All Posts by brenth

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.

PLANETSIDE   got all weard and dimentional    whic makes it TOTALLY suck

they should have went the way of starship troopers  with dropships    and zero g space stations 

it would have attracted alot more people.

I played PS for a while but the endless back and forth battles became prety pointless without other content

it was better once they made bases more secure by putng doors in.

to me a good game would also include functioning fortifications and defences  balisti  cantipults  oil cauldrons   gates and drawbridges   and differing races would have different equipment and tactics  like  battle elephants  or attack wolves

ever consider some people just dont like PVP for one reason or another?

some for moral reasons disslike killing/slaughtering  and killing a charactor run by another player is beyond what they are willing to do,,

others comes down to  effectivly unfair fights   pure PVPers  vs  casual/part time PVPers sort of like a navy seal vs bill the construction worker  its usually worse because games dont allow for  gurilla tactics or effective ambushes .

I generally dont like dieing in a game and especially dont like dieing when Im so outclassed out matched  im not having any fun.

Im playing EVE right now and it has free for all PVP  and its crippling EVE  only 200k accounts

and people are so crouded into the "noob" areas  its overloading the server  as of last report 78% of the players were in  high security space and only 22% were out in low security.

for ma as a casual player "carebear" to  want to get involved in PVP  several things are required

1. there must be some relativly safe areas where i can play unharassed

2.  there must be half way areas where you can fight but not get killed, so that casual players can practice without the unacceptably high risk of getting killed,,  bloody and wounded yes.. this would allow players to test themselves and to practice tor more hostile locations.

3. there must be some way that as a casual player that I can last long enough in a fight to feel that i wasnt just meat for someone elses grinder  and that I feel that my fighting/death was valuable to my side in short  if im gonna risk getting killed  I want a very good reason  just because its PVP is NOT a good enough reason for me,, just because there is a fort to fight over is pointless to me,, what does the fort posession offer?   there is no starvation in games so its not about   capturing more farmland or supplies  politicol might be another reason  if players gave a crap about who is their king.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Yeah, the most important point of a game is your ability to have fun playing it.  While it might not please others, that really matters not.

I think many of us have become jaded with many of the new games because we are veterans of older MMO's who have had time to generate a lot of content.   Because of this we tend to criticize the new games for lack of such.  When you think about it, that is generally unfair. 

Some games though, Vanguard comes to mind as a good example are released in pretty much an unplayable state.  Games such as this deserve the tag of paying for Beta.  Many of these games so discourage the playerbase that many are loath to ever try it again.   As this genre gets more crowded, that can be a death sentence for a game.

As long as a game is playable and you can have fun playing it, some bugs can be tolerated.

ya like sony "ran out of money"" and had to launch

well  lord of the rings online  launched without any major problems   and definatly not problems like other games ive played that had no right to be  launched   Im not talking about games 97% the way done , im talking about games that are less than 25% and its obvious that the game makers are scaming their hopeful players.

as far as MMORPGs go,

even a starving person will eat garbage.

can we say..

NEW GAME EXPIRENCE

JUMP TO LIGHTSPEED

Your right expansions arnt about making the game better, its just about adding track at the end of the line

I allways dread  endgame  is MMO because 50 level is exactly as mundain as 5hth level  your still "rat killin"  just the rats got 50,000 hp    by the time your that high you should be working on your own kingrom or church  or  plantation. PVP or  pointless raiding makes me gag   I have a 60 level paladin in wow  and shortly left after obtaining that level  and I want a more diverse game expirence.

I left SWG because I got tired of the generic planets covered in spawn generators  and the cardboard player activities  not to mention griefers   and the jump to light speed was a HUGE dissapointlent  like some arcade shoot em up

went back and tried EQ1  freeport and commonlands were totally empty!

wish they had more to do in game besides  kill/fetch quests  or 2 dimentional craft grinding   tired of  smiths and tailors  

wish they would make a MMO that felt like an alternate universe with weather/ climate,, and where food and water were important to daily life,, but the arcade/console players keep making MMOs run over the same exact cliff every time  making crackwhore games

 lets not forget you can also get a useless item to stick in your ingame room   like preorder ruins of kunark  you get a burnai    instead of something really usefull and cool.

I would like to play but the PVP is keeping me away.

its no fun getting unarmed expensive miners and haulers blown up that you cant replace easily  not including the clone when they finish you off just for kicks.

empire is just too boring to hold peoples intrest.

they need to address the crippling problem

the best way I can think of is to have an indipendant faction that is either immune to PVP  or only attackable under specific instances   that way US carebears can enjoy EVE without getting molested every day.

think of carebears like doctors in world war II  treating soldiers on both sides 

think of it this way  us carebears can go about supplying the resources and equipment  while you guys go do what you want to do..  fight ...  would you rather fight?  or  mine a rock?

too bad they havent made the universe more interesting and playable.

players are still waiting for alot of content and universe upgrades to the stark and boring universe.

you can fly right into the sun and nothing.

no gas giant mining.

all the solar systems are too much alike.  

no storms .

there are many other sugestions for content   but the devs decited  to up the graphics?  maby all they employ are artists?

so what you can say about EVE is that its   prety

but you can also say its prety empty and bland

and on a personal note  the PVP cripples the game for casual players that dont want to participate in PVP unless they want to be restricted to the noob areas unless they like  buying new ships and clones all the time.

how long do you think it will be, before there will be vertual  sex clubs,  nude dancing and vertual prostatution and sexual encounters? 

Id love to see for instance some celebrity vertual avatar  talk dirty to me and give me a lap dance

if they can  avatar  7 of 9   they can surely  program her to say or do most anything.

in beyowolf  angelena jolee  is allready nearly an avatar allready. 

but this is not  something that should be in an mmo  just something that I think is coming

think of the predacessor to a holodeck.

I am 40 years old and I would like to see a few games that are not limited and PC and sanitized  though im not looking for online porn or a blood bath  I would like it if a game felt more realistic and organic.

I allways hated games where the guy is nearly dead and there is no percieveable damage to them 

and I definatly dont mind seeing female breasts though i do tend to prefer it in context  I guess you could say  I would like to see "R" rated games

and both ESRB and the theater rating system need to be much more specific about their determinations

like in underworld2 with kate bekensale it says theirs nudity  but  its just some bed pet (not kate as one would hope)   or the nudity could be guy nudity  or even gay sex nudity   and that content should be disclosed in their ratings for people better to judge the product.

maby game maker should also print on their lable the AGE of the content the game is directed at.

wow =  8 - 15?

eq2     12-18?

conan 16-22?

their choice of games definatly  affected their data,   and not every game  is embraced by every person

WOW playes alot different than say camalot or everquest or lord of the rings online

and having to goto an arcade for instance directly limits its interaction value as you have to make a trip  every time you wish to play  and does this arcade close at night?

maby if you want better results  you devide up the teams   preferable double the number to 200 

100 A   100 B         the A squad  teams  select the game thay want to use

the B squad teams  the OTHER  players vote on the games for the other teams this is to act as a control for the A teams pre determined preferences.

you could even do a C team that can pick any game  available in their catagory  instead of just a single title for the whole squad  this would maximise the potential.

and lastly as a note  many studies focus on the negative affects of games  what about all the positive effects that games posess?

social interaction between different cultures

skills working with complex systems operations (crafting, economy, quests)

resource management  (mana , hitpoints or iron ore )

teamwork and cooperation in a group gives far greater proformance than the individuals.

some serious problem solving and solution anylasis  (bait and switch,  kiting, root blast )

failure mitigation  if you died in a mmo once  you died a thousand times and still kept going till you suceeded.

these are just a few off the top of my head  and games could do much more if they wernt so simplistic and arcade like.

schools could take lessens from MMOs  if they were as interesting as MMOs  they would be much more effective  games open up parts of the brain that absorb knowlege like a sponge.

brains effectivly dont differentiate between real expirence and game expirence.