No, I don't mean your irl name.

What if there was a game where instead of having everyones name hovering above their heads, it was kept secret?

Players would be given a 'temporary name' when logging in that everyone sees (or maybe you can even set your 'public name') and can be used for public chats and whispers.

Only players on your friend list would know your 'True Name'.

I imagine this system in an open sandboxy PvP game with two factions, but the factions aren't separated and cannot be recognized by appearance.  Revealing your True Name would be incredibly risky but also beneficial.  Remaining anonymous can be the same.

Some pros and cons about remaining anonymous:

-World PvP where no one will know who killed each other.  Gank them one day, trade with them the next.

-Black market trade with the opposite faction and no one would know.

-Spy on your enemies.

-Keep your strength hidden.

-Players may be leery on trusting you since they do not know your faction, strength, or intentions.

Some pros and cons about people knowing your True Name:

-If you know someone's True Name you can report them as Wanted to an NPC, which makes them kill on sight and unable to enter towns without being attacked by NPCs. (Obviously there would need to be more details on this than just knowing their name)

-Knowing someones True Name gives you access to their full information: faction, level, class, crafting, currently logged in/out, current location, etc.

-Knowing someone's True Name gives you access to their Player Housing, which may have crafting tables or other useful things that would not usually be accessable.  Also gives you access to their storage.

-Certain high reward dungeons/quests require you to be partied with one or multiple people who know each others True Names.

Ultimately, with this system I'm trying to create a PvP game where trust is everything.  Trusting people would give many benefits, but also opens you to betrayal.  Remaining anonymous could let you be a secret killer, but inhibit you from access to many things.

What do you think?  Would you play a game with a system like this? Can you think of other advantages/disadvantages to trust vs. secretcy or features that could be beneficial?

I know this system has many flaws, but if thought about ahead of time maybe something could be done about them to make it work.

I tried to vote and it just redirects me to the main page, and when I come back it has me vote again, so I assume my votes didn't go through v.v

By 'average' I meant I'm not a SW fan or hater, just netural.  Gamer-wise, no, I'm not average at all :P I'm pretty hardcore, I've played tons of MMORPGs and do have a pretty decent spec desktop.

@Grailer  I'm glad someone agrees the graphics aren't great and isn't calling me a troll for saying so!

Hey,  I don't post on the forums too much, but when I do I like to make it worthwhile.  So, here is my review/experiences with SWTOR.

I was actually not planning on even playing the game as Star Wars doesn't interest me, but since all my friends were playing I agreed to play with them.  So far all I've done is try to catch up to their level...

When I first started up the game I was greeted with a long CG cutscene where I think the Empire was attacking some Jedi ship.  The fight scenes were pretty awesome, and I enjoyed watching it despite the fact I had little knowledge of what was going on or how it had anything to do with the game I was about to play.

Then I picked my faction (Sith) and got watch ANOTHER CG cutscene!  This one was shorter and not as cool, but alright.

Finally, I got to make my character.  I realized here the graphics were horrid and wanted to adjust the settings only to find out you can't until you're into the game.  Great.  Guess I'd suffer through it.

Anyways, I had already planned on making a warrior so I picked that and was sad to see I could not be Twi'lek.  Why can Jedi Knights be Twi'lek but not Sith Warriors?  I started making a Sith Pureblood but after looking through the female face options and realizing the choices were ugly or uglier, I switched to Human.  The human faces were also ugly, but a little less so with no facial protrusions.

In general, I was pretty dissapointed with the character creation.  The options were average, but all of them ugly.  I much preferred the Aion way of things where it was difficult NOT to make a gorgeous character.

When I finally got into the game, I immediately opened the graphics settings and was surprised how few there were.  Regardless, I put everything on the max, but the model edges were still pixally.  And to note, I have an Alienware desktop with duel nvidia GTX 460s, so my hardware is definitely not the problem.  I asked in General chat if there was some setting I was missing to smooth out the models edges and got called a troll....

Yes, WoW models are horrid but at least the edges are smooth!

Finally, someone told me to turn on Antialiasing.  Joyfully I asked where I could do that, because I had looked for that but didn't see it.  The response was there is no setting for it in the game.  Great.  I had read the graphics for this game were decent, but IMO they definitely aren't....  what game doesn't haven't an antialiasing setting!? (I later learned people with nvidia graphics cards could open the client_settings.ini and add an antialiasing setting.  I have since done this and now the graphics are acceptable)

So, I finally start actually playing, getting introduced to the voice overed quests.  This was cool and I still enjoy it.  Maybe it'll get old eventually but I definitely pay more attention to the story when its acted out in front of me.  I do sort of laugh to myself though when there is a whole voice overed dialog for a quest that comes down to "collect four shards" or "kill 5 lizards".

I've really liked my class story quest.  In the beginning I was sucking as a Sith and ended up having to go back and kill my noobie trainer because him letting me live meant he was a traitor.  I felt bad he was being punished for my being too nice, and have since turned up my jackassery.  I'm doing better as a Sith now.  When I lose companion affection I actually take it as a compliment. 

Speaking of which, I do like the companion system.  Vette is pretty funny and she does some decent damage.  I'm looking forward to getting other companions and interacting with them.

I teamed up with one of my friends and she was able to watch one of my story arc cutscenes as I did, which I thought was cool.

As for combat, its average to me.  There are some cool skills (like the leap where you go flying through the air and slice down on an enemy) but its nothing new.  I think I've actually done more running around and talking to people than killing things though.

I just recently got into crafting, but I haven't quite figured it out.  It seems I can just send my companion off to do everything for me.  Which I guess is convenient but...boring.

Overall, I like the questing system with the choices and the voice overs.  Some of the quests are pretty cool, and I'm enjoying the main story arc.  I do feel I'm just playing a single player game along side other people though, but I'm sure I'll do more team content in the future.

There are some games that you just can't wait to start playing again, and SWTOR is not one of them for me, but I know I'll enjoy it at least for the story.

To end it, heres my character, I think she looks a bit like human Kerrigan from Starcraft:

Skip-able Tutorials (as seen in: Nothing!)

This is completely wrong. 

Champions Online has done this for over two years now.  After doing the Tutorial once when you make a new character you can choose to skip it and start at level 5 (nstead of 1) right in the MC Powerhouse.

Lern 2 research.

That looks like an Orc on the left (WoW), Kerrigan on the right (Starcraft), and Diablo in the middle (Diablo)

I'm not sure how giving pictures of all of Blizzards products equals a new expansion.

You can't, you need a korean social security number for an account and a korean credit card for the subscription which has a korean billing address.

Add me on Lol (AngelNikki) and I'll do some bot games with you and try to give you some tips :)

One of the best things that will help you with the game is just knowledge of all the characters (which will come with time).  Once you know 'this char has a stun and burst so I have to watch out' or 'Ashe used her ult so I can jump on her now' you'll get better at knowing when to attack and when not to.

If you did pay for time unknowingly, usually you can just send in a support ticket explaining the situation and they can check and see if you ever logged in during the paid time.  If you didn't, they should pay you back.

My coworker let his friend use his credit card for an MMO sub since his wasnt working, the friend stopped playing the game but never cancelled the sub with my coworkers card.  So my coworker paid for an MMO for a YEAR AND A HALF without even know (dont ask me why he never checked his credit card statements for a year and a half).

It added up to almost 200$ and the company paid him back since they saw the account was never logged into all that time.

Originally posted by Praetalus

Furthermore... can someone confirm that most of the souls in the classes are the same? I mean, there's a few differences, but overall, I didn't feel there were many differences between what some of the souls could do. I mean, my pally seamed to have a lot of the same abilities of say, the void knight, but they were called something difference and maybe looked different.

Been awhile since I've played, but that's something I remembered. Why have all these different souls if most have the same types of abilities?

 This is completely true and also the reason I was less than impressed.  I wanted to be a blade dancer, they held their swords differently and in my mind would have different animations.

Nope.  Daggers are still the best DPS, only one race holds the swords differently (and thats on any 'soul'), and all the skills look the same.  No different than an assassin.

So lame.

check out mmodata.net

It seems to be a game called Fantasy Westward Journey, not sure if theres a global version though.

One of Champions Online PvP Arenas is the Zombie Apocalypse.  A team of players are set to defend a house from constant zombies.  If a player dies to the zombies, they return as a zombie and become the enemy of the other players.  If you survive and defend the house successfully for the whole 20 minutes you get a crap ton of exp.  Its a lot of fun.  Obviously not much variety and its only one small aspect of the actual game, but it sounds like what you're asking for.

Originally posted by Nesrie

Originally posted by Melieza

...CO in particular is making leagues more than it used to...

 Please site the source of your data for this "leagues more" of money that you are talking about.

 http://news.softpedia.com/news/Champions-Online-Sees-1-000-Percent-Increase-in-Players-and-Revenue-185307.shtml

There you go.

I really don't think this move is going to affect anything, its just a smart move by Atari.

• They want to focus on mobile gaming, Cryptic does not make mobile games.
• They are still a bit in debt, selling off Cryptic will get them a nice insta-chunk of cash that will put them in the positive again.

Furthermore, both STO and CO are making money so there is no reason to think no one would want them.  CO in particular is making leagues more than it used to.  I personally play it and we've gotten a big update a month for the past two months and theres two more planned for the next two.  Also gotten CStore items every week, but they're not game breaking and some are actually pretty cool (I'm still waiting for teddy bear transform).

This doom and gloom talk is pretty upsetting and a bit offensive for someone who has enjoyed CO since release and played STO for a year.  Go to either offical forum and they are booming.  I expected better from you mmorpg.com, stop trying to feed the trolls.

Originally posted by strangerdang

Second new mmorpg out of asia that ive looked into today that had gender locked classes...

sigh...

i just cant do it, with such a hard customization nerf that hits you before you enter the actual game...

if they cant even bother to program 2 genders per class (or be creative and make a genderless race/robots) i cant be botherd to download and try it.

 +1!!!

My coworker and I were going to play this game until we found how restricted the classes are.

Pass.

http://www.slurpee.com/Rewards/ViewItemDetails.aspx?sItemSlug=800-champions-online-in-game-points&bCauseItem=False

Buy a few Slurpees and get 800 Cryptic Points or a months subscription free.

If you don't play CO but buy Slurpees feel free to send me your cup codes :3

It depends what you like.  If your the kind of person itching for complete freedom in character and skill customization with standard MMO questing/dungeon/crafting systems, go with CO.

If you just want a multiplayer console beat 'em up, go with DCUO.

I personally have been playing CO since release and still love it.  I can never get enough of designing new characters with new powers I never used before.

Cloud Nine (anime style graphics)

Allods (non-anime style graphics)

Aika (gender specific classes though)

Prius (CBT starting tomorrow)

Forsaken World (personally I hated this one but others like it)

The graphics are that high because it makes them 'future proof'.  In 3 years when the current crazy graphics card is 50$, you'll still be able to enjoy the game because you can crank up the graphics and itll still look on par with other newly released games.

Its like having a current MMO and future MMO in one :P

Take a look at some FFXI screenshots and you'll think 'wow, that looks really nice'.  You'd never guess its 7 year old game.

I'm not sure how Jeardawg thinks the game somehow lost content by going Free to Play.  They only added a whole new way to play (Archetypes) as well as redid the entire first 15 levels of the game.  Subscription players have exactly what they had plus some new costume packs for free.  Plus the 400 cryptic point stipend.

The game is definitely doing worlds better now and you can tell the developers are getting better working with CO from the heavy weapons set.  The animations are all sweet looking and it works with almost any build.

If you really like the game the subscription is definitely worth it, and even if you dont, you get a full p2p game for free.