Really good thread.

I have always wondered exactly what developers meant by "persistent". Normally it is used in the context of the game world, so I have taken it to mean the game world itself persists after the character logs out. When my toon is offline, the world keeps turning. Houses keep being built, bosses keep getting killed (and this is persistent in that when I log in, the boss will still not have spawned yet), and my friends keep gaining level.

I agree that the gameworld changing is better described as dynamic vs static, as even tho the world may not change, it does persist after I log off.

However, this would mean that a Counterstrike map that never resets would be a persistent world as well, so while it might be semantically correct, it seems to lose the intent when framed that way.

One thing for me and many other players is that I don't care where players come from, only that they play during the times I play. So in a game like EVE, I spent the first half of my "career" playing with UK peeps since I played during their primetime, and the second half playing with US peeps since I had gotten a "real job" and played during their primetime.

I guess that would be a plus for multi-region servers, since people that played outside of primetime would have groups to play with.

 For sure. Since the vast majority of the player base never gets involved in what EVE does well like territorial battles, politics, "big picture" stuff, and because the actual gameplay of EVE is so awful (the actual piloting of ships), I see a lot of people ready to actually fly ships instead of click around in space or target red crosses ad nasuem.

The big picture aspect of EVE is what draws people in, but very few play the game at this level. There is only so much mission grinding or spining ships in dock a player can take before they realize the only part they can have in the high level game is a pawn in a POS bashing op. Naturally, these types of players are going to want to try the new space game, and since they make up the bulk of the subscriptions, there will be a ton of people moving to JGE.

Now if they stay or not is completely dependent on JGE, and thats yet to be determined.

Just read the article.

I must say, Dana your observations are spot on, and match what I have found in the past decade of MMOs, with UO being the notable exception. I also play on RP servers hoping to find the "mature" playerbase, but due to the isolationist nature of RPers, it can be hard to break into the cliques, especailly when you are being constantly judged by your fellow players as to the "quality" of your backstory, or your RPing.

To see all these posters saying you are uninformed seems very odd to me, since your article matches my experiences to a tee. All I can think of is that these posters are unable to accept the reality of RPing in a modern MMO, or they have isolated themselves so much, they are unable to see it.

Compounding the fact a modern MMO lacks the flexibility required for RPing, is that based on this thread, it would be easy to sterotype RPers as being overly sensitive, and completely overreactionary. No regular player is going to want to get involved in the drama fest of RPing, not after reading this thread.

 It wasn't until you said "Look back to Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot or the original EverQuest as they were when they launched, and compare them in all honesty to the current crop of games (or even themselves) if you doubt the power of evolution." that it hit me.

It is true games are evolving, it is just too bad they are evolving into games I don't want to play. All the hand holding and instanced gameplay is a huge step backwards from an open and epic game like UO, which was as close to a virtual world than any MMO has ever been.

While the interfaces may be much better, the gameplay itself gets more diluted and dull with each new MMO it seems. Sandboxes are dead, and players are now shuffled from ride to ride from start to finish, leaving zero room for imagination, just a bunch of lemmings following the same path.

And I wish it was a case of rose colored glasses, but the fact is I play each new MMO that comes out, and every single time I am back to playing those "old crappy games" within a few months.

One of my favorite thing is having the feeling of danger all around you, so high levels in low level areas is one of my favorite features. I am willing to bet you won't swing without looking at the level of the mob again eh?
 
And having your character fidget when bored? When I first saw that, I thought it was cool as hell, a nice detail to make the game feel more alive.

Honestly, you should play thru the Isle before you set your opinions in stone, it doesn't sound like you spent much time at all with the game. Definitely not enough to provide feedback on it, aside from submitting a bug report on the hole in the world you found.

All I can say is thank god I found this game, the MMO market has been seriously bleak and 2009 looks to be no exception. This game has filled the void and then some. I was not expecting to like it since there is a lot of bad mouthing VG, but after playing a string of dissapointing MMOs, this is a breath of fresh air in a stale market.

All you guys can chase the latest and greatest half-finished MMO releases, lord knows I sure have, but for my entertainment dollars I have found a new home.

 No reply from the OP. Telling.

I have tried this game twice, the first time I would have agreed whole heartedly.

This second time I joined a guild that exists to help players, and have been in a group every night since. I has been easier finding groups in this game than any game I have played for years, so I no longer can agree. My previous lonelyness was not at all the fault of the community, and completely the fault of my unwillingness to seek out a guild that is active in my level range.

 The cancellation of UO2 was my biggest letdown, as it heralded the end of that type of game, and there has not been a game that has come close to the open epicness of UO since it's launch.

The cancellation of Imparitor to a lesser extent as well, esp after WAR.

This thread is interesting in that I had no idea that borked launch after borked launch, people still buy into the hype and think that an MMO developer is going to make something original, or hell, even finished at launch. I generally won't even play an MMO until a year, even two after launch, none of them launch well, none of them are in a state even resembling being finished. Then they have a stigma attached to them for years after, even when they come full circle in the case of Vanguard.

Keep playing MMOs at launch, and keep being disappointed. It's your time and money! :)

 Here you go man, a simple answer to a simple request:

articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-6068231.html

Great article, I enjoyed reading it.

As a new player to VG, I must say how much it surprised me. The only things I had heard were about how bad the launch was and had written the game off entirely. When they came out with Isle of Dawn and the free trial, being bored with EVE, I gave it a go and found an amazingly rich world with things to explore and challenges to overcome around every corner.

However, I was soloing in my free time and not really knowing where to find groups, I started to feel much like other posters here, that the world was lonely and empty, and so I gave up on it because soloing got too hard.

Forward to about a month ago and I was really becoming dissatisfied with EVE's complete lack of content, and noticed my VG account had been activated again.

Well this time I found a good grouping area and was invited to a guild that focuses on helping new players. What a difference a guild makes in this game! There are lots of new players, but also lots of vets that use the guild to find groups for their alts, so the mix of players is really great.

Anyway, finding a regular group to level with makes a world of difference. the entire game is really geared towards grouping, so finding a group to play with, or even someone to point you to where players are grouping is really the key to getting all you can out of this game.

Originally posted by Teiman

 

Wellcome to MMORPG. The vets say that was a good site eons ago. But is not full of people that hate everything, and fanboy runners in a war to defend his favorite mmo.
But there are good people, too, you will learn his avatar icons soon :-)

 

Thanks Teiman. I have actually been on this site for many years, and have done much forum lurking, but decided to make an account out of the blue today. Actually I may have had an old account as my regular (uncommon) screenname was already taken.

Anyway, I have found much of the discussion here to be quite civil and intellegent when compared to the rest of the MMO world, but I also tend to have a filter where I pick out the best posts and don't even register the fanboy poo. :)

Anyway, I guess I should have posted more about why I think AO is the best F2P, but honestly when compared to all the others, does it really need an explaination?

 I completely agree, VG has pulled me in big time lately. It is too bad it had such a poor release, and still has such a negative stigma associated with it, because it truly is the diamond in the rough. It is the only new(ish) MMO that feels both familiar and "next-gen" at the same time. For me heavy instancing and "quesst tunnels" really kill it for me, so VG is a breath of fresh (stale?) air in that regard.

The downsides are putting up with annoying bugs and graphical glitches, but the game itself runs fine for my mid-level machine.

 To reinforce what others have said, if you want to be an artist, study art, if you want to be a manager, study business, and if you want to work on the code, study comp sci. No matter what tho, take some psych and some game design classes, these will be crucial in all aspects. If your university does not offer game design classes, work with a professor to create your own 5-10 credit self-study course on the topic. Even something hands on like drafting the design of the product you want to make, coming up with gameplay ideas, bouncing and refining them off others, and developing a board game approximation will go so far if you want to be a game designer, or even know enough about the topic to be better at specfic aspects of game development, and provide something that will set you apart come J.O.B. time

The days of the "all-in-one" uber genius developer are long gone, it takes a good team and a significant investment to make a sucessful commercial software product. If this is just for a hoppy, thats something different, I would play around with something like an RPG creator and hammer down ideas and getting the community involved to provide feedback.

Now in my professional opinion as a software developer, I would rather work almost anywhere than a game development studio. Too much pressure and long hours for too little pay developing a product that will be criticized, torn apart, and nit-picked to death. But for me coding is a job, not a lifestyle, so I doubt I am competitive enough to survive an evironment like that.

Originally posted by Netzoko

Originally posted by enamelizer

 Anarchy Online.

 

You made a new account to post 2 words?

The viral plants on this site are getting ridiculous.

Thanks for the warm welcome, my account needed its first blocked user!

 UO.

No other game has attempted to match it's scale by intergrating an open world with player housing, open PvP, an amazing skill system that allows such a variety of builds, and all the fluff to go along with the meat.

Not a moment went by that I lacked something to do, unlike most modern MMOs where there is only one thing to do: grind levels endlessly.

From fishing, to baking, to beating things with poisioned blades, everything has a purpose in the game world.

EVE is the only game that comes close to this open world, but unless you like spreadsheets, it is dreadfully boring. I spent several years chasing carrots before I realized how little content was in the game.

 Anarchy Online.