I guess I'll make a new post, the title of this thread is pretty lousy...

Originally posted by wrekognize

I read a post very similar to this one....9 Years ago.          

It's a piece of garbage now.

That was your personal pick, so who cares?  Obviously, you did not make a fair comparison.

And even in the case of public votes, what does it matter when most the votes are from the uninformed?

These guys will go down delusional to the end - oblivious of the harm they have caused.

Originally posted by deucallion

OP, if AoC has cartoony graphics, can you please give me an example of a MMO that doesn't?  And the appearance of the name is a preference.  Like how some people will enable a profanity filter.  There's no advantage ingame per se, it's just something to cater to a given players taste.  Preferences are a good thing.  Combo-attacking is better than click /take a nap.  Not as good as aiming, sure, but hey it could be worse.  Full pvp?  Yeah in a perfect world.  But lets face it:  no game that hopes to go mainstream and make truckloads of money will support that option, there just aren't enough people out there that are into it.  But yeah, i feel ya on that point.  And also on the skill/level opinion.  I'd much prefer a skill-based game to a level based one.  Can't for the life of me figure out why more MMOs aren't designed like that, guess level-based is just easier.  Meh.  

So to sum up the Deuc's opinion:

Graphics:  you're smokin crack if you think AoC is 'cartoony'.  WoW is 'cartoony'. 

Gameplay:  could be better, could be worse.  I'll settle for the compromise of combo-click combat.

PvP:  In complete agreement with you.  The more hardcore the pvp, the better.

Progression:  Also in complete agreement.  Skill-based > Level-based 

There is an adavantage to having names enabled - you can tell who someone is from a distance.  Same with numbers, you can estimate how much damage you've done.  Most will leave it on at the sacrifice of immersion, to have these advantages.

Well, I guess you have a point in that AoC graphics look pretty good when compared to WoW.  But, I still feel let down because I expected more realism out of a "Mature" game.  It's definitely closer to a cartoon, but maybe that's because Conan is a comic.  Also, I'm coming off of playing Roma Victor and all their graphics are based off actual photographs, so you can't get more real looking than that.  The damage numbers floating up into the air and nametags don't help either.

The major disappointments are the looting and PvP limitations.  It doesn't sound like they are interested in making these aspects very real or dangerous at all.  And some of you are probably right, they are just going after the mass market, like everyone else...

And, I've seen the videos of the combat, and it does look pretty generic, even with the combos, you run up next to an enemy and swing your weapon as quick as you can and throw in any combos you can manage, but the combos are nothing more than just fancy swings.

To top it off, I'm not very enthusiastic to get back into another leveling game....

If everything else was there, I could overlook the graphics and leveling.

So for now, I guess I will try it, but I'm looking forward more to Darkfall.  The preview they just posted renewed my interest and sounds great - but of course, it's supposed to.

Originally posted by sandage  

It did not cost anything near 35 million dollars to make...lol i just fall of my chair
and your telling me to stay off the forums? if you make such a game for 35 million dollars then thay sould be locked down behind bars, who makes such a crappy buggy game whit that amount.

Who?  EA, that's who.  The Sims MMO cost about $30 million in development costs alone.  But it gets even worse, EA gambled on this one game alone being successful, opening up an entirely seperate online division to support it.  After the game failed miserably and the division and stock were rolled back into EA, total losses for the division were reported at $300 million!

And, it gets even worse.  Guess who was the main supporter of The Sims Online?  That's right, current EA CEO John Riccitello, they guy who will lead the way with Warhammer Online and the future BioWare MMO, since they bought out them now also.

Some more disasters on the way...

LoTRO is much better than any EA MMO.

I don't know, I just thought it was kind of sad, and it surprised me as I've never seen that before.  I have a screenshot somewhere of when the game first launched and there were hundreds logged into the forums.

Stubbornness can be a good thing sometimes, especially where games are concerned.

Since by nature good games are challenging, most players are usually asking for things to be made easier.  A stubborn developer will not give in so easily and therefore the game will remain challenging.

Of course, in other situations, it's not so good.

Where do I get the impression of cartoon-like graphics?  From the screenshots on the homepage:

Female Barbarian

Yeti

Blood of Combat

Magic

Making things optional that are advantageous for a player to know, is not really optional.  Why would anyone turn names and numbers off if it benefits them not to?

Certainly the combat is better than plain old auto-attack, but combos are only one step above that.  Why not be able to aim your attacks?

Are there going to be FFA PvP servers?  This would be better than nothing, but never better than a diverse game world.  I'm growing so tired of protective zoned games with PvP on the outskirts or border kingdoms, and players hiding out in these protective zones, when competition is what multiplayer games should be about.

How many games are skill based?  A few, and that's the point, why go with the generic MMO leveling system?  The leveling systems are pretty basic and reward players merely for spending time playing rather than careful planning and strategy.

So, I'm disapointed in AoC, because I originally got the impression that Conan would finally be a highly competitive MMO for experienced gamers, due to some of the mature content, but it looks like it's shaping up to be more of a generic MMO now?

I went to visit the forums, but KFR was there by himself, so I left.

...

1. Cartoon-like graphics.

2. Arcade-game numbers and long names floating above heads

3. Generic combo combat - stand next to your enemy pick a combo and slash away, no aiming except with bows.

4. No looting of bodies - bags or chests drop from NPCs, that may contain an item or two he was carrying, the rest of his stuff is magically locked away somewhere.  In PvP you just earn points.  All the devs have said is that there may be the possibility for looting coins or one item, maybe... So what's the point in PvP? Just hacking and slashing to gain points and levels?  Is that any kind of risk or reward?  The devs are claiming the game is not item based, but if you don't lose items, I can't see how it will not end up being item based.

5. Levels rather than strict skill.

This was six months ago.  So, has any of this changed?

The preview sounds incredible!  I hope the game lives up to it.

I especially enjoyed these parts:

You can kill anyone. Everything in your possession can be looted. No one gets claim to a kill as a corpse can be looted by an unlimited number of people. Kills are recorded. You will know who you have killed as well as who killed you.

Sea battles. This is something that can add a lot of fun to a massive game. A party of people being good with ships will be very valuable in many ways. They can transport troops and resources. They can raid coast lines, give support to coastal battles with its canons or just plain rob other ships as pirates for fun and profit. There is a lot of thought put into ships. There are different sizes ships from a 10 canon ship to huge 50 canon ships. One person can mount a canon and use it to shoot at people, shoot at other canons, other ships, coastal buildings, npcs or whatever else. If you have 50 people on your 50 canon ship you can dish out some serious damage. That is, unless the enemy boards your ship, kills the captain (also a player) and turns the whole ship around so your canons can’t aim at the target. If the ship sinks and you are on the lower decks, you sink and die with it. Imagine 50 guildmates trying to escape a sinking ship through the narrow doorway going onto the upper deck. Each trying to push their way through and what it would be like if a couple of enemies are at the entrance pushing back and killing people.

Originally posted by Antarious

Many things can be said about UO.. but the game was bleeding subs long before Trammel.

Trammel was something that could have retained subs at launch...  but by the time it was implemented.. the community it might have saved was gone.  Thus it ruined the one that was left. 

This doesn't matter.  UO has always been "bleeding" subs and all MMOGs "bleed" subs.  What does matter is that the game is gaining more subs than its bleeding - when this is the case the game is growing.  Period.

Ultima Online was always growing before Trammel was released, always.  There may have been some that did not like the game and left, but it was not more than the game was attracting, thus the steady growth of pre-Trammel UO.

And, we have solid facts to support it, provided directly from EA themselves in official press releases and financial reports.

After Trammel?  Not so good.  That's when you can actually say that UO truly began bleeding subs, bleeding more than it was gaining.  After Trammel more started leaving than joining and as a result the game stopped growing and eventually declined.

Good!  

It's about time.

Probably the only thing that can save UO at this point is just such a major shakeup; not likely, but at least a chance.

I don't give EA any credit for keeping UO alive for 10 years, because it's not alive.  It's a corpse propped up to show investors that EA has a successful MMO offering.  Even if it is not profitable EA will still not close it until they have another successful MMO, to do so would cost them more in reputation than to keep it running at a loss.

What the hell!  That sounds like worthwhile development.  Too bad, instead of making a ferry to hand-feed players they did not just require boats period.

Only 7 more years of crap to undo...

Originally posted by Sundiego

LOTRO has over 290K subscribers right now.

According to http://mmogdata.voig.com/ LOTRO has over 290K subscribers Aug 7th.

That's a funny source you are choosing to believe.   Why just two weeks ago MMOGDATA at Voig was reporting that LoTRO had 800k subscribers and they were quoting The Boston Globe article as a source.

Then I decided to write them...

After a few days, MMOGDATA dropped 510k subscriptions off their chart down to 290k and are basing their current number off total estimated sales since release.  However that is very wrong too; for one, because we do not know the European numbers, but mostly because we do know that not everyone that has ever purchased LoTRO is still subscribing - that never has been, nor ever will be the case with MMOGs.  Many people purchase MMOGs and don't end up subscribing after the free month.  Further, many others only subscribe for a few months and then quit.

Originally posted by MrDDT:  Second off, its not cheating because 1) I told RB about it. Yes I talk straight to the devs all the time, and 2) Why would they care?

I did have 2 accounts running on my computer at the sametime. RB didnt know you could do that however, they never told me to stop nor did they stop me from doing it after I told them how I was doing it.

Yep, I remember seeing a post by KFR himself stating that running multiple accounts was not prohibited.  He did say RB would not support it, but he has also said they do not support Windows Vista, and players are running RV on Vista.

In otherwords, it's outside the technical support that RB wishes to offer, but it's not considered cheating.

Kemarik, are you one of the $2000+ donators?  I noticed a 2k vote was placed at about the same time you posted.  If so, I never realized you had donated so much.

dragonace, please stick to the topic.  This discussion is about LoTRO subscriptions.  If you want to discuss other games, then make a new thread.

KFR also said that the figures of $1500 and $1000 posted by Vlad and Vepgenus were not right, probably not by only $10 though.  I'm sure they just threw out a rough guess.  Anyone with over $1000 spent would have to do some accounting to figure out their total - since you can only buy 10,000 Sesterces or $40 worth at a time.

They might be surprised themselves.

And, one can only imagine how much Augir has spent; probably more than all the other VERM purchases combined.  He's definately RB's biggest supporter.