Well, enmasse changes things regularly -- what you are seeing here might just make a larger severing between K-Tera and Tera.  This might be for the better in some ways because I think I trust enmasse more when it comes down to creating battlegrounds maps. 

Warhammer's main problem was their conquest system was NOT ready and instead of acknowledging it they kludged the system to make winning not possible until they had their ducks in a row.

We got to the fortress REALLY EARLY before there was any hope of defeating one and it was obvious it wasnt ready even then.  This was before they made it really hard to flip the zones.  Now, if they initially had it set up so that the fortress battles actually worked instead of being a huge lag and crashfest and had a much more compelling city raid system, things would have not gone downhill the way they did.

The other BIG problem was the one you mentioned -- 2 sides -- *BUT* that could have been easily rectified without adding a side.  Put a moon in the sky.  When the moon is full chaos gets bonuses.  When the moon is new, law gets bonuses.  It is neutral when the moon is at half.  Now you have periods where one side has a definite advantage and other times when the other side gets the same.  This would make it possible for the distaff side even on moderately unbalanced worlds able to succeed during their time of the month. 

The mergers made things worse -- you could go from a balanced world to a very unbalanced one with a merger. 

The only game that had a good diplomacy system was vanguard.

It actually had a full set of levels for being a diplomat which actually opened up some equipment etc.

They didnt make as much out of it as they could have but it is still a major part of what made that game special.

The worst is when there is a game you genuinely like on some level that is fatally flawed on a different level. 

This can happen in many ways.  One way is that you played to the end or worse near it -- say to level 57 in a level 60 game and then your class gets a massive nerf.  Now you will never be as powerful as you once were and are now facing a gear treadmill that will just take you partway.  You enjoy the game but the experience of the character is ruined.

This can happen via server merge or population shift in a pvp game -- IE you enjoyed playing the game a lot and your server is relatively balanced.  Now you have a merge and you are all of a sudden an extreme underdog.  Your home city gets raided every single day and your side has no hope.  And it is now no longer fun.

Then there is the endgame bait and switch.  You have a lot of fun playing to the level cap and then the game changes a lot.  It may have been solo friendly but now everything requires a group.  OR you might (as in rift) have had tremendous lattitude in the kind of equipment you wore -- ie lets say you had all purple valor items.  Now you have an artificial mechanic (toughness) that you MUST get.  Every upgrade is a downgrade except for the artificial stat.

Then there are changes to how game skills interact.  You had a fairly unique way that you played your character and by piecing together skills and items that were maybe not intended for your class, you are able to take it into a role or hybrid role that people generally did not consider.  It was the heart of your character.  Then it is swept away // no longer works.  Now your character is forced to conform.

They really need to get off their cans and start selling timecards.  It would make a lot of people a lot more confident if they could buy timecards and just enter the codes to extend their time rather than having a billing cycle.

Actually one element of everquest when it first came out that really wowed me was that you could play a game and sell items that you earned in the game to pay for your subscription and maybe have a little extra money -- and when you finished playing that you could sell your stuff -- as opposed to other game forms where it became worthless when you were done playing.

Of course this changed in general over time.  I mean I bought and sold (but mainly sold) things in asherons call and everquest back when it was legal to sell them on ebay, and it was kind of sad then that went away with the updated rules in those games, the participation by ebay of making it so you cant sell items for any online game, and the general change of how the games worked.

I mean in the old days you didnt have the asian farmers.  The people who actually sold a dwarven workboots or a 113 bow actually were players who got said.  When it was pushed underground it became the exact things that people did not want -- big companies that did the transactions from oversees.

Of course back then you could even buy items from vendors that other people had sold to them.  It was a different time -- and a time one can not go back to -- the genie has been let out of the bottle and even if some new game goes that path aka diablo 3 -- concerted efforts in countries with lower standards of living will make sure that your time is not worth much money in a game as a normal player.

Avoid netflix and hulu like the plague and you should be fine with playing an MMO.  If you are really scared you can get a router (which you should have anyway for security purposes -- hardware firewalls and such) and set it to meter your data usage.  This way you will know if you are getting close to your limit or at least about what you are using per day.

Actually there was an Everquest Prequel.  It is just that most people never got to play it, and now it is too late as it was closed down fairly recently.  The game was called Everquest Online Adventures and was available only on the Playstation 2.  There was a lot of lore there and even the manual was pretty neat to someone who was into the history of norrath. 

I would suggest trying vindictus.  It is a very fun romp for someone who is looking for something different and is free to play.  Plus most people who do try it tend to give it a good rating.  I enjoyed it up until the endgame -- but that is the way most games are to me --  I like new content and advancement and once you reach the endgame that slows to a crawl in just about everything. 

I have heard AA used.  A not so much.  Pretty much seems to go AAA, AA, and Indy.  An example of a AA game would be if Nexon decided to come out with a Vindictus 2.  It could have a significant following but it isnt quite the budget and audience of something like a Tera.  But it would be very likely to be a lot bigger than a normal Indy game. 

Something that if it does well would manage to compete with the AAAs that are considered mostly failures -- IE something that is shooting for the 50,000-100,000 user number as opposed to the 500,000+ user number.

Indy games pretty much have done well if they get 20,000 regular users.

The big difference is that you require a drive to have a game system use discs.  You only need a USB port (which all systems will have) to allow you to use a USB drive.  USB drives can be used on the fly -- meaning a store does not need to keep a bunch of full copies of the game -- they can put whatever game they want on the USB and sell it with the code to activate the game.  This would also make it less likely for a game to be resold used.  A disc is pretty much a permanent thing -- a USB drive is not.

In essence it gives a method to get games other than the internet in a post disc world. 

Oh and it could always work on a kiosk as well like the redbox things for movies -- only it would be able to do many more different games.

My prediction is that games will eventually come on USB drives with an exchange -- kind of the way blue rhino does propane.  You bring your old drive, trade it for the new one and then the new data gets loaded onto the old drive for someone else down the road.  You will have the choice of that or of downloading the program.  Games on discs would end.

Immersion is one of the biggest requirements for a game being fun for me.  This is one reason why I dislike ventrillo and similar programs so much -- it yanks me out of the game world and into the modern word of screaming babies, husky elves, and tinny barbarians.  At the very least everyone should use a voice changer to make them a little closer to their characters. 

Immersion, advancement, growth, and content.

It is kind of simple -- just give lancers two stances the way warriors have two stances. 

Remove a certain amount of their default survivability and low damage and throw that into a defense buff skill -- so it is a wash for defense if you use it.  Then put in an offensive stance skill. 

At that point lancers would have the same three choices as a warrior -- run with the defensive stance and play tank -- run with the offensive stance and play sort-of-a-dps -- or run with no stance and play middle of the road.

Sometimes you just can't go back yet again.  I played everquest and everquest 2 enough times that going back would just mess up the memories.  Plus I am still kind of upset at them for a circumstance that emptied my station credits that they didnt help me with ....

At any rate though.

I am waiting on everquest next.  That will be when I give everquest another chance.  And I am sincerely hoping that it can rekindle the old magic.

In essence we are highly moderated and if people posted the kinds of things you see on those forums, they would end up with 0 stars and then banned faster than you could say Robinson.

People know what will and will not play here and those who dont are no longer here.

Actually a mix of cabal and vindictus if that is actually possible.

Cabal's combo system was very unique as the time that you did your rotation moves was important to how well they did and each successive move got harder and harder to time.

Adding a combo bar to vindictus's open area combat and allowing movement during the bar moves would make for quite the complex system but it would work fairly well at least in theory.

What warhammer needs is a monthly server with an actual winning side.

Everyone starts at level 1 the first day of each calendar month.

Double or Triple the exp earned.

All dungeon lockouts set to 1 day.

Stars can not be regenerated, only earned for the cities.

First city to reach 0 stars loses.

Meteors start falling from the skies decimating the defensive protections starting the 25th day of the month.

On the last day of the month, if there is not a winner, they start hitting the cities taking them down stars.

Actually $30 for the digital collectors edition is an even better deal as the items and mount are definitely worth it at an additional half price and most future sales will NOT be for the collectors edition and there isnt a way to upgrade anymore to the collectors edition.

Well nothing would stop you from having a permadeath version of the different servers that I listed and giving them added rewards...

Well other than the fact that people would cry like babies when they decided they wanted the extra benefits and died.

Of course one could always have something between perma-death and normal.  I mean if you lost 5 levels and all the items that you were carrying that is a really harsh penalty.  It falls short of perma-death of course but it would certainly have meaning even to the hardest of the hardcore.