All Posts by vesavius

Want to start from scratch with everyone else in a good looking, fun, and well developed virgin world?

Head over to the Chronicles of Spellborn forums. You will like what you see :)

It's all so subjective it makes this entire thread redundant.

Read up on em, try a few trials, go with the one that sticks. anything else is stupid.

Originally posted by MarleVVLL

 

Originally posted by mkpvpks

No I played eq1 for 2 years it had nothing like this.  There are a few single player rpg with something like this but I havent seen anything in a MMO even close to it.  It wouldnt be crafting it would be quests to continually upgrade whatever item.  Not a different item with each quest but the same one is being improved each time.

 

As for the saying "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" if you dont get it you never will.

 

No, I do get it.

 

But its false. Are you askin' me to preach now?

if you 'get it' in the sense that Mkp means, it's time for a re-evaluation.

Originally posted by cupertino

All we know is that they are working on another MMO, they have confirmed this and they have said "it will be innovative like nothing seen before".

We can rule out a Diablo MMO as thats a fantasy based MMO thats been done to death.  My money is on a Starcraft MMO after seeing what they are putting into Starcraft 2 (lore, an entire galaxy with planets they you can read into the lore of and the races that populate it) - in short adding a story and world to SC.. simialr to what they did with Warcraft 3 prior to WoW.

So right now If I could I would wager a dollar on a Starcraft MMO. but probably an RTS/MMO hybid.

Saying fantasy MMOs have been done to death is like saying fantasy novels have been done to death. Yet they still, after 50+ years, top the best seller lists... Shows a little of just how popular and enduring the fantasy genre is eh? The very reason devs choose fantasy as their medium is it's massive and almost universal fanbase.

What Blizzard *could* be suggesting is that their game *system* is innovative, which has, of course, nothing to do with genre.

So, lets not rule anything out yet.

It's so easy to confuse what you want to happen with what will happen.

I will take your dollar.

Originally posted by Swiftblade13

For all of us who are seeking a new mmo and being disappointed time after time.... is it over?  Has the game world passed us by for all eternity? 

I honestly thought that either WAR or AoC would be the next game for me.... almost as strongly as I mistakenly thought Vanguard would be.... I figured... here are two titles from companies I trust... they have to be good!!!

Based on the latest information I am already disappointed in both... no basis in fact you say.... I'm not arguing that point due to NDA I say.  I'm not saying they will be terrible... not like Vanguard (at least BOTH wont be), but they are not going to cut it for many of us....

I've moved on to Aion... hoping that it will provide the next lasting world for me to adventure on.... but each time my hopes are dashed I'm less willing to believe in the next big title.

 

 

The developers may have left us behind..... maybe its nearing time to accept it and move on...... maybe all of MMORPG will become one big forum for reminiscing like the SWG veterans forum is now!

 

I've decided to throw in the towel for now.... I'll still be around here from time to time... but I'm going to try to walk away from MMO's for as long as I can stand it... as it is I havent been playing anything hardly at all for nearly 8 months. 

 

Maybe by the time I return the Genre will once again have something to offer me, and maybe not.  (But then again, the reality is I'll be stir crazy once it starts snowing again and I'll probably grudgingly return to one of the old standby MMO's that I'm so tired of it hurts)

 

I've proposed all kinds of ideas on these forums in the past... now I've gotten to the point where I dont even know what would draw me back in (besides nostalgia).....

 

I guess I've just lost faith.

I hear you, I have been like this for a while myself... Seems like I am  just always waiting for a game to release heh.

WAR isnt designed to be the game you are looking for from what I have seen... It's gonna be good  and successful and all that in it's own right I am sure, but it looks to be a MMOAG (massively multiplayer action game) rather then a MMORPG to be. Same with Tabula Rasa. AoC is looking very pretty etc, but right now I havent seen any game play that is knocking my socks off, and I am yet to see RvR working so I am hesitant about that for the moment...

PotBS looks kinda cool and Fallen Earth has the potentiol to work out well, but the last hope for me is Chronicles of Spellborn. If this dosent work out then I am sticking to single player games and PnP D&D.

Tbh, the entire gaming industry, not just MMORPGs, is suffering from the same malaise of less innovation, less challenge, less value, and yet evermore hype.

In short, yep, the golden age of gaming has passed, and while there may be a few standout games that come along now and again, most of what got you hooked in the first place has been taken out and replaced with the almighty dollar. Shame really.

If gear in this game 'won't make you a better player', as stated by the Devs in the recent article, then why do they expect people to spend RL cash on buying their game cards to get that gear?

*Does* gear affect Fury's game play? Is there any advantage in having good gear or not?

If it indeed dosent, then why buy it? I don't get it...

Seems to me Fury has a little identity crisis, can someone more in the know then I clarify for me plz?

Also, as for their example of a good quality set of of golf clubs not making you a better golfer... well... Are they trying to tell me that sportsmen don't rely on quality equipment to improve their performance to some extent? Heh.

They use the word 'corperation', as in forming one, on their website... Does this mean they actrually threw some money into this, or are they meaning 'co-operation' and just got muddled up with the whole second language thing?

Well, I was watching out for AoC really, CoS was flying way under my radar for some reason, but I gotta say the recent and not so recent stuff that I have now seen really excites me. The game seems well paced without sacrificing substance and I love the CoHish style character customisation/ advancement philosophy. Very nicely adapted to a fantasy MMO.

I am liking the way that crafting seems to be enough to stimulate involvement, trade and the like, but not so deep that it bores you silly... Again, I am seeing a superficial CoH influence here, but nothing wrong with taking the best from whats around you. Building these elements, plus the dynamic combat style, onto a well proven fantasy base seems to be working for this game.

CoS seems to be running where LotR stumbled for me and proves to my eyes at least what a wasted opportunity that game was in it's pedestrian MMO-by-numbers blandness. LotR just lacked the inspiration and passion that seems to make CoS fly.

Of course, I also personally love the Fablesque visuals and the art style is right up my street. AoC seems so dour and serious (while at the same time seeming like a l337 magnet for 14 year olds...) and WAR seems so... again, juvenile, after watching the inspiring high fantasy style of CoS. I realise this is all subjective according to taste, but something here just appeals to me. Plus these guys are Dutch right? Believe me, thats a good sign :)

It's really brave launching an original IP versus the existing and upcoming giants in this market rright now and maybe, like sooo many times before, I will be let down by the finished product, but I am really looking forward to trying this out.

/officially nails his flag to the CoS pole.

Just a quick question though... Are there any future plans for true flight in this game?

Originally posted by Cryotech

Kasimir I fully agree with you.

 

The online game industry is becoming more and more like the movie industry. Their goal is money, and their target is the mass-market.

 

Luckily there are still a few independant companies who produce quality and fun games.

 

But for how long?

Great thread which reflects a very strong personal view of mine. Glad to see that I am not the only one out here.

I sincerely mourn the death of the MMORPG and openly hate the new age of the MSOAG (Massively Solo Online Action Game).

What bothers me most is that there is a whole new generation out there that dosent even realise what has been taken away from them as they cry for ever louder for yet more more more grey watery porridge.

What a waste of a dream.

Originally posted by chrisatron

How would that work? you cant suddenly play wow and then suddenly walk in lineage lol then again if you could id play it. it'd be sad to watch all the realy crap MMo's get raped by all the bigger ones.

hrm...

Originally posted by bahamut1

Originally posted by Samuraisword

He's got to be kidding. Maybe addressing the fact that raiding and forced grouping is a dinosaur concept, and that the games themselves have failed to deliver, would be a step towards making a better game, not this window dressing attempt to curb boredom with more tediousness.

While I've seen this said by a few, I'm going to target this one for convenience. I'm in a top raiding guild on my server. There are about 5-6 high profile raiding guilds, although guilds that actually raid number into the dozens easily, and I see at least 5 apps to my guild on a weekly basis. So, if 5 people are apping to each of these "raiding guilds" trying to get in so they can raid, that's over a hundred people a month actively seeking a means to raid constantly. This is not to mention casual guilds that raid and PU raids that fill up 3 or 4 EVERY night, and at all hours of the night. So hundreds, and easily thousands (probably tens of thousands in a game like WoW that is just as raid centric, if not more) of people that have plenty of other things to do, but seek out and decide to raid, even if the cost to them is time invested, or money. (as anyone who has raided knows, it's not cheap. you don't get paid to raid, it costs lots of in game money for equipment, useables, and repairs)

So, with all that said, I would hardly call raiding and forced grouping a dinosaur concept when it is probably one of the top driving forces for a VERY large number of people in these games. Just because YOU, or the people you may "hang out with" (or maybe you're a loner and would be just as happy in a single-player game), don't like raids doesn't mean that thousands of other people playing the game don't like raiding, or even just spending time in a large group working together towards a common goal.

If grouping with lots of people in a game that is designed for lots of people is a "dinosaur concept", then that is definitely a step backwards in concept from what these games were designed to do. Anyone can pick up a Baldur's Gate CD and "save the world" by themselves, but obviously millions of people want to belong to a "world" of gaming that includes their friends, neighbors, and people they haven't even met yet to share, help, and interact with in their gaming experience. Your "experience" may be different, and you have different goals and interactions you like, but you CANNOT ignore the VAST number of people that enjoy doing things together.

I 100% agree with what you feel and I deeply mourn the lost potentiol of what MMORPGs could have been. Instead, we have arrived at the age of the Massively Solo Online Arcade Game (or MSOAGs if you prefer) and I for one feel sad about that.

Once again the demanding yet rewarding has been traded off for mass market no brainer crapola. Modern MMORPGs require no social investment, no emotional investment, no intellectual investment, and are little more then instantly gratifying virtual knitting. The same thing happened to the film and music industries pretty early on as well, though the difference there is they had a grassroots culture that survived on little more then faith and integrity that fed the more demanding user. MMORPGs, simply, don't and therefore are on verge of extinction.

Rather, the massive potentiol of what they could have been is on the verge of being squandered. That, to me, is a shame.

/takes an aspirin and goes to lie down.

Hell, Maple Story US has broken the 3,000,000 user mark, and I believe it has over 30,000,000 globally.

and to all you guys who are saying one payment model is legitimate (monthly sub) while another isnt (item purchase), this is just silly. What ultimately matters is the size of the active player base, and in this regard WoW is actually pretty small potatoes.

Is Maple Story a better MMO then WoW?

Originally posted by battleaxe22

wow owns more then 50% of the MMOG market. http://www.mmogchart.com/

eq2 and other games wich has fanbois trolling on this site should check facts

 

eq2 is like 1-2% of the market for example . Have a nice day.

 

The charts you are checking are a year out of date btw.

I guess WoW fanbois should check facts?

Originally posted by Apraxis

 

Originally posted by vesavius

 

Originally posted by chryses

 

Originally posted by Smolder

The issue here is that you guys are getting caught up in the nomenclature and perception of what a sandbox might be. Those of us who desire with all our beings to have a world that can be freely molded want a sand box that gives us shovels and buckets and water and other people to play with. You can't just give people a chat room, call it a sand box and expect gamers to fill in the rest; you need to give them the tools to create their own virtual worlds and enterprises.

Many of you seem to get hooked on the idea that a sand box is nothing more than a big empty universe with a few avatars standing around, when the truth is that your perception befuddles you. As has been pointed out, EVE-Online is a great example of a sand box. You don't see people standing around wondering what to do, especially since the advent of tutorials and mechanisms that inspire players to get involved.

One of the greatest motivations for involvement is community, one that seemingly captivates even those who are antisocial in real life. Why? Because it's human nature to interact with each other, and that's ultimately what's lacking on a grand scale from nearly every single traditional MMORPG thus far.

Don't forget that Ultima Online and Saga of Ryzom were in fact iterations of the sand box model. Even now the glory of these games is still being praised by those who remember the potential for this genre. Most of you are blinded by the teething monetary successes of World of Warcraft, but let me remind you that you are adopting the perspective of those who seek to make nothing more than money out of the vast greatness that is an online world.

It is my dream, and the dream of others as has been shown, that we will one day have a true sand box virtual world where human dynamism and pliability of the game world go hand in hand to create the ultimate virtual world experience that we all, on some level lust for in our imaginations.

I implore you to continue discussion of this topic so that more will come to understand the wonder that is possible if only development crews would put aside their greed for the dollar and seek to innovate instead. In order to make this happen we should rally those with excesses of money to donate to the cause of evolving the genre in a way that may eventually lead us to the Matrix and holodecks.

 

This pretty much sums it up for me also.  Games do not have to be just 'Sandbox'.  I think the best model for a mmo is pretty simple and should incorporate sandbox play. e.g:

* Faction warfare so you know who your enemy is and its FFA.

* Deep storyline so you feel passionate about your faction and the option to fight side by side with NPC from your faction.

* Sandbox element is where players can construct housing, workshops and actually help the NPC faction hold / win ground.   Actually see your efforts mean something besides the usual 'kill 100 undead' only to see them spawn again.

I believe games like Vanguard missed a trick there.  If VG had a storyline that set races against each other and a sandbox element added to let players repair / build walls, build towers and siege equipment and had fleets raiding other races territories then it would be huge.

Not singing Eve-Online's praises but regarding the FFA people will naturally develop groups and this has happened in EVE in a big way.  Besides you can still have NPC police in noob / trade areas.  However EVE still needs NPC faction warfare and the sandbox element could be used better.

 

It's clear what you are asking isnt a SB game, but a MMORPG that lets you build stuff and influence established factions in a linear pre ordained world. Thats cool and all, but lets be clear in what we are talking about here.

There arnt too many players out there that could actually handle a pure SB game imo, and that includes most in this thread. Most peeps out there need to be told what to do, need to be directed, need to have a framework, need a fast and easy reward system. Whats more, in an evermore growing solo casual MMO arcade game friendly environment this aint gonna change anytime soon. Saying this, even at the peak of UOs glory it was owned by EQ, mainly because most prefered the EQ more directed model to the UO Sandbox one, so I am not sure SBs have ever been more then a minority thing.

Tbh, I am frustrated by exactly the same thing as you guys are, and that is why I am moving back to PnP RPGs more and more. In those games you can truly build and direct worlds, in these you just turn up and go through the motions most of the tme. they just seem more 'real' (in a weird way...) then pushing numbers around in a virtual knitting game.

In a true SB game, you make your own deep story line and factions.

Uhh.. i guess you misunderstand the term sandbox by yourself. You mean a completely empty sandbox, but sandbox generally means within mmos, just, that you can tool around with almost everything in the world, that you can influence the world and stories, and that it is not a linear way of playing or storyline.. because not possible, because you can change things up.

 

But this does not mean, that you cant have a living npc world, whcih would work without any real player. Or that it is not possible to tell newbies, what they can do(to get involved in the world in the very beginning), and direct them into the different storylines, action, and let learn them within this time, how they can influence with different tools the world and the story. And even easy reward is not a problem, because everytime you learna new tool, it is his own reward. If you influence the storyline, or the world, it is a reward.. and you can have a lot of other rewards, too.

But however, as i said in this thread, it is much more work to realize something like that, and withit much more expensive, and because of that a good reason for the major companies not to do it.

And yes.. an empty sandbox will most probably always fail, because the majority of players are not willingly to start in an empty world and learn everything by themself. And in an empty sandbox you need month, and a lot of committed players to build up a basic infrastructur to give the newbs an easier starting.. and even then it is not as easy as in other games.

You can have all the advantages and luxuries for casuals in a sandbox game, as in any linear game.. it is just more work. There is absolut nothing from a linear game, which is not possible within a sandbox.. but there are a lot of thing, which are not possible in a linear game, but possible in a sandbox. To be honest, i personally think, that the linear type of games is a relic from the old single player games, but for real mmog, a sandbox is a much better environment, and you can have everything their, and even more... it is just a lot more work. But i guess in the future we will maybe see a lot more of sandboxes, and it could be even the new standard, at least if the first really successful sandbox game arrive, which surpass the wow playerbase. (but this will take a lot of time. ^^ 10 years could be a good timeframe for this)

And i think this was also the reason why Richard Garriot tried the sandbox way with his first mmog(UO), but i guess he also realized, that it is extremely much work, to do it perfect, and that maybe the time is not ready for it. Dont forget, UO was really small, you had just a few tools to change the world, and with almost no storyline, but nevertheless a good amount of encounters, like the different dungeons, treasure huntings, simple npc tasks(to few, if you ask me) and so on.. and later on the player driven content.

 

 And look at Tabula Rasa.. this is also a spinoff from the sandbox idea, now he tries to make a more player driven storyline, but with less sandbox elements, to change the world.. now the player can just change, and be involved within the story. But for the perfect virtual world/sandbox, you need of course both, and of course more pvp involved, but i personally think, that the npc faction fight(pve) like in Tabula Rasa is also neccassary, especially in the beginning of every sandbox, to bring the player into the game, until they take over the old npc factions, or found by themself new factions.

 

 So from a design standpoint it is a quite clever step forward, he tries to push one element forward, to get later on all elements as far, to be able to design the perfect virtual world/sandbox. It is just to expensive to do everything at once within one game, and no investor would most probably invest in it, to get something like that realized in a polished form. So make it step by step, and release for every step a game, to finance yourself, and then have all tools, to make one game out of it.

You understand the term to be something less then I do, thats fine, but you are still asking for a watered down version of what SB can really be imo. To me, you are selling yourself short and asking for less then the full deal.

To cut my point short, EVE isnt a SB game, while Tales in the Desert III is.

I feel I have explained my point pretty much here though, so I guess it's up to others to take it or leave it based on that. I think I am now gonna leave thhis thread before I start repeating myself :)

Originally posted by chryses

I would go along with that.  Would you say EVE was a SB game?  I remember starting 3+ years ago and flying around confused and frustrated until I realised that there wasn't a chirpy little NPC telling me to clear his corn fields from ants or whatever.   Then I embraced the freedom and I am still playing 3.5 years later.  Even so there was a very deep back story and there was some connection to one race or another. So if a SB game does work there must be some sort of framework to work within.  There must be a point to the game still and having NPC factions that are at war should be a key part.  Players can decide to start their own faction or join an existing one. Otherwise you will have large bands of people running around fighting over territory that doesnt mean anything.  Ultimately I want a game that gives me the option to make my own way and to do the 'normal' linear missions.  EVE so far is the closest thing I have found with agent missions and its open play.

If EVE was a SB game, the universe would have been empty at the start and the players would have been dumped through a worm hole with a ship and enough materials to start building. Eventually, they would have built their own factions, alliances, trade routes, missions, and space stations to populate that universe. They would have claimed, developed , and defended whatever they could grab.The whole point of a true SB game is that the players bring their own story and framework to the game, so saying there must be a framework is kinda missing the potentiol of what SB gaming can be.

Of course, achieving all this takes time, knowledge, emotional investment, and social skills, which is exactly the opposite of the fashionable thinking right now.

I am righty there as well, not just with MMOs (like a previous poster, I won't use the RPG part 'cause these games have nothing to do  with that anymore), but with electronic gaming in general.

The problem here is that you are now officially a jaded cynic. The trouble is with these games is that, like anything else that takes up a LOT of time, when you havent got them in your life you get bored because you forget what you did before you had them in your life... So your first reaction is to find another MMO to fill all those empty hours, because, lets face it, TV generally sucks. The trouble is with this is that no MMO can match up to that first one you burnt yourself out on.... So, here you are now in a cycle of t