All Posts by mdolsen

Originally posted by girlgeek

Originally posted by AKBandito

IMO there is nothing hardcore about WoW.

Ask any EQ Raider.

 

 

Yes, in the OPINION of most of the elitist original EQ raiders, I'm sure that's true.  However, not everyone wants to get a divorce and lose custody of their children in the interest of playing a game.  If having to camp mobs for sometimes DAYS at a time, appealed to more people, I'm sure that other games would have left that charming bit of gameplay in there.  If more people just LOVED corpse runs, I'm sure that would still be a daily constant too.  However....games change with the changes in society, IMO, and it is no longer prudent (not that it ever WAS) to play a game that causes one's family to fall apart, and causes one to lose their job.  IF you still, however, WANT that....it can still be had.  Just choose the appropriate game and then play it feverishly. :)

Gamers have matured (or SOME have) and have responsibilities that they now feel obligated to tend to.  In response to that, and in an attempt to still incorporate the younger gamers, that perhaps have fewer responsibilties in the real world, game developers are trying to appeal to a "broader" market.  Seriously now...if YOU could make a game and choose between it being massively successful because you included something for everyone, or...making a game with a very small niche appeal....which would you make?  Remember now...you're investing millions and millions of dollars to MAKE this game.  You have to consider the return on your investment.

I think there are actually TWO primary reasons WoW has been so successful....

1)  The timing in it's release.  Another poster mentioned this in further detail.

2)  Variety in the TYPES of gamers that it will appeal to.

You say it's not hardcore.  I say it depends on how you PLAY it.  You CAN choose to play WoW on a very casual level.  But you can also choose to play it 40+ hours a week, have max level crafters of every profession, raid nightly, PvP for those coveted top arena ratings, be in a world PvP guild that is dedicated to constantly killing the other faction's leaders in massive raids on major cities, strive to be the highest ranked raid guild on the server with the furthest progression, try to get exalted with every faction in the game and earn all of the epic mounts, collect every single pet you can obtain in the game (I know a woman that did this on our server, and some of them were VERY difficult to get), etc., etc., and so on.  You can even choose to do ALL of those things, although...you'd probably die of exhaustion.

I'm not a casual player.  I have a maxed level crafter of all professions but two of them, and I'm working on ONE of those at the moment.  I have six level 70s, a character of EVERY class (though other than those six, they're not maxed YET), I'm in a huge raid guild that is "famous" on our server for raiding Alliance cities, downing Alliance bosses, and coming to the defense of lower level players being ganked by Alliance idiots and griefers. I have characters with officer level PvP titles from prior to Burning Crusade, etc., etc.....blah blah blah, I'm just saying here.  Okay?  If you think I've not played "hardcore"....you're deluding yourself.  (I USED to play EQ, by the way, and I STILL play EQ2.  Camping and corpse runs, did NOT appeal to everyone and are NOT the only definition of "hardcore.")

But just because ONE player plays like I do....should everyone else be forced to do the same?  No.  Successful games are able to accomodate for varied interests and varied levels of commitment to the game, as far as time invested by the player.  This is why EQ no longer HAS millions of players.  But those that the game APPEALS to...are still there.

Oh, and before anyone says, "I thought you were harping on people having 'responsibilities' and you're saying you play 40+ hours a week?"  I'm retired, my children are grown.  There are a LOT of people like me, in the same or similar circumstances, that are often overlooked in the gaming market.  I would guess that a lot more of them are "hardcore" than the larger number of people in their 20s that play, simply because we HAVE MORE TIME to dedicate to a game.  But I certainly do NOT think that a game should cater ONLY to MY personal tastes.  I think lack of DIVERSITY in a game's community makes it, eventually, very very boring.

^^^ All of that is just MY opinion, of course.

 

 

Excellent post!

Very excitied would be an understatement.  I love Bioware's entire stable of games, and I have every confidence that the game will be excellent.  And the fact there is going to be tons of story driven content is excellent news, imo.  MMO's most often sadly lack any kind of deep lore element, so this will be right up my alley.

And to those who are so overtly negative there is a simple solution.  Don't play.

Agreed.....great update to a great game that I have enjoyed off and on since release.  While I think the pinnacle release so far was EoF, I still enjoyed Kunark immensely, and have high hope for SO.  The guild hall addition was great, but the thing I am most happy about it the dual-core support, which has made a world of difference performance-wise.

Originally posted by Demz2

Originally posted by skydragonren

I think the OP's statement was directed to the fact that until WOW came about teamplay, grouping, and the such were much more in play.

 

WoW brought about the age of leetomgbbqftw and everyone solo grinding to max, BGing for points over teamplay and arena in 2,3 or 5 for gearz.

 

It is a WoW specific problem as opposed to other games who encourage team play.

WoW encourages solo play and solo mindset.

 

In essence WoW is to blame for a lot of the way new age players interact with each other.

Agreed more WAR players came from other games NOT wow, but even those players prolly started in wow and have always and only know the solo mentality.

 

jesus bloody christ this site is just in cloud fairy land.  hey while we are at it lets blame blizzard for the world financial crisis and all the banks going bust, hell lets blame blizzard for the iraq war, lets blame them for aoc succking donkey, lets blame them for Warhammer being a singplayer game, lets blame blizzard for Vanguard sucking ass, lets blame blizzard for world hunger, lest blame blizzard for aids.

 

GET A BLOODY GRIP ON REALITY.

Agreed.....the forums on this site are a source of unending entertainment.  It's really a laugh-riot!

Nope, been lots of fun so far.

While the summer is a bit of a slow period in all MMO's, I have found that since the Echoes of Faydwer x-pac, and continuing through Rise of Kunark that the game is actually doing better then at any point since release.  The current subscription numbers, as well as the constant bustle (anecdotal though that is) on Butcherblock all point to quite a healthy game.  I definitely don't think a server merger is required, especially in the summer, when numbers are down across the board, in all games.

Originally posted by afoaa

The OP is just being human. Like almost all of us he wants things to be like in his glory days and scoff at new things that do it differently than in his youth (he just started that view on the world a bit earlier than most people).

Every single generation of humans has always scoffed at new things and how people dont do stuff like they did when they were young and "what was good enough for us is good enough for the young too".

But the truth is that the world always move and leave people behind in their personal past where they listen to music from that time and dream of the fun stuff they did while they dont like or understand the new stuff.

And be sure that in 5-15 years from now those who are having a buzz out of AoC will scoff and moan about new online games at that time and talk about how dumped down and simple they are and how things were better when they played AoC in the good old days.

To the OP, you can never ever recreate what you enjoyed earlier in life. Its an impossiblity because even a perfect copy of the past wont give you the same buzz because YOU are no longer the same and it will all be artificial and sick.

Most logical and well thought-out answer I have seen on these boards in eons....cheers!

I am enjoying the game tremendously...no hitches, no crashes, few bugs (if any), and everyone I play with regularly feels the same...but am I gonna try to convince anyone to play it?  No.  Not worth the headache.

Bye!  If that is a real game-breaker for ya, I doubt you've been happy with an MMO since about 1998, and probably never will be again.

Originally posted by sonicsix

 

Originally posted by Kasmar

The $50 for the client pays for the years of development cost of the game.  The game company is perfectly within their rights to recoup those costs which are substantial. 

You should also be able to try the game out before you buy the client, which is why most game companies today offer a free trial.  If you like the game after the free trial then you can buy the client.

The monthly fee pays for the ongoing development of the game, the huge bandwidth costs, and for the server maintenance costs, plus any other expenses involved in running an online game. 

Games which do not charge a monthly fee have other ways of recouping their expenses.  No company is going to pay you to play their game. 

 

 

I see.  You're saying you don't mind paying for the client only to find out the game is crap.  Your $50 goes to help pay for the development of game you aren't going to continue playing past the 30 days that came with the client purchase.  Brilliant, just brilliant.

 

Hardly.  He did say a free trial should be standard, and a large majortiy of games these days do offer that, so I am not sure what your problem is....you are trying the game, with no initial cost, and no monthly fee.  problem solved.  But if you decide the game is worthwhile, I see no problem with them charging you for the game.

But what have you won?  Absolutely nothing, unfortunately.  Your game is gone, never to return, and while teaching Lucasarts and Soe a lesson may be an admirable short-term goal, it has done nothing productive except inch your long-gone home closer to oblivion.

Yes, it will be fine....I ran that card on the 3200+, and it worked like a charm.

No, and I don't think they should......every game has it's time, and SWG will be gone within 2 years.

Originally posted by heerobya

I don't know about ya'll, but I play MMOs for fun.

I wouldn't find it fun to have to re-do months (or years) of content because I made one small mistake that got my character killed.

In any game that is progression based, where you do something, complete that something, then move on to something else (i.e. 99% of games) you can't have perma-death. Most people get very, very tired of repeating the same content over and over and over.

In the glory days of the Arcade, you had permadeath. You got as far as you could on your quarter then when you got the game over, that was it. You'd have to start back at the beginning.

Then they added the "Continue?" option, put another quarter in, keep playing from where you left off!

And you know what happened? People started playing a lot more, and they started paying a lot more.

The removal of perma-death happened decades ago, and it's never coming back in a marketable product.

Exactly.

Originally posted by salvaje

 

Originally posted by miagisan

ego much? I think you have reiterated this point....oh...forget it, i lost count lol. And besides, even if they reinstated you said you wouldn't come back unless XXX and XXX etc were fired, so unless your getting desperate this won't change :)

 

The terms on which I'd consider coming back, as I've stated previously:

1.  Classic servers are ONLINE.  Not promised, ONLINE.

2.  John Smedley has been fired.  Not reassigned, fired.

3.  Ditto for Chris Cao.

There are others, but those are the three non negotiable demands.

 

Considering you'll never get any of these things, and you've made the same point 8 million times, don't you think it's time to actually give it a rest and find something more productive to do with your time?

Originally posted by sh4dowst4lkr

 

Originally posted by Munki

its kinda funny that people consider hardcore gaming bad.

I used to do homework hardcore.. im talking 4 hours+ a day.
I used to play soccer hardcore.. but that was cool. I could say I play soccer more than 4 hours a day, and people go "wow dedicated"

I say I play wow more than 4 hours and they go "omg your addicted..."

Its kinda funny the distorted perception people have, even those you play the game. The people who play wow 8 hours a day then say "wow ruined my life" or junk like that. Or the ever famous, im addicted but I cant stop.

People spend 7 hours in a bloody shopping mall as teenagers. People can go out and drink/club from 10 to 4am.. thats a 6 hour grind session. Problem is, people think thats cool, yet 6 hours of a video game with friends is baaaaaaad.

Its just what people choose to do with their time. If you fill your time with video games, great, you enjoy them. If your shrugging off your family and everything cause your playing games... Thats not the game, your just a moron and need to stop using the game as an excuse for your problems.

I've played Wow for 8 hour stints.. heck ive done 12 hours with friends, get home at noon from class and played till midnightish, ofcourse we stop for dinner and food. last time we went out for chinese :P

spending 8 hours playing a game is no worse than 3 hours of reading, followed by an hour of tv, followed by a hour of pissing the house and then 3 hours of video games...

its just your HORRIBLY distorted perception, and abuse of the word addiction.

 

Worth quoting again... thats so true I mean from training for basketball then playing it took hours I go to get some R and R for a few hour playing video games with my mate4s and my mum gives me shit.. ain fair I tell yah but it is truly difficult to alter someones perception especially as stuburn as a mother's LOL!

Unfortunately, if you don't see the difference between the activities mentioned, and time spent online, then you probably really do have a problem....life is all about balance and priorities.