All Posts by brenth

agreed SWG/SONY are known as the biggest piece of garbage in the universe.

this is what you get when you think you know better that the players that suscribe

the only reason SWG is still running is because sony is so big and indifferent  it doesnt see  SWG died a LONG GLONG TIME AGO IN A GALAXY FAR FAR AWAY

the only ones that play now are those lame PVP dorks that just use SWG as an arena and not as an mmo

graphics: I have what AOC would consider a marginal system and I have been fighting and tweeking the settings (taking away from my enjoyment of the game) one thing of note  I actually got better performance  starting with the HIGH setting and adjusting from there than from the low,, I ended up with a better graphic image and even a bit of improved FPS  that being said I rarely break 30 fps  and many times much lower to me the graqphics requirements are needlessly high and leave many people with  older but still strong systems sitting outside.

friend list:  this gets even worse when you join a guild as the friend list and guild list are merged!!! and there is no note section!

sorting tools: when looking at the venders and auction house it seems to have been cut and pasted in the game at the last minute  the few tools there are, are quirky   for instance if you sort by price  the prices have been out of order   300 before 4 ect  and if you go to buy something the list snaps back to its default order  which switches what you had selected for purchass easily buying the new item instead of intended. and the auction house has almost no sort filters making it clumsy.

customer service:  I think they have NPCs running their CS as if you get anything its robotic,, ive have a petition in since day 2 about an account issue.

quests and voiceovers   I love that they have voiceovers but it seems that they shot their wad in the 1-20 which seemed that the code they used for the dialog was overly cumbersome (and i thought the talking was too long)  as for the quests I was sadly dissapointed with the same old quest fare  and that developers couldnt have used much better encounter tools. basicly gameplay has devolved to quest/grinding

as for the mature rating I actually think they needed to get more rough and raw,, you start as a "slave" but you have no bruses or injuries,, you actually start out life in luxury  there is no struggle   for instance the game could have you scavanging for food behind an inn or getting the snot kicked out of you by a guard for trying to steal fruit    no bar room brawls  to me game play is shallow and rigid  I was expecting more from AOC.

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final observations

not all ladders are climbable

long run times to get to the higher zones from town  no /follow   this makes difficult grouping when you might be in another part of the world  unless you prefer DEATH PORTING

the storyline is still soft and fluffy,, the quests assume your goodygoody,, quests send you to retrieve items from a house vault or shop but you cant steal anything else but the quest item??? they should factor in a few "optional" theft items.

clothing is un inspired and  stat dependant   occasionaly see clones,, no secondary costume clothing

crafting is all but broken  I spent a full day trying to get "rares" so I can level my resource gathering and didnt aquire one of the several I need. 

inventory is a bit clumsy with pages  and too few of them given what players are required to carry  they need a private bag as well as a loot bag so that you dont allways have to sort through your stuff everythime you sell or at least a "hide" option

UI the ui is fairly crude  like it was built with a crayon  not a pen  UI could use an overhaul

the AI  the NPC brain is the same brain developers have been using since EQ1  PLEASE make some more smarter NPCs than  perceive,,advance,,attack    and your dungeons arnt better just because you pack in more monsters or add more hitpoints to them  game locations need to be far more diverse and dynamic with complex climbable terrain and climb points   I have actually fallen asleep in the catacombs during yet another swarm of  NPCs  I think it was spiders (its amazing how oblivious NPCs can be when I chop off their buddies head!)   try some trilpwire encounters  or hotplate encounters.

I sugested that in the resource areas that they have NPC forts of differing level that players can raid for resources,  lets say you want level 40 resources you get a group together and enter the "playground that restricts the level  you go attack the outpost and if your sucessfull you can raid their cotton field or ash trees or their copper mine,, their might be an option for a rogue to sneek in and pilfer some resources maby from a warehouse,  I wouldnt have full nodes  but a crop of 20 cotton plants with 1-3 per plant would be cool and alot of fun.

yes but is there any slippery ice  and blustery winds?

this sounds quite exciting!

I love the idea of environment and weather having an effect on charactors  hope some day they get the opertunity to do a desert region  maby south of rohan or mordor.

I HOPE THEY HAVE SLIPPERY ICE!!!!!  nothing has been more fun than being able to slide accross ice or slide down an icy hillside!  this is almost a minigame itself!   city of heroes had some slippery ice, very popular

I hope they do more than just more snow covered terrain like misty mountains,, it should be much colder and glacial      glaciers calving icebergs into turquoise blue pools      Ice so thick  it turns dark blue

not to mention cravases and ice tunnels!

I hope fire and flame weapons can do more damage.

Turbine is definatly going in the right direction.

while there might be little dissagreements with certain things Turbine does  it is undenyable that they are a refreshing new breed of game developers.

when Lord of the rings online was released it was effectivly 100% complete and effectivly stable (they could have went on vacation for 6 months and the game would have been ok) when most other games hit the market only 60-80% complete full of bugs and very unstable.

also turbine is getting a more loyal player base because turbine is doing a much better job of making tangable improvements to the game with prety reliable updates and now a new expainsion MINES OF MORIA due out this fall.  this month is yet another exciting update to include the 2nd new zone called forochel?  I call it ICY BAY  a northern tundra and snow area on the edge of a northern bay.

they still dont have resizeable windows  and they patheticly still dont have boats even after the release of evendim  an zone with a huge lake in the middle of it!

oh well nobodys perfect.

mines of moria page has been out for a month now,, and the newest minigame for about a week.

Im not sure what I was expecting to see but  I wasnt impressed,  looks the same as misty mountains

I guess I was expecting more arctic  type terrain   like blue glacier fields  with  turquoise blue pools  more glistening maby?

I just hope they have some slippery ice up there to play on,, ice in misty is boringly  non-slippery

loved the ice in cirt of heroes.

first off if you havent seen firefly do yourself a favor and make the time!  and watch 3-4 episodes with an open mind    firefly takes a little bit to  sink in  but once it does you will realize its genus.

Im not your fanboy type, sure I called my self a trecker in the past and still do  but thats nothing NOTHING! compared to the emotion firefly invoked and still does   especially with the plite of the show parrelleling the crew.

do I think a good MMO about firefly can be produced?  I havent seen a game company that could reproduce the charactor detail and the drama required   so im a bit pesimistic     but using the analogy of SWG and EVE  I might see how that might work,, (though I like to walk around in my ship) (and SWG is currently an example I use on how NOT to make an MMO) (and the griefers in EVE drive many people away blowing up unarmed multimillion credit ships just because they can makes anyone cancel theiur account.)

that being said im still hungry for a excelent scifi mmo  that is immersive,, where I can captin my ship,, haul cargo,  fight battles,, smuggle,,  and yet stilll have some of the realities of fuel and maintence and breakdowns   that all other games gloss over that truely make a game come alive.

I can see where It may be beneficial for government or other agencies to  have some forum in games

certain news I would like to know about  as in the familiar red banner   warning me of severe weather that may effect me,,  or other  news of critical importance like 911 

in certain games I can even see government agencies having vertual buildings    a vertual white house

or vertual army recruiting center ,  or a presidential  campaign office

and lastly  in many games developers NEED to be forced to listen to players because they start to build games with blinders on and actually make a WORSE product  the first game that comes to mind is  STAR WARS GALAXIES  and their "new game expirence" and space expansion that alienated millions of players

another is SEED  that people were yelling and screaming that the beta game was a wreck and was far from release,, they released it anyway and it was stillborn       was a great premise  but definatly needed more than 15 minutes of development.

It to me is a sad thing that many game developers build games that nearly by definition require players to do tasks directly required by the game and its creators the player and charactor has no free will.

If asked why a charactor is killing  a particular group of goblins they  respond "the game told me to"

the player might be sitting in the driver seat on a trip from seattle to new york  but its the game developer that selects the route.

take spells and attacks for example  there for the most part exactly the same for any given class,,  if you mage has a fireball its the EXACT same fireball that every other mage has,, if you swing your weapon  all other fighters have the exact same move,,  why not have at least some traits that players can build their own moves out of traits they prefer?

the ECONOMY for me is a dead giveaway  is the economy  combat based or sustenance based?  most economies are directly based on the support of combat  armor weapons spells  than on a more immersive and functioning  sustenance economy  food  drink shelter and to make matters worse they have national auction houses  and homoginized resources that every resource is available to everyone which cripples the need for trade.

environments and worlds that ignore biological realities,, you can cross the largest desert  and never need a drink! no need to take time and actually prepare for crossing a desert  packing water, hiring a druid,ranger, mage to aquire water,,, no need to diviate to oasis on the way

same for cold climates,,  swim in a iced over river? no problem  run naked through also no problem!

in LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE right now  they added  a zone called EVENDIM which had a huge lake right in the middle  and Guess what?  NO BOATS!!!   you might see  boats as decorations  but none functioning!  even the famose BUCKLEBERRY FERRY never moves!  and soon (possibly this month) a new chapter is coming out called  forinal,,something (ICY BAY)  and it also includes no boats  but we hear some form of cold weather effects.

the worse thing a GM can do is make it obvious they are controling the charactors and not the players

(example)  we were playing a superhero game  and spent an entire evening trying to recover a very nasty antimatter pistol,, at the end of the evening  no matter how hard we tried it became immpossible to do so.  and what REALLY caused the catistrofic destruction  was that the GM actually said  "sorry guys, that pistol was too good of a plot device and I couldnt let you have it!!!!!"  not only did this RUIN our whole evening as  a WASTED excersise!  it ruined several games after because they became POINTLESS,,

if the gm is going to CONTROL our charactors so much, why do they even need players???

on the flip side if players can never make a difference in a static world, again also pointless.

just look at most MMOs end game  all there is to do is  RAID or PVP  endlessly (this is what hell should be) shouldnt a veteran be a a priest managing a church?  or a warrior that is a lord of a castle or a wise wizard?  or the ruler of a band of thieves?    

think to yourself,  when your charactor maxes out, ask yourself,  did my charactor make a difference in this world? is the world fundementally the same as when you arived? the painful answer is yes.

The clothing addition has great possibilities  the only complaint ive heard is they want more diverse clothing

for me,, for instance the dresses and robes are quite boring and conservative  I know this is LOTR but they can still loosen up some  from the  shue length dresses and buttoned up collars and full length sleeves

I would like to see some knee length skirts/kilts

furry clothing

lots of different hats turbins berrets

gloves and clothing with imbedded jewlery for fancy parties

silk slothing

guild specialty clothing   cloaks  banners tabards

still hopefull that they will have a raw and believeable  aftermath game  that doesnt reduce the gameplay to a boring processed  killing/level arena.

so where do americans have to get the full unnurfed verson of the game from? 

90% of sucessfull ingame advertizing is  location location location

first the add needs to be either  neutral or imbeded/ organic  like a mcdonalds sign  or window art

second method  is as some form of function or benefit  hoping into a chevy pickup to go accross town  or using  vodka to clean a wound    

what they have done to SWG should be considered a war crime.

and a good example of how not to manage a game.

I prefered the dx9 screenshots also,, I thought the shadows looked too sharp and artificial in the 10  and once a game reaches a certain amount of graphic   I think they should spend more time making the game fun to play     it seems that game companies hire 100 graphic designers  but not one writer.

I havent played in a while though I still keep an account active. 

I left lotr for the same reason I leave most MMO same ol rutt of  kill/level ,, idiot AIs ,, and lack of a perception of reality.  cookie cutter quests,,

that being said  I would still highly recomend LOTR as the launch was smooth and complete,,  complete being the operative word  to me it didnt feel like they were dumping a half done game onto a hungry comunity,, they treated the players with respect in this instance,   while I played I had seen MARKED inprovements to the game world like the removal of obviously artificial barriers. and monster design has improved and of course hobbit feet! also the atention to detail when it comes to layout of of the lotr  land makes things like the tolkin atlases be of added value in the universe something other MMOs lack is real world references.

as a point of the LOOK AHEAD  one thing I want LOTR to be very aware of is they need to address as a game gets older  the games become TOP HEAVY  and the "noob" zones become emptier and emptier, to the point that any new person coming into the game sees a very stark and empty starting area (a very negative thing) if they want to keep LOTRO from looking like EQ1  they should address this problem very early as it it much easier to add a few things each chapter than try to address it 5 years from now when there are only 1-2 players in all of bree.

what else would i like to see?   more resource nodes or a bit more yeald out of existing ones  got fustrated wasting all my time ore hunting,

puzzles and more terrain interaction  charactor customization,  collections and and research types of endevers     more things players can do that they dont have to micro manage, productive   things they can do while washing dishes  or waiting for a quest group to arive,  books and messages to decypher    merit badges to collect like for exploration or acomplishments.

I hope you have heard this before  but my sugestion is  put more hero into CITY OF HEROES.

I recently returned to COH after being away for about a year and for the most part nothing has changed especially the THUG BASHING GRIND!

how about   rescuing people from a sinking ship

dealing with a burning building (much more exciting and dramatic than currently)

nuclear power plant accident

toxic waste spill

storms    (tornados blizzards ect  natural or  created)

cosmic catrostrophy  astroids  

even some small heroics   saving a cat from a tree 

add some diasters that several members can contribute to   like a crane or building colapse

even diaster cleanup.

Actually SWG had an ability that allowed the town militia to make people in their town attackable if they didn't leave within a certain period of time.  Unfortunately do to an unfortunate incident involving kicking out a csr from a town and then ganking him, the ability was revoked.  Not sure if that was the sole reason the ability was removed, but I remember it made quite a stink at the time.  Made for a good screenshot too

heres a hint, make your CSR/DEV avatars   either invulnerable  or  badasses.  theres allways gonns be someone that wants to take on a dev/god.

Originally posted by eric_w66

I believe all MMORPG's fail at pvp combat.

They succeed in griefing and ganking.

PvP means to me a fight between players where the skill of the player (not the arbitrary power of a toon leveled to 50 or whatever) decides the outcome. WW2 Online, Planetside, etc, are examples of this kind of PvP. Everyone has a chance to win for the most part (rifleman vs tiger, not so much, but Tigers are super rare, and rifleman are not). Besting an opponent in this style of combat is a rewarding experience for me.

In MMORPG's however, aside from the somehat balanced small instances in some of them (BG's in WoW etc) typically devolve into one sided gank fests (DAOC, L2, Shadowbane, AO, etc). Without balance, you have grief. Superior numbers and levels wins the day. Every... single.... time........ That would bore the hell out of me, but apparently there are sufficient numbers of sociopaths in the world that it makes game developers think of them first (PotBS, Warhammer, AoC) when designing new games. I find no joy in ganking someone 5 or 6 on 1. That's not fun for me, and I shudder to think of what kind of person it is who does find it enjoyable (Did they boil puppies alive when they were younger? Put firecrackers into frogs?)

And on the opposite side, the person who gets ganked 5-6 on 1 will find it unenjoyable as well. They'll probably cancel the account if it gets bad enough (Shadowbane anyone?) This kind of PvP where levels and items and time played (and numbers) matter far more than skill is self defeating for the developer. Sure, you don't have to provide end game content as these people are more than willing to sit at a spawn point for hours on end waiting for a helpless victim to come along.... but sooner or later, the game runs out of helpless victims and it goes under.

As for why most games aren't Open PvP, I wonder why... its these same sociopaths who'd ruin it for everyone but themselves. Its why we have laws in our societies. We shouldn't NEED them, but there are people, just as in these games, who'd go out of their way to mess with everyone (or worse) if they weren't in place. And sometimes even the laws don't stop them and they have to be jailed or put down (see the colorado religious school shootings just yesterday). Wouldn't suprise me if the idiot who went on the shooting spree was a griefer in some MMORPG.

I totally agree its these low life jerks that cause many to quit or leave  in SWG  people would camp the hospital  and if someone did actually kill the guy,, he would respawn at the clone center 100 ft away

another time these guys droped an enemy base  at minimum range outside the major rebel town  and bases were basicly invulnerable and had a bug so you could shoot from inside, and they had poison makers that were effectivly  weapons of mass destruction.  when it came down to it  the rebels actually had to stop assaulting the base and  attack the developers  with mass petitions and  mass forum spams  for them to get off their ass and do something.  i wonder what it was like for them to get several hundred petitions  all on the same thing or to have every forum held hostage.

in eve  ive had so many unarmed haulers and miners  destroyed by gankers  that I left eve

PVPers are basicly cowards and want easy cheap kills i call em puppy killers  because their idea of enjoyment is by harassint the weak and defenceless  and game mechanics  promote this type of harassment,  because developers dont play their own games    makes you want to find a dev and  ambush him with a 2x4 in the face.