Originally posted by Blurr

Originally posted by shakermaker0

OK, Ok. As writer of this series, I take on your criticisms and in later articles will strive to remedy the negatives. As I point out time and time again, these are my opinions, try as I might, I am going to always be subjective- such is being human. Bias is something that nobody can hide, however, this is something I will try to minimize in future.

In regards to your comments that the website is trying to stir up some sort of inter-mmo war. Come on buddy, these articles are meant to be fun and entertaining. They are not the last word in the quality of the game neither or they meant to be pieces of journalistic art. Sure there is an element of debate to them but come on, I'm trying to entertain people on this website first and foremost. Give me a break.

Also, Eve Online versus Star Trek Online- is it a fair comparison? I am going to say yes, as both share a common genre element. Sure, it's sand box versus theme park but on the general idea that these are the foremost representations of Space MMORPGs, I think it fair to consider these worthy of the comparison.

 

The fact is that compared to other legitimate sites, and the articles therein, this piece doesn't hold up. I think the problem is, though, that many of us expected that same level of professionalism that we see on those other sites. That is apparently our mistake. I fully realize (now anyways) that I was expecting the site to be held to a standard it's not striving for. 

I see now that this site is more the "tabloid" version to the "newspapers" that are those other sites. Articles with titles in the realm of "Why this popular MMO will ruin your life" or "game x vs. game y" are simply for shock value, to draw people in and sell ad space, while they really contain only poorly written opinions and meaningless scores. That's okay, though, because people still read tabloids.

On a personal note, I would like to give you some friendly advice and say that I hope you are not expecting to make a career out of being a game journalist. When you respond to criticisms by essentially saying "the articles aren't meant to be good journalism", it doesn't bode well. If you were serious about being a journalist, I would imagine you would try to make every article good, because your past work is what future employers are going to judge you on. People don't want to read articles where you just 'phone it in' as it were. If you are serious about a career in journalism, I would suggest perhaps finding some local professional writing courses, studying journalism, and working on your writing structure.

I will make sure, next time, to remember the level of quality the site is striving for may not be the level I would expect.

V ery well said. For myself MMORPG has just lost it's place as my homepage. This article and the 'quality' it shows was a joke. The simple fact is the retraction by MMORPG as they backpedal away from this shows if the article is not libel then it is merely an opinion and I don't come here to read mere opinion pieces that belong in an EVE fanboi forum.

I don't come here to watch a petulant writer, and I use the term looslely after viewing his blog here, who's ability to put forward their ideas in a manner that is far more deserving of a 'troll post' be given a soapbox to vent. SB Ford should be ashamed that he even passed such a thing for 'publication'.

Very, very poor form MMORPG, things have been going down hill for a very long time but it appears your editorial body has finally hit rock bottom. After many years it appears our relationship is over. I would however be interested to know where exactly Adam Tingle fits into your 'vision' TM, as EQ would've put it. You say he's not a games reviewer but a regular contributor. Well in that case if this is the 'quality' you seek I'll be taking my reading on MMO's to a more reputable website and be encouraging all of my friends to do the same.

I'd wish you good luck but to be honest if this is the drivel you want to serve up then I'm quite happy to simply head out now I've shared my opinion...

Going to be crap. They'll build it up to be something that can't be delivered and we'll all just be pissed off. Will go the same way as most the other heavy IP games of the past 4 years. Shame, could've been so much more with the willingness to take some risks.

Every army should be it's own faction.

If they can't have everything finished for release they can release other armies and races as updates and tell players who are playing those new races as they're released to shut up and suck it up. They got the race so no they won't get any special treatement because the other race has been in play for nine months.

Land should be divided like DAoC with PvE zone and open planets that are up for conquer.

PvP should be mandatory with your pve 'prowess' dropping without engagement in the real war...ie 'training' will only take you so far.

Crafted items should be the best items available beyond extremely rare weapons captured from pvp planet fortresses that can be wielded for two weeks before they are 'stolen' back by whatever assassin/merc group you want to spin a story about.

Fighting should result in other bonuses, whether they be crafting, melee, ranged, extra 'income' 'cash drops' better crafting resources from foundary whatever.

They state from day 1 we balance our powers/abilities/classes for pvp or pve. I don't care which one but they should state it and stick with it and tell crying newbies to go back to whatever game they came from when they cry for more balance because they suck. Because Devs need to state we balance our game according to what we perceive as fair. Not what you want you fotm to be.

But hey why would any marketing guru or producer possible allow a dev to 'alienate the customer base' to that degree. Instead they'll make a crap two sided game that'll be a token homage to 40k that the enthusiasts they're trying to bring in will simply go 'screw that, was good for alook but will go back to my TABLE TOP gaming and MINITAURE PAINTING and BUILDING TERRAIN and sharing all those things with groups of people who love doing those same things. One day these people will get a clue that just because something has a fanbase or enthusioasts doesn't mean that they'll come play MMO's because they're a completely different thing. Sure some of us play MMO's and own half a dozen armies and have been playing since good old WD was a small orange fanzine in black and white and when someone talks about squat trikes and rogue trader and harlequins we have a clue.

Or we understand that something like Xenos Hybris is a RADICAL MINOR faction and has no real support at all and the majority of humanity would right it off as a bunch of heretics who should be burnt at the stake in lore and outside of lore was nothing but a little fluff to add to a TABLE TOP ROLE PLAY GAME as BAD GUYS for the HEROIC PC's to interact with. But hey keep grasping at those straws. We also understand that the Eye of Terror was a way to include all players in a game and was done as a marketing ploy for customers and nothing really to do with lore as it was written. Scenario was created so people could play.

Suffice to say weak thinking, spineless producers and creators will leave us with a hlaf baked imitation of every other MMO we have out there in an attempt to make ap lay for a big market without understanding a small niche product like table top W40K gaming went out on a limb years ago and certain people loved it and respected it and others simply thought it was crap. Same will happen here and in some stupid attempt to please everyone the developers and producers will let down everyone.

For gods sake, I wish some game company would grow a pair and build us a game with meat on it's bones and an identity I can respect and become passionate about...

GL DMO, you're going to need it...

pfft SOE is the devil? Huh?

DDO didn't draw too much froim WoW? Huh?

GW and DDO as a comparative look at F2P?

I can read anything in that article on any fanboi infested troll haven. Nothing to see, move on, another 'writer' whose 'work' I'm not even going to look at any more. Guess the beta keys just don't get the same level of journalistic integrity as good old real money. Same as the MMO companies worked out, you cease to actually pay people to do a good job you get crap. Maybe a good article to extend the whole F2P thing would be looking at loosing paid beta testers and journalists who used to write articles in exchange for 5 min famers and pre launch trials. Because the gist I'm getting is you pay peanuts you get monkeys.

FYI, SOE built the 3D MMO genre with EQ.

WoW is crap. DDO is a semi decent game.

GW and DDO are NOTHING alike.And

 just so we're clear. Free to play is a coined business model. It's pretty much fluff these days because we all know ALL of the game isn't free. Personally I like the user choses how much to pay system. I want to pay a little I don't sub. I want to play a lot I sub for a bit. Some people I know simply bought everything when the modules were on special and are glad they're now pretty much a life time sub for a few hundred dollars.

I only do F2P now. And it's a lot nicer to my wallet then subs were. :)

I'd put money on the people who are whinging about f2p are those who are still playing usbs and watching their populations dwindling. :D

f2p is awesome. $100 got me everything I want to access in DDO. If they release another top end raid dungeon I may consider picking it up. Most MMO's I've played under a sub model cost me more then that. Hello, box price..in Oz I'd be spending about $100 just to pick up a game let alone subs on top of that.

f2p best model ever. Even better because Blizzard/Activision's annual report  has major copncerns about it and what it'll do to their revenue stream. Doesn't sound like a bad thing for players/consumers if sub games believe their revenue will drop...

Originally posted by JestorRodo

From : http://www.rttnews.com/Content/TopStories.aspx?Id=1335243&SM=1

(RTTNews) -  While Activision Blizzard, Inc.'s (ATVI) World of Warcraft has long been the top dog in the world of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), boasting 11.5 million subscribers, the fantasy world of Azeroth could finally face some serious competition from Sony Online Entertainment's DC Universe Online.

Benefiting from the built-in fan base of DC comics as well as the recent resurgence of the popularity of super heroes, DC Universe Online could also attract subscribers with an interesting combination of action and role-playing elements as demonstrated at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles.  ENDQUOTE

 

 I doubt that highly

 What I doubt is WoW has 11+ million subscribers. It has that many subscriptions but not that many players. And the chinese part of the equation took a dive last year and never recovered. It'd be nice for the new numbers to be released but we won't ever see that. Far too easy to sit back and rest on the apex of your history then tell the truth that you game is in actual fact in decline...

 

So when do we see a new sub tally or a subs closed from Blizzard soon...waiting waiting for the co report.

Originally posted by atomtan

I'm very much interested in what the WoD MMO will bring to the table.

Don't hold your breath...

EVE already does some of this.

The reason why this won't work is very simple. You can say LARpers are geeks but a big difference between LARPers and MMOers is LARPers turn up at an event. They are held accountable for their actions. If a whole band of LARP 'workers' took their lvl 2 goblins and ambushed as a group only those LARP groups they could take down and then taunt them in game or off game at another forum or site how long would your goblin band be acting for?

The intraweb brings anonymity and some tossers use that to detract rather then enhance the enjoyment of their community. As long as their are selfish pricks and griefers in MMoers true player generated content will be something no publisher will want for fear of driving off the hordes of pimply faced teenagers and college students trolling for a little heroics on a PC screen because life is oh so droll.

In theory awesome, in truth stupid idea, expand on game experience and you would be aware of some games that included open pvp and a little world 'developing' and why they're no longer with us. And do we really want these mmo gaming geeks allowing their mates to stand up as training dummies while they smash through 'easy mode player 'generated' content for free xp/loot/stats? Because you should also understand as long as we have had MMO's there have been some who will cheat, hack and exploit to gain a benefit.

Oh well, was a good idea for a fleeting moment. Look beyond WoW and WAR as the profile indicates, gain a good grounding in what has come before and failed and then we can get on with reading content we've not looked at before. Time is precious as they say.

DDO would be keeping more then 3 out of 10 that reach level 2.5. That's what we're talking about if you want to look at equivalent level ranges.

Originally posted by MacAllen

My sentiments as always, "put up or shut up".  Nothing more ridiculous than people ranting over an over on a board that shows they're still paying to play the game.

"You can spit in my eye only 16 more times, and THEN I'm leaving!"

Quit the game, and post in your exit survey why you're quitting.  Enough people quit, they'll learn.  Posting how much you hate the decision while still paying for the game makes your words empty and pointless, literally.  You might as well  be saying how much you hate a restaurant's food with a mouth full of it while ordering the second course and leaving a huge tip.

Credibility, it's not just for breakfast anymore.

Re: SnarlingWolf, nothing gets accomplish by ranting and paying, either.  If you don't like it, quit.  If enough people quit, it will change.  If you are the only one that quits, then it's just you that doesn't like it.  It's called capitalism, and it really is that simple.

What you want is to eat your cake and have it to, you want Blizz to value you as a person and your input, but to Blizz you are .00000000001% of their game population.  Keep in mind, they deliberately and with forethought of the consequences alienated 1% of their gaming population by making the upper tiers of the game easier and more available.  They intentionally decided "we have 30% of the  game being seen by 1% of the population, and if we change it, that top 1% will very likely leave the game, but the other 99% will enjoy it more....very well, sacrifice that 1%". 

As a consumer of a 12 million player game, your words could not be more empty, because they're not heard in the cacaphony.  If you quit, and you are alone, then it's just you, go play something else.  If enough people quit, Blizz will have to change to save the cash cow.  Not rocket science.

QFT

with one correction,

Bliz don't have 12 million wow subs. You may want to take a real good look at the chinese data before making that kind of retarded comment. As you said, people just keep putting out the same old crap...like the sub count. Not 12 mil now and would've actually have been lucky to be that high.

Oh and why you're talking to Bliz you guys should ask them why they give xpacks to the china market for free but charge the western muppets....good for the goose and all that jazz...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

/breathe

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Guess Bl;izzard just joined SOE with the screw over your customer crap. Even SOE didn't sink to this. You buy their crappy product you play by their crappy rules.

And those who say they don't even use their real name when signing up to a contractual agreement to subscribe...you had best hope there is never an issue with your account :)

And once more

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

fanbois -1

Corp +1

You give WoW far too much creditr there son.

I don't hate everytihng WoW has done. I just despise Blizzard. They lie and their viral marketing fanbois are all over mmorpg like white on rice. So don't expect to get much of anything except a smaller bank balance from the tedious repetitive food dispenser that is WoW. Bliz games have always sucked and will always suck. End of story pretty much.

Paladins, love em. Next someone will come up with the whacky idea that WoW was original or something...hell even Flyff had cartoon gfx before WoW did.

I didn't. I love raiding. I love yelling at retards who literally beg for the chance to be taken on board and given the chance to pick up some loot. Their lives lack so little in the way of any real achievements themselves that loot in a game is the only chance they'll ever have to move beyond their dead end job.

Buy new game, pay levelling service, buy strats, build guild with ten core friends and bunch of losers who will let us play our sick perverted games with their egos and dysfunctional social skills. Hey it's something to kill the time while wiating for my next trust cheque.

Raiding I love it. And I love the whines like those represented here even moreso...

None unless I was getting paid. My relaxation time is too precious to me to spend it testing someone elses product for free.

I don't even really stop by MMORPG much anymore. It's my homepage but more often then not I've moved on before even allowing all the ads to load. I still see the current forum topic though. When I started to find what appeared to be 'ads' in the actual forums was when I stoopped visiting often. Then some of the articles and writers started to really just be 'advertorials' rather then fair and honest assesments and crtiques for us, the consumer. All rather sad really.

I think MMORPG does reflect the games industry quite well. As soon as the paid testers went out the window and we had fanbois who were active on forums for up to three years hanging out to get their hands on product, or beta keys handed out as incentives to buy another product, or awarded in competitions, the quality of testing dropped off. Why pay someone to test when they can get it done for free. Even if for the most part the testing is sub-standard by most 'testers'.

Seems to me that this philosophy has carried over to forums. Why pay for advertising when you can simply troll your oppositions forum denegrating their product as opposed to building up your own. WoW appears to do this exceptionally well. Proving it's happening isn't easy but some posts just seem a little too full of vitriol for one product and praise for something else.

I guess we can't complain. As long as we buy the bug ridden or overly simplistic crap they serve us as entertainment they'll continue to do so.

I don't think the 'new' posters are so much new as just more of what has always been here.

Oh well, such is life...

I've been playing MMO's for over a decade and have been involved in all kinds of events. From the original halloween event in EQ with werewolves and undead charging down on Qeynos Gates to this latest debacle in Champions Online.

For starters I'd encourage any MMO company to ensure that if they plan on running events with limited time only rewards with timed scenarios that they best either make sure their servers are stable or there is a mechanism that allows for your progress to be tracked.

Just listening to zone chat more people are pissed off with Blood Moon then are pleased with it. It's an absolute shambles. Instead of drawing players to the game I just keep seeing about people who are leaving.

Where did Cryptic go wrong...I recall the Rikti Invasion at the end of CoH beta and it was pulled off quite well. Bit of lag but witht he number of people about that's understandable, at least the server didn't keep crashing out from underneath me.

The developers and people in charge of CO should be ashamed of the current state of the game. If this is how they handle something like Champions Online, a super hero MMO they've had a dry run with CoH before just how the hell are they going to pull off Star Trek. Looks like it'll be Star Wars for my sci fi fix.

Seriously disappointed.

Originally posted by pojung

Sticking to the format at hand, and completing the prompt of 'What WoW has done for the world of MMOs'...

- WoW has brought MMO gaming to the mainstream gaming spotlight.

Disagree. WoW has bought MMO gaming to pop culture yes. But most gamers were aware of MMO's previously and hated them with a passion mainly due to the pay to play model. Also known as p2p

- WoW has opened funding into the MMO genre.

Disagree. Funding has always been there. What it has done is create an environment where you need to spend millions upon millions putting smaller games or even ones created by gaming fans completely beyond the realm of possibility. The player base simply won't take it up. All you need to do is go and see what happened to

- WoW has established a standard of polish that has hopefully been recognized by developpers as being 'the standard'. Any game with less polish has been rejected by the mass MMO playerbase. (Off-shoot of this being sooo many attempted copies of the game). Hopefully developpers have learned that 'the standard' of polish must be met, but without cloning the standard bearer.

What utter BS. Anyone who has been playing WoW since beta knows this to be a blatant lie. Bugs go live more often then not and the game is being dumbed down to a huge degree. Other developers are learning that a game with 5 years history finds it very difficult to live up to newly released ones for content and this polish you rave about. Simple fact is bugs STILL go live to WoW servers with every patch. That is not polish but rather the same mistakes you accuse other developers of not having grasped.

Rabid fanbois have also caused the lowering of standards due to the fact the paid testers that used to exist were replaced by simple yes men and women and people who merely want to 'play' a game prior to release then rag how it doesn'tr live up to their favourite game of the time.

- WoW has given goals for the casual and hardcore alike (the manner in which these mechanics are implimented I wholeheartedly disagree with, for multiple reasons on multiple levels, but the end result is the same).

I've been a casual gamer for over a decade now and have always had objectives in every game I've played. I've also beta tested in closed beta over 30 games.

- WoW promoted raiding to being something huge. Less over time, but the competition with 40mans between guilds, servers, worldwide and the level of tuning in BC (reference Sunwell) was unprecedented and has been unreplicated. EQ deserves mention here with their community-promoting raiding scheme- the design and the number of players in a raid.

EQ and even DAoC had raids far surpassing WoW in enjoyment, numbers and or design. The level of 'tuning' as you put it in some of the Plane Raids was immense. You attempt to pay lip service to it just enough to keep the critics off your back. I'd also point to tuning in EQ2, the rest of the post is as minsinformed and BS as this particular section. They also had true world firsts. All this shows is you aren't aware of what preceeded WoW or the impact they had on WoW or where WoW's "innovation" was copied from. Until you have played in a raid with over 500 players you can't understand how tedious a 40 man can be.

 

There are more positives but my brain is fried. TGIF! I figured an objective post about what WoW has accomplished is due.

Edit: OP, hopefully you do realize that establishing any sort of pro/anti-WoW poll will always yield the same pro-WoW results, based on MMO playerbase ratios alone? ;) Enjoy your Friday all. Beers tonight in the Ballston district for anyone in the DC area.

Hopefully what you realise is that Blizzard have come right out and stated that it is the fans of WoW that stop any other game or developer from succeeding. Want some evidence instead of mere opinion here you go. http://www.develop-online.net/news/31987/Our-fans-help-us-kill-off-MMO-competition-says-Blizzard  Direct from the horses mouth. I'll also point out we've not seen much media locally on the fact that WoW's server outtage in China has cost them millions of subscribers that they're concerned they won't ever get back. Hence the reason why last years numbers were used for shareholders as opposed to current ones...

I still enjoy CoX and don't intend on moving. CoX had the best release of any game and while it has had to go through issues of balance as more people jumped onto the FotM builds as we, the player base devised new ways to build the 'best' stat based toons we could.

AE is excellent if it's used to create new story content, as an XP machine it's sufficient for those who want to just run to 50 but it's true use is to create new story arcs and see what other imaginative players have designed. I still enjoy coming across a gem of a mission arc and playing it through with friends.

I still find a lot to do in CoX and I've not had a cchance to play every story arc in the game yet. It's something I'm slowly building up to. It's still the basics however that hold me in, good people to play with in a decent community, good story arcs that are worth reading and following, the travel powers never stop being fun and trying new ways of doing things. <shrug> I enjoy CoX and that for me, and many others is the primary requirement of any game we play.

Won't be jumping ship because it's just a 'new' game or fanbois insist it's better. If CoX ever loses the gloss it has for me then I'll consider seeking a new MMO but with what's on the horizon I'll most likely move to a sci-fi MMO and give them a look.

The customization option may only be 'fluff' but I'll be changing mosyt of my toons power colours to better fit with themes, costumes and simple role-play elements. It may not be a lot at the end but it is something many current players are looking forward to.

Gee it sounds from the article that Aion is a lot like WoW used to be. Give it time and Aion will make the same mistakes and follow the same path to stop players from moving on to the next game.

<shrug> I left WoW when it ceased to be fun and not long after that (over the next six months) most of the people I played with left too. I'm now happily playing a game I enjoy that doesn't make demands on my time to progress or raid or anything else, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. A good story, fun play and good looking graphics if not top of the line are more then enough for me.

Fantasy games...bleh EQ beta to six months ago I'd played most of them. I'm an older more mature gamer now and a lot more discerning in what I want from a game. After being involved with over 30 betas in 11 years I don't even bother trying to get involved in betas. Companies will release what they want to and rarely if ever listen to beta testers. I have better things to do with my time.

Bring back paid beta testers and we'll get product that actually is worth the money we pay to play. This majority of players fanboi's or wanting an early chance to play simply isn't working.

Aion may look pretty but honestly what game doesn't these days. They've done a nice job of taking combos from EQ II and LotRO and incorporating them intot heir combat system but at the end of the day it's the same old rat and the same old intermittent reward system. No longer enough. A few games are getting the reward system right but at the end of the day I want my game time to be enjoyable AND productive so I can complete the things I want to complete.

Sink or swim without me. As for it's coming so get used to it.

Not for me it's not. Day I pay for a box and a fee and this crap is the day I close down all MMO accounts and start something else. They can make money of an idiot because my mother didn't damn well raise one.

So this is what MMORPG has been reduced too.

My immediate response is simply "You're an idiot" to the author. Then I thought about it. An editor gave this the nod. This is simply MMORPG drumming up controversy to get hits to sell advertising. Hey MMORPG I got a review I want to sell...I mean write, yeah I work for the gaming company but hey does that really matter.

Real poor guys, real fkn poor.

Removes MMORPG from bookmark.

I actually lost all interest after watching the first video trailer. It doesn't look like anything more then 'fluff'. I see nothing new here just different skins and hundreds of thousands of jedis and whining babies who want to be leet but get hammered in pvp causing the game to be nerfed into oblivion. This game is going to crash and burn.

MT model doesn't bother me. I've been playing a few asian F2P games for a lot of years now. Come to them and leave as I iwsh and don't buy anything unless it makes my playtime less tedious. Soccer ball from the world cup in Flyff is a perfect example. Follows me around and loots all loot within a decent PBAoE radius around my character. Removes need for sucky looting from my playtime. For 4 bucks as a one off buy was worth it imo. Other then that not paid a cent for anything else.