All Posts by arcana666

Originally posted by chryses

Any reason why companies don't make a game like this?  

Mostly lack of imagination and a fear of trying something outside of the norm, I imagine. 

I'm very much a fan of sandbox games like EVE, the original Star Wars Galaxies and of course Ultima Online.  All of those games involved raising particular skills rather than "leveling" characters.  It's my opinion that levels work very well in small, paper-based role playing games where there's only 3 or 4 players and a dungeon master, but it does not work very well in a massively multiplayer online game.

Firstly, as you say, everyone goes to the same areas at the same levels. There's no reason to go back and see any old content - not even to reminisce or just try some old stuff you've not done in a while because it's all too easy if you've out-leveled the area.  It's almost like a guided tour than an adventure.  It usually results in an anti-climax where there's nothing left to do at end level, or lots of raiding to do that involves a lot of guild administration and planning - not much spontaneous fun there.

Secondly, when PvP is added to the mix it becomes a complete joke.  A level 1 vs a level 80 will never win under any circumstance.  What's worse is that the level 80 is informed before hand that the other guy is way below his level and he knows he can grief with little / no penalty.  In some games, like EQ and EQ2, this is offset some-what by a level range limitation - i.e. You may only be able to attack someone within 4 levels of your own in a certain area.  This is only a botch fix though as there's an illogical, non-imersive game mechanic applied to restrict 2 people from fighting.

Thirdly, it can be difficult for new comers to a game to play with their friends because of level differences.  Again, this is sometimes offset by a mentoring system that will either temporarily boost the newbie's level or temporarily downgrade the other player's level to make grouping possible - another mechanic to overcome the sillyness behind levels.

That said, I wouldn't like EVE's way of doing skills adding to any other MMOs.  To me it seems odd that raising a skill in EVE is something best done offline - I spent most of my susbcription time logging in, setting a skill training and logging off for a week until it was done.

Well tbh even the @mmorpg.com addresses could be optional.

Oh well that explains that.  But damn guys... I hope that now defaults to "hide" for new accounts.

btw I don't need any more viagra

I used a sneakemail.com address when I signed up to mmorpg.com.  It's the only place I've ever used that particular address.  Today I've started receiving spam through that address.  Luckily I can just delete the address to stop it.

How's that happened?

I've tried this game a few times.

As loads of people have already said - Being able to actually leave the spaceship and walk around would catapult this game's popularity.  Even if there wasn't much content to the ground game, people like to walk around and hang out with other players in a bar or other social venue.  Many people have a hard time thinking of themselves as a spaceship.  They like to swing the camera around and think "hey my guy looks buff" or "I wish my ass was that small" lol.

I always feel like I'm missing something when I'm playing EVE.  I mine and move goods around for profit.... and spend most of my time only half paying attention to the screen. Travelling vast distances is best done AFK unless you're a lucky enough noob to have all the instant jump points and mining is so boring!  That's my experience in empire space anyway.

Perhaps I should head over to 0.0 space.  I know that's where the real action is and the part of the game that really would appeal to me.  I also know I'll probably get blased in to a million pieces by the first stranger I came across.

Besides both of them resembling a circular shape, the logos aren't even that similar at all.  RLMMO's looks like a moon somehow being double eclipsed while this logo looks nothing like it.  RLMMO's has a lot of gradient variation and heavy rendering while this one uses simple, strong colours.  I quite like it.

<childishmode>
I've been investigating this matter on the Internet and I've discovered rampant world-wide abuse of this particular shape

• http://www.google.com/ It appears twice in their logo alone!  Plagiarism!
• http://www.dictionary.com/ Pages and pages of text featuring the letter 'o'
• http://soe.lithium.com/ People abuse the circular shape every day on the Star Wars Galaxies forums when they include it in their insane rantings and drivel.
• http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/o.htm Catholic Encylopedia index for O.  They really should know better.

I suggest you sue the OP for liable and get his pocket money.  When you get both quarters you may be shocked to learn that they are also circular and so you might want to sue the american government for stealing your idea. 
</childishmode>