Yeah. Read my post carefully. It doesn't exist yet, ie, it hasn't been released.
And it will be slower than Microsoft's binary format. That's just XML for you. XML is good, but its slower. Whether OpenXML is faster, we will see. It depends...
Your opinion makes it sound like you've played it quite a bit. If it was so horrible, why did you keep playing it?
I played for 2 months (From day 1 till the first week of January) and sold my level 60 for a good chunk of change. My mainstay is Everquest but I wanted to give it a chance, I've liked Blizzard games in the past, I played Diablo before EQ came out and Warcraft/Starcraft strategy games. But I wasn't impressed and it didn't have any staying power for me. My wife still plays - check out my user page and read one of my other posts, I explained why the game is so popular, its the housewives/students with reduced time/students unter the age of 18 that are keeping the game afloat.
All you're describing is changing the difficulty level, not 'removing anything WoWish.'
'Removing anything WoWish' is EXACTLY what I am talking about (1) no death penalty (a stat debuff for a few minutes is NOT a death penalty) (2) easy travel times (you can cross the world in minutes, now you don't even need to switch griffons) (3) universal soloable content at all levels (there should be soloable content at all levels but it should require work to find/get to/accomplish, if you pick any non-instance zone in WoW it is soloable) (4) lack of landmass (5) simplified game mechanics compared to other MMO's (summoning, mezzing, aggro reduction / control / elimination, banishment, some of these are partially implemented but not to the point of being able to do things really cool) (6) once you hit 60 GAME OVER. you get your gear purple and your life ends. No endgame. [Everquest lets you funnel XP into alternate advancement abilities, you still have zones to unlock, clickies, etc]
There is a reason Everquest is opening two new servers - and not just servers but progressive servers (they start their life with just original Everquest, no expansions. Players must defeat the old world content - presumably Vox and Nagafen - to unlock the next exapansion, and the list goes on until all 11 expansions are unlocked). There is a large audience that wants strict rules, that doesn't mind dying and losing XP, that doesn't mind a grind, that doesn't mind playing a 7 year old game cause you know, they got it right. Maybe we are all masochists, who knows. It may not appeal to the 'mindless masses' but there is a captive, faithful audience out there.
I think I pretty well covered it. Evequest covered all those bases. Vanguard should, I hope. I have a lot of faith. I'm still waiting to get my beta invite.
The GUI, yeah... but there is more to an app than the GUI. Apparently there is non-standard C++ code in there (which makes sense if they have CD burning support, etc)
The reason they have to compare OO to Word is because the plugin for Word doesn't exist yet. Now it is my opinion that it isn't a fair fight because there are too many variables.
However formats can be slow. Binary formats > XML for speed. And even among XML formats, depending upon implementation and how you parse/cache it, speed will vary a lot by implementation. The point is completely valid, whether or not the article has the purest of intentions.
They roll at D20. If they get a 19 or 20, the article successfully attacks. Then it rolls for damage. If it successfully kills a level 1 orc in 1 shot, then it may proceed to the front page. No editing required at all.
I signed up for the beta last night when they made the in-game announcement, and yea I like it. So nostalgic. But I can't wait for Kunark to be unlocked. Iksars are my thing. Scales and tails.
Why does everything have to have 5 million customers and be a "WoW clone" to be successful? WoW is a watered down MMO. Levels are easy, the endgame converges on 3 instances, the raiding content is sparse, there is very little to do once you are 60... they made a simple game, no wonder it is popular, simple minds, simple games!
I don't care if I am close minded. There are a lot of us waiting for a game that is hardcore, that has strict rules, that doesn't hand you levels and gear on a silver platter. Remember, this game started development long before WoW hit the table - why should they go back and change their ideas just because WoW is popular?
People will jump out of the woodwork to play this game. These developers have upwards of 10 years of experiance now, having developed Everquest as 989studios. People two years ago were ready to pre-order this game as soon as it was a possibility. It is rare that a game is so well-received.
Not 5 million but big enough. See Everquest. It is still alive and kicking. They are still releasing expansions, and even though they performed server mergers last year to keep a certain "critical mass" of people on each server they are opening at least 1 if not 2 new servers next month.
You can't please everyone, but there IS a balance.
Agreed - but they are favoring this balance towards the more hardcore gamer instead of the casual one. That's fine by me.
Did you ever play Star Wars Galaxies before it died?
Nope. Huge fan of the Star Wars universe, but I knew it would never work as a MMO. Everyone wants to be Luke, Darth and Han. No one wants to be the commoner... anyways the housing as of right now ***is*** non-instanced but I am pretty sure it is zoning-restricted. I could be wrong.
900 MHz is too congested. You are competing with corless headsets, baby monitors, RC devices, cell phones, etc.
There are a lot of very interesting projects with high power / experimental rocketry and robotics itegrating packet radio. Autonomous rockets that "phone home" with GPS coords, etc. Or have passive guidance. All sorts of interesting things. I can get a cheap old radio less for $179.99 quoted, way less. There are no COTS systems to do things like these, which is why amateur radio is still relevant and interesting.
And no, 1 watt isn't enough for some applications.
I started the day of (end of november?), I had a level 60 by the new year. I work full time and had a pregnant wife who I spent a healthy amount of time with, I was not racing to get level 60. Sold it and never looked back. However I resurrected my EQ account, I still play the same character I started 4 years ago. Well over 100 days played on him.
Fact of the matter is it doesn't take much time to get your levels in WoW, compared to a "hardcore" MMO like Everquest or even Everquest 2, and then you are stuck doing the same 3 (i think) crappy instances with the same people over and over and over, no experiance gain just a few lame purple items, and then what? Nothing left to do... Quick leveling, quick convergence.
But to answer your question... $49.99 for the game, I paid for 1 month of access ($15.99?)... and sold the account for somewhere between the 300-600 mark. I turned a profit:)
SOE is just doing the backend/billing/etc. They aren't doing the design work. That's Sigil. It is actually going to be a very good relationship, not only because the people know each other well but because Sony is pretty good at keeping servers up and online billing / game cards / etc (unlike that **other** mmo).
(you have to remember there is a distinction between the design/engineering team and the people that do the hosting/admin stuff. Sigil is the former, SOE is the latter)
Beta testers are there to test the game, not design it... the designers and architects had a vision, and implemented it. They employed beta testers to stress it out and make sure it worked.
They are aiming at the hardcore gamer from day 1. No suprises there.
Instancing is a Good Thing on busy servers. I agree. However I think they are some of the more creative minds creating games right now and I'm excited to see the alternatives they are implementing. Non-instanced housing I think will be amazing, for example. Seeing housing that belongs to players in a city just makes the world that much more real and identifiable.
Revived my EQ acct to get back in the spirit before Vanguard hits. I have high hopes and I pray I am not disappointed. I agree very strongly with you. Vanguard is catering to the hardcore gamer. That's a point everyone is missing, too many people feel "success" is dictated by having the most players. "Success" is turning a profit and having happy customers that stick around to play:)
Its not the best, it attracts the baseline gamer..
on
Vanguard Beta In Trouble?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
... it attracts your average housewife gamer (like my wife) your average high school gamer (like my brother) your average college gamer who doesn't have a lot of time(like my other brother) and people who just can't stand the thought of dying and losing XP. It is a softcore MMO. They are catering to the masses, not to the MMO purists (enter me).
Vanguard is going to be a hardcore MMO. This news article is music to my ears. The core dev team has its roots in EQ. This game will be challenging and give you a run for its money. Carrot on a stick? Hell yes.
But no, like the guys at Vanguard, you can't get past appearance. If it's popular, it must be bad.
My guess based on articles I've read is that Vanguard will be similar to EQ. Very open ended. WoW's problem is that the engame converges. Everyone, and I mean everyone is doing those stupid instances at level 60 or raiding a few dungeons. And once you are 60 all that is left to do is get gear. Whereas in Everquest the landmass is so huge and the design is so open-ended, you have a lot to do. (you can also keep grinding, dumping XP into abilities, but I don't know for sure Vanguard will have a system like that). Vanguard should be that open ended, and it is a roleplayer's wet dream.
And yet there are thousands of us wishing we had made it into the closed beta.
Vanguard will be huge. Lots of us are just biding our time waiting for its release. Quite frankly, I say its a Good Thing that they get rid of anything WoWish. The core Dev team has its roots in EQ (989 studios / verant interactive / etc). It is expected that this game will cater to the hardcore gamer, not to the casual one.
You missed the part about experimenters. The guys that do autonomous GPS tracking of high power rockets. The guys that launch amateur satellites. Autonomous robots using packet radio. All sorts of interesting, experimental projects that are out there if there weren't amateur bands available (and no, 100mW on 49.1 is not enough for any of those projects)
I've never found the attraction of Apple. Maybe for grandma or something (Then again, my grandmothers - both of them - have had windows laptops for 3 years now, haven't had an incident yet) But then again I'm the type that likes to build the computer from parts and triple boot and all else.
Heh. You don't know who you are talking to. There are plenty of windows programs that utilize the benefits of a 64 bit system.
I also happen to be a developer (random stuff, mostly trajectory analysis tools and 3D graphics to support said tools) playing around with 64 bit development under Windows.
Well, based on the fact that my old system lasted 2 years I expect nothing different. And the reason I reinstalled the OS is because I upgraded to a 64 bit processor, I upgraded to a 64 bit version of XP.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah. Read my post carefully. It doesn't exist yet, ie, it hasn't been released.
And it will be slower than Microsoft's binary format. That's just XML for you. XML is good, but its slower. Whether OpenXML is faster, we will see. It depends...
Your opinion makes it sound like you've played it quite a bit. If it was so horrible, why did you keep playing it?
I played for 2 months (From day 1 till the first week of January) and sold my level 60 for a good chunk of change. My mainstay is Everquest but I wanted to give it a chance, I've liked Blizzard games in the past, I played Diablo before EQ came out and Warcraft/Starcraft strategy games. But I wasn't impressed and it didn't have any staying power for me. My wife still plays - check out my user page and read one of my other posts, I explained why the game is so popular, its the housewives/students with reduced time/students unter the age of 18 that are keeping the game afloat.
All you're describing is changing the difficulty level, not 'removing anything WoWish.'
'Removing anything WoWish' is EXACTLY what I am talking about (1) no death penalty (a stat debuff for a few minutes is NOT a death penalty) (2) easy travel times (you can cross the world in minutes, now you don't even need to switch griffons) (3) universal soloable content at all levels (there should be soloable content at all levels but it should require work to find/get to/accomplish, if you pick any non-instance zone in WoW it is soloable) (4) lack of landmass (5) simplified game mechanics compared to other MMO's (summoning, mezzing, aggro reduction / control / elimination, banishment, some of these are partially implemented but not to the point of being able to do things really cool) (6) once you hit 60 GAME OVER. you get your gear purple and your life ends. No endgame. [Everquest lets you funnel XP into alternate advancement abilities, you still have zones to unlock, clickies, etc]
There is a reason Everquest is opening two new servers - and not just servers but progressive servers (they start their life with just original Everquest, no expansions. Players must defeat the old world content - presumably Vox and Nagafen - to unlock the next exapansion, and the list goes on until all 11 expansions are unlocked). There is a large audience that wants strict rules, that doesn't mind dying and losing XP, that doesn't mind a grind, that doesn't mind playing a 7 year old game cause you know, they got it right. Maybe we are all masochists, who knows. It may not appeal to the 'mindless masses' but there is a captive, faithful audience out there.
I think I pretty well covered it. Evequest covered all those bases. Vanguard should, I hope. I have a lot of faith. I'm still waiting to get my beta invite.
The GUI, yeah... but there is more to an app than the GUI. Apparently there is non-standard C++ code in there (which makes sense if they have CD burning support, etc)
The reason they have to compare OO to Word is because the plugin for Word doesn't exist yet. Now it is my opinion that it isn't a fair fight because there are too many variables.
However formats can be slow. Binary formats > XML for speed. And even among XML formats, depending upon implementation and how you parse/cache it, speed will vary a lot by implementation. The point is completely valid, whether or not the article has the purest of intentions.
They roll at D20. If they get a 19 or 20, the article successfully attacks. Then it rolls for damage. If it successfully kills a level 1 orc in 1 shot, then it may proceed to the front page. No editing required at all.
I signed up for the beta last night when they made the in-game announcement, and yea I like it. So nostalgic. But I can't wait for Kunark to be unlocked. Iksars are my thing. Scales and tails.
And sometimes you will still get a violent child. It happens, sometimes. Nature overriding nurture and so forth.
Why does everything have to have 5 million customers and be a "WoW clone" to be successful? WoW is a watered down MMO. Levels are easy, the endgame converges on 3 instances, the raiding content is sparse, there is very little to do once you are 60 ... they made a simple game, no wonder it is popular, simple minds, simple games!
I don't care if I am close minded. There are a lot of us waiting for a game that is hardcore, that has strict rules, that doesn't hand you levels and gear on a silver platter. Remember, this game started development long before WoW hit the table - why should they go back and change their ideas just because WoW is popular?
People will jump out of the woodwork to play this game. These developers have upwards of 10 years of experiance now, having developed Everquest as 989studios. People two years ago were ready to pre-order this game as soon as it was a possibility. It is rare that a game is so well-received.
But how big is the "hard core" MMORPG market?
... anyways the housing as of right now ***is*** non-instanced but I am pretty sure it is zoning-restricted. I could be wrong.
Not 5 million but big enough. See Everquest. It is still alive and kicking. They are still releasing expansions, and even though they performed server mergers last year to keep a certain "critical mass" of people on each server they are opening at least 1 if not 2 new servers next month.
You can't please everyone, but there IS a balance.
Agreed - but they are favoring this balance towards the more hardcore gamer instead of the casual one. That's fine by me.
Did you ever play Star Wars Galaxies before it died?
Nope. Huge fan of the Star Wars universe, but I knew it would never work as a MMO. Everyone wants to be Luke, Darth and Han. No one wants to be the commoner
900 MHz is too congested. You are competing with corless headsets, baby monitors, RC devices, cell phones, etc.
There are a lot of very interesting projects with high power / experimental rocketry and robotics itegrating packet radio. Autonomous rockets that "phone home" with GPS coords, etc. Or have passive guidance. All sorts of interesting things. I can get a cheap old radio less for $179.99 quoted, way less. There are no COTS systems to do things like these, which is why amateur radio is still relevant and interesting.
And no, 1 watt isn't enough for some applications.
I started the day of (end of november?), I had a level 60 by the new year. I work full time and had a pregnant wife who I spent a healthy amount of time with, I was not racing to get level 60. Sold it and never looked back. However I resurrected my EQ account, I still play the same character I started 4 years ago. Well over 100 days played on him.
... Quick leveling, quick convergence.
... and sold the account for somewhere between the 300-600 mark. I turned a profit :)
Fact of the matter is it doesn't take much time to get your levels in WoW, compared to a "hardcore" MMO like Everquest or even Everquest 2, and then you are stuck doing the same 3 (i think) crappy instances with the same people over and over and over, no experiance gain just a few lame purple items, and then what? Nothing left to do
But to answer your question... $49.99 for the game, I paid for 1 month of access ($15.99?)
The venture capitalists, ironically, were part of an organization called SEELE. SEELE, fat fingers.
The venture capitalists, ironically, were part of an organization called STEELE.
SOE is just doing the backend/billing/etc. They aren't doing the design work. That's Sigil. It is actually going to be a very good relationship, not only because the people know each other well but because Sony is pretty good at keeping servers up and online billing / game cards / etc (unlike that **other** mmo).
(you have to remember there is a distinction between the design/engineering team and the people that do the hosting/admin stuff. Sigil is the former, SOE is the latter)
Beta testers are there to test the game, not design it ... the designers and architects had a vision, and implemented it. They employed beta testers to stress it out and make sure it worked.
They are both just "following orders" ...
One of them (google) attempts to aggregate my life and store it indefinitely. The other does not. I'll let you gues which one I think is evil.
They are aiming at the hardcore gamer from day 1. No suprises there.
Instancing is a Good Thing on busy servers. I agree. However I think they are some of the more creative minds creating games right now and I'm excited to see the alternatives they are implementing. Non-instanced housing I think will be amazing, for example. Seeing housing that belongs to players in a city just makes the world that much more real and identifiable.
Revived my EQ acct to get back in the spirit before Vanguard hits. I have high hopes and I pray I am not disappointed. I agree very strongly with you. Vanguard is catering to the hardcore gamer. That's a point everyone is missing, too many people feel "success" is dictated by having the most players. "Success" is turning a profit and having happy customers that stick around to play :)
... it attracts your average housewife gamer (like my wife) your average high school gamer (like my brother) your average college gamer who doesn't have a lot of time(like my other brother) and people who just can't stand the thought of dying and losing XP. It is a softcore MMO. They are catering to the masses, not to the MMO purists (enter me).
Vanguard is going to be a hardcore MMO. This news article is music to my ears. The core dev team has its roots in EQ. This game will be challenging and give you a run for its money. Carrot on a stick? Hell yes.
But no, like the guys at Vanguard, you can't get past appearance. If it's popular, it must be bad.
My guess based on articles I've read is that Vanguard will be similar to EQ. Very open ended. WoW's problem is that the engame converges. Everyone, and I mean everyone is doing those stupid instances at level 60 or raiding a few dungeons. And once you are 60 all that is left to do is get gear. Whereas in Everquest the landmass is so huge and the design is so open-ended, you have a lot to do. (you can also keep grinding, dumping XP into abilities, but I don't know for sure Vanguard will have a system like that). Vanguard should be that open ended, and it is a roleplayer's wet dream.
And yet there are thousands of us wishing we had made it into the closed beta.
Vanguard will be huge. Lots of us are just biding our time waiting for its release. Quite frankly, I say its a Good Thing that they get rid of anything WoWish. The core Dev team has its roots in EQ (989 studios / verant interactive / etc). It is expected that this game will cater to the hardcore gamer, not to the casual one.
You missed the part about experimenters. The guys that do autonomous GPS tracking of high power rockets. The guys that launch amateur satellites. Autonomous robots using packet radio. All sorts of interesting, experimental projects that are out there if there weren't amateur bands available (and no, 100mW on 49.1 is not enough for any of those projects)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/$100_laptop#Software
Bill offered a version of Windows for free for the laptops. Negroponte mocked Bill before Bill mocked him.
I've never found the attraction of Apple. Maybe for grandma or something (Then again, my grandmothers - both of them - have had windows laptops for 3 years now, haven't had an incident yet) But then again I'm the type that likes to build the computer from parts and triple boot and all else.
Heh. You don't know who you are talking to. There are plenty of windows programs that utilize the benefits of a 64 bit system.
I also happen to be a developer (random stuff, mostly trajectory analysis tools and 3D graphics to support said tools) playing around with 64 bit development under Windows.
Well, based on the fact that my old system lasted 2 years I expect nothing different. And the reason I reinstalled the OS is because I upgraded to a 64 bit processor, I upgraded to a 64 bit version of XP.