I'm with ya, my wizard has been level 7 for several months now due to inability to get groups, especially for quests that are new to me, which would be most of them since it's my first character. I haven't even logged into the game at least a month because of discouragement. I'm sure a bigger guild would help, but I really enjoy the atmosphere in my current guild even though it's gotten smaller and much less active.

On the other hand, I've been curious for a long time to join a permadeath guild. Even rolled a cleric just for that, but I figured I play DDO so casually anyway, and I'd play permie even more casually, that I shouldn't waste a permie guild's time.

GW1 will be active for quite some time to come. People with older systems who won't be able to run the newer GW2 engine. People who prefer the "not based on levels" of GW1. People who prefer no Z-axis. (Yes, they exist!) Not to mention the Hall of Monuments will still accrue your achievements after GW2 launches, so we're likely to see a lot of GW2 players keep coming back to GW1 for more HoM achievements to carry over.

Plus, with no monthly fee anyway, you don't have to "quit" GW1 anyway. It's always there to come back to, free of charge.

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Originally posted by UbinusCol
I'm not against going Prophesies again, as long as I can do it relatively quickly and move on past the stuff I know. Factions seems kind of cool too, but leveling seems to be TOO quick.

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Seems like opposing views there: you want to be able to rush through most of Prophecies but Factions levels you too quickly?

Here's a huge tip: levels don't matter. The point of Factions (and Nightfall) leveling you fast is the rest of the game is level 20 content. The 1-20 stuff on the "noob island" is essentially the tutorial part of the game and playing through the campaign's back story. Prophecies is the only one of the three campaigns that takes you through the main story while you level.

Also keep in mind you can bring your Mesmer over to Factions, skipping all that leveling a new character stuff. Unless you forgot to link the two campaigns to a single account.

I never played AC so I apologize if these questions sound strange.

I hear AC is primarily a skills-based game, while your level is merely an indication of total xp, is that roughly correct?

Is there a leveling up process where your character grows with each "ding" and then after a certain point, the growth stops? ie. is there a theoretical level cap where the number over your head keeps increasing but the only further growth is in your skills?

Also, do mobs also use this system? How do you tell which mobs are appropriate to gain xp or whatever you're after?

It's not "just" $40 million, it's another $40 million on top of what they've already raised in venture capital.

Last month they also raised $40 million in their third round of VC fund raising, bringing them up to $88 million in VC funds. Now they have another $40 million on top of that.

Consoles? Mac edition of LOTRO? Who knows... they hinted several months ago they're working on another project but haven't announced it yet.

Here is the actual announcement from Turbine.

The Time Warner guy did seem excited about the possibility of using one of their IP's as an MMOG. Add to that the Harry Potter MMOG rumor that was going around yesterday...

I'd still prefer to see Turbine do some sci-fi, with more sandboxy elements.

I rolled a monk and ended up in Smuggler's Cove doing the same content I did last year. If there's a new starting zone, I apparently missed it... Was really funny arriving in Stormreach and seeing all the other noob monks though!

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Originally posted by Servase
With Guild wars the investment is dependent upon the amount of expansions you buy. Every game is playable without the Original. You can buy factions without having the original and still play it. That's because Guild Wars is the original and NightFall and Factions are just campaigns. You do need Guild Wars in order too play EoTN however.

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Just a minor correction: Prophecies (the original game), Factions, and Nightfall are all campaigns. Eye of the North is the only expansion to the series, and requires any of the campaigns. Prophecies is not required for EotN.

That's also a valid concern that the devs have as well. They're continuing to develop housing and the neighborhood concept, but in the meantime we have mostly empty neighborhoods. Turbine doesn't want crafting stations in neighborhoods because that would take players out of the social quest hubs. So they're trying to come up with more stuff to do in the neighborhoods. Took awhile to get housing, it'll take awhile to get new activities, just like it takes awhile to get new adventuring content. Just give it all some time.

Agreed. Much as I'm not a fan of McQuaid, I'll at least go along with his original philosophy of Vanguard focusing on group content, not just funneling us into a raiding end-game. Raiding is all fine and good, but I'd rather have well-rounded group content of all varieties. I'm hoping the new SOE team doesn't try to corral us into a WoW-like raid progression with no other valid new content.

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Originally posted by KaltesHerz
Not the crafting community, other players who are getting the good drops that he's wanting himself, or so he can sell his own drops.

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Gotcha. That's interesting because many of the player's I've spoken to who are very anti-crafting are also very anti-economy, period. They believe all loot should be drops or perhaps quest rewards and they resent any form of an in-game economy. To me that would also exclude trading those drops since you're still creating an economy and depending on other players to trade theirs, as you noted.

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Originally posted by Kyleran
I never want to be dependent on the crafting community for my gear, so my games better have an auction house too.

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This seems contradictory, wouldn't having an auction house mean that you are being dependent on the crafting community?

Last I heard (and it's been several months so things may have changed) they were using the "next gen" version of the GW engine, so it should look even better without requiring too much of an upgrade for older systems.

And yeah, it'll have jumping, etc. as well. Don't have a link right now, but I read an interview awhile back that said their main reason for locking us onto the ground in GW1 was to prevent cheating. They didn't explain what type of "cheating" but said they have found a way to combat cheats and let us jump, climb, swim, etc. in GW2.

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Originally posted by JackDonkey
a nice crafting system can justify the open terrain and zero NPC errands.

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It's only justified for the crafters though. Adventurers remain in a perpetual "now what?" state. Also don't forget there are some players who downright resent crafting (and economies) at all and would prefer all drops.

I'll chime in with the time-line theme too. Turbine is taking a new design philosophy with LOTRO. Every other game plops you down and says "here's the whole game, this is it." You adventure, level up, dungeons, raids, but everything has been set before you from the first moment. LOTRO is following a story, and the world we play in (for now Eriador) is set in a certain time period when Eriador pretty much had no idea war was imminent and Sauron is approaching. The consequence of that is people whine that it's too boring, we're just glorified Pest Control running around killing boars and bears for 50 levels. Hopefully with each expansion and we get closer to the forces of Mordor (and they get closer to us) the level of danger will increase.

I'll not be happy to be outside the Black Gates and get a quest to kill 10 of Sauron's corrupted bears...

The 360 accepts any USB keyboard (including wireless) perfectly fine, and they have the "chat pad" accessory that snaps directly into the controller as well.

Keep in mind, this is an MMO so you're not playing on XBL with the public "Halo kids" who give XBL such a bad name. Added to that, it's as yet unproven just how much of a hullabaloo (always wanted to use that word) the situation will become over XBL Gold members who also pay to use the XBL services itself, in addition to paying the monthly fee for an MMO. (XBL Silver (non-paying) members can play MMO's as well, but not the XBL services.)

I'm hoping there's enough drama to maybe get Microsoft to adjust their pricing scheme, but I'm not holding my breath that a) they'll change or b) there'll be that many clamoring for the 360 AoC.

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Originally posted by admriker4
I don't need 5,000 quests to be happy. I'm fine with a gun, open terrain, and freedom to choose my own destiny. If I buy one more MMO and find I need to kill 10 boars over and over to level up I'm going to toss my computer out the window.

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On the flip side, if I hand you a gun and open terrain to "find your own destiny" with zero NPC errands, tasks or quests, what exactly would you have left to do? Oh yeah... kill 10 boars. Over and Over. And over. Just like an Asian F2P game.

The NDA is still up for Test Live (formerly Closed Beta) so I won't discuss game play, etc.

Performance-wise, Funcom has been busily patching AoC the past few days. Two patches yesterday, and another huge one this morning. The one today improved my own performance dramatically. Yesterday I was getting 15-30 fps outside Tortage (I forget what settings, I keep playing with it trying to find a sweet spot) and today's patch I'm getting 25-50 fps, sometimes up near 60. Most of the animation glitches and hitched jumping I had yesterday are gone today.

They're quite busy optimizing the engine's performance, and still have a few days until launch. I still think it's going to have some hiccups at launch, but in the past two days alone I've seen a lot of improvement.

AMD64 5200, 7950GT (1680x1050), 2GB DDR2, XP Pro.

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Originally posted by Jimmydean
Not having any forced grouping in MMORPGs is a bad bad thing.

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That's your opinion and as evidenced by, oh... every single MMO since FFXI, it's a minority opinion. I love grouping, but I don't want to be forced to do it. It should be my choice.

Almost sounds like he was expecting a console Final Fantasy game where you're loaded into a whole new screen for each combat encounter...