No doubt that France is way ahead when it comes to internet. I have Free (free.fr) at EUR 30/month and get 20mbit ADSL, free telephone (75 countries worldwide) and a large number of tv channels.
Now, I only played in open beta, so my recollection of some of the details are a little muddy.
The interface was backwards and counter intuitive, the mechanics of the game didn't make much sense nor did the story.
The interface definitely takes some getting used to and could probably have been done better, but I wouldn't call it horrible. Not sure what mechanics you are talking about here, but if you are talking about anything other than crafting, then I'm not sure we have played the same game. As for the story not making any sense: Huh? I can't follow you, at all, here.
Honestly, I can't think of a single thing I experienced during my limited run with it that was superior, or even on par with other MMOs. YMMV.
I can think of at lest two things: Immersion/believability and combat. Immersion: The world felt real and alive in a way no other MMO that I have tried (WoW, WAR, EVE and a number of free-to-play) ever managed. Sure it has it's problems, such as impenetrable forests, but the way that every NPC seems to have a purpose in the world, other than simple cannon-fodder, is something I haven't found in other MMO's - at least not to that extent. Combat: I really liked the way the combat works. I realise that it's very gun-centric and probably wouldn't work well in a fantasy MMO, but if Warhammer 40k comes out and doesn't feature such a combat system you can be fairly certain that I won't be playing it.
I also can't see the fans of the Halo gameplay appreciating roll-to-hit combat, nor do I see typical MMO players taking to the twitch and adrenalin style of play that would cater to the FPS gamers. You will end up alienating one full half of the group a Halo MMO appeal to.
Does it really have to be one OR the other? Take a look at Tabula Rasa (there's a free trial), it uses a system somewhere in-between that actually works really well.
I'm not saying that you aren't right, because basically you are, but there's at least three games, that I can think of right now, that does not conform to the cookie cutter formula:
Air Rivals. http://www.airrivals.net/ Pretty fun, skill intensive, flying MMO. The graphics sucks some major balls, but the gameplay is ace.
Tabula Rasa. Only tried the beta, but my impression was that if you only care about PvE then TR should be on your short-list of MMOs to try. It has a really nice combat system and the general feeling of the world being "alive" is in a league of it's own (or at least it was back then).
EVE Online. Personally I found it rather boring, but there's no denying that it has nothing to do with your standard fantasy MMO.
I wish I had mod-points. Pulling out over-night, as many seem to want, is possibly the worst thing to do. The government (and army) is nowhere near the point that they can actually control the country, and seeing the mighty american army leave like that will only help to bolster the extremists, Iran etc. I feel sorry for the next president, having to inherit this mess from Bush, but it's an issue that has to be dealt with in an intelligent manner, and simply pulling out is not intelligent - it's emotional.
It should have been called something like "Atom architecture overview, it's future, and how it compares to ARM". And to all those that rant how RISC is dead: Did you actually RTFA?
Who modded you down? The author of the article is indeed quite ill-informed. I got my first ThinkPad in 1999 (600E I seem to remember) and it had the rubbery surface - which I never understood why IBM ditched; it's far superior to the hard plastic they use now. Let's hope that it gets reintroduced in all the models. I'm also fairly sure that my T60 (2007-FVG - the one with FlexView/IPS panel) has LED-backlight.
Am I the only one that can't get Silverlight to work with Firefox on Windows? I have now tried on two different machines, several times, with the same result.
The only real problem with the N64 controller was the poor quality of the analog stick: Due to it being made entirely from plastic it gets worn-out fairly quickly leading to poor control. Of course the three-prong design meant that you couldn't, comfortably, use the stick and the d-pad at the same time, but usually that wasn't really much of a problem. When used for longer periods of time I hold that the N64 controller was far superior to the dual-shock, since it was actually designed with ergonomics in mind (that, or the Sony engineers really screwed up their testing). In fact the dual-shock tended to give me hand-cramps. My suspicion is that, usually, when someone claims that the dual-shock x is better than the N64 or GC controller it's because they have either very large hands (the GC controller is somewhat small) or only used the Nintendos for a short period.
I don't really know how it is elsewhere, but in Denmark you never see any photos of the reviewers, for exactly that reason. Also, I believe they don't say it in person, that they just did a review, but rather send a letter afterwards; although that is mostly to warn about the wave of new customers.
So far I have made it to level 16, so take it with the appropriate amount of salt.
Does it have quests to gather X from Y and then X does not drop in a clear logical pattern?
Yes. No. Most quests are indeed the age old and unimaginative collect X from Y type of quests, but so far, with very few exceptions, Y drops every time you kill X, so it's not really that bad.
Does it have items looted for crafting that drop from X that only spawns once in a blue moon if your avatar wears purple?
Not that I have noticed, but then the crafting system currently in place is just a place holder for what should come next week.
Is it impossible to craft to your own level (Lotro is very guilty of this) so that by the time you have harvested everything that is needed for a level 12 item, your are level 20?
See above.
Is there a reputation grind (we couldn't think of more story quests so now just go kill) that if you calculate the number of kills needed you realize you ain't getting out of the house this year?
There's no such thing as WoW-style reputation, if that's what you mean.
Do the game makers put grinders and questers in the same place? (Lotro with its deeds (kill X Y for bonuss stats) often has people at very high levels killing X in low levels areas to get their deed and damned be any players at the right level questing there)
Not really. The game is actually quite linear so far, in that everyone starts in the same place and progresses through the areas in the same order. Once you reach the proper level for the next area you get a quest to go there; at least that's how it works in Wilderness (lvl 1~15) -> Divide (~15-?)
For that matter, does that crafting/loot system encourage, even enforce, farming?
So far no, but as I said higher up the current system is just a place holder, so ask again next Wednesday (patch should be Tuesday).
Is there any system in place to deal with gold spammers (SWG has introduced player killing of gold sellers, WoW has finally introduced limits on spam messages, turbine... nothing).
No idea.
In short, is this any different from the default EQ clone with all the same crap that really should have been elimenated since the days of EQ2? SWG tried, it really did but failed because of bugs ans was then turned into an EQ clone itself.
Yes and no. Most of the basic mechanics are exactly the same i.e. you gain levels and gear through grinding and questing just like in EQ, WoW etc. Where it sets itself apart is in the combat system and the setting. Combat: If you have ever played a FPS on a console, using auto-aim, you'll have a pretty good idea of how ranged combat (which is most of it) works: You get your target roughly within your sights, it turns red and you push the trigger. Once you have your target you can push [tab] to lock so you don't have to follow it as much. Other than that you have the usual array of skills you can use. All in all it requires a bit more skill (but not much) than your average MMO due to the FPS like control. As for the Logos: So far they are nothing but requirements in order to train and use your skills and not really all that interesting, but as there's an awful lot of them this may change. Setting: A battlefield. And I mean it - The closest thing to Orgrimmar is a military base which, although it does have a tavern, is very military-like and boring (Well, the loudspeaker-announcements are hilarious). Once you go outside the gates it's trenches, artillery bombardments and enemy patrols. Actually the setting may be TR's greatest asset: In WoW you may have this largish bit of land with a bunch of monsters walking mindlessly around until they spot you. In TR it seems like everyone has a purpose, even if it's just guarding some crossroad; for the most part the enemies don't just
You may want to give Ground Control a shot. While I don't think you can give orders while paused (it's been awhile since I played it), it is pure combat - no base building or anything. You may still be able to get GC1 for free here or find it for next to nothing in a [forgot-the-word]-bin. Btw: GC2 shouldn't be nearly as good.
And how many kids spend their time on Usenet? My guess is that it's not really that many. Which of course just serves to support your point that The Great Firewall of USA is a stupid idea.
Here's my translation for those that don't understand Norwegian:
Arne is interested in Japanese samurai films. They can only be bought from Japan and are all Region 3. Arne makes his DVD player (including his pc) region-free in order to watch the films.
Arne's 3 year old daughter plays wildly with the children-DVDs he's bought. Many have been damaged. Arne therefore makes back-up copies of the DVDs after he buys them. Since Arne is not very good with computers a colleague does it for him.
Arne has many DVDs. When he's travelling he transfers some of them to his iPod in order to watch them on the plane.
Arne has downloaded thousands of songs from various on-line shops. This has cost him a lot of money. Arne can't make a backup of all of them on his own, but he knows that it's important to make a backup. He therefore stores his music on an external service (such as mp3tunes.com) so that they won't disappear if his pc breaks down.
Arne uses some of the songs he has downloaded as ring tone on his mobile.
Arne's mother has been given a Creative player for Christmas. Arne has bought a lot of music on iTunes that his mother would like to listen to. He therefore converts said music so it can be played on his mother's Creative.
In USA Arne found the perfect game for kids. When he came home he found that the game was unusable because it was the wrong region. He thus wants to modify the Playstation so that his daughter can use the game.
Arne's wife is blind. Many of her favourite writers have published books that are only available as e-books. She wants to have them read aloud. This is not possible, so Arne uses a program found on the net to read aloud the books.
Note: I'm Danish, not Norwegian, so there may be some slight errors. Also, who are Kripos and EFN?
Slashdot Mirror
AirRivals is pretty good fun too, and the only free-to-play that I keep geeting back to.
There's also:
Perfect World
Rohan
Upshift Strikeracer
Archlord
Dreamlords
No doubt that France is way ahead when it comes to internet. I have Free (free.fr) at EUR 30/month and get 20mbit ADSL, free telephone (75 countries worldwide) and a large number of tv channels.
(Hmm, slashcode strips the euro symbol)
Actually no. There's a "Go" button next to the address field. And if it's not there you just have to right-click the toolbar to get it back.
And Symbian is not?
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081203-nokias-oss-strategy-gets-boost-as-symbian-deal-completed.html
Indeed he did -- for life. And it's for all prime ministers; not just him.
Here's the proper way to do email validation:
http://code.iamcal.com/php/rfc822/
Now, I only played in open beta, so my recollection of some of the details are a little muddy.
The interface definitely takes some getting used to and could probably have been done better, but I wouldn't call it horrible.
Not sure what mechanics you are talking about here, but if you are talking about anything other than crafting, then I'm not sure we have played the same game.
As for the story not making any sense: Huh? I can't follow you, at all, here.
I can think of at lest two things: Immersion/believability and combat.
Immersion:
The world felt real and alive in a way no other MMO that I have tried (WoW, WAR, EVE and a number of free-to-play) ever managed. Sure it has it's problems, such as impenetrable forests, but the way that every NPC seems to have a purpose in the world, other than simple cannon-fodder, is something I haven't found in other MMO's - at least not to that extent.
Combat:
I really liked the way the combat works. I realise that it's very gun-centric and probably wouldn't work well in a fantasy MMO, but if Warhammer 40k comes out and doesn't feature such a combat system you can be fairly certain that I won't be playing it.
You might want to check out http://thedailywtf.com/ before making any more of those statements.
Oh, and it's "their skills", not "they're skills".
Does it really have to be one OR the other? Take a look at Tabula Rasa (there's a free trial), it uses a system somewhere in-between that actually works really well.
I'm not saying that you aren't right, because basically you are, but there's at least three games, that I can think of right now, that does not conform to the cookie cutter formula:
Air Rivals. http://www.airrivals.net/
Pretty fun, skill intensive, flying MMO. The graphics sucks some major balls, but the gameplay is ace.
Tabula Rasa.
Only tried the beta, but my impression was that if you only care about PvE then TR should be on your short-list of MMOs to try.
It has a really nice combat system and the general feeling of the world being "alive" is in a league of it's own (or at least it was back then).
EVE Online.
Personally I found it rather boring, but there's no denying that it has nothing to do with your standard fantasy MMO.
AirRivals (http://www.airrivals.net/) has Korean (Ace Online), Chinese (Ace Online) and Vietnamese (forgot the name) versions. And it's good fun too.
I wish I had mod-points.
Pulling out over-night, as many seem to want, is possibly the worst thing to do. The government (and army) is nowhere near the point that they can actually control the country, and seeing the mighty american army leave like that will only help to bolster the extremists, Iran etc.
I feel sorry for the next president, having to inherit this mess from Bush, but it's an issue that has to be dealt with in an intelligent manner, and simply pulling out is not intelligent - it's emotional.
It should have been called something like "Atom architecture overview, it's future, and how it compares to ARM".
And to all those that rant how RISC is dead: Did you actually RTFA?
only touchpads? I'd imagine that a trackpoint would perform way better than a touchpad when wearing gloves, for example.
Sorry to spoil your fun, but not really. The, now defunct, Z series came with a choice of titanium (or was it magnesium) lids for a while.
Who modded you down?
The author of the article is indeed quite ill-informed. I got my first ThinkPad in 1999 (600E I seem to remember) and it had the rubbery surface - which I never understood why IBM ditched; it's far superior to the hard plastic they use now. Let's hope that it gets reintroduced in all the models.
I'm also fairly sure that my T60 (2007-FVG - the one with FlexView/IPS panel) has LED-backlight.
Am I the only one that can't get Silverlight to work with Firefox on Windows? I have now tried on two different machines, several times, with the same result.
The only real problem with the N64 controller was the poor quality of the analog stick: Due to it being made entirely from plastic it gets worn-out fairly quickly leading to poor control. Of course the three-prong design meant that you couldn't, comfortably, use the stick and the d-pad at the same time, but usually that wasn't really much of a problem.
When used for longer periods of time I hold that the N64 controller was far superior to the dual-shock, since it was actually designed with ergonomics in mind (that, or the Sony engineers really screwed up their testing). In fact the dual-shock tended to give me hand-cramps.
My suspicion is that, usually, when someone claims that the dual-shock x is better than the N64 or GC controller it's because they have either very large hands (the GC controller is somewhat small) or only used the Nintendos for a short period.
So you're saying that I can have both an Ace of Spades and Diamonds on the same card? Neat.
I don't really know how it is elsewhere, but in Denmark you never see any photos of the reviewers, for exactly that reason.
Also, I believe they don't say it in person, that they just did a review, but rather send a letter afterwards; although that is mostly to warn about the wave of new customers.
Yes. No.
Most quests are indeed the age old and unimaginative collect X from Y type of quests, but so far, with very few exceptions, Y drops every time you kill X, so it's not really that bad.
Not that I have noticed, but then the crafting system currently in place is just a place holder for what should come next week.
See above.
There's no such thing as WoW-style reputation, if that's what you mean.
Not really. The game is actually quite linear so far, in that everyone starts in the same place and progresses through the areas in the same order. Once you reach the proper level for the next area you get a quest to go there; at least that's how it works in Wilderness (lvl 1~15) -> Divide (~15-?)
So far no, but as I said higher up the current system is just a place holder, so ask again next Wednesday (patch should be Tuesday).
No idea.
Yes and no. Most of the basic mechanics are exactly the same i.e. you gain levels and gear through grinding and questing just like in EQ, WoW etc. Where it sets itself apart is in the combat system and the setting.
Combat:
If you have ever played a FPS on a console, using auto-aim, you'll have a pretty good idea of how ranged combat (which is most of it) works: You get your target roughly within your sights, it turns red and you push the trigger. Once you have your target you can push [tab] to lock so you don't have to follow it as much. Other than that you have the usual array of skills you can use. All in all it requires a bit more skill (but not much) than your average MMO due to the FPS like control.
As for the Logos: So far they are nothing but requirements in order to train and use your skills and not really all that interesting, but as there's an awful lot of them this may change.
Setting:
A battlefield. And I mean it - The closest thing to Orgrimmar is a military base which, although it does have a tavern, is very military-like and boring (Well, the loudspeaker-announcements are hilarious). Once you go outside the gates it's trenches, artillery bombardments and enemy patrols. Actually the setting may be TR's greatest asset: In WoW you may have this largish bit of land with a bunch of monsters walking mindlessly around until they spot you. In TR it seems like everyone has a purpose, even if it's just guarding some crossroad; for the most part the enemies don't just
You may want to give Ground Control a shot. While I don't think you can give orders while paused (it's been awhile since I played it), it is pure combat - no base building or anything.
You may still be able to get GC1 for free here or find it for next to nothing in a [forgot-the-word]-bin.
Btw: GC2 shouldn't be nearly as good.
And how many kids spend their time on Usenet?
My guess is that it's not really that many. Which of course just serves to support your point that The Great Firewall of USA is a stupid idea.
And when that doesn't work either it is often possible to fast-forward.
Here's my translation for those that don't understand Norwegian:
Arne is interested in Japanese samurai films. They can only be bought from Japan and are all Region 3. Arne makes his DVD player (including his pc) region-free in order to watch the films.
Arne's 3 year old daughter plays wildly with the children-DVDs he's bought. Many have been damaged. Arne therefore makes back-up copies of the DVDs after he buys them. Since Arne is not very good with computers a colleague does it for him.
Arne has many DVDs. When he's travelling he transfers some of them to his iPod in order to watch them on the plane.
Arne has downloaded thousands of songs from various on-line shops. This has cost him a lot of money. Arne can't make a backup of all of them on his own, but he knows that it's important to make a backup. He therefore stores his music on an external service (such as mp3tunes.com) so that they won't disappear if his pc breaks down.
Arne uses some of the songs he has downloaded as ring tone on his mobile.
Arne's mother has been given a Creative player for Christmas. Arne has bought a lot of music on iTunes that his mother would like to listen to. He therefore converts said music so it can be played on his mother's Creative.
In USA Arne found the perfect game for kids. When he came home he found that the game was unusable because it was the wrong region. He thus wants to modify the Playstation so that his daughter can use the game.
Arne's wife is blind. Many of her favourite writers have published books that are only available as e-books. She wants to have them read aloud. This is not possible, so Arne uses a program found on the net to read aloud the books.
Note: I'm Danish, not Norwegian, so there may be some slight errors.
Also, who are Kripos and EFN?