By the way, Icewind Dale II was developed by Black Isle Studios and not Bioware. I'll just go ahead and mention that, because they seem to get mixed up quite often. Black Isle, which was shut down, was a really solid game studio, too. It was the development house for the first two Fallout games, the two Icewind Dale games and Planescape: Torment. An amazing record. Got me thinking, I wonder where those guys are now...

Random stranger kindness...

Closely followed by random stranger intelligence

This year's award for Major Point of Hype goes to...

What else, Bioware and their amazing record in storytelling. Really, give them any franchise and trust them to make a solid game out of it.

When they take an IP, they habitually outdo it. They did this with Star Wars and they did this with Forgotten Realms. They bring character to whatever they lay their hands on.

But could this storytelling flair make itself as useful and rich in an MMO environment? Well, there's the rub. Still I'd say it's a good hope to keep going.

Well, that's what pulling a 24h in front of a CRT does to you, doesn't it? :) Actually when people talk about "sandboxes" now, I can't help but remember how my eyes felt back then - like they were full of sand!

The one thing that is hard to put your finger on - and hence achieve - in such games but is nevertheless a big hook for the players is a universe with character. Seeing their take on AI and their vision of an ever busy space, I'm hoping these developers  will achieve that.

Very nice read. Brings back fond memories of Frontier and Privateer.

Originally posted by matthewf978

The wide population of christians believe Jesus to have been a peaceful icon. Therefore, the genre of a mmo involving Jesus or christianity would be unlike most of the other games currently listed here on mmorpg. It isn't unreasonable for such a game to be created, but it is highly unlikely that any of the audience who participates here would be interested in the theme.

Your 'Turn The Other Cheek' ability is on cooldown!

I guess few people would get back here and resubmit ratings after they're bored with the game. So these would mostly project the players' feelings about the game on its launch.

Not a big deal. Just look at it as "how it was received in its first days".

Resetting, on the other hand, is just not fair. A fairer way would be to give two sets of rating, one for "overall" and one for "recent". But with this sort of content, editors mostly like to keep it clean and crisp.

For me Tabula Rasa went from "a lot of fun" to "dead boring" so fast It should get a reward for it. I guess that tells me the concept could be successful, but this particular one went nowhere with it. I don't know what the latest fashion is but bland repetition and lack of content is just not cool in an MMO - devs need to bring multi-layered back

For a moment there I was about to agree that crafting is pretty lame in WAR.... But then I look at the title and... Sorry, when did they un-lame WoW's crafting?

Come on, both games are lacking in this regard.

Originally posted by Arawon

Ummm.....more WOW like character graphics.Have to say I'm disappointed.

You have to have a narrow perspective of art styles to say that. Yes, it's highly stylized but the style itself is nowhere near WoW's. I'd even go ahead and say they belong to altogether different visual design traditions.

Don't expect very high-detailed textures and cutting edge graphics from this one, but the art style is fantastic. The models are not as detailed as those in some new MMOs out there, but they have a character of their own. And that's enough to get me going.

That "review" bit just seems like an unfortunate choice of words to me. Obviously you cannot call what you write on a game after a one-hour stint a review. Particularly when it's an MMO! It's more of a a quick hands-on preview.

And it looks like this was just meant to tell people that Darkfall exists and that it has a working UI, movement and combat mechanics and an AI... And that the graphics are not horriby dated. There is a load of ground to cover yet with all sorts of MMO mechanics (especially since this one is very ambitious in those), but I don't think this quick preview was meant to cover or even test it. Comments on the real meat of the game will probably require some hefty playtime. I'm guessing we wait till an open beta before we get those.

Out and out a vicious circle:

Developers think players may not be able to find active RVR in their limited play time, so decide to provide them with isolated and controlled PVP areas... But then what happens? Yep, the players go "OK, I'll take that, maybe not as good as open world RVR but better than waiting and getting no action". This gradually becomes the norm and that bleeds the RVR dry, because now there are no people outside looking for it..

Mythic should have come up with another alternative, one that would let them funnel the players into the RVR lakes. Or none at all.