If anyone wants a European scroll/invite, pm me. I have plenty of them to give away.

Yup, just noticed 2 days ago myself. Just when I'm bored to tears, something to play for 14 days or so. Too bad that the lower level zones are all empty.

sent to toolowdown71

sent to windwaker

I disagree. Never had a problem with a free trial. (except long downloads, but that's a problem on my end) Some have their limits though, but they have their reasons, like preventing gold sellers from spamming from trial accounts or powerlevelers breezing through the content in those 14 days. (Can't imagine that, but i've heard of such things done)

What's with all the solo vs group bullshit recently?

It's fucking retarded to exclude or minimize one of the above from a game. There are hardcore people that like group content and have time to do it and on the other hand we have people that have maybe an hour or two a day to dedicate to an MMO so ofcourse they prefer soloing instead of wasting 30 minutes just looking for a group if solo content was down to a minimum in a game they play. So focusing on just one of those aspects and giving no or little attention to the other is fucking stupid and will leave a big part of players out. (There are exceptions like EVE, when it's all about corporations, but I'm talking about your average MMO)

I'm neutral on PVP's in MMO's. I tend to play on PvP servers (if it doesn't ruin the experience) because it adds a little bit of spice to the game. I also PvP if there is a reason for it, taking over a checkpoint or somehow else benefiting my character, my guild or my race. I sometimes tend to join the "PvP matches", if they are fun and rewarding that is. But overall PvP isn't the primary thing for me in MMO's, I trust FPS's to fill that niche for me.

Some of the games you mentioned won't be a great success, yes. But games like CO, SW:TOR, JGE, in my opinion are slowly pushing the genre forward. Alright, CO is just a rehash of CoX but it's not like CoX was a bad game in the first place. It has great customization and from what I've seen CO will greatly improve on that and make it otherwise a more enjoyable experience.

SW:TOR is like GW in a way, yes. But different things to different people, some like story driven games as opposed to massive, player controlled worlds. It has it's flaws from what i've seen, but overall it seems THE game for SW fans and people who like their games to have serious character progression choices.

And what the heck is wrong with JGE? People have been asking for a game like this for ages. Action paced space combat MMO, Don't see how this isn't something new and doesn't help to improve the genre.

I agree on one thing though, there aren't many sandbox projects anymore. Last one was Darkfall and from what I hear, it didn't go nearly as smooth as planned. Maybe devs don't want to risk it, because heck, how many really successful sandbox MMO's do we have? EvE online is one and sadly I can't think of any other. So If you're into sandbox games, yup I feel your pain.

From what i've seen at different forums, people have really high expectations of this. If APB really can and will deliver it will last for really quite some time and have a solid playerbase.

I have recently hit the same wall. Everything just seems like a rehash of a rehash, bland, boring and repetitive. Just get an online fps (Team fortress or Battlefield series or something like that) Or play the shit out of single player RPG's which are great and have a lot of replayability, especially the modable ones.

Personally I'm not planning to return to any major MMO till the next wave of big ones hits the market (SW:TOR, Mortal, Jumpgate)

IMO you can't just say "one is harder than the other", it depends on the game and on the play style. Sometimes for casual players that just wan't to level at their own pace it's easier to solo, while those that wan't to level up quickly are better off with finding a group and running through the quests.

If we talk about content type - Grouping content is usually harder, because it not only needs individual skill, but also coordination of the group and some tactics.

I 100% agree to the whole "needs more twitch right there" argument. I've been wanting this for ages and I'm not the only one. A lot of people have been throwing the idea of twitch based mmo's. Closes we have had was...Tabula Rasa? And then we have Huxley which is in the beta atm.

But on the grouping - Yes, I agree. Grouping should make things easier and more fun and should by no means be mandatory and forced. Large groups should only be enforced in pvp events, when your guild/faction needs people to defend/attack.

If we have a game with fully working sandbox mechanics, like you said in case one, I think the permanent death for rare creatures/bosses is fucking stupid. Everyone should have a chance at this, not just the most dedicated guild/person.

Hypothetical situation:

We have a sandbox game. We have guild cities. We have one rare non-instanced boss monster which respawns once in a while and gives huge bonuses to the guild that kills him. In this case, ofcourse, the most "hardcore" guild will be first, but later on everyone will have their chance.

About holiday events - They don't usually give a player any huge advantages, just cosmetic stuff. You missed it - Oh well, it's fun but it's nothing to cry about.

About permanent character choices - I fully understand all whining surrounding it. God forbid perma - death, when your beloved level 999 get's smashed to pieces due to lag and months of effort are wasted, that sure sucks.

Small permanent stuff like no respec ability can mostly work only in a game with perfect skill system, where there are NO useless skills that no one ever picks and no mistakes can be made, which won't happen anytime soon. So say, you hit the level cap and realize your character is fucking useless. You go to whine on forums, naturally. After that you go and whine some more.

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My thoughts on grouping:

I hate forced grouping, I admit it. But nowadays MMO's force it like no tomorrow. You want end game content? Get a group of well geared level capped people who are pretty knowledgable of their character. And you need to have like 20 of them.

IMO - screw that. I hate such mechanics. THE perfect game for me is twitch based game, where yes, you sometimes need groups of 5 or so people for pve, but where it requires real skill not just gear and button mashing. The real grouping potential can be seen in world pvp'ish events. Think sand - box mmo based around guilds fighting for territories. There you can have 20, 40, or even 100 people.

And they can, you know, make solo play challenging and with it's help make you not completely suck when first introduced to a group. (Which can easily be done in a twitch based game, but that's my mmo wet dream so i'll stop forcing it in your thread)

Looks fantastic. Finally, a mmo that is aiming for the same quality storyline as single player games. Moral choices look great and it will get people attached to the main plot and their character, it also adds a lot of replayability, which is awesome for me, because I hate going through the same tedious bullshit grid/kill/delivery quests.

From what i've seen, this game needs a good story. I'll be honest, I never do my research on MMO's but it seems that this will have a lot of moral choices and instanced quests/maps/missions which will have a lot of decision making. And yes, that needs to have a damn story. It makes the player immersed and it imrpoves the replayabilty. Sandbox games can have the luxury of not having a great story, all they need is a backdrop and almost all the resources should be directed at other things, while here they are trying to do something different - implementing the unique character depth and story that are typical of single player games into a mmo.

C2D 2.4GHZ, 8800gtx, 4 gigs of ram, considering, that my PC is not that new (its ok, but there is a lot sicker stuff out there) the performance is nice on everything maxed out.

At first it was really horrible, and I mean REALLY horrible, couldnt play it, defragmented my drive and voila, minor freezes are almost non-existant. Yeah, of course, it could be a lot better, but atm its quite playable, and I bet they will keep improving it.

It's ok...It's not a diamond, but it's not a total crap either. What keeps me there is the universe of Warcraft. I get bored of MMO's really fast, but with WoW, just when i get bored, I see some interesting Warcraft universe related thing and Im like "dang thats that thing from wc3" and well yeah, that is what keeps me playing.

I would love to try this out too.
I wont lie, atm im not thinking about buying it, but im pretty sick of everything else (atm im playing CoX, its ok, but gets tedious fast.)
if i buy it, there is really small chance that i will do it now, if i decide to buy it, i will probably do it in the middle/end of august.

So if anyone has spare referral thing, you can send one to arturs1991@yahoo.com , who knows, this might be THE mmo for me.