All Posts by Gishgeron

This is a KOTOR MMO.

Jedi isn't a "class"  All players would be sensitive to the force...and all players would progress through varying branches of it in their path toward one end or another.  The "classes" would be areas of the force they specifically trained in.  Those among you who argue against this are SWG castaways who forget that THIS universe is entirely different from the one presented in that game.

First...the era before the rise of the empire had plenty of force sensitive people.  Plenty of trained jedi as well.  If you actually follow the lore, Vader essentially slaughtered entire civilizations worth of people killing them all off.  The theme behind KOTOR was never "Playing as Uncle Ben".  It was about BEING one of those force sensitive, and playing through their growth.  Granted, it all turned out that you were a massively powerful dark side mofo that lost his memory...but THAT is for single player games.

Mark my words...all players will have ties to force powers.  That is the very backbone of the KOTOR universe.  As I have said before, there is actually 5000X more wiggle room for massive skill and ability choices if they go that route than otherwise anyway.  Its far better for balance to NOT have an alpha class anyway. 

  I dunno, I can actually see an angle here that DOES give credit to the hateful vets for the eventual death of SWG.  See...the Bioware MMo is not going to be anything like Pre-CU.  Its most likely going to be far more similar to the standard rollercoaster MMO with some wide options to put it in line with the KOTOR series.  What that translates into is a situation where players who are merely playing SWG for the IP and the style are going to leave it for Bioware as they will provide a better overall game cut from that cloth.

  However, had they simply left the old game alone....the hateful vets would have stuck around, because they liked the sandbox appeal of it.  In short by throwing US away to appeal to that crowd...they have completely destroyed any chance at all of surviving this new game.   By persisting on not playing galaxies....the vets ensure there are NO players that will be around to pull SOE out of this.

  So, no, the vets may not have been the crux behind which the new MMO was made.  They would have been the cushion to save SOE from eventual loss when it is made, however. 

I believe I hear the death knell ringing in the distance.

I'm not going to flame or fan out here....I'm just going to say that I've always thought that another SW MMO would come out, and that it would signal then end of this one.  Of SWG's small playerbase...there are a great many who are only there because of the IP.  If given the same IP, but from a better company with a better product...it will be akin to watching rats flee a sinking ship.

  Hex's post was pretty harsh.....

  There are a very substantial number of people who, when starting at the bottom of a given field, have to work for free just to get the needed experience under them.  Fashion, Music, Acting....these are just a few from the top of my head that require you to work for free in small venues before you EVER get looked at for anything with a salary attached to it.  As a musician myself...let me assure you, I've played at some pretty bottom tier places just to get the sound out there and get more comfortable with playing on a stage.

  Its a natural part of moving forward into a career.  I'm rather insulted that Hex would say any of the things that were said.  Hell...Yahtzee Croshaw got his start doing nothing more than making youtube videos.  I bet every last one of us would probably laugh at the very ideal of using THAT as a "resume item", but using nothing more than this he is now being paid to do something he loved.

  I know that I personally find mmorpg.com miles more professional (in regard to its writers) than something I'd pull off of youtube.  They are a site that is recognized by basically ALL of the industry.  Being backed by a group of people who are considered highly in the industry you are interested in is a GREAT way to break in, if you ask me.

EDIT:  there ARE...not there IS.  Good god, I apparently need to go back to high school for a month.

Originally posted by Maelkor

I suppose it comes down to something pretty simple. Most men love cute things - IE cute girls to hang out with look at etc. Only wierd males that I know of like to be the cute thing. To play an MMO usually means for most people to enter the world and envision yourself as being what that world represents. So to walk into an MMO world based on cuteness to envision yourself as the center of that cuteness is just a little wierd and odd, definately not for me :) . I do think though there is potentially a huge untapped market of females that would love that sort of thing and so I say go for it to them.

I dont know a single thing about this MMO and the closest I have come to the Hello Kitty world is a girl I knew about 5 years ago really loved the Hello Kitty stuff and even then I pretty much figured it was a girly thing and left it at that.

  Interesting post...it ties in with the insecurity thing well.  See...the very need to play a game and immerse yourself only in the character which best fits what you wish YOU could be is a big red flag for some deep security problems.  I do like to play things which are things I cannot be in real life....but most times my character is simply means to an end in that regard.

  I often do not view my character in game as some kind of virtual representation of my own self.  Except in CoX...where I actually MADE a character that looked exactly like me.  That technically WOULD be a virtual exactness of my own personal self.

My turn.

1:  Vibrant and interesting world.  I should be able to leave my first play session wanting to get back on to see the next zone....even if I hate everything else about it.

2:  User friendly and in depth UI.  For those who are incapable of CREATING one...I would simply direct them to WoW and demand a copy paste.  I could not care less if they ripped off the WoW one entirely...it worked, and fell well within my expectations of having a good one.

3:  Solid customization.  I need to be able to tweak my toon...frankly CoX has spoiled me, and in doing so...taught me that the only way to truly love your character (and thus, log onto him daily) is to have full control of his appearance and skillset.

4:  Controls that make bloody sense.  Seriously...at this point we should no longer have to debate over control schemes.  WASD should work, Click systems should work, and there should be a fully realized keymapping system in place to cover those that the first two didn't.  If I'm going to be playing something for 2-6 hours, the control set up had BEST not complicate the process.

5:  Innovation.  No joke...I've played it all before.  I'll by god play it again if you don't offer me something they didn't.

6:  Fluid combat with GOOD animation.  Combat should never have hitching, and nothing therein should remove you from the immersion of being in battle.  Regardless of whether you use active combat or not, it needs to be fluid and doing so IS possible for both.

7:  Writers who have a clue.  Seriously.  These aren't flash games.  I don't want to be FORCED to hear everything they have to say....but when I take the notion I'd like for it to actually pay off.  If your team is using writers with a history of nothing but childrens books...PASS.

8:  A simple and effective trade/merchant system.  A world wide auction house would be fine for me.  I don't WANT realistic.  When I take the notion to wander across 5 million stalls...I'll go to a flea market and actually get something I can have for the rest of my life.  Having to hunt across stalls just means I'm not enjoying the actual GAME.

9:  Crafting that wasn't designed by the guys who made lincoln logs.  Make me want to craft, people.  I DO get tired of smashing face....most of these worthless games offer me nothing else.

10:  Grouping that is rewarded, but not forced.  Simple, but not invasive.  Something backed by GREAT grouping UI (I direct you to WoW again.  The mod community there should have been hired on the spot for this kind of stuff)

  Last, and a clear tie with #10

11:  No horrid grinds.  I'll seriously tear your &@(#@*& face off if you even THINK of trying to sucker me into playing for 3 years because of how long it takes to reach cap.

  I actually plan to give the game a shot.  Hell, I've given lesser ones their chance...I see no cause to deny HKO its chance to stand on its own merits.  I also happen to be a man, married, and never one to have many issues when dealing with the opposite sex either.  I suppose I would then lack the proper insecurities required to be a "hater'.

  Frankly, at this point....HKO has just as much chance to kick ass as anything else.  I don't see any of the "men" games rocking socks off these days.  I'd actually be a major supporter of the "slap in the face" an HKO success would give this god forsaken industry.  It would be hilarious to see how SOE felt after realizing that, not only did they lose practically ALL of their market share to Blizzard....but that the greatest triad of cute, cute, and more cute also tore a second hole in their morally void anuses.

  Hell, forget having a good game.  I'd give these guys a single paid month just to see THAT happen.

Originally posted by Slampig

It is a good thing people like you and the SWG "Vets" are there to look out for us.

I mean, who knows  what would happen if we actually had to decide for ourselves...

 

  To be fair, in the case of SWG they at least have free trials up.  That game can burn on its own merits, and at no cost to you.

  So far as I have heard...there is no free trial here.  So the lies perpetuated by the company DO sort of need some opposition in order to at least inform people BEFORE making a purchase.  If you had to decide for yourself (and are among the many of us who would find a 50$ investment that leads to disappointment substantial loss) then you would simply be out the money and time. 

  Dunno 'bout you, hoss....but I ain't gettin' no younger.  Ain't gettin' no richer either. 

  While I think that neonaka probably needs a great deal more in terms of actual life experience and morality...I do feel the need to remind all of you of this:

  When defending the freedoms of a good man, you must also defend those of the crook.  In either case, should one's freedom fail...both will.

  The stickler here is two-fold, however.  Glider was a program you had to buy.  See...the thing here is...they are making money off of a product they do not actually hold any rights to.  On top of that, the software in question creates a situation that makes the product less enjoyable for those whom do not use it.  I think its sweet, neo, that you don't use the bot to farm gold...I really do.  The trouble is, it takes only ONE person to use it that way for it to impact every player on the server.  Now, I think you'd be willing to agree that there are a great deal more than one single player on each server using it to farm mats and gold for them.

  At the end of the day....you can never allow one mans freedom to take away from another mans freedom.  Your freedom to use that bot presents other players with an issue.  They can no longer simply play as casually as they were and progress financially as they did when they began.  They have lost their freedom to play their game as they were unless they pay this man for his bot.  I think its very sad that you support this...because this country is having some tough economic problems right now, and forcing people to pay even MORE money just to play the game they way they were before you came along is pretty terrible.

  You also take this court matter too far, neo.  The judge did not create a situation where you cannot HAVE the bot.  Indeed, you can still have the bot.  You cannot, however, run it while playing WoW.  You are allowed to have whatever you want on your PC.  You are not allowed to USE whatever you want when it pertains to the case of another persons property, of effects another persons freedom.  Similarly, you can own a gun all you want.  You cannot, however, use it to rob me and, thus, "save time" from having to go to work for 8 hours that day.

  In either case, you must understand that you are using something that takes something away from someone else.  Worse, you are financially supporting someone who both:

A:  Doesn't actually care two bits about you or your well being

B:  Deliberately operates in teh shadows amidst a sea of secrets and lies.

  I'm not sure why you feel so good doing that....nor do I understand why you feel you should defend him.  What he does is wrong....and he makes a fat stack of profit over creating a situation that damages the game for other players.  If you don't understand how botting hurts the players...I direct you to Silk Road.  Go ahead...play that game for a day.  Go see what happens when a game is allowed to have its botters run free and wild.  Level 12 items begin to cost well over 500 times what any legit level 12 person could have.  Good xp spots begin to be overcamps by the botters....denying the honest player a shot at it, forcing him to pick at the scraps left and level far slower.  Hell...that game even had PK, so the botters (whom were far better geared) would also be KILLING you.

  Game companies HAVE to stand hard, and stand fast against it.  If they let up...it gets out of control.

  Bah, lawsuits are things that cannot often be applied to the entertainment world.  The most one could ever get back is their initial money anyway...that assumes the court doesn't find the whole matter "frivolous".  Most serious courts aren't going to be assed with going through all these motions over pocket change.  One would be lucky to not be held in contempt for wasting taxpayer money on such things.

  The closest act I've ever seen in the gaming industry which could have possibly warranted such a thing was the NGE anyway.  The implications there were much more far reaching...and involved a LOT more money.  Even then, you'll notice, no success story has been heralded involving someone actually DOING it and winning.

Originally posted by Thomas2006

The only year Darkfall showed up at E3 they had nothing more then a booth to show of the game. There was no demo or anything other then some screenshots and paper info of the game.

This year they didn't even bother to show up at E3. Doesn't much sound like a game that is anywhere near launch.

  What....you didn't hear?  They are taking a totally NEW and GROUNDBREAKING path for releasing info and hard evidence about their game.

  They aren't.

  We should totally applaud them and support such new and innovative ideals.  It is something I'll be getting right around too....right as soon as I get done buying that swampland and finish playing Duke Nukem Forever.   I should probably thank those guys too...they seem to all be taking the very same approach, as it were.  Hmmm....now that I recall, very few of the people I meet in dark alleys seem to want to show me any of the great stuff they keep telling me about. 

  A trend, perhaps?

Originally posted by Souldrainer

AoC never cut anything.  Common misconception among those who did not read up on the change.  They MERGED several classes into others.  Waylayer was merged into ranger.  Lich mas merged into necro.  Druid of the storm was merged to Guardian and TOS, and Lotus Master was merged into Assassin.  So, what was actually cut? NOTHING.

This excessive misinformation is what mainly annoys me about the haters.

  Perhaps I missed something...

  I'm only paying attention to the most recent posts in the thread, so you'll have to excuse me if I've overlooked this....but the only thing I've heard said (in these recent posts) is that Funcom failed to deliver on some things promised, not that they cut things.  They DID cut things.  Bar fights, for one, is a real easy one to spot.  The entire bloody money PvP system is another.  Thats neither here nor there really....since the most current discussion was strictly about the comparison between WAR and AOC and the choice both are making and each implication therein.

Originally posted by darkstar912

 

Mythics cuts are minor to what AoC promised and failed to deliver.

  I feel compelled to add that they are also being very open and honest about what they cannot deliver.  That happens to be something ELSE that Funcom is in serious need of evaluating.   I think that Funcom might have seen a much lessened degree of backlash had they simply said:

  "Hey guys....look.  We've pushed back as far as our investors feel safe in letting us before seeing at least a little revenue back.  We don't want to have to pull the plug on this thing, so we're gonna lay it out for you.  Some things aren't perfect right now, and I know that it sucks.  Overall, the core gameplay is running fairly well...and the vast majority of you should enjoy the first month of your game time well enough that it won't bother you.  We're gonna do our best to get this patched up quickly, so here are some things to note:"

  ...and then just told us all what areas needed more work.  Instead, they deliberately placed a gate over the beta (the one free of NDA) so that people couldn't SEE the problem, and then shadily hid from the fans many of the glaring issues.  True, honesty would have earned them some hits from players who just don't want to play a game that has problems.  But having that kind of solid relationship with its community would have earned their trust...and secured many a subscription that they have now lost to the ages.  If nothing else, it would have found them in a kinder light with the players AND the media for doing the right thing.

  Now....if only we could get the people around here to act that way as well.  Just as we need to stand up and refuse to waste money on half-arsed attempts and lies, we also need to support honesty and decent behavior.  If we don't do both, we fail in either.

Originally posted by smitty0356

Generally speaking, if a game is going to cut it's core content and has to release a statement as to why, they have cut many things that are less obvious in secret.  Maybe I'll be wrong, but I wouldn't expect much high level zone polish.

Just like AOC it started out great, then players got to the zones that weren't up to par, and they realized that the content cuts were just the tip of the iceberg.

  I dunno man....the testers have been able to go through that content I believe and I've yet to hear about anything lacking.  There are always leaks, its not even hard to find them.  Most importantly, the NDA will be dropped long before release...so its not something we will have to speculate over before buying.  In fact, the very fact that the NDA IS going to drop so early is a good sign that the polish is probably spot on. 

  Otherwise, they would pull teh same move as Funcom and keep people restricted to low level zones until release.  I KNEW what was going on when they did that.  WAR is being very open about all aspects of their game thus far...while I'd never expect a "holy grail", I do think it speaks volumes for their game.

Originally posted by daarco

Originally posted by ddev

Pro testers, with only requirement the  "love for games" ???? and some english speaking??????

Very professional indeed.

 

And still its better then any other beta we have read about.  Most times we see big adds all over the internet, any idiote can apply. I have more respect for laidback ones as we see here.

Here they can find people that want to test the game, not play it. And mostly local ones, making feedback and comunication smoothly.

  Ummm...no it isn't.   First off, this isn't an open beta invite situation.  Its an internal beta situation...generally speaking most companies DO employ seasoned game developers and personnel for that phase of the job.  Not one single respectable MMO company has ever used a local ad for dragging the greenies in for internal tests.  Hell, most of them just use the same team that MADE the game to do it...with a handful of extras.

  In case you weren't paying attention, by the way, any idiot can STILL apply.  The only difference is, only the idiots on the same block as them will ever get to....further leading us down the same path where they never let anyone outside their "circle" see or hear anything of importance.  Worse yet, it means they are so low funded that they cannot afford support for the ideal beta testing....forcing them to use a small handful of people off the streets of greece to supposedly do the testing of a full fledged testing workforce.

  Communication has never really BEEN an issue.  Jesus man, most of the "communication" used during testing phases is done from programs which monitor things that are happening.  Beyond that, its not really hard to use a simple built in mailing tool to report things.  Even a basic forum offers enough ease in communication to overlook using JUST local people.  That is, unless, you think it is somehow harder to read a forum that it is to walk cubicle to cubicle asking everyone whats going on.

  You, my friend, are a very desperate man to spin things for them.

  I love answering these kinds of questions.

  My entrance into RPG's was heralded by the very first Final Fantasy for the NES.  For me, an avid reader, having a large plot and wide world was something that just turned me on immediately.   I can't remember exactly what came after it...I do remember watching for Americas second incarnation (labeled Final Fantasy 2 here) for the SNES for what seemed like forever.

  Moving on, though.

  My first MMO would have technically been Ultima.....had I been able to actually play it.  Having never left the city, and thus, never seen its wide world...I didn't even bother with it again.  Open PK is a dead ideal for me...I want to get my bearings in the very least.  The first actual MMO I was involved in was actually EQOA for teh PS2.  I was hooked for a long time....but eventually dropped it when my brain finally realized how absolutely crappy spending hours looking for a group to do even the most menial tasks was.  From there I think I looked into SWG for a time, and even CoH (before villains...it wasn't until that came out that I actually began to enjoy the game) before settling into WoW.  To this day, I have yet to play an MMO that was as good as WoW.

  I'm currently in CoV, and while I realize that this would seem to conflict with my prior statement, bear with me.  I love my CoV characters way more than I loved my WoW ones.  Even though the Warcraft world is a few thousand times better as an actual world (tons to see, glorious use of sound and music coupled with some of the most interesting locations ever conceived) being attached to my character means more to me now.  Being able to make him exactly as I see fit, and being able to really influence his growth instead of simply playing passenger to it.

  One thing all the reflection I've done about my own game history has shown me is this:

  Our tastes grow and change.

  What I loved about a game 4 years ago will be something I hate about them now.  Parlor tricks can only amuse one for so long...as others innovate their own projects I begin to expect more of my own.  For me, this genre has staled, and is seemingly stuck in perpetual stagnation because there is never a break in the mold.  People have stopped saying, "Wouldn't it be cool if you could do this?" and simple stuck to, "This has already been proven cool, lets do this".

  It would be nice to have an RPG steal me away again, though.  Even Squaresoft has failed me...stepping backwards from the massive innovation in FF7-FF10.  Between FF10-2 and FF12 (never you mind the, in my opinion, horrible FF11) I've long lost faith in them to be able to craft something good anymore.  Then again, maybe I'm just getting too old now.  I hope not, I still love my old RPG's for what they were. 

  (Fun Fact:  My favorite RPG off all time is Legend of Mana for the original playstation tied with Crono Trigger)

Originally posted by AgtSmith

Originally posted by Ascension08 

I hope you'll at least try the game.

 

I don't think I will try it now.  While I respect that they where up front about this they are clearly focused more on releasing by a certain date than finishing the game.  I am sick and tired of MMOs shipping unfinished and obviously rushed out the door and will no longer give such games a try.  If a developer wants by business, at launch or even after, they had better ship a well polished and complete game.  I think more gamers should adopt this attitude or we are just going to get the same flaky and unfinished crap offered up.

  I"m confused.

  You say you refuse to deal with unfinished crap...but when a company cuts something out in order to make everything presented fully polished and finished, you are mad at them?  The ideal here IS to have a polished and completed game.  They decided to cut some fat off of the meat...so what?  From where I am sitting, removing the unneeded sieges (which only serve to divide the playerbase into chunks or vastly different size, and thus ensure a PoTBS debacle) and taking out "repeat" classes is a good move if they want to not only HAVE a solid and polished game....but also get it out the door before the majority of the MMO market share spend their only holiday money on WoW YET AGAIN.

  Most people don't buy two games a week, and neither do they play more than one MMO at once.  If 10 million buy WoTK....thats pretty much ALL of the MMO market not playing WAR for a long time.  Granted, it may seem a little hasty...but if they pushed back again, it would have to be for nearly another year in order to enter the market at a time which was most "consumer ready" for it.  Doing so would either mean:

 A:  Paying for the whole team for another 6-8 months before drawing profit.  This drives the initial investment WAY up, and greatly raises their "green line" to a point where it becomes nearly guaranteed to be a financial fiasco.

or

 B:  Laying off the workers after the classes are done (work which is being spent on pretty useless fat anyway) until the market is ready for another MMO.  What this does is drive the core of the dev team to seek work elsewhere....