All Posts by Saerain

Strange that exercise is the concern, unless there are similar laws for books and television.

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Originally posted by Elgareth 
 
The Setting. Meaning: Only Human Races playable.

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Understandable. Yet in games with non-human races, the humans tend to lack diversity, which is made up for by the addition of non-human races. In a human-only game (like EVE Online, for example), you can get something closer to the full diversity of the human face and body, which I think is more beneficial than locking humans into one appearance and making up for that narrowness with horned/furred/scaled/winged/tailed races. 

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Originally posted by Elgareth

I don't like the wannabe-realistic look either, since it does not look realistic.

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True, but if we're not going to try to be realistic until we can do it perfectly, then it will never happen. You can't get there without the stepping stones, and we've been laying them down for many years. 

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Originally posted by Elgareth

That the first Levels must be solved as a Single-Player Game...it seems as if the Devs KNOW that their M-Rating will be avoided and broken, why would you need a Single-Player introduction if only People of 18+ years are playing it?

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I'm not sure I follow. What does the rating have to do with the single-player introduction? 

I understand not liking the single-player introduction, though. I remain skeptical. Uru Online tried something similar.

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Originally posted by Elgareth

Well, since I await WAR, I have nothing against PvP Focused Games. However, I do think that the fact that AoC will be rated M, have excessive Gore and Nudity will attract MANY MANY Kids of 14-18 years, where Nudity and Gore in a Game are actual reasons to play it, no matter the Gameplay, whereas older People stand above that and ultimately need good Gameplay, maybe with Gore/Nudity as a "Bonus".

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I'm not sure there's any sign that Age of Conan's gore is 'excessive'. The earlier videos gave me the impression that the blood was way over the top, but the recent stuff seems more realistic to me. 

As for the nudity, I also don't know. We haven't really been given any examples aside from the rather anachronistically-clothed temptress NPC in the depths of a dungeon.

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Originally posted by Elgareth

What I also dislike currently (but that could be because I'm fairly uninformed, that's just my theory I tailored together from the bits and pieces of Info I read somewhere):
You gather Ressources (without PvP as necessity, so PvE/simple Gathering without any enemies at all) to build a Fort, Fortress or whatever. A bigger Guild zergs your Fort, it gets destroyed, you collect Ressources again, to build another Fort, which is again razed...
In the end this sounds to me like many Guild Members will basically be forced to continously gather ressources, I see no fun in that. (But then again, feel free to correct me on that issue if you got official Info)

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I have that worry as well, in the same way that Shadowbane's perpetual rebuilding was absurd, and Dark Age of Camelot's perpetual reclamation, which I'm afraid will also be Warhammer Online's problem. 

I have no alternative to propose, though, in the context of an MMO.

Originally posted by Crose

You should only feel threatened by AoC if your pay check depends on the success of a different game.  The fact that fans want other games to do poorly is ridiculous.

But seriously, for some reason, I have never been able to state that without losing my temper. Well done.

As for why fans of other games may seem to react most strongly to the mention of Age of Conan, I believe it is due to several things:

1. The setting. It is likely that the very mention of Conan sets certain (hopefully false) expectations in thier minds if they have only been exposed to the films or comics.
2. It seemed low-budget and difficult to take seriously in its early days. This is not the case now, but first impressions can hurt.
3. Its debatable status as an MMO.
4. The perception of PvP-focused games as attracting 'kiddies' and other, more undesirable personality types. I blame this on Shadowbane, though I am pained to say it.

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Originally posted by Dreneth

The more corporate the industry gets, the less innovation and creative expression I see in them.  It's unfortunate to see some gamers think that to be a good thing.

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I like SOE. However, they should stick to their own products. I cringe every time they acquire someone else's work. They may shape it to appeal more to their own audience, and they do that quite well, but they do it better when they develop it from the ground up themselves.

As for the punching bag of the year, I liked Vanguard under the early Sigil-Microsoft pairing. I really did. It was on Microsoft's support that it was originally founded. I'm not saying that I think the switch to SOE ruined it, I'm saying that the event which necessitated the switch did. The second partnership and SOE's recent acquisition were just the natural course of maximum survival from there.

Yes, Vanguard is the much newer game, and therefore much more bug-riddled. But going beyond that:

EverQuest II is a more closed experience, quest-driven and instance-supported. The thematic atmosphere is lighter than Vanguard, more innocent/storybookesque, but without the comic art style of World of WarCraft. It would make a good intermediate between one and the other. Like World of WarCraft, though, it is certainly showing its age.

I am not sure what to say specifically about Vanguard. I could talk about how great I thought it was in the early beta, but it has changed since then and is changing in further ways now.

A) BioWare.
B) A new company with Raph Koster as Lead Designer, Brad McQuaid as Creative Director, and Sam Johnson as Lead Writer. I'm not kidding. Tom King on the UI, Todd Masten on the music, Paul Barnett as company herald, and Dax Pandhi and Carolina Dahlberg as concept artists.

Am I the only one who is very tired of 'vapourware' being thrown around as such a buzzword?

I doubt that Darkfall will release, but it is just a silly term that is rarely used correctly in terms of its original meaning.

Vapourware is a false product, a hoax. Something that is announced and/or advertised yet never produced. Darkfall and many games like it are developed to a (often playable) point yet simply never released.

Lately, I have been seeing new projects called 'vapourware' within two months of their announcement. Bizarre.

Originally posted by SBC3
NO GAME AND ILL REPEAT NO GAME WILL BEAT AOC OR WAR!

Why do some gamers behave like those sports fans, rooting for one team or another? In my mind, the industry is far more cooperative than competitive.

Bah.

Originally posted by liddokun
Do we need internet addiction clinic here in america? Internet addiction (usually related to games) has been on the rise worldwide. China has already several government funded programs aimed at curing net addiction.

China is off its head.

We will need television and cinema addiction clinics long before Internet or, say, literature addiction clinics. No matter how far one looks at taking it.

Brad McQuaid could have retired after EverQuest. He chose to create Vanguard, like almost any designer would have done in his position, out of love for the creation of worlds.

I was floored by Vanguard in Beta 2, unhappy with the direction it began to take in Beta 3, and my opinion degraded continuously after that and I am no longer involved with it; yet I am not the headhunting type of picket-line gamer who loves the drama of calling out the developers as evil liars, frauds, and incompetents.

Microsoft (probably unintentionally) screwed them over towards the end of Beta 2, then Microsoft's technology was swapped for SOE's, the beta testers spent much more time flaming each other without conclusion than providing direct feedback, a few key members of Sigil (who I met personally but won't name) were unsettling, Tom King couldn't relocate when the pace picked up, Keith Parkinson died, Bill Fisher competed with Brad McQuaid over design philosophies (having a notably different outlook on things) in a way that I can't imagine was ultimately helpful, and McQuaid ultimately fell apart towards the latter days when he saw what was coming, which obviously incited bitterness towards him and further hurt morale.

Which of these was the worst event or circumstance is anyone's own opinion, but I think we can all agree that it all contributed significantly to the insufficient turnout of players, the acquisition, and the stinging necrosis.

Vanguard was absolutely flipping amazing to me in its early beta days and nights. It destabilised and drastically changed direction later, but I will always remember how it was before that, and regret that McQuaid and Sigil had to lose that quality later in development. I hope that a company reforms with at least McQuaid and Masten both onboard. I empathised with no two more.

Originally posted by Netspook

Originally posted by pb1285n

Originally posted by Heltern
It is official it is a flop. The design team lost a ton of employees who were fired and now have a staff of only 50. The game is so empty the 40+ levels are waiting 4+ hours for groups in a forced grouping game on all of 9 servers. It is really pathetic that someone was dumb enough to make a niche game for a group of players this small and spend $30 million.

Yay people lost their job and I'm happy about it because it made me right! HOORAY!!

I'm really curious how your train of thought brought you to such a horrible conclusion. You really need help.

If you can't handle other ppls' opinions, go troll somewhere else. Personal attacks on him just because you disagree, is pathetic.

Just realise that Heltern was doing the same damned thing. The only difference is that you agree with him. Which is fine, but mind your double-standards.

Originally posted by Netspook

I couldn't care less about those ppl who lost their jobs. If they didn't realize they were on a sinking ship, then it's their own faults. Everyone else knew, and these ppl were in the middle of it. Besides, why should I care when 50-100 ppl lose their jobs on the other side of the planet? The qualified ones will find new jobs. Maybe not those whos only qualification was being a brother/sister/whatever of someone in charge there. Yeah, Sigil is known for that too...

Erm, I find it difficult to begrudge people for loving their project and lacking the inhuman detachment to abandon something they believe in because an inherently uninterested group of people expressed disinterest. Too many treat these games and their developers like sports fans treat their rival teams.

I don't think poorly of people who dislike the art I like, be it a band, a film, a novel, a game... yet I constantly see people taking flak simply for liking Vanguard or having a bit of human decency in defending the team behind it, and that boggles my mind. It definitely takes a certain personality type....

I am not a fan of Blizzard's products, but like Hell would I celebrate if Blizzard somehow went under or World of WarCraft was somehow acquired by, say, Microsoft, and the subsequent changes caused players to abandoned ship. No more than I would have celebrated the Titanic sinking. Damn that Edward Smith! What a blowhard. Ah, well. It was a stupid, elitist ship, anyway, right?

As far as I see, very few titles take the 'cutting edge' you say is dominating. The market can't be 100% moderate and technologically unmotivated, so instead about 80-90% of it is.