All Posts by lkavadas

ROFL, SWG doesn't have, nor has it ever had, round world maps.  You guys need to put down the pipe.  SWG has always had square maps with boundaries.  Always.

Originally posted by fluxen

...the new bioware mmo (maybe kotor maybe not)...

Honestly, I don't know how Bioware fooled anyone into thinking they make games that are any good.  The fact is that their games are mediocre at best but have an incredibly strong story telling aspect.

The sole strong point of a Bioware title would be awful in an MMO if one is a sandbox fan.  It'll be a completely linear story progression.  And let's face it, you, that guy smoking a cigarette, Hef's three girlfriends, and Andrew Dice Clay know that any Bioware title is going to be class based, level based, and push everyone through a completely linear treadmill of content.

If you're a sandbox fan it's going to blow ass.  End of story.

I hate fantasy.  Vehemently.

EVE without PvP... k...

That would be the most boring MMO of all time.  EVE is already hampered by terrible RPG combat, a god awful skill advancement system, and the fact that you're stuck in a spaceship.

You remove the PvP component and EVE will offer literally nothing.

Originally posted by Vortigon

Christ - This game is still in alpha and won't be released for at least 2 years. 

The release date for Earthrise is Q1 2009 actually.  Just a release date but still...

Eh.  Earthrise, Crusades, maybe Fallen Earth.  All of the rest can go to hell.

<modedit>

EVE has proven that a sandbox title is still extremely viable and lucrative in 2008.

Geez, they go through all of the trouble of creating an interesting and seamless world only to throw in some sloppy ass class and level B.S..  What a waste.

Hey OP, check out Earthrise.  No levels, no instances, no classes, et cetera.  Plus a sci-fi setting!  I can't stand fantasy.

The notion that no MMO can ever measure up to your "first love" is bullshit.  I played two MMORPGs before I got into SWG and SWG is the only one I actually miss and want back.  So I guess my third love was the best.

The pure and simple truth is that if I think a game sucks I won't play it.  Every MMO since SWG has sucked.  The only one which has come even remotely close is EVE but after Jump to Lightspeed I laugh at EVE's wretched RPG combat, their completely inane skill earning mechanic which removes all control from players, and the fact that I'm forever locked inside of a spaceship.  Now, that criticism aside there was a lot EVE did well.  The open PvP, the economics, et cetera.

So what impossible gaming standards would make me, a complete sandbox lover that thinks every MMO released in the past five years is a piece of shit, happy and maintain my long term interest in an MMO?

It boils down to five things:

1. Unified Game World (No instancing, no shards, no cutting corners)

2. Non-linear character advancement (no classes, no levels, no forcing me to quest and be a part of some retardly preordained storyline in which it makes little sense that my character would ever engage in)

3. Player Based Economies (all items player crafted, player ran services and stores, decent crafting, good loot mechanics in that the drops are only resources, components, or item enhancers).

4.  Decent Character Customization

5.  Decent Combat (more twitch based then RPG, so something akin to Tabula Rasa's system)

That's pretty much it.  I'd even be willing to sacrifice #1, #4, and/or #5 and it wouldn't kill the game for me.

Is that so impossible?  Hardly.

Originally posted by Lobotomist

It could easily be different - if those games were not based on "War thorn land in constant conflict" 

A melting pot....

PVP that should be free , should also be governed by law , just like in real life ...

Just like Second Life and Entropia Universe you mean?

I really don't agree with Harrison considering there are lots of very good single player games currently out while 99.9% of MMOs are pure garbage.

What a fantastic post.  Usually the MMORPG.com boards give me a headache but this OP was excellent.  Great job, man.  You summed up the feelings of a huge chunk of the MMORPGer population.

I first got into MMOs with Anarchy Online and it was okay.  Then I moved over to SWG and was in love.  Until the CU that is.  Ever since that day in April of 2005 I haven't been happy, content, or even really interested in a single MMO I've come across.

Terrible shame that such shit products sell so well.  I don't think you can blame developers though.  It's the consumer that pays their bills and determines what is or isn't successful. 

So far consumers have liked some pretty terrible MMORPGs.

Turn Ons:

1.  Seamless game world (no instances, no shards, no corner cutting bullshit);

2. Level-less, skill based character advancement; and

3. Freedom from preordained quests and story lines.  I'm here to make my own story.

Turn Offs:

1. Instancing, of any type (unless it's completely, totally unavoidable [think of the Corvette back in SWG, that made sense and I was comfortable with it);

2. Linear character progression.  Levels, classes, that junk;

3. Lack of a real player based economy and the predominance of looted items over crafted.

Originally posted by MimirAesir 

I hold Raph directly responsible for the failure of SWG.

His inability to understand that the emotional focus of the Star Wars universe at that moment in time was the Civil War led to the games eventual demise.

He implemented a theoretically perfect sandbox that had no spirit and no purpose.

I wish the SWG beta forums were archived on WWW so that players could see that the root cause of the games failure originated in his blind spot regarding the passions and conflicts of that far away galaxy.

Correct me if I'm wrong but less than a month after the game came out he was kicked upstairs so that he couldn't do anymore damage to game.

Stanley.

Raph wasn't responsible for the single biggest downfall of SWG: jedi.  Yes, the very core and heart of all of Star Wars is indeed the single largest contributing factor to SWG becoming a total shit fest.  How?  I'll tell you how.

1. Prelaunch Raph was adamantly opposed to the inclusion of jedi in SWG.  He won that argument; for a time...

2.  Shortly after launch jedi were indeed added to the game.  At the behest of Lucas Arts.

3. As jedi became a larger and larger focus in SWG's development schedule other shit started to get pushed aside.  Important shit.

4.  I can recall a time in SWG, I believe pubs 6-9, which were very nearly dedicated solely to jedi and nothing else of consequence.  The devs prioritized jedi at the cost of letting the rest of their game fall apart.

5.  While they were having their jedi circle jerk with LA the rest of the game did fall apart.  The original vision, Raph's vision, was completely lost.  Doc buffs became insanely overpowered and relegated 99.9% of all PvE to the garbage bin because anyone could pretty much solo everything with complete impunity (sans DWB, vette, maybe an ancient krayt but I could take them by myself easily enough without the house corner bug) so long as they had the buffs and high encumbrance armor.

6.  As the buffs and armor got out of control any semblance of PvP balance was utterly destroyed.  Health and action became secondary targets and mind attacks ruled the day.  This did not bode well for professions which didn't have any mind attack which was all of them except for rifleman and swordsman (which were specialized mind attackers), Teras Kasi Artist (had a mind attack), Bounty Hunter (had a mind attack), Combat Medic (mind DoTs), and pikeman was a complete P.O.S. profession after insane buffs until mindfire pikes started dropping.  So that leaves every other profession in the game with their dicks in the wind in terms of PvP viability.

7.  Eventually the system collapsed on itself and the CURB, Combat Upgrade ReBalance, which sounded fantastic from what little information I gathered from it, was completely scrapped in favor of the rushed botch job known as the Combat Upgrade.

8.  The game lost it's flavor at this point.  SWG started bleeding subs until LA started to lean on SOE to do something about.  In comes what's his nuts, Jeff Freedman or something like that (the producer for SWG at the time) and he puts together the NGE, shows it to LA, and they go for it.

9.  Now the game is a pathetic WoW clone (in nearly every way) and it's done terrible ever since and managed to tarnish SOE's name like no other MMO has done to any MMO company before or since.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Raph had pretty much squat to do with how SWG turned out.  He was the architect of the game but he had nothing to do with renovations after the building was already up.

Play Earthrise.  It will have full PvP looting.

Originally posted by Venger

 

Originally posted by lkavadas

 Blowing Hard.

http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart2.html

 

Looks like your numbers are a bit off.

I never played swg so whether you are full of it or not I can't say.  What were the server population like?  How many points of interest where there hunting wise?  I started playing UO 98 lasted over 6 years so I played and loved the ultimate sandbox. 

I grow tired of trying to have a conversation with someone that obviously knows everything.

Ooh wow, so I typo'd a 3 to a 4.  And?

Server population was 3-6k per server.  How many points of interest were there hunting wise?  Hundred... maybe more.  Fact of the matter was that the only distinction between planets was core and frontier.  Frontier ones were harder but core planets still had plenty of difficult content on them, (Tatooine, a starter core planet, had one of the hardest mobs and dungeons in the entire game with the Tuskens, one Tusken Zeolot could, and often did, slaughter people for hours if someone aggro'd the many kilometers from it's spawn point back to a starport).

And aside from PvE content the game had completely dynamic PvP because you could not only build your own city where you ever pleased, sans the frontier worlds, but you could place Galactic Civil War bases where ever you please so the PvP front constantly shifted every single day.

The only place people ever actually clumped together were the large cities like Theed on Naboo and Coronet on Corellia.

So yes, it can be done, it has be done, and your myopic view on MMO mechanics is still very, very sad especially considering you apparently played (and enjoyed?) UO.

I don't want quests or a storylines (asides from a general backdrop and fluff canon) in my MMOs tbh.  I play them so I can make my own...

Originally posted by Venger

 

Stuff.

ROFL, so you predicate on your entire argument on these tenants:

1. There is no difference between separate dungeons that are part of the unified game world and a single dungeon with ten shards;

2. There needs to be room for everyone;

3. Ten dungeons is apparently way too much content for a developer team to handle; and

4.  Anything that isn't a dungeon that has stuff to do will become overcrowded (just because, right?).

All I can say to you, sir, is "wow, you truly are the reason why modern MMOs stink."  Seriously, your expectations of good game design and MMO evolution could not be any lower.  You are the lowest common denominator.  Congratulations.

Will your next crusade be on behalf of shitty magazines that stuff their pages with more advertisements than articles and then support them by saying, "writing articles would take time away from getting the periodical out (quality irregardless, right?)."

That is the absurdity of your argument.  That a good game is, to you at the very least, simply not feasible and completely incomprehensible.  It's sad that this industry pumps out thousands of people like you every year. 

Have you ever experienced a non-linear MMO that didn't guide your every step through the game?  Doesn't seem like it.

No wonder the MMO hasn't evolved in ten years....

And don't think I'm blowing this out of my ass because in preCU SWG we had a bajillion places to go,  including dozens of "dungeons," and spawn camping was never an issue and bear in mind that at the time SWG was the second most successful western MMO in terms of active players behind only EQ1 (roughly 400k active subs in SWG at that time). 

So apparently Raph Koster is capable of creating what you can't even comprehend or consider reality.

Originally posted by Venger
Yes or people could actually want to play the game they are paying for.  UO had no dungeon bosses but the dungeons were still very crowded.  Do you think if you take away boss mobs people will stop hunting in dungeons?

 

I'd love a player based economy because I like to craft.  But just like crafting gets the shit end of the stick now you can't do the same to hunters.  You need to find a happy medium.

No people, won't stop hunting in dungeons.  So just have enough dungeons to keep your server population evenly distributed between them.  Or give people fun shit to do that isn't centered a dungeon (dungeons are kind of retarded anyways).  It's simple.

And how do crafters get the shit end of the stick?  In every truly player run economy crafters are always at the top rung in terms of wealth.  And not just by a little; but by a shit ton.

Please, you're exactly the reason why MMOs today suck ass.