I wouldn't complain, I am actually surprised they were available for *any* questions at this time, which is obviously far far in advance of release (of course I inferred that :P).

CoX has been improving in superleaps and bounds lately and is pumping out these updates in a rather timely manner. While the graphics may feel dated to many, the game's features, group dynamics and general fun-factor more than makes up for them, imho. Boosting everything to max graphically helps too and not at any loss of performance for nearly all aspects of the game (Rikti and zombie mass invasions are typically the only thing that will push it).

I, for one, think this expansion will be highly successful.

Take Tabula Rasa, change the setting, remove aliens, remove most traditional MMORPG aspects, add more PvP aspects.

I recently hooked up with a group of players that are all friends IRL and have an established online gaming group (I think there are 6-8 of them on LOTRO now).

Having played LOTRO since opening, I am getting a kick out of watching them play, living somewhat vicariously through them as we adventure.

What is important for me to note is how they feel about LOTRO's features as they compare it to everything else they have played in the past (their teamspeak server has perhaps 12-15 subservers on it, each for a different online game they previously/currently play).

At any rate, they are having a great time and I have not been hearing any complaints so far.

Well, I would estimate that about 90% of LOTRO is outdoors, with "enclosed" areas few and far between, even when outdoors.

Moria is a unique location and the focus of the expansion but, even then, you have Eregion and Lothlorien added along with it, both of which are open air. Moria, itself, has a ceiling throughout most of it that is higher than you can see without forcing yourself to do so :P.

Aside from Mirkwood (if people thought the Old Forest was crazy, look out), I don't foresee many more large enclosed areas.

At any rate, I love Moria; it brings back memories of traditional dungeon-crawling in tabletop games for me.

I played the beta for about a week and enjoyed it for what it was, however, it didn't make me excited for its release.

1) There really isn't anything in it for brand new players unless someone changed the minimum level requirement on an older character that opens up Death Knight playability. That being said, anyone can spend a couple weeks on a new character and meet that requirement in no time :P (Madness?! This is WOW!!)

2) You get to play as a Death Knight starting at level 55 and you will likely complete the new DK's area around 57.5 (probably a few hours), then grind or do Plagueland quests to meet the requirements to enter BC. Then you get to do all the old crap you have been doing for the last year but only after losing your awesome DK starting armor and turning into a colorful version of Bozo the Death Knight. THEN you can quest and grind to be able to adventure on Northrend. Sure, you can venture to Northrend earlier but good luck with that.

3) Nothrend is cool, as are the changes made to the cities with new ports and such for transportation (I especially liked the Stormwind one). Blizzard has always done a good job with snowy areas, imho, and the addition of new snow flurries, dynamic shadows and, possibly, better graphics/textures (or it could just be an illusion created from the new shadows and general better art) really does make the game look nicer. The new continent seems a little "tight" in some parts though. I think they will feel that way to a lot of people at first, too.

Some of the new parts of Northrend look especially nice and the attention to detail is very good. I personally liked Nagrand's design and many areas of Northrend thrilled me as much as it did at first impression.

4) New spells and abilities? Yeah definitely cool. Who couldn't love being able to dual-wield two-handed swords? Now I just need to find out where the three-handed swords drop...

I think most people will love the expansion but it doesn't offer enough new content for me. Perhaps a second Hero class would have helped...Fun is fun, I wish the best to those breaking down the virtual gates!

If I had to guess, the combat will likely be *very* similar to TR, especially if they lean towards the "action" style that is becoming more prevalent in MMO design and that TR actually did a good job with.

TR had basic hand to hand melee weapon attacks as well as ranged attacks produced from melee weaponry (like the staves). TR also had disperse weapons; not only flame throwers but also sonic, viral, EMP and cryo based weaponry using the same concept (I loved my grenadier).

The one thing that this game will offer (potentially) is a greater adventure with less limitation. That, added with the general IP "cool" factor, will help the success and longevity, imho. TR combat is a blast, it just needs a new setting for its application.

It looks a lot like TR to me, minus some lighting effects and general detail/resolution. To me, however, I see this as a general plus. Combat in TR, especially the firefights, was what kept me playing (that and decent adversary AI during them). The problem with TR that I had was the same problem the Spawn comic had initially, every issue was the same drawn out story that never seemed to get anywhere.

SG has the ability to include diverse settings, pristine bases instead of "thrown together" battlefield types and have more storyline than a "post" cataclysm/recovery type thing. TR might have had a few worlds but players were back and forth on them and the developers move so slowly that players always had ample opportunity to notice they were doing the same thing over and over with a different backdrop on occasion.

Anyone level 70+ that is complaining about being bored needs to brush the potato chip crumbs off their chest and go empty the crap bucket from beneath their chair.

If any player thinks they can get to level 80 solo, then they didn't do things like Sanctum of Burning Souls at the quest given levels, because, if they did, they didn't make it beyond the spiders, guaranteed, and there are many such group oriented instances.

If a player *didn't* do these instances, they are missing out on some pretty dang nice/cool places to adventure and cheating themselves of content that occurs *before* endgame.

Hehe, I liked Chill. I would love to see something in a game wherein effects from games like the Call of Cthulhu P&P would occur, like seeing something so dark and terrible that one's character would go sit down and simply gibber or go crazy and begin attacking friends and foe alike until they or everyone else is dead.

I love the idea of having another use for campfires but the duration timers desperately need to be extended on the basic one, at the very least. They are somewhat prohibitive to make due to their cost and only last, what, 3 or 5 minutes, tops?

I never understood why they were so shortlasting to begin with, an environmental usage like this should be more than enough reason to make them last longer, imo.

It isn't about "not getting it" or which game is "superior." Everyone has their opinions and their favorites. Everyone can easily place judgment on others based on these.

What it comes down to is FUN. Everyone has their own prerequisites for what makes a game FUN. If a game is FUN to someone, then they will play it. If one plays a game and does not have FUN, then they should probably check something else out.

The type of threads which have posts such as this one are usually just trolling for someone to convince the poster that a particular game is FUN. The truth is, only each individual player can do that for themselves.

Sure, a person's opinion can have yummy icing and a big red bow on it; sure, one can show me all the wonderful features the opinion has; but when it comes down to it, if I don't see the FUN factor in it that satisfies MY criteria, I will never accept it.

Originally posted by altairzq

Your avatar sucks.

Seriously, though, I can see how you pad your post count, now...

I believe the video is the one taken from the Game Developers Conference that occured last week from the 22nd to the 24th at the Moscone Center at San Francisco. It is about 20-25 mins long too, shows some character design, starting area, a level 80 instance with a small group, mounts and mounted combat, and craft hall/clan keep construction. I found it either on this site or tentonhammer.com under recent news entries.

It shows quite a lot and he *does* state, specifically, that the game should run with a computer that was considered "top of the line" four years ago. I can only cross my fingers that it is true and that I won't have to run at the lowest graphical settings, at the very least, because it looks fantastic, IMHO.

The picts he was referring to were obviously the ones from the "real" world of proto-gaelic history, not Howard's, which were simply based upon them, hence my post also based (and not coincidentally) on the Picts of the "real" world's history.

Picts in the world of Conan are based on historical fact that has actually been modified since Howard died and are much more barbaric and primitive than what is know commonly accepted by historians.

Originally posted by greymann

Being the picts defeated the Romans and had a huge navy I kinda picture them being armed with more than pointy sticks.

The picts had a navy? Their piracy was purely coastal and more akin to boat raiding. Their neighbors, the Gaels, were likely more advanced and even they had no "navy." At best, Picts were at the level of Gaels in nearly all facets of culture and had possibly acquired their best equipment from Britons and Gaels. When the vikings (Danes mostly) arrived, what little ragtag tribal kingdoms they possessed were smashed. Within three generations their entire civilization was nearly extinguished.

I created and ran a text Mud based on the Age of Reptiles comics series' by Dark Horse, in which players portrayed Deinonychus in packs. As dinosaurs from this particular comic story, the players possessed rudimentary 'human like' thoughts and behaviour but were still (physically) dinosaurs. They could not speak at all (sounds and emotes only), PvP existed and permadeath did as well. There was no economy, levels were stripped down to as to make it more skill oriented and the concept of possessions (gear) was nonexistant.

I had to strip out and alter a good chunk of code (you might be surprised how many mechanics elements one takes for granted). I am, sadly, no true coder so I ran into issues trying to modify the 'birth' program in the game that enabled characters to couple and, eventually, lay an egg that could hatch and later be played as a character file.

I have always witnessed the best 'role playing' of characters in online games via text Muds and my Age of Reptiles game surely had some of the best I have ever seen. This type of game does not appeal to the majority of players out there but, for the niche game that it was, I had a good core group of players that were either fans of the comics/artist-creator, dinosaur fans and/or simply Role-Play Intensive mud fans looking for a challenge. Such a game provided the best character interaction I have ever experienced.

I once ran a "roleplaying intensive" MUD based on the Age of Reptiles comics series in which players portrayed Deinonychus'. I modified level max from 60+ to around 30 max (based on stats) and the setting was perma-death, though inventory was non-existent for the most part. Death was commonplace since more than a few predators would attack, kill and eat players at all levels of ability. PvP between two packs of characters also occured but combat led to knock-outs with "killing blows" being by choice at that point.

What made it work was the community of players and the fact that roleplaying was enforced (and rewarded) by IMMs. Granted, the populace for such a game setting was limited (my record high was maybe 50) but it worked pretty well. Griefers and players that wanted to generally run around on killing sprees were not tolerated.

I like the sound of an inheritance concept but I also would like to have an adult-only MMORPG that had a birth code that could generate a playable character file for children.

Although I did not take *personal* offense to this article, I can easily detect a negative tone. There are many kinds of roleplayers, in fact, easily as many varied types as, if not more than, the PvPers and gear hunters or raid enthusiasts.

One thing I find odd in general about the article is that, somehow, the author does not feel that casual gamers can be RPers to any degree and, even quite possibly, some of the more active RPers of any particular game. Quite often I could be categorized as a "casual player," yet I am always an avid, if not completely, dedicated roleplayer.

I play MMORPGs primarily as an escape from reality and as a primary source of socializing. Roleplaying is simply a tool that quite often succeeds in fulfilling *both* of those things for me. Nearly all of those I have RPed with in-game I have also shared OOC conversations with (either via whisper/direct tells, or relaxed group/team conversations) and, I am happy to say, I have shared online friendships with some for many years. To me, it is all about having fun; that in itself seems like a reasonably good reason to RP. To each there own.

First off, "baroque" is being improperly used by the author; the proper word is "brogue." Baroque refers to a Renaissance era type of art, music or architecture.

I am happy to see so many posters speak precisely what is on my mind regarding this article and have little else to offer. My only point to make is simply that, without original tabletop RPGs and roleplayers, in general, mmorpgs as we know them would not exist. Most likely the best we would have is variations of mulitplayer Gauntlet, Joust and mayhem combat games like Battlefield, et al.

Non roleplayers should take the time to stop and say "thank you" to every "silly" RPer they encounter in an MMO.