Had Templar as result, but I joined the Dragon. 

I like both groups, but the Dragons look a bit more my style.

The trailer is pure bliss. TSW is all about the story, the ARG, and these trailers really set the mood perfectly for the game. Even if the game would ultimately suck, the ARG so far has been so good already.. That alone makes it worth your while to follow this game. 

Looking forward to what comes out of PAX. Would be nice to start seeing some in-game footage (normally we're going to see some in-game screenshots at PAX at least). 

Played the expansion at GamesCom, saw the Age of Conan booth and the hundreds of people crowding it, talked with the devs, ... definitely didn't look like a dieing game ;)

Originally posted by elmomiento

Good review. Just one mistake: There is a way to change your characters with out complete log out the game. Just click in the log out bottom and wait till the time finishe with out click the "log out ". These will make you go back to the select characters screen very fast, and you will not need to re-enter  in the game as you said in the review.

You can also just type /camp

Yes, classless mmo's are almost non-existing. And EVE isn't exactly a mainstream game either. 

Though it would seem there are some mainstream mmo's in the make with classless systems, Champions Online for example, The Secret World also. But yeah, even with games in the making I can only come up with 2 names :/

Yeah, the cover icons look a bit stupid, but we already knew that you were only going to be able to cover behind certain objects, not everywhere. It's not necesarrily a dumbed down feature, not more than the features of all other theme park mmo's are 'dumbed down'.

The reason WAR never got the same negative comments and ratings was because everyone was still nagging about Age of Conan. It was and still is like people wanted Age of Conan to fail and took every opportunity to break it down, while everyone turned a blind eye on the WAR problems.

Age of Conan had a far better launch than Warhammer Online. Much less server issues, while WAR had quite some lag, crashes and stupid queue's. Both AoC and WAR suffered from performance issues, and yes, AoC had more of them, but AoC has top-notch graphics, while WAR has completely out-dated graphics. I think having performance issues with a game like WAR is a lot worse than with a game like AoC, at least you get nice graphics in return for the latter... 

And, in AoC most people managed to get to lvl 40 before they quit the game because of lack of content, in WAR most people got bored before reaching lvl 20... 

Honestly, the only reason why WAR didn't get the same negative critics as AoC was because when WAR launched people were bashing the lack of lvl 50 and 80 content in AoC. The real negative critics and drops in subs came at that time, while WAR got hit by the subs dropping a lot faster. 

I quit AoC myself and I'm so burned-out of it that I'm probably never going back to it, but WAR was so utterly flawed and boring once you got past the first 15 lvl's, I'm certain I'm never going back there. Both games deserve a lower rating, but WAR definitely deserves a lower rating than Conan. 

The things AoC did bad, WAR often did even worse, so it's not really fair that it's AoC that's gotten in the fail dictionnary and not WAR. Definitely now that AoC seems to be improving each day and regaining popularity and respect, while WAR is still the same..

Look at the 1.5 patch for AoC, everyone was "this is the patch that will be a matter of life and death for the game, it has to be good". It's got huge attention from players and press, with often people almost hoping it's going to fail. But at the same time WAR launched their Land of the Death patch, a patch that's just as crucial for that game's future as Gangs of Tarantia for AoC. But again, everyone turns a blind eye on it.

I doubt that Mythic will actively help with the design of SW:TOR. As a group I'm guessing they'll mostly play an advising role, definitely on the part of the MMO-aspect, an area that is completely new for BioWare. BioWare also stated long before this that they were very intrigued by the RvR systems of DaoC and WAR, so it wouldn't be a far fetched assumption to believe that Mythic will be providing insight on that aspect either. 

I believe the most active "help" Mythic will provide is not as the "group" Mythic, but BioWare pulling some of the best developers away from WAR to work on SW:TOR instead. 

On the aspect of "experience". I think in the MMO-world it has shown that experience of making MMO's means absolutely nothing:

- Turbine: Creators of the extremely good Asheron's Call, but lost much of their reputation with AC 2 and Dungeons & Dragons Online. It's only with LOTRO that they managed to become once again a highly acclaimed company.

- Mythic: Some call DaoC a "lucky shot" now, but even if that would be true, it's still a highly acclaimed game and succesful in it's day. They failed to live up to that reputation with Warhammer Online, where they didn't manage to deliver what was promised and the game is not nearly the succes they had hoped for.

- Funcom: With Anarchy Online they started out.. terrible, but in time that game grew to become a succes and an inspiration for other MMO's. Much as Mythic's Warhammer, they failed to live up to the expectations for Age of Conan and didn't deliver what was promised. Both WAR and AOC seem to be recovering and on the right track again now, however.

- SOE: This company has a long list of developed/published MMO's. With EverQuest I and II they have two extremely succesful MMO's, with definitely EQ I as one of the most important games in the history of the genre. Although the game has lost much of its former glory, they've got probably the best MMOFPS out there with PlanetSide. With Star Wars Galaxies they've appeared to have shattered their reputation for eternity for many people however. And Vanguard was so unsuccesful many people don't even know it exists.

- NCSoft: Giant MMO developer and publisher. As Sony they've got a huge list of both very succesful and very unsuccesful games. Lineage I and II, Guild Wars, City of Heroes, etc belong to the first group, Tabula Rasa and Auto Assault to the second. 

- Blizzard: No experience with MMO's whatsoever, but managed to create not only the best-selling MMO in history, but having more subscribers than almost all other MMO's on the market together.

I could go on. But I think that if you look at the history of the MMO-genre, you'll all come to the same conclusion that experience of developing in this genre means near to nothing. If anything you'd rather say that the companies with no experience produce the best games. All companies listed above have almost all gained their reputation and acclaim with the first MMO they developed, not the MMO's after that, even though they had more experience then.

If it's good, I might come back to the game :)

I thought the scenario's was one of the worst features of WAR actually... constantly doing the same map over and over again, I can buy an FPS for that and not pay a monthly fee for it. It takes too much focus away from the real, open world PvP. 

Plus it's very, very individual. People just dropping in, not saying a thing, stay for just as long as they get enough points... completely kills of the social, group and MMO feel. 

That said and done, it probably won't be that hard to find a PvP group in Aion, as much of the game is played in the Abyss, people will have to group up there anyway. Since it's RvR, you will always have "help" from the players of your race. 

Well, not an MMO but you were speaking of games in particular in this article, Neighbours from Hell was an awesome comedy game!

I don't think you really understood my post there. This was an argument -supporting- BioWare's take on story. Not bashing it.

You're basicly telling the same as me in my analogy, shame that you didn't get it and decided to flame me ;)

With Rome I meant 'end-game' or 'max lvl'. So while BioWare's story will inadversibly lead everyone towards the 'end-game' where people raid/pvp, there's many roads to take to get at the end-game. The story choices you make will define how you'll get at 'Rome', the max-lvl/end-game, and in a lesser way define the character you'll be at end-game. 

So yes, it is linear, but there's many lines to pick. Which is a good thing.

i've got my concerns about the 'massive multiplayer' part as well, but I'm on a 'wait and see' mindset right now. There's really nothing known about it, and I can understand other people's concern for BioWare haven't said much more about their game except for 'story'. But the suspicions people have about SW:TOR being an online, single-player RPG I definitely don't follow.

BioWare story is a bit like this:

All roads lead to Rome, you choose with road to take to get there. In the end, everyone will get to Rome, but the roads they have chosen will decide how they get there. 

So, yes, it is linear, but it's got many, many lines to follow. 

I'm getting the Error 114 on Vista, so it ain't just Windows 7 that is borked. 

Originally posted by Gurtelrose

Originally posted by sacdeep

Silirrion is really a stand up professional and probably the best community manager working in MMOs today. He deserves better. And that's all I have to offer about this letter.

 

It realty easy to run a rather small community like in Age of Conan where there is below 70.000 users. Try to be a community manager for a 600K mmo or even 11. million plus. Then its becoming tough. So Silirrion got a easy job.

*cough*

You know very well that AoC has a lot more users than that. And I'd say it's fairly harder to be the community manager of a game with a bad image than of one with a good image.

Originally posted by 0k21

You call that a bloody financial summary? Its a load of garbage, there are no numbers there at all the only thing they've bothered to mention there is the amount of employees they have and the size of their ridiculously big client, nothing more than bloody corporate propaganda going "Oh its fine! We're actually doing very well".

2D Boy had the balls to post their expenses for World of Goo even for simple things like testing, so why the hell can't these assholes who have repeatedly messed things up and scammed their customers do the same? They're being more secretive than the federal reserve for crying out loud.

You need to read the actual report for the numbers, not the presentation. Check Funcom's site for it.

Lord of the Rings Online is a high quality MMO. I was in Closed Beta and enjoyed the game a lot, after beta I've returned to Middle-Earth a couple of times with trial accounts, but I've never actually bought the game.

While I enjoy the game a lot, after a while I get bored as well. Largely for the same reasons people posted here already. Biggest painpoint is the combat which just feels too slow or too blunt. Character graphics and animations really aren't on the same lvl as the environment, which is a shame. The game doesn't always feel enough lotr'ish either, and some zones really disappointed me (Rivendel and especially Tom Bombadil's house). The fact that I'm deep down a PvP player doesn't really help either.

But. When I play this game casually, it's a wonderful experience. I'm doing another trial again and I really, really like it. A lot more than I did before actually. I still don't really like the combat, but the Captain is pretty enjoyable. I am for the first time really considering I should buy the game. What is holding me back right now though is exactly the fact that I play it casually. An MMO is worth the monthly fee if you play it regularly, but if you can only play a couple of hours in a week it's quite expensive. Definitely for a student with virtually no income :p

I'm going to continue play the trial, and if I still enjoy it at the end, I might just actually buy it this time (though I probably shouldn't, with exams coming up :p). I'm really interested in seeing housing and legendary weapons, not to mention seeing Moria and Lorien. I think I'd get burned out fast if I played this game "hard-core", but the way I play it now, I like it!

Originally posted by sazabi

DRAGON BALL.

 

yeah......... yeaaaaaaaaaah....

Epic pvp battles that take 7 weeks to finish!

The Flintstones! Well, okay, not actually from the 80's but still!

YABBADABBADOO!

Quoted from Nyte at http://www.darkdemonscrygaia.com/showthread.php?t=3184

Exciting news! I've recently been informed that our "mole" inside Funcom has managed to smuggle out some amazing stuff...

• TSW Posters, signed by the TSW development team
• additional autographed copies of Dreamfall:TLJ, signed by Ragnar Tornquist

These will all be given away at random to anyone who makes at least a $25 contribution* during the May 1st "Money Bomb" event.**

In addition, anyone who contributes over $100 during the event will be eligible to win a "Premium Autograph Package," which includes:

• Autographed TSW Poster
• Autographed Dreamfall:TLJ Game
• Autographed Age of Conan Comic Book

These incentives are in addition to the items previously mentionedat http://www.darkdemonscrygaia.com/showthread.php?t=3022 . Everyone that has already contributed or contributes after May 1st will still be eligible to win those incentives.

Any questions, let me know!

* Or the equivalent of $25 USD (For donations in other currencies).
** The May 1st "Money Bomb" event will last from May 1st, 12:00 AM until 11:59 PM EDT (GMT -5)