April 2012 can't come soon enough .

This game looks really promising,I wish & hope they don't drop the ball.

This game sounds better and better but it's Funcom and I don't trust them because they always fucked up and pissed their player base down the road.So I'll wait like 2-3 months after launch and see how things are progressing before I buy their game.

I'm going to play both :)

Originally posted by Isane

Originally posted by Vodun

I am in agreement with this post. I play these games to be part of something greater than myself and I never understood why there was so much solo content in a Massive Multiplayer Onlne Role Playing game.

If you want a good solo RPG play some good standalone games like Dragon Age II or Witcher II that has great RPG elements for a single player to enjoy.

City of Heroes/Villians offered the best multi player experience for me because the game encourgaed players to play together which is why I play an MMO in the first place.

I am also not a big fan of chat in a game, it takes away the game experience for me. I see where it is necessary for raids but not for regular gaming.

One postive note, if you are lucky enough to have joined a small guild with good people, you can have a great gaming experience in almost any game.

 

Vodun

You don't understand thats why.

A true MMO setting is about having thousands of thinking players in a single world; They should never be forced to do anythi9ng in the world that they do not wish to. It is about longevity and community.

So if you want to hunt solo ; explore and travel do it ; if you want to craft and trade do it ; if you want to govern parts of the world via land grab/ village/City/Capital do it. If you wish to group to face greater challenges do it.

The MMO in reality was always about numbers of players in a world not a definition on the fact you have to play together its about choice.

Enforced gameplay is a job not gameplay.

I remember games where crafting was an acheivement: That is noit the case anymore

I remember games where traveling was dangerous: Not anymore

I remember games where markets existed: Not anymore

It is just all too easy these days; The Developers have killed the Genre with easy mode ; easy win easy everything.

 

But there are a few shining beacons and eventually one Developer will deliver again soon; because people want a real game to play.

 

 

 

 

But MMO developers are not building worlds anymore,we are just getting  backdrops for gameplay.Rift is a perfect example.

Originally posted by jpnz

Originally posted by ActionMMORPG

Originally posted by jpnz

The entire post by the OP is so ironic. There are more MMOs that are like the 'good old days' then ever before; so not exactly sure what the issue is.

Based on mechanics alone, the MMOs have not changed much.  Perhaps a bit dumbed down, but overall it's still kill for XP, group in group content, PVP in PVP content.

 

What has changed is the players.  They no longer see it as a virtual world where there is significance in having others in the world.  To them it has become a game with emphasis on themselves vs.  content and the other players are just scenery or antagonists to be avoided.

 

Soloism didn't kill the MMORPG.  Mass-appeal killed it.  In a game where players make the difference, change the average mindset of the players and you change the game.

And why should the average gamer change its mind?

More people are enjoying the 'good old days' MMOs and there are more of them.

 

What a lot of people don't get is that 'Mass Appeal' goes both ways, it brought in a lot of people that like the WoW gameplay but also brought in a lot of people that like the 'virtual world' type game as well.

To say otherwise is factually wrong.

Mass appeal is very often synonym to Quality going downwards,uniformity,lack of innovations,always thinking within the box.Just look at the music industry or  Hollywood.

Since the day of the MMO infamy,corporate greed has been trying and is succeeding in bringing in more video game players into the MMORPG world while saying at the same time "fuck those nerds from the 90's we have the MTV,FB,twitter generation and they are just rabid consumers,the fast food dwellers.Let's build them some quick solo actions with some loot and achievements".

So MMORPG became just MMO and now  MMO are shifting towards MOBA.Worse we are getting 3 monthers and 6 monthers games now which will turn into Freemium after some months.

Wolfshead have a nice way of saying it " We are at the mercy of Financial and Creative Hegemony"

http://www.wolfsheadonline.com/#78a80

I'm with you on this one OP.MMORPG is suffering a slow death and this process started November 4th 2004 which should be remembered as the day of Infamy for MMORPGs.

Thanks for posting these videos.One of the most visceral fight I 've seen since a long time.Hats down to the Tank and Healer.I've been Terarized by 21 mins of Epicness :)

Thanks for sharing the link :)

Since MMO became mainstream the "community" has turned into a biased,spoiled, jaded teen.Personally I find all the games coming out 2011-2012 promising but my choices will be made according to my personal likings.

I see both SWTOR and GW2 as future successful games but I will not play SWTOR because of it's art direction,EA and I'm a bit fed up with the wow template at the moment.I'm looking at the future of MMO and games such as GW2,TERA and TSW are what I'm interested in.

WoW is to MMORPG what MTV is to music and the writer seems to not know the MMO history..Lineage 1 and 2 had millions of players before WoW,2.Funcom invented the"Instance" concept not Blizzard.

And to the guy saying that GW2 would not have existed without WoW you are so wrong.The founders of ArenaNet(Stain,O'brien and Wyatt) left Blizzard for the same very reason because they were not happy with the direction Blizzard was going with their future MMO.

WoW did ruin MMO for the real MMOrpg players like myself and many others by bringing in millions of sheeps who were transformed into  cash cows.

For me there are two types of MMO.The "Wanna Be" and "The others".Fortunately TERA is one of the 3 "others "coming out in 2012.TERA has one of the most beautiful world I have seen since Age of Conan,second it has one of the best animations on the market and third if you like a good dungeon crawling TERA is your game.

Many are bitching about Koreans but Koreans devs are way way better in animation than any western devs period and I also think that the true next gen game will come from Korea not NA/EU.

I used to like Keen and Graeve blogs but that time is gone because he's just turned into a whiner who's never satisfied,always complaining.Unfortunately a lot of those so called bloggers are turning into drama queens.

There are some few who are still good though.

Find a one eyd girl friend with shaved head or start to live in the real world.

Originally posted by popinjay

 

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Originally posted by BlackWatch
To be honest... aren't all mmo's in the same boat? 

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No.

 

Watch this and see what Rift COULD have done, but chose to make WoW instead.

All mmos are not in the same boat as Rift.

 

There's still hope,at least some companies are trying to better the gameplay experience.

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

Originally posted by Calerxes

Originally posted by Darkholme

Originally posted by Strap

 

God, the OP makes me feel like a freak, 'cause I actually really enjoy the RIft story and lore.

Trust me, you are not the freak in this equation... Yes, Rift is a lot of what people complain about. It is very much your standard themepark MMOG with a couple of interesting twists. It never claimed to be anything else and in fact went out of it's way to make that clear. Unfortunately some people can't see the forest through the trees. 

I'm still gobsmacked that people still believe this..... watch this Beta trailer and then rethink your words, Rift claimed to be so much more than what they released...... 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldI3ypm1gHg

 

"Rift is the complete next gen in online gaming"

"complete means launching with everything you expect from a world class AAA MMO"

"Next gen means it will advance the genre the day it ships"

"Rift is a truly dynamic game"

 

No, really did they say they were launching a copy paste, generic, bland, fast leveling, lackluster PvP game that would be steathly shutting down 38 servers 4 months after launch.

 

I wonder do any of those guys in the trailer play now or were they just actors in the first place, hmmm!

Who cares whether they play now, as far as I see it those were normal players who gave their own opinion with permission of Trion, if that's how they saw the game they played then that's how it is to them.

 

Besides, they weren't that far wrong:

'complete', yep, it does have all if not most of the regular stuff seen in AAA themepark MMO's, and let's be honest, bar 1 or 2 exceptions most of the current AAA MMORPG's are themepark MMO's.

'next gen', their server technology and dynamic PvE content is definitely a step forward from the current status.

'dynamic', yep dynamic PvE content is ingame.

 

The fact that some find it copy paste and generic, well, that's opinion too, theirs, but it's not how everyone feels like it: not everyone has gone completely burnt out on themepark gameplay that they can't enjoy anything that reminds them of it anymore.

 

It was their subjective opinion and viewpoint, and objectively looking at it, they had a point and enough base to say what they did.

The people in the video were Alpha testers and the game was something else at that time.It doesn't mean that it was not a WoW clone but it was not that grindfest shit that it is now at end game...a lot of us don't play anymore.

Originally posted by dougmysticey

Originally posted by KyBo

Originally posted by Deewe

Has the Heroic term been abused by TOR PR? 

• Combat was supposed to be heroic and from what we saw it's the exact same thing as in WoW. Boss kiting... heroic?
• Quests: going into a sith temple to kill worms... heroic?
• Crafting: selecting a companion - click to have him/her do something - get results... heroic?
• Space sim: Point and clicking in 2D on space ships not even trying to stay in your six, heroic?
• Having the exact same ship (mobile home) as any other [insert class name]... makes you fuzzy?
• Look & gear: grinding gear to look like any other maxed out character, so unique feeling!
• Companions: wandering around with the same disguised companion(s) as anyone else.. heroic?
• Being "obliged" to use companions to solo... heroicness ftw!

 

 

 

      You've pretty much hit all of the points as to why this game won't come anywhere near WoW in terms of success, but the game will not fail from a financial standpoint.  There are too many people who will be sucked in by the EA PR machine, the reputation that BioWare has earned with the KoTOR series, and the simple draw of Star Wars for the game not to at least recoup its expenses.  That doesn't translate to TOR rising anywhere near the level of being considered an immense powerhouse MMO, however, and something tells me that EA already knows it. 

     The last I read, there were something like 36,000 guilds pre-registered.  It takes a minimum requirement of 4 players pre-ordering to register a guild.  Even if there were an average of 10 players per guild, which is a very generous estimate, that would still only amount to 360,000 preorders.  That is a decent base of players, but not nearly an amazing number, especially when you consider the amount of hype the game is generating, and the financial investment that has been put into it.  You can bet that while no one knows the exact figure, the development cost of this game is definitely well in excess of $100 million.  As EA has stated, it's their most expensive game to date, and that doesn't factor in the pre-launch marketing blitz that is sure to come when launch day is announced.  Using the new "Green Lantern" movie as an example of a sizeable ad campaign, in which WB spent roughly $100 million to hype the film, I would expect that EA will spend at least a comparable amount to hype up launch day for TOR.  Using a conservative estimate that TOR cost $150 million to develop, and EA spends another $100 million on advertising, that's an estimated $250 million price tag. (which I still believe is a much lower estimate than what the actual total cost of the game will be) 

     Even if you assume a 100% profit margin, it would take 1 million people pre-ordering a $100 special edition box, and subscribing for the full first year for EA to see a profit, which will not happen, and every part of this estimate is unrealistically skewed in TOR's favor.  Over the course of five years, there is no doubt that TOR WILL eventually pay for itself, and turn a profit.  The overall return on EA's immense investment, however, remains to be seen.

     The game is not completely lost by any means.  The issues that you list will probably plague the game when it launches, but all of them can be fixed.  The question is, will developers like Dallas Dickenson be able to swallow their pride, part with their dream of "STAR WoW's", and admit that this idea has failed to produce results twice?  Only by admitting that copying Blizzard's Baby is not a recipe for success can you fix the problems with this game.  It may come to pass that the only way to get these issues addressed will have to come from EA, in the form of pink slips for game directors like Dickenson and Daniel Erikson for these changes to occur, and run yet another PR drive after changes are made.

     The bottom line is that TOR will make a profit, but as is, this attempt at the "NGE 2.0" is not the hit you're looking for.  The game will have to break away from the boring combat, lack of diversity, and other uninteresting features that come with aping WoW in order to realize any great success.     

 Your math is going to be way off as I believe your estimates of Guilds  is innacurate and as pointed out you did not figure in the massive amount of folks who registered for beta. The guild I am in has well over 250 members last I checked and it is not one of the typical named guilds you usually see with massive numbers like the Old Timers Guild.

Also, there is enough out there about TOR for people who pay attention to realize this is not an attempt to make Star WOW or NGE 2.0 . I won't bother to comment further accept to say this game is more like KOTOR + ME 1 &2  turned MMO with updated technology and using MMORPG and single player RPG standards (which WOW uses as well).

None of us will really know how good the game is or if it is a game for us until it is live and to place lame labels on it now is just silly. Only a vocal minority of Sand Box cultists and former SWG fans who wear rose colored glasses thinking it was great pre-NGE are bashing this game repeatedly as far as I can see. I said this before, but for a great many players this may very well be the first MMO they play so everything will feel pretty fresh to them and with over 200 hours of personal  story per class not including group content, PVP, Raids, Flashpoints, etc I should be a strong competitor and a market success story.

Totally agree,I'm in a gaming community myself and it seems that there is like 400 + people interested in the game and after seeing what happened recently with Rift(around 400 members subscribed)I'm expecting this number to double as  release date is announced.

Even if I don't like the game,I don't believe that it will fail because some people labeled it  a WoW clone.I see Bioware making a game for the Star Wars fan and RPers because after watching several videos,I feel that they nailed it and the world breathe Star Wars.A lot of people will hate it but a lot will love it because Bioware is building a world and not simply a game with a backdrop.