Eve may have some nice graphics, but I thought GW and WoW had better. Otherwise I found it to be boring. Mine, travel. Mine, travel. Join some Corp. and be told what to do. "Harvest more so we can be Uber!" Yeah, whatever. I couldn't get into it. If you enjoyed it, more power to you. But, subscription numbers are what they are for a reason, and Eve's numbers are low because it doesn't appeal to that many.
Ryzom wasn't all that great. The graphics were not bad, but I've seen better in other games, too. The gameplay wasn't all that great, either. After a few weeks in the beta, I dropped it. A month or so later it went Gold, and I was shocked. I thought they were MONTHS away. I never really felt the immersion into the game.
CoH/V was pretty good, and I enjoyed both, but they got repetitive pretty fast.
AO? Please, they were giving accounts away at one point, trying to get folks to come back. (Much like Sony did with EQ recently.)
AC? Was a bad game from the start. Maybe it got a little better, but not a lot.
SW:G? The game sucked right out of the box (earning the Coaster Award for 2003 from CGW, among others) and then had the biggest (and reportely worst) game overhall in the history of MMOs that were live. And this got 15% of the vote?
The SW:G vote is proof enough that the totals are a joke.
Quite simply, the costume creator in CoH/V was the biggest surprise in the game.
Most folks I know that either participated in the beta or played in the game after it went Gold, were blown away. Never before in a MMO have been been given such a wide range of choices. It wasn't unusual for most folks to get the game, sit down and think "Yeah, whip up a character in 5 minutes and away I go!" An hour later, they were still tinkering with their costumes. Sure, later on it took a lot less, but it wasn't hard to spend an hour just LOOKING at all the options, since you would tweak colors and patterns to see how it changed.
The biggest reason they could do this in CoH/V? The costume stays the same, regardless of "Enhancements" you obtain. With other games, your equipment/armor determines how you look. In CoH/V, it doesn't. Your costume is your costume, though you can alter it at various levels, as well as get auras and capes at certain levels.
Nobody else that I have seen has come close to offering new characters the ability to NOT be a cookie cutter. Your identity was YOU, not "ohh, I got this fancy breastplate! It's not an upgrade, but it sure looks cooler!" type stuff.
Other MMOs need to take note. It may be more difficult if you want armor to determine looks, but how many times have you found a super piece of equipment, and then put it an, and said "MAN, this is ugly!"??? I know some of the best equipment in WoW was uglier than sin. Anyone recall the "Do you want fries with that burger?" helmet that paladins had as part of their class armor? One of the meanest things I have ever seen in a MMO! I still laugh at that one.
It's cool that they released that to the general public at no charge. Try it, and you will see what I mean.
As someone who participated in the beta...
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Sex and the Modern MMOG
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· Score: 5, Informative
I participated in the beta on 2 different occasions over the course of 4 years, each for a month or so at a time. It was a lark, and my wife thought some of it was hysterical. Honestly, she could watch me play and just laugh. If any of you read "The Sports Guy", Bill Simmons on ESPN.com, you have heard of his Unintentional Comedy Index, or UCI. This game is off the charts. I don't think the game maker nor the players intend for it to be funny, but if you could just be a fly on the wall during "encounters", you'd be rolling in the aisles. In the end, while it was almost morbidly fascinating, I stopped doing the beta each time.
Yes, it was very much suspected that most of the female characters were played by men. It would certainly explain why most female characters role-played being lesbians who loved anal sex. Plus, all the female and male bodies are exactly the same, and the male sex organs are hugely out of porportions to the bodies. You can really tell a man designed everything.
This is supposed to be a MMORPG, but there is little combat and little challenge in the game, overall. It is purely a social game that has combat to taunt people into believing it is a MMORPG. PvP is not something you can turn off after a certain "level" of ability. And, you don't just get killed, but can be raped and then killed. Many "women" takled about the insane amount of fear and adrenalin rush they got when they were kidnapped, raped, and then killed. It was very real to them, as their character was rendered completely helpless.
The game does (or did when I quit the 2nd time) feature PermaDeath as the rule for once you get out of your newbie shoes. You can have children, though, and you or your partner can use that child to be reborn when you are PermaDeathed.
The sex itself... C'mon, that is why you are reading this, right? Don't lie, you pervert! Zip up your pants and read, then!
The sex itself is pathetic. While they give motions and actions you can do, it is mostly poor text (the mispellings are hideous) that drives this show. It is very easy to have 2 characters supposedly going at it, and the guy is laying 2 feet to the left of the girl, but they are both humping air furiously, and the game tells you he is inside her. Many actions require one person to allow the other person to take hold of them. Trust the wrong person, and once that happens, you could be dead.
Roleplaying is a necessity, but the level of the players in the beta was pretty horrible. Most of the male characters were merely sperm donors, and added nothing to their partner's enjoyment by using creative words to enhance the "event". Male characters that could actually type and make it seem more real became sought after. Female characters (probably played mostly by men who had a gift to being descriptive) were usually better at it, but some of them were just as inept.
Character classes are pretty stupid, with not much to offer roleplay opportunities. The exceptions were the Succubi, and the Inquisitors. Succubi had to harvest sperm, and usually harvested it from their own bodies. However, to harvest it, they had to make themsleves immobile, and therefor easy to be killed if anywhere close to public. Inquisitors had to kill sinners, and mostly took on the prostitues that wander about (and are your only real source of combat for the early stages of the game.) They kill them by cutting their heart out.
The beta was constantly plagued by griefers, who were often allowed to carry on, because it was within the design of the game. You want to serially rape and kill female characters, because that is who your character is? Go right ahead! More power to you! And if they catch you and kill you, don't complain. The problem is, these folks took to being a griefer the way a powergamer took to WoW for the first month. They boost characters up fast, and make themselves almost impervious to one-on-one situations. They break into private places looking for toons that are AFK, or not doing anyth
If a player CAN do something, they will. Whether it is against the rules or not, if an exploit is detected, folks will run through it like mad for as long as they can.
Game companies hate this, because those players that actually want to play the game as it was intended, freak out. Of course, those same players are happy to "twink" they new characters to the maximum the ruleset will allow, instead of really playing it from scratch, too.
My father did programming for several major government projects just as computers came into use, inclulding programming on the oringal AWACs. The other programmers would write code, and then when someone broke it, would freak out.
"Well, this is just BS. The instructions clearly show that the user is to press ENTER to continue. They pressed the letter K, instead, and it caused the program to crash! What a bunch of idiot users!"
The problem is that, you have to attempt to anticipate EVERY single possible action the user COULD do, not is supposed to do. And therein lies the problem. In a simple user interface and application, this can be done. MMOs are so complicated, between their terrain layouts, to their handing out of rewards/experience/money, to their mob AI, that things will slip through the cracks.
Players will find the dead zones in a mob's AI, or use the terrain to their advantage with a dead zone. They will go to places the developers didn't intend for players to get to yet or ever? Can you said Gnomish airport in WoW? And those bans for players accessing parts of the world that weren't finished yet at release? When they fixed the gnomish airport, several mages had camped out there the day before the patch, so they could port people to it. Dunno if it worked. I stopped playing WoW months ago.
Look at all the hacks that were done early in WoW. Teleport hacks that allowed folks to teleport RIGHT to a chest, loot it, then move to the next one. They had patterns down. Folks also had bots to fish, and even fight, with detailed instructions of where it worked best.
In EQ, there was showEQ, which gave you a detailed terrain map and mob placements, levels, and even some equipment if they were using it and it would drop as loot. It was such a pain to Sony/Verant that in the Plane of Hate, there were some invisible and non-attacking mobs that had names of "ShowEQ Users Suck". Only someone who either used it or knew someone that used it, was familiar with it. Sony changed it's encryption from 8-bit to 64-bit or 128-bit (I forget which) that changed with each patch, and it was hacked in LESS THAN 24 HOURS! For a glorified freakin map!
In the DDO beta, there was a quest that players could use invisibility potions/spells on, and bypass all of the tough mobs, and then loot something at the end for easy and big XP. There was another dungeon with massive loot for almost no risk; having to beat only one boss mob (that was just buffed up bigtime) and a few easier mobs. It's a freaking beta, and this was only reported by a handful of players, but exploited by hundreds. For characters that get wiped in a month and a half. Turbine had to close one of them, it was being abused so much.
And then there is the fun that griefers have with exploits to kill other players. Summonings that killed everyone in the bazaar in WoW. Summonings in the DDO beta, where the greater elementals would be summoned in the newbie inn, and when the summoner leaves, the elementals kill everyone in there, as they are too powerful for the toons in the inn to touch. Anyone remember the legacy of Fansy the Bard from EQ? (Wholesale rules changed for bards in PvP due to his exploits, which were hilarious.)
What MMO players will do when they think they aren't being observed is scary. EQ GMs and WoW GMs would sometimes hide invis and WATCH the exploit in process, then ban everyone involved. And the player base would rally to the cheaters as being unfairly persecuted. "But, Player Bob just happend to be going through the zone! And you
Another dose of "spyware panic", makes no sense
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iTunes is Malware?
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· Score: 1
So, Apple's iTMS website gets data from your listening habits, and we are all upset, because we didn't notice the disclaimer when we signed up. Shame on us.
And yet, how many of you have some sort of "preferred shopper" card for your local grocery store chain(s), that allow you to get their sale price? Ever wonder why they want to do that? Could it *possibly* be that they are data mining your shopping habits? Like... OH MY GOD! I can *feel* my sphincter clenching!
Sure, I don't really want to let them get that info about my particular shopping habits, but since the local grocery store doesn't sell porn and BDSM supplies, I really am not overly worried about what they get. I'd rather not pay 1.49 for one 2-liter of Coke.
And as long as iTMS is ONLY getting what songs I listen to, I really don't give a . For.99 a song, it doesn't scare me.
I *would* like to see that we are able to view ALL content that is being sent, so we can verify that they didn't data mine our other computer activities, but that would be asking for the moon and the stars.
But considering that our credit card companies and bank card companies know exactly how much we spent, and where we spent it, (and it wouldn't surprise me if they knew what we bought, too) why can't we come up with a way to be able to monitor what gets sent back to companies, so we an all get our panties out of a bunch.
It is hard to guage the real interest based on "subscribed players" for those games that have no monthly fee.
I have Guild Wars. I haven't played it in months. I can log in whenever I want, though. I am sure I am counted as an active user.
To me, a casual gamer isn't someone that logs in to that game once a month. They log into it at least once a week, and probably 2-3 times a week. Hard core gamers are the ones in it every available waking hour they can.
The Second Life numbers are a joke, because there are too many free accounts, and folks have inactive accounts that blow up the numbers.
Also, you have things like "Sony's Station Pass" that gives you access to ALL of their games. I played EQ for 5 years. I played EQ2 for 3 months. My accounts for both are inactive, but they recently offered a free 21 day "Pass" to entice people back to their games. A few of my friends did it. I am sure they will use that for their "subscribed" numbers for all games.
I'd like to see numbers based on "# of active accounts that log in at least twice in the last month" to guage real player interest. My wife's WoW account hasn't been logged in (other than to do the patches) in 4 months. Even that would qualify her for being active under those rules, but she hasn't played.
That is probably why SirBruce stopped updating his chart. It was too hard to get decent numbers from gaming companies. They all lie, so their stockholders buy it.
I am sure Turbine was giving bloated numbers right up until the day they shut down AC2.
"Irregardless" is a horrible word to use in any discussion whre you want to be taken seriously. This is probably one of the most common "bad words that intelligent people throw into a conversation, and few people questions it's misuse" that you will find.
I think one of the reasons many people (especially scientists, who are often skeptical) have a problem with "ID" is that, through the course of history, religion has had a piss-poor track record on things like this.
How did that "The world is flat" thing work out for them?
The "Earth is the center of the universe" thing?
That's the main problem for ID. The track record of things that the Bible and religious leaders (mostly the Catholic Church) decided were fact turning out to be completely and provably false. Sure, we haven't had any major recent ones, but the fact of the matter is, the "science of the bible" hasn't fared well over time.
So, don't blame many of us of being openly skepticle of ID. We have history on our side.
I got into the closed beta a day after the FilePlanet Stress Test was over.
Don't get this game expecting to solo. A lot of folks have pissed and moaned about that, but they are trying to be pretty true to the Pen and Paper (PnP) rules and designs. You almost never see a DM spend all this time to create a world, dungeons, and the like, and then have them sit down at a table with a lone player with a lone character. Get over your wish to solo. It's a MMO. You are supposed to be grouping!
With the launch set for the 28th, there are a ton of bugs still in the game. They finally got the party and voicechat server fixed after a week of downtime. They have a good half dozen important quests that are broken. They have had to close one dungeon due to an exploit that was being done ad naseum by players abusing invisibility. Characters are still in their skivvies on the Character Select screen. Some characters die and can't rez when they release from their corpse. Some folks have gotten stuck in the Marketplace for more than a week. And the bank has been known to randomly lose items.
They are taking their time in between beta patches. I'd like to see some of these things tested in house and then pushed into the beta quicker, but they are making progress. The fix some things, and have proven to be cautious in how they work. Circle-strafing was a huge problem, so they did a tweak to make the mobs work better against it. Now it is a little less effective, but still works darn well. I expect another fix to that tactic.
There is a significant lack of content. While Turbine expects characters to repeat dungeons to gain XP and gear, it almost borders on the ridiculous. It is so bad that same folks deliberately don't level up, so they can gain XP at their last trained level, instead of the level they could be. Instead of losing out on groups due to their level, they just make sure they form their own groups. This lack of content means that they will have to have some expansions ready to go within 3 months, to keep customers happy. Not a healthy sign.
The system of collectables to gain minor magic items gets really old after a while. They fill up your inventory, and many of them aren't worth the time, especially as you gain levels. By lvl 5, over half of them aren't worth the effort, but unless I keep a list out, I end up collecting the stupid things.
Inventory space can be crowded, depending on your class and other things. But, there is a reason. Fighter types tend to carry one of every type of Bane weapon they can find, so they can whip out whatever works best for every mob. It borders on the absurd, really. Realistically, a character carrying a half dozen 2-handed weapons would trip over them constantly.
Mob AI is pretty darn good. The mobs tend to choose spells to much better effectiveness than most MMOs, where they just cast 1-2 spells. Having an Arcane Skeleton cast CloudKill on your group, then switch to Fireball or Lightning Bolt is pretty effective. Ray of Enfeeblement, Curses, and the like are also thrown about liberally.
There are more traps than you can shake a stick out. Rogues become a necessity for once in MMOs. However, trap placements are static in a dungeon. Do that dungeon a few times, and you start to remember where they all are. Really hurts, since the previously mentioned lack of content means you learn those dungeons by heart. I think I can find my way through some easier than I can get to the grocery store, now.
The social part of the game leaves a lot to be desired right now. I hope it improves. Pickup groups, like in most MMOs, sucks. And at release, new players are going to get stuck playing with beta testers that know all the lvl 1-5 dungeons by memory, and are going to push through at breakneck speed in the grand effort to be highest level of that class, first. (The MMO version of the e-penis award, I guess.)
I really want to track down my old PnP group, which has scattered around the country after coll
With all the talk in TFA about how everybody took a set of facts and come to a totally idiotic conclusion, I thought we were talking about the President of the United States!
Could you have imagined how much more damage they could have done if they had included the letters "WMD" in it?
Of course, this happened in Florida. Most of the residents are too old to care. They are going to each other's place and getting faced and playing bridge. (Lord knows my parents are. That "Mandatory Florida Resident Age" is a killer!)
Just because you think it is useful doesn't mean that the rest of us do. There is only so much teenaged angst the world should have to suffer through on one website. The place is a cesspool of whiny, crybabies.
Somewhere along the way, folks bought into the bullshit that many parents thought was important, and lead to a whole generation believing that "there are no losers". Remember that scene in "Meet the Fockers" when the guy's father is proudly showing off his son's 10th place ribbons?
Reviwers and game magazines seem reluctant to give anything lower than "really good" as a score, as if a score of average or lower would somehow hurt the game's feelings.
An average game is just that. Stop rewarding average. Even more, stop rewarding crap.
As I said in another article, these gaming magazines should come free with any game you buy. Since they are nothing but screamsheets for the gaming companies, they should drop the pretense of being anything but what they are: advertising you pay for.
Of course, the biggest problem is that folks are willing to believe these reviews, and have an almost unwavering ability to froth at the mouth over an impending game release, sight unseen. When game consumers start pulling their heads out of their asses, and take a real look at something, you might see a difference.
Until there are real VR arcades, why bother?
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The U.S. Arcade is Dead?
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· Score: 4, Insightful
When VR equipment is at a stage where it is too expensive for the average person to have at home, but is cutting edge enough for arcades to buy it and "rent" it by the hour or so, then we will see arcades make a comeback.
Just about everyone here in the U.S. has access to a PC. You can play games that are somewhat compatable with the arcade games of the 80's for free on Yahoo Games and similar sites.
Even plucking some game from the 9.99 bargain rack at BestBuy will get you a game that is better done than pretty much any arcade game worth anything. And that 9.99 will get you a lot farther in that game than it will in an arcade.
It's a simple Cost vs Reward scenario. High cost, low satisfaction reward.
The only money I would spend in an arcade is on an old fashion pinball game. Those can still be a lot of fun, when the mood strikes me.
Even American kinds aren't so dumb as to not figure this out.
Considering that pretty much every gaming magazine is just a scream-sheet for the game manufacturers, they should just give you a 6 month subscription with each game you purchase.
The magazines won't bite the hand that feeds them. They only give an occasional poor review, and usually for some product that doesn't advertise with them. I think one issue of Computer Gaming World had one poor review... On a mouse made by some small company that doesn't advertise in them. Nothing else got less than 4 stars.
As the OP, I stated that I was TOLD by other people. I didn't buy one, because when looking at titles and reviews, most of the games looked like they weren't that great.
Consindering the fact that folks can "play for free", and that you don't really cancel your account, but simply cancel payment for it... I wonder how many folks are actually playing at least once a week.
Heck, I cancelled my account payments more than 6 months ago, after giving it a quick shake to see what all the blathering was about. I checked the site, and my account is still considered active, but I haven't been in game in over 6 months.
I bet Guild Wars can boast some pretty impressive numbers, too. That doesn't mean that many people are actively playing once a week or more.
That might have something to do with the fact that they consider their target group to be frat boys and HS kids.
I think good RPGs and SIMs take more time to develop, since you have to worry about storylines and character progressions. In FPS, you shoot to kill, and only aquire a small handfull of new weapons. In driving games, you drive fast around relatively static road courses. BFD.
What is funny is that the XBox was considered superior for RPG type games by a lot of folks I talked to. More titles were offered there than PS/PS2. When I considered getting a console, my friends all said "Go XBox. You like RPGs, dude." Then I got electro-shock therapy, and stuck to my PC games. Why have a high powered gaming PC and then spend cash on a console?
Besides, did you actually think M$ was going to work hard at getting out a set of games they didn't anticipate would sell well in the U.S. ready for the Japanese market? If nothing else, Gates has shown a willingness to turn his nose up at anything to do with the non-U.S./Canadian world. Sure, he wants their money, but he's not going to change his ways for a "smaller market". Though how he could think the Japanese console market would be small is beyond me.
Honestly, I am flabbergasted that they would do this. The server population is so low, that most servers have been combined with others at least twice, if not more often.
A friend of mine recently took Sony up on their offer for a free 21 day trial to an All Station Pass, and updated and logged into EQ. A virtual ghost town was what greeting him. Even the bazaar was mostly empty. And yet Sony put development resources into an expansion.
As for EQ2, an expansion for that is not a surprise, but PvP is. It was pretty much a bust in EQ, and since they really weren't doing a ton of balancing in EQ2, the nerf bat is about to start swinging with a vengence.
I couldn't get into EQ2, even though most of my old EQ friends went there instead of WoW. I tried if a few months after release, when most of the bugs were done, and it just didn't work for me.
I'm in the beta, and I don't see any of the AC or AC2 problems cropping up.
Yeah, they are having beta bugs, and they are working on them. So far, though, they seem pretty responsive to most issues. They read their forums. They reply with more information than Blizzard often would give for WoW.
Since DDO is going to offer zero PvP, and classes are sticking very true to the 3.5 ruleset, the framework is already in place.
I don't see DDO having EQ like subscriptions, but it will be respectable enough to keep it online for a few years. It's biggest drawback will be repetition, much like CoH/V.
When you buy the box, you are paying for the initial development of the game. If it is an expansion, you are paying for the initial development of that expansion's content.
You pay a monthly fee for server uptime, minor content adding patches, bug fixes/balancing, and in-game customer service.
Oh, wait... You just wanted to say the words "class action suit", right? lol
What possible justification do they have for a class action suit? They paid 60 bucks, but played the game starting in 2002 if they got in at the start, and bought an update in Feb. of 2005. They paid a monthly fee for patches and server uptime, which they are no longer having to pay now that the game is done.
So, 60 or so bucks for a little over 3 years of playing, plus monthly maintenance fees. And more than half the players left prior to the cancelling of the game, because they felt it wasn't worth it. Did they scream for a refund?
Face the facts. There weren't enough players actively subscribing to make it cost effective to keep the game live. End of story.
What is it with/.'ers and their love of crying for a class action suit? I've seen some dumb requests for them, but this one may take the cake. We have enough stupid litigation going on here in the U.S. without this idiocy joining it.
I played EQ for nearly 5 years. I only left after my frustration level with Sony started to outweigh the pleasure I got from playing the game. And, since folks were starting to leave in anticipation of both WoW and EQ2, it was time to go.
While game developers can make a great game, the social aspect often keeps you around for a long time beyond where you would have stayed if it was a single player game. Who would have kept playing EQ after reaching Time (not that I did) and killed all the things you wanted to kill, if you didn't want to hang with your virtual friends?
Turbine will be fine, as they are working on DDO. I'm in the beta, and while not breaking my NDA, I can say that the game is group imperative. You just don't solo past the newbie area.
AC was a bad game design from the beginning, especially with the pyramid XP scheme built it. Designing Amway into a MMO isn't too bright. That, and ranged (melee and magic) attacks were overpowered. Too many one-shot kills with no damage taken for ranged players. Add to that, it was originally released as M$, and all the M$ haters avoided it like the plague.
I never played AC2, but from what I read, it just had too many problems, and too many AC players had such a bad taste in their mouths (myself included) that they bypassed it entirely.
Games fade out over the years. One of my EQ/WoW buddies took up the free 21 day offer from Sony, and logged into our old server. It was a ghost town. Hardly any toons in the bazaar, or anywhere else.
Yeah, my wife works for Mercedes, and they are telling ALL users to not open any email with any type of graphics attachment on it, not just the.tiff and.png stuff.
It is a pretty darn huge security hole, and one that shouldn't impact the home user (at least not yet) in any major fashion.
Then again, it is probably wishful thinking that Blackberry users are more technically knowledgeable than the average home user, and wouldn't open dumb emails from unsolicited sources.
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Wow, that's just stunning.
Eve may have some nice graphics, but I thought GW and WoW had better. Otherwise I found it to be boring. Mine, travel. Mine, travel. Join some Corp. and be told what to do. "Harvest more so we can be Uber!" Yeah, whatever. I couldn't get into it. If you enjoyed it, more power to you. But, subscription numbers are what they are for a reason, and Eve's numbers are low because it doesn't appeal to that many.
Ryzom wasn't all that great. The graphics were not bad, but I've seen better in other games, too. The gameplay wasn't all that great, either. After a few weeks in the beta, I dropped it. A month or so later it went Gold, and I was shocked. I thought they were MONTHS away. I never really felt the immersion into the game.
CoH/V was pretty good, and I enjoyed both, but they got repetitive pretty fast.
AO? Please, they were giving accounts away at one point, trying to get folks to come back. (Much like Sony did with EQ recently.)
AC? Was a bad game from the start. Maybe it got a little better, but not a lot.
SW:G? The game sucked right out of the box (earning the Coaster Award for 2003 from CGW, among others) and then had the biggest (and reportely worst) game overhall in the history of MMOs that were live. And this got 15% of the vote?
The SW:G vote is proof enough that the totals are a joke.
Quite simply, the costume creator in CoH/V was the biggest surprise in the game.
Most folks I know that either participated in the beta or played in the game after it went Gold, were blown away. Never before in a MMO have been been given such a wide range of choices. It wasn't unusual for most folks to get the game, sit down and think "Yeah, whip up a character in 5 minutes and away I go!" An hour later, they were still tinkering with their costumes. Sure, later on it took a lot less, but it wasn't hard to spend an hour just LOOKING at all the options, since you would tweak colors and patterns to see how it changed.
The biggest reason they could do this in CoH/V? The costume stays the same, regardless of "Enhancements" you obtain. With other games, your equipment/armor determines how you look. In CoH/V, it doesn't. Your costume is your costume, though you can alter it at various levels, as well as get auras and capes at certain levels.
Nobody else that I have seen has come close to offering new characters the ability to NOT be a cookie cutter. Your identity was YOU, not "ohh, I got this fancy breastplate! It's not an upgrade, but it sure looks cooler!" type stuff.
Other MMOs need to take note. It may be more difficult if you want armor to determine looks, but how many times have you found a super piece of equipment, and then put it an, and said "MAN, this is ugly!"??? I know some of the best equipment in WoW was uglier than sin. Anyone recall the "Do you want fries with that burger?" helmet that paladins had as part of their class armor? One of the meanest things I have ever seen in a MMO! I still laugh at that one.
It's cool that they released that to the general public at no charge. Try it, and you will see what I mean.
I participated in the beta on 2 different occasions over the course of 4 years, each for a month or so at a time. It was a lark, and my wife thought some of it was hysterical. Honestly, she could watch me play and just laugh. If any of you read "The Sports Guy", Bill Simmons on ESPN.com, you have heard of his Unintentional Comedy Index, or UCI. This game is off the charts. I don't think the game maker nor the players intend for it to be funny, but if you could just be a fly on the wall during "encounters", you'd be rolling in the aisles. In the end, while it was almost morbidly fascinating, I stopped doing the beta each time.
Yes, it was very much suspected that most of the female characters were played by men. It would certainly explain why most female characters role-played being lesbians who loved anal sex. Plus, all the female and male bodies are exactly the same, and the male sex organs are hugely out of porportions to the bodies. You can really tell a man designed everything.
This is supposed to be a MMORPG, but there is little combat and little challenge in the game, overall. It is purely a social game that has combat to taunt people into believing it is a MMORPG. PvP is not something you can turn off after a certain "level" of ability. And, you don't just get killed, but can be raped and then killed. Many "women" takled about the insane amount of fear and adrenalin rush they got when they were kidnapped, raped, and then killed. It was very real to them, as their character was rendered completely helpless.
The game does (or did when I quit the 2nd time) feature PermaDeath as the rule for once you get out of your newbie shoes. You can have children, though, and you or your partner can use that child to be reborn when you are PermaDeathed.
The sex itself... C'mon, that is why you are reading this, right? Don't lie, you pervert! Zip up your pants and read, then!
The sex itself is pathetic. While they give motions and actions you can do, it is mostly poor text (the mispellings are hideous) that drives this show. It is very easy to have 2 characters supposedly going at it, and the guy is laying 2 feet to the left of the girl, but they are both humping air furiously, and the game tells you he is inside her. Many actions require one person to allow the other person to take hold of them. Trust the wrong person, and once that happens, you could be dead.
Roleplaying is a necessity, but the level of the players in the beta was pretty horrible. Most of the male characters were merely sperm donors, and added nothing to their partner's enjoyment by using creative words to enhance the "event". Male characters that could actually type and make it seem more real became sought after. Female characters (probably played mostly by men who had a gift to being descriptive) were usually better at it, but some of them were just as inept.
Character classes are pretty stupid, with not much to offer roleplay opportunities. The exceptions were the Succubi, and the Inquisitors. Succubi had to harvest sperm, and usually harvested it from their own bodies. However, to harvest it, they had to make themsleves immobile, and therefor easy to be killed if anywhere close to public. Inquisitors had to kill sinners, and mostly took on the prostitues that wander about (and are your only real source of combat for the early stages of the game.) They kill them by cutting their heart out.
The beta was constantly plagued by griefers, who were often allowed to carry on, because it was within the design of the game. You want to serially rape and kill female characters, because that is who your character is? Go right ahead! More power to you! And if they catch you and kill you, don't complain. The problem is, these folks took to being a griefer the way a powergamer took to WoW for the first month. They boost characters up fast, and make themselves almost impervious to one-on-one situations. They break into private places looking for toons that are AFK, or not doing anyth
If a player CAN do something, they will. Whether it is against the rules or not, if an exploit is detected, folks will run through it like mad for as long as they can.
Game companies hate this, because those players that actually want to play the game as it was intended, freak out. Of course, those same players are happy to "twink" they new characters to the maximum the ruleset will allow, instead of really playing it from scratch, too.
My father did programming for several major government projects just as computers came into use, inclulding programming on the oringal AWACs. The other programmers would write code, and then when someone broke it, would freak out.
"Well, this is just BS. The instructions clearly show that the user is to press ENTER to continue. They pressed the letter K, instead, and it caused the program to crash! What a bunch of idiot users!"
The problem is that, you have to attempt to anticipate EVERY single possible action the user COULD do, not is supposed to do. And therein lies the problem. In a simple user interface and application, this can be done. MMOs are so complicated, between their terrain layouts, to their handing out of rewards/experience/money, to their mob AI, that things will slip through the cracks.
Players will find the dead zones in a mob's AI, or use the terrain to their advantage with a dead zone. They will go to places the developers didn't intend for players to get to yet or ever? Can you said Gnomish airport in WoW? And those bans for players accessing parts of the world that weren't finished yet at release? When they fixed the gnomish airport, several mages had camped out there the day before the patch, so they could port people to it. Dunno if it worked. I stopped playing WoW months ago.
Look at all the hacks that were done early in WoW. Teleport hacks that allowed folks to teleport RIGHT to a chest, loot it, then move to the next one. They had patterns down. Folks also had bots to fish, and even fight, with detailed instructions of where it worked best.
In EQ, there was showEQ, which gave you a detailed terrain map and mob placements, levels, and even some equipment if they were using it and it would drop as loot. It was such a pain to Sony/Verant that in the Plane of Hate, there were some invisible and non-attacking mobs that had names of "ShowEQ Users Suck". Only someone who either used it or knew someone that used it, was familiar with it. Sony changed it's encryption from 8-bit to 64-bit or 128-bit (I forget which) that changed with each patch, and it was hacked in LESS THAN 24 HOURS! For a glorified freakin map!
In the DDO beta, there was a quest that players could use invisibility potions/spells on, and bypass all of the tough mobs, and then loot something at the end for easy and big XP. There was another dungeon with massive loot for almost no risk; having to beat only one boss mob (that was just buffed up bigtime) and a few easier mobs. It's a freaking beta, and this was only reported by a handful of players, but exploited by hundreds. For characters that get wiped in a month and a half. Turbine had to close one of them, it was being abused so much.
And then there is the fun that griefers have with exploits to kill other players. Summonings that killed everyone in the bazaar in WoW. Summonings in the DDO beta, where the greater elementals would be summoned in the newbie inn, and when the summoner leaves, the elementals kill everyone in there, as they are too powerful for the toons in the inn to touch. Anyone remember the legacy of Fansy the Bard from EQ? (Wholesale rules changed for bards in PvP due to his exploits, which were hilarious.)
What MMO players will do when they think they aren't being observed is scary. EQ GMs and WoW GMs would sometimes hide invis and WATCH the exploit in process, then ban everyone involved. And the player base would rally to the cheaters as being unfairly persecuted. "But, Player Bob just happend to be going through the zone! And you
So, Apple's iTMS website gets data from your listening habits, and we are all upset, because we didn't notice the disclaimer when we signed up. Shame on us.
.99 a song, it doesn't scare me.
And yet, how many of you have some sort of "preferred shopper" card for your local grocery store chain(s), that allow you to get their sale price? Ever wonder why they want to do that? Could it *possibly* be that they are data mining your shopping habits? Like... OH MY GOD! I can *feel* my sphincter clenching!
Sure, I don't really want to let them get that info about my particular shopping habits, but since the local grocery store doesn't sell porn and BDSM supplies, I really am not overly worried about what they get. I'd rather not pay 1.49 for one 2-liter of Coke.
And as long as iTMS is ONLY getting what songs I listen to, I really don't give a . For
I *would* like to see that we are able to view ALL content that is being sent, so we can verify that they didn't data mine our other computer activities, but that would be asking for the moon and the stars.
But considering that our credit card companies and bank card companies know exactly how much we spent, and where we spent it, (and it wouldn't surprise me if they knew what we bought, too) why can't we come up with a way to be able to monitor what gets sent back to companies, so we an all get our panties out of a bunch.
It is hard to guage the real interest based on "subscribed players" for those games that have no monthly fee.
I have Guild Wars. I haven't played it in months. I can log in whenever I want, though. I am sure I am counted as an active user.
To me, a casual gamer isn't someone that logs in to that game once a month. They log into it at least once a week, and probably 2-3 times a week. Hard core gamers are the ones in it every available waking hour they can.
The Second Life numbers are a joke, because there are too many free accounts, and folks have inactive accounts that blow up the numbers.
Also, you have things like "Sony's Station Pass" that gives you access to ALL of their games. I played EQ for 5 years. I played EQ2 for 3 months. My accounts for both are inactive, but they recently offered a free 21 day "Pass" to entice people back to their games. A few of my friends did it. I am sure they will use that for their "subscribed" numbers for all games.
I'd like to see numbers based on "# of active accounts that log in at least twice in the last month" to guage real player interest. My wife's WoW account hasn't been logged in (other than to do the patches) in 4 months. Even that would qualify her for being active under those rules, but she hasn't played.
That is probably why SirBruce stopped updating his chart. It was too hard to get decent numbers from gaming companies. They all lie, so their stockholders buy it.
I am sure Turbine was giving bloated numbers right up until the day they shut down AC2.
"Irregardless" is a horrible word to use in any discussion whre you want to be taken seriously. This is probably one of the most common "bad words that intelligent people throw into a conversation, and few people questions it's misuse" that you will find.
References: World Wide Words
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
American Heritage Dictionary
Get It Write
And don't feel like I am calling you an idiot. My father spent YEARS giving me crap about this. lol
I think one of the reasons many people (especially scientists, who are often skeptical) have a problem with "ID" is that, through the course of history, religion has had a piss-poor track record on things like this.
How did that "The world is flat" thing work out for them?
The "Earth is the center of the universe" thing?
That's the main problem for ID. The track record of things that the Bible and religious leaders (mostly the Catholic Church) decided were fact turning out to be completely and provably false. Sure, we haven't had any major recent ones, but the fact of the matter is, the "science of the bible" hasn't fared well over time.
So, don't blame many of us of being openly skepticle of ID. We have history on our side.
I got into the closed beta a day after the FilePlanet Stress Test was over.
Don't get this game expecting to solo. A lot of folks have pissed and moaned about that, but they are trying to be pretty true to the Pen and Paper (PnP) rules and designs. You almost never see a DM spend all this time to create a world, dungeons, and the like, and then have them sit down at a table with a lone player with a lone character. Get over your wish to solo. It's a MMO. You are supposed to be grouping!
With the launch set for the 28th, there are a ton of bugs still in the game. They finally got the party and voicechat server fixed after a week of downtime. They have a good half dozen important quests that are broken. They have had to close one dungeon due to an exploit that was being done ad naseum by players abusing invisibility. Characters are still in their skivvies on the Character Select screen. Some characters die and can't rez when they release from their corpse. Some folks have gotten stuck in the Marketplace for more than a week. And the bank has been known to randomly lose items.
They are taking their time in between beta patches. I'd like to see some of these things tested in house and then pushed into the beta quicker, but they are making progress. The fix some things, and have proven to be cautious in how they work. Circle-strafing was a huge problem, so they did a tweak to make the mobs work better against it. Now it is a little less effective, but still works darn well. I expect another fix to that tactic.
There is a significant lack of content. While Turbine expects characters to repeat dungeons to gain XP and gear, it almost borders on the ridiculous. It is so bad that same folks deliberately don't level up, so they can gain XP at their last trained level, instead of the level they could be. Instead of losing out on groups due to their level, they just make sure they form their own groups. This lack of content means that they will have to have some expansions ready to go within 3 months, to keep customers happy. Not a healthy sign.
The system of collectables to gain minor magic items gets really old after a while. They fill up your inventory, and many of them aren't worth the time, especially as you gain levels. By lvl 5, over half of them aren't worth the effort, but unless I keep a list out, I end up collecting the stupid things.
Inventory space can be crowded, depending on your class and other things. But, there is a reason. Fighter types tend to carry one of every type of Bane weapon they can find, so they can whip out whatever works best for every mob. It borders on the absurd, really. Realistically, a character carrying a half dozen 2-handed weapons would trip over them constantly.
Mob AI is pretty darn good. The mobs tend to choose spells to much better effectiveness than most MMOs, where they just cast 1-2 spells. Having an Arcane Skeleton cast CloudKill on your group, then switch to Fireball or Lightning Bolt is pretty effective. Ray of Enfeeblement, Curses, and the like are also thrown about liberally.
There are more traps than you can shake a stick out. Rogues become a necessity for once in MMOs. However, trap placements are static in a dungeon. Do that dungeon a few times, and you start to remember where they all are. Really hurts, since the previously mentioned lack of content means you learn those dungeons by heart. I think I can find my way through some easier than I can get to the grocery store, now.
The social part of the game leaves a lot to be desired right now. I hope it improves. Pickup groups, like in most MMOs, sucks. And at release, new players are going to get stuck playing with beta testers that know all the lvl 1-5 dungeons by memory, and are going to push through at breakneck speed in the grand effort to be highest level of that class, first. (The MMO version of the e-penis award, I guess.)
I really want to track down my old PnP group, which has scattered around the country after coll
With all the talk in TFA about how everybody took a set of facts and come to a totally idiotic conclusion, I thought we were talking about the President of the United States!
Could you have imagined how much more damage they could have done if they had included the letters "WMD" in it?
Of course, this happened in Florida. Most of the residents are too old to care. They are going to each other's place and getting faced and playing bridge. (Lord knows my parents are. That "Mandatory Florida Resident Age" is a killer!)
No, I say it was funny, as was as very on target.
/. isn't, either...
Just because you think it is useful doesn't mean that the rest of us do. There is only so much teenaged angst the world should have to suffer through on one website. The place is a cesspool of whiny, crybabies.
Not that
Bingo!
What happened to giving an honest score?
Somewhere along the way, folks bought into the bullshit that many parents thought was important, and lead to a whole generation believing that "there are no losers". Remember that scene in "Meet the Fockers" when the guy's father is proudly showing off his son's 10th place ribbons?
Reviwers and game magazines seem reluctant to give anything lower than "really good" as a score, as if a score of average or lower would somehow hurt the game's feelings.
An average game is just that. Stop rewarding average. Even more, stop rewarding crap.
As I said in another article, these gaming magazines should come free with any game you buy. Since they are nothing but screamsheets for the gaming companies, they should drop the pretense of being anything but what they are: advertising you pay for.
Of course, the biggest problem is that folks are willing to believe these reviews, and have an almost unwavering ability to froth at the mouth over an impending game release, sight unseen. When game consumers start pulling their heads out of their asses, and take a real look at something, you might see a difference.
When VR equipment is at a stage where it is too expensive for the average person to have at home, but is cutting edge enough for arcades to buy it and "rent" it by the hour or so, then we will see arcades make a comeback.
Just about everyone here in the U.S. has access to a PC. You can play games that are somewhat compatable with the arcade games of the 80's for free on Yahoo Games and similar sites.
Even plucking some game from the 9.99 bargain rack at BestBuy will get you a game that is better done than pretty much any arcade game worth anything. And that 9.99 will get you a lot farther in that game than it will in an arcade.
It's a simple Cost vs Reward scenario. High cost, low satisfaction reward.
The only money I would spend in an arcade is on an old fashion pinball game. Those can still be a lot of fun, when the mood strikes me.
Even American kinds aren't so dumb as to not figure this out.
Considering that pretty much every gaming magazine is just a scream-sheet for the game manufacturers, they should just give you a 6 month subscription with each game you purchase.
The magazines won't bite the hand that feeds them. They only give an occasional poor review, and usually for some product that doesn't advertise with them. I think one issue of Computer Gaming World had one poor review... On a mouse made by some small company that doesn't advertise in them. Nothing else got less than 4 stars.
As the OP, I stated that I was TOLD by other people. I didn't buy one, because when looking at titles and reviews, most of the games looked like they weren't that great.
Consindering the fact that folks can "play for free", and that you don't really cancel your account, but simply cancel payment for it... I wonder how many folks are actually playing at least once a week.
Heck, I cancelled my account payments more than 6 months ago, after giving it a quick shake to see what all the blathering was about. I checked the site, and my account is still considered active, but I haven't been in game in over 6 months.
I bet Guild Wars can boast some pretty impressive numbers, too. That doesn't mean that many people are actively playing once a week or more.
Thank you.
You expounded on my point very well.
That might have something to do with the fact that they consider their target group to be frat boys and HS kids.
I think good RPGs and SIMs take more time to develop, since you have to worry about storylines and character progressions. In FPS, you shoot to kill, and only aquire a small handfull of new weapons. In driving games, you drive fast around relatively static road courses. BFD.
What is funny is that the XBox was considered superior for RPG type games by a lot of folks I talked to. More titles were offered there than PS/PS2. When I considered getting a console, my friends all said "Go XBox. You like RPGs, dude." Then I got electro-shock therapy, and stuck to my PC games. Why have a high powered gaming PC and then spend cash on a console?
Besides, did you actually think M$ was going to work hard at getting out a set of games they didn't anticipate would sell well in the U.S. ready for the Japanese market? If nothing else, Gates has shown a willingness to turn his nose up at anything to do with the non-U.S./Canadian world. Sure, he wants their money, but he's not going to change his ways for a "smaller market". Though how he could think the Japanese console market would be small is beyond me.
Honestly, I am flabbergasted that they would do this. The server population is so low, that most servers have been combined with others at least twice, if not more often.
A friend of mine recently took Sony up on their offer for a free 21 day trial to an All Station Pass, and updated and logged into EQ. A virtual ghost town was what greeting him. Even the bazaar was mostly empty. And yet Sony put development resources into an expansion.
As for EQ2, an expansion for that is not a surprise, but PvP is. It was pretty much a bust in EQ, and since they really weren't doing a ton of balancing in EQ2, the nerf bat is about to start swinging with a vengence.
I couldn't get into EQ2, even though most of my old EQ friends went there instead of WoW. I tried if a few months after release, when most of the bugs were done, and it just didn't work for me.
I'm in the beta, and I don't see any of the AC or AC2 problems cropping up.
Yeah, they are having beta bugs, and they are working on them. So far, though, they seem pretty responsive to most issues. They read their forums. They reply with more information than Blizzard often would give for WoW.
Since DDO is going to offer zero PvP, and classes are sticking very true to the 3.5 ruleset, the framework is already in place.
I don't see DDO having EQ like subscriptions, but it will be respectable enough to keep it online for a few years. It's biggest drawback will be repetition, much like CoH/V.
It looks like you need a Third Life!
Rimshot, please!
Um... You might want to think about that again.
When you buy the box, you are paying for the initial development of the game. If it is an expansion, you are paying for the initial development of that expansion's content.
You pay a monthly fee for server uptime, minor content adding patches, bug fixes/balancing, and in-game customer service.
Oh, wait... You just wanted to say the words "class action suit", right? lol
What possible justification do they have for a class action suit? They paid 60 bucks, but played the game starting in 2002 if they got in at the start, and bought an update in Feb. of 2005. They paid a monthly fee for patches and server uptime, which they are no longer having to pay now that the game is done.
/.'ers and their love of crying for a class action suit? I've seen some dumb requests for them, but this one may take the cake. We have enough stupid litigation going on here in the U.S. without this idiocy joining it.
So, 60 or so bucks for a little over 3 years of playing, plus monthly maintenance fees. And more than half the players left prior to the cancelling of the game, because they felt it wasn't worth it. Did they scream for a refund?
Face the facts. There weren't enough players actively subscribing to make it cost effective to keep the game live. End of story.
What is it with
Very well stated.
I played EQ for nearly 5 years. I only left after my frustration level with Sony started to outweigh the pleasure I got from playing the game. And, since folks were starting to leave in anticipation of both WoW and EQ2, it was time to go.
While game developers can make a great game, the social aspect often keeps you around for a long time beyond where you would have stayed if it was a single player game. Who would have kept playing EQ after reaching Time (not that I did) and killed all the things you wanted to kill, if you didn't want to hang with your virtual friends?
Turbine will be fine, as they are working on DDO. I'm in the beta, and while not breaking my NDA, I can say that the game is group imperative. You just don't solo past the newbie area.
AC was a bad game design from the beginning, especially with the pyramid XP scheme built it. Designing Amway into a MMO isn't too bright. That, and ranged (melee and magic) attacks were overpowered. Too many one-shot kills with no damage taken for ranged players. Add to that, it was originally released as M$, and all the M$ haters avoided it like the plague.
I never played AC2, but from what I read, it just had too many problems, and too many AC players had such a bad taste in their mouths (myself included) that they bypassed it entirely.
Games fade out over the years. One of my EQ/WoW buddies took up the free 21 day offer from Sony, and logged into our old server. It was a ghost town. Hardly any toons in the bazaar, or anywhere else.
Yeah, my wife works for Mercedes, and they are telling ALL users to not open any email with any type of graphics attachment on it, not just the .tiff and .png stuff.
It is a pretty darn huge security hole, and one that shouldn't impact the home user (at least not yet) in any major fashion.
Then again, it is probably wishful thinking that Blackberry users are more technically knowledgeable than the average home user, and wouldn't open dumb emails from unsolicited sources.