Originally posted by Teala

Wanna see what I wish we saw in MMORPG's when it comes to combat...just this....blood, sweat and muscles.   You can keep this...long TTK and flashy artsy combat.   

I agree. Looks like an Xbox game or something.

If I shoot a fireball I'd like to see a fire ball.

If I swing a sword, I'd like to see a sword swing, not a bunch of flashing lights to make the add crowd happy.

REALISM ---- Vanguard --- Darkfall --- EQ

Semi-Realism ---  WoW --- LotrO --- EQ2

Flash ---  Aion

Originally posted by Teala

Wanna see what I wish we saw in MMORPG's when it comes to combat...just this....blood, sweat and muscles.   You can keep this...long TTK and flashy artsy combat.   

although not a big fan of flashy animation, i find the high pitched girly "YAAAAAA" screams (as in that Aion video u linked) infinitely more annoying 

<3 Mount and Blade

A bit of flash is ok, but most games are over the top nowadays. Combat misses some 'punch (lol) when every stupid action requires my character to make a stupid little squeal and have graphics fly all over the screen. If those sort of graphics and sounds were reserved only for special moves I think I'd personally like them much more...

Originally posted by Teala

Wanna see what I wish we saw in MMORPG's when it comes to combat...just this....blood, sweat and muscles.   You can keep this...long TTK and flashy artsy combat.   

pew pew lasers rule!

blood, sweat and muscles? So you mean hardcore GAY porn?

Yeah mmogs are way to flashy. Don't misunderstand, i like it flashy but it just got really ridiculous to the point where the targeted enemy's become a ball of rainbow lights...

Some flash is okay, if it is used sparingly and as a way to differentiate moves which would be hard to tell just from the normal animation. I think  sound is much better overall. By tagging each movie with a unique pre-move sound effect, you can react just as well with less eyestrain or fatigue. The problem is that sound is often much easier to turn off, and That relying only on it makes gameplay impossible for hearing-impaired users.

It's better just to differentiate certain attack animations better. Give them unique charging animation stances. Like a couple seconds before fast blade, have your character lift his sword above his head. But for Seraph Blade, have your character quickly drop to a crouch. After, execute the move. If you need to use extensive flash effects, chances are you are trying to hide the fact your combat animations are bland or repetitive.

No thanks, I'd prefer not to have my combat go in slow mode every couple seconds, that seems truly lame.

I don't mind flash or lack of it either way. As long as the flash is not a replacement for the gameplay, it is fine with me. It seems some games try to dazzle you with flash to cover up the poor combat.

As someone mentioned earlier, sounds are what get me. I like to play with the sound and music on, and if either are crappy and annoying, it ruins my immersion and I just don't want to bother playing any more.

At least with flashy graphics, I can usually turn them down so I still see something, but not so over the top. With sounds though, I can't change them to something less annoying. It is either on or off (with various volumes).

if you think telegraphing a move with an animation lasting barely a second is slow mode, well, give me slow mode.  Especially if other players need to react to an animation to do a multi-player skillchain, or need to react defensively to a player skill, fast sucks.

I am not sure if I follow the OP correctly, but...

I HATE Auto-Attack combat. Auto-Attack has always been one of the worst tributes of MMORPG. How I long for more fantasy action games.. It's much more fun to swing a sword and chop someones head of in satisfying real-time, than shooting them from a distance. Sword fighting and martial arts are close and personal and honorable, and more exciting.

Most online games are shooters.. its easier to make shooters as the latency of who hits who, in a FPS is always there to confuse things. once you start doing it with swords and melee it gets harder. We have already seen Fantasy online action games fail like Dark Messiah and Lord of the Rings Conquest. Both games with potential...

Fantasy in MMORPG is over saturated, but in normal online FPS games its not there at all. I think many devs won't touch the subject with a ten foot pole.

The only memorable good online sword fighting game I have ever tried was Jedi Knight II: Outcast and Jedi Academy(which is still popular online to this day). These games had fun swordfighting.. you really felt like a Jedi while swining your sword in real time.

I have high hopes for Mount and Blade Warband(check youtube)... hopefully it will be the medieval battlefield many have always been dreaming about.

Games like Age of Chivalry(AoC, A HL2 mod), Oblivion, Witcher, and a few others have had interesting real time sword fighting, but none of it has really hit it home I think...

As for flash and over-the-top animations... Well yeah, I am personally a fan of minimalism. I am old fashioned and would prefer if everyone would wear similiar looking dark minimalistic armor, instead of purple circus clowns. It really was one of the things that just went out of hand in WoW. The designers kept having to up their outragous designs, to the point were the weapons, shoulders and armors got so big and insane looking that it looked like a clown army... it just stopped being cool looking fantasy.

That's why I still love Guild Wars. its still very toned down, with dye for all armors that make sense.. nobody looks out of line, the weapons are uniqe but still within the realm of beloning in a regiment of any medieval army. the slight individualism in MMOs is good, but I never understood the need to be the main OMFG hero in a MMORPG. Was that not what single player games are for? story driven and all that...? i thought MMOs should be about community and just being one small piece of a big effort in a war.. I hate it when quests are designed like you are the main hero. it doesnt make sense.

Some of the online MMOs / online RPGs I am looking most forward to like Continent of the Ninth(c9), TERA, Blade and Soul and Mabinogi Heroes, all have real-time combat... perhaps except for blade and soul which looks like Aion... But the others look almost like dyansty warriors, ninja gaiden or devil may cry in their fast paced nature, and I love that.

its a big plus for me. because I am getting fed uop with auto-attack.