the shovelfuls. For they are a shiny beacon on what happens when you replace ingenuity, imagination, and artistic integrity with memos, meetings, and morons in marketing telling you to swing the game the direction of the pre-pube set.
Can you imagine Leonardo da Vinci working for SOE? The memo from marketing might look something like this...
Leo,
About the Mona Lisa project. We feel that our target audience would like to see maybe a lower cut blouse and we've also included some pictures of our favorite hooter's girls to take care of the face problem.
By the way, we realize that you have a few more months to complete but with the holiday season coming up do you think you could get us a product on oh, let's say, 3 days? Thanks I knew you could.
Regards,
Raymond Babbitt
Marketing
P.S. We're putting new coversheets on the TPS reports. Did you get the memo?
Just in case you may not know. SOE has failed to retain an amount of customers that would even warrant an itch in the jockstrap of WoW. Technically none of their products could be deemed long term successes. EQ was not their baby from the beginning and anyone will tell you that was around that it seriously went downhill after they took full control. Wanna know why? They injected into the whole creation process a plethora of yes men, middle managers, buck passers, meeting whores, and marketing morons. For some reason (hmm maybe greed) they weren't content with publishing EQ and leaving the creative side alone. As a result...
EQ------Former she
To the original poster,
My intent here is not to flame but to educate so whatever I say here following is not a flame but rather something you can take back to the friend who originally raised the point.
Inevitably, anytime someone even so much as mentions soloing in a thread discussing an MMORPG there will be someone who does this ---->"Doesn't the name mean massively MULTIPLAYER????. Yes that is what the acronym means but you are sadly misinterpreting what the word MULTIPLAYER means (for some strange reason it is always in caps).
The EARTH is multiplayer by definition. Does this mean I have to go grab five people when I decide to do the "Bathroom Quest"? Or make sure that my bed's big enough for 8 people for the "sleep adventure"? I'm hoping that my wife is not up for the 72 people it takes to do the "Epic Sex Quest".
The point is that multiplayer just means that you share a WORLD with many other people. Much like you do in real life. It does not mean that you have to have a set number of people to do everything, once again just like real life. A game can be group-oriented or a game could be solo-oriented but that is not the same as a requirement that most people who quote the tired "massive MULTIPLAYER" seem to think it is.
See, here's the dealio, the getting a group experience in these games can either be real easy or a real hassle. Usually in these types of threads some lamebrain says something to the effect of "get some friends" or "or I get groups in my guild all the time". Well duh, its not impossible to get groups its just that some people either a) don't have the playtime to put together a group b) don't have the proper character class that other players prefer or c) feel like dealing with people at that moment on such a close basis that a group demands.
So a smart game company will include solo-oriented content to keep those people happy. And by "those people" I mean pretty much everyone that plays an MMORPG at some point and time.
There are times when being in a group is a lot more fun, just like in real life. Imagine a party and you were the only one there type of thing. There are also times when you just wanna hang alone and logout with some sense of progress. It's up to the game designer to find the proper balance. If they go to far either way (as in WoW 1-59 vs. WoW 60) then they alienate a large amount of CUSTOMERS.
Hope I cleared it up for you.
Your failing to see the point as have many people in the past who have highlighted the word multiplayer. Solo playing in an MMORPG is not the same as soloing in a single player. In a single player I have NO chance of being able to interact with others. In a MMORPG I have that choice. The problem most people can't wrap their brains around, and please let me repeat, is that multiplayer does not inherently mean I HAVE to GROUP every playing moment.
Maybe this will put it in perspective. People go to the movies all the time. Some people don't mind going alone. Some people won't go unless they are with someone else. Some people don't care either way. Regardless they all experience the content (the movie) pretty much the same. It doesn't mean the loner was hoping to watch the movie in an empty theatre. It doesn't mean the loner didn't get annoyed at cell phone jerk. It doesn't mean the loner didn't fork over 9 bucks for some nachos. Which, by the way,all the above is some form of social interaction no matter how slight that interaction may appear to you or me.
What your suggesting is that the loner waits for the dvd. But what if the loner enjoys what little social interaction is achieved by going to the movies instead of staying home all the time? It doesn't matter what your answer is, for thousands of people thats the level of interaction they chose and I don't feel its either stupid or a waste of money.
Will you people please quit perpetuating the myth that you must GROUP to do anything in an MMORPG?
Interaction can include many things besides getting together with four other strangers to kill gnolls. I like the feel of a big marketplace in Ironforge or Ogrimmar. I occasionally toss a helpful nuke or heal to a younger player getting his ass handed to him by a "bat or rat". I like to play the auction house. I like the fact that if I have the time or inclination I can go help others in need, or just have a chat. There are plenty of ways to interact with the world without having to resort to pick up or guild groups.
I have a 60 hunter on the alliance side in a guild with people I enjoy and I have a 55 shaman on the horde side that I play simply for the solitude. Never once have I felt that I was playing a single player game on either character. Look at it this way, you want a cheeseburger from McDonalds, does that mean you have to go gather 4 random people to accomplish that task? Are you interacting with others in an environment (i.e. the kid taking your money, other's in the restaurant, etc.)? Then why do you people want to insist that soloing is for some freakin' hermit in a cave playing Gran Turismo 4.
So please lose the "but MMORPG means massive MULTIPLAYER" bunk because it doesn't necessarily mean what you think it does.
The actual shame in the whole MMORPG industry is that hardcore is defined by 40-80 person raids where leaders bark explicit orders and automatons press buttons at predetermined times.