All Posts by andyjd

Originally posted by Suvroc

Originally posted by Kyntor

Originally posted by Suvroc

 This is a great question.

I think I'd like to see limits to altering core game mechanics (like switching from a skill based system to a level based system). Or at the very least a reasonable amount of notice of intent. Also perhaps some kind of reimbursement to those who payed for several months in advance if it goes beyond that notice of intent.

 

I disagree with you here.  I believe that all gameplay issues will and must be at the discretion of the developer.  It is the developers intellectual property.

I don't really think you would see a court overturning a MMORPGs EULA unless they levy real world penalties for in game infractions.

 

 

But I assume that you would agree with a reasonable amount of notice to game changes?

In that situation surely the best thing for consumers would be each time a patch is implemented which is a signifigent patch, that we as consumers should have the right to say 'I don't like or agree with this change', and expect to be able to cancel our sub, regardless of the lengh of time remaining on our subscription. (ie if you had 3mths remaining out of 6, you shouldn't have to pay for it). Which is why I only ever sign up for monthly payments now. I think if this was the case, then most firms would stop 3mth/6mth subs, which wouldn't bother me.

What I don't think however, is that we have any right over our 'time invested' to mean anything going into the future (with regard to subscriptions). Which effectively means 'live with the changes or quit' (Although we should voice our opinion on changes of course). I don't think it's a valid agruement to say 'I was only doing this to have fun in the future so my time invested to this point isn't really playing, so I should get a refund for it'. You were playing, and if you were having fun or not isn't valid in terms of having to play for it or not.

What is unacceptable is downright lying. Like AOC with its PvP promises which 3 months after launch still arn't there...

after seeing especially the ship combat, with all those cannonballs flying about, I cannot beleive that that is really how it's going to play, certainly over the net....

The characters and textures looked, very, very outdated......

The sound effects were laughable.

Ok, it looks like there's a game, but I'd love to see how it actually plays and look once users actually get thier hands on it.

(and fyi, this is my first post in the darkfall forums, so I'm not a naysayer, although I have been following it for sometime)

The failure of AOC is a perfect fit to the failure of Vanguard

1) Overhyped

2) Missing features

3) Buggy

4) Simply not fun

Originally posted by Bulveigh

Why you allways use X-fire stats to see overall population of a game?

 

x-fire stats just show x-fire users.. I dont think that even 50% of the AoC subscribers use x-fire..

Becuase it's a sample of the population playing AOC, and the only one which gives numbers for the people playing. Now wether it's a 'good' sample or not is another matter.

to break it down, lets say there (and this is simplistic) 4 types of players for AOC:

Casual players

Hardcore PvPer

Hardcore PvE

Roleplayers......

Now, if the people which use X-fire are a close match to the people which have brought AOC, it's a good sample, if not, then it only matches that section...

Now, as AOC was marketed at a more hardcore PvP section, you could argue that it might (in that the people which brought AOC are similar to those which use X-fire). But it's difficult to see if that is the real case.

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

Originally posted by Battlekruse

How else could you explain it?

A) AoC players used Xfire less than they had been and caused a decrease in minutes logged, for some reason the Xfire users didn't want to log thier AoC time anymore

B) AoC players who use Xfire quit playing and new AoC players started that don't use Xfire, so there are just as many people playing the actual game, but not as many of them are Xfire users

C) around half of the people with Xfire decided to uninstall it over the past month and this is just a reflection of that.

Nah, I'll go with the simplest explanation and say less people are spending less time in AoC.

 

Here is an even simpler explanation.

Less than 15% of AoC subscribers use X-Fire

or

The Vast majority of AoC players don't even use X-Fire... 

 

I'm sure if you took the guilds that own a Battlekeep from each server and asked how many members used X-Fire you will end up around 5 in every 1000.

As any good maths student will tell you, its not the actual levels of people, but the trend which is important. The numbers only come in when you consider if you have a valid sample size, which appears to be the case (certainly in the lack of a better one).

I agree with the OP....I brough Mass Effect at the same time as AOC, and yesterday I played that instead of even bothering to log on AOC....

Nothing grabs me...Nothing says....'This is why you need to keep playing!!!' At all....

Originally posted by GreenChaos

 

Originally posted by Rasputin

---

We had seamless worlds in 1997 with UO, in 2000'ish with AC, not long after with DAoC, and then the immense SWG.

God I have just about had it with stupid complaining ass f*ck mmo winers. 

 

We had seamless worlds - cry cry, LOOK AT THE GRAPHIC  DIFFERENCE!!!!! the only reason they add instances is because of technical limitations. 

I have never seen so many people complain about something the say they like to do.

I have yet to play a MMO that is as fun as a MUD.  THE MORE GRAPHICS YOU ADD THE LESS YOU CAN DO.

You want real fun.  Give up your precious graphics altogether and go back to MUDing.

I'm sorry but you can't have both.  The better the graphics, the simpler the games.  Accept it and shut the f*ck up.

WoW got it right in the abilities to have graphics which are ok (good choice of art design), and which run on most computers, now and at release. The servers also allow the ability to run from one side of the map to the other without a loading screen or multiple instances of the main world. Instances are used for specific areas and for gameplay reasons.

A previous poster was right in saying that for AOC (and the same for games like Vanguard as well), the graphics were designed before the world.....

Originally posted by hazmats

people put too much emphasis on numbers. As long as there is 1 good server and i'm having fun. Don't really care.

Yeah, but you also want enough cash to ensure that theres support and development to grow and expand the game.

Originally posted by Rekindle

 

Originally posted by IShootBlanks

 

 

 OO yes just to clarify one thing, money isn't the only way people can get items/money if they weren't soulbound, they can get them through donations from quitting friends or overly generous friends so yea....non soulbound items whould make games imbar and pointless to play..

 

Non soulbound items would make item based games in the current paradigm pointless to play.

If I may humbly suggest, I'm thinking bigger than item based games here.  I understand that many people seem to like task oriented games but the eveolution of the task oriented game has brought us to this point where each completed task is trivial and unrewarding and simply a means to get to the next task (if there's any point at all).

Item acquisition has propelled the notion of progression.  Maybe its time to have a game that lacks progression in the classical sense....and maybe someone with some real creative talent can find new ways to fulfill the desire to progress through content.

I think to accomplish this the current model needs to be scrapped entirely and replaced with something new.

Ultimately task oriented games do work, but only work if you're actually having fun doing the task. If you do get into the stage when people are doing something which they don't enjoy in order to get something to then do something else, they really need to take a step back from things.

To be honest, if you remove the specific's of what you are all talking about, then your talking about 2 things. Structure and Restrictions.

Now players tend to want less restrictions and less structure. Levels, soulbinding, etc etc are all restrictions and structure.

However there are sometimes good reasons for that structure and those restrictions. Take soulbinding for example. Without soulbinding, there would be a huge amount more items to sell, and gold would be able to do anything you wanted, instead of playing the game and actually doing the content. All alts would be decked out in the best gear and have no need to actually play the content....

However I do think dev's need to be more clever and think outside the box. Some things do work well, and have done, just see WoW. But these arnt the only ways, and hoepfully we will see alternatives.

Originally posted by Xhavier

 

Originally posted by andyjd

 

Originally posted by vesavius

 

Originally posted by daelnor

Have any of you truly considered the fact that grinding skills is still leveling?

 

More importanly, most here havent even realised that levels and classes arnt the same thing and that you can one without the other...

Even more importantly I guess is that 99% of this thread has got the wrong end of the stick entirely... The OP wasnt ever suggesting the use of character 'skill's as opposed to character 'levels' as most of this debate has been about. He was arguing for player skill and the abolishment of character training in any form.

At least thats how I read it...

 

Get rid of character training, you get rid of progression, which ultimately leads to a short game.

I cant see why an mmorpg doesn't try to use this in effective manner though. Not saying it will make a short game because they can add other crap but look at Diablo 2. I can start that game up and get to lvl 70 by tonight does that mean its endgame, no not really you can make other charcters and can play and play to make the most effective build and have quick endless pvp for you entertainment. sure this wont do for revolutionary games but enhancing it and putting in more stuff night make a good.

 

what do you think?

Well thats not actually that different to WoW. In that you can lvl to 70 relatively fast, but then you progress through gear once you hit the lvl cap.  But it still takes time and someone who has put in the time will ultimately have the ability to compete much better than a new player, wether in pve or pvp.

Originally posted by vesavius

 

Originally posted by daelnor

Have any of you truly considered the fact that grinding skills is still leveling?

 

More importanly, most here havent even realised that levels and classes arnt the same thing and that you can one without the other...

Even more importantly I guess is that 99% of this thread has got the wrong end of the stick entirely... The OP wasnt ever suggesting the use of character 'skill's as opposed to character 'levels' as most of this debate has been about. He was arguing for player skill and the abolishment of character training in any form.

At least thats how I read it...

Get rid of character training, you get rid of progression, which ultimately leads to a short game.

Before you go overboard on Eve, I would point out there is only still about 220k-250k subs to the game.  Which still makes it a niche game.

Now, thats not to say Eve is a bad or poor game. It's not. But it still appeals to only a 'relatively' small number of people compared with WoW. I've tried it now twice, and just couldn't keep with it.

The levels vs skill thing is a bit of a non-issue...As already said, theres not much difference between grinding levels, and grinding skills. If I have to kill 100 rats to level up as a sword using warrior, thats not much different to killing 100 rats to get better at sword use in a skill system.

The main difference is that a skill system is more flexible, but then does tend to lead to a certain 'set' of skills wanted and used which just so happens to look like certain classes. The end result tends to be similar.

The main issue with the OP and other posters is that time=progression. Well thats just how games work...at least when it comes to RPG's. The devs create content, and the players consume it. Now, unless you want all content to be at the same level, then a certain amount of progression is needed, otherwise players would immediately leap to the content with the most rewards, and skip everything else.

'Why bother with Deadmines when I can go to Karazhan?' (sorry for the wow example).

It's the job of the dev's to slow players down and make as much content used as possible. That means progression....

The simple answer is that that isn't the shamans real gear, he simply switches out of it before logging off, so that no oppoenent can see what he's wearing...

Originally posted by Scottc

I find it interesting that LOTRO has the exact same game mechanics as WoW and plays just the same, and yet Eve online has a bigger population than it.

Lets see: Wow has

More variety in classes (as LOTR is limited by IP)

More variety in locations (as LOTR is limited by IP)

More varirty in mobs (as in LOTR you kill the same bears/wovles/goblins etc etc)

More varity in dungeons

More varity in loot

More varity in gameplay (having a more advanced and interesting PvP system).....

If Turbine had gone for the more Middle Earth:Online format...and made it less like WoW...it would have been better for them.

They expanded the quests in Dustwallow marsh as well...Theres tons of new quests in there, so anyone who's lvling up and hasn't been there I would suggest you do...

Originally posted by templarga

 

Also remember that EVERY release date before March 25th was PURE speculation on everyone's behalf. If you want to get technical, March 25th was the first release date that Funcom stated would be THE release date.

 

Thats not true. There was a solid Nov 2007 date which was delayed.

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Damn.

This is solid proof beta leaks were right

They usually are....

Originally posted by Xris375

Try before buy I say. That said, could the OP link us to where this news comes from ? It is av very bad sign if indeed this news is correct.

This very site:

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/gameId/191/setView/features/loadFeature/1682