Originally posted by Kalvasflamm

Even if LotRO is no sandbox (and I prefer to play sandbox) I seriously would give it a chance, if they integrated PvP into the game. Without PvP or PvP limited to monsters vs players there is nothing LotRO could offer me (except for brilliant Dirext X 10 graphics). Dunno, why PvP was not an option. Maybe some reasons due to the licence. Perhaps they couldnt "sell" the Tolkien heirs the ideas of roaming hobbits murdering around in the shire.

PvP hampers most games. It leads to idiocy where there shouldn't be any. And your own example about murderous hobbits is exactly why LOTR have PvP between "good" races. Most of the "evil" men in the books were duped by Sauron or Saruman, not truly being evil. Only a few (the Black Numenoreans, the Mouth of Sauron, Witch King of Angmar) were truly "evil".

And as the books themselves say, no hobbit had ever killed another hobbit in the history of the Shire, and Frodo didn't want it to happen when they retook the Shire from Saruman.

I'm still waiting to see how "The same ship team-coop play" can be done in such a way as to be fun for everyone involved.

A bunch of people "want" it, but are failing to describe a fun system. The TV show had episodes lasting what, 30 minutes to an hour with commercials, so 20-40 minutes? And had a week inbetween shows.

And if you notice, half the time, MOST of the crew is left out, sometimes it was scotty you didn't see, or spock, or the doctor, or the chekov or uhura... and then there's all the OTHER crew... and they weren't having "fun" most of the time.

So, lets see this amazing game design document that details how to make playing co-op for hours on end to be fun for everyone...

I'm waiting....

... but I'm not holding my breath.

Originally posted by MrcdesOwnr

Originally posted by eric_w66

Originally posted by MrcdesOwnr

Can't say there wasn't those of us trying to warn people about this. Anyone paying close enough attention to the CO forum would have read posts from myself and some others telling people to run.

There are companies out there that strive to be open, honest, and forthright with their customers and the public. Then there are others that will do whatever it takes to make a buck.

 

 

They're all in it to make a buck. Don't kid yourself. No MMO can be made by 1 guy in a garage.

The companies out there that strive to be open, honest and forthright shut down after a few months since they can't afford to pay their bills anymore.

Next time read what someone writes twice before posting. Then after that, read it again so you can edit your mistakes, so you don't look like a fool.

I never said companies aren't in it to make a buck. I said there were companies out there that will do whatever it takes to make a buck. Furthermore, I never specifically mentioned MMO anywhere in my response.

Finally, don't be so ignorant. We both know that there are some companies that have more lawful business practices than others. 
 

Lol, I like your argument: 

"We both know that there are some companies that have more lawful business practices than others. "

Of course there are unless all companies are the same, or there's only 1 company left in the world.

We're talking about MMO's, and companies who make them. Don't try to back track and suddenly include every other company making everything under the sun (and even then, they're all out to make a buck).

Are some more ethical than others, of course. "lawful".... I like that.

Why the personal attacks though? They don't help your arguments.

Originally posted by MrcdesOwnr

Can't say there wasn't those of us trying to warn people about this. Anyone paying close enough attention to the CO forum would have read posts from myself and some others telling people to run.

There are companies out there that strive to be open, honest, and forthright with their customers and the public. Then there are others that will do whatever it takes to make a buck.

 

They're all in it to make a buck. Don't kid yourself. No MMO can be made by 1 guy in a garage.

The companies out there that strive to be open, honest and forthright shut down after a few months since they can't afford to pay their bills anymore.

Originally posted by Robsolf

In CO, I was both.  I usually ran out of text room in the quest comments area.  I reported every bug(they had a pretty good system for this, with a search and a "I have the same bug!" option.  The more I saw how their focus was gonna be on customization of costumes than powers, I lost heart in the endeavor and hardly ever participated.  Just before launch I logged in to see where things went, and learned in no time that I would not be buying the game.  I even logged onto the Halloween event; played for about 2 hours before quitting and uninstalling.  When you can't even get a superhero geek like me to play for free, you've got trouble.

Imagine if Tabula Rasa offered lifetime subs...

Here's the sad truth: You are the person they can never please with superhero games (Be it Cryptic, or SOE, or NCSoft). Much like the die hard SW fans felt let down by SW:G (before the NGE, the real fans had already been turned off) and LOTRO (Tolkein fans might be the worst about it). And the same thing is happening with STO. Cryptic could NEVER with a thousand years of development make a game to satisify every hard core trekky out there. So they aim at an audience they can make happy and keep subscribing, the average gamer with an interest in Star trek. Same thing happened to AOC and Warhammer, though their fanbase was smaller so its not as noticable or vocal.

Originally posted by Frobner

Originally posted by biofellis

(sigh)

• Surgery, is complex. If you wake up from an operation with jewelry in you, it's no big deal.
• Airplane maintenance is complex. If you drop from the sky due to an oversight, it's no big deal.
• Legal practices are complex. If you're innocent, and end up in jail...

Stuff happens. But everyday life for other professionals with way more at stake and way more (actually) uncontrollable variables runs rather smoothly for the most part. Except the Lawyers bit- I have little faith in them, but some of them try.

Every bug can be fixed unless it is flawed due to, I dunno, the nature of math or the limits of physics. Maybe something else- but I think you see my point. Otherwise the rest are all work, or embedded in someone else's crap (library/code)- but still 'fixable', (though even more work).

No one told them to do business with and ship a product which was beyond their ability to properly support. If you went to your favorite store in the mall, and there was gas leaking out of a pipe into the room, you'd want it fixed. "Eh, that's the landlord's to fix- besides- you know what you want, right? just shop fast!" he says from his set-up table out in the hall. You shrug, and cede to the work-around, and happily ignore the problem every time you visit.

Right?

The truth behind bugs is, they have your money, and as long as enough of you keep giving money, they don't care. Hell, MMOs have gotta be the only consistent 'pay for play' beta deal around! (Though the rest of the industry is catching up with the 'ship first, patch later' business model).

And don't even talk about intentional features that 'break' gameplay that can't be called bugs, because those are non-existant.

The developer is always right. Right?

 

You pretty much got it right =)

MMOs have been able to take bugs to new lvls cause aparently you can always "fix" things afterwards in MMOs...   The truth of the matter tho... is that if you didn't get it right the first time  - then you wont get it right at all.  Or rather create 10 new bugs every time you fix one.

Look at a game like DA.  It has bugs - but at least the big picture -the entire gaming systems and fundemental performance of the game is working.  Compare that to AOC with huge number of memory leaks - billions of content bugs and worthless core systems in the game.  You payed for both - But for some reason - its ok that one is total crap for an entire year... just because its marked as MMO.  And it got 8,5 to 9.5 raitings at launch....   Ye ... right...  Funcom had their forums closed for the first week for a reason.

Woud DA get 9.5 when if 15-25% of the players were getting memory leaks shuttdown every 5 mins ?  Cause thats what happened at AOC.  

There are no exuses for bugs.  Never.  Do we have a bug in the banking system that is leaking 500 millions into my account?  Ofc not...  They got the basics right....  Its all in the code. 

You've never made a mistake? Amazing. "There are no excuses for bugs. Never".

Obviously written by a person who's never coded more than a "Hello, World" program, and maybe not even that.

Heck, just NOW at my work, I'm being hit by a "bug" in software I maintain that is crashing whenever a report is being run or a query being made on the database... yet it works in hundreds if not thousands of other places just fine. Why? Because the place where the crash is happening has people who have no idea how to use or manage a computer network, and the network crashed, and they couldn't figure out how to reconnect to it on one of their machines. Is it a bug in my code? Nope, but it is my code that is crashing because of their (bad) system configuration. So I get to work on a "bug" that isn't my "bug" at all.

I left LOTRO early on because of this issue. In the beginning, there weren't many solo quests once you hit 30, and finding groups at the times I played was insanely hard. Not only that, you had to find groups that were  willing to go back and redo 3 steps they'd already done to get to Step #4 which half the group wanted to get to Step #5 which the other half really wanted to do, or have a kinship that was full of willing and helpful people who didn't mind repeating content 5000 times.

This "forced grouping" cost LOTRO at least 1 subscriber (me). I'm sure it cost them many thousands in reality. Because I played a Hunter, I was even at a bigger disadvantage as being a non-desired class.

And you had all the problems of groups, and then some. Person A would leave because he got the mission he needed, and didn't want to continue, person B selected to replace him was 30 minutes on foot away... and disconnects 25 minutes later, person C chosen to replace B doesn't want to do that quest, but rather needs the previous 3 quests....

So this change is an awesome one for the average gamer who has a life outside of the game. To those who think everything must be paid for by waiting 10 hours in LFF for each mission, a big /rude to you. You can still play the game that way. I no longer would have to (and yes, it is tempting me to resub for LOTRO, because I did enjoy the game outside of the silly grouping requirements). And the game is Lord of the Ring (the ONE SOLO ;) ring).. not Fellowship All The Time.

Originally posted by MosaicM

Originally posted by RICK46

Well closed beta is now here. The problem is that alot of people paid from 60 to 200 dollars to get in. Well hold on, getting in and getting in first is not the samething. So now they have a PR nightmare. what should they do about it 

So did Cryptic mislead you in thinking that you be in closed beta right when it openned?

Post what you think.

 

Actually, They did say we who paid 60/200 dollars would get in first. It was posted about by the developers before and they even admitted they did say that today and their response was "Oh well.. we were wrong, even though we said that".

 

That's why I'm going to ask for a refund. The beta access was part of the package that you paid for before Champions was released and they renicked on it. I am going to ask for a refund and my champions account closed as well. After they lied about the promised moon base that was suppose to be in Champions and now isn't I've personally had it with Cryptic.

Thinking a forum post by a dev is a "promise" of anything is beyond foolish. The only thing you can count on is what's in the "advertisement" itself (they have to try to devlier what's on the "box" as it were, otherwise its false advertising. A forum post is not false advertising.

I'd like to see where they "promised" a moon base in CO as well.

Originally posted by Shannia

As long as all the life time subscription and 6 month subscription buyers get in BEFORE anyone else, even if it takes them 5 wave of invites to get everyone in, I'm cool with that.  It's if they go OUTSIDE that pool to let others in first is where I feel I got screwed.

 

[23:46] <~bizarro_rekhan> I will say that in this wave of invites, we invited people who were lifetimers and 6-monthers. we also invited people who weren't.

I bought a lifetime sub to CO because I actually enjoy the game (despite some issues). The beta invite was merely a nice bonus for me that will possibly let me "save" 50 bucks later if I decide STO isn't for me.

It never said on the offer that you'd get in first. I never assumed that at all. The only thing I assumed was that I WOULD get an invite the "Closed Beta" part of beta, which can be a very long period of time, or very short.

New Mining Options

Lots of players in EVE prefer the hum of a mining lazer to the blast of weapons firing, and CCP will be introducing two new ways to do that: Comet mining and Planetary Ring mining.

This has my hopes slightly up... I just want it to be two things:

1) Hard to bot (impossible would be nice)

2) More interactive (aka fun). While AFK mining might have its place, actually interacting with the game client should provide bonuses (and be fun if it is possible).

Originally posted by Kaelaan21

Originally posted by eric_w66

I wasn't confused. I meant exactly what I said. Eve's world is subdivided into regions. Eve basically lets you move from "server to server" for free all the time. EQ1 charged you for that service. Sure, it is still part of "one world", but since that "world" is merely chat (the economy does not spill over from region to region directly), how innovative is it? It isn't. And eve gets away with zones that probably take 10 seconds of random number generation time to create, and then a little fine tuning by someone to make sure XYZ NPC corp has agents strewn about their regions in appropriate levels (but even that could be coded procedurally rather easily).

WW2 Online is zoneless. There are no zones (unless you count the whole world as a zone). There are terrain tiles, but only one "world/shard/server/zone". Its smart enough not to bog down someone in Reims, France with what is happening in Brussels, Belgium. But if they wanted to (and its coming soon (tm)), artillery and high altitude bombing will let people affect each other from (literally) miles away without ever rendering on the screen.

 

WW2 online is not zoneless. It uses seamless zones. I used to play it a lot up until a couple of years ago. There were times were some of the zones were down and if you happened to wander (or fly) into those areas, your game client would disconnect and crash to desktop. It gave the impression that it does not use zones, but it really does and there is nothing wrong with that.

 

The end result is that the player believes that he or she is connecting to a single server and never has to wait a moment at a loading screen after first logging in. And yes, WW2 Online is a much more accurate comparison when giving an example of why many people here do not believe the article topic is innovative. Even more so than Eve, which I currently play.

Hrm, I'm a day 1 WW2OL player and have never seen any "zone" crash ever. I've seen map tiles not load due to bugs, and I've seen a strat server bug that caused the city of Metz that wouldn't let it be recapped by the allies, but aside from the "pixel of death" while flying, or the odd dropping through the world bugs, nothing that says "zone" crash. Those map tiles are not zones.

Originally posted by jakin

Originally posted by eric_w66

Eve is a single world seperated by a crap ton of zones, which in effect, is "multiple servers" sharing a common chat interface (EQ1 did this).

As for a single world without zones, Eve can't do that, WW2 Online does. And did it well before Eve ever came around.

 

You've got two different things confused together there.

EVE has one shard with a lot of zones.  Correct.  There are not multiple "servers" (in the common usage of the term) because there is only one replica of the game running.  People confuse the term "server" and "shard" all the time.

There is no MMO on the planet (afaik) that does not zone their worlds.  Some have seamless transitions between zones and some don't - but all are zoned nonetheless.  There simply isn't a technical way that I'm aware of to fit the expansive content inherrent to MMOs, with the "massive" number of players required, onto one physical CPU.

I.E.  You can run the length and width of Vanguard (or LotRO - baring the PvP zone - when I last played) without encountering a loading screen.  Both games have zones the same way EQ did, but handle the loading of the zones in a manner that seems seamless to the player.
 

As to the writer - the article comes off as very naieve to state boldly that CO innovated a shardless model.  Their particular take on a single-shard game is slightly different, but the writing of the piece used too broad a brush when painting that statement.  As a result, the author came across as having only played WoW and CO (which was probably not the intent).

I wasn't confused. I meant exactly what I said. Eve's world is subdivided into regions. Eve basically lets you move from "server to server" for free all the time. EQ1 charged you for that service. Sure, it is still part of "one world", but since that "world" is merely chat (the economy does not spill over from region to region directly), how innovative is it? It isn't. And eve gets away with zones that probably take 10 seconds of random number generation time to create, and then a little fine tuning by someone to make sure XYZ NPC corp has agents strewn about their regions in appropriate levels (but even that could be coded procedurally rather easily).

WW2 Online is zoneless. There are no zones (unless you count the whole world as a zone). There are terrain tiles, but only one "world/shard/server/zone". Its smart enough not to bog down someone in Reims, France with what is happening in Brussels, Belgium. But if they wanted to (and its coming soon (tm)), artillery and high altitude bombing will let people affect each other from (literally) miles away without ever rendering on the screen.

Eve is a single world seperated by a crap ton of zones, which in effect, is "multiple servers" sharing a common chat interface (EQ1 did this).

As for a single world without zones, Eve can't do that, WW2 Online does. And did it well before Eve ever came around.

I think they're involved in Jumpgate: Evolution.

Originally posted by Mrbloodworth

Its funny that the CG parts show what people really wanted from a ST game. Interiors and bridge crews.

If the line mythic says holds true "People do not want to be scotty" or "People do not want to use consoles"  then why keep including it in your tailors?

 

People do not want to be scotty for 12 hour shifts. People do not want to stare at a console for 12 hour shifts.

Vast difference between say, a CG trailer or a 45 minute episode showing lots of action when they're at their stations, and playing a game for many hours on end.

Originally posted by kamenwati

Originally posted by mrw0lf

Bots pay subs

incentive to prevent bots = 0

 

Banned botters buy new accounts

Incentive to ban bots > 0

Botters use credit card fraud to buy new accounts and then either don't pay or just do a chargeback on the purchase so they don't spend any money to get effectively infinite accounts. The credit card associations won't fight charge backs on internet purchases that are small (like 50 bucks), so the seller loses every time and has to refund the money, which of course, costs them even more since the key is now invalid, if there was a box sold, its useless (or never returned). If the botters were in the USA, you could do something about it, but most are not.

Almost looks like Mike Milbury of the NHL.

Originally posted by tvalentine

 

lol the scary part is that you actually believe the bullshit your typing. Everyone in EVE pvps... if its either the market or living in more dangerous parts of eve. You're either a troll or you are just a complete idiot who thinks he knows everything .... which you dont. And if you dont like the game then leave it and quit bitching. Who has the gun to your head forcing you to play eve?

Ok, I'll break it down to a much simpler form so you can understand.

Eve is not built around PvP COMBAT, WW2 Online is. Most people in Eve do NOT partake in Eve's rather pathetic PvP COMBAT. Eve's own numbers show this.

Originally posted by bluegrazz

Originally posted by DeaconX

I'm sure I'll probably get flamed for this, but I still think it would have been a lot cooler design for the game if it took 'guilds' to run large ships... if the game leant more towards a 'simulation' feel.  I could be totally wrong... we'll see what Cryptic does.. but after playing Champions Online, I'm not expecting anything revolutionary or even really impressive...

 

This would be an AWESOME idea. Yeah, it would end up with a much smaller player base but could be really cool... REALLY COOL.

And it'd only cost 1000 bucks a month since its subscriber base would be so small.

Originally posted by Kyleran

 

Ah, but the real difference between the two games is that in EVE, death has real meaning and consequences, and in WWII online, its all rather pointless, doesn't matter if you win or lose.

EVE's got the better PVP I think.

Nah, being ganked 6 on 1 has no meaning. Sure the lost time sucks, but all that can do is force you from the game, which is a bad design. There is no "meaning" to sovreignty as it is except ego stroking. There is no "we won" in Eve, unless you're on the Chinese server where that has happened (and caused massive problems).

In Eve, it doesn't matter if you win or lose. Just buy up some more isk and presto, brand new ship and implants and away you go like nothing happened.