All Posts by Kyleran

I'd prefer they limit forum posting powers post launch to only players with active accounts and make players use their in-game name on the forums. 

Probably not going to happen.

Good question.  I guess because for the most part, the gameplay wasn't extraordinary in any way.

It played exactly like WOW, LotRO or half a dozen quest based, linear model games.

Levels 1-20 were rather unique, but afterwards, you went to the zone(s) appropriate for your current level, completed all the quests you could find, ran here, ran there, but overalll, what more was there to say?

How about that extraordinary PVP system? Oh wait, wasn't implemented.  Or those great dungeon instances.  Oh wait, some were so useless no one ran them, others had many bugged quests you couldn't complete, and even the ones that worked well were uninspiring compared to instances found in other games.

WAR seems to have some new things to it, or at least re-invented the wheel by making the old seem new and different.

The game isn't out yet, so perhaps once its realeased the buzz will die down, but for now this it the game to watch.

Well, this new rule set is a solid step in the right direction from my viewpoint.  Closest thing we'll probably ever get to a FFA server.

Originally posted by singsofdeath

If I get selected for beta, I certainly will try it. If not, I will have the free playtesting period to discover it. So I am not worried.

 

Does that mean I am not allowed to ask people?

Sings,

Have to assume you've not played much EVE, so you don't have the same frame of reference I do. 

EVE does an excellent job of showing how a game can have gear (ships) that certainly are valuable and no one really wants to lose and yet, maintains an amazing balance so that if the worst happens, you can quickly go out and replace the ship without too much difficulty.

Yesterday I lost a ship in a PVE encounter (embarrasing, I'll blame it on lag )  

The ship was worth only a fraction of my total worth, but still valuable enough that I certainly wouldn't throw (or give) it away.

So when it was blown up from under me, I wasn't pleased, but I certainly wasn't distraught.

I decided to upgrade in fact, and due to geographic and political considerations replacing it took a bit more ISK and time than it should have. (which is my punishment for getting my last ship blown up)

The trick in EVE is to never fly what you can't afford.  Therefore while I could put together a great ship worth 1 Billion ISK..... the truth is it would not be so invincible that getting by with the 250M ISK version of the same ship (all I can afford to fly, and lose) isn't the best way for me to go.

Sure, the 1 Billion ship is better, but if two people show up in the 250 million version they're going to win more often than not, all skill being equal.  (but truth is, most folks with balls to fly a 1B ISK ship have the skills and confidence to know they can beat two other players and hence are willing to fly it)

I assume DF will be much the same.  If you know you're going out in a high risk situation, you'll throw on your less expensive, more easily replaced gear.  Sure, you won't be as capable as if you had your Sunday's Best on, but you'll still be an effective fighting force to be reckoned with.

And for those situations when you are feeling confident of victory (or just cocky) you'll don your best stuff and try to take away someone elses best stuff.  And if you lose, its gonna hurt, but won't be anything you can't recover from with your back up gear. (especially since its all made by crafters, and doesn't rely so much on the luck of the drop)

I think the idea of levels as currently implemented in most MMORPG's today is broken.

Toss in the current quest based game play geared towards those levels and its very hard for veteran players to include new players in their activities.

Look at early  WOW as a classic example.  Most players found themselves in new player guilds, and locked out of the upper tier raiding guilds until they completed their apprenticeship by reaching level 60 and gearing up with the appropriate blue gear before being admitted to the raids.  I hated the model at that time (no idea if its changed much since TBC)  but I still see it in too many games today with it as well.

Contrast that with EVE.  Within 3 months of joining, I was flying in 0.0 with players who had 3 years experience.  My first month was as a tackler, but within a month I was in a Stealth Bomber and killing other players almost efficiently as any veteran.

Now, 15 months after I first started, I'm in an empire based corp thats fighting a war for survival against a war-decing merc corp.  I am flying my ships along side many new player who have 2-6 months experience, and we all fight in the ships that are most appropriate.

OK, enough with EVE mechanics, point is, in our corp vets fight side by side with new players, and there's no artificial levels that prevent us from doing so. 

I think more games need to try to find ways to minimize the power of levels and find other ways to incorporate advancement into a player's character.

In EVE, players are measured by how many ship types they can fly, and how well they can fit/fly them. Also, the ability to amass ISK is measured, sometimes against the various methods players use to accumulate it.

We also have killboards, which are fiercely competitive, with players struggling hard to maintain their standing.  Other people measure their mining abilities,or trading abilities. (over the weekend I discovered a player who's net worth in merchandise for sale in empire is easily  over 15 billion ISK, no telling what his total net worth is)

So don't assume the only way to measure success in an MMORPG is via levels, that's narrow-sighted in my opinion and I think if more players tried a game designed w/o them they might think a bit differently.

Originally posted by Dedthom

I have been trying EVE out and it strikes me that you dont pilot the ship so much as you give orders ( orbit target 500m) and then click on your weapon or mining laser to accomplish something. Is the large scale PvP like this? Do you just give orders to move to a location and then lock on a target and sit back? Where is the actual flying in this game?

Jumpgate Evolution that way ------------------------>

But some of what you've observed is true, and some is a bit more sublte.

First of all, ship position is important.  You orbit a battleship at 500 thats armed with smart bombs and you'll be taken out of the fight so fast you won't know it.

In fact, the game is very tactical, if you chose to orbit a target you have to make sure its at your optimal weapon ranges and outside of  your opponents.

Also, depending on your ship type your optimal ranges vary. Long range snipers hit out at 200KM, while other ships considerable closer. 

Also, guns require close attention to things such as transversal speed and you have align your ship to reduce this factor if you actually want your guns to hit.

Missiles on the other hand, never miss, (sort of) but can be out lasted by fast ships, damage reduced by factors such as signature factors, speed, etc,

Also, you have to carefully approach your opponent, fly straight in on the wrong opponent and you'll be blown out of space.  You learn to zig zag your way towards your opponent, to increase transversal velocity

Some ships can stealth their way close, and then suprise the opponent, locking them down and preventing them from targeting, others drain cap, which again, prevents opponent from fighting.

So sure, if you are looking for Wing Commander V, JE might be your game.  But for a truely tactical combat game, with countless variables, EVE is the place to go.

I downloaded the full on disk version of the demo, and maybe its just me, but I'm not seeing "bad graphics".  They looked quite good to me overall, and just to check I had my son and his friend (pair of Xbox/WOW playing 16 yr olds) double check it and they thought the graphics were comparable to most games short of AOC.

Of course, we've got good computers here and perhaps the OP's isn't up to snuff to properly display the demo.

Sure, there were problems in some areas, like a bit of floating across the landscape, especially when running down hill, but overall I thought the DFO world looked quite interesting.

But we all agreed here this "mass PVP combat" was what looked very entertaining.  We noticed that some fights early on seemed to be a single party fighting what probably was npc mobs and later on we saw single parties fighting boss fights.

Of course, there was a lot of mass combat, but hey, that's what I like the best about in a game, big open world fights.  What are you looking for OP?  Instanced battleground fights of 10 v 10? 

Guess its just a matter of preference, but we'll be giving it a try when it comes out. (assuming it ever does)

Yep, I agree, LotRO is a great PVE game, but that lack of world influencing PVP was a major deal breaker for me.

The released a good video, opened up beta applications, signed a publishing deal and still promise the game for 2008.

Besides releasing the game today, what more could they have done to make you happy? Invite you to lunch?

Hey, end of 2008 comes with no results, feel free to bash away.  But for this weekend, the spotlight belongs for a brief moment to DF.

Originally posted by Draconus

don't hope for much, this is a no budget game that is sure to have a very small community of people that don't have PC's good enough to play a real MMO.

Wow, sour grapes much?  DF seems to scare you for some reason, hence you go out of your way to bash the game and its potential players.

Go back to AOC I guess.

Must be that I was just too swept up by the exciting combat and action, but I thought the graphics looked quite good.

Only weird thing I noticed was when characters were running down hill, and it seemed when cannonballs flew things were a bit too frentic.

Otherwise I thought the landscape was excellent, the combat fluid and fun, and I look forward to playing DF.

I'm not a fanboi yet, but am certainly becoming a fan.

Originally posted by PreCU

having a skill based system is just a part of what a sandbox is, and just a fraction of what made preCU so great.

can it boast anything else?

Well, FFA PVP, with full loot comes to mind.  Ability to build your own houses, guild citiies etc, and destroy others.  Reported to have deep crafting (haven't seen much on that yet),

Players belong to various factions, there is ship to ship, ship to shore combat including boarding, city bombardment, mounted combat, vehicle combat, Keep attacks, defenses, player reknown (or villiany) etc etc.

If DF delivers what they promised, it will be the best sandbox game to come out in a long time.

But no, it will not ever be SWG Pre-Cu...that game's gone, time to consider looking forward to a new game.

Originally posted by Hhussk

For all you people who cried "vaporware", I was wondering if you are preparing to apologize. Feel free to start here in this thread.

LOL, to quote a famous line... "who, are you?"

Sure, to Aaragon and some others people might owe an apology, but you just crawled out of the woodwork to now claim the creditt.

Its all a matter of probability. Prior to the release of this video, the probability of DF releasing was down around 10% in my book. 

Now I'll put it at about 50%. Long way to go to the finish line.

Tell you what, they let me in the beta and it plays anything like the video and I'll put one right up on these forums.

Originally posted by Askatan

mostly it is about the character and detail of armor, face and overall style.

characters in WAR look more like AoC than any other game.

it uses the same engine as Oblivion btw. (gamebryo)

 

I mean, character detail is simply uncomparable and style too. there are simply no common features.

but I started MMORPGs with Median 59...  maybe the WoW kiddies think every game looks like WoW...

Oooh...impressive pedigree.... bet those "wow kiddies" will be in awe of your Meridian 59 experience. 

Yeah, WAR might not look like WOW, but it plays enough like it to show its roots to just about every game that preceeded it, including WOW I'm afraid.

Oh yeah..this kiddie is probably about 20 years older than you... and plays EVE

Going with the shorter queues.....because I hate to wait.... Order.

Yeah, my first MMORPG was Lineage 1, and they had a message scroll system in-game which let you not only sent mail to other players, but you could drop them on the ground for anyone who happened along to pick them up and read them.

The company was fanatical about never allowing anyone to discuss another game in the open chats, and before I left I dropped about 200 scrolls around aden telling everyone to come play DAOC.  (as well as mailed them to every name I could think of)

That got both of my accounts perma-bans.

I just saw this video and let me tell you something...

I was impressed. No, really, i enjoyed watching the video and the game looked fun to play.

Graphics were fine (though in some scenes the characters seemed to "float" when they ran downhill) but oveall, it was the gameplay that impressed me.

Ship combat, mounted combat, (not a lot of magic combat though, more melee and archers) and in general, just lots of great combat.

And the scenery was great too.... ice, deserts, islands, fantastic lands.

If this game is for real, I'll be playing it.

nuff said.

Well, the video impressed me, I really enjoyed watching it (and I hate watching gaming videos)

If this game's for real, its a real coup for Aventurine.

If it releases, I'll be playing.

I did sign up for the beta today.

Can't say I'm a believer yet, but looks far more interesting to me than WAR right now. (which I really have mixed feelings about playing atm)

Originally posted by originalegg

I stopped reading after you tried to assume my age range in some kind of attempt to discredit me.  (off by about a decade)

Fact is there is a press release that was not released by Aventurine concerning the publishing deal with Audiovisual.  Unless you have evidence that discredits Audiovisual, im going to just stick with good ol' occam's razor on this one.

I thought so. You really consider the minor press release by an unknown (to the gaming community) to be some sort of proof that DF is coming out?

If so, I'll point to SOE's signed, announced deal with PE for G&H and despite the fact the pre-order boxes were in stores, the game never came out. (people also had actually played a beta, for better or worse)

DF is a long way from becoming a released game and credible proof is still sorely lacking.

Gnome Enchanter