It doesn't matter to me if a game has levels or not, if it's a sandbox or not, if it's PvP focused or not, if it's made by X company instead of Y company... what matters to me is if I find it fun, if the answer is yes then I will play it, if the answer is no then I will move on.

Option for an offline mode, I dislike being at he mercy of someone's network connection (lag under load) or maintenance schedule in order to play single player for a non-MMO. Basically having the option to create a character that can't group or use any of the online features like AH, stash, PvP, etc but can be played without having to log into battle.net. It's the only issue I have with D3 and there for the only thing I would change and in all honesty it will never happen and one day when D3 is so old that Blizz decides to take the network off line we wont be able to play it. Hell I still load up D1, Baldur's Gate and Daggerfall if they used the same system as D3 I most likely would not be able to play those games today.

Anyways that covers my rant.

As much as EA is a magnet for nerd rage the blame lays squarely on the shoulders of BioWare, it was their decision to focus more of story then on gameplay and even if EA was not in the picture the game would not have turned out any differently. BioWare strongly believes in storytelling and if you watch the trend of their games you will see they have gone from almost balancing gameplay with story to weighting more on the story then the game play.

This was why I was never excited about Star Wars: The Old Republic as an "MMO" all I expected from the rumor days to release was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic with multiplayer features and that just what I got. Heck at one point in time they all but admitted that's what it was going to be (back before they let their egos make them think they had a hit on their hands.) If EA is responsible for anything it's the hype machine but since when did a company at EA's level really know the type of game someone at BioWare's level was  developing outside of staff meetings.

So yeah BioWare is at fault here, if there really is any fault in BioWare releasing a game that is purely Bioware. *shrugs*

Originally posted by kishe

AoC "Tortage weekend" flashbacks, anyone?

Not in the slightest, if you couldn't leave London then yes I would agree. The faction "starting areas" are just faction cities, the real starting area for all factions is Kingsmouth. So all you are really missing out on is the city for the other factions (i.e. eye candy.)

Originally posted by Rednecksith

Actually SWTOR uses a heavily customized prerelease version of the Hero Engine. The actual Hero Engine, when backed with a dev team which knows what the hell they're doing, should be just fine.

This, it's one of the reason why the current Hero Engine supports swiming and the outdated mod version in Start Wars: The Old Republic does not.

That's a lot of kills, kinda makes me wonder what the World of Darkness events will look like.

Ah EvE only you can say that disrupting the game is all part of the fun! ^_^

Impressed? No, I never had any expectations for Guild Wars 2 as far as graphics go nor have have ever for any game. I like it's artistic style but then again I like Star Wars: The Old Republics artist style. As far as graphics go when all that is concerned is "omg they are pushing the tech so hard my systems going to blow up" honestly it's passable and gets the job done which is just fine by me.

What did leave an impression on me was the artist style and simplicity of the UI, that stuck out the most and overall I liked it very much.

The article has been updated with EA's response to the rumor:

"UPDATE - EA has issued a statement on the matter, telling MCV "There are no lay-offs as such, we always have projects growing and morphing. At any given time there are new people coming in and others leaving. EA is growing and hiring and building teams to support the growing demand for digital games and services."'

Time will tell.

Edit: Tardcore beat me to it.

Originally posted by Zecktorin

Originally posted by Classicstar

For now i give Arenanet a change to proof me wrong. And also have maybe a littlebit hope with bethesda with may annoucement of maybe a Elder scroll MMO and hopefully a sandbox.

Well a few very good MMOs do exist.  EvE online is really really good.

To be honest though I dont think GW2 is gonna change the market... Ive played it and yes it was really fun, but nothing to get as excited about as people say. Alot of the gameplay is the same as Gw1.

Its more fo something you hop min for an hour or two and logg off and find something else to do.

However if people followed your advice EvE would have never had existed, it was crap on release.

I twister part of me just hopes they add, yellow, purple and crimsion as extented versions of the ending and make players crawl to the other end of the map to select them, I mean there's room for three more color terminals. ;-)

Originally posted by eyeswideopen

Originally posted by Cinge

There is a reason FC is giving so many "pay extra" options before the release. They have failed twice now, they know their reputation is complete crap. The fact the offered all these extra options for more $ ( on top of box and sub fees) shows to me they are just trying to get as much money as they can right away. They probably don't have a lot of confidence themselves in their own game.

Ding ding ding!!

We have a winner!

I'm more of the opinion that they look to go hybrid right out the gate, this is reflected in their wording "Life-time premium subscription". Personally have no issue with this and if it follow a model like AoC then those with a life-time account will get the expansions as part of the subsciption while those playing for free will have to pay. Lets face it even if The Secret World does not start out as hybrid it will quickly go that route after all Funcom started the whole damn thing with Anarchy Online it just took Turbine to make it popular.

What do I think? Boards across MMO's will become very empty and EvE Online will have to close it's doors. ^_^

With that said they also contradict themselves by saying that it's "not" targeting trolls despite what the "wording" says. 

No matter if it's an indie company or a large corporation, if I like what I see in their product I'll buy it. In the case of The Secret World I know I like it and I'll leave it at that so yes I had no issue paying them for something I liked and truth be told I will have a harder time giving ArenaNet a similar amount for their MMO at this point in time but that's because I have yet to see it for myself.

I was honestly expecing the response to be v1.2 as it seems to be the answer to most questions/issues. ;-P Though to be fair issue number one on your list is addressed in v1.2, as for two and three we will just have to see.

I'm still deciding if I'll play WoD - VtM as I'm more of a WotA fan, however when I did LARP I was tasked with portraying an interesting Toreador NPC so I might create a character loosely based on him. Once (or in the case of CCP "if ever") they add WotA I will play a Stargazer, though CCP better do a damn good job on the werewolves, there is no reason not to have morphing these days. No need to go the lazy route like Blizzard and have them poof into their forms. If you're going to do that then you might as well make the vampires sparkle so they fit together in the world. ;-)

Outside of wanting proper morphing animations I would like to see Kailindo as a form of attack skill werewolves could branch into. Thought that's just a dream and I'm not jaded enough to believe CCP would attempt morphing let alone Kailindo, heck I'd be surprised if WotA was added with in the first five to ten years if at all.

I must say I was very impressed to see the communication between the EvE servers and Dust 514 servers given the history of console MMO issues let alone those that allow for any communication with PC server. It's nice to see Sony let up on their policies making it easier for companies like CCP to produce MMO's that talk to their servers and hopefully we will see Microsoft follow suite.

As for the gameplay it looks like fun and added a more human element to the corporate wars. It makes me excited to see what will happen with EvE when Incarna is revisited and they look into adding missions where you dock into abandoned stations for salvage operations. More over the ability for others to get there before you, set traps, kill your party and steal their docked ships is just a nice feature and I look forward to seeing that come to EvE one day, granted WoD might be out by then. :-P

Originally posted by adam_nox

this system is just a setup for a cash grab. 

If they want my confidence then they should buy back gems for the same price they sell them for, so that players can actually make money from the system and prevent inflation.   If they aren't willing to do this, then it's just a cash grab, that's it, end of story.

The system exists solely to take the money out of the gold sellers pockets and put it into the NCSoft/ArenaNet's pockets. It's just like PLEX as O'Brien mentioned, however where other game receive flack (like f2p RoM) for using similar systems Guild Wars 2 will receive praise as it's the next coming and all that stuff.

Personally I don't care one way or the other, I liked their system before and if they actually stick to their guns and only sell items of connivence or for cosmetic purposes then more power to them. I am sure such a system will turn them more profit then their old system and I would rather the developers get the money then the gold farmers.

So I would not expect them to take money that would go in their pockets and give it to the gamers.

Originally posted by GeekieDave

So I've been contemplating on buying this game and seeing how it is but I wanted to get your guys feedback first. I've been playing WoW for about 5 years straight now and I've been loving playing as a tank. So my main question is if FF14 online would be worth the $20 or should I continue sticking with WoW and try to find another MMO to play?

If you have the patience I would say wait until 2.0. If you didn't like the game in beta chances are you wont notice a huge difference, the current changes so far are more noticeable to those who continued to stick with the game then those who are returning to it.

I plan to purchase the CE for the statue but only because I like the detail, if it was a statue of Caithe I would really be excited because quite frankly the Charr in general has been played out it's gotten to the level of Blizzard and the Horde in my opinion. Hopefully ArenaNet will offer statues of the other races down the road but I wont hold my breath as it doesn't seem to be their style.

Originally posted by itgrowls

Originally posted by RefMinor

Originally posted by jonrd463

Originally posted by tachgb

WoW becoming World of Disney/Pixar/Dreamworks... ?



Haha, you guys are way too old for this game now...

If you're implying that Blizzard is copying Kung Fu Panda, perhaps you didn't know that Pandarens existed in Warcraft lore since Warcraft 3 from 2002. Perhaps Dreamworks copied Blizzard, eh?

They were a joke back then though.

Uhm yeah, they were a joke and not a part of the lore, people only WANTED them to be part of the lore of the original game. Saying they were part of the lore is like saying that the Cow level on D2 was part of the lore. So i suppose you want a cow level in D3 huh and will claim that's because Diablo himself called up all the powers of milky hell to take over the world? hmm Jonrd?

Actually there is a secret cow level in D3 not unlike D2. ;-)