Originally posted by Uhwop

You said it!

You won't spend money in the vanity shop because you'd feel like a guilible fool.  

The vanity shop is a source of entertainment.  

it amazes me what some people will rage on about.  I mean really?  You're all up in arms because someone might buy a virtual shirt?  Seriously, the level of pathetic in such a hissy fit is astounding.

You guys are funny... you'll make fun of, call names, to anyone nerd raging on something they don't like that happened in their game but you think nothing of calling them names, calling them pathetic for their point of views because you think they are being closed minded. 

Am I the only one seeing the brutally obvious hypocrisy here? 

If you want pathetic, look no further then yourself. 

As for the topic, my personal opinion is that CCP is going down a long road of bad calls made by similar companies in similar situations and unfortunately not being terribly honest about the reasoning or intentions. 

That being said, I could care less about paywalls or item shops for vanity items. Just call a spade a spade and don't try it behind any BS. Right now CCP isn't doing themselves any favors by BS'ing their way through this little mess they've created. 

It's true... I've seen them! They sparkle in the light like diamonds...

/camp

Originally posted by Dekron

Good grief. It seems a new request for participation for someone's thesis regarding mmorpg players is up weekly. And, frankly, they are getting annoying.

Since your sole purpose of joining this community is to derive data from the members, I will participate in your survey...multiple times. I have your link bookmarked and will enjoy participating and skewing your data. Additionally, I have your professor's name (Dr. Tifrah Warner) and your university (York). I will gladly submit a letter to your professor stating the data is invalid as it has been intentionally skewed by participants.

Unfortunatlely for you, I will use a proxy and you will be unable to base the results on a single IP address.

Have fun and find something new for your research!

We'd like to introduce you to Dekron, our public relations officer. Dekron's primary responsibility with us at mmorpg.com is to ensure everyone's stay is peaceful, welcoming and enjoyable.

You're in good hands... thank you, come again!

IMHO - Both of fairly sub-standard MMO's at this point but if you liked them then who cares what I say... If your big focus is housing and crafting both games have some depth in that field so go on whether you like Sci-Fi or Fantasy and you might land where you want.

If you're not happy, move on and try the other.

Lineage 2 hands down.

I've been part of some truly epic, gigantic battles that I've never seen replicated in any MMO.

Nothing like being a blade dancer and tearing through a group of 50 people to cause havoc!

Holla.

My name is Breanna. I live in Ottawa, Canada but I make my way between here and Montreal where I work for a game developer.

I'm an avid gamer of pretty much every genre but my passion lies in MMO's. I love to read whenever I have time (which is not often now days), I'm always studying something -- gah! --, play table top games (I played V:TM for years, then went to Old WoD and now New WoD), local LAN's (yay!), I'm a big swimmer and generally make a pain of myself.

Right now I'm playing WoW, Lineage 2 (as always), dabbling in EVE and a few beta's that I'm enjoying here and there.

Hmm... what else? Come form a large family, lots of broters, I was born in Russia, I hate facebook, loath twitter, I still contest that I'm a blogger even though I haven't posted on a blog I started five years ago in about... 5 years. My favorite movie right now is Inception... I dunno why, I just love it. I'm reading Dexter but it's terrible compared to the show. My favorite food in the whole wide world is Nachos, my favorite beer is Stella and I'm a huge hockey fan even though my poor Ottawa Senators are taking a beating this year.

OK, I'll stop now! But, nice to meet yah.

I just don't see it I guess.

I don't find Cat Heroics that difficult; now I certainly wouldn't consider myself casual but not hardcore.

Here's what I do know... Herocis and Raids in Cat now require players to have a somewhat basic knowledge of your class, what the classes around you can and cannot do and a little about the encounter. Overall, everything is a little more reactionary when compared with WotLK Heroics and Raids.

Change is a bitch... and sometimes you just have to roll with it. Not exactly something the WoW populace is good at doing.

Gearing to 359 is trickier right now and I think player are expecting to stream roll Heroics in ilvl333 gear, which just doesn't make sense. Maybe it is an issue that that Heroics are just not PUG friendly when you're in barely there heroic gear but in guild runs with half decent communication and players who try to be semi present and aware... they're really not hard at all.

It's called a red-eye:

- Half a bottle of beer

- Match the portion with Clamato Juice

- 1 x Raw Egg

- Drink tons of water after.

- Down two Asprin

And you're golden.

I don't know how helpful I can be...

I've dated both non-gamers and gamers alike. I work in the industry so it's a bit more than a hobby for me I guess but I play a lot away from work.

I'm in what I would call a semi-serious relationship now, a few months of exclusive dating, yadda yadda, and he's not a gamer by any stretch. He'll play FPS on consoles now and then but he's more into sports, outdoorsy type things.

It doesn't seem to be too big an issue for us, nor has it been with past relationships.

I think someone else already said it, relationships are about common ground but to add; I don't think it should be about exact replicas. It's good to have similar interests but you still have to be yourself or else she or he is not really dating you, just a semblance of you and that just never works.

I think for many a gamer, gaming becomes part of who we are and how we spend our time. If it's important to you then find a way to have her relate to that part of your life. If this girl is any way half close to good for you and or cares about you she'll make an effort to see your side. She may not ever want to be involved but if she's a keeper, she'll learn to appreciate it as part of what makes you... you.

To answer directly on the topic of WoD Online...

If it's anything like we think they might be doing... a virtual world with it's own social system, pure CCP goodyness. Forget about it... CCP could ask me for $25 per month and I'll pay. But that's just me and that's because I'm a stock raving mad fan who's been waiting for a WoD MMO since she was 12 and I'm about bursting at the seams to just... get... something! No way do I think that would reflect the masses on price per month.

For any other game... I think it really comes down to quality. If you pump a game up to say $20.00 per month, you're looking at approximately $240.00 per year in gaming expenses for one game, not to mention your time, effort, etc. Is that a huge expense? No, but it's not freaking small either.

To many... that's a month grocey bill... for a family, it's one or two week but still. You get the point. Or let's just think of this is gaming terms... an avg PC game box is $60.00, that's 4 games you could buy with just the subscription cost of the one game, never mind what you paid for the retail box set or the digital download. If any of those 4 games can occupy for you for 2 to 3 months of simple minded bliss, you're still having fun.

So for that kind of investment you had better come out with a wicked, top level, all out blast of a game that kills it on every level known to the MMO world.

And if it has Vampire... they'd better not freaking sparkle!

Originally posted by bverji

Originally posted by shae

I completely, whole heartidly agree. I've been saying this for years.

I truly believe that "balancing" classes in a class based MMORPG is a myth... you can work like heck forever to try to attain it but something will always be unbalanced. Someone will always be unhappy and a class structure will always favor one load out or another.

Enough with the balancing...

 I agree shae, balance is a bit of a loaded word wheat should be strived for is equaliy. What I mean is that classes should have equal value to a group dynamic in order to make each classs worth playing (otherwise whats the point.) As for PVP I have always been a fan of the rock/paper/scisssor form of balancing; where each class has a measured advantages/disadvantages over other classes. Then each class doesn't have to be perfectly balanced with each other they just have to be balanced amoung each other.  2 cents

Good point.

I also think we need to revisit how we view the word "balance".

I think to most balance means balanced against each other, as in the Priest healing is balanced against the Druid healing or the Rogue DPS is balanced against the Warrior DPS and so on.

Maybe balance should be changed to mean a balanced game overall. This offsets that and that offsets this... Players give a little there but get a little here. You give up a bit on one end to get a bit somewhere else.

Going back to SWG of long ago... I loved my smuggler / pistoleer... I gave up A LOT for this load out, I gave up any hope of winning long range battles and I had to be smart on how I approached a pvp situation but get me in close and I was deadly. If that were to happen now in WoW (I'm not picking on Wow here, just making a point) you'd have 100,000 posts on the blizzard forums complaining every single day that they stood zero chance of fighting from a distance, etc, etc, etc.

Originally posted by Brenelael

As for balance issues it only becomes an issue when a game tries to be two things at once. When a game tries to balance for both PvE and PvP one or the other usually comes up short. A game should stick to it's primary focus and balance for that alone. If it's primary focus is PvE it should be balanced for PvE... PvP games should be balanced for PvP. It's when a game tries to do both that problems arise.

 

Bren

This is a very good point Bren.

IMHO SWG lost it's way when it tried to overshoot itself. I believe we lost the game SWG could have been because of the "balance monster"... Remember at the time... the big deal was Smedley saying: "It's just too hard to balance 32 professions".

Well big freaking duh!!! Of course it is... that's why you don't. They stopped focusing on what SWG was supposed to be and tried to be 2 different games and lost their way in the process.

I think to another degree EQ2 fell into the same trap, Ryzon also. I'm not saying that a game can't be very good at PVP and PVE but you need to have a priority and you need to work with your player base to get them to understand what you're about.

I'll play, I'll play!

1) Dune... 1,000 X Dune! Because... I

There are two things I don't get... why it took so long for someone to pick up the World of Darkness IP and make it into an MMO, thank you CCP, and why the heck Dune isn't the single, biggest, best Sci-Fi MMO out there. Seriously, someone, got off your butt, pick up where Dune Generations left off and let's go.

2) Mass Affect - That would be nifty

3) Fatal Frame - I know, I know... it would never work and it's completely wrong for any sort of MMO but I just... loved those games so much. An MMO with that type of sitting would send my heart a flutter!

I completely, whole heartidly agree. I've been saying this for years.

I truly believe that "balancing" classes in a class based MMORPG is a myth... you can work like heck forever to try to attain it but something will always be unbalanced. Someone will always be unhappy and a class structure will always favor one load out or another.

Enough with the balancing...

Unfortunately I just don't think many development teams can afford to not have balance be a focus. If you make an MMO too team dependent you loose subscribers, if you loose subscriptions you can't afford to keep the game up and you're now out of a job. Players just don't react overtly well to forced grouping, which now means you have to make certain that every calls can stand on it's own, if every class can stand on it's own they have to be unique and balanced against each other.

I think it's a bit of the chicke / egg thing but whatever it is, I just don't think we'll ever see that much diversity in classes or roles in MMO's until someone with lots of funding makes a niche game.

Originally posted by BadgerSmaker

Originally posted by psyknx

I would come back but its been so long I forgot my account so lost my elder. :/

And I really dont feel like paying for all the expansions again.

 

Hope youre enjoying it tho!

Do you remember the email address that you signed up with?  If so, just go here and enter it and they will mail you your account name.

Also - Just to add, you can contact support and they will help you get your account back. I for the life of me could not remember why in the world my SWG game was not on the account I was logging into station with... turns out I had my Elder account on a different account ID. A TSR helped me out and in a couple of days I had my account back and going and they even gave me 3 days...

Not saying that because it was a huge deal but it was dice of them none the less IMHO.

This is just my opinion but it looks to me like this is just part of Cryptics business plan.

Make low development cost, short turn around, sub-par quality mmos with little depth, churn it out, retrieve development cost, wash, rince, repeat.

I'm not saying that it doesn't work... and that it's a horrible way of doing business, I guess I just hate it when it happens to a Franchise like Star Trek when it could have been sooooooo much more to soooo many more people.

Good Cryptic though I guess, if they can stay afloat and pay their people this way, who are we to judge. If you don't agree and or don't like the game, don't buy it. Consumer right and all that jaz.

Scyth;if you don't mind going back a little bit.. like 3, 4 years back that is, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is great RPG that really didn't get the recognition it should have.

You can get it on steam and with that patches that came after Troika Games went under, it was a very solid fun play. Might not be your thing, dunno, but it's one of those games I always recommend to RPG lovers just in case :).

Originally posted by Dekron

Originally posted by shae

If it's anything like ME2 we're in for a treat that's for sure! I'm doing my 2nd go around with my adept now, going all red and getting ready for my import!

I hope there are no tedious tasks like scanning and probing planets.

Pure story and action is what I am looking forward to in this final installment.

On a related note, DA2 comes out in March!

I was one of the crazies that kinda liked planet scanning! Although, I have to say, that it's nice to not HAVE to do it on your second play arounds.

I have such a huge wishlist but ME3... I'm afraid to overthink it because I don't want to be dissapointed. Let's just hope it's a unique and special experience, as were the previous iterations.

Not quite sure I'm as excited for DA2 though... I liked that the first DA catered to a different gamer in me and it seems they are pushing DA down the same road as Mass Effect. That's not to say I won't buy it, because I will, how could I not! I'll reserve judgement until play day though :) As always.

If it's anything like ME2 we're in for a treat that's for sure! I'm doing my 2nd go around with my adept now, going all red and getting ready for my import!

Originally posted by Harlequin_S

Keep in mind, while for the setting they are using Old WoD for game mechanics they have strongly implied they are going to take from New WoD as well. With a hybrid game system under the hood it certainly opens a lot of possibilities IMO.

I also agree I'd be surprised if no way for player Jusicars or Princes were in some way put into the game. As that does lead to a LOT of player social interaction and possibilies.

Anyone looking for follow this game I run a dedciated news and community site for it feel free to join us; http://www.wodnews.net

Harlequin - Do you need help with hosting your site dear? You've been up and down all year and I can help with hosting, publishing if you need?

Let me know, contact me here to shae2k@gmail.com.