great editorial and well said...

the only aspect about SWG that i actually liked was the space combat, but i guess that is because it was designed by a completely different team of people.  the same people that made Wing Commander back in the day.  that was a great game too...

but nonetheless, que sara sara SWG :) hopefully an actual good company like Bioware will bring out a Starwars mmo we'd be in heaven.  at least that company is about making a quality game rather than making something just for the sake of $$$.

trying to hook up with a friend on the Asura server (if anyone on here is from there), please PM me with the number for a server pass.  I will be willing to pay you back later in-game.  i would truly appreciate it.

 here's a concept for them...

Scrap Shadowbane completely and make a 2.0 version but call it something else other than Shadowbane 2 (seems to be a curse on some games)

Get rid of the whole treadmill leveling idea in a PVP centric game.  Gain experience only when fighting others players.  Scrap the old class based system and make a skill based system where everyone can build their character as they see fit.  Make all skills worthwhile and effective, this will ensure a variety of both character development and gameplay.  Because you will not ever know the true strengths and weaknesses of someone until you've faught them enough.

Keep the unique Rune aspect of the game with the specialty skill sets and such.  The only mobs should be ones for quests or for resources and currency.  The ones for quests don't yield experience but only the runes for specialty skills.  These quests should all take place in instanced dungeons/areas and they should enhance the lore of the game with a well written story and enough envolvement to feel like you really did something other than just killing a mob.

They should concentrate most of their time on siege warfare, building towns, resource gathering and pvp.  Safehold cities with roman style pvp arenas that allows player betting.

my ideas go on and on.. but these are just a few off the top of my head that would make shadowbane a much better game all around. 

I agree for the most part, it would be nice to see more innovation, but one aspect that I haven't seen much of since Asheron's Call first came out is devoted dev ran events that are based soley on the story.  Asheron's Call was one of the first to have that ever evolving game and it still is.  They just can't change things on the fly like with the technology now.  Now we can blow up the terrain and change it for a time like the ripple effect.  Now if devs could add both cataclismic events along with damaging terrain to make a unique element to future games i think that would be fairly innovative.

But i think because companies may look at Asheron's Call and say that they had low subscription numbers and so most may figure its not worthwhile for the money.  It was a generation 1 game that is now pretty old.  And AC2 was nothing like AC1 as far as the gameplay and base character system goes. 

The overall feel of a good game is being able to be Unique or have unique items which no one else can have similar to the loot system in AC1 currently.  Being able to customize your character anyway you want so that it fits your playstyle.  Then giving the players "real" content.  Adventuers or dungeons that you can go out and have to work the old brain a bit to figure out.  No step by step journal and such, just a few hints are fine.  Puzzles, traps and interesting, original creatures.  With an overall deep story and players can truely get involved in and have the possibility of cataclismic events that can change the story on your server forever.  This to me would be a MMORPG.  doesn't matter if its fantasy, sci-fi or hybrid.  If it has these core elements, it would be golden to me :)

I think the idea of some pvp/rpg type games where you have to grind out levels and junk to get to the end game is retarded.  It makes the dev team have to work overtime to appeal to two completely different groups of people.  Ones that just want to pvp and ones that want to roleplay with pvp elements.  Why not just make a game purely pvp with no level grind, but you can gain experience from taking part in the overall story of "war" and killing other players.  You gain rewards based on the diffeculty and amount of kills.  So when you run into someone that is really high level in a game like this it would really mean something other than "oh you survived the grind to?"  Then you could throw in a indepth crafting system that was skill based and allow for unique equipment based on mining areas of unique goods that your "nation" controls. 

If companies would stop and think for a bit, they could really put their resources where it needs to be and make some good games... but oh well :/

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Originally posted by Phife

I see what you guys are saying, but, I honestly don't see any problem with what he "did."

It's the crap coding.  You don't want people to expliot loop holes?  Then patch 'em!  It's like giving a little kid a box of matches, then, getting pissed off when he burns the house down.  Don't give him the matches in the first place!!!

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well, this just shows how well a company can do games and MMOs if they truely have a passion for what they do.  Rather than just looking to make a buck off the latest IP or product name.  Simultronics is a veteran when it comes to Massive Multiplayer games most specifically MUDs.  And transfering that talent to a graphical MMO seems to be no different.  If you truely care about what you do for the sake of making a good game and have passion to create great story and content and make the game multifacited in a way that makes people think rather than just doing the boring "kill missions" is outstanding and long overdue.  I'm just sick of all the companies trying to copy the EQ model so they can gain the subs.

Having the roleplay elements in a game as described is great and something i've been looking for, for a long time now.  Having consequences to ones actions help to make a more believable experience as well as getting people more envolved.  Reminds me of the good ol' days playing AC1.  Can't wait to check HJ out when it hits live.

That's about it for now, i'm an old AC1 player and i'm pretty much in the same boat as you, i keep trying to look for that next great game and i've been around the world virtually trying to find something similar to AC1 and yet nothing exists. :(

But on a brighter note, if you can stick it out until Hero's Journey comes out, this game will have GM'd content all around and constant new content being made all the time.  But if you're looking for a pvp element i'm not sure if HJ will have it or not.  I'm sure they will considering they do have PVE and PVP muds.  Possibly a special PvP server. 

But one decent korean game is that Silkroad, it is more about PvP for end-game, with various factions and guild missions to complete for special rewards.  It is also a skill based system vise the old class based system.  Lag tends to be bad during the day because of the fact it is Free to play and i guess that is when most koreans and asians are playing.   They seem to opening up new servers periodically to try and get the pops evened out.  If nothing else it is a good hack and slash adventure game to kill some boredom.

Other than that you have tried pretty much all that i have... And of course Bioware has a new office in Austin dedicated to MMO developement.  Should be some good games coming from them in the near future :)

hope this helps :)