So much about this game is interesting. I'm really hoping it's doable within two million dollars, which sounds like a lot of money, except for when you're making a now-widely anticipated MMORPG.

Thanks for compiling the meaty FAQ, I'll be picking through it carefully for a while.

"and throw your choice of fruit pies at Mark Jacobs".

Easily worth $10,000, of course. Sadly, not so sure there will be any photos of that visit, as that reward description finishes with "No use of recording devices is permitted during this time", which is understandable, they want to control what gets out and when.

Is your enjoyment of the game purely a function of time? What if the game took half as long to get to the end, but was three times as enjoyable in terms of combat and content?

I suppose the way to get the best of both would be to provide really enjoyable end game content.

It's been a while since I played Runescape, but I remember quite happily going to level 40 or so without spending any money.

As Panther2103 rightly says, you can treat the F2P section as a trial version. If you want more of the stuff, go for the subscription. If not, that's cool, just move onto another game!

I remember when the word 'grind' wasn't complementary. When you're grinding, you're literally doing the same thing over and over and over again, till numbers increase.

When you say "isn't that what MMO's are about?" I can see where you're coming from, many MMO's (I'd say most) are all about the grind. But I'd argue it's bad game design. MMO's in the last decade have been largely subscription based, and so it's in the publisher's interest to spread people's time out over the content, as opposed to providing a properly satisfying gameplay experience.

Some people like grinding, and that's okay! It's just something I, personally, have got quite tired of.

I played Runescape classic back in the day, so the 'Runescape' name has some nostalgia to me. Also, Jagex have been doing a few interesting things lately, like publishing Ace of Spades (the voxel FPS) and so maybe they won't default straight to the grind-fest of many modern MMOs.

Maybe.

I love this use of microtransactions. Everyone wins, people in need get resources, players get a cute kitten, and Blizzard gets loads of goodwill.

Fuzzy feelings all round. I'd love to do this kind of stuff for my game.

It would be this one.

Development has been very strong, there's still some way to go with lots of rough patches here and there, but I'm feeling good about it! The pitch is 'real-time multiplayer RPG, a bit like those old zelda games', I hope that'll interest a few people.

If you liked Quake Live, definitely try out Tribes Ascend. It's got the fast moving thing going on, and a similar focus on skill.

It doesn't have the massively feel that the MMO's your familiar with, and if that's what you're after it might be worth waiting for PlanetSide 2.

I think Final Fantasy has some of the best concept art I've seen from a series, and the character creation screens look nice, but until we can see some real gameplay, I can't say I'm very interested. I remember watching the first news break about APB, and getting excited, but as we saw there, a game can have the greatest character customisation in the world, and still be no fun.

I'm interested in how they're relaunching it. "A Realm Reborn" directly references the fact that their first go at FFXIV was a disaster. I hope I'm wrong, I like Final Fantasy, but I just feel that it'll be hard to make a success of this one.

Like many people, I expect, Runescape was my first MMO, back in 2005. Your dead right regarding the world design, to someone spawning in for the first time, it certainly didn't feel linear, you could leave the castle, pick any direction and you'd come across appropriately level'd content, so the newbie wouldn't get frustrated and yet still feel freedom to explore wherever.

The economy didn't feel completely 'alive' though. Like you say, the rune market in particular always had this feel of supply and demand, I remember spending a few hours mining rune essence, there was always people willing to buy the stuff. But it's still all a bit grind-y, a design that doesn't pass so well today. Jagex gets points for an economy that, in part, has supply and demand, but I couldn't hold up the skill system as something I think other games should necessarily emulate.

Originally posted by DavisFlight

Vivendi and Turbine began developing a game called Middle Earth Online in about 2003 , and continued to develop it until it launched as Lord of the Rings Online.

In Alpha, LotRO was a sandbox game being made by veteran Turbine devs. It's tag line was "live in Middle Earth". The game was very community based, sandbox and book accuracy focus. The devs hosted events once a year called Turbine Nation where people came together and got to see the game as it came along, play in various events and raffles, essentially a big party.

 Well, about a year before LotRO's launch, Vivendi lost the rights to Lord of the Rings, and Turbine gained entire control over the MMO. Turbine changed Middle Earth Online's name to LotRO, shuffled most of the veteran staff to other projects, and put new developers at the helm of LotRO. They quickly scrapped most of the old work and restructured the game to be a quest based WoW clone. There were no more yearly Turbine Nation gathering, the community disintegrated. The game tag line was changed to "Fight through Middle Earth!".

That's actually... a really sad story. It's sad to hear that what could have been an actually interesting game was stomped all over.

I love reading these stories of what high-level (high risk) play in Eve is like, but I've failed multiple times to get through the first few hours. I know there's exciting gameplay past it, but I just can't force my way through!

It's going to be one of those games that I love to read about, but will never experience for myself, like Dwarf Fortress.

I don't think I've yet seen what I'd consider an MMORPG. It's always 1v1 or 2v2 RTS game sellotaped to some persistent world map, and 'Dawn of Fantasy' (bravo on the name) seems to be more of this. The trouble is that neither the RTS part or the persistent world map part are satisfying.

I'm looking forward to the game where there is just a massive world map, and you can spawn in, build a base in real-time and see how long you can survive. There are serious game design considerations that would need to worked through, but come on, someone give me Age of Empires 2, with a few thousand people in a game over a massive world. Yes please. And no, Age of Empires online isn't that game.

It's just a bit sad the way that MMO publishing has worked over the last 5 years. It's much easier for a developer to get a publisher to give them XX many millions of dollars to develop an MMO by saying "Hey, check out World of Warcraft! Look at the profits from that beast. We're making a game that's like it, we'll give you a piece of that pie." and lo and behold, there's a complete lack of innovation. It's harder to get the money by saying "we're going to do something untried and risky!"

But as people have been saying, it won't be long till the independant development studios start properly competing with the massive studios.