All Posts by Aethios

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Originally posted by iMMORPG
Was a bad game anyways..

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Despite the common populace's readiness to dismiss Runescape as "a pile of trash" (and I'm being generous), the game actually contains many features that people have been asking for in other MMOs for a long time, and manages to keep them all balanced in such a way that being max level is not a requirement, and very few people have ever achieved it. The open economy allowed people to make money by doing, quite literally, anything they want. These changes are not just "bringing down a bad game" like many assume, they represent a much larger impact on the gaming community as a whole.

On a side note, I can pretty much guarantee that WoW will see an upswing in subscriptions as a result of these changes.

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Originally posted by Jester92
300k ppl played rs now after updates 70k MAYBE.

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Runescape had a lot more than 300k players. It was closer to 5 million, actually. While I agree with your post in general, making up numbers won't help your case.

I, too, have been playing Runescape on and off for what seems like forever. I've watched this game go through some controversial updates, but this definitely takes the cake. I can no longer share ANYTHING anymore, even something as simple as a single potion or herb. The effective removal of trade from the game will definitely have an impact on their subscriptions, as entire families and clans quit out of sheer frustration.

What's even more disgusting than the changes themselves is the general reaction of Jagex to the players' outcries. "We don't need the players, and good riddance to anyone who doesn't like the changes" seems to be the general message, although it's just business as usual for Jagex. They've never cared much about the players; they frequently ban people without evidence, despite the existence of several forms and databases where they are SUPPOSED to keep track of that sort of thing.

Personally, I'm sick of Jagex thinking they can do whatever they want to the game and get away with it, so my fiancee and I both unsubscribed from the game the moment we heard about the changes. It's really all we can do. They've made it very clear that they don't care what we think, so we'll take back our money and leave them to do as they please.

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Originally posted by Gameloading

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Originally posted by ianubisi

 

 

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Originally posted by Aethios
The most successful example to date is Guild Wars, and I wouldn't rate them as "successful" in my book, personally.

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<modedit>I consider your opinion misinformed.<modedit> You're clearly entitled to it...but you are also clearly deluded.

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cmon, ofcourse GW is not successful. I mean, they sold 'only' 3 million copies of the game, making it even more successful than Gears of War but nevermind that, it's clearly not a successful game.

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To all of you who decided to troll this particular section of my post instead of fully reading its contents and understanding the points I was trying to get at, I truly have pity on you. People on this forum are so bent on nitpicking tiny sections of a post that, in the grand scheme of things, really have nothing to do with the topic at hand. It's pathetic. (Please note, Gameloading, that this was not aimed at you in particular.)

I would also like to point out that the only reason the original Guild Wars franchise is ending is because they weren't making enough money to sustain it. In business, that's what we call "unsuccessful." If you sell a million units, but you still have to maintain those units for the next 10 years and that causes you to go bankrupt, clearly there was something wrong with your business plan.

Now that we've gotten the off-topic trolls out of the way, does anyone have anything MEANINGFUL to say in response?

EDIT: Pre-emptive anti-trolling: Yes I know NCSoft is not bankrupt.

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Originally posted by Guitano
anything in game that requires you to do somthing is a grind.

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This is a pretty broad accusation, and pretty much debunks anything else you might have to say about MMOs. I don't know about you, but I like to actually, you know, PLAY the game.

For those of you who don't like to "do something" for fear of grinding, you should seriously check out Progress Quest, or Idle RPG.

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Originally posted by qazyman
"False, and False. EVE isn't FFA PvP. That is the biggest charade perpetuated regarding EVE. You can have a full PvE experience with only the slightest of slight chances of encountering PvP."

This is true but not descriptive of the game as a whole. The other post was more accurate. The areas you refer to are really staging,recovery, and nursery type areas, but not descriptive of the game.

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It's like saying you can go to war without ever being shot at. Yes, it's possible, but only in certain positions and locations, and is not indicative of the experience most people receive.

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Originally posted by Asamof
my my, aren't we all bitter?

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"Bitter" is not the word I would have chosen, but if that's what you want to call it, then feel free. All I can say is: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

As was said before, the "up-and-coming game studio with ex-Blizzard devs" has been done to death and the games always turn out badly, or at least not-quote-good. The most successful example to date is Guild Wars, and I wouldn't rate them as "successful" in my book, personally.

What I'm trying to say (and what I was trying to say with my earlier post) is that background means almost nothing in this industry. Too many developers are playing tag-along with popular titles, and then using a resume as a propaganda tool to generate hype for poorly-conceived games. Until we see proof otherwise, we have reason to be wary about yet another studio apparently doing the same thing.

I agree with a good many of the features listed, and indeed most of them are already implemented into Runescape in some form or another.

I do have to disagree with you, though, on the issue of AH exchange. After watching the economy in Runescape develop over the course of not-quite-10 years, in which they have just recently implemented an Auction-House-esque feature to facilitate easy trading, I have to say that I would much prefer having the impersonal insta-trade of an Auction House than have every Joe Schmoe from here to Timbuktu trying to scam/scrape/scalp me of every last penny. Put in an Auction House and you remove the less savory people from the process, and you also make goods available to everyone in the game all at once, even when logged out. This is a convenience that is necessary, and can never be met with conventional trade methods.

I'd also like to point out that Runescape allows you to cross servers whenever you like, with only a 20 second (or so) delay. The Exchange (Runescape's Auction House) is also cross-server, allowing anyone to buy from anyone, on any server, online or offline. I would like to see these features continue to be implemented in future MMOs.

I'd like to see class-based systems eliminated as well. The system was not designed for games like these, and developers should have stopped using it a long time ago.

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Originally posted by ThompsonSub

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Originally posted by Linna

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Originally posted by olepi

I do software development professionally; our programs sell for $200,000 to $1,000,000 a copy. A typical large customer will buy $100 million over a 3 year contract (chip design s/w). We always do a beta test before full release, but a new thing has cropped up in the last few years: "early access". So now it goes:
- R/D testing -- also called "unit testing". This is where you specifically test features. If the user does X, the program is supposed to do Y. So, test X and look for Y.
- Alpha testing -- this lets small numbers of internal people test the program in a more real sense. For us, it means running chips through it, for a game, it is playtesting.
- Beta testing -- this is the first time you let a customer (or potential customer) try it out. You only get friendly customers under NDA to try it, and they run their chips through it (or playtest).
- Release -- we then release the program, but only in a limited way. This is the new thing:
- Early Access -- customers can get early access to code that we think is better than beta quality. In fact, we expect it to work correctly, but there is an occasional bug. There is no NDA needed, but not everyone can get it.
- Full release -- everyone can buy it and use it.
In the MMO arena, it appears that they are calling it "beta", but it's really early access. The FilePlanet "beta" players are a great example; these people are getting early access to a game that they think should basically be finished. What TR did was to try to get many early access people to do a "beta", and then it backfired when it turned out that the program was really only beta quality. The attempt at free marketing ended up being a negative.
These early access people are not testers; real beta testing takes a certain amount of skill in testing procedures, and does not necessarily lead to FUN. Perhaps the game producers did not know that the game was only in "beta" shape when they tried an early access marketing program. This speaks to bad communication or a failure of perception within the company. RG was right.

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We told them in closed beta that the game wasn't even NEAR ready, and that we estimated another 4-5 months at least for a smooth release. They extended release 2 weeks - not NEARLY enough - and are now crying it was the testers' fault. Well, if you don't want people to burn down your product, then don't release it to the general public before it's in a shape fit to be seen.
The fact the servers now seem to be emptying out is what we predicted would happen. People play their free month, and decide that's all they're willing to shell out. If the game was good enough in its current state to keep those people, they WOULD stay. That's NOT the fault of bad word of mouth, that's the result of gaming and not liking it.
Linna

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Quoted for it's utter truth.
Nice one, Linna.

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Quoted again, simply because it can't be said enough. This is PR damage control at its finest... the game is falling apart, so let's point the finger at all the people walking away.

I know nothing about this company, but if these developers are so great, why are they here and not working on Blizzard's big titles? Sounds to me like the next Hellgate: London. "From the Developers of Starcraft" will be printed all over the box, and everyone will get all excited, and then it will turn out to be a flop.

Of course, like I said, I don't know these guys, so I could be totally off base here. Just a thought.

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Originally posted by Battlekruse
The average mmorpg player spent over 800 hours pr. year and thats is a lot if you ask me.

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That would be just over 2 hours per day. Considering many people (including myself) play more than 10 hours a day on weekends, I'd say an average of 2 hours per day is incredibly reasonable.

What you have to keep in mind with "averages" such as these is that they are not indicative of the population as a whole. Rather, it is an estimation of the middle ground between two extremist groups. We have the people who typically play only a few hours per week, and the people who play several hours a day, every day. I doubt there is any kind of "in-between" for these two groups.

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Originally posted by bluealien1
If they had titled it with WoW in the title, I would not have been able to tell that it wasn't WoW and it was actually WAR.

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QFT, although the quality was trash, to be fair.

I think YouTube needs to make rules regarding video footage and watch every video before posting it. Rule #1 would be

NO VIDEOS OF COMPUTER SCREENS FROM SHITTY SIDE ANGLES RECORDED WITH YOUR POCKET CAMERA.

If you're going to make a recording of a game, do it with something like fraps so I don't have to watch the screen tear repeatedly.

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Originally posted by XApotheosisX
look at any MMO forum heck post anything about grouping and you will have a zerg of WoW fans will flock saying "omg i don't want to be forced to group" .. "omg i should be able to solo all the way to max levels"
soon you will have a MMO that will be completely soloable from getting the first level to getting the uberest of gear. And it will sell more copies than WoW and you people will proclaim it as genius.

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What's wrong with wanting to solo? I don't play WoW, and I am a firm believer that we should ALWAYS have solo content. Grouping should NEVER be forced and should always be optional. Give people things to do while grouped, but don't make those rewards better than the solo rewards.

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Originally posted by natevoni
For those who like to say that the Horde is more mature...Why is "Barrens Chat" hated over any other region?
You never see people shuddering a the mention of "Dun Morogh" chat.

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That's because very few on the Alliance side play Dwarves, and fewer still play Gnomes.

Westfall chat, though, is another story. *shudders*

EDIT: The other factor to consider when discussing Barrens is that the zone is so large it encompasses most of levels 12-30. No other zone in the game can say the same, especially not the Alliance equivalents. If Westfall were designed to do this, it might be another story.

I have the game, and I can run it on medium smooth as butter. My hardware isn't good enough to run it any higher than this, but the game still looks amazing and the physics are awesome.

I was disappointed with the game, however. The initial opening sequence was awesome and the first few "chapters" were amazing, but the game quickly goes downhill about halfway through. They give you all these amazing powers and teach you how to use them, and then suddenly they are taken away and you're playing a standard FPS... even worse, at times, due to some unnecessary restrictions they put in. The vehicle controls are abysmal at best.

Frustrated with the difficulty of the later parts of the game, I tried to use godmode, but found out it doesn't work through certain sections of the game, which are required to further the storyline. I uninstalled shortly after.

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Originally posted by Tyfreaky
LoTRO is one of the few 'major' western MMO's thats only 10 dolloars... and I might be wrong, it could have gone back up to 15....

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I believe the $9.99 price is only for founders... for everyone else it is indeed $14.99.

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Originally posted by SLI2000
http://www.aventurine.gr/jobs.html
This page must be up now for a few months and the jobs still haven't been filled?
I wrote in to that email awhile back asking questions about the positions and never got any reply..
Is some kind of phony stuff or what?? How could these positions not be filled after a few months if they're actually really looking for people.

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Maybe the filled it already and forgot to take down the ads.

Happens in retail and small businesses all the time. That would also explain why they didn't reply to your email.

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Originally posted by daarco

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Originally posted by outlaw101

Which MMO's have first/third person ship combat?

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None have.
And none with multi personal crew either.

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I was under the impression Vanguard has ship combat.

Although to be fair, Darkfall has been in development since before VG, I believe.

I don't know a whole lot about past development of this game, but I'm pretty sure they've spent a lot more than 4 years working on it.