Originally posted by Liltawen

 The rifts are just fun -when was the last time I thought that about something.

 That pretty much sums it up.  I also noticed that during mass combat, they somehow shut off some spell effects and what not to prevent lag, it's pretty awesome.  I hope they take the RIFT technology and utilize it for live events, that would be awesome.

I didn't pay much attention to RIFT.  I simply lumped it in with all the other cruddy games I've played over the years.  After all, if Mark Jacobs and Mythic can let me down so badly, and WoW bored me to tears, what could I expect out of some company I've never heard of?

I came to the conclusion awhile back that MMO's really haven't changed all that much, that it was just me as a jaded gamer that has changed over the years.  I decided to try RIFT out the other day just because I was intrigued by the fact that I wasn't bombarded with "Epic Fail" threads.

I was shocked by the fact that even at 1am the servers were full.  I know its release and the population is bloated right now, but still, it was nice.  I started playing and the first thing that annoyed me was the soul system.  Funny thing is, most of what I hate about games now is that they treat you like you are a retard and do everything for you...threat meters, cool down timers,  simplistic leveling that makes you not have to think until at least level 20.  I thought about that and delved back in, even rerolling my first toon for a second attempt.  Once I got the hang of it I LOVE it!

The quests are pretty bland, common MMO stock, but man...they got the RIFT thing down.  The last time I played a game where I could be quietly farming my quest mobs, then suddenly have an invasion literally spawn around me and have me running for my life looking for others so I could come back and defend my turf......man, I haven't seen anything like that since Playing an old MUD called Gemstone.  The Rifts are fun, and I got sucked into the story to the point that I actually felt guilty, like I was abandoning my duty to my team for passing one up to finish a quest and sell my drops.

So, I am actually enjoying this game a LOT, which surprised the hell out of me, I've hated pretty much everything that has released since WoW....and I never liked WoW since I beta tested it, even though I got suckered into playing with friends once in awhile, mostly because there was nothing better out.

For longevity...I guess we'll have to see what they add in the long run. Obviously release content won't hold people very long.  I hope they develop the PvP game into something better than WoW's vanilla boring PvP was. 

WoW PvP hasn't been fun since the old Tauren Mills fights back in the day.

Edit: This post is a bit rambling, since I'm at work right now and had to hurry up to try and put my thoughts down.  Simply, put; the verdict for now is that it is fun to play, something that is lacking in so many releases in the last few years.  I started MMO's with DAOC, and loved the RvR.  I think the War fronts will be fun for a minute, but they will get boring soon enough, and they tend to break immersion and remind you that you are playing a game, rather than having an adventure.  I hope open world pvp is at least interesting.  Depending on what they do with that will probably determine my longevity in RIFT more than anything else.

Originally posted by braingame007

On #4 you are right to some extent, but I can honestly say almost every new MMO I have tried since I have played WoW has felt like WoW. Generally it is the UI and the way the game controls itself that is the most common factor. LoTR, EQ2,DDO, Aion, and a couple others when you first get on them feel like WoW because the UI are a lot alike and the way you do battle is the same. press 1- =sign use WASD to move etc. Like you said it was the first MMO for a lot of people so other games get compared to it.

 Huh? Ok, I get LoTRO, and EQ2 "feeling" like wow, but DDO doesn't control like WoW other than the fact that you use a keyboard and mouse.

I miss systems like DAOC had.  Many people said it was clunky and didn't work well, but I don't think they really understood how it worked.  Casters were interupted if they were hit, PERIOD. Not just a set back that they could cast through.  Ability chains were awesome if you knew how to use them.  You could que up moves, and even a default fallback in case the required reaction didn't take place.

But really, any MMO is going to have a UI, is going to use WASD and use the numbers to key abilities.  There really isn't much else to do unless you plug in a game controller.  If I wanted to plug in a controller, I'd play my Xbox.

I think games today do too much for you though.  Little blinky lights and highlighted abilities telling you when you can use them,  threat meters, etc. It's kind of like playing wack a mole with your keyboard.

Ah, the joys of opening day!  Think I'll wait a couple weeks to check it out.

Eh what about Smedly? I won't touch a product he has a hand in. SOE knows how to kill a game like no other!

Anyway....the people with the development money aren't gamers.  Just like movies, or products or anything in the market...if one person makes a ton of money with something,  everyone will copy it until it is bled dry rather than make something new.

The End.

Originally posted by neorandom

 sex and violence are what american culture has degraded into, and violent sex is the biggest crowd draw of them all these days, if aoc hadnt cut the sex interaction content to dodge the rating it would have kept alot more subs.  instead they slapped a thong on the chicks (there was a mod to remove it of course that was out before the game even released) but cutting out the cutscenes from the sex rewards and most of the sex rewards, and not to mention the prostitution removed alot of the more interesting content and left us with a mediocre pve game with badly balanced pvp. /rant off

Degraded?  It's always been there, my friend, and long before america came to be.  I find it funny that people think society is degenerating into sex and violence...when it's always been there.  Go take a look at rennesaince art some time.  Sistine chapel...hell, check out the ancient greek sculptures and art that hasn't been defaced.

The core of most legends, myths, folk lore...all have something to do with violence and sex.  Honestly...two core things that keep a species alive.  It's always been there.

Originally posted by Obiyer

 

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Originally posted by Kainis
I'm just waiting for someone to say they don't look at box-art boobies, but pick up the box for the feature list instead.

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Personally, I always looked at system requirements.

Honestly, I think system requirements on the box are as much a marketing trap as big bewbs are.  Seriously...when have the minimum specs ever been even remotely close to realistic?

Normally the reccomended requirements are closer the the minimum requirements than anything, heh.

nevermind.

If you're nerdy enough you can decipher some of the gibberish and actually "speak" in the other languages.  I think.  Then again, don't quote me on that.

Wonder if that cheer is followed by a concoction of bourbon and pepto bismol....

I hope they keep the enthusiasm up and make some solid changes to the game.

(Fortress...city siege....Renown skills) cough...cough...cough...

I'm sure others will voice their long laundry list of items shortly after me.  I hope this game makes a comeback.  I had fun for awhile, and would like to come back to it some day.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by Xasapis

 WAR issues certainly do not stem from RvR, quite the opposite actually. The main issues (for me) were the unresponsive combat, the fixation on scenarios (aka battlegrounds) and the underdeveloped end game open world PvP.

A good portion of the people that initially joined WAR did so for the RvR as their primary reason (please correct me if I'm mistaken). Even if that's nowhere near WoW's numbers, that is still a considerable amount of people looking for an RvR game.

 

While I would agree that the main issue was the unresponsive combat and RvR mechanics, most forums have zillion of complaints about the faction imbalance in the game.

Like I said: world pvp  = biggest healed up DPS group wins...

Whether that comes from levels, gear, sheer number or overpowered classes or ... just "joining the winning side faction"....

It is an uncontrolled mess without ANY tools to view the much needed data to do something about it.

Now we get into different subject matter.  I had no idea this thread would still be around a couple days later.  And no one has flamed each other into Mod-bans yet!

Anyway..broaching this newer area of conversation...what kinds of alterations to the typical group make up/skill combos could help alleviate some of this?  You can never completely get rid of that..I mean, if you come to a fight with 3 friends and some slingshot, and I bring hand grenades, AR15's and a tank...you're not gonna win.

But..what if there weren't things like massive group heals?  What if heals were only line of sight single target...maybe some aoe heals that healed EVERYTHING in its radius? things like that.  Would that change the dynamics much?  Pro's? Con's?

WAR was doomed from it's core set up.  You CAN'T have a game like that without having an odd faction to offset the inevitible conclusion of one side getting stronger than the others.

Also...their RvR was poorly thought out because it was patched in rather than being built in from the core.

Another mistake is making it so that you HAVE to RvR to play the game.  Before newer games came out and before the devs lost their minds and catered to the "I want it now without effort" crowd DAOC had a good mix of PVE and RvR...though their PvE would never cut it in todays market.

RvR with a decent faction set up and less focus on making 200 people gang up to take a keep by lag force can go a long way.  Especially if there is plenty of pve stuff to do also (that doesn't suck.)

I think someone said it well earlier when they said something along the lines of focusing on smaller battles that all together created the war.  Do you want an epic mass scale all out war once in awhile? Sure.  Do you want it so that if you didn't bring 200+ with you every single day that you should go home? Nah.

I've enjoyed crafting to a point in some games...hated it in others...and even more yet, found myself saying "why bother."

In my experience people craft for two main reasons:

1. Some people really enjoy it, and may not have the time to run dungeons with guildies constantly, but can craft for an hour or two once in awhile and get some kind of enjoyment out of it.

2.  They expect to use crafting as a way to turn a proffit down the road, and make mass quantities of gold that they can swim through like scrouge McDuck.

Most games these days seem to be lots of effort for little payout in the end game...or so many mini game efforts are made with it that just make it even more tedious to make skill up gains after the novelty wears off.

If you're going to have crafting, shouldn't it really MATTER at the high end?  Why bother crafting anything if people are just going to go kill the dragon 30 times until they get the uber sword of purple namedness that blows away anything you can do.

What are your ideas for making crafting not so tedious...yet difficult enough where you have to put some effort into it to become that well known armorsmith, etc.

What are your idea for crafts that matter?  Or are you content with growing weeds in your backpack and calling it crafting?

Personally, rather than the obvious desire to have all my hard work really be worth something in the end...I'd like to see some other things also.

I'd like to see crafters be able to manipulate gear in cosmetic ways.  Like your uber purple sword of iPwn but hate the way it looks?  Get the swordsmith to customize it for you and reskin it.

Love your robes of uber spellcasting but hate the fact that some bozo decided it should be purple with pink swirls? Get the Tailor to add a bit of trim to it and dye it a different color that isn't so horrendously ugly..

You get the point.  What are your ideas?

RvR isn't a dead horse.  It has worked before and can work again.  Unfortunately the people developing these titles don't think past the lemming fest part.

There is no real way I can conceive of to avoid large masses of people at a keep siege...but the keep siege doesn't have to be the end all be all every day event.  I agree with something like smaller multiple objectives...or simply give reasons for people to scout their frontiers and take out intruders. Hell...maybe scale up the defenses if there are too many people present at one keep on the offense, unless several smaller keeps are taken out first.  Discourage mobs of hundreds from sacking one random keep.  Give them a reason to split objectives and take out multiple locations simultaneously.

Give people a reason to farm/level in the high risk areas.  Better loot, better XP...bonuses near guild controlled keeps, etc.

This keeps the area's alive and interesting..there is someone there for the ganker to gank...if the players who would be victims think the risk of getting ganked is worth the rewards.  Then you have reason to have people out hunting the gankers so their guildmates etc can level.

Don't make it a requirement though...just better risk for the reward.

Bah...ah hell....gimme old frontiers in a new game already.

I wouldn't even link RvR with WAR.  Their version is dissapointing.  DAOC had RvR.

Something else I thought of in this post.  More of a comparison of DAOC vs. WAR than anything directly RvR related.

Something irked me about WAR's controls, and I never realized what it was until I got into a fight with a Knight of the Blazing Sun while on my Disciple of Khaine.

The friggin fight lasted for like 2 minutes.  That isn't what bothered me though...it was the 1,2,3,4...run back a bit, heal, 1,2,3,4..rinse repeat.

It was hella boring.  I remember thinking...why didn't I feel this irritation in DAOC?

I remember people complaining, before WAR came out about how "clunky" DAOC's interface was.  I don't remember feeling that when playin DAOC...hmmm.

Now I realize what was bugging me.  Likely most of the people complaining about the clunky interface of DAOC didn't understand the beauty of it.  Would I want to see it recreated exactly like it was? No.  But I'd love something similar.

There weren't any brainless global cooldowns ala WoW.  But that isn't what made it cool.  What made it cool was reactionary styles, positionals...being able to queue up moves.....i.e.   you hit your parry reactional, but you could also hit your anytime style immediately after.  What this did was beautiful.   If you parried...you would use the parry style.  If you didn't parry, it would move onto the anytime style.  Whichever style actually hit, then you'd move into the style chain for either the parry style or the anytime style.

So you didn't really have 1,2,3,4 repeat...it was varied up a lot and you had to pay attention. Is this a perfect system? Not at all...but it beats the hell out of the evolutionary step backwards they took with WAR.

I'd like to see systems based on more real time decisions.  I.E.  Not...my armor factor of 13213124135435 means you can't hit me...but more of....I actively blocked your attack, then counter attacked.  It doesn't need to be horribly complicated...but yeah...1,2,3,4 is pretty lame.

Allods sounds interesting.  Mostly due to the Ship to Ship battles you mentioned, and the fact that you're not STUCK in ships...there's land adventure too.  That sound's pretty cool, or at least different.

Originally posted by Slovenc

By Mark Jacobs

According to Jacobs, another way to measure success is to look at the number of servers a game has added in a six-month period. "The corollary to that is if you've seen a game consolidate servers, you know it's in deep, deep trouble -- that's not a healthy sign for an MMO," he said, citing Sony's January-released "Pirates of the Burning Sea" as a recent example. "It will be the same for 'Warhammer.' Look at us six months out. Look at us six weeks out. If we're not adding servers, we're not doing well."

there you go guys

Yeah, I remember that.

Originally posted by Larry2298

The game graphics looks like made by different people. So if you hired some designers in China then it will not cost more than 3 Millions to finish it within one year. Besides, there is no class balance and very simple AI for PVE. I think Warhammer has very low production cost.

 

 

Mythic had a huge budget, and no, they didn't farm out parts of their game.  They basically built upon what they did previously in DAOC...unfortunately they threw out all the good parts and instead opted for more simplistic and dull mechanics. 

They used the Gamebryo engine, which they used for DAOC also.

Originally posted by Maelkor

I doubt the game turned an actual profit in the overall scheme of things. Just to give some scenarios. At $50 a box multiplied by 100k subscribers your looking at $5 million. This does not include the cut the actual publisher who puts the boxes on the shelves takes. at 500k boxes sold your only looking at $25M . The game definately cost more than that and I they might have sold that many copies overall...not too sure. The also made some money from the actual month to month subs but not I think enough to make up for the development costs of the game. Right now they are attempting to keep the game alive because for every month they can keep it open they can make some money on it. Maybe they get an expansion out, but even at that with their current subs its iffy that they make their money back even on an expansion. The game will be here for at least another year just so they can squeeze as much money as they can out of it to mitigate any losses they might have suffered.

From a purely economic standpoint I do not think you can call Warhammer a success. Overall its not a bad game and I did enjoy playing it for a while....it just had no depth to it. Everything was all surface glam with nothing underneath. This unfortunately is typical for todays MMO. What I still cant believe is no company has come forward to develop an MMO engine to sell to the Game developer market. Something like the Unreal engine is/was for a base as a graphics engine. I mean if you look at all of the base content that is essentially the same in every MMO from guilds to groups to auction house to in game mail...there is a huge list of things every company redevelops everytime a new MMO is made. If you made a truly generic engine that can be easily modified to fit whatever the gamemaker wants to do and can act as a truly stable platform to develop on I think you could make some pretty good money in todays market with dozens of MMO's coming out every year.

Actually, Simutronics did that. They made the Hero engine, and were supposedly working on an MMO..but I"m thinking that was just made to showcase their engine rather than being expected to launch.

We'll see how that worked out.  Bioware bought their engine, and a couple other companies too.  I forget who.

Originally posted by arctarus

Mythic have invested about 100mil into this game,  the number of boxes sold and subs being paid till now  maybe barly cover the cost of it. Plus the server maint and salary of staff monthly, i dont think its as successful as you think.

I forget the numbers of subs that MJ quote to make this game substainable, so to be sucessful it must have numbers more than that... much more...

 

 

 

I believe MJ stated that they needed to maintain about 300k or more to make money.