The combat is very unresponsive indeed. Especially in PVP this is a gamebreaking issue. It is not immediately obvious for everyone, but if you are a good gamer, have good rig and good connection and are used to WOWs milisecond perfect execution, it is very clear. I don't know what they plan to do about it, but I sure hope something gets done fast, else this could cost them a lot of subs.

I think it's still too soon to say whether or not this will flop. People may say what they want, this game is so similar to WOW, it's not even funny. There are new things like companions and voice over, but overall feel and endgame is completely the same as WOW (dailies, dungeons, HC dungs, raids, instanced pvp, failed open world pvp). While all these things are like WOW, it lacks the many years of updates and polish that WOW had. SWTOR is plagued with many issues, GUI, unresponsive combat, some severe bugs, some badly designed mechanics, some unbalance.

We will see in 2 - 6 months. In my oppinion it all depends on how fast BW can get SWTOR to be on par with WOW polish wise and then how fast will they release new content to get the upper hand. However seeing as some gamebreaking things are unchanged in the game since beta, frankly I don't see the future that rosy. Some things need a complete redesing (for example Ilum).

So yea, they spent all that money to remake WOW in SW coating, it has no really stand out features (yes the VO is nice, but it alone will not save the game), so now they have to make sure they are better than WOW and do it fast.

Originally posted by divmax

 

Also, you say that "any outcomes [are] irrelevant". Well, I fail to see how repeatedly raiding the same dungeons is any more relevant than saving a virtual village from wolves. They are both normally immersive the first time you play through the experiences. They can both be social activities. They can both be atmospheric and keep one on the edge of ones seat, if the game has been designed properly. They impact the game world equally. ie. zero impact actually.

It's not relevant at all, as you say. You don't raid to have impact on the world, you raid for the gameplay experience. Why do you think people playing normal multiplayer games play for? Building up your stuff, eternally progressing, "investing" into the game are things that have zero point in any linear level based MMO. The persistent world itself is not really that important in these games tbh, trying to approach with sandbox values doesn't make sense, it is not possible to combine the opposing elements.

Thus the gameplay itself should be the reason I play this game, same as it is when playing Counterstrike, StarCraft or whatever are the equivalents kids play nowadays. And as I said, questing gameplay is far far far far far superior in single player RPGs for obvious reasons. On the other hand, there are basically no alternatives for cooperative PVE gameplay of WOW (with a couple of exceptions like the old school Bioware RPGs, it isn't the same cup of tea tho). The experience of coordinated cooperative gameplay in dungeons and raids is what is unique in linear theme-park MMOs and in particular WOW.

I get the feeling this thread consists half of sandbox enthusiasts, that want to invest in the game and half of solo questers that want to... I don't really know what they want, I guess quest forever, which clearly isn't possible in a game with finite amount of content as sooner or later you reach the end of the road.

Originally posted by Garvon3

Originally posted by sanicek

Originally posted by Garvon3

 

Ever heard of a game called Dark Age of Camelot?

You mean the game with end game consisting of RVR PVP?

The point was that it wasn't a sandbox game nor was it so grindy that "no one ever reached the level cap". And no, the end game consisted of crafting, raiding, RvR, or collecting. It was a well made MMO that actually balanced different play styles into of being a one trick pony forcing the devs to desperately raise the level cap and churn out new "content" like most WoW clones. It's hard to believe in this day and age, I know.

But it had an end-game different from the (intended) leveling process, correct? It may have been different than WOWs raiding or small team PVP, but I never said it's the only way. But the issue is about general end game phase which I believe can be clearly identified in DAoC.

Originally posted by Garvon3

 

Ever heard of a game called Dark Age of Camelot?

You mean the game with end game consisting of RVR PVP?

Originally posted by stayghost

Originally posted by sanicek

I can't believe so many people are in blind agreement. If you don't like end game and dungeons do not interest you, why do you even play MMOs? From PVE perspective, dungeons and in particular engame raids are THE concepts around which MMOs revolve.

 

I would respectfully disagree with you. The mmoRPG concept was created for social interaction and freedom within a role playing environment. The genre took a turn for a more palatable and easy to assimilate format of linnear level progression akin to a console adventure game but multiplayer on a massive scale. Both are valid formats but the fans of the original premis of the genre are under served right now.

 

I think this highlights a fundamental difference in the fanbase of these games predicated on what games they cut their teeth on. And with such vocal dissention from the OG's about the current state of things you would hope some one would be able to step up to the plate. Who knows - maybe TITAN is a sandbox? Maybe EA will ressurect UO2/UO:X?

I realize and agree with this, maybe I should have rather said "why do you even play theme-park MMOs". Sanboxes are a different kind of beast altogether and nothing would please me more than high quality sandbox MMO (that doesn't have EVE's combat system).

However as far as theme-park MMOs go, I feel the end game concept is valid and the MMO factor is best realized in it for the reasons I already stated in my post.

Originally posted by Ceridith

...

Because the concept of endgame has never been a required 'feature' for an MMO. Several pre-WoW MMOs did not even have a solid level cap, let alone a concept of endgame.

Again, endgame is not a requirement for an MMO. The current industry trend is to throw in a level cap and endgame simply because the eleven and a half million pound gorilla in the room has it.

The truth is MMOs before WOW were either sandbox (which as I said my post is not about and I wholly agree that MMOs should be more sandboxy virtual worlds) or very bluntly put they were so grindy that people din't manage to reach the cap by the time the paradigm changed and WOW arrived.

I can't believe so many people are in blind agreement. If you don't like end game and dungeons do not interest you, why do you even play (Edit:) theme-park MMOs? From PVE perspective, dungeons and in particular engame raids are THE concepts around which MMOs revolve. Questing is essentially a single player non challenging gameplay. Why would I want to do that in an MMO, where the storytelling is super-boring and any outcomes irrelevant? If I want that kind of experience, I'll fire some awesome single player RPG where the storytelling, quests and progress are actually entertaining and the results affect the world with truly epic proportions.

Cooperative PVE is the thing I expect (and require) from my MMOs, as mentioned above, bland irrelevant and in vast majority single player quests are concepts better served elsewhere ( we will see how Bioware will solve this dilemma). Only in MMOs can you experience cooperative group play that requires constant cooperation of the whole group to overcome fights with interesting mechanics. I'm going to focus on WOW here, because it best illustrates the endgame concept and is my game of choice. All my characters in WOW except the 1st one were leveled up almost purely from running dungeons (and since the XP change sometimes via PVP). And those dungeons and raids are what keeps me subscribed to WOW (belive me, I tried many many other MMOs), because I haven't seen those kinds of instances anywhere else (DDO and LOTRO was kinda nice, but WOW still wins by huge margin) . Every clone outh there replicates the super-boring quest and world part and utterly fails to make interesting dungeons with interesting boss fights.

For the PVP folk, it's different in every game, many are PVP oriented with RVR etc, where obviously level cap levels the playing field. In WOW you have battlegrounds and arenas, which are valid end-game options, this time what shines is the balance, again group cooperation (as opposed to mindless zerg in many games), and super fluid combat.

From my rant you may think that I'm some kind of WOW fanboy, while in fact that is not true. I realize the game has many flaws and I would love to start playing something something different. I tried DDO, LOTRO, WAR, AOC, COX, Aion, Vanguard and plenthora of lesser MMOs, but none of them retained my interest exactly because they lacked good dungeon content (or equivalent coordinated PVE experience) and solid end game content based on that.

*This post does not include sandboxes, as was said by mrcalhou above, there the whole game is endgame, especially because there is no set goal and player actions affect environment. Sadly the current crop does not interest due to lack of quality or game mechanics I can't stomach. Still waiting for "EVE with twitch combat" kind of game.

I see casual, hardcore and other completely meaningless terms being thrown around and posts and implications made based upon some random definitions of these. There are however several factors to consider, raw time invested, gaming skill, schedule, in game activity preference, etc. A person can play 15 hours a day and still be a simply bad gamer and capable of simple quests at best.

To get the best gear in the game, which is how you progress once you are on lvl cap, you don't particulary need huge amounts of time, you however need skill and being able to keep schedule, since raiding is an activity you have to organize among many players.

WOW shifted to provide rewards for players with both not enough time (quick epic drops in 5 mans, slowly gathering badges, dailies...) and at the same time to those that lack skill, you know, those who stand in fire (again dailies, farming 5 mans, quests, grind achievements... ). This happens more and more every expansion and major patch. Raid content is getting trivial, catered to guilds populated by in-fire-standers. Last little hope are the hard modes, which are not that very hard anyway.

Gear lost any kind of uniqueness, models are completely the same, I guess to make the ones incapable to get the higher item level pieces to feel good, since they can still look the same as a raider geared in full hard mode loot. Epic is no longer epic at all.

Seems most people are under the assumption that MMO is about (solo) quests, especially leveling part. Personally if I play PVE MMO, I do it for cooperative PVE, ie dungeons. Sadly the 5 mens got completely trivial, no CC is ever needed, the party just zooms through the instance. The new(WOTLK) 5 man dungeons are generic, short and boring, again catered so they can be done in 30 minutes or farmed for badges. Gone are the days of magical journeys to BRD or UBRS or having a challenging 5 man dungeon (last 1 was probably Magisters Terrace, while at it, compare the difficulty and effort needed in that incarnation of epic dropping 5 man vs the current incarnation of epic dropping TOC).

This is one of the subjects that could be discussed ad nausea, in fact its happening all the time on many boards in many topics.

Hmm, bumped or not, at least made me notice it.

If there really is no jump, it is a big disappointment for me and most likely a deal breaker. I gave up on GW, Ryzom and FFXI precisely for the lack of jumping. No jumping is understandable in case of mouse controls, ala BG, Diablo, <random asian grinder>. If a game is WASD though, there is simply no excuse for not being able to jump, period.

thx for the info guys, that is unfortunate

I tried the search function and checked last ~200 topics but did not find info about this.

Is there an option of third party interface addons in Aion?

Or, to what extent is the default interface configurable?

Aion sounds interesting, but if I can't set up the gui as I want, I will not bother.

Originally posted by Godliest

I just know that a friend of mine, who's a girl, and some other friends of mine, who're not girls, all agree that Avatar: The Last Airbender is indeed an awesomesauce anime. Be warned though: it's aimed at 7-10 year olds so don't except something very mature, but it's fun at least.

Well technically The Avatar is NOT anime. But I agree it's funny as hell.

Well the Czech were always eurosceptic and in greater sense globalosceptic (is that a word? :O ). He may be trying to get voting preferences up in wake of the fall of the goverment, who knows. Tbh I think he just said loud and clear what others are thinking or do not want to say because they actually planned this road.

Well, you probably want something from the Josei demographic category, for inspiration:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Josei

I would say trying Honey & Clover is a good bet.

There is of course the tree view structure often used on sites for comments, however that has its own disadvantages as well. I think most people are used to how forums operate, I only wish people would stop creating huge quote pyramids, maybe an option to quote without the actual content, only reference of poster and maybe post #, etc.

Killed fireflies, felt no guilt, coz I know that there is no spoon.

Well, personally I found ignosticism (no it's not a typo) to be the closest to my view on this matter and taking into account the evidence (or rather a lack thereof) also probably the most logical approach one can take.

I partly agree with the OP, however this goes mostly for the hardcore atheist, I assume many atheists that consider themselves that are actually much closer to being agnostics or ignostics, but are simply not aware of the definitions and do not care, same as they probably do not care much whether or not there is a god.

The Cremator - www.imdb.com/title/tt0063633/

Originally posted by Teala

Originally posted by sanicek

I hope not, it's my trip to NY and Niagaras this weekend, no next 48 hours please. In fact, wait with anything ominous until the end of next week when I'm leaving for good, will you.

 

Leaving for good?  What do you mean?

I don't live in US, was just here for few months on business, so whatever nasty surprises gonna happen please wait one more week :)