The biggest discusion on the forums has been over the Red Zone issue, although the last post I saw mentioned they would not be IP or CC blocking, which is good news.

EQ was the reason I got into MMO's so, PS is the most fun I've ever had in an MMO, also the best group of people I've ever played with, I was there on day one for SWG and even tried to play after NGE but just couldn't get back into it :(, but do I love or hate SOE? 

Pretty much don't care they're a company like any other and they try to do what's best for their bottom line, sometimes thats good for me some times it isn't, in the end they're all just games, yup they give me enjoyment and they frustrate, but if they all went a way I'd find something else to fill the gap and get on with it. I think a few people on this site need to go outside and take a long walk to calm down and remember that an MMO is just a game.

I think the big issue with SOE is they've managed to break so many of there games by not listerning to the players, PS with TH BFG's, SWG and NGE, VG and crafting.

But if they wernt' such good games we wouldn't be so annoyed at them ruining them, lets hope they've lernt the lesson for PS2.

Originally posted by bigdjr

The only thing I hope is that they do not eventually make the game f2p and have in game cash but then again I could see that happening in 10 years if blizzard comes out with a WoW2 or another huge mmo

Will really depend on if they think they can milk a little more out of it when it truely starts to die.

Won't get me back on as I'm not a big fan of this model, one of the reasons I stopped play LotR.

There are too many places that the limited characters can go and be annoying for my paying character to have to put up with, sure some are trying but some will be there to cause grief for laughs.

Think it's time some of the people on this forum took a break from gaming, MMO's in particular.

Yup RIFT isn't the next coming, but it's still a lot of fun, especially if you get in with a good guild who are happy to take us slower levelers on a first T1 dungeon run.

And yes I'd love to see another main stream MMO try a crafting system as complex as SWG but just can't see it happening at the moment, but maybe in the future.

Originally posted by whilan

Personally my game should start when i open the application, The moment i start playing is when the game should start, not after X hours or even X minutes.

If i have to wait at all to start having fun or get to the real game then it's being done wrong.  I actually played UO and never saw the point of grinding skills just so i can play the real game.

Just my opinion of course.

Well said :), I'm with you on this, I really want the game from min level/skill to max to be fun, I definitly don't mind and in fact like it if a new sort of fun starts when I've maxed one of my characters out, as it gives me a reason to keep play this much loved character.

As has been stated it's just so easy to solo the current crop of MMO's, you could do back in the early day's but damn it was hard, it was just so much safer and more fun to group.

I personally like the option to solo as I don't have the same free time as I did back when i was play EQ. I think the way that some of the games are allowing public grouping is encouraging as I've notice while playing RIFT that some of the groups I've joined to do a RIFT have decide to stay together and try a dungeon or to as well.

So maybe that's the way to bring grouping back in, start it in an easy casual manner and once people get the feel for it they'll start activelly looking for groups.

Originally posted by Amathe

I have watched ...

Tagging:  You strike the mob first, it's all yours. No one else can get any credit for assisting you.

This was mainly to stop greifing through kill stealing, which was the bane of many games.

Dungeons: We all have our very own now. No other group can enter our dungeon.

Not completly true, yes some games have a lot of instances but not all.

Trains: They are gone. If someone else pulls mobs, they will walk right by you as if you don't exist.

Again this is to stop griefing, especially annoying when you added death penalties.

Rez: You don't need one from another player. There is no xp loss and you can run right back.

Most games do have some penalty for death, and some even have corpse runs still.

Corpse retrieval: Not even relevant anymore, so you don't need a class that can help locate a corpse or help you get it back.

See above.

Tracking: You have a gps map. Rangers aren't needed.

Depends rangers now track various other things, eg list of animals in the area.

Crafting: "High level" crafters are almost gone. Sure they can make a few nice things, but they are no longer necessary.

This really depends on the game, there are still games out there where crafters are useful.

Trading: You never even meet the person you are selling to or buying from.

Who cares? Really it just caused spam on the channels.

Travel: You don't need that druid or mage port like you used to, because you have your own hearthstone, flying mount, etc. etc.

Again not a huge deal, just a giant time sink in travel.

Raids: Much fewer people needed than in the past. Even in the same games.

I never felt all that heroic as one of 40 beating up a single mob.

Soloing: Commonplace.

Yup, but only if you chose, I still prefer a small group of friends to soloing any day.

Epic quests that need lots of help from others: Gone.

You mean Epic pain/timesink Gone.

Your server reputation: Screw it up, change your name or change servers.

I do sort of miss this one.

XP groups: Most folks don't even know what that is anymore.

Thank god for that one, I hate this aspect of old school, oooowww lets hog mob x for the next day or 2 so we can get 5% of the required xp for the next level.

The list goes on. The point is not whether this is good or bad. But rather that people don't really need other people much anymore. They don't even have that many reasons to interact. And what other players do has little to no affect on us.

More an issue of play style, find a decent guild, or get some friends to play and you'll have loads of interaction and fun, yeah sure some games promote socilising more than others, but none of them forbid it.

Was that really the goal? Did we want to play with thousands of other people so long as they all leave us alone and so long as we won't ever need them, or they us?

Again, more to do with play style than, I think a lot more of the earlier MMO players where from pen and paper games where you do have a group and geenrally belonged to larger gaming groups, where as now a lot of the new MMO's come from a single player video gameing background, and are looking for a bigger experience.

Funny how quickly games are forgotten Auto Assault was another 3 faction MMO, sadly this game never really got off to a good start before closing after roughly 15 months :(

Planetside was one of the few games that keep pulling me back in no matter how badly SOE tried to ruin it. I think the whole 3 sides option not to mention be part of NC, and having access to my beloved Scatter MAX :)

Not a fan of microtransactions, but it won't stop me from playing a game if I like it, but do prefer if they have one server with and one without.

Also if they do see the need to have it then, I prefer if they're fluff items, or say extra character slots (as long as subscribers get a reasonable number without buying more).

Yeah that's pretty harsh, but it's not like it hasn't been done before with the big games house buying up the smaller ones styfling there creativity then downsizing or complete chopping them.

You'll probably see a few new company's popping up with ex-acitivision employees running them, and after a couple of big games guess who'll buy them out.

Originally posted by arcdevil

So dont believe armchair programmers, game developers are probably the best programmers out there, far beyond those working for the army or for, say, google or microsoft.

Really I'd say they come in the same sort of flavours all coder's do brilliant through to crud, personally I know a lot of developers (me included specialise in ORACLE), but that could be because I've been doing this for close on 20 years.

Back to the original post, I know a few people in the industry, but I would never profess to know the 1st thing about games developing, yeah I've dabbled with stuff but pure at the amature level. And as to why a lot of people here think they know heaps about coding games --- it's EGO.

Great read :)

Yup was one of those long standing PS players, but had to stop after the merger that moved the servers just a little too far from NZ, could handle when they where west coast based, as my ping was under 200.

Would love to see them release a more up to date version, as it's one of my longest standing subs I've ever had, plus I think it's one of the few MMO's where I belonged to a good stong clan (WCG).

I'm all for the default setting, gives it the right feel for a super hero's MMO, but there are enough settings that you can give it a more traditional MMO look.

Good read Jon,

I'll be interested to see which of the super hero's games take's off, I really enjoy COH. I'm also hoping the old republic will add something exciting and new to MMO's, that seems to have been a lot of rehashing recently (although some nice polish).

As to WoW I got talked into playing again, and I've finally leveled a character to 80, but I've just ended my subscription, as it just gets to boring after awhile.

Personally I prefer a blend, one of the reasons I like the original SWG system.

Although I'd prefer a slightly more skill based blend on it. Where each class has a set of sills they can learn for little cost, and the further away a skill was the more it cost to learn.

For me it's all about where the MMO's are, and that at present is PC's.

For me graphics and animation go hand in hand, if you go for high end graphics you'd better get the animation right.

One of those things I always find ruins it for me is when a 4+ legged animal has one or more legs above or through the ground plain.

As we get more powerful machines the graphics should start to get more realistic, but the more realistic graphics get the more critical of said graphics we get

As a range damage dealer if the tank stays up right for more than a few heavy hitting spells, I tick them off my list for targets as that usually means they've got a decent healer or 2 backing them up, and no matter what I throw at them they're not going down :).

Although if I get in a good group that calls targets then we'll happily take out Tanks, but definitly requires team work.

I don't think you need to worry too much about not finding people to PvP with as soon as you tag a PvP objective people start turning up