All Posts by Kyleran

I never played UO, so I can't comment much about it.  However, one thing I know, when it was first released, it received "Coaster of the Year" award from Computer Gaming World, so It obviously had a few flaws in it.  Even in a review a year or so later, it had only moved up the scale a few notches....

Meanwhile, along came AC and EQ1, (DAOC and many others) .... and their subscription numbers exceeded UO's....which of course resulted in UO developers thinking....how can we obtain numbers like them?  Answer, copy what makes the other games successful.  Hence they started modifying the game.  EQ particularly proved that the market of people who enjoy FFA PVP is dwarfed by a 100-fold by the number of people who don't.... hence most games today focus on controlled PVP, (or sometimes not at all)

UO isn't the only game to fall into this Trap.  DAOC looked at EQ's raiding system and decided to add it in during the infamous TOA expansion, which most folks agree, was one of the two big killers of the game (along with buff-botting)

and SWG and what SOE did to it....well...no reason to even get into it.

I really wish developers would identify their target market (casual gamers, Pvp-lovers, Pve raiders etc.) and stay true to them.  Attempting to be everything to everyone is a formula for disaster.  Even in WOW, their attempts to cater to the hard-core PvE gamer with their upper level raids backfired, alienating many of their casual player base. (which is why they changed this a bit in BC)

I'm hoping at some point game companies will quit adopting features from other games that substantially change the games overall experience.... (unless its truely for the better)

Its hard to compare...both games offer a different PvP experience, and I enjoyed them both.  Now, from a total gaming experience, I prefer DAOC to SB....

Originally posted by Aeronis
I left after the Darkness Rising expansion pack came out, the reasons being.

1. As a Scout on classic, I didn't feel there was anything about the scout that made them better than Rangers with regards to ranged attacks, once they both had epic gear (Due to the fact that Ranger bows were just as good as longbows, and they got magic buffs on top of that). There was also no reason to have 50 bow skill.
So have scouts gotten any boosts or tweaks?

If its any consolation, they are changing the way duel wield works so that Rangers are getting a nerf to shield wearers.  As such, many rangers are talking about respecing to 50 bow (on the Classic servers).  Most people think Hunters are doing the best out of the three archer classes atm, mostly because their pet can stun.

2. Given that my character was built for tower and castle sieges (it was the whole reason I bought the game and leveled to 50), but I grew increasingly frustrated at how difficult it could be to find good tower/castle battles.
First the travel times often prohibited responding to towers in distress (And horses didn't change this), and second there wasn't much reward for taking towers so most groups preferred to run around looking for players to kill out in the open to build up RvR rank.

Hard to say, I saw lots of Keeps and Towers being taken all the time, but couldnt always find out if anyone was trying to counter it.  Of course, some times they do, but certainly not all the time.  Travel times have been improved... you can now teleport out to a friendly keep near a siege site and run/sail over the rest of the way.

3. Nobody ever wanted to group with scouts, either in PvP or PvE. I was always told they offered up no "utility', only damage, so they weren't good enough to be integrated into eight man uber teams for farming items or ganking people in RvR.

Probably still a true statement. Even in BG's most Rangers find themselves running solo or hanging in stealth groups.  You should consider re-rolling a more balanced class if being in a group is that important to you.

4. The population on Lamorak dwindled down to barely anything, and the merge with the other classic server didn't help.
It looks as though the population situation hasn't improved. I'm looking at it right now, 11PM PST, and there are only 1300 on the classic cluster.
Back when I played there were 3000 people on Gareth alone in the prime time.

Well, when you were on Gareth with 3000 people, that was an anomoly.  I was with DAOC during the early days, and even the largest of servers like Merlin had about 2400 players on it at prime time.  My server (MLF) had only 1700 or so on average, and it was more than enough.  You do play PST..thats a shame, cause the population is a bit larger earlier in the evening, more like 1800 or so....

The big hope I have for the game being fun again for my RvR classic scout is the level 50 BG that I heard was opened up. Because the BGs always promoted good RvR combat due to their size. It was easy to find people, and tower assaults were more common.
So is the level 50 BG highly populated on the classic cluster?

I haven't logged in for a few weeks, but I didn't know there was a 50 BG.  Great if there is.  But, it would depend on the design of the new BG.  In the 45-49 BG, CV, it pretty much is all just a bunch of 8 mans or zergs running around.  There is a CK...people rarely bother to take or defend it....

Alot of people exclusively play lower level characters in the BG's so that they can have a good time with PvP without some of the drawbacks you mentioned in NF.

I had high hopes for Imperator, and was disappointed to see it go.  Sequels rarely work, split the community as someone mentioned and don't bring enough new to the table to entice many new players....

Best we can hope for is that DAOC continues to be improved, which Mythic seems determined to do...

Originally posted by MrArchy

Originally posted by AricB
Alot of peopel say that it will shut down before the year is up, I ask if it does shut down how long will it take for another company to make another SWG?

Alot of people said that last year too.  Alot of people were wrong.

 

How long will it take for another company to make a SW-themed MMO?  It will take 3-5 years, probably closer to 5.  What you need to hope is that some other company has already been doing this for a year or two (whether it's BioWare or someone else).

Originally posted by keolien
I cant wait to play this game. This game has alot of potential, lets see how it turns out.

Like, in 2009?

The OP is a raving lunatic troll... who cares... if/when it comes out..we'll give it a look... after 6 years of development, people are justified in losing faith that it will ever release....

Good review overall, I can disagree with parts of it, but thats because I was in a different starter area than you.  I found quite a bit of difference between the 6 or so starter areas I've tried so far.  Some do seem to have a higher level of bugs, quests without much of a sense of immersion, and difficulty levels were all over the map. 

As someone else mentioned, you did not know about the bindable feature, (neither did I) so I've been making naked corpse runs the entire time.  Another alternate to binding is to carry spare gear in your saddlebags, as that apparently stays with you even after you die.

I enjoy playing the game, and am fairly forgiving of its flaws, however I could not give it much higher than 7/10 right now.  And if a person is a more casual gamer, or expecting a more finished product, I can see where it might only rate 4/10 on their scale.

It is more difficult, I was damaged by WOW and have solo'd too much in the past 2 years.  I'm going to have to go back and re-learn my social skills to play this game effectively.... (at least to advance my levels in combat)

But, there are solo activities... Diplomacy, Crafting, all are things I'll do when I want to solo, and I'll find groups for when its time to complete group quests or kill other players.....

Originally posted by Launvatar
What do you guys mean by polish? Quests are broken etc ? or the optimization of graphics etc ?

Yes, some quest lines are broken, and FPS is still pretty low for people with less powerful computers.  You can fall though the world on occasion, and of course, lots of advanced functionality not implemented yet. (i.e. Diplomacy ranks and what not) 

But it still is a very fun game and I don't mind putting up with an occasional crash (did I mention those?) to get started.

All my friends would buy the game to play with me!

I agree with the OP, however...its not going to change (at least, not any time soon) so might as well make the best of it.

(besides you can always flood them with petitions)  

Originally posted by silkakc
From the Best seller list on the main page at Gamestop.com today:

1- Lord of the Rings Online
2- Crackdown
3- Vanguard
4- Burning Crusade
5- Wii Adapter
6- Wii Charge station

 And it's not even coming out till the end of April!!   Man I can't wait to play some big badass ugly monster wreaking havoc on the human masses!! LOL!!

Well, I'd say its due to a couple of factors.  First, major league franchise, with huge appeal to the masses..... Vanguard not so much, appeals more to MMORPG enthusists, BC - come on, all the WOW players have already bought it....

Second, their pre-order special was really nice, $9.95 per month or lifetime memberships?  This also contributes to the high numbers I'm sure.

I hope it suceeds, we need more games out there that don't suck.  But in my opinion...that Pvp system you described is a huge turn off, so no interest here from me or my friends....

Yeah, i'm having fps issues as well, but that's ok...just gives me a reason to upgrade sometime later this year.....

Yeah, really serves no purpose to "bash" the Vanguard haters, just invites flaming and appears to be a troll for attention.

I like Vanguard, I'm going to play it with people who also enjoy it.  I have no real need to argue with people who don't. (but things are a bit slow at work today, and they won't let me play Vanguard here) 

Originally posted by CaptainRPG
I'm gone, this post has already attracted trolls of the community with sheer hatred for WoW and who lack the ability the ability to use reason or intelligence.

Originally posted by Rekindle

My responses  K>>

1. Everyone who plays WoW is a kiddie who can't handle a "real" mmo.

K>>I'll agree with you here..I am much older than you, and I played in several guilds that were predominantly people in their 20's and 30's.  I realize you are a casual player, and WOW suits you perfectly.  By "real" MMO, you probably mean one that has lots of time consuming tasks to do, like crafting, or what not, and they do seem a bit like work to the casual gamer.  But some folks want a bit more from their MMO's, don't mind doing the "work", and thus they turn to other games.  (Of course, end-game raiding totally turns the game on its head for the casual gamer, but hopefully they've addressed some of this with BC)

 2.  WoW is very easy.  Learn the difference between simple and easy.  I still think going from lvl 1-60 (and now 70) on a server from scratch is simple but involves a bit of work and is therefore not necessairly easy. You can lvl pretty fast but people who hold down jobs and have kids will still take some time to advance.

K>>Well, to a new player, WOW might not seem easy, but to someone more familar with the genre it really is.  My first level 60 took me 16 days played (about 3 months) to complete, and I was taking my time so my son could keep up with me.  After that I went on to make 4 more 60's, with the fastest being done in 8 days played.  I'm told some folks can level a 60 in as little as 4-6 days played (powerleveling not withstanding). I got pretty tired of running the same quests over and over...even rolled a Horde 60 mage just to do some different quests...but there's only so many times you can do the Onixia quest line.  But I agree...casual players won't experience the same issues that I did.

3. WoW has ruined MMO's due to the WoW factor. It took someone like Blizzard who has their shit together to show up this industry.  Before WoW all we had to measure ourselves on was the next SOE Expansion that wasn't ready for release.  Funny how Blizzard is the only game manufacturer out there that actually waited till their game is ready for release before asking their players to pay for it. (EQ2, Vanguard anyone?).  It burns my ass to see games that aren't done get released - should be illegal.

K>>ER...point of order, but when WOW was released, it was missing the PvP honor system, didn't have the Molten Core Epic dungeon completed (much less BWL), failed to anticipate the demand and had terrible issues with server stability and loot lag (wait, have they really fixed those yet?) and many spells and abilities did not work as advertised.(no new release every does)

4. The game is perfect. Its not perfect its not %100 polished and there wil be problems but my goodness it blows the pants off anything else on the market as far as polish goes.

K>>Ah..but perfect...for who? (whom?) For you and other casual gamers, it fully meets your needs.  But in my case, I prefer games with in-depth crafting systems that create gear people actually use, or has open world PvP, with some penalties for death tossed in.  I don't want to spend my end game raiding the same dungeon over and over and over.... for gear that will be quickly replaced by the next expansion.  Well, you get the point, WOW is a good game, but it can't be perfect for every player.  I think any game that tries to be everything to every gamer is doomed to failure.

The bottom line is this game is successful BEYOND the fact its a l33t kiddie game or that its easy or that its cartoon graphics run on computers out today (rather then computers that will be released tomorrow).

K>>Its commercially successful because it provides the causal player an easy access point to the world of MMORPG's.  The good news is that many casual players will get bored with it...and they'll come searching for games with a bit more complexity and maturity....and I'll welcome them with open arms, always good to get more comrads in arms to take down the forces of Order.

For the same reason you can't believe all the hype of other games, take the negativity associated with this game with a grain of salt.  After having played SOE, EA, Mythic, CCP I'm here to tell you that the makers of Star Craft and WarCraft made WoW and they made it well ....and to a large extent that is where a lot of the flaming comes from.

K>>Of course you have to ignore the flaming and accept the game for what it is...a well put together game, that hits its target market more or less perfectly.  Sure, folks are jealous of its success, and more than a little fearful that the copycat syndrome will set in and restrict our future gaming options.  The jury's still out on that last point, only time will tell if WOW's influence will be good or bad overall for the MMORPG genre.

I think its a decent idea..... toss it to Mythic and maybe we'll see something like it... if not in DAOC, perhaps in WAR.

Yep, I have a guild mate who last fall had one of  his accounts stolen from him, and all his plat/gear transferred off his characters to someone else.  i was quite surprised by Mythic's response which was, "account security is a player issue, and there is nothing we can do to restore your account".  

I was amazed because in WOW, many people have lost their accounts to keyloggers and the like...and Blizzard has more or less helped all of them restore their characters (some folks have claimed to have not been helped...but who knows?)

This person I speak of is not a computer illiterate, his boxes were well secured by virus/spyware prevention software and behind a good solid firewall.  (If I had to guess I'd say he downloaded a third-party UI that nailed him...just as so often happens in WOW)

And the result was the same...he cancelled his 4 or 5 accounts....and now plays WOW instead.....

But my own experiences with Blizzard CSR's (especially phone support) has been always a good experience for me.....