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Originally posted by TheHatter
**nvm previous post (if anyone read it) I  misunderstood**
 
Hopefully, this doesn't extend to impose on the Freedom of Speech and Press.

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It always does, as the State fears your opinion more than your gun.

Sorry, but I'm not with the OP on the whole name change thing in terms of preventing stalkers. To explain, one has to understand how a stalker thinks. Stalkers don't really care about reputation, if s/he is truly stalking you. S/he is obsessed, s/he want you, regardless of the reputation. And said stalker will continue until two things happen: you are dead or s/he is dead. Or possibly a third, where s/he gets a good jolt to the brain pan from an ECT technician. Anyways, pretending that the obsessed and deranged will ever be stopped by lack of name change services is typical from someone with no psychology background as they think human motives and value scales must be fixed and wholly rational (hint, they're not). So until you try to make another suggestion in the lines of "there oughta be a law" consider your logic in terms of the intended effects, then realize that the unintended effects is what you'll more than likely propagate.

To the OP, levels existed before UO, especially in terms of MUDs and PnP games. So to say that levels are bad because you personally decree it doesn't follow. And as for raiding from the second or third post; MUDs had raids too. The entire concept of the dungeon crawl was nothing more than a raid. Many a player of a Copper or Diku derivative remembers raiding Dracula's castle, or some other stock zone (killing trash mobs and then moving on to the actual boss that could have taken anywhere between a few minutes to an hour and a half to kill).

But back to the point of the OP's decree, UO's system was an utter failure due to the fact that people can and do minmax. That is the nature of humans in terms of their existence; seeking the maximum of one's own 'psychic' (psychological) profit (or in other terms: the reduction in uneasiness or pain in one's life). In theory, skill systems are meant to avoid an abusive expression of minmaxing, but the reality is that even in UO the atypical tankmage was possible, and no amount of apologetics will negate that fact. All one can do is find more novel means to allow for minmaxing to lead to alternative expressions and/or specializations. In this fashion, then a skill system can be useful, but special pleading to nostalgia and keeping up the cognitive dissonance of the utter failure that was (and is) UO won't ever lead anywhere positive or fruitful.

The only place that I've bought 'gold' was in Secondlife, before the introduction of the SLExchange. It was through the folks that use to own XstreetSL (I forget what it was called before, forgive me). Everything else, what's the point? I'm not the kind of person that feels bad about having a toon with non-set or tier gear. So, I don't feel the need to buy my way to 'uberdom' or whatever.

Folks that want to buy their way to excellence are the kind of folks that often want to skip to the end of a movie or book, they're more about the immediate gratification. And all more for them, as it means they'll always be ready to drop a few coins for that moment, which they perceive as more valuable, of pleasure they wanted. I don't think they should be punished or rewarded, I just want them to be ready to acknowledge some of us have no issue with waiting for things or that we savor the experience over the sheer quantity of sensory input (as pleasure).

And as such, I think there should be games that are catered to them, but please, for the love of everyone's sanity, quit trying to barge into games that don't cater to it (like EQ2, Aion, Fallen Earth, and etc). Let us low time preference folks have some peace and you high time preference folks can have your microtranscation games.

Been tried with the war on drugs, do you really think it will work any better in a virtual world?

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Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

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Originally posted by alakram

The AI in mmorpgs is processed in the server. The server is loaded with tons and tons of request per second. Anything ina mmorpg that needs to be done fast must be easy. Thats why the AI is so "stupid", it can't be any other way if you want so many people playing at a time.
 
Edit: If developers could implement a better AI I'm sure they will do it and print this feature in the box: "The best AI seen in any MMORPG". It's just lack of server capability.

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Good post, but they could put in better AI, IF they were willing to sacrifice other things. There is no reason instanced areas couldn't offer much better AI right now. It isn`t a priority.

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I'm surprised no one has said DUST 514. O.o I know it's probably going not come out in '11, but the fact that CCP is trying to add metagaming as an explicit function of EVE and DUST seems interesting and possibly game making or breaking.

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Originally posted by Josher

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Originally posted by ladyattis

In terms of narrative structure and content, yes I think the Asians have a more innovative mindset as they're not totally enveloped in the Post-Modern mindset. They're still chewing on the Enlightenment and even adding some important concepts to it centuries after the fact. In some ways, despite the flashiness of their games, they seem to want to ask serious questions with some of their titles that we here in the so-called "West" have forgotten or ignored entirely. And it seems games are an outlet for them on such issues.

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Tentical creatures with phalic symbols and skimpy armor that resenbles thongs is SOOOO elightened and Post Modern=)
That was a joke..... before some anime twearp blows a blood vessel and rage nerds all over the screen;)

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OIC WUT U DID DER. :3

For me, the sandbox idea is still good if one recognizes it's not about simulating reality (all one has to do get a bit of reality is simply go outside for a little while and explore what other human beings are doing...), but about adding a means for narrative structures to be controlled or manipulated by the other users (to the point that even conflicting narratives evolve and alter the course of other narratives in the game). In essence, a sandbox from my point of view is the means to tell a story in such a way that others can see it unfolding too (although from their own perspective).

In terms of narrative structure and content, yes I think the Asians have a more innovative mindset as they're not totally enveloped in the Post-Modern mindset. They're still chewing on the Enlightenment and even adding some important concepts to it centuries after the fact. In some ways, despite the flashiness of their games, they seem to want to ask serious questions with some of their titles that we here in the so-called "West" have forgotten or ignored entirely. And it seems games are an outlet for them on such issues.

To the OP: I think what you're having is a standard burn out issue. Some folks have higher thresholds for such burn out, others are like me with quite low burn out thresholds before we go bonkers and do something else entirely (although some games never get boring for me like TF2). Here's what I suggest, take account for each account per month you pay, then add up the hours you put into it and imagine what other activities you could have done with the time or things you could have bought with the money. From there, then re-evaluate your value scale as to see if the MMOs in question really fit as priority one, if not it's time to move on to the more truly important values or ends. (Hint: it's not an addiction to all the pop-psychologists and pseudo-psychologists that troll these forums...)

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Originally posted by SnarlingWolf
Devs have pointed out before that despite the complaints about kill task and other boring quests that they also tend to be the most done quests. They are easy and a good source of xp so despite a person saying they hate it they keep running them.
 
Devs have also said before that when there are complex involved quests only a small portion of the population (which complains about not having more interesting quests) don't complete it. Why? Because truthfully most of the players complaining about such things don't actually want it, they want to level as fast as they can over having good story and fun quests. So they do the kill tasks and fedex quests for the quick easy xp to level up.
 
Metrics are why more and more MMOs keep having more and more of the simple standard boring quests, because despite the forum outcrys the players own actions show those quests are much greater successes. And if something is more successesful and at the same time 10-20x easier to produce, why wouldn't they create a million of those killtasks.
 
Modern day players don't like complex and interesting because it requires thinking and work. So when a quest is tricky or makes you think people either don't do it or find a walk through. If a quest takes skill by requiring tricky jumps and puzzles then players avoid it because they might fail which means lost time with leveling. Players want easy simple and straight to the point, which means seeing the same 3 quests over and over.

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Surface measures (statistical data) does not indicate true laws/rules.

Not dead yet. :3

5. Guide
4. Build
3. Carebear
2. 1337
1. Next-generation

If the router is a full computer in terms of a standard HDD, motherboard, CPU, and RAM, then yes it's very easy for it to 'catch' a virus. But if it's one of the more specialized homebased solutions (the 'blackbox' routers), then no it's hard as hell to infect it with a virus, other than to spoof yourself as a reliable firmware source (which you implant a virus or backdoor on the firmware to change the settings at will). Viruses themselves require you as a user to accept them in some form or another (either by clicking OK/YES/AFFIRMATIVE) to activate the payload, they themselves cannot inherently activate without that initial acceptance. That doesn't mean there's no flaws in OS or firmware, but it means that it's harder for a virus author to develop their payloads for them. It's easier to make you do the work than rely on mature software developments to have a slip up on an upgrade or revision.

Thing for me is that companies still think in Keynesian (quasi-Cartesian) terms of the nature of the firm and free enterprise. As such, they continue to assume a programmer is a programmer is a programmer (or that a game is a game is a game). They think in terms of homogeneity, rather than in terms of how things are actually heterogeneous (in comparison to similar sort and dissimilar sort). When they stop thinking that the firm is a machine, and more of a living thing, then there might be real business men ready to lead their respective firms to better game development. Until then, it's more of the same epic failure from the business and economic schools. >_>

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Originally posted by zymurgeist
History shows if you put enough people up against a wall and shoot them it tends to discourage antisocial behavior.

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Originally posted by zymurgeist
Totalitarian governments don't really care if your theories conflict with their ideology. They'll keep applying force until they get the desired result or some other force makes them stop.

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Yet these theories themselves prove the point again and again in terms of how social order is maintained (here's a hint: it's not maintained from the top-down, but rather the bottom-up.). China had to admit in its own day that totalitarianism in terms of the economy was bad. This is no different as it still deals with the social order, which no big army can ever defeat (save for by means of genocide/extermination of a people). As such, either the regime admits the futility now or it faces the long term cost of decline (and eventual destruction at the forces of the natural social order itself [via social entropy]).

Also, doing Jedi-Handwaving in terms of saying "It's only a theory" doesn't refute my point if both rational and empirical basis is sound. As such, one must attack the theory on those grounds, rather than playing an intellectually dishonest game of deflection (translation: leave it for the maroons at Faux News.).

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Originally posted by zaylin
Vigil is the one who actually has the license, but yes they are under THQ. no diff than Games being made by said company and that company being owned by say EA.

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What's Vigil's track record prior to THQ's ownership?

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Originally posted by arcdevil

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Originally posted by Wolfenpride

If it does come out, lets all pray it doesn't turn out like WAR online did.

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Its THQ,not Mythic. 
in other words,its a competent developer, not a farce

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THQ gave us the Matrix Online, which is closing or has closed. So, I don't think you can say they're competent. I would say their last good game was Septerra Core. But that's just me.

Bad idea is bad. Here's why. The fundamental attempt to enforce what is a wholly private affair is not only beyond the sphere of any reasonable governance, it's one that cannot be enforced within reasonable terms. Consider how the State in various countries still attempts forms of substance prohibition with scores of utter failures rolling in (through corruption, organized gangs, and generally draconic laws applied largely to consumers). This particular prohibition will be no different as both substance and behavioral prohibitions (in terms of purely consensual uses) suffer from the nature of market demand (and supply). People simply don't want to follow the same set of behaviors in terms of MMOs. There should be MMOs that cater to this demand; period and end of story (even though I personally find such behavior detestable).

The State should not even bother attempting to prohibit it. Nor should the State promote it. Rather, the State needs to accept the parallel, self-regulatory nature of the market (as in theory the State has its own self-regulatory factors). In such a hands-off policy, the people will realign their tastes accordingly, and institutions will give rise to properly partition gold sellers (and buyers) from those disinterested in such services. Any other claims to the contrary are not only in conflict with history, but also in conflict with non-contradictory economic theorems (which have stood the test of time from even the days before the Marginal Revolution of Menger and company).