Bottom line is the games are not really improving that much.

Those of us that have played for more years than we would like to admit just get tired of looking back at how many games had such promise and ended up either failing to launch , failed to launch without eliminating the bugs making them nearly unplayable, or ended up launching as a slight improvement over the last MMO we played.

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by sevitoth

Agreed, but he asked for the best gaming laptop for under $800.00, which that is. You can't expect to get an Alienware laptop for $800.00.

No, he asked for a gaming laptop and that just ain't a gaming laptop.

It is like asking for the best Scottish whiskey at a hill billie bar and get moonshine instead. Not really what OP wanted.

I don't think most people know how much worse an average laptop is for gaming than an average desktop.

Edit: And Alienware ain't that good either, not since Dell bought them. An ASUS is more bang for the buck.

So for example :  $779

ASUS U56E-RBL8 15.6" Laptop

• Intel® Core™ i5-2430M Processor (2.4GHz)
• 8GB installed memory
• 750GB hard drive
• SuperMulti DVDRW Drive
• 15.6" 16:9 LED Backlight (Slim type) display
• Wireless 802.11n with WiDi
• Integrated 1.5W (Max 2W) Altec Lansing speakers
• Integrated 0.3MP webcam and microphone
• Battery 8 cell 2.6AH U46/56; Up to 8 hours and 20 minutes of battery life
• Dimensions 14.88"(L) x 10.63"(W) x 1.06"(D) (5.48lbs)
• Microsoft Windows®7 Home Premium 64-bit
• 1 year warranty

How about the comparison of that and the desktop  I listed earlier. The only thing that really throws me is teh video graphics--- Actually found this for 699 at office depot

Sounds like the laptop might not be a great way to go right now then.

I went over and looked at some of the boxes out right now and found a decent one for about 600

• Intel® Core™ i5-2300 processor (2.8GHz)
• 6GB installed memory
• 1TB hard drive
• 16X DVDñR/RW SuperMulti Drive
• 802.11b/g/n WiFi CERTIFIED™
• Multi-in-One Digital Media Card Reader
• High-Definition Audio, 5.1-channel Surround Sound Support
• Microsoft Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• 1 year warranty

Originally posted by Loke666

Best gaming laptop under 800 bucks? You might as well ask for best bottle of wine for 2 bucks or most modern 15 year old game.

Sorry, but a good gaming laptop can be found with luck for 1200 bucks, but usually cost 1500.

Either you should get a desktop since you'll get an excellent one for that price or you should save a few more months.

Ok, based on that how about some desktops as well.

So I have had 2 PC boxes burn down in the last 6 months. Both were old, both were troubleshot until my eyes bled and my fingers had turned to talon like claws, and both are dead.

So when scouting out the new hardware out there I was agahst. Who do these people think we are? Some moneybags money man with money caked money with money on the side?  I am looking at you Alienware...for shame. I built my last PC for $550 with a bare box from Staples, a power supply and video card from a big box store. But the thought of going that round again does not appeal especially since I have gotten spoiled by having my best (and only) computer being a laptop.

So after digging through the stacks of technical specs, big box deals, online supersaver deals and multiple tech forums I figured since I am going to use it for gaming why not come and ask gamers.

So (dons flame resistant asbestos undergarment) working under (and I do mean under -the lower the better) a budget of roughly 800 what would be the best laptop to get? When it comes to the next gen games is I7 necessary or even I5? Would AMD be better than Intel?

I look forward to any help those of you out there that respond can offer.

Just think, if we had to move to play the game we would eliminate 3 of the biggest problems with MMOs.

1) Fatties. Face it we sit and play and we level our fat. This would make for some in shape gamers. The universe might just crack in half at the paradox.

2) Campers. Less likely to stand for hours on end just to gank lowbies for fun.

3) Marathon players. Instead of dying from exhaustion you might just have a heart attack. It is more likely you would just pass out from fatigue first. "Ack! Replace me in the raid I think I pulled my hammie!:

LOL

PVP would be difficult.

You can make it locational (IE fight pit sanctioned by City Prince) thereby controlling random acts of PvP.

Otherwise you have idiots who go over board and end up going around ruining other people just for fun.

Granted if they have a Prince in each city he would in theory already hear about the bad apples going around and stake them out in the sun, however it would already be too late for some peoples characters.

I believe PvP needs to actually be written into a game with consequences tied to the player as well as the character.

This eliminates the guy who makes up a character , does havoc and then logs on his main that goes about playing.

In WOD if you disobeyed a Prince by causing PVP esque havok you would at best be in a world of hurt and at worst be dust.  It would be interesting to finally have a game integrate PVP in a meaningful, thoughtful and useful way.

So I got into the Beta late. Imagine my surprise when I had reams and reams of bug reports to make when I got in. Then imagine my further surprise when they announced the release date.

I have played a lot of betas and this cake simply was not done.

Now the launch was better than some, worse than others. The whole server que thing was a joke and really illustrated how clueless Cryptic really was about what they were doing. That was compounded when we saw more bugs than were in the Beta popping up as they tried to fix the existing bugs.

That being said I got one character to RA5, have another at Captain 5 and a Klingon about halfway up. All this is without playing a lot. The game is easy to play. The storylines, what few their are, are fun. However the lions share of the leveling I did was the repetative grind of the exploration clusters. The quests there are scan this, fight these ships, fight these ground crew or aid this planet by leaving and buying 10 of these things. The thing is you can opt out right away and reenter the quests so if you wanted to you could level simply by doing collect missions or scan missions. The aid the planet missions I always abandoned because I think it is retarded that you cannot just replicate the things you need to deliver to the planet.

In the end if it were anything but Star Trek I would have already stopped playing. I am really hoping they get their act together and get this game rolling.

Originally posted by xtoturnwithi

Originally posted by jonrd463

Originally posted by ForceQuit

Originally posted by Darkholme

No Copernicus is not NWN Online. I heard something about Cryptic doing NWN Online, which is disappointing and makes me want to strangle kittens...

 

Not only is Cryptic working on the NWN MMO, it is due out in only a year.  That is, unless WoTC's lawsuits are successful in reclaiming the IP from Atari.

 

Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease....

 

Let's face it, NWN Online from Cryptic will just be a reskinned STO or CO. If the world of Faerun is to be realized on a massively multiplayer scale, it needs to be wide open and expansive. Not instanced "rooms". Can't think of who I'd want to make it, but Cryptic ranks among the developers I DEFINITELY don't want making it. Hell, if it had to be one or the other, I'd say let Blizzard do it.

 

NO BLIZZARD!

I'd rather see Obsidian do it, since they did NwN2 anyway.

I would rather have ANYONE do this but Cryptic. They have shown their utter lack of respect for the genre they undertook with STO I would hate to see them do some half arsed verision of NWN. For gods sake DDO would be better than anything Cryptic could poo out.

 I like the game.

I do not love the game.

It is fun to be the captain, to train up your bridge crew and outfit your ships and then get new ships and outfit those... It is fun to go on missions. The game is not hard to play. I have one character at RA5 and another at Commander. I have a Klingon that I stopped at about lvl 13 because, well, even I cannot do that much raw pvp without a story. All this without putting in near the amount of time you would in WOW, WAR , DDO , etc.

Here are the main issues I have with the game that should have been fixed pre-launch:

1) Server stability - it isn't bad but then again they are only putting about 30-50 people into each instanced area. This is also the least of the games issues.

2) Login ques - not having enough servers set up, even if you just rent them for the first few months with an option to extend your lease is utter madness. Any IT director worth his salt would read a few blogs from the other developers out there and see that utilizing a good short term lease for a batch of servers would offset your risk to cost ratio while giving you that extra server space you need during an MMO launch to not only tackle the high levels of logins but also have a separate mirror server to jump onto check bugs and squash them.

3) Bugs, bugs and more bugs. - This game did not get enough beta. I would say minimum 2 more months. It is unconscionable that they did not take more time. Since day one there have been major issues. Entire quests that do not work, other quest lines that let you get to the end but do not complete. NPC's ghosting, rubberbanding, lag, lag and more lag, and tons of issues that could have been worked out in a wider beta. Instead we have been paying money to file bug reports on missions and game issues. Kind of sucks the fun out of it when you are paying for the pleasure. And the obviously still do not have the people they need to work these issues as missions I have played before are now broken from them trying to fix something else.

4) Lack of the social - I am all for fast paced action. But there is really no reason for me to interact with anyone in this game in more than a PUG way. The ideas of fleets and the like are great and very well could be needed for some of the new end game content. However, right now I can tell you that if you just follow the storyline quests and do a few of the repeatable explore missions (I did them the first character 2 times each explore then story missions) you will end up maxed in level with the option of maxing out your BA without a whole lotta effort. That is without a death penalty however I did this solo and without a lot of deaths. In fact the quests actually got harder when I grouped because, for example,  if it was space kills I had to deal with people not fighting but their presence bringing more ships in for me to kill. Kind of the opposite of encouraging grouping. LOL.

5) Nothing groundbreaking or even scuffing of the dirt. This is my biggest complaint with the game. The missions end up being kill, collect or walk/fly over there. Rinse, repeat. I had thought we would have more episodic interaction. I realize that we do not have real random generated content but it would be nice for diplomacy to be more than listen to NPC 1 talk, listen to NPC 2 talk, then answer questions or go buy 10 of this and deliver it to the planet. There are so many Star Trek stories out there that could be turned into away missions, the best ones were situations where the captains had to figure something out, not just blow something up.

The entire game is a reflection of what the development cycle was. Rushed and sloppy. You can argue until you are blue about that with me however all I have to do to prove this point is to have you play the game for 10 minutes.  It has been getting better in short steps since the launch however it never should have been released in this state. The fact that people are defending it for being only crap light instead of utter crap shows how willing we have become to take anything new in whatever condition it comes down the development pipe.

Yes the game is fun. It is Star Trek. We have played board games with this genre and had fun.

Could this have been much better? Yes. 

Could it have even been much better in its current incarnation? Undoubtedly so, had they taken the necessary time to polish it up before putting it out the door.

In the end a lot of us will play it but I doubt for as long as either we or they would have liked it.

Things that have improved since launch.

Stability. - Yep believe it or not those of you upset by current stability it was in fact much, much, much worse. It is getting better every day.

Que - Lately it has been the exception rather than the rule for me to hit a login que.

Add some other ideas if I left anything out but these are the two big ones that come to mind. There is a cargo vessel full of broken content , broken quests, fleet action etc that they still have not addressed. At this rate once I cap out I can go back and play a brand new game and enjoy all the content once it is fixed. ;P

That being said the bug reports I have been filing have mostly been answered with WALL OF TEXT with a standardized reply. I can understand they are more concerned with cataloging and addressing then emailing me back however this shows that they are in desperate need of fixes and compensations. The best thing they could do is announce they were crediting the monthly subscribers and giving the lifetime subscribers something to make them feel better. Not sure what that would be but then again I never have wanted a lifetime subscription to anything. :) Well other than life.

Fact- the game has a lot of bugs. They are being stamped out but they are there. And there are a lot of them.

Fact- there are a TON of broken quests. Some are perm broken, others require you to log out and back in or simply exit the instance and reenter for them to work. I have filed so many bug tickets the letters are wearing off my keyboard.

Fact - there is very little Klingon content.

Fact- the quests are, boiled down, very similar groupings of kill this, collect that, go scan that. (In my humble opinion that does not make them any less fun when they work.)

Fact - this game could have used a few more months in HEAVY beta testing before it was shoved out the door. Some suit out there needs a good swift kick in the pants.

On a personal note I like the game, a lot. I see them being able to fix fleet action, fix a lot of the broken quests, stamp out the bugs, polish up the Klingon content and get the game rolling. It just feels like it was released into the wild too soon.

 So far without really playing that much (maybe 16 hours total since the game came out) i have one character at Rear Admiral and one at Lt Commander and thinking of starting a Klingon if they ever get any content.  But the important part is I am still having fun. If you aren't try leaving and coming back when more of the game works.

Let me say first that I truly enjoy the game.

With that being said there are problems.

It is a weak game. It has a bunch of already existing things thrown together with a STO skin on it. If it were not STO it would have very few subscribers based off its weak engine and play system. There is nothing groundbreaking or even ground smudging in this offering.

It is buggy. Really buggy. Like call the ORKIN man buggy. They are fixing it but it needed at least a month of heavy beta with reporting to fix a lot of these fairly glaring issues. Some suit out there needs their pin stripes removed for pushing this baby out the door unfinished.

The storylines are good however they do not really amount to much in the way of interaction at low level. It is read, rinse, and repeat. Some missions are unbelievably complex while others are quick collect missions. Truly not bad but not stellar, and even higher levels have very few “wow” moments to them. Again nothing earth shattering or innovative.

Massive? No. Large? Not really. Moderate? Maybe. For the most part I have played a solo game. Not very social, not very group oriented. Why? Because other than a few auto joined instances I have not really needed to group. Yes it goes faster if you have a group however in my opinion the groups take all the challenge out and it becomes a zerg fest. Not a bad thing if all you are doing is leveling but kind of a downer when you want to play for fun.

All things considered I was truly saddened when the old game imploded. It probably had too broad a scope, however I thought starting in Star Fleet Academy and working up through the ranks and having a reputation system that put you onto the flagship of the Federation (for example) was a very kewl idea. That idea was an MMORPG. In the end it just did not work, and that my friend is sad.

The game we have now is ok. I like it, it is fun. It is a bit simple. I do not see playing it for years or maybe even for a year. They will get their purchase money and some monthly from me but in the end it will be an end game grind fest for gear and I will do a quick fade to another game that is fun and engaging.

Originally posted by Guillermo197

Originally posted by vesavius

Funnily enough, its Cryptics 'great character creator' that mostly ruins their games for me...

I usually am so happy with the toon I have created at the start that I have no desire to improve it, and so there goes a massive play motivator to me.

Now.. start me off in a field in a tattered shirt and holding a rusty butter knife and damn sure I want to get better!

 

Well, with STO and their attempt for itemization, they made a glaring error and loads of people have complained about it already.

You spend a great deal of time in the char creator designing a unique costume for your character. And then the moment you get into the game and obtain and slot your first armor kit, it completely overrules and reskins your character's costume into something generic! So that's pretty ironic and stupid. But I guess just also shows how rushed this game was.

Cheers

You do realize you can turn that off and just see your original uniform...right?

Or did you not spend any time reading the instructions?
 

Soloing lets you play how you want to, when you want to however that is not normally the main reason for it.

The main reason people want to solo in a MMO is the same reason that people want to play MMO's

People.

I have grouped with some great people and I have grouped with people that I have wanted to strangle.

The great ones are helpful, respectful and are out to achieve the main goal of the game...fun.

The awful ones are bossy, rude, petty, childish, etc etc etc. They regularly tell others how to play, what to do, where to go and become the largest fun suck in the game. It is beyond belief to them that people want to play the game and learn how to get thru it on their own. Unable to limit themselves to offering advice they begin escalated behavior when others do not lockstep to their demands. It is no surprise that a great many of these are "achievers" who in their own mind are truly a legend. They feel that their eliteness gives them carte blanche to behave like the biggest tools in any situation or group they are in.

This singular group if harness and weaponized could end every war worldwide simultaneously.

Because of them soloing will end up being in every game because even Devs don’t want to have to spend time with these people.

:)

Depending how old you are DDO is a good game.

That is not intended as a slight I have just found that the older gamers that played a lot of PnP D&D really have a lot of fun at the game.

You can play it without buying any of the additional modules and have  pretty good time.

In the single player games that came between PnP and MMOs there were a few different types.

In this post I am only going to address the types of character saves they allowed.

There were checkpoint saves where you reached a certain point in the game and could save. Most people did, unless they were an idiot, but people complained because they were too stupid to save it should be automatic.

Then there were checkpoints that once you passed them you auto saved however players complained there were not enough of them.

Then there were auto save points and additional save points where players could save if they wished. Again you would be an idiot not too however this still angered people because they wanted to be able to save whenever they wanted.

So most of the single player games let you save almost anywhere or anywhere. Then people just started pulling up cheat codes and walk thru's to make it through easier.

The point is there are always going to be people who are focused more on winning/achieving than playing the game. They are so hooked on catching the carrot on the stick that they forget the whole purpose of being there is to have fun.

MMOs have just become a contest of how to give the most wow for the longest period of time. The carrot gets split in to parts and you keep collecting bigger and bigger parts as you progress. Never is anyone talking about the storyline of an MMO, they are always talking about levels and gear. Granted in the old PnP days gear was sweet to get however you talked about the ADVENTURE you had getting the gear.

One of the most memorable adventures I had involved my ENTIRE party dying. I was the last one up and could have run and come back and saved the group. That would have been the smart thing to do. However I was running a cleric of war and he didn't run. Ever. So I did a final stand and blew the top off the mountain and stopped an invading horde before they could reach the city. Broke a staff of power to do it. It was a great storyline leading up to that point and to this day my friends and I still talk about what a great game it was. And we all died.

I don't think it is about death or no death. I think it is more about people having fun. For most people the thought of losing items, exp or time is not fun. However, that is more a reflection of poorly designed games rather than a true reflection of how mechanics should work.

The OP is describing what a chunk of gamers want. That is simply, game immersion. However putting forward death penalty as the main way of doing this is a fallacy. When you look at most games, MMORPGS, you have a role playing game at its base. You are playing pretend, not unlike as children when you played Cops & Robbers, however you have see rules you must obey. They are the next logical step from single player games which were a logical step from the old Pen and Paper days.

Now to really look at what I feel is wrong here you have to go all the way back to the beginning. Of the old PnP games the great grand sire of them all would be D&D. Gary Gygax gave the world quite a gift when he came up with that great little past time of rolling dice and escaping to another world for hours on end. There was a basic rule set that was fairly equal and then there were a ton of alternate rules so that you could tailor your game the way you liked to play.

Currently the developers are missing a golden opportunity to make a LOT of money by not following the same idea. That being creating a world with a basic rule set that can be used for multiple genres and then creating alternate rule sets to cover every kind of player out there. Go beyond the PvP server, Non PvP server, and role playing server. Instead have a server of permadeath, a server where you are responsible for every action you take through a strict reputation system, a never die system, etc, etc, etc.

In relation to players like the OP if you get more of a rush out of the game that would give you the ability to play the same game as someone who hates that idea. And the possibilities are endless on how many different customers that a developer could get using a lot of the same core content. Kind of surprising really that no one has done that.

One addition - the NPC hirelings are available for both subscriber, premium and FTP

If you know all the info below then feel free to skip this. I am offering a bit of my personal insight to DDO for those who are unfamiliar with the game or with the recent changes.

DDO has gone though a few changes since beta. The most recent has been the change to the FTP (free to play) arena and having played beta, subscription and now FTP I have a few insights into the game.

First, and foremost, this game is fun as hell. For any of you that like to make characters, occasionally role-play with friends on voice, and have a limited amount of time for gaming this game could be for you. It will not give unlimited content; it does however deliver a lot of ‘wow’ for the content you do interact with.

There are two ways to compare this game. Sub to sub and sub to FTP. I am going to address the sub to sub first because there is very little difference. There are a few nice bells and whistles like access to all class/race/content, a shared bank for characters on the same server and the addition of hirelings. The last is a great new feature where you can buy contracts that activate for a limited time for in game gold. This gives you the ability to have a NPC pet as it were to adventure with. For those who play odd hours this gives you the ability to play content if you are careful without having to always have a group.

As for the FTP let me lay this out for the uninitiated. You download the client for free. You also can download the starting area and have the rest of the game downloading in the background while you start playing. For those of you at your content download cap for the month keep in mind you may not be able to progress outside the starting zone until it finishes downloading.

The starting area is amazing. It is hands down one of the best new player experiences I have ever been through. The dev's have tried to get you immersed into the feel of D&D right away by taking your character from a shipwrecked survivor who was attacked by a dragon to having a helpful rogue give you a weapon to help you make your way. This draws you into an adventure with him and his companions that leads you into the starting village. Korthos Island gives you a great many quests to run and an over story that progresses in you meeting back up with that initial group of adventurers to help save the island. Then you are off to Stormreach and more adventure.

You are limited as a FTP account to a few characters. If you have ever had an active subscription you get a few more advantages. I suggest going over to the DDO.com website to check out the details. You will not have access to all races or classes. You can purchase them from the store if you like however I have enjoyed playing without them. You also do not get access to all the quests. Some of the more epic ones are limited to active subscription or you can purchase them separately from the DDO store. In the end you have access to a great amount of content for no money.

As a past subscriber I have a premium account which gives me a few more advantages than a plain FTP account. I would suggest downloading and playing the game and trying it out. If you want more than 4 characters than just make more on another server. After you have played you may decide to subscribe for a month just for the additional advantages. You may decide to just subscribe and play. Personally I am saving my points to purchase modules (quests) only. From my understanding once they are purchased they work for your account no matter what server you are on. (I may be wrong about that) In the end though I would be hard pressed to find a game that I have enjoyed so much that I had paid for much less one that I could play for free.