Ya GW2 manages it after you spent 60 bucks on the box, and 60 more for every add-on to come, SWtoR can be played without spending money if someone choses to play it that way, especially if the play casually.

It amazes me how many ppl complain if they do not get everything for free. I personally gave the game a try and found my experiance to be worthy of subbing, whats 15 bucks a month. I can play for 4 months and still not  have spent as much as someone that bought GW2 when you add in the tax. 

Right now I enjoy SWtoR, it might be next week or next month, maybe even a year or 3 from now, but when I no longer enjoy the game I will stop paying and playing and the world will still go on. Some of you ppl need to get over yourselfs, lifes to short to spend even a minute being bitter and negative.

theme park games are ment to last.

Once apon a time they made a high budget "sandbox" game, and lots of ppl came, after a few days 95% of these ppl where standing around, unable to figure out what to do, becuase there really wasnt anything for them to do but run around killing things with no purpose or a small percentage of folk stayed in the cities crafting , dancing or playing doctor but this was a very small amount of ppl.

This game even had housing and huge cities popped up over night in the middle of nowhere, with no rhyme or reason as to why this spot was chosen. Many of these cities became huge eye sores.

And this game also spawned the term "theme park" - the devs of this game decided to include a handful of iconinc characters and areas made just to interact with them and thier minions and get a handful of quests/jobs from them, often easily finished in an evening, and the devs termed these areas "theme parks". 

As time went on, lets say 6 months or so, the cities both dev made and player made started to become less populated , it got harder to find folks in the wild, the crafter shops became deserted with no new merchendice being crafted, the small war the  that raged back and forth on mostly one certain planet , bacme a trickle of a few ppl taking pot shots at each other.

After about a year with the exception of a few crafting/ dancing/ doctoring die hards the game was completly empty, thus the devs decided to make huge sweeping changes that made the game even less popular, and the rest is history, thus ended one huge failed experiment in the world of "sandbox" games known as SWG.

As devs looked at this game , the most used areas of this game where the little places that where called the "theme park" areas. Then add in another game not traditionally called a themepark game but was probably the first true theme park game- DAoC, which had beginner areas loaded with quests that when finished sent you out farther to the next area and on and on, this game maintained popularity longer.

DAoC was fashioned more in line with Everquest, but to put it straight early EQ was not a themepark, it did become one over time but even then it was nothing like the themeparks we know today, but thats another story.

Then came WoW which toke the basic premise of EQ droped all the "hardcore" elements and and mixed in the formula of questing brought by DAoC, with their own ready made lore, and well as we all know changed the direction of MMoRPGs as we know them.

This is why we have so many themeparks today, and yes they are supposed to last. and to answer the question of the OP, no themeparks are not inherently flawed , its more about the individual players, some will play a game enjoy it, take thier time and patiantly waiting for new content  while they get the most out of the world/game they love, while others will come in quickly gobble up the content and expect/demand new content faster then human or technologically possible to create and then scream that the game and company are fail becuase they dont get what they want right now. Others still yet will play a game for awhile then just simply want change and hop from game to game often returning to previous games when new content is added.

Originally posted by Kniknax
Someone needs to come up with a pvp engine where players from one game can import in and take on players from another game...

They have, its called... the MMoRPG.com forums

I recently tried the 1 to 15 trial and enjoyed the game, granted I am a casual gamer and only got to 15. Was going to buy the game, but between trying it and payday the F2P anouncemant came and now I will wait, dont wanna pay now and it be free in a few months.

Becuase of these forums I was really expecting it to be aweful. I can understand someone prefering a more realistic approach in the graphics as apposed to the cartoon style that Bioware went with, but there is no basis for the claim that the game isnt quality, and yes the play style was very much WoW and not SWG but to me thats not a bad thing, I enjoy the line of games that are derived from the MMoRPG model started by Everquest.

subscription all the way, I will even pay more if they would give me a true RP server.

15 to 20 bucks a month aint crap compared to the entertainmant value I get in return, what is it, one less case of beer, not like I need that anyway.

Some of the hybrid games like LoTRO, Fallen Earth and DC Online are good to have for the times when my main sub game gets a little boring,but seems to me you end up spending way more in the long run on them to get the full game.But they do have thier place, if I had no money at all and was still able to have an internet connection the Hybrids and F2Ps would be a godsend.

Thats my 2 cents on the subject.

After reading thru this thread, it seams that TESO is allready out and been played and trashed.

I have read pretty much every article thats come out about it, whats been said by the devs themselves has been very generalized and not specific at all, I dont see where enough info has been giving for all these statements that ppl have been saying like they are facts.

Quite frankly, none of you have any idea what TESO is really gonna be like.

Obviously for it to be an online persistant world, some mechanics have to change.  For me, as long as they keep the openworld mixed with themepark style towns, just like the current single player games and add in a DAoC inspired PvP systemm sounds to me like the game might have some promise, but we wont know for awhile and who knows, all you self proclaimed gaming prophets might be right. 

Lord of the Rings Online, good graphics. Technically the entire game can be played free, but it would require alot of play time to get it all without spending at least some money.

Conan as stated before.

EQ2

If you like comic books, DC Online and Champions Online

If you like apocaliptic themes, Fallen Earth

Outer space, Star Trek Online

All these are good games, each one has its strengths and weaknesses.

WoW has been on my comp since day 1, between my kids and I, we have characters on 6 or 7 servers, all servers have multitudes of ppl, each guild I have characters in have anywhere from 5 to 30 ppl on regardless of the time of day or night. Run into new players all the time as well as many who have been playing for years.

I like the game still, detest the general community though, run with chat turned of in the citys 90% of the time. Yes the game has changed but for me it remains fun, I am not the type of person that playes for hours and hours at a time, nor every day. so that may have something to do with why it stays fun.

And yes I have played every new game that comes out, and I often sub to other games along with WoW.

I know its kewl on these boards to hate on WoW, but reality is, WoW is in no danger of failing anytime soon.

On the original topic, I do not like the account wide achievment change, but I do like the looting change, and the war on theramore, I guess I will see if I enjoy that part when it comes out, but the sound of it is that it will be fun.

1. Everquest thru the first 3 exp packs- take EQ as it was then, harsh death penalty, corpse runs, trains and all, remake it with todays graphics and animations and I would play nothing else.

2. DAoC- RvR before they allowed cross realming and RP servers where names and ooc conversation was actually enforced,what a great game that was, redo the graphics and reverse some of the bad decisions and this one would be popular today IMO

3. Anarchy Online- deepest character progression of all MMos, started bad but turned into a gem, still play the F2P as a back up game

4. Rift- nice well made game, great devs

5. WoW- what can you say, its the best and the worst all wraped into one

Originally posted by Terrorizor

Originally posted by waveslayer

Maybe MMoRPGs should launch with a screen that has in huge letters, and in very simple to understand terms that these games are ment to last for years and additional content and bug fixes are constantly being worked on, the game you see today will be much more in the forseeable future.

They can probably pay somebody to come up with a better way to say that but it really should be done.

Heres another idea...lets see, all MMoRPGs have launched with the issue of not having enough content for the rusher type of player so, maybe if you going to rush through a games content as fast as you possibly can, maybe, just maybe you need to change your way of thinking, instead of the company being bad guys becuase they didnt put in millions of dollars more worth of content before launching, you need to understand that only so much can be done with the money on hand and that more will be coming, the more people that play the more people they can pay to make new content.

so basically you're saying that you approve paying $15 each month in addition to the box price to play a game that eventually will have enough content to keep an active player satisfied for a month or more.

 

yes I approve of paying 15 bucks a month for on going development of game content, 15 dollars aint crap, its one case of beer, or 2 drinks and pop corn at a movie, and for what, hours and hours of new game play every month or so.

Maybe MMoRPGs should launch with a screen that has in huge letters, and in very simple to understand terms that these games are ment to last for years and additional content and bug fixes are constantly being worked on, the game you see today will be much more in the forseeable future.

They can probably pay somebody to come up with a better way to say that but it really should be done.

Heres another idea...lets see, all MMoRPGs have launched with the issue of not having enough content for the rusher type of player so, maybe if you going to rush through a games content as fast as you possibly can, maybe, just maybe you need to change your way of thinking, instead of the company being bad guys becuase they didnt put in millions of dollars more worth of content before launching, you need to understand that only so much can be done with the money on hand and that more will be coming, the more people that play the more people they can pay to make new content.

oversexualized? what did you expect? the games main target audiance is 12 to 18 yr little fat boys who spend most thier day in front of a computer moniter eating twinkys.

If your wanting to stay F2P- Fallen Earth, Lord of the Rings Online, EQ2, Star Trek Online, Age of Conan, D&D Online and Aion are all decent games, if a sub is ok I would suggest trying Rift, WoW both are free to lvl 20, Star Wars,Eve...there are alot of MMoRPGs with varying degrees of character building, it really comes down to a matter of taste.

as long as the game has RPG style progression it matters little how its done, as long as the method is fun that is.

Originally posted by SuperDonk

Originally posted by Grahor

Originally posted by D3lit3

 

Themepark mmorpgs suck. The only games that suck more are sandbox mmorpgs.

 

 LOL. You hate MMOs, congrats. Why are you posting here?

There are several game genres I do not care to play, and I do not go to furoms dedicated to them either.

would really like to check this game out, ebuchanan1@carolina.rr.com

Earth & Beyond and Auto Assualt, both these games where alot of fun for me.

Yes for this game to be great, IMO it needs to be more like the existing Elder Scrolls game and less like WoW, and I really hope the devs understand this.