All Posts by Torak

Ok, its hard to ignore all the WoW hysteria thats going on...

I played it at launch for about 6 or 8 months. Always thought it was a decent game but moved on. Not a bad run IMHO.

Well I know the game has changed a lot in that time. Last time I played they were just putting in the battlegrounds and 40 man raids were all the rage.

What I'm wondering is this.

What happened to all the raid content from the old level cap (60) and what is going to happen to all of the content from the Burning Crusade?

I don't quite get how they are handling this. Does it all just end up getting bypassed? I mean whatever happened to places like Molten Core or Onyxia? Do people still do this content?

Well dunno who this guy is (I'll look him up later) but it seems to me he is talking about Corp wealth / profit NOT talking "Joe Lunchboxes" paycheck.

Not that anything Corp wise is going to change anytime soon so nothing to even worry about here. The people who have money will keep their money as history has shown over thousands of years. If the situation becomes to unfavorable they will simply move it someplace more favorable. Hence the power of wealth.

Politicians have always been envious of the wealthy but its the wealthy who wield the real power in the world.

So far no MMORPG has ever recovered from a bad launch no matter what they do. Odds are AoC fate is sealed.

Originally posted by nomadian

Following reading someone's blog it got me really wondering this; whether the impact WoW has had was to put the nails in the coffins of niche mmos. An example, DAoC lost a lot of subscribers by the time WoW came out(whereas before this it had a decently healthy subscription level) And Ryzom, a mmo made post-WoW, is struggling to find many subscribers and is even offering itself free for a stage just to incent some numbers to try the game. Had Ryzom come before WoW would it have been more popular?

With WoW's presence being a big magnet on potential subscribers to any of these new niche mmos some of these other mmos are now ghosttowns. When a key appeal to playing mmos are other people this has to be a big offputter to potential new players of a mmo.

Thoughts? Bullshit? Or could this seen to have been an effect- and furthermore possibly being a fuel for various old players' resentment of the genre?

 

Well this is two pronged for me,

WoW influenced a lot, if not all developers to mimic them to some point.

However most MMO's are a frickin mess and that is the real problem.

I played DAoC in its prime and it was an expansion called "Trials of Atlantis" that killed that one a good couple of years BEFORE WoW.

Ryzom was launched in such bad shape it was hardly playable. The ideas behind the game were great but it cut is own throat with an exceptionally poor launch and incomplete features.

Look at AoC. A shit poor launch killed it.

Vanguard, again a suck ass launch killed this incomplete game. At release it spiked to around 250k users which dropped off within the first few months to the pathetic amount it has now.

The list of games killed by sucky launches goes on and on....

The flip side of that is games with successful launches that minic WoW to closely don't necessarily do great. LotR is probably the best example of that. Sure its a respectible game with a decent sub base but it didn't come close to WoW type success although one would have thought it should have but it comes down to this

Why play LotR when you can just play WoW, they are so similar its silly to switch.

Originally posted by Steelrose

Don't talk BS Torak. DDo took 1 and a half year to develop and it was a very small and minor project. It had no big expectations and almost nonexistent marketing campaign.

So says you, If I could find one I'll post it. DDO took 2 years to develope by the way. A pretty short time but they used the AC2 engine to make it.

Not that LotR took much longer to make

In March 2005, Turbine announced that it bought the rights to make an MMORPG based on Tolkien's literature and that Turbine would publish The Lord of the Rings Online instead of Vivendi.

When was it launched? May 07? Again they used the AC2 engine recently improved with DDO.

On top of it I'm not really inclined to argue with you over these 2 loser games.

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

 

I wish TR had no PVP. The game was supposed to be mankind fighting for existance and the PVP should never have even been introduced. To me it hurt the game a lot more than it helped but it was the Devs simple solution to zero end game content.

While PS is outmatched by other shooters it did allow for many more people to have epic battles than your normal shooter has done. PS had some tactics and skills that I had hoped TR would include in its so called war world, but TR never really feels like I am fighting to save mankind. I felt like Rambo out there alone killing them all with ammo to spare.

Well I don't want to completely tear TR apart. Like I said, its an ok game, better then AoC IMHO.

It has the issue that many modern MMO's have, lack of a compelling reason to play. Far to many MMOs suffer from this. It started a few years back when these games drifted from what they were good at (virtual worlds) and swung to enulating something they are not so good at (linear, quest driven with compartmentalized pieces like contained PvP) When MMOs tried to compeat designs with single player RPGs and FPS games, that when we lost them.

All the "new" MMOs that have fallen flat on their faces are victims of that.

"Endgame" should not exist in an MMO at all. Its a virtual world and should have no end only compelling reasons to keep playing at any level. Its not about the levels (unless the devs make it about the levels) levels are just a mathmatical mechanic and are completely meaningless if the game is no fun.

In the end, its no worse then WAR IMHO. Get in there blast some aliens and have a good time. For 0.96 cents for 30 free days, you can't lose I guess. Lord Brit has to be a little embarrassed about that....You can't get CoH or FFXI that cheap and those games are 5+ years old. In fact I've never seen an MMO cleared out like that so soon after launch. Very embarrassing indeed. He had it coming with is big frickin ego. He was so sure this game was going to be the next evolutionary step in MMO gaming just like Turbine thought DDO was going to be "the game that changes everything". (remember that ad campaign?)

I would have done it much different BUT its not my game and trials & 0.96 cent price tags are your friend.

Lineage 2

(SWG... LMAO)

Originally posted by Rokurgepta 

You are worried about 5000 rounds of ammo? How about the fact you could carry a rocket launcher in each and every backback slot?

Some of your ideas for the game would have made it feel a lot more like a fight for survival, instead of a questing game with a war background.  The quests in this game needed to be more war based and have some impact. Instead you had to find Private Cant Find My Way and give him a message, no wonder the AFS can not effectively fight back.

I understood part of the buying the ammo, the AFS has limited resources so please do not waste them. Then they added more PVP which is a complete waste of the so called limited resources. Nothing they did stuck with the stories they created. It was like they created them to explain things and then forgot why they did it.

Then limit available ammo. For example in BF2, you only have so many rounds available then you need to start picking up off the ground or getting with a support guy. Same in PS. (PS actually had a very nice loadout system before you went out)

As far as PvP goes its a waste in a game like this. It is up against games like Quake Wars and BF2142 which frankly "do it better" and are free to play. Not that this game has a peer game. There isn't anything wrong with  a PvE focus if the PvE portion is any good. You need to be careful who's turf you step into. Look at PS, totally outmatched by just about any modern shooter. Shooters evolve way to fast for MMO's to keep up with and they are completely handicapped against them because of the fee.

Anyway, I agree the quest portion is pretty pointless, they should have focused on diverse battle areas and world control with scripted missions for a story aspect / rewards. Better individual customization (skills and such) a better / more fleshed out Logos system (they should have gone with something like a Psi-Corp) AND a full Space portion.

You get the best of both worlds like this. Players can control where and how they go eliminating the linear and repetitive feeling and those that wish can still dig into a mission which would have impact in terms of unit recognition.

Rather then guilds (clans) they should have enulated military structure (duh) and set up squads or Platoons. You could have designed a complete unit citation system around it.  The higher ranking the unit the more mission and specialized equipment it could have unlocked. Ranks, hey theres an idea. Why isn't there a rank structure at all? I just don't get where TR was coming from with this.

You could still do a lot with the game but it needs to emulate a military WAR not EQ.

If they had R. Lee Erney voice over a nasty DI, the game wouldn't have failed.

Oh well, I guess its good for a few days of fun and at .98 cents at Amazon, you can't really argue with that even if you just liked the game alittle. Hell I might buy one just because. (seriously 0.98 cents...WTF?) Its not that bad of a game anyway. Its not like AoC or anytrhing, it just a "bit ho-hum saw that coming". I did a few of the missions and they are pretty good. I'm not sure I would flat out recomend this game but I wouldn't discourage anyone either. No Elves or Dwarves so it makes for a nice break from that anyway.

Originally posted by ArcAngel3

Originally posted by Torak

The sky is falling, the sky is falling!!!!

SWG vets say so!!!!

 

 

Hmm well, I seem to remember saying some of the same things around the CU time period in SWG.  These changes are more of that magnitude than the NGE by the way.  I seem to remember a mass exodus from that particular game, around that particular issue.

I then seem to remember saying something about unwanted revamps and bugs around NGE time.  Something about the sky falling, and what do you know, it did -_^.

Tbh, I don't think most players like bugs that render them unable to move or interact with the map server for a month.  I think it's bad for business.  I also don't think it's good to advertise upcoming content, and then delay it in favour of an unwanted revamp.  Also bad for business if you ask me.  I also don't think it's a good idea to try to appeal to new players at the expense of your current players.  Then I think it just sours the deal even further when you first openly tell your current players that they're not relevant, and then later try to tell them that they really are.

I don't really know anyone that would vote for these things as desirable, and I do think they're bound to have a negative impact on this game's success.

I guess we will see....

This game is so beyond needing to worry about success....its like 5 years old. Its dying anyway. People are grumbling for server merges and its about to get its ass handed to it by 2 new superhero themed games.

Every MMO goes through changes. Lineage 2 was just recently castrated. WoW is not even close to the game I played at launch. Vanguard was totally changed, SWG, EQII again not even close to the game I purchased at launch, DAoC - totally destroyed by changes years ago...I could go on but you get my point.

Whatcha gonna do? Unsub if you don't like it, simple as that. The strength of our community lies with our sub dollar. Wait for the changes, if you don't like them, take your money away. Who cares once you leave, move on to something else.

You guys should know that every MMO does this by now. Play'em while they last and you DO like them because they will change.

As far as the ignorant comment directed at me from the other guy (who didn't have the nads to just write my name), the only ones "ignorant" are the ones who think MMOs are not going to change and they will evolve in a direction that they individually approve of.

Kill the men, kill the Elves, keep the gold for ourselves!!!!

                                                                            Dwarf war chant

Hey anyway, I did a trial and found TR to be pretty much the same game it was a year ago. Sure maybe it has some under the hood tweaks and improvements but overall its the same game.

Wah for me, right?

Well heres what I would have done if it was me in charge.

First I would have started off in a "basic training" area. What "war" theme adventure starts otherwise? We could have got R. Lee Erney to voice it over. He's done video games before so no issue there. A grueling tutorial with lots of yelling. Here would also set up the story line (you would be able to skip once you did it completed for alts)

Once you got done there. You would be transported to the central base of Human operations. A spacestation. (named liberty or something freedom related like that) This is your "core" social location. Here you could have your "housing" or barracks, shops (PX), social center, arms rooms whatever you could come with. Training cert areas. This is where you would also "deploy" from.

We would need a few different worlds first off since this is a level based game. Without a a total revamp of mechanics, you can't get around that. So lets say a tier for each 10 level range. World one for levels 1-10 then 11-20 ext...)

You climb into a dropship and head for the local "beachhead" on that world. Now if you head to the main base on the planet, no issues you basically just teleport there. HOWEVER if you had a pilot, you could drop where you want...here is the catch, you would need to run through bane ships to get to the surface maybe even being shot down in the process. (maybe eject and get dropped on the world in a random spot) Other players could provide fighter support as escorts (see how easy this is to tie everyone together?)

Once on the surface at the main base you have whatever vehicle / gear that is availible for that world / battle area at the base. That all would be based on RANK or (level) Maybe at the station you could train to become "certified" to use equipment that become available at the tier level. You could still do money (credits) for extras about or beyond basic items but currency could also be used in other ways on the station. Whoever thought it was a good idea for soldiers to be buying their ammo needs a smack in the head. If you run out of money in the current TR what is one to do? It seems unlikely that will happen so its a useless mechanic. Carrying capacity should be concern. I have no idea how my toon is lugging around 5000+ rounds of ammo.

So the world could still be split into the maps and you could still have your instanced mission (which are good for the overall storytelling) However you could just get rid of all this "kill 10 rats" they put in. Instead you literally need to just fight for control points on the world. New maps could always be added.

Also depending on the world, different vehicles could be available. Everything from heavy armor to watercraft on world with a lot of water, Power armor suits whatever would make sense for that world.

Dunno, there is so much they could have done with this along those lines. The military adventure theme is a good idea but the key is that you need to actually make it a military adventure, not EQ with guns.

Just some thoughts early Sunday morning....more coffee please.

I played for 30 days at launch and I just wrapped up a trial. (I did a couple of weeks in the closed beta also)

Honestly from a NP perspective, there is nothing different about this game from launch. /shrug. The new "tutorial" hmmm... aside from changing the direction they actually cut out a lot and made it easier.

Before you ran from the hill and worked toward the cave with the logos in it. You had to capture that base, blowing up gun turrets and gates to get there. Then you had to fight your way into the caves to get the logos...now you start standing in front of the logos, the UI is hardly explained compared to what it was before, now its mostly pop ups which in game with the combat as it is, really is just a distraction, the base, you just walk onto, maybe 4 or 6 aliens put up a fight to you and your 3 NPC pals...I'm mean WTF?

Dunno, maybe someone brand new would be impressed with it but IMHO they needed to more then just reverse the direction of travel and cut out some content if they were going to "improve" it. (not that there was anything really "wrong" with the old tutorial)

Once I hit the main game, nothing, zero, I mean anything has changed. Except there are far less players. Still no vehicles, still the exact same content, still the exact same starting areas....bane still spawn in the same spots. (although it seems like a lot less of them are spawning)

Any changes have to be so under the hood they are hardly noticable to a new player.

I said it before, I'll say it again...play Quake Wars if you want an actual humans vs aliens WAR game.

Also whats with having to "buy" your ammo? As a species we deserve to die in Tabula Rasa. We are making our soldiers buy their ammo, we have no basic ground vehicles, we have no heavy armor, we have no air support, we have no space support...nothing. The best we can do apparently is teleport en mass into an area with small arms.

On top of it, it also appears the aliens can't stop us...how did they take Earth if they can even mop up the left overs? The whole scenerio doesn't make any sense.

The sky is falling, the sky is falling!!!!

SWG vets say so!!!!

It's made for kids like Wizard101 and Club Penguin so WTF cares?

SOE can't make a game to save their lives. They've made one good one, EQ and thats only because it was one of the first MMO's and no one knew any better. Everything else was a piece of sh*t from launch including SWG.

Originally posted by mark90_2k2

What the hell finwe seriously? You are deluded or need a serious update in 21st century thinking! When did you choose to be straight? You didnt? Oh fancy that... we didnt choose to be gay either! How can you relate sexuality to anger? Thats ridiculous! Your hormones tell you to sleep with women... right? then you allow your hormones to control you?... your argument just said that you are really gay but dont allow yourself to sleep with men because that would be allowing your hormones to control you!! If your straight then technically you should be sleeping with men to not allow you hormones to control you!! Your whole previous post is a contradiction...

 

Here here Torak!!!!

America was built on the ideology of freedom, its the America Dream, stereotypically the American dream is man, woman, 2 kids and a white picket fence. The American dream didnt form until around the late 1800's with the introduction of unions, fair pay and working hours and safe working conditions. This is when the ideology of freedom and liberty went kaput! This never ending strive to fulfill the impossible AMerican dream.

Like the constitution states, there is a "separation of church and state" yet the first ammendment turned this all on its head. This is why the church is now involved in dicatating gay relationships. Made even harder by the fact marriage gives rights. Marriage should technically be a religious institution, but its not since there are tax and insurance benefits etc etc. This is why in England, as we dont allow gay marriage, we have civil partnerships and civil unions instead. Same rights (almost) as a married couple but are married by the state not religion instead.

Proposition 8 completely contradicts the constitution, which contradicts everything people who voted for its beliefs. How can you vote for proposition 8 if you believe in American freemdom and liberty, if you did vote for it... you ARE a contradiction and you should be ashamed to call yourself an American.

As for those who said gay people should not be allowed to adopt/have kids. Why not? Divorce is at a record high along with unplanned pregnancies, alot of kids have only one parent, either mother or father and alot get put up for adoption - if a gay couple come forward to adopt just one kid out of the system... isn't that a good thing? Isn't having 2 parents who love it soo much better than having just one or none at all, whether or not they are a gay couple? By saying no to adoption by gay couples you are ignoring the best interests of the child in your own selfsh, oppressive endeavour. YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED!!

As for the first post - in short... yes is the answer to all your questions... this has been dictated to us by prop 8.

Hegemonically gay people deviate from the ideology we have been set in a capitalist society (i.e the American Dream) - this makes us BAD people because we are DIFFERENT.... the people are scared of those who are different... like we're going to bring about the apocolypse or something if we are given our freedom and liberty or that we will corrupt their economy with our wickedness and immorality.

Welcome to America... the soceity of capitalist fat cats

In my opinion, Obama is in the prime position to change the attitudes of people towards homosexuals for the better as he is now a revolutionary president. In the current scale of things, you are about 25 years off having a gay president!

 

( by a Living in England gay male!)

Well I'm a patriot and a veteren.

I believe in the idealism that our country stand for, I have fought for it.

It doesn't matter to me whether you are homosexual, black, asian, green or purple. Equality and Freedom is what concerns me. I can not tolerate that people would oppress their fellow countrymen in a place that was founded on freedoms. (As much as you can have in a civilization)

The people who try to oppress should be ashamed not me, I am a patriot to those ideals.

Unfortunately some need to fight harder then others for their freedoms. Its not a fight that can not be won as recent events have more then proven. Prop 8 is a temp setback for these folks but the fight is probably not over by a long shot.

Will it ever be perfect? No, but its better then the alternitive.

Originally posted by Finwe

 

Originally posted by Torak

what exactly are you trying to tell us?

 

My ethics command me to be against the homosexual agenda?
 

Ok, but homosexuality is not a choice.

Ethics have nothing to do with homosexuality any more then it's a moral or ethical choice of how tall you are.

What is the "homosexual agenda"? To be treated no different then anyone else and not be discriminated against? Who has the moral issue here? The people who prevent that or the ones who want it?

I think you need to go back and read some of that Bible you hold so dear. Nowhere in it does Jesus say to be intolerant and oppress those who are different from you and deny them equality.

Although I don't believe in any religion Jesus was a pretty good guy who made a lot of sense. Its really a shame that religion has twisted his message of peace, love and tolerance into what it is today.

At one time the Christians where the champions of the oppressed, not so much these days.

Originally posted by upallnight

Originally posted by Torak

 

What exactly are hiding from? Are there anti-gay mobs roaming the streets where you live or so