Originally posted by FrodoFragins

What does the UI have to do with making a game revolutionary?  WoW wasn't revolutionary either but it completely changed the market.  How many revolutionary MMOs have there been?  Ultima Online and EQ started it all and everyone else just seemed to make tweaks or improve what came before.

 

I'm not one to say Game-X is going to beat WoW, but this is the first time I believe a new MMO really can grab 2 million+ subscribers within a year.  Every AAA MMO has been fantasy based, I don't consider EVE or SWG to be AAA.  Hopefully SW:TOR will help get companies to stop with the WoW clones and offer great titles that are different.

 

User interfaces are a critical element. It is how the player interacts with the game world, their their intentions are turned to actions and how data can be transfered from the computer (game) to the player in a way so that they in turn can react and present (interact) desired actions back towards the computer.

In short, the UI or the lack there of, especially when dealing with different genre types and the type of challenge mechanics which define the genres, plays a massive role.

One could also state that EVE is a AAA mmorpg but its targeted towards a niche market. SWG was also a AAA mmorpg. SWG would have continued to grow and dominated the limited market at the time if it did not have that one patch that ruined the game for many people.

Voice Over is a double edged sword, it serves to make narrative making easier via dialog but at the same time increases not only the limitation in production, ramp up the cost of production, but also increases possibilities of alienation (as opposed to immersion). There are many side effects to VO focus, some good some bad, some can be very bad if done badly.

Zoning which you mention is not new, and has been featured in many mmorpgs as well as games in the past. All it does is remove some information from memory and put in new information based on the players proximity and what is viewable at the time. Think of it as content streaming. Its not new, nor would it revolutionize anything. Instances were done merely for server and computer performance.

User generated content has been around in things like Second Life, but it faces many problems for certain games. The topic has been dicussed many times, even during Mythic's attempt to create WAR. It wont happen with SW:TOR.

This game serves only to reinforce the limitations in design mechanics as well as the easy marketability of ThemePark games. At its very core, the publisher wants WoW success, this is done by emulating the greatest theme park of all time and using WoW as the "style sheet" for which the EA game is built upon.

These cannot and will not change the industry in any meaningful way. It will just be the "next popular theme park game" with a different franchise attached to it. In fact, it can do more to harm the future of MMORPGs than actually help. 

Games like WoW cause clones, so in a joking sense this is a CLONE WAR of sorts. IF this game is popular and the next big themepark, it will just cause more clones and the cycle will NOT be broken.

At the very least it may cause publishers to push for more sci-fi themed online games instead of the high fantasy.

The ipad stinks, like most apple products.

Check out the Asus EEE Pad Transformer. When it first hit the market less than a month ago, it sold out in under 5 minutes via online retailers. Its the best pad yet to hit the market and at normal price only goes for $399. (The supply and demand has some selling it for inflated cost until more shipments arrive).

Check it out: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/18/asus-eee-pad-transformer-uk-edition-review/

Make no mistake, Sony is NOT a bad corporation. In fact anyone of digital entertainment should be thankful to them and their contributions.

However, Sony under CEO Howard Stringer has been horrible. Even the founder of the Playstation ruined his own project or rather attempted to in order to oppose a non japanese person running Sony. While I think a person shouldnt be judged by their cultural origin, I have to agree with the Japanese that Sony has been better run thus far by the Japanese and their ethical standards for quality technology. Stringer is doing the unusual cost cutting methods while retaining the same brand pricing for more profit. This results in worse products, services and security loop holes such as this. He would rather sue than fix.

I do NOT hold the hackers accountable for reacting the way they did to the George Hotz case, and I hope Sony feels this long and hard. I look forward to better products from them under a new CEO. 

Sony is great, the current CEO and buisiness model is NOT! Be neutral, be accurate, be factual. Brand Loyalty is only a sign of stupidity.

With any luck, this will get Howard Stringer to finally step down and put someone who actually will do a good job in its place as CEO.

Kaz H. seems like a good choice, the japanese have always been better at running their own corporation. The fact that Howard S. made Sony look worse under his watch doesnt help the idea that non japanese can run a good corporation in Japan. Perosnally I think he is just an isolated case, but it still doesnt help the image. I generally like what Sony has done in the past, and they have been "known" for quality (past tense), however they have really gone down hill since then outside of the quality of the PS3 games.

I still regret purchasing a 2011 3D Sony hdtv thinking it came with quality associated with the brand name...boy was I mistaken. What a piece of junk!

The irony here is that most successful mainstream multiplayer games cannot be categorized into pure pvp or pure pve. So when someone mocks those who call it a pvp game, they are more ignorant than the person they are mocking. Why? Because it is a pvp game, its also a pve game. These type of titles require the developer to hit the largest market and the fact is...the largest market is neither going to be found by providing a pure pve online rpg or a pure pvp online rpg. The widest market partakes in BOTH gameplay styles.

Challenge mechanics are not magically different between pvp and pve, meaning the core is the same. Some people get all paranoid at the thought of the challenge coming from a player controlled source (pvp) but are some how fine if the source is computer controlled. It doesnt mean the challenge mechanic necessarily changes. PvE is often the method for hard coded story telling and character progression, pvp is the dynamic story telling (the story of the player via combat) and dynamic gameplay. To be honest, nothing is more dynamic than pvp. PvP also consists of non violent player competition. If two players are competing to get the first hit on a mob, then its a form of PvP due to the nature of the competition. 

In short, they are not exclusive to one another, but rather inclusive. Any game that is designed from the ground up to include players competing with one another in one form or another IS a pvp game. Any game that uses the environment to tell a story, offer alternative challenges, provides the resources for character advancement and economy, is a pve game. How often do you really see these two exclusive of one another?  Most of these big budget mmorpgs will be PvPvE. So to those trying to claim either or, and or mocking those people by suggesting the opposite, then get off your high horse...or chocobo, which ever you prefer.

To be fair, you cannot automatically lump Arche Age in with the rest of the tradionally asian mass produced games.

Jake Song [Song Jae-kyeong (???,???)] who is behind Arche Age and is running the company that started it is a vetran to the mmorpg scene. You can consider him the Richard Garriott of South Korea, and he is behind one of the earliest major successful mmorpgs, Lineage 1 (which came out around the same time as Ultima Online back in the 1990's). Jake Song is the type of developer who goes against the grain when it come to the usual "asian" f2p internet cafe grind "design" philosophy that became popular in his country. Furthermore, it is rare for an asian company to license a major next gen engine such as CryEngine unless they intend for it to be a blockbuster.

I hate to say it but western games right now, probably thanks to the publishers, have stopped trying to innovate and push the boundaries of last generation design. Western mmorpgs seen fine with recycling the same crap over and over without building upon the last generation. In other words, I see very little improvement as of yet. Not to say it will always be that way, but their major offerings to the mmorpg genre are a bit more next gen than anyone elses. It used to be the exact opposite.

The writer for Arche Age is also not an unknown. 

As for the OP's point that certain things sound good on paper but not via mechanics. I would have to point out that how a company executes the concept depends on what kind of mechanics you will get. It doesnt mean that if one company did a horrible job designing certain features or just tacked them on, then of course it will be bad, but it doesnt mean that will happen every time with every game. Darkfall should never be compared to Arche Age, purely because Darkfall is like a student film project and Arche Age is more like movie produced by James Cameron. There is a huge gap in quality (in regards to who is developing them and the names involved) between the two. 

Originally posted by BlackWatch

Originally posted by Axton

As of today they have released skill tree. It is a clone copy of the WoW skill tree. Where is the inovation that Biowear is known for?  The last great hope for AAA titles has failed to create a new gaming experience. 

 Because, we all know that WoW did everything first. 

Skill trees aren't a bad thing, imho.  I can live with them. 

If you hate skill trees so much... you will continue to play WoW?  Which, according to you, invented the skill trees to begin with. 

Oh stop over exaggerating and putting words in someone elses mouth. I dont care if you agree or disagree with the poster, it is just childish to assume more than what the author stated.

Clearly the OP did NOT suggest WoW did everything first. 

Two simple statements can be made from his post. 1) He thinks the skill trees in SWTOR looks exactly like a WoW skill tree. (description, not a claim WoW did everything first), and 2) He had hoped for innovation and to be fair, Bioware did hype trying some level of innovation (though we may only find its in regards to storytelling and voice over work).

Originally posted by Tyvolus1

Originally posted by Rabenwolf

Rift has the same challenge mechanics as those other games yes, but in contrast rift does not meet or excede how those challenge mechanics were implimented. Thats really the core issue of this kind of topic.

There is also a "fan fallacy" of sorts taking place. Those who hate WoW are some how happily playing Rift. To me this is like the guy who vocally hates Pizza Hut Pizzas because of its popularity and ingredients, yet some how loves Dominos Pizza because of its popularity and its ingredients. 

My opinion is consumers, especially the larger market of game consumer, are pretty dense, hypocritical and easily manipulated by publishers and marketing firms.

 really nice try here bro, but not good enough.  I can list MANY reasons why I dont like wow and why I like and play RIFT.  Here is one of the biggest.  CLASSES.  wow has (or had) when I played for a short time, 8 or so cookie cutter classes.  Do I even need to go into all the classes and soul combos RIFT offers ?

Sorry to shoot your "Pizza Hut Fan Fallacy" theory all to sh*t .

LOL if you thought you shot anything to sheet as you put it, then sorry kiddo you are mistaken.

Let me explain a little something about how rift was designed. This is not a comparision as to which is better or worse, but a point in how they used the same design and just shuffled it around. In WoW there are 10 classes, each class has 3 skill trees. In Rift, there are 4 classes and 9 dedicated skill trees (intentionally renamed to "souls"). Each class can have 3 trees at a time. This is the SAME DESIGN and MECHANIC. Instead of having 10 classes for example, Rift developers stream lined them into 4 choices, they kept the skill trees and divided them up between the 4 merged classes.  

So in otherwords, you are just fooling yourself into liking one based on a bias over the same thing of another, based on a bias.

As far as "combos" are concerned, most of the skills overlap and are mere copies of one another. Rift combat, if you play the best the system has to offer, is really only pressing between 1-3 keys over and over. Furthermore, if you play the Cleric, you are already all classes and the sum of their play styles in one simple class. Cleric = pet, magic ranged, magic melee, aoe, buff and debuff, healer, melee dps, tank, all in one. So really, the illusion of meaningful choice in class combinination is tossed out the window if you play 1 out of the 4 classes.

The pizza anaology is to suggest that while one person vocally says they hate pizza, they turn around and say they love pizza just because its got a different packaging or "brand name". It shows how idiotic many gamers can be regarding the whole hate and love of these sort of products. 

Originally posted by mmogawd

I just want a monk... *sniffles* Is that too much to ask?

Never quite understood the appeal of a monk.

What defines the monk? Lore that they sit atop mountains and meditate? Not bothering with the concerns of the world but rather personal enlightenment? Fighting in that they are mere martial artists? Swordmanship is a martial art, so it has to be something different. Mere use of fists and feet instead of weapons then? Or is it just the look? Robes, shaved head maybe, asian style wear? Surely you wouldnt mean the western and russian style monk which look more like a pope or friar. 

I think there are a lot of good reasons not to go with a monk class, if those are the reasons above. There are usually better more customizable alternatives such as clerics, priests or rogues with martial art focuses.

Just my opinion though.

Originally posted by Derebus

You do know that ALL these threads about WoW, instead of ruining its image, gives it too much importance... STOP compraing any game and mmo to WOW, its getting old! People that keep saying this have too much free time in their hands.

It is a fair comparision though, and the most logical. You cannot refute that. This thread isnt about WoW however, but the ad campaign by Trion that targets WoW. There is a fundamental difference, even though the subjects in question are the same.

Rift has the same challenge mechanics as those other games yes, but in contrast rift does not meet or excede how those challenge mechanics were implimented. Thats really the core issue of this kind of topic.

There is also a "fan fallacy" of sorts taking place. Those who hate WoW are some how happily playing Rift. To me this is like the guy who vocally hates Pizza Hut Pizzas because of its popularity and ingredients, yet some how loves Dominos Pizza because of its popularity and its ingredients. 

My opinion is consumers, especially the larger market of game consumer, are pretty dense, hypocritical and easily manipulated by publishers and marketing firms.

Originally posted by ormstunga

Originally posted by Rabenwolf 

LOL hardly. Though there are some over eager mods locking threads just because WoW was mentioned, this subject is not a comparision.

Trion is clearly, and desperately trying to target WoW's player base. This is a fact. When they come up with cheesy and often silly one liners as part of their marketing campaign, of which, dont hint at WoW, they actually call it out, then no censorship should talk place to talk about the said advertisement.

Trion is pretty pathetic, they really are not off to a good start.

Again: the quote in topic is just that, a quote. Its from a games reviewer, not a cheesy/silly one liner.

I'm not really sure what you have against Trion, could it be you're a WoWer? If you think blizzard sets some kind of standard for behaviour I'd like to remind you that when WAR released (and WoW most likely lost hundreds of thousands of subs) blizz representatives were bashing WAR openly on game sites. So much for good behaviour.

They couldnt really know that most ppl would return to WoW following WARs failure. But now they do. And its been like that since. Subs drop, and then come back. And now blizzard more openly welcomes competition.

offtopic:

Next we'll see how Rift stole so many features from WoW, features that were ofc not first seen in WoW at all but who cares about that amarite? WoW has really few original features.

Uh champ, who made and is paying for the advertisement with that one liner in it? 

The answer is Trion. They started with "you are not in azeroth anymore" as part of their ad campaign, and they are jumping on this one. You need to understand, Trion is run by marketoids. Marketing departments often piss off designers because they mess up and try to force creative decisions. Trion, from its foundation, is based purely on the marketing mindset.  

How they handled the beta key, VIP key, supply and demand campaign is just another notch in the marketing tactics they make use of. They believe firmly, and I am quite certain of this, even from what I saw of their booth and stage presentation (as I was at E3), that even a sub average product can be a huge success if you manipulate the market into buying into it. Its sort of an artificial fanbase, one where you know a portion of the player base will love it just because its viewed as popular to love it. If something is in low supply but high demand, even if its crap, people will want it, and once they get it you have them stuck to it.

Honestly I do not think Rift can sell itself or speak for itself, its not good enough of a product to do so.

You call me a WoWer? I have no idea what that means, but I have more in common with an industry professional than that of a consumer with a hardon for a specific game or studio. 

If anything it seems like you are the one with a chip on your sholder regarding WoW, that you have a strong bias against Blizzard and or their mmorpg, and thus push it on other people as a form of counter argument.

There are NOT, 1 million people, actively subscribed to Rift right now. Furthermore, you cannot state that of their subscriptions, all of them came from WoW. It seems to me, that many Rift players vocally disdain WoW and or give the impression that they never wanted to play WoW but would play Rift. 

Originally posted by fivoroth

Originally posted by Blacknd

Disclaimer: This isn't a WoW comparison thread. There's already a main thread for that.

In your opinions, do you really think Rift has made that big of an impact on the market? Enough so that WoW (and other MMOs) will bleed subscribers?

The general idea I am picking up from the majority of opinions I see is that Rift is just something to do until something better comes along (insert GW2, TOR, Tera, Titan, etc). It's been said time and time again that Rift's strengths aren't its innovations, but that it does everything well, and that for once it feels like an MMO ready to be released.

What are your thoughts?

OP, your thread is in violation of the rules. As is clearly stated in the thread to which you have referred, any WoW/Rift comparissons, any WoW Killer threads are considered a violation of this rule. It's plain obvious that your thread falls in the Wow killer category. As a result, I have reported this thread :)

 

LOL hardly. Though there are some over eager mods locking threads just because WoW was mentioned, this subject is not a comparision.

Trion is clearly, and desperately trying to target WoW's player base. This is a fact. When they come up with cheesy and often silly one liners as part of their marketing campaign, of which, dont hint at WoW, they actually call it out, then no censorship should talk place to talk about the said advertisement.

Trion is pretty pathetic, they really are not off to a good start.

I had a blast playing Baldur's gate in Co-op. I think Pool of Randiance has it also.

Without the testing, I would have taken a chance and believed the hype/marketing. At E3 (I was there), their producers sold the game pretty well with WORDS and a flashy booth. It was only until playing it that I realized what they had done, cut a lot of design corners, make up hype and over market an ultra generic game. I know I was not alone in being surprised by the type of Linearity and small scale of the level/world design. When you think, dynamic events, you actually assume its fully dynamic with quality scripting inbetween, but that was also not present. The gimmick (marketing phrasing) of many classes was shown to be a lie, as all they did was rename skill trees to Souls and call them classes. The game really only has 4 classes, but lets you have more freedom with the choice of skill trees. I also would not have expected the type of skill over laps which revealed that the unique souls were not trutly unique from one another. Without the play testing, many would have assumed the marketing was on par with the actual execution and design of the game.

I think its a fair question to ask really. I can tell you EA Bioware lost out on quite a few sales because they released a demo for Dragon Age 2, showing that the sequel was nothing like the original Dragon Age turned many away.

Originally posted by Meowhead

Originally posted by Dalmont

I always thought people who loved anime were really strange people who got off on cartoons...

Well, you were wrong. :(

Anime has its genres and target audiences. Some of those genres generally do cater to the otaku who are very strange and probably do get off to cartoons. 

There is a large gap in the type of person who watching an anime (or reads the manga) like Claymore or Berserk, and someone who watches Pita-Ten or some discustingly generic uber chibi fan service type of cartoon (which there are a lot of ).

The western developers probably could develop good mature styled anime/manga IP games, but anything beyond that shouldnt even see the light of day. 

The anime seen in the west usually is localized with horrible childish voice actors and a clear targeting of the younger audiences, which why its hard for any of their franchises to really take off here in another form of media.

They should get rid of the race entirely. Genericly over anime styled characters are utterly nausiating. Thats just my opinion though and one of the reseasons I find little enjoyment in many of the Korean designed mmorpgs.

Dragon Age 2 is one of the worst sequels ever made. I cant understand how anyone can really enjoy it beyond act 1. The game is badly designed, under developed, and extremely consolized. Even the lead designer admitted they cut lots of corners just to pump it out in 1.5 years. Thats pretty bad, especially for the sequel to a blockbuster title with a huge following... which is probably why EA pushed them to make it different and in less than 2 years. The name will do most of the selling. 

Utterly pathetic. The game deserves the metacritic user scores of 4.0 and below. Biowares new mottos is, if it aint broke, break it.

Originally posted by Ren54

Simple facts:
1. WoW tried it and failed - go search the youtube vids of what happens when you get a ton of people on the screen at one time. Winterlag...Dal-Lag

2. WAR was another lag fest because the engine was broken

3. Aion - Same idea except they used a really updated 2009GFX engine on a America network that is maybe dated to 2002. So lag central.

4. GW2 promises this and MIGHT be able to pull it off. Now they have to have dynamic events with those graphics + that many people on the screen

There is a severely good reason Trion chose this modified WAR gfx engine that can play on most system and does not lag you to death.

Facts? Rofl.

1. It was a success in that it provoked large player turnouts, and just like some of the world pvp hot spots back in vanilla, it was lag city. This is not unexpected, it has nothing to do with the gfx engine as you put it. Rift also has seen this kind of lag.

2. War, a lag fest? Engine broken? War used Gamebryo, so does Rif. War's problems were in its design, nothing more.

3. Aion used the Cryengine, which is not purely graphical but an entire package for development. Even Cryengine is more capable than Gamebryo in its current state...which is probably why Gamebyro went under (was on its death bed) and eventually got bought out by some Korean company. It's networking side and high end graphics resulted in many of the lag related issues.

4. GW2 is made by a tried and true, development team. Dynamic events are not new, they have been around for a long time. Their networking set up will be based around the idea of segmenting and releaving as much stress as possible for clusters of players in any one area. It would be a surprise to all if they failed in that regard.

FINALLY,

The reason TRION chose to go with GAMEBRYO is because 1) it was cheap, 2) they teamed up with the maker of Gamebryo for a long term deal...which is funny since not long after Gamebryo went under, leaving all those with contracts for using Gamebryo in a sticky situation. Gamebryo is by no means next neg, and neither is Rift in its graphical processing. Rift can and will lag to death, I have seen it, however the only thing TRION has going for them is the cloud networking they setup. Modified Gamebryo doesnt really mean much either. It is still and always will be aged and flawed, it will never hold a candle to the next gen game engines such as CryEngine and Unreal 3. 

Lets not over hype Rift and pretend its in some new category where all others have failed. That simply is not true. Rift, from my opinion is a design dissaster, a highly marketed gimmick over gameplay product, siplified and solid but aged and generic. The odds are against them for any long term success, especially when trying to compete with WoW.