I have many ideas to make a greatest game. Making a good game similar to making a good movie. A good scenario is very important before produce the game, imaginations could lead the game run errandly.  Then a good game need to include: in-depth crafting, skills, quest and story base quest and PVP.

Many MMOs are basically grinding endless, it is nothing wrong with that but it should not be all that. Environment is very important to make player real dedicate in the game.

I was trying to get monthly subscription to play Pirate of Caribbean Online from Disney, but the website won't process the payment so I made a phone call to Disney. The answer was the credit card holder address needs to be identical with the billing address, which means even I could use someone's address as billing address in USA but myself still need an address in USA and both address must be the same. 

Simply to say, Pirate of Caribbean Online only accept credit card issued in the USA. Because Disney do not send bill outside the USA.

I am playing Caribbean Pirate just now, as free player the skill level locked at level 7, so you can't get any more skills and there are MANY features you don't have. And player max level is 40. It's impossible to use the level 1 or 2 ship to fight with higher level pirate's ship.

So game like this should not call Free to Play. Disney should address properly call it Evaluation something like that.  

Looks like WOW advertisement.

F2P also the genre of MMORPG and a large population playing such free games, it is worthy to have a forum to discuss the free games. I am looking forward to have such forum to post. Cheers

I think it is important to know that only suitable environment will create the best PK or PVP. The environment must be separated into two real different world or added with a neutral faction. For instance, like WOW, two factions often met in around instances, this is not good. It would be better to go in the instance from within their own territory as portal. And strict rule will not allow player create role on both sides.

How the conflict taking place between two hostile sides will be the developer's job. It is better not to make doing instance as a faction battle. It is not efficient.

But I got one idea about the PVP, ie, the neutral zone could be the territory for winner, because two sides wants to grab more land from the neutral zone, so the game elected 50-100 players go to PVP zone to challenge each other, level requirements etc. The winner will hold one piece of land temporary, the server will update the new territory each time after the battle. And neutral zone provides cheaper stuffs, and certain resources only available in the neutral zone.

Or if both sides use the same map zone then it would be better to limit level to go in the disputed zone, If it is for level 20-30 then no other level can enter. And more important is the PVP or PK should based on One on One, means that if someone already engaged on PK, another will not able to involve until the PK finished.

PK or PVP basically is the rule and environment. It will not be a small PVP game like Monster play in LOTRO.

While I don't have any game to play atm so I am playing 9Draggons and Cabal Online. I do not want to write anything about the game quality or bugs galaxy things like that because the game does not appeal to monthly subscribers already. I would like to say this type of game is designed on mouse click and the total time you gotta spend.

Both game are easy to level and in an unbelivable fast speed, especially if you have a group then you will hit the level cap in no time. Let's say you are level 100, but there are many skills because you may still using a level 5 skill on high level mobs and lack of many other skills to buff yourself. The trick in here are skill level takes ages, I just roughly calculate how long will it take to max all the skill.

9Dragons probably needs more than ONE year to max all skills and it required you to play everyday, minimum 8 hours. And, Cabal Online nearly the same. Both games selling premium seervice included the skill up bonus so that you can skill up faster with extra skill point. Cabal Online provides some dummies in the game so you can hit the dummies by insert a toothpick on your keyboard to save your finger to click always the same key and you can do it  while you went to bed or AFK. But the dummy only support 30% of each skill level, the rest 70% must came from hunting.

There are several stats on your charcter but I suspect some of them are just there for your eyes only, they are not relevant to combat calculation. Both games have very simple combat engine. 

The event for both games are PVP battle take place once a week. Cabal Online use same map, 9Dragons use different map for different origins player but the map is nearly the same. In 9Dragons it calls Black and White. I have both side character, I suspect the black side have hidden traits added so they perform better than white side. Black always won the PVP battle.

In Cabal Online, they call it Democratic and Dictator side. Since it is South Korean game so the democrtic Propycon always beaten the Capycon (cant spell the name).

In 9Dragons, you need to buy premium service to make your wrods seen on the server, I heard it is limited to use. Besides, 9Dragons inherited from China censorship technology so they have the most strictly censor on player's chat. Any words contains for example, <ass>, <lick> are going to covered by xxxxx so passage will be censored as pxxxxxx, mouse click will covered as mouse cxxxxx, some words not even allowed to type in any chat channel such as their class, Shaolin. You can space each letter if you want to type in chat channel.

Both games have difficulty to build some sophisticated quest, even the mobs are alive but they seems like dummies to me as well. There is no challenge on both games but only time sink to level up your skills.

Pirate of Caribbean Sea is not really F2P, it's very limited feature to play, and the reminder to remind you to be a paid customer keeps poping up regularly or when you defeat an enemy. The more you killed in game the less and less feature you can play. Without full features, your character will be much weaker than other low level paid customer. But Disney offered nice beginning price, 5 dollars for the first month with full features. After that will cost you 10 dollars each month.

There are many skills as well in Pirate but it looks more fun or achievements along with your level instead of force you to make 10,000 mouse clicks to get one level up.

I think a good game appeal for less monthly fee will attract people to play anyway. Or it maybe even more profitable by selling their in-game items and premium service.

In my opinion, I figured out the reason why people fight over the game.

1. Certain game is protected by fans and keep the game image as good as they can. They will eliminate any troll even though they are not troll but in the fanboi judgement. Ffew years ago, I have been to a well known website, their forum is strictly protected for all the game advertised on their site. It seemed to me that it was a communist website because they will ban you with the power like China censored the entire internet, and they do it on their own site. I have been curious to find out why the website is so strictly not to tolerate any negative comments. It took me some time to figure it out. I maybe wrong but this was the most possible one.

It's the matter of money. Most of the people post in the forum maybe are employee work for the company, and their jobs are create different user's name and post in the forum to make game publisher believe it is worthy to spend money on their website. Since their job is to praise and show off the good side of the game so any negative point will not be allowed and you will be warned if you continue post something they don't like. If you were new to their website then they defined you as unexperienced player or any negative title attuned on you. .If you are real player then it's just the matter of fun. It couldn't be so serious. Just play another game. How can they tolerate anyone ruin their job?

2. Immatured player - he is hardly to make decesion to chose one game to play in so many games, so he defends his decesion. Any negative opinion different from him will make him like an idiot. So he rather to make yourself an idiot that you were chosing a wrong game.

3. Similar to Point 2, some people decided to quit the game so they wanted to tell others that the game was not good enough. Although he may need not to prove his smart decesion for his quit but he may either deliver his unsatisfied opinion whenever there was a chance or he may wanted to influence the others not to play the gamet.

For myself, I am a bit getting tired of playing this type of game, killing a number of mob to level up and use your skill in fighting so you may have more ability, and then the boss fight is the time you need friends, or a group to do it together. So you have chance to get better weapons or armors.

So it does not matter the name of AOC or War, it's just another type of old fashion game.

Is this thread 3 years ago? It's very old news.

I quit EQ2 after 2 months since released because the fishing pose of the NPC in the harbor looks too stupid.

In my opinion, LOTRO is not a fun game but the thing is "no fun" become part of MMORPG in these days. Although there are different meanings explained by different people about "fun". For myself, I think any game required to grind for skill are no fun. The skill in LOTRO are separate from the level which is similar design like most other F2P such as 9Dragon, Cabal Online, the level exp is one thing, skill level is another thing. LOTRO smartly covered up such skill with title but actually it is same thing.

Which means your level exp does not make you perform better with your skill, in WOW, when you earn your level exp then you can increase your skill level, which I think is better design. It is a cheap work to separate level and skill level into 2 categories to make time sink in the game. You need to use your skill frequently or kill certain amount of mobs to earn the skill....etc. It just make no sense because when you hit the max level but your skill level may still like a beginner's level. 

A good game does not use this cheap shot so they design the other thing to make time sink.

WOW is more worthy for the money because there are so many instances and many of them do not have timer on, if The Rift was first instance compare with WOW, then the Rift is like LBRS, then you can expect the next could be UBRS. If you expect something like Zu Guru, I honestly don't think LOTRO would have anything like that, not to mention AQ20 etc....

However, it maybe only for people prefer to have firece battle game, for mild player, LOTRO could be a social game like The Sims societies because the sims maybe too boring to play without battle field like LOTRO.

My first F2P was 9Dragons, not to mention about the game qaulity here but the game selling premium service so you can chat on one channel, however, you paid to the word you have type, after a handful of words then you need to buy the service again. The best thing about that game was the censorship, which I think why China capable to control and censor the whole China internet. ie, the game censored many words such as <ass>. So if your chat contains ass then it will covered by xxx, I never realize that the word like <passage> will be censored to pxxxxxx, and considered <lick> is sexual relevant word so <Click> will also censored to cxxxx. So why peoepl still want to pay. 

Another game, Cabal Online, which has much better quality, the game is also funny. You pay to get premium service so you can punch dummy to increase your skill level and you can do it on AFK. Why people paying a game to hit on a dummy? 

As other said already that F2P lack of in-depth contents but still a lot of people paid for premium service anyway and I have counted once that if you are rely on buying premium service in a continuous basis to play then it will cost you a fortune in the end and it could be few times more expensive than playing on a paid game. 

I think F2P game could be profitable business in another way.  It's curious to know what is F2P strategy on the market.

The first free game I have play really makes me feel being cheated. The game is full of bugs. I cant imagine when they solved a bug but create another two bugs in the meantime. But the second game I have downloaded to play now is much less bugs. One thing about the in game coins, you do not have to buy them. Usually, it cost you more money if you bought the in game items compare with monthly subscription fee.

But think of that, what will be the population started to play free game if free game gain more quality.

I do not mind to pay monthly fee to play a game, but when I read in the forum that Warhammer is just a big BG of WOW then it stop me to think about that. Age of Conan seems to be the only choice I could have at the moment. When you browse AOC website then you are required to confirm your age somehow makes me feel like I am about to browse a porn website. Hopefully it's also a porn game. 

I never play Vanguard before but I played LOTRO. LOTRO has very good graphics so it gave me very fresh excitment when I log in first time. But you may hit the level cap in very short time and there is no contents to follow. I think if the game is combat oriented then there is no need for housing. EQ2 has housing because that game has speical crafting system but game like LOTRO has no need to provide housing. But most life time subscribers are decided the future of LOTRO, and LOTRO scenario is binded by the book. If MMORPG limited by the storyline then everything would be limited.

If you are casual player then I will recommend to download free game from this website. There are plenty of free game available. It is unique enjoy for people able to play every game than those who stick in one game.

I have been playing MMORPG since Acheron's Call 2, Final Fantasy, EQ2, WOW, and the last was LOTRO. When I quit LOTRO I supposed to wait for Age of Conan, but there was a period of time without game. Then the first time that I took a closer look on MMORPG website, I noticed that there are so many FREE MMORPGs available, yeah, those games are selling actually certain in-game treasures or other stuffs. But what the heck, it's free. And in the end, I can't take my uber armor set, daggers with me when I quit WOW or sell my WOW account for money.

The first free game is full of bugs which guides me why the game is free. So I browse MMORPG website again and download another game, and this one I am playing now (Cabal Online) seems have good quality and more like a functional game. Graphics are much better than the 9D. But their core design are different from those paid game.The main differences between them are free games do not have or not good enough group instances, and free game usually designed with skill levels makes you to train skill levels which is the most boring part in game. But grinding is the common thing between paid or free game.

Anyway, those FREE games are improved more and more, so who is going to pay monthly to play a online game? Now, I am playing Cabal online, so I do not think I am going to buy Age of Conan in next month. Because I think if you play one game for about 7-12 months then it is about time to change to another new game for continuously online entertainment.

My PC specs is 3GHz, 1.5GB memory, Nvidea 7600 256mb. I can have 1440x968 but I set on 1152x864 most of the time. It's workable but I prefer to upgrade the graphics. My motherboard was AGP supported so I have to change a new motherboard with PCI slot. So I just bought a new computer in these days.

Duo Quad 3.2GHz, 8600GS 384MB, SATA2 HDD, 4GB memory. It is lot better than my old one.

It is cheaper to buy a new PC than upgrade parts in a long run.

Originally posted by rev_lazaro

[quote]

Currently, playing 9Dragon.  it's totaly free MMORPG. The common thing between 9Dragon and other MMORPGs is they all need grinding. I have never seen or heard anyone whining about 9Dragon even for the server lag, poor graphics ...etc and no one said it's a terrible game.

[/quote]

The beautiful thing about 9Dragons is all it is is grinding. I used to love it until I realized there's no effing point to it past grind. And if you've never heard anyone say it, you apparently are the most selective reader on this site. It has its moments in the beginning but then 9Dragons turns into nothing BUT a grind fest.

Acclaim apparently considers their games out of beta as soon as they get enough advertising for them. Nevermind the item malls opened up long before it went live.

 

I was trying to find the forum of 9Dragons but it seems no forum there. I think the game is produced by Chinese and seems to me that they are still learning to produce the game because the game has major game core problem which is no commercial value if they planned to sell. And they adopt the communist censor on chat channel, for instance, if you type <Click> then <lick> will be masked so you only see Cxxxx, Considering it's a free game much better than Empire Earth 3 which is not even able to play because the game badly made.

Learning different Kung Fu in 9Dragons is very similar doing slayer deed in LOTRO, Before certain patch, you need to kill 240 wargs in Angmar for deed then another 480 to get trait. That's really hell a lot of grinds.

From my experiences, complete all deeds will gain your performance, If you have minstrel don't max your soothing skill because you triple out your threat after max that skill. There are some minor bugs in the game. But more importantly is, even I have 3x LV50, 2xLV4x, I only login to raid the Rift, because there is nothing to do. One of my character have 4 kindred stance and the others are ally, friend or Aquaintance such as Eldrang. 3x lv50 all have reputation horse. The game developing speed is way too slow. It is good game to play like 7 months and I am willing to buy expansion pack if there is any before I quit. 

 Got 3x LV50 in game and one character have completed all deeds and received nearly all traits. All 3x LV50 got most rift armors set and champion also have dragon scale, guardian have high protector armors  as well. Also got all crafting up to GM except weaponsmith and cooking still Master.

Each lv50 bought 4 addtional bags from bank, and other 2x LV4x also bought 2 additional bags from bank. There is no reason for me to buy a house for storage purpose.

Currently, playing 9Dragon.  it's totaly free MMORPG. The common thing between 9Dragon and other MMORPGs is they all need grinding. I have never seen or heard anyone whining about 9Dragon even for the server lag, poor graphics ...etc and no one said it's a terrible game.

Hopefully, there will be a real good MMORPG on the market soon.

Been playing LOTRO since released so here is my opinions.

1. The game quality is ok but no content to play with. Some people turning the game to The Sims type. Female players are everywhere and mostly the leader of the guild.

2. LOTRO seems to me is a mini MMO game.

3. perhaps many lifetime players to play free so the game only add more surrounding stuffs like house, customization.

4. Crafting is really poor, the recipe looks like made by part time job. In order to give different armor outlook, the recipes have duplicated 3 times and 90% of the drop are metal or leather armor recipe. 

30% of playing time are fun, the other 70% are bored.