Yup I voted LoL-style. I think they have the best current F2P implementation in any game. After that yea probably Guild Wars style of box-sales only.

Think I would have to judge myself based on how far I would go to play said game... the winner would be Civilization II... I spent 4-5 hours the other day figuring out how to run it in an emulated Windows XP on my Windows 7 machine, half the games these days I'm too lazy to even press a button to download it... but I'm digging through forums figuring out how to install Civ 2 lol

Two reasons I see the role of utility getting removed from WoW and recent MMOs:

1.) Leveling through solo-play, pure utility classes have a HELL of a time soloing content and therefore are typically either OP or UP, and are a balance nightmare. The obvious fix is to give small amouts of utility to the DPS classes and remove the need for any pure utility class. 

2.) Group LF1M Need CC. We all love the good ol' days of EQ, but do we really remember looking for an enchanter for hours just so you can level? It creates this huge supply/demand issue for character classes when you split it between dps/heals/tank/utility, simplifying the system to dps/heals/tank allows for supply to even out across the three... in theory! Of course we know the current issue is the lack of tanks in these games, but again don't be surprised if the next big game just has dps/heals and how it will be praised for not using the trinity, then bashed because of the shortage of healers... 

I didn't mind when WoW took the utlity and spread it across the dps/healer classes, i thought it was good. What really ticked me off was when they took the buffs each of the classes had and started homogenizing them... making a large amount of combinations of classes effectively useless for utility. Hell I enjoyed playing a paladin for the longest time because I had great utility buffs for everyone at the raid... not so much anymore.

My concern is the overabundance of negative opinions and views on the internet in general. Sure you can research a product, but you will have to weed through hundreds of negative opinions of said product before finding anything positive. So does that mean the product is bad? No. Does it mean the internet is full of negative people? Not really. 

So the criticism you speak of really has to be taken with a grain of salt. For me I assume for every 10 people who have a positive experience with something, maybe 1 of them will make a post about their positive experience. However if the same 10 people have a negative experience, then in my mind 9 out of the 10 people would be likely to make their opinion known. I think its deep in human nature (its much more important to know which berries make you sick, than which ones taste good).

So sure, people can criticize all they want, but typically all I hear is blah blah blah, wah wah wah. And it is often difficult to discern between what is bad enough to ward you off, and what is good enough for you to enjoy and not get caught up in all the negative feedback about, possibly things you don't care about. 

They are on a slip'n'slide that leads directly into a pit filled with money. How terrible for them.

TSW - Will be more successful than AoC at launch, no WoW number subs, but will have a very dedicated following (maybe 600,000+ subs)

GW2 - Will disappoint a lot of players, but huge marketing and only depending on initial box sales will make the game A LOT of money... thus a success.

D3 - Blizzard decides that D3 isn't ready to be released and revamps the entire game (again), estimated release date 2013. 

SWTOR - Retains decent subs, attracts more new players into the MMO-genre (for better or worse) probably 300k subs.

TERA - Biggest flop of 2012, NA servers shut down in 2013.

I feel like people tend to miss the point of death penalties and assume because they played game X, and Y that had death penalty Z that this is what works and nothing else does... of course this is also forum-hyperbole. But I think death should be more integral to the game and not just tacked on... like just taking a typical WoW-type game and adding perma-death... it has to make sense to the game as a whole.

So best death penalty ever? I think the question is not fully formed, really it should be a question of what game model worked best with what death penalty? EQ with naked corpse runs, did it work because corpse runs were difficult? Or did it work because the game had lots of focus on cooperation between players and often times putting you in positioned where you needed help from others because it was otherwise impossible to say get your corpse back by yourself. 

Or why full looting worked in a game like UO? Focus on crafting and resources allowed for stockpiles of armor/weapons in the areas often where you might be ressurrected (a town for instance has a bank, which allows you to access your stockpile). 

But to suggest something like full looting (lets not forget UO also had monster looting) would work in a game just because full loot is the best? Blasphemy... the death penalty has to be chosen depending on the game model... not the other way around. Can't just decide you want to make a perma-death game then go and make a game and slap perma-death on it.

Originally posted by Ceridith

So from the responses so far is seems that, pay to win aside, some players enjoy only certain aspects of the game (dungeons, raiding, PvP), and dislike the other aspects such as leveling or having to farm gold, etc.

As a follow up question in regards to the above...

For those of you who do like convenience related RMT and Item Malls: Would you be interested in playing an MMO that was designed specifically, or otherwise offered a separate server ruleset, to let you bypass the "grind" portion of gameplay and jump right into the 'end-game' content (raiding, PvP, etc)?

I'm not trying to bash those who like RMT and item malls. Simply trying to understand the motivation and see if there is a potential way to make all involved happy. It has been an issue over the years as RMT is against the rules for many MMOs, and additionally "convenience" services being added to games where there was none before having caused turmoil within playerbases.

I think enough people would be for it, but it would be very short-lived. If anyone remembers how much fun the Test Server was in UO, but it wasn't something I would play full-time.

I am not against RMT, in fact I have taken part in the buying/selling/trading of accounts in popular MMOs for various reasons. Me and my friends have all taken part in this, we have botted, we have macro'd, afk BGs, you name it. We are the scum of the MMO-universe... but this thread is asking why... and its a good question, here are a few examples from my own history on the subject:

1. Making money... It's funny to think, but when some deals come around for $10 WoW copies me and my friends would pick up 4 copies, then go make 4 new accounts, all with the intention of selling these accounts. Then we would spend a weekend leveling these characters 1-50 through dungeon runs. This was tons of fun for me and my friends (especially after Blizzard added RAF), I love powerleveling and have not found a game that really embraced it since EQ. So we spend a week or two getting guys up to lvl 50-60, then sell off the accounts to the no-name RMTers for a small profit (maybe they will buy these "garbage" accounts for like $40). So... not only would we make a small profit, but powerleveling is fun to us!!!

Similarly back when RFO first came out, me and my friends created a handful of crafters in the game, set up macros for creating one certain shield which sold to NPC vendors for WAY too much. The market for minerals and the Siar Blidend (I remember all the tells from the asian farmers trying to sell us the stuff "You want buy siar?") and sell off the shields you made to the NPC for HUGE profits... we ended up quitting the game after a month, but only after being hundreds of dollars richer for it.

2. FoTM Classes and PvP... one of my friends is a hardcore pvper, he rages hard at me and my other friends when we **** up the arenas or the battlegrounds for him. Or currently we play LoL and I pick "noob champs" and he gets pissed and plays by himself. He more than any of my friends tended to buy/sell accounts in games so he could always have that PvP edge, because he was used to games like CS, DoD, Battlefield, MW where he could quickly be the best. But in the class-based system constantly changing patch-to-patch in an MMO it is not feasible to have all the classes and characters at max level and with max pvp gear, so he would buy/sell accounts to try out different WoW Arena combinations.

3. Out-of-game money for In-game money... really this is a "service industry" in the most general of thinking. Me and my friends are all mostly well off, have very good jobs in the software networking industry, are married and own houses. But with all that we are lacking in free time... seriously lacking. But growing up loving video games and MMOs, playing 10+ hours a day in high school and college, now we want to keep up with the current games and MMOs, but having time to spend farming up items to sell so you can do the end-game content that you want (buying enchants, potions, glyphs) and not to mention the hundreds of respecs for PvP... Well one figures that either you can spend your time in-game doing it, or pay someone else to do it for you if you don't feel like its economical for you to do it yourself...

I always use the oil change example for service industry comparisons. I pay for someone else to do my oil changes, because they can do it in 15 minutes for maybe $50, or I can do it myself in an hour for maybe $20. But to me, my time is worth more than the $30 to me than I would save doing it myself. The service industry is based on this, and RMTers who trade in in-game currency appeal to this market. 

I thought Darksiders was pretty badass, grabbing a zombie's head and squishing it with one hand, totaly badass. 

League of Legends is the best F2P with PvP if you consider the MOBA genre.

Best F2P pure MMORPG? Umm... Runes of Magic is probably the best, however I found the PvP to be lacking when I played (PvP servers were filled with non-PvP), also I don't think its balanced around PvP. 

Best F2P pure MMORPG for PvP? That's a tough one... not sure.

I find your story all too common among people who get involved in MMOs so early and then plow through content. It's fun to be on the cutting edge of gaming and be the first to do stuff. But it burns you out, and pushes you to outplay the content. If you can stomach it wait a few months then come back. Just as you say with Rift adding lots of new stuff, I played Rift at launch (did a bit of Beta as well) plowed through the leveling and got to endgame before there really was anything and left annoyed. Now going back to Rift its like a new game all over again... so give a second chance... in a few months...

While there is a lot of hypocrisy on these forums including what is allowed/not allowed. I would have to agree that those threads all feel like blatent marketing ads and overlap a great deal with oneanother. It is funny the mods give extra scrutiny to the MO boards or maybe its just shill central over here.

Originally posted by AdamTM

Originally posted by Meltdown

Regardless of how one would invest in an MMO (Kickstart or not), I would look for one backed by a well known developer in the gaming world. Sure it seems shallow, but nothing else I feel would guarentee that the people behind said game were dedicated and skilled at their work than knowing that ahead of time. Not only that but developers (and engineers in general) are very proud skilled workers, and when their name is on the front of something like that I feel like you will get 125% of their effort on said project. And I'm not talking about people like John Smedley or Richard Garriot, I'm talking more like Markus Persson.

I'd never donate to any project that is led by a well known developer.

Why should i as a consumer pay for the game that i will later need to buy and if they are already well known why do i need to pay for their investment?

Umm.. if you would never as a consumer ever invest into a game I guess any reason for wanting to wouldn't make any sense to you regardless, so I won't take much from your response, just a clarification. I am referring to something more similar to buying a game in Alpha similar to how Markus Persson did Minecraft, you buy into the game early (investing) to support the game and hopefully get more out of it (promise of all future updates for free). So I am both purchasing and investing at the same time, not what you suggest.

Regardless of how one would invest in an MMO (Kickstart or not), I would look for one backed by a well known developer in the gaming world. Sure it seems shallow, but nothing else I feel would guarentee that the people behind said game were dedicated and skilled at their work than knowing that ahead of time. Not only that but developers (and engineers in general) are very proud skilled workers, and when their name is on the front of something like that I feel like you will get 125% of their effort on said project. And I'm not talking about people like John Smedley or Richard Garriot, I'm talking more like Markus Persson.

Originally posted by Starwars001

With the hugely successful game companies like blizzard, bioware, I hope to see bethesda get into the MMO ring. 

I have a great confidence that they will make some type of successfull sandboxy game.

Hopefully Bethesda annonce something of the sort this year. 

The B's have it

Was slightly difficult to follow, but I like the points about gameplay and that just because one type of gameplay is more popular than another doesn't mean we need to get rid of all the minority gameplay. Solo gameplay is obviously more popular than group gameplay, but a lot of games just take that to mean they can make solo gameplay fun and ignore group gameplay mechanics.

But you're right, there is no "better" of the two, its all a matter of opinion and personal situations (like you only have 30 minutes to play) say if 35% of the MMO-population love solo-play, 20% love group play, 15% love raid play, 15% love crafting and 15% love pvp then a great deal of developers will make a game solely focused on solo play since it is the biggest piece of the pie... but its sort of overlooked that a game focused on group play and crafting also represent an equal amount. 35% = 15%+20%. I guess at that point its more about the company being more effecient by focusing on the largest piece of the pie, instead of attempting to make all pieces equal. 

I assume the point of this practice is to find out what people think makes a challenging game. A challenging game that people who ENJOY a challenge find fun.  Thus making a "fun" game for certain people. For HARD or challenging games and what you can do to make one, just take a look back into our past of Arcade Games and NES Games. Limited Lives, zero tolerance death (die in one or two hits), reaction-based combat, extreme periods of mindless leveling (Dragon Warrior and FF1 anyone), a 'greed kills' scenario (risk vs reward), complicated mazes and puzzles, lack of trivial content. Really you can take any of those. And yes I consider grinding out levels "difficult" and some people find it enjoyable.

Originally posted by dave6660

Originally posted by Axehilt

Professional AI programmers (people who've made multiple games and watched how players play them and react to various methods of AI) would point out that if the player doesn't perceive it it doesn't exist.

In this case Bob's AI gives out the same exact quest he could've just been hardcoded to do.  Most (possibly all) players won't know the difference, and if we don't know the difference the underlying logic is completely meaningless.

Time and time again when I read articles about AI the important keys to success are about giving the perception of intelligence.  The actual need for true intelligence isn't there -- in fact in many situations intelligent AI is detrimental to the fun of a game.

So while AI can certainly stand to be more game-like, less exploitable, and less perceptibly stupid, it's actually not a good idea to make it more intelligent for intelligence sake.  

Very true.  There are many ways to simulate intelligence without really adding any AI.  The vast majority of players wouldn't know AI from a hole in the ground.

Yea reading through the comments I would say that what MMOs are best at are giving illusions of AI and intelligence. The minecraft example of a pig running away from someone hitting it with a sword is simplistic. But very simplistic concepts often combine in unique ways to create a truely authentic experience, here is a quote from Majong's blog about updating Minecraft as an example:

"While testing the biome code, I started running out of food in the game and started hunting animals. Cows would just stand there, looking at me as I mashed them over and over to get their precious loot, so I figured I’d just make that mechanic a bit more fun. Four lines of code later, and animals now flee randomly after taking damage. Hunting animals suddenly became a lot more fun and morally questionable as pigs would storm off grunting and chicken (or whatever the heck they are) would jump into ravines. But the real fun came later on."

"Back to doing some further testing. I was exploring a forest biome, hit upon a river cutting through it, and walked over a small hill. On the other side, a wolf was chasing a sheep, but the sheep was running away. I didn’t have this in mind when I wrote the code to make mobs flee, but it ended up giving me an unexpected experience of having some kind of echo system of competing behaviors in various animals, and it just felt.. nice. It made me realize we should explore more mob to mob interactions, and have more chaotic competing behavior."

Originally posted by Creslin321

"Hey...why is that chicken named Creslin?"

Busted

Ahaha, that made me lol. Good stuff.