FINALLY! It's getting to the point it can bounce back, it's not going to be a big game by any means but it's seeming that the game could be taken off life support at last and not be in fear of closing, the J&J seem to have relised and brought in the things that really needed the game to be less painful and more fun to play....

PS. GRRRR!!!! I own dragon age in the EU - yet again I lose out on a Skaven Cloak!.. DAMN YOU GOA I'LL GET MY CHOPPA!

Originally posted by PratzStrike

If you're going to start, I'd start now. Every moment you wait is one more moment that the people who've been playing since launch are skilling up ahead of you.

Which is why I can't bring myself to play. I will never catch up to the people who started before me.

Lets debunk this now:

YES - older players do have acess to most of the tech of the game and basically drip of ISK (the ingame cash).

HOWEVER NEW PLAYERS CAN USE THAT TO THEIR ADVANTAGE

1) Big ship VS small ship - aye the big guys have the capital ships but EVE is designed in such a way those are NOT the be all and end all of a situation - It's all about how you use that to your advanage. Big ships can tank a lot of damage, but shoot slow and heavy, smaller ships if hit blow up easy and can advoid being targeted a lot easier. 1v1 big > small but 1 big vs 20 small, big loses

2a)Lie cheat and steal - yup, playing the bad guy does pay off with money, can flipping, ransoming, or even blagiing your way into a corp then running off with their assest is ALL PART OF EVE, and 100% legal to do.

OR

2b) Gametime cards are your friend - CCP have made goldselling kinda legit in EVE, all you need to do is buy a GTC from CCP from the EVE site (or one of their auth sellers) and using the systems in EVE SELL the GTC for ISK in game. NOTE: this doesn't mean the isk/gold farmers that advistise are legit, ONLY buying GTCs and selling them on ingame is the way to go

3)THIS ONE IS IMPORTANT - Plan ahead, before you start thinking deep in EVE, work out what your goal is in the game, do you want to be a miner, thief, recon, stout etc etc... Then ask around and look up what you need to get skill wise to build the ship you need, with the new speed skillgain for new players, you could with proper planning you can be in a desent ship pulling in good money within the first few months.

----

All this 'fall behind' and 'catchup' stuff is total BS, all thats holding ppl back is knowlege, knowing those basic three facts about EVE nothing stops a newer player being just as good as a ventaren

Yea it's done to a few reasons like ppl have said

Timing - there was nothing like WoW on the market at release - the only real 'big' names at the time were EQ and DAoC ( others were still smaller names) - these days the market is flooded with IPs- therefore it's harder to break into the market

Related Fanbases - WoW's fanbase was basically All of Blizzard's stuff, EQ/DAoC castoffs AND the Warhammer few mainly because Warcraft was the closest thing to Warhammer in gaming at the time. Theres no other bigger fanbase out there at the time - unless you count the Starwars/LOTR fanbases - but again Blizzard did break into the 'geeky' market by bringing over the 'gamer' to MMOs

'WoW is the best' - This factors in a LOT: ppl say 'it's polished' but anyone whos been with the game at major release times knows it's just as buggy with new content as anything else, Blizzard can just hide it better.

For example WAR has 'laggy PVP' but you enter Wintergrasp and it's just as bad, to the fact Blizzard limited the numbers to tone it down, yet ppl don't really focus on that as the other BGs run fine and they're smaller numbers and being a pve based game ppl focus on the instances over open world - the reverse of other games, it's way easier to hide things like system/client/server lag behind instances.

Factor that in theres a lot more latecommers to WoW that swear by 'it's polished' as they missed the first months/year whereas these days ppl jump on every title on release and see what it's REALLY like and flock back to WoW under that false beleave that WoW has always been 'polished'.

Marketing/Content releases - This is where Blizzard catipalises on the situation they see whats comming and plan their 'new content' on the back of a title released so by time you 'give up' on a new game Blizzard have already dropped in said content ready to tempt you back in.

On top of that they look at the other titles and basically cherry pick the best ideas and meld them into their game in a few months after you come back - So why would you play X MMO if WoW has everything you need? It's very cleaver, cheap and nasty but effective.

-----------

So why didn't WAR work?

Easy WAR uses the 'idea' of DAoC and Warhammer Fantasy but it actally neither - On the Lore front it's screaming an epic bloody war between 'good and evil' yet the game is nethier warlike and bloody. It looks and feels like Warhammer alright but it plays nothing like it - For one it rewards players for NOT fighting the other faction - To a Warhammer player ( and kinda DAoC players) thats like not bothering to play at all.

A lot of the classes don't even play like the achtypes their ment to be (something that LOTRO got right) for example the Runepriest my 2nd personal favourate choice on the TT who is basically a battlemage in combat - WAR he's a healer archtype, very weak on the magics and VERY squishy.. Thats not a Runepriest!

Bottom line with WAR it was just bad choice after bad choice Mythic just took two GOOD IPs that go perfectly together and just totally ignored everything about them, WAR has to be rebuilt from the ground up - I'm hoping they do that - but thats if EA doesn't shut the game down first.

To make matters worse there was already a better title out there to WAR - that was DAoC.

Riker HAS been Captain on the ship before the last ep. Around Wolf-359 when Picard was Lacutus Riker was given a feild commission of Captain of the Enterpise but then handed the title  back to Picard once back abord the ship

Originally posted by shadow417

I like the game to, i hate one thing, there is a Vip/Premium access wich is $14,99 a month wich does not give you much, Limited character creation you can go lvl up without some stone wich is annoying to find or buy from the store.

But the game it self is fun, i aggree.

The Sub/VIP option DOES give you a lot TBH - near enough everything in the F2P mode with come as 'standard' in a MMO either requires you to jump thru hoops to get or will have a small charge to, plus then you add the fact the VIP has access to all classes and areas from the start - it's not as 'worthless' as some may think..

As it stands Turbine have hit a good balance between Sub and F2P, subs feel like they get somthing more and the f2p prices dont seem that bad or too much to feel like your being ripped off.. A slight offtopic on this but it's good enough to feel like games like CO who have the same features condsider opening the door to 'limited F2P' if their current system doesn't take off in the long term..

Like Ryzom it seems like DDO has revived itself well with the f2p options - As I've always said cashshops and f2p work well IF managed and handled correctly

Originally posted by popinjay

A decades old popular European based IP (Warhammer) that has six struggling servers left in Europe.

 

Not good.

 

I'd imagine its like if people just lost interest in Mario Games in Japan, or the people in the U.S. had no more interest in Mickey Mouse.

The 40K IP seems to be working better as a gaming franchise (probly because Relic KNOW what the IP is) - Mark J ran WAR into the ground by supporting the 'avoid pvp' crowd too much The Tomb kings area proved that he wanted a pve game - Warhammer and things not fighting in a bloodly war equals dead idea from the start - Sad to say WAR makes Mark of Chaos look good (considering that was marketed as a 'true version of the TT' and ended up nothing like it).

Kinda wish Gamesworkshop was more hands on with their exturnal projects, instead of just 'yea looks good', all WAR is is IP exposure

Love the topic title as i 100% disagree with you - it's not dummbing down at all it's putting it back to were the stats should be in the first place - BASELINE

As said in the press bit - Theres too many added bonus stats theres days, basically it was done so we had to find yet MORE gear to farm, I'm a vanilla players and i hated having to lug about 2/3 sets just so i could tank and dps on my warrior - all the added stats just made it worse then base stats like Spirit weren't touched at all.

Dumb? hardly - making the game and item stats make more sence more like..

As for the people who claim how 'great' vanilla was - did you every run a raid? Why do you think most of us quit with Naxx? It was too damn stressful organising 30 people to lazy to sort themselfs out and have 10 others spoonfeed them

Yes 100% - MOST of these changes are CORE GAMEPLAY changes - WoW will never be vanilla again

IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD (of Warcraft) AS WE KNOW IT :)

Originally posted by delvenar

Maybe i'll go drop 5 bucks on Aion when i preorder my CO and give it a try in beta (unless i can get in without) and see which one i like better myself. Biggest problem i have in mmos lately is finding a guild. I've never done well with random pug type guilds, and i end up getting behind on stuff because i solo too long while trying to meet people and find a decent bunch i get along with, and as of right now, none of my RL friends or friends from wow (most of which are RL also) are planning to play either Aion or CO.

For community reasons CO seems the stronger of the two as dispite it being sharded into channels it is still one sever, if you have seen EVE dispite it having smaller numbers then most server based MMOs it still feels very large and active, finidng a guild in CO wont be a problem and even if the game does drop in numbers server mergers and empitness wont be an issue - also iirc players can scale down (or up i forget) to match their friends so you can still play no matter where you are.

Both are looking strong titles (which is very promising for the industry) but for ease of community I beleave CO would be the better option

Originally posted by madeux

The fact that they have cryptic bucks that can be used in multiple games opens up an amazing possilbity that friends and I have talked about for a long time... one subscription for multiple games.  Wouldn't it be great to pay 15 buck a month, and then play either Champions Online or Star Trek Online, assuming you've purchased both games?

This is what people forget or don't even realise Cryptic Points (ala the MT system) isn't just for CO but for STO and possibly a third rumoured game, so like someone stated before it could extend into a Station Pass type thing...

I think the main problem is misinformation people are comaring Cryptic's system to the F2P market too much, where those games need your money to actally continue, where as if you look at SOE's system it's not that bad, Station Players, the Items fr real cash system in EQ/EQ2 and the Station Pass have still been profitable for them (it must have been because it's been going on for so long) even though many players flame SOE a lot..

With DLC/MTs being to practally every game these days, it was only a matter of time for a dev to again gamble with this type of system, it's paid off once with SOE, perhaps it will for Cryptic - again it's all down to how it's handled.

I can see wheres he's comming from the Architech system has left a VERY bad taste in players mouths and TBH the power colour thing isn't that big of a feature and truefully Going Rogue is basically a glorifed hype of the variable "isevil=0/1", heck EQ2 had this in for years now..

It's exactally how Aion's got it's players from AoC and WAR - people did not get what they wanted from one game so the alturnitive has turned up that may get it right..

CoX has been dragging it's heels for a while now as it's been the only one of it's type - Cryptic know ths too well as we all know why and are capitalising on it and with Architech backfiring that badly the timing couldn't be perfect, if they deliver on a just a tiny bit that was wrong with CoX and keep with the updates on a regular basis CoX will be in trouble.

Even if the cracks start to show with CO by time that happens DCUO will be opening it's doors, players wont go back to CoX, they'll head stright to DCUO, hopng that will be the one they want, like I said it's the same pattern with Aion..

I agree the diehards wont leave CoX but unless it pulls somthing big out of the hat quickly that doesn't seem like it's just a quick fix with a slight mod AND keep up with content, it's only going to have those diehards left... Not saying it'll happen soon but it'll have the leaky balloon effect if they don't keep it interesting and not have players sitting on their hands waiting for these 'big changes'

As people say about WoW - only Blizzard can kill it, well Cryptic created CoX and they know exactally what they should do with CO with regrads to hitting CoX at it's weakest points, all I'll end with is that CoX is now playing catchup for all the time they sat around milking the fact they were unique

To save the trolls some time in posting 'BILL ROPER IS THE DEVIL AND LIKE HGL HE WILL CONN YOUZ!'

Ta for the key, I personasally can't wait to spend the whole of the beta disiding on my character design :)

For gods sake! Take of those damned tinfoil hats!

NO ONE is forcing you to take either offer or use the MTs to enjoy this game to it's fullest. YOU may not like the idea but I can tell you a lot are loving it, with LOTRO and DDO it was the same offer except it was more for the beta testers but again most peoples liked the idea, and this one is for anyone would pre-orders.

The game 'life' is all down to the players, it's not the dev's falut these days that many people have the etention span of a nat, much like CoX people just sat around with their characters and chatted or roleplayed, this is whom the offer is aimed at not the 'power gamer' we know most of them will cap out nd put the game down after a month and run to the next title to 'pown'.

This is what people mean when the industry struggles it's not the developers falut, it's the players who put too much into expecations on what is and what isn't 'correct' with MMOs - if you really think these games have 'failed' quit armchair deving and get out there and prove it can be done better.

Originally posted by page

I'm just getting interested in Champions. I read a little, watched a few Youtube clips, and everything sounds great.  Until you come to the microtransactions part of it all.

I have very little experience with this option but I DON'T think I'm gonna like it.  I understand you never have to use this feature but I'll always have the feeling of what's the point of accomplishing anything, as others in your group will be purchasing everything.  As I was watching a good clip on Youtube you can see the " microtransaction hot keys " staring you right in the face, just waiting for you to hit them, believe me they stand out.  I'm not cheap and I have the money, but I have a major problem with stealing, corruption, and trickery.  and I call this trickery.

Last month I was getting ready to go back to one of my favorites D&D Online until I found out that you have a choice now to pay or microtransaction.  Well maybe both can co-exist but I like all things equal or not at all !

So how much is champions gonna cost, and is their a monthly charge along with the micro-trick ?

The only 'trick' here is if you make it one - Cryptic have always put forward that 1) The MTs are NOT the main source of income for the game (ie it's not going to be forced at you because otherwise they don't make any money, the subs WILL cover the normal costs of the MMO) and 2) 99.9% of the MTs will be items from within the game..

I see this as more of a 'cutting it off at the head' when it comes to goldfarmers as we all know with these 'want it now' gamers they DO go out and buy gold to get the elite rewards stright away, so instead Cryptic are offing them the same option legitmitly... To me the system works on a second level as the 'want to now' crowd can indead have it 'now' but at a cost, but then they'll probly get bored and move onto another MMO, really Cryptic and the long term players don't lose out as really you've got all you can out of that person, so it's no trick, it's a busness idea.

The core question is does not purchasing MTs affect your personal gameplay? the answer is no, theres a lot of people out there that will play the game as a MMO not a e-peen extender, so you wont be 'underpowered' or left out, it's just the case of would your rather pay for the playtime and earn that item or have it then and now and buy it?

I'll just point out that a lot of people are happy with their 360s, buying mappacks for Halo JUST for the achevements and paying extra to play online with their gold accounts...

Why is this any different?

MS points are Crypitc points in CO's case and they also cover as much as the DLC for one game does, if people are boycotting CO over the payed DLC and sub, why aren't they doing the same because they have to pay for mappacks AND the gold sub to play online for Halo?

Sounds kinda like the guild who used a GM tool in WoW again to me, why would Turbine remove the PAYING players from the accounts for no reason 'oh heres a good idea - LETS MAKE LESS MONEY', yea it's unlikely to happen..

Actally with all the hype behind Aion that isn't a bad place to open a MMO - they'll actally get the players who WANT to play the MMO first...... not the 'bored' just looking for the 'next big thing' that will force new servers to be open, complain about the content confusing the devs which playerbase is actally 'real' and then get 'bored' again then drop off, then just those drop offs that weren't into the game at all as 'reasons why it's bad'....

Much like whats happened with most MMOs these days. At least building your playerbase up looks better then loosing a playerbase you didn't reallt want

Why do people want gold. To use it to buy in-game items (usually rare or at least better than average). All that would happen if gold was plentiful would be the price for rare/good items would be proportionally costed according to how much gold the average gamer could earn, whether thats a little or a lot.

If money wasn't as vital, then the only reason to do something like that would be greed. I'm sure some people would do it, but they'd be beat out by people who undercut the prices by charging 10% less or 20% less if the first person charged a ridiculous amount. People will buy the lowest priced item, whether they're rich or poor.

Like I said, there's still people who'd buy that gold from the farmers, but at least I think that the number of cases would be reduced compared to a game where money was hard to earn and things were overall much more expensive.

Even in a player controled market (ala EVE), it's ALL down to greed, the major factor is supply and demand, making gold easier to optain means anything requiring gold itself would be just as easy to gain, thus making the job of the dev hardfer as they still need to make content we can't just steam through within the week it's released. Level based MMOs are the hardest hit by this atm, you can't work your team to death bringing out content to 'keep up' with the players, AND balance the content, AND fix it.

That said you can't really stop the farmers via making the game no gold but loot dropable - that just flips it from gold seeling to account selling, the core goal here is NOT to give a famrer anything to sell, which is kinda hard overwise the MMO could be very dull =/

Originally posted by abyss610

Originally posted by Cernan

LOTRO has always had a good system.  I wish other games would learn and adopt.  You can right-click on a spammers name in the chat window and click an option to report them for gold selling.  Doing that immediately puts them in your ignore list.  If enough people do the same thing a GM is notified.  Everything is done behind the scenes so you don't need to create a ticket, and the GMs don't get flooded with 100 different tickets for the same problem.

I've been playing on the Chinese servers and last night the majority of my general chat messages were gold spam.  I'm not sure if NCSoft West will be taking a more harsh stance than their Eastern co-workers.

 

 

actually WoW has the same system for reporting, was started because of that peons site they was friggin horrible.

and yeah i really hope they keep up on it i don't want that shit going on as bad as it is on the chinese servers. when i quit wow i rarely seen it on there, unless you made a new alt, they'd send group invites and spam you in roup chat but that was it. but from what friends tell me now its bad again.

they need to ban the buyers as well.

and before wow added the report system with just a right click, peons was so bad i was using a mod taht blocked all tells from anyone not in my guild or on my buddy list. and it would tell you the password to speak to me, but as we all know its just a bot and never used the password. and if the tell from some one unknown had key words in it like gold,www., buy ect it would automaticly open the help window to the report tab filled it all in for me and i clicked the send. it also auto ignored them too

The problem with the report system by time the account has been actally banned their site has already had a sale and the loss of the account is barely skin of thier nose so they just buy a new account. I'd 100% agree with you the 'ban the buyer' thing works I know CCP do that with EVE, but with belts titened to the point of breaking atm, I dought the 'suits' pulling the dev's strings atm would like to 'loose a sale', this is why the RMT option is comming into play, we're all on egdfe about it, it's ALL down to how the system is handled.

Originally posted by green13

Originally posted by Kremlik

I hate to say this but as much as many are uneasy or even hate the idea RMT in our pay to play MMOs but at least it does one positive thing - makes sellers useless, I mean why buy gold for your epic mount when you can buy your epic mount direct from the dev?

If you can't beat them, join them?

What would happen if your local police force adopted that strategy?

A game has rules. People being able to pay to play by different rules will never sit well with the majority of players.

I think we all know that like crime in the real-world, RMT will probably persist in MMOs regardless of the best efforts to stamp it out. But when MMOs stop trying to stamp it out and get into the RMT business themselves - especially when they're charging subscriptions - that's like paying taxes to the government for essential services and then having them extort extra from you.

If the whole market goes that way - which I doubt will happen - I'll just stop MMO'ing.

I'm also uneasy about that system, but I do see the logic behind it as the poster stated above me as long as theres players willing to pay actal money for gold/items theres going to be a market of the farmer.

Think of it like this they are the MMO 'black market' people goto the black market as it's currently illegal for that certian item and can't get it anywhere else, it's going to happen no matter how much you try to stamp it out but if you legialise that said item and have it over the counter, then at least you've cut out that 'middleman' that does use the money 'wrongly' but the 'govement' can at least control that money and do somthing good...

I'm agreeing with you behind the 'bait and switch' bit but thats only if the people behind it are the 'bait and switch' type if proply governed and done fairly, theres a slim chance it COULD work. Like I said seeing as anything the devs try to stop the farmers they are finding ways around it, annoying the &*^% out of us and wasting OUR MONEY on dev team trying to fix that problem instead of fixing and improving the game itself, perhaps just cutting out the 'middleman' is a probable option..

Another way to look at it is DRM, we ALL HATE IT, but takes Stardocks thoughts on it they don't use DRM as whoever pirates would pirate anyway reguardless of the DRM involed, so the pirate wouldn't be a sale for them anyway those that would be a sale WILL buy the product. Same could be said about the gold buyers they aren't going to grind of the gold to buy the item they just want the item NOW - so why not just give them it 'NOW'...

Like I said it's our catch-22 atm it's either allow the famrers to spam our games to death and waste dev time trying to 'beat' them or trust devs to beat them at their own game and not screw the player over at the same time, either way we could be screwed.