Originally posted by Fearlessbro

The name EA which lurks deep in the shadows behind TOR and its development, I'm sorry to say it, but EA will destroy this game and any potential it had to begin with. They will knickle and dime you for every penny they can get. I can see it now, preorder for exclusive weapons, and other things that are part of or needed for core gameplay. It would not suprise me in the slightest if you have to pre order a limited edition to use 4 bags slots instead of 2, or having a unique questline that rewards a powerful item as DLC in a MMO.

 

Look at what is going on with Battlefield 3, corporate greed has destroyed their image in the FPS genre, mass amounts of people refusing to buy it, including the great Totalbuiscuit, who thinks it is a joke, and is part of the boycott. What makes you guys think EA won't make this MMO game worse? If they can charge you to teleport to an inn, they will find a way. EA has really never had a MMO game in their library of games, and when this game hits the shelves, or their online stone because they refuse to sell it to you on steam, they will find any way necessary to charge you for every little thing.

Buy GW2, or wait for Titan, this game will be destroyed before it even begins by the corporate big wigs behind the scenes who do things behind Bioware.

 There are Jedi's in GW2 and Titan? Awesome, I'm waiting then...Titan should be around by about 2015 right?

When information for this game first started being made available I wrote it 'Generic Zombie Game' Online. The more info that's been released though, the more excited I am about it, and I'm still determined to try it, even though you mentioned Hogwarts in your article ;)

'Melinda and I'

My opinion and expectation doesn't differ that much from the OP's. I think I'll enjoy the first play through, and because of the online content I may even play through 2 or 3 times as different classes, but once I reach max level and feel like I've 'finished' the story, I can't see myself sticking around much longer.

I,too, thought pets were optional, but I think the point the OP is making is that even if they are, it will make it easier for solo players to solo, thus reducing the need to group.

Nice write-up, thank you.

Very happy to hear there may/will be a bit of grit in the game. I live in Australia with it's medieval gaming legislation though, so I hope this doesn't cause problems at the censors....

I'm not 100% convinced about the way there dialogue choices will work. Surely the opinion of 3 heavily armed individuals would almost always out-weight the opinion of only 1 heavily armed individual?:) Although it is promising that you found this bit fun, and it may encourage me to play or even over-play my characters traits to try and ensure that their evil/good desired outcome is achieved.

Great idea. I've never been much of an explorer for the pure and simple reason that incentives to explore have been limited (or non-existent) in many of the games I've played. Badges etc are all well and good, but it's nice when you can actually get some solid reward for effort.

I'm also a fan of boosts to stats as opposed to gear, I know SWTOR is gear based, but I've always been a fan of wanting to play a character, not a suit of armor - so I'll support anything that can be done to shift the balance from gear development to character development.

From the description it seems they'll all be in the same place, so google will be getting a work-out I'm sure - but using google is the users choice isn't it? If I'm feeling particularly exploratory I may even try and do a couple of them without the help of my Google-friend, or maybe get a rough idea for the location and then set off and have a look around.

As for the guys moaning about balance for PVP..c'mon..please. First of all, you all have the choice to go and find these things. Second of all, what is the difference if someone gets +2 str from a pair of gloves or from putting some effort into exploration. Balance is all well and good, but one thing Rift has taught me is that unless a specific class is ridiculously OP'ed, I don't mind a little bit of lee-way when it comes to balance if it makes classes/characters more interesting. In a gear-based MMO no-one is going to be on a level playing field anyway, especially in WF's, BG's or whatever you want to call them which may encompass groups of varying levels (Levels 10-19 for example).

Is this game still IP locked? If so then I couldn't be bothered.

Have you watched the gameplay vid's? I was a little underwhelmed by the SWTOR hype, but watching the latest Taral V video did get me excited again. I may even roll a trooper, which is something I didn't think I'd ever say.

I haven't actually played SWTOR and my attempt to re-install KOTOR I and II on my newish PC failed, so I can't really give you any first-hand comparisons unfortunately.

From what I've seen and read though SWTOR will be more like a standard MMO. They have introduced a cover dynamic which I am not entirely convinced by, but it did seem to play ok in the demo I saw -  and it offers a little more during combat. Frustrating for me is that cover is only behind certain items and is limited to certain classes....why can't we all hide behind that tree?

Anyhoo...combat I saw looked pretty fun. It was a flashpoint run through by the dev team so it was pretty rehearsed and there weren't any pets, but still looked positive.

Best 2 games i've played in the last 6 months:

DCUO and RIFT.

I can whole-heartedly recommend both of these, but looking at your preferences I'd say you'd probably prefer RIFT. There's nothing incredibly innovative here, but if you enjoyed WOW and WAR, you'll probably enjoy RIFT. The skill system may be a bit lacking after your exposure to the skill system in Darkfall, but the soul system does offer a little more flexibility in character creation than WOW or WAR did.

I'm not leaving at the moment.

I'm still working my way towards 50 and my impression is that the game is still gathering momentum. I've got a decent guild and we're inviting new members every day. I am enjoying a lot about the game, but the constant quest grind is frustrating me a little. I'll see what the end game is like, but I don't see myself going anywhere until SWTOR releases.

Originally posted by Fadedbomb

Open Grouping > Star Trek Online did this, and it was terrible, but REQUIRED in Rift to do anything of note worthyness.
>Don't agree, I enjoyed it in STO. It's also not required in RIFT. They could have omitted this functionality and asked people to group using a less elegant solution (e.g. having to manually create a group like a no. of other games)
The Ascended Soul System > DAOC did this but in a LESS mobile sense. Not only is this not new, but the way it was designed favors "Flavour of the Month" builds to frequent the game.> There will always be FOTM or cookie-cutter builds as long as people are competitve and want to have the edge on the other players. That's those players choice though. I have personally chosen to disregard balance and cookie cutter builds and create a character that I am invested in. This system gives me the freedom to do that. I didn't play DAOC so I can't comment on that. I don't think the original article is arguing that RIFT was the first game to implement anything. It's saying that they did these 5 things well. The soul system, IMO, works in every respect except for balance...and I've come to the conclusion that I'd rather have the choice offered by the soul system than the balance offered by a less flexible system.

Invasions as Content -> Extremely repetitive content that becomes boring, and dull after a short amount of time. Not exactly something done right here Bill.>I think this is solid content, and when I've been in a position to join a raid to combat the invasion, it's been very enjoyable and IMO implemented very well. RIFTS I feel could do with some work to encourage players to partake rather than run past though.

Leveling Through PvP -> Star Trek Online did this too, as did DAOC, and the problem that cropped up in both is friend (or people with multiple accounts) farmed the crap out of their own characters. There are not enough stopgaps in-place currently to balance this feature.>So did WAR didn't it? I think this is a great feature. If people want to deliberately cheat by creating more than one account then they are at least $15 a month more commited to succeeding than I am. I do hope they do something to remove absent players and bots from BG's though. I'm seeing quite a lot of that late at night, and it's not fun for either side.

Mounts at Level One -> Numerous developers have already gone over this, and explained why this is a bad idea. Rift shows the problem quite clear, and that problem is that your mount becomes worthless. If it takes nothing to get the mount worth doing, it's not worth having. Who cares if you get from A to B faster, you did it like everyone else did so you're still essentially walking there. What's the point of even having to get somewhere? What's the point of even having mounts? You're ALL going the same speed, just as if you were walking. Pointless, pointless, pointless, fluff.>Err, sort of agreed. I don't particularly care about getting mounts at level 1, and on this occasion where 3/4 of the game of the free mount from the pre-order anyway the mounts are cheapened further. I wouldn't go as far as yourself and saying it's fluff though. I think the mounts work well with the size of the areas, the incentives to use the roads and the invasions which might cause a player to want to cross a large part of the map quickly.  

I'm sorry Bill, but you've presented nothing that could be considered "Things Rift did right" :(.

Disagree again. I think all 5 items are valid. Sure, RIFT may not be the first game to do them, but IMO they have been implemented well and although you may not agree on any of them I think a lot of people would.

I'm playing RIFT at the moment, and am enjoying it. That said, it is pretty repetitive, and IMO the quests are pretty shallow. You do get XP from RIFTS and PVP BG's though - so you can break up the quest grind if you want to.

I'm pretty impressed by the graphics. Not as good as AOC maybe, but some of the more impressive MMO graphics I've seen. They also seem to deal with some things pretty well. You can have an open-world boss raid, and I haven't had any glitches/slow-downs etc. Some pretty nifty effects in the BG's as well.

Balance - you're not going to get it here. There are way too many soul combinations to probably hope for better than anything more than moderate balance. You know what though? I don't care. I'm far happier being able to play a character I enjoy than one I don't because it's balance to be exactly the same as everyone else. I'm sure in the not too distant future there will be the standard cookie-cutter builds, but for now I win as many as I lose, and I'm playing a character concept that I enjoy. Melee healers can be impossible to put down, some stuns can be pretty annoying and melee characters who do more ranged dps than my ranged dps character are all frustrations....but frustrations that I'm willing to overlook as I'm having fun.

RIFT Dynamic. At the very simplest level - Rifts will open up across the map with a group of mobs that you have to defeat. I believe the no. of mobs and their toughness is related to the no. of people around. Destroying them earns you rewards including planarite which is basically the currency used for purchasing rift items. Think of it as an alternative to PVP items. The rifts can be fun, especially when you're part of a raid combatting a region-wide invasion, but they can also suck...being ignored by players and sending out invasion parties which have the potential to squash you or your nearest quest hub.

Single player games - I'm not a FPS freak, but Crysis 2 does intrigue me. I probably won't end up getting it though...too busy with Rift. I thought about DA2, but when I think about it - I didn't really enjoy DA that much.....not compared to an MMO anyway. Single player games I definitely will be buying - Witcher 2, Diablo 3 and probably Dungeon Siege 3. I'll also definitely get SWTOR and maybe GW2 as well.

Short story - Rift is an enjoyable game, but if the balance issues are going to cause your mathematical brain to explode, then give it a skip. If you're happy to have the freedom to create 4 unique soul builds on one character and aren't too bothered about balance then I would definitely encourage giving it a go.

I'll stay. I quit DCUO to sub to RIFT, and can't see myself quitting before SWTOR is released.

Was: DCUO

Currently: RIFT

Waiting for: SWTOR

No.

That said, I'm not convinced by the cover system.

I haven't heard much about this game since an initial article I read. If what the other posters here are saying is correct and they're going to adopt a similar "hub-city" model to DDO I will be extremely dissapointed. Not only did I not like that format for DDO, I really don't see the point in creating a game in the exact same genre of the exact same style.

Yes, I get that the original DnD PNP was you and a small group of friends playing through a dungeon...but this is one of the reasons I play MMO's and not PNP anymore. They give me the freedom to do whatever I want. I'm not reliant on 4 or 5 other people to make themselves available before I can log in and have some fun, although if I choose to, I can launch an attack on a dungeon with my nearest and dearest.

I love DND, but I didn't play DDO because the 'hub-city' format didn't appeal to me at all. Add to that the powers that be decided to make it in the most obscure DnD world available.

As for Cryptic. I loved CoH, but STO and CO were dissapointing, and I really don't want to have to use a CS...especially if I'm paying a monthly sub.

Will the fact that this game is set in Faerun be enough to convince to play it? I highly doubt it, not long term anyway. I will probably purchase it, but unless it's F2P I doubt I will play much further than the first month unless Cryptic is able to dazzle me with something unexpected.

Well, I guess it will at least be reassuring to all those that have been complaining that SWTOR is a single-player game that BW is considering these things.

I hate to have a fanboi moment, but I am loving the grouping system in RIFT at the moment. You automatically get prompted to group up with other users in suitable circumstances. If there are two groups you automatically get asked whether you want to merge them. In open gameplay you can join other players' public quest groups, and there's no incentive for them to quit as they get an xp bonus. There aren't many fans of STO, but I sorta liked the way that game automatically grouped players who entered the same instance at the same time.

I'm a solo player by nature, but I've killed 3 open-world raid bosses in RIFT since the beginning of the head-start, and am probably grouping more than ever before. Will be interesting to see which mechanics BW introduce to encourage it.

Nicely stated.

I agree completely that there is the need to add additional capacity during the launch phase of games to avoid the issues you talk about. These issues are compounded in games with very few starting areas as you're trying to push a lot of players through one or two straws.

So, management strategies?:

1) Staggered launches. We've seen recent games advertise "head-starts". Not only do these offer the rabid playing public the chance to play a couple of days earlier, it also decreases server load at launch. Quite a clever idea really. The guys in the head-start think they're winning, but really they're helping to manage the server load by getting in a week or so early and clearing out of the starting areas in time for the day1 guys to start. Could we stagger this further? Would the consuming public pay extra to get in even earlier, or be willing to start a week or 2 later if they got a couple of dollars off the retail price?

2) Server capacity growth and consolidation. Yes, I see your point about the trolls grabbing hold of the headlines "developer Y cuts servers!!". Even members of the general public will see that as a negative, but there has to be a more intelligent way to manage this. Maybe developers need to "re-brand" the server consolidation process as a natural exercise following release. I would far rather they addressed this agressively than let the servers die because they're too embarrassed to admit they need to decrease servers. WAR took some ground-breaking steps in server/player management, but a lot of it came too late. I was a die-hard fan, but by the time they consolidated the servers I was sick and tired of my server being a ghost-town, and I was gone.

3) Multiple starting areas. It's not only the server capacity that limits the no. of players, but the no. of players you can fit into your starting areas as well. WAR did some interesting things here. They opened with 6 areas which worked well and allowed a large no of players to simultaneously access the game without massive waiting times or having to kill mob x. Later on, when their numbers were down, they streamlined the starting areas to 2 defaults (although the other 4 were available if you were a paying customer and wanted them). This approach meant that they dealt well with big numbers at launch, but later on when the game was quieter and there were fewer lowbies, you had more of a chance to find group-mates etc. This is an extreme example, but is there any reason why they couldn't be more lowbie capacity at launch? I'm not a big believer in instanced areas (like Champions Online where you may be in Millenium City no. 99), but I think I might be willing to put up with this (if possible) as a temporary launch measure in the starting areas.

It will be interesting to see how RIFT and other games yet to release approach these challenges. I hope at the end of the day the developers ignore what the nay-sayers say and do what is best for their paying customers and the game itself. Especially in games where player number are important (PVP/BG's/Raiding/RVR/PQ's etc), letting player numbers get too low on a server can be catastrophic. 

Nice article. There is certainly room for growth here. Tbh, it's good to see some developers making some in-roads into this area. Two years ago I searched long and hard for a decent browser based game (MMO/RPG type), and there wasn't much out there.

I don't know enough about the potential of browser technology, but I assume there will always be performance benefits to running straight from the OS. That said, I do look forward to the day when I can enjoy a decent game on my phone or laptop anywhere in the world without having to go through an installation and patching process.

I don't currently expect the same from this type of technology as I would from an installed game, but the next 5 years will be interesting. I wonder if my wife will still be so keen on me getting a new phone if she knew I was using it to do a bit of MMO'ing?;)

I'm running a marksman/ranger/saboteur and I'm having fun with him in PVE and PVP.

Like some of the other guys have said, you'll normally be at the top end of the DPS and if you play smart you may be able to get away with very few deaths. That said, if a melee dps decides he's angry with me and gets in range...I'm in trouble.

Also agree with what some of the other guys have said about heals. If you join a BG without heals you are in big trouble, whereas one or 2 decent healers can make a team tough or impossible to put down. I've started speccing a Bard/infiltrator to try it out in PVP, but I'm thinking of rolling a melee healer (warrior or cleric) to see how it goes...currently they just seem impossible to put down.