Originally posted by arctarus

Originally posted by Neanderthal

Hmm...

You know, in a way I can almost feel sorry for Curt just because he was a gamer who wanted to make his dream game and actually had the chance to do it untill it all fell apart.

But at the same time all the signs seemed to indicate that his big dream was simply to make his own version of WoW and seeing that go down in flames, I must admit, tweaks that horrible, gleefully vindictive part of my mind and makes me want to chuckle in a sinister sort of way.

I do feel bad for all the grunt workers though.

 

You feel sorry for a dimwit that wrote himself a 4mil fat paycheck that would have gone to pay for the employees salaries?
http://i.wow.joystiq.com/2012/05/25/wrup-a-moment-of-silence-for-38-studios/

You might want to look more closely at what I wrote.  Saying I can almost feel sorry for him hardly makes me his white knight charging in to defend him.

However, I do think I'll refrain from grabbing my torch and pitchfork and joining the mob rushing to tar and feather the guy.  I don't know what all was going on or what his intentions were.  He obviously didn't run his company very well but I doubt if this is the outcome he was shooting for.

Did he fuck up?  Yes.

Am I ready to join the lynch mob?  Not just now, thanks.

Keep in mind, I was never a fan of his or the type of game I think they were making.  But still, I don't know enough yet to rush to judgement on the guy. 

Hmm...

You know, in a way I can almost feel sorry for Curt just because he was a gamer who wanted to make his dream game and actually had the chance to do it untill it all fell apart.

But at the same time all the signs seemed to indicate that his big dream was simply to make his own version of WoW and seeing that go down in flames, I must admit, tweaks that horrible, gleefully vindictive part of my mind and makes me want to chuckle in a sinister sort of way.

I do feel bad for all the grunt workers though.

Originally posted by Romtim

Originally posted by Neanderthal

Locked in first person view.

Unrestricted free for all PvP with full loot.

Even if it's for real it's already as good as dead.

There has been already a great discussion on the official boards, why no 3rd person option. They explained it VERY well, that everyone agreed. I suggest you head there, nobody will listen you here, and nobody cares if you listen to us here, neither should you care if someone listens to you or not, since this is mmorpg.com, son.

They can't have said anything I haven't already heard a thousand times before over the years.  I know all the arguments in favor of locking games in first person view. 

In the end it doesn't matter how good a case you make for doing it, you're still going to alienate a huge chunk of your potential customers if you do it.  I mean,if you ran a restaurant you could yell at people untill you're blue in the face, telling them how good liver and onions is and how good for you it is and so on.  But in the end, if they don't like liver and onions they aren't going to buy it from you.

Locked in first person view.

Unrestricted free for all PvP with full loot.

Even if it's for real it's already as good as dead.

Why, in the name of all that is holy, do the developers of sandbox games always have this strange idea that a sandbox game has to be locked in first person view and has to have unrestricted open PvP with full loot?

Personally I think this smells like a scam but even assuming it's legit and further assuming a game actually gets made, they've already shot themselves in the foot with these idiotic "features".

Originally posted by Zylaxx

Originally posted by xmenty

FFS guys, Stop with the fking assumptions.

You guys can tell whether the game is good or not by just looking at the environment video.

Play the game first and then tell Curt to sort off if the game is bad.

 

 

You may not tell from the environment videos but you sure as hell can tell from his comments.  Plenty of which I listed above.

Zylaxx, I had seen some of those comments from Curt before but not all of them, thanks.  Soooo....., yeah, I had pretty much figured out what kind of game they were making before all this started.  I suppose they could suprise us but I won't be pinning any hopes on that remote possibility.

In all honesty, and I'm not saying this to be a jerk, I was not impressed at all by that video.  It didn't turn me off but it didn't excite me either.  Why?  Probably just because I'm too old to get excited by some generic shots of a fantasy world while soaring orchestra music plays in the background and it looks nice enough but doesn't actually tell me a damn thing about the game.

I mean, it could look better than any game ever made and that still wouldn't tell me if I would enjoy the game. 

Seriously, I don't think I can take leveling up another character just for the sake of leveling up.  I'm just about done with PvE in these games untill someone can make me feel like I'm having an adventure.  I could offer suggestions on how to do that but nobody would hear me so it's pointless.  Anyway, it's the devs job to make me feel that way; it's not my job to tell them how to do it.

So, again, that video didn't impress me because it didn't tell me what I would actually be doing if I logged into their game with a character.  I ain't doing the quest grind again I can tell you that.

Oh well, it's probably just as well if they crash and burn now rather than later.

On the one hand I can feel sympathy for them as fellow human beings but on the other hand the best we could have hoped for from them was yet another rehash of the standard themepark model.  The same ol' same ol' that's been played out for years now already.

Geezus H. Christ---this idea is like a wet dream for all the wannabe little dictators out there.  Oh I can definately see every asshole guild leader being in favor of this because it would give them the power to let out their true asshole nature without any consequences. 

Sure, let's put all the progrogression guild members make in the hands of guild leaders to do with as they please.  Nothing belongs to the individual players it all belongs to the guild (which means in reality it belongs to the guild leader).  Nope, nothing wrong with that idea at all.

My God, Stalin would be so proud of the guy who thought this up.

I might even try it since I did get some enjoyment out of Wizard 101.

But I was kind of hoping they would do a somewhat different version of a collectable card game type MMO.  The CCG format provides a perfect opportunity to get off the rails of level based advancement.  Instead of gaining levels the PVE focus could simply be traveling around battling monsters to aquire their cards to add to your deck.  Have enough cards to collect and have some way to lose cards (maybe in PVP) and you would basically ensure that people never run out of PVE stuff to do.

Wow, I went off topic quick.  Anyway, yeah, I might try it out.

Originally posted by FrostWyrm

Originally posted by Neanderthal

Any PvE activity which requires more than 5 or 6 people to actively coordinate with each other doesn't interest me.  I don't want to have to put up with the bullsh-t. 

Any MMO which requires me to accept another player as my Lord and Master and put up with abuse from him if I want to continue to progress is going to either never get my money to begin with or is going to lose my subscription the moment I see that sort of crap going on.

Now this doesn't mean I don't want to have lots of other people sharing the same virtual world, I just don't want to have to form up in groups of 10, 20, 30, 40 or more in order to progress.  Five or Six people is fine, thanks.  I prefer to matter and not just be another face in the crowd.

While I kind of agree with what you're saying, it sounds more like you just have a problem with authority than anything else. I've never been a huge raiding fan myself, but I did Dynamis runs back in FFXI.

There was no "abuse" from the linkshell leader. Yes, commands were given, but she wasn't a d-bag about them, nor was anyone ever removed from the group unless they just really screwed up multiple times and refused to even try to follow orders, or they went afk for the bulk of the trip.

As far as not being "another face in the crowd", even in a raid, if you do well, you stand out. If not, you're forgotten. An MMORPG is not really the type of game to play if you dont want to be another face in the crowd. With hundreds, sometimes thousands, of players all playing the same game, no matter how hard they try, they cant make every character the hero, because if everyone's a hero, then "hero" just becomes the status quo.

Well, yeah, part of my issue is a problem with authority.  Not in general life so much but another player having that much power over me is a deal breaker.  The thing was, back in EQ, that leaders of successfull raid guilds really did have a lot of power over the guild members and many (most?) did let it go to their heads and acted like jerks. 

They had power because: 1-- raiding was the only way to progress at the high end; 2-- progressing through raiding was dependant on being in a successfull raiding guild, and 3-- being in a successfull raiding guild was entirely dependant on the whim of the leader of that guild.

So if the leader of your raiding guild mouthed off to you in the most obnoxious way you either put up with it or got kicked from the guild which was basically game over for you unless and untill you joined another raiding guild and the leader of the next guild would almost certainly be just as mouthy and obnoxious as the leader of the guild you just got kicked out of.

As for the "face in the crowd" thing I was talking more about specific situations rather than in terms of the overall game.  I would never expect to stand out from the entire playerbase of a game.  What I meant was that in a small group of five or six people I represent one fifith or one sixth of the effort.  In a small group everyone can give their two cents of input and opinions.  In general you feel like you matter.

In a crowd of sixty or more people such as the raids in EQ back in the day you, as an individual, were almost irrelevant unless you were playing a very key role such as main tank or puller.  You didn't get to give any input in what was done and would likely have been threatened with expulsion from the guild if you even dared to try.  In general you felt like you didn't matter at all.

I don't like raiding.  It doesn't matter if I can do it---I don't want to do it.  It's boring, it's aggravating, and it's just not fun.  If Everquest hadn't been my first MMO my opinion about raiding might not have become quite so negative but it was and raiding was absolutely miserable in EQ.

Any PvE activity which requires more than 5 or 6 people to actively coordinate with each other doesn't interest me.  I don't want to have to put up with the bullsh-t. 

Any MMO which requires me to accept another player as my Lord and Master and put up with abuse from him if I want to continue to progress is going to either never get my money to begin with or is going to lose my subscription the moment I see that sort of crap going on.

Now this doesn't mean I don't want to have lots of other people sharing the same virtual world, I just don't want to have to form up in groups of 10, 20, 30, 40 or more in order to progress.  Five or Six people is fine, thanks.  I prefer to matter and not just be another face in the crowd.

I'm one of those people who bitches about how crappy games are now and how things were better in the good ol' days.  However, raiding is not one of the things which was better back then.  It was <bleeping> awfull.

I had no idea they were talking about EQ next being a sandbox / virtual world type of game.  Hmm, it almost makes me want to be interested in it.  Still---this is SOE and Smedley we're talking about here.  I find it almost impossible to even hope that they could make a worthwhile game of any type at this point.

As for the original EQ; it was a themepark without a doubt but it felt more open at least than the themeparks which followed.  Actually the games we get now aren't even really like themeparks, they are more like tour buses.  In a themepark you can wander around the park and choose which rides to ride and which vendor stands to stop at.  On a tour bus you're just along for the ride, you don't get to decide where you go or where you stop or how long you stop at any one place; everything is decided for you.

So yeah, EQ was a themepark in the truest sense of the term but the games which followed are tour buses.

Originally posted by Alot

You buy the commander role with ingame currency, please tell me how this is related to "whipping out your credit card".

I'm too lazy to bother.   Why don't you tell me how it's not related.

Originally posted by Vannor

Originally posted by Neanderthal

I don't really like that crap about selling the right to be a commander for a "hefty gold cost".  It's pretty obvious why they did that.  cash shop .

Well, whatever.  I guess I already knew it was a cash shop game.  I was just hoping they wouldn't go too nuts with it.

This is a rediculous comment. According to your logic the only way they can make you happy is by removing ingame currency completely.

Being a commander doesn't give any gameplay advantages.. hell, people in the sqaud might not even listen to your commands or your commands could actually be terrible and cause your side to lose.

If someone thinks it worth spending $50 on trying out the commander role then let them, it doesn't mean they will be good at it. Forming a group or guild yourself and communicating using the usual chat methods has the exact overall effect you know... until you can afford the role yourself using ingame methods.

Actually you are correct that it doesn't give any gameplay advantages.  In fact, after thinking about it I realize there is a good chance it will be nothing more than a fluff thing which most people will completely ignore.

However, when they talk about "strutting around with your special commander icon", it's pretty damn obvious that it's intended to sucker money out of people who want that ego boost.  Which I should be ok with because I know that's how they make their money but it still seems sleazy to me.  What can I say, I'm from a different age.

They also said, " The right to become a commander must be earned. "  Which just rubs me the wrong way when what they really meant is that the right to become a commander must be bought.  I know I'm opening myself up to a big, stupid, semantics argument by saying that but it's the context in which the word was used which matters in this case.  "Earned", in this case implies proving yourself in some way through gameplay but in reality all it will mean is whipping out your credit card in real life.

I don't really like that crap about selling the right to be a commander for a "hefty gold cost".  It's pretty obvious why they did that.  <cough> cash shop <cough>.

Well, whatever.  I guess I already knew it was a cash shop game.  I was just hoping they wouldn't go too nuts with it.

So....here we are in 2012, bored to death with the stale MMORPG market.  For some years now things have fallen into a fairly predictable cycle.  A new game is in development.  It gets hyped up and hyped up and hyped up.  People get all excited about it.  It releases and seems to be doing ok....then people get bored with it within a few months and the population starts to drop.  By the end of its' first year it has fallen to the status of yet another has-been game with a disappointing number of players still playing it.

Do developers ever even try to figure out why this happens?  When they are alone in the quiet of the night, does ever a fleeting query drift through their consciousness?  Do they never ask, "Why?"

....Why....

Maybe it would help to think first about why people get so excited about playing a game they have never tried.  What exactly is going on in peoples' minds when they are eagerly anticipating a new game?  Well, it's obvious right?  They are fantasizing about being in that alternate reality.

Cards on the table guys, we all have our nerdy side or we wouldn't be here.   We have all daydreamed about being in a fantasy or Science Fiction reality.  But think about it; when you have those types of fantasies do you imagine yourself following a closed in and predetermined path or do you imagine yourself in a open world with all the freedom of the real world.  Do you fantasize about going off on adventures or do you fantasize about prefroming menial tasks for the local butchers, bakers and candlestick makers?

The truth is that most people probably don't even try to define why they get excited about a game.  Most people probably would never stop to analyse their fantasies and compare that analysis with the design of a game.  People generaly just have these vague fantasies about entering the reality in which the game is based without bothering to try to pin everything down and label it.

But see, here's the problem:  MMO games have been drifting further and further away from the shape of our fantasies when they should be trying to get closer.  Because...see...whether some people want to admit it or not, our dreams are sandboxes.  The next time you daydream about being in the Star Wars or Lord of the Rings universe just stop and think about it a little and ask yourself if your daydream resembles in any way the typical Themepark MMO.

So...here we are in 2012, bored to death and just asking game developers to ponder this a bit.

The answer to the question in your thread title is, "Yes". 

Game companies might not blatantly pay for good reviews but they buy a lot of advertising on sites like this so even if they don't specifically make a deal for good reviews  there is going to be an unspoken understanding between the Game companies and review sites.  You know, its a, "You scratch my back and I'll scratch your back" sort of thing.

On the other hand maybe it is done blatantly where they openly discuss with each other how much money will be payed for good reviews.  I don't know, but either way you can't trust any reviews from anyone who is being paid by the company whos' game they are reviewing.

That's why I only put any weight on what people say in forums and even that has to be taken with a grain of salt.  Because there most definately are shills in forums as well.

But to give an example of how I feel about this sort of thing:  I am planning to buy GW2 but all the gushing, sticky sweet reviews on this site about that game are actually starting to put me off of the idea of buying it.  Honestly, the more of that type of obviously bought-and-paid-for reviewing I see the more doubts I have about the game.

So, I'll probably wait untill some other suckers have played the game for a month or so and see what they are saying before I buy it. 

Originally posted by MindTrigger

 

The trick is in listening to what these developers *don't* say when they are hyping up their game. 

 

    

That is very good advice.  I logged in here just so I could agree with you. 

Another bit of advice to help people see through the smoke and mirrors of pre-release hype is this:  If a developer IMPLIES something about his game but won't explicitly state that what he implied is actually so or give the details about it.....then you can bet that it's really just the opposite or at best it will be poorly implemented.

If you get a chance to ask questions of a dev and they give evasive answers which sort of vaguely imply great things without actually telling you anything specific then you can bet that they are being evasive for a reason.

Ok, that's all I wanted to say.  I haven't bought ToR and only played it a little in the open beta so I can't join the rest of the discussion.  I just wanted to chime in on that bit about sorting through the hype.

Originally posted by sonoggi

greatsword and hammer guardians can also wreck faces and change the outcome of a battle with the aoe CC abilities.

The guardians' CC abilities haven't gotten much attention in this discussion but that's the thing which, so far, has me leaning towards playing a Guardian. 

It's hard to say how it will play out in actual PvP gameplay; how effective it will be and so on, but the ability to control the movement of other players is typically a very powerful thing.  I haven't been digging deep into the info on this game, however, so my understanding of it all is a little vague still.

Question:  does anyone know if the thief's teleporting ability will allow a thief to get past a guardians CC?