130603
haswel i7 4770k $350 84W, 3.5Ghz, 4th gen, 4c 8t, 3yr war, 22nm; i5 4670k $224;
z87 chipset, lga 1150, 16 lane pci e 3, ddr3 1600Mhz, 6 sata ports;
1.14v oc 1.25-1.3v;
sandy bridg E 6c 12t (+50% > perf than sandy & ivy bridg);
i7 3930k $570, 130W 3.2Ghz, 2nd gen, 6c 12t, ddr3 1600, lga 2011, 40 lane pcie, 32nm, 3yr war;

gtx 700 series is a simple product refresh based on the familiar Kepler architecture found in the GeForce GTX 600 series and Titan video cards;
new gpu architecture due 2014;
gtx 780 $650, 250W, 1yr war

130530
In order to allow our VIP Dragon Pack members the promised 24 hour early access, the Elder Prophets have decided to push our public Open Beta back to 5:00pm PDT tomorrow, May 30th. ref

edit
seems $0E is going to screw with us and block all the non vip from redownloading the client untill 8 pm edt (5pm pdt, 0100gmt tomorrow) today when they open it as 'open beta.'
Way to frakin go, 10s of thousands having to all redownload at the same time, ?what could go wrong?

The previous Dragon's Prophet client was 8.5GB.
Beware DPT setup (19.5MB) tries to install Bling spyware, be sure to uncheck that.

130520
Open beta are great for optimizing server structure, server numbers and such. But not things like GW's oneshotting bosses, buggy AHs, non-existant graphical optimization, game freezes, malfuntioning AI mechanics (threat being borked for 3 months running, basicly screwing over 2/5 classes.)

Having a long beta is not the problem. Having bugs is not the problem. Having a NO WIPE open beta with THIS many bugs and then throwing REAL MONEY into the mix is the problem.
The game basically launched because of the shop. Too much real money is tied into this atm. The economy is DESTROYED and if they do a wipe many of the people will quit, if they do not many people will quit in a few months because the economy is unbearable.
In short, they fked themselves and more importantly the players. I do not blame Cryptic completely, although the glitches, bugs and exploits are clearly all their doing, but PWE insisted on launching the game during a beta state with a cash shop and fked the game. It is sad because something so beautiful that could easily sit on 2 Million+ constant players could now go to slowly die and be lucky to keep 100k after a year.

This AH bug for weeks is something that any halfway decent programmer would never have let into live code in the first place. Not to mention that checking inputs on the forms and trying to break them should have been handled by properly written tests and/or QA. It is sloppy, particularly as this is a piece of code tied to the value of Zen and AD.

-1 for Cryptic

---

Originally posted by 4bsolute
"Indepth" just kidding:

• Character customization not existing
• Way too many zones
• Linear map design "Ohh I'm allowed to jump over this rock, but the entire map is surrounded by walls I can not get up" Repetitive combat due to... Skills to use you can count on one hand - and this is the main thing, it is SO dulling! You really dont need a brain to play this game. Dodge the markers on the ground and spam away yer skills! ... THE FOUNDRY!! ... ENDLESS CONTENT!!! .... yeah, no thanks.

 
I cant believe people actually "endure" such a torture until lvl 60. I gave up after getting 3 chars to max lvl 15...
and please spare me with "It's getting much better later on, enjoy the pain." No I dont - and so shouldnt you. God, am I glad this game is F2P, no money for you cryptic.

I can NOT imagine such a game being released in 2013. The whole mechanics feel like 2008.........
PS: The amount of "..." are an indictator of my current "meh-status" after deinstalling the game.

Happy... , whatever you do :-) had to get this out of my system.

---

1. the "many zones" those are likely map areas divided into mob lvl range e.g. lvl 10 - 20, lvl 20-30; so you can pick a zone with monsters within your char lvl.
2. char customization, when u roll a char there are QUITE a few feature options, like hair and face style/ colour, body types, sex. So your "not existing" is obviously incorrect.
3. repetitive combat, the combat mechanics seems designed for xbox type controller instead of PC keyboard/mouse, so there are quite limited combat options, and the forced mouse view is frustrating for those used to 1st and 3rd person view, independent of char movement.
Targeting is a pain, esp when 3 to 8 enemy are all closely clustered.
4. foundry content, somewhat lessens the load for them to keep providing new content, and allows users to see what it is like to design their own missions.
...
banking, one only gets a 16 slot bank, and bags for loot are minimal, atm no crafting ability to make extra bags, so saving loot is severly limited. Cryptic has decided to force bags into cash shop where one has to pay like us$7 to 10 to buy a single bag for a single char.
Only two char slots per ftp account.
Crafting is tedious and booring, one does not actually do crafting, you acquire helpers and they do the crafting on a timer, 10 min to 8 hours to do a single job; one at a time.
Economy, loot sells for a few copper, buy to buy items in the auction house one has to use diamonds. Cryptic of course is utalizing a cash shop to allow people to pay rl$ for zen/diamonds.
One can get about 8k diamonds a day simply using invoke skill, but not all of us have 24/7 to waste using that hourly skill to "get rich."
There are only like 4 or 5 classes so the capacity for group dynamics is limited.

Client is about 3.7GB

130331
from notes:
tn monitor pixel fizz due to using dithering to increase colour depth and range, < response time, bad view angle; 120 or 240Hz support vs 60Hz, flimsy stand adjustment, dvi & displayPort input

ips (+color & view angle, >$, > ms), pva tech; mythical 120 Hz/2560x1440 display vs 60Hz and < 6ms response time; dhcp copy protection adds latency, scalers and video processors can introduce lag; multi input extra lag;

crt has very little latency; Current touch screen displays have an input latency of about 100 ms;

organic LED display, for example, if designed properly uses only 40 per cent of the power of a comparable LCD

24"/61cm, 27"/69cm (3m m2767pw), 42"/107cm, 4k2k quad hd, bendable oled.

atm using a 27" acer s271hl @ us$250 from Bestbuy (+$50 3 yr extended war) will not goto portrait mode, but for 250 can put up with that.
a pair of 27" that needs like a four foot table just for the monitors! (and the center channel speaker does not fit under them)

? where are all the 120 & 240Hz monitors, about all i find are 60Hz ?

edit
btw green screen on viewsonic 27" near war limit (check the customer reviews)

130303
cpu
i7 3770 4c/8thread $220-280, (3dmark 8260) 3.4GHz/150W (?77W) lga1155 (25.6 GB/s max mem bwidth, graphics 650MHz, hyperthreading);
i7 3770K $380-320, (3d mark 8470) has unlocked multiplier (~35[oc 4.5GHz] 3.5GHz@100W/wo graphics), idles @ 1.6GHz/44W, oc ~4.7GHz air cooling, 23 Apr,2012, 3rd gen, 3 yr war, 77W/67*C, 22nm, ddr3, integrated hd 4000 graphics @ 650MHz, lga1155;
~i7 3820 4c/8th $285, feb'12 (3dmark 10530, oc @4.75GHz/251W) lga 2011, 130-158W, 3.6GHz, 10MB L3, 4ch ddr3 1600, no igpu (therefor no quick sync), slower L3 cache, no oc K series (base clock can be uped to 125 [@4.3 to 5.3GHz {air 37x 125MHz 4.6GHz, vcore 1.45v @80*C}]vs 100MHz), highest multiplier 43x, 40 lane pcie, 32nm;
i7 2600s 4c/8 $306, 2.8GHz, lga 1155, (int grap, 8MB L3) 65W, Jan '11, ddr3 1333 dual Ch, pcie 2,
i7 3960x 6c $990, 3.3GHz, lga2011, 2nd gen sbE, 32nm,
i7 3930k 6c/12th $570, (3d mark 10560) lga2011, 130W, 3.2GHz, 12MB L3;
980x $660, 4c, 3.3GHz, lga 1366, 12M cache, 6.4GT/s, 130W, 32nm

gpu
-gf gtx 660 $200 aug'12(192b *3GB* ddr5 $320), pciE3x16, 980MHz, 2.1Tflop;
-gtx 660 TI $290, aug'12(192b, dp1.2/2dviD/hdmi) 2460 Gflop SP;
680 mar'12 $450(poor availability) (256b, 2&4GB gddr5) 2dulLkdvi/hdmi/dp1.2, 195W tdp, 3Tflop (129Gflop Dbl Pre);
gtx 670 overpriced$330 july'12 (256b, 2&4GB gddr5) dp1.2/2dviD/hdmi, 3yr war, 6.8-9.5", 6&8pin, 295-145W/71-30*, 2.46Tflop
*hd7970 $380 dec'11 (384b 3GB gddr5) 28nm 925MHz clock/1.4GHz memory, > perf 670, 350-89W/60-31*C, 2mini dp1.4a, dual link dvi, hdmi, 10.8x4.4x1.5", <4095x2160res, 3yr war, 6&8 pin pwr, 3.7Tflop SP (947Gflop DP);
7950 $300 jan'12 (384b 3GB gddr5) 28nm 900MHz/ (low multi high res display output?), 2.9Tflop (717Gflop DP)

memory low profile samsung 30nm ddr3 1600 (16GB) $30/4GB...
...
$960
cheapo 27" monitor Acer s271hl $250 +$50 3yr best buy in house war;
i7 3820 $285;
ATI hd 7970 $380; (the 7970 allows high res multi monitor, vs cheaper 7950)

gtx gpu are subpar in dbl precision gflop vs the hd

130221
patched up the beta after noticing the Secret World supposedly went ftp (Free To Play) last December. But it seems to require a game key (from retail purchase of the software) applied to Funcom account in order to allow logging into the game.

Also some are still requesting 'buddy keys' to try out the game, if it is now ftp why do they need keys from others who have purchased the game in order to try it out?

July 3 will be the one year aniv.

So, it is ftp only in that no monthly subscription is required but one must still purchase the retail us$60 or is it now $30 software in order to acquire a "game key" to apply to a Funcom account in order to play a limited version of the game?

130215
fossils can nolonger consume extra large pizzas late at night, gastric reflex/ux problem
they also can not sit for 4 and 6 hrs w/o the *ss/spine aching.

130212
false equivalence a fallacy perpetuated where one shared trait between two subjects is assumed to show equivalence.
(i.e. 'you saw a homeless, obviously crazy person on the street screaming that the world was going to end')

pejorative: Having a disparaging, derogatory, or belittling effect or force (i.e. 'crazy')

Shills with an agenda usually use fallacies and outright lies or ridicule to avoid having to defend their bogus positions.
Much of brainwashed "reality" is little more then not rocking the boat.
You are unable to 'argue' with 'crazy' because either you are to ignorant to formulate an effective rebuttal or B. you intend not to expose yourself by defending fraudulent propaganda (e.g. great and mighty Oz, 'do not look behind the curtain')

It is quite easy to present an informed response based on truth and verifiable evidence, especially if the purpose is to show why your rebuttal is valid and the audience can recognize that.

But in RL most of the world is comprised by sheeple and debt slaves. Prophets are almost always ignored/imprisoned/murdered by those with something to hide.

one step ahead of the crowd is genius, three steps is crackpot. btw, 100iq is only average.

121228
ac2 was using free trials for a few months as a last try to entice the unknowing into their known problematic game.
They refused to correct those ongoing crash/lock-up problems, due to the required coding competence and expense involved.
They knowingly sold out the expansion copies to try and recover what ever they could.
Asheron's Call 2 retailed Nov 2002 and was shut down Dec 2005 as a sequel to Asheron's Call (AC) (Nov 1999).

Turbine bough back the M$ incompetently run AC franchise in 2003. Turbine announced the AC2 expansion Legions Oct 2004, that retailed May 2005; M$ seeing how poorly that expansion did, completed the franchise turnover to Turbine in "spring" 2005.
Jolt online gaming dropped the ball in the euro AC2 operations and $oE sabotaged the distribution of the May 2005 AC2 Legion expansion (in direct competition to their EQ franchise).

On December 13, 2012, Turbine announced that they were relaunching the game starting with a beta server for all subscribers of Asheron's Call 1 @ us$12.95 per month.
AC1 peaked at about 100K subscribers 2002, currently it has < 10K.
AC2 peaked at about 50K in 2003 and was run into the ground by 2006.

AC2 download
(Please note that if you previously downloaded and installed AC2, and are able to login and play without issue, then there is no need to re-download this new installer [2.2GB zip file]).

This marks the first time a major MMORPG was officially reactivated after closing its doors.

121104
1. u may learn something
2. u may observe from their behavior a reflection of your own, indicating potential for personal improvement
3. an opportunity to help that person recognize their error(s) and possibly correction
4. u may be wrong in your opinion

120819
Onlive a privately held company from 2003 offers a cloud gaming (+300 games since late 2010 were rendered on OnLive's servers [middleman selling access to games]) platform through a cloud desktop, Android and iOS device solutions (competitor for the console market.)

10 AM Friday Aug 17, following in the footsteps of vulture capitalist romney, CEO perlman (after adding MANY 0s to his personal bank account) instructed about 160 employees to pack their belongings, return any key cards, and exit the building through the back door by 4pm. Any vetted stocks now worthless, *hitcaned former employees were offered the previous week's pay.
(2PM about 40 cronies were offered an invitation to stay with the new investor)

Last month (July 2) Sony announced that it had purchased from CEO Perry the discounted game streaming service Gaikai for $380 million for their PlayStation3 console properties.

120814
Vanguard's isle start area had/has huge lag, even two days ago while few were on server.

During initial crafting / diplomacy lag is so bad one suspects the client has locked up or maybe one is somehow not following tutorial / limited info in the starter quest; or else the client crashes and you are back at char select.

Even on 5ms (800KB/s) dsl, the backbone to soe's server is close to 180ms (worse than dial-up). But seems ALL the soe games have terrible connection to the internet (cheap inferior connection)... pay a small fortune for broadband and the last 2 or 3 hops it jumps from 20 to 40ms to near 200ms; i doubt the servers are in europe, as crossing the Atlantic adds 100ms. (Pacific adds 250ms)

2012ce and no reason they should still have such junk connections to the internet, this is not the 1990s (and a million subscribers needing dynamic 2 way communication) anymore; unless they just refuse to put any more real $ into their games.

Also every few minutes there is a BLINDING flash/white-out of the display, absolutely destroys any immersion into the game.
After patching the client folder was 19.2 GB. And the game largely runs out of system memory (windows task manager/processes) with very little up/down internet communication (windows task manager/networking).

120730
ftp alerts
no access to send chat through general chat (therefore nearly impossible to get into groups looking for additional members that use lfg in gen chat) though one can use local SAY to communicate to those nearby (with a three say in a row limitation),
cannot send out a private whisper (though one can respond if a subscriber initially sends you a whisper),
no access to bank (thus unable to transfer items between chars on same server and the extent of bag space to carry loot is very limited, like 30 items, and it seems most of the loot is just vendor trash),
can not use send mail to transfer items one's class can not use to another person that can equip the item, thus you can only sell it to vendor as junk or carry it until you decide to subscribe and then get access to all game mechanics.

once you hit lvl 15 suspect doing any other quest and hope the exp applies to char lvl up is a waste, doubt even if one subscribes one can recover and apply that past unapplied exp.
little to no ingame customer support (unable to do bug reports).

---

Originally posted by Foomerang

---

Originally posted by bhug
giant graphs and pie charts showing massive profit

---

Thanks for that. However, this is about the genre in regards to the games themselves, not the money they generate. There is a difference. There are countless examples of things that have lost their soul and make crap tons of money.

---

12.7.27
NOWHERE in my post did i say "giant graphs and pie charts showing massive profit"
as you misrepresent above
i.e. the actual post ("giant graphs" replaced by links)

---

Originally posted by bhug
subscriptions
link1

genre
link2

clarify what you mean by "this genre is dead" because the #s (as of March 2012) show that OPINION is nonsense ref

---

If you are going to slant a quote from another post to support your biased and prejudiced pov (Point of View) do that by commenting on that post, not by misrepresenting what was SAID in that post and lying by affixing Originally posted by bhug in this case as evidenced from the actual post, it is not what i posted rather it is your troll agenda driven interpretation in that you claim i posted "giant graphs and pie charts showing massive profit."

Much like when presented actual numbers showing the MMORPG genre is alive and doing well (+20 Million subscribers and +5 to 10 million ftp users in other MMORPG games that are not reflected in the 'subscriber' chart) your OP (below) is largely your facts based on opinion. I demonstrated your 'opinion' are unfounded, what it was is your dissatisfaction with the current models that characterize MMORPG. It is NOT that the MMORPG genre is DEAD as this thread title also misrepresents (hence troll label).

---

originally posted by Foomerang100% combat oriented online games. Cash shops come standard. Purely developer driven content. Esport is the name of the game for pvp. Socialization has become automatized.

If you were to tell me ten years ago that this is what MMORPGS would be like, I would have never even bothered to get involved.

MMO versions of old console games from a decade ago. Thats what we have right now. The irony is that console games today are actually more open and diverse than these so called mmorpgs.

Its a shame. I have faith in indie devs, as always. But the AAA mmo devs have really led the genre astray as of late. I wonder if it will ever get back on track.

---

12.7.27
to say gaming has continued to advance since the late 1940s is an understatement.
From green oscilloscope (tic tac toe and tennis/pong) to 2D arcades (Donkey Kong, Mario Bros) that had a never ending appetite for quarters to 1970s 3d platforms (Atari, Nintendo) to todays 2 to 5 Tflop double and quad linked gpu PC over 1 to 10 GB/s broadband.

This certainly is not the 8 bit sprites on 10 to 12" crt, more like 1080i out to +50 " TV media centers or 2 and 3 portrait (vertical) LCD/LED moniters.

There are many genres in gaming and MMORPG is a small nich market i.e. shooters, adventure, platform, rpg, puzzle, simulations, strategy, sports, fighting, dance, horror and hybrid blends.) Puzzle/card 44%, sport/strat/racing 21%, MMORPG 16%)
Make no doubt about it, gaming is about revenue streams, esp since UO, EQ and WoW demonstrated online gaming they can bring in 10 to 20 BILLION dollars a year. Add to that todays shift to a Free to Play (ftp) model, (hence the apparent declining subscription MMO graphic in the previous post) well mkt driven economics dictates expect things must change for an IP (Intellectual Property) to maintain viability.
If you just want to present your opinions or views write a book, or pamplet; if you want to offer something others will pay and continue to pay for it has to keep the interest of those users. And of course governments want to get in on a cut of that money!

Next consider us$100 to $300 controller/console vs us$1000 to $3000 keyboard/mouse PC, maybe you can see why more than half of gamers use (subpar relative to PC) consoles that offer instant action at a relatively affordable price. There is no shortage of decade long debate in the PC vs Console who is losing war. (2011 revenues PC us$11.6 B, console $8.2 Billion)

12.7.26
subscriptions

genre

clarify what you mean by "this genre is dead" because the #s (as of March 2012) show that OPINION is nonsense ref

12.7.25
was going to give the lvl 15 trial a try & noticed a free transfer alert in the patcher.

Can there really be over one HUNDRED servers in Star War the Old Republic?

So the next question is pointless, ?which server should a nuby roll an initial character on?

These 'free char tfer' offers usually mean they are going to be merging/shutting down what seems an excessive number of servers.

12.7.13
the actual steam site http://store.steampowered.com/
new deals each day through the 22nd July.

You guys that have played these game, let the rest of us know which three, or package you recommend we purchase, esp since some are 50 to 90% off.

edit
ps seems one has to install Steam or Valve to access/play these games.

? what is SR 3, not see it as a game nor a pack on the Steam site ? calif State Route 3, or saints row 3 ?

12.6.13
Austin Bioware's Star Wars the Old Republic a flop? Announced Oct 2008, released Dec 2011.
1. It is one of the few games that have tier one population/subscriber numbers (+1 million).
2. It does not have wow #s (6M east 5M west) nor the #2 game Aion (2.5M) but TOR was certainly there at #3.

3. 'the TOR 1.7M subscribers #' ... "we said we had 1.7 million subscribers on the last call, which was about a month ago." (Feb 2012) "What that was about was the fact that only about – just about half that number had triggered through their 30-day point and become active subscribers, our definition of recurring subscribers.

We had about half that total still in the 30-day trial period, but they're subscribers because that first month is including with a package good. What I said a month ago was, just over half. I can now confirm for you today that the vast majority of the 1.7 is now triggered through that point and they're recurring subscribers."

4. The swg vs TOR wishful thinking/delusion, SoE's June 2003 Star War Galaxy at its best had about 300K subscribers (SWGs last 13 of 25 servers shut down Dec 2011).
With TOR having about 1.7M, obviously NO COMPARISON #s wise; SWG was not even close; within two years most SWG people had abandoned it due to the CU (Combat Upgrade Apr '05) and NGE (New Game Enhancement Nov '05) fiasco "upgrades."

edit
5. The Runescape population/subscriber #s
It may look that Runescape lost a lot of subscribers, and they did, but there are two important factors you should take into consideration :

First of all with the migration from Runescape Classic to Runescape 2 there may have been some players lost, the listing does not differentiate between the two. Nowadays Runescape 2 is just called Runescape and Runescape Classic is pretty much closed down.

Secondly, and more important, the war against bots, macroers and other cheaters increased to unbelievable heights.
In 2009 thousands got banned, but that was peanuts compared to the 7.7 million banned accounts in Oct 2011. +9M, may be the largest anti cheater operation in pc gaming history.
Runescape now has about as many subscribers as Linden Research used to have in its ftp 2003 Second Life (Second Life stopped releasing #s 3Q11 ref)

12.5.30
Free To Play (ftp) Continuum is a 2D space shooter since 1995 (aka Sniper, Subspace). And has been quite a nice passtime for over ten years.
The 5MB client (up to about 10MB depending on how many free zones/arenas one adds) is playable even on low end computers with 56K dialup.
FAQ and US/Europe d/l mirrors, beginners guide.

"Meet people from all over the world...then kill them." And it's free!
recommended
The longest running massively multiplayer spaceship shooter game running today.