Nice review.. I just need to point out that Cryptic is penalizing a huge portion of it's pre-order customers.. Direct2Drive specifically.. We are not allowed to take part in the head start, despite paying for pre-order just like everyone else. Regardless whether or not they said this up front, I find it to be a terrible business practice..

My thoughts about it that I have been passing along to customer service and others:

I really don't think you can brush this under the carpet. There are a LOT of D2D customers angry that we aren't in on the head start. If it weren't for some of them being in somehow, I'd let it go. Don't use us as pawns in a contract and shatter my respect for your gaming studio. The launch is looking messier and messier as the hours go by...

Oh, and BTW.. I am part of a rather large gaming community about to launch a new site including reviews and guides. You were to be one of our first featured games.

E3, Closed Beta on the horizon, and general awesomeness == GA is a winner :)

First off gotta sactoking for the good breakdown on the rights..

But basically this just all but guarantees that there will be a paid expansion that will add a lot more to the game. Which is an entirely good thing IMHO

Originally posted by daarco

So the point is this: dont make level based MMOs : )

Here's hoping that a good Horror MMO can evolve.. The closest I have right now is Hellgate London. It is a great game, but I would certainly like to see an atmospheric horror game. It'd be interesting to make it to where players are ghost hunters and would have instanced missions into haunted locales.

Wow.. this thread makes me cry..

I really enjoy Tabula Rasa.  To sum it up, it really seriously feels like combining a fun coop FPS with a normal MMORPG. There are areas that certain level ranges congregate and move to the next big city type place, and I have to aim and fire at my enemies while collecting quests and crafting along the way. It is sheer fun.

With that being said, I respect the 'lack of depth' posters here, but otherwise people are just reading into things too much. I think live events and new logos discoveries will keep things pseudo-fresh for subscribers. If it isn't your cup of tea, then you'll know it pretty quickly. Those of us who do enjoy playing like this are quite happy with the direction of the game.

I am an XFire stat whore and wish they would log hours on betas a lot sooner than they have been. It could be a useful tool to show your beta experience to dev teams, or just to flaunt it anyway =P

That is pretty awesome of PE.. And kudos to MMORPG.COM staff for having a drawing so soon.

I must also express my disliking of SOE haters.. I am not a fanboi or hater of any company. Each game is different from the previous games put out. If people weren't so close minded about gaming, things would be a lot easier on these forums =P

It also occurs to me that it is funny that people are hating on SOE for the subscription plan and also hating on them for the F2P business model in the same thread. SOE could cure cancer and there'd still be haters

While I am not a supporter of microtransactions in general, there is a bright side. It is a way for players to get a chance to try the game for free and see if they want to go further.

More importantly, it opens the way for a better business model down the line. I hope that eventually the microtransaction model evolves into something where the purchases are purely aesthetic and have no affect on gameplay. I am certain there are enough people out there that would pay extra to have flashy gear and pets, etc rather than the generic stuff that everyone else has access to. Maybe also use the microtransaction system to purchase extra potions or something if you just don't feel like grinding for something. There are plenty of uses without hurting the people who don't want to micropay.

After sifting through forums, it appears to be an issue with Audigy cards. The soundcard has to be disabled before playing. I really hope they get that fixed soon so I can come back and check it out.

Yeah.. I am just frustrated that I can't get the client to run properly. The last hurdle seems to be getting stuck at "Receiving Character Essence"... It still shows the "..." 's for 30 seconds or so.. then they freeze..  Then after a minute or so, I can see the character screen faintly in the background(the loading screen still frozen in foreground).

If it gets that far, I have to hard reboot. If I get hung up earlier, I can sometimes end the process :/

Originally posted by katriell

 

---

Originally posted by psyconius
I haven't been able to login in at all.. Keep getting errors about communicating with the server.. I can get to the screen that says it is loading character models and such sometimes. Other times just black screen :/
Any suggestions?

---

Disable any antivirus software you have running. If that doesn't help, disable your soundcard via Device Manager.

 

While the antivirus thing doesn't bother me(I tried disabling firewall anyway), disabling soundcard is not worth it.. I suppose I will not check out Horizons again :/

I haven't been able to login in at all.. Keep getting errors about communicating with the server.. I can get to the screen that says it is loading character models and such sometimes. Other times just black screen :/

Any suggestions?

I tried it before the first buyout and actually enjoyed it. With the right marketing/publishers it would have had more success. I'd be willing to give it another try now. I really liked the crafting and building system, and the skill sets weren't too shabby either.

Originally posted by Szark

The folks over at Anarchy Online have announced that they will be holding an in-game concert event featuring The All-American Rejects.

In Game Concert Announced

In a special event next weekend, we have teamed up with our partners at Massive and Verizon Wireless to provide a great in-game concert event.

Preparations have been completed for the grand concert in the ICC area in Andromeda and we invite all North America-based citizens of Rubi-Ka to attend this unique musical event.

The concert features The All-American Rejects and the event kicks off at 7PM Eastern Time on August 12, 2007 (To figure out what that means in your local time check here ).

Keep your eyes peeled for teasers and more information during the coming week for this exciting event!"

Read more here.

That is really cool, and I have been wanting to see more of this type of interaction for a long time, but I also can't resist saying:

It's fitting that a faux-punk band will be playing in a faux-cyberpunk MMO =P

Originally posted by Ackbar

I played wish a lot from the beginning of the final beta to the end. It was an amazing concept and imho for the state of the beta it was working really well. The game was so immersive and amazing with the events and storytelling that i felt myself compelled to roleplay which is an experience ive never felt in a game since. Wish to me was something really special but unfortunatly the investors didnt see it the same way. There were a few performance issues which was the main problem with the game imho. The world was absolutely huge with a lot of users. If you saw those blade servers they ebayed there was something like 168 cpus in them. In any case it didnt really run that badly on my old 9600xt and i was sad to see it go. In a lot of way Wish was everything that Vanguard was supposed to be.

Originally posted by Mysk

Wish was a cool game that had some very rough edges. Of course it was in beta, so those rough edges were acceptable.

My first impression was fairly negative, but after playing it for a few days it grew on me and I eventually came to rather like the game. I really enjoyed how it was entirely skill based (you use it to raise it).

It needed its graphics fixed up and it needed a good bit of polish on the UI, but the underlying game was pretty darn good.

All in all it was quite a let down that they canceled Wish. It felt entirely premature to do so at that stage.

My sentiments exactly. It took a bit to get used to, but it was very unique feeling. Skill based made sense. You even got skill in the buff specialization line by buffing people and them going off and fighting.

Every one of my gamer friends that I show this to are loving it. I think some of them are starting to feel bad for not migrating from WoW but not wanting to back down =P

The game was highly conceptual, and generally indie game developers appreciate it more than the standard MMO crowd.

As much as I hate to say it, even though it was canceled, the ideas were born and will show up later in other projects. What is MR doing nowadays anyway?