I am a goody-two-shoes Elf-boy for life.

Can't touch this.

Originally posted by xray00

 

 

Yes, but lets be honest, WoW copied most of its gameplay from EQ which itself took a great deal from MUDS.  WoW, of all the successful games out there had virtually nothing new to offer.  Questing - already done, raids - already done, character advancement - nothing new.  What it did do, however, was improve upon all of those aspects of the game.

Questing was streamlined and the interface improved to make quests easier to track.  Raids became a bit more dynamic.  Character gen they added talents which was a refined version of alternative advancement in EQ.

There is nothing wrong with using what has worked in the past and trying to improve upon it. 

I agree completely. Small changes and innovations over time add up and lead to the "next generation" of games that (we hope) learn from the best and worst of what came before.

Also remember that MMOs are a business - they want your money. Therefore, they will provide features that the majority enjoy and support in other games, in order to draw you in (and try to retain you) as a player.

Originally posted by VultureSkull

 

Originally posted by anwar

I will never buy it w/o a free trail.  Sorry to see they kept that silly card game called diplomacy....unless totally, drastically changed, it's an "innovation" for the sake of having an innovation.

 

I guess you just like to read about it huh?

I too read up on Vanguard, hoping for the day that it is fixed and a demo comes out. Why is that unusual?

Would you buy a car without test driving it? Even if the media hyped about it?

If you test drove last year's model and didn't like how it handled, would you buy the following year's model just because someone told you it was better? No, you would go and test drive the new model and see for yourself.

Originally posted by anwar

I will never buy it w/o a free trail.  Sorry to see they kept that silly card game called diplomacy....unless totally, drastically changed, it's an "innovation" for the sake of having an innovation.

I played the game during open beta, and while it had potential, it wasn't worth spending time or money with at that point. I have to "see it to believe it", which I believe is quite reasonable.

While I give you a lot of credit for working on a MMO on your own, a quick look at the website left me somewhat frustrated. One of the msot important things you can do with a MMORPG these days is tell people what is different about the game. I dug into your design document (which is quite sparse for a MMO, given the complexity of the systems involved, but a good starting point) and still did not feel like I walked away with anything new or informative.

The real question I have is this: what do you hope to do by bringing the general populace in so early in development? The public is quite harsh in their judgement towards far more polished and professional games during beta, and yet you seem to be looking for people to jump into a very early alpha build.

All that being said, I wish you and your team the very best of luck!

Beta is a privilege, not a right. I've been trying to get into WAR for a long time (before their official sign-ups), but I don't feel slighted from not being accepted. Realistically, I find not being in beta until the Open Beta (if one occurs) allows me to enjoy the "playing" aspect more, as the majority of the core testing is usually done.

Too many people are taking beta for granted; it is an opportunity to assist the development staff and community with polishing a game, nothing more.

"Opinions are like a**holes; everyone has one, and most of them stink."

That being said, it is typically better to rate a game based on your own experiences than on "popular" opinion and second-hand information. If and when a trial comes out, you can offer a testimony based on your experience of the early game.

I'm a harsh judge of games, and I actually liked Vanguard when I played it in beta. However, the performance issues were too extreme for me to play on my computer, and I didn't like it enough to stick around until the problems were fixed. Would I try it again when a demo is released? Absolutely; it is worth a second look.

I don't believe for one moment that the rating system is accurate or un-biased. However, I do think mmorpg.com is the greatest single location to find out information and have discussions on MMOs, so I forgive them :).

Ratings should not be relational; ie, changes in rating to one game should not modify the ratings of another. Each game should stand on its own merit, and the longer a game is out (and by that virtue, the more votes it has accumulated), it is only logical that it should be that much more difficult to change the overall rating. A swing of .3 for a game that has been out for three years should be next to impossible overnight, barring some sort of scripted/automated vote-entry system.

The problem stems form how people were behaving on the forums during beta. There was rampant flaming, off-topic discussing, and complete idiocracy by so many people in the HGL beta community that they completely revised their forum terms of service/rules.

That being said, unless you posted something like that in an off-topic forum, it doesn't belong on the board. A perma-ban is a little excessive, I agree; the first offence should have been a warning or temp ban.

Are you sure you weren't corrected/disciplined in the past?

After playing through several rounds of beta, I had no choice but to pre-order and buy this game. While the character classes and skill sets are somewhat weak right now, the gameplay experience itself is everything I had hoped it would be: action, hack'n'slash adventure style. Such a nice change of pace from your garden variety, turn-based 'autocombat' MMOs out there.

Fans of Diablo 2, Titan Quest, etc, will absolutely love HG:L, whether you play it single-player, online, or subscribe to keep enjoying fresh new content every few months.

Originally posted by Kordesh

I would need to agree that it's not an MMO. At least, no more than Diablo 2 is an MMO. The multiplayer is exactly the same, only with the option of a subscription program that gets you extra content.

In Diablo II, there was no common area for players outside of those chat rooms. Guild Wars differed from this model (and it considered a MMO by many) because the towns were actual in-game gathering locations for players, even if leaving town resulted in an instanced experience. Hellgate: London works the same way, with hundreds is not thousands of plyers usng common town locations in-between leaving on instanced adventures/dungeons.

I personally would title this a MMORPG, one that also offers a single-player model, in addition to an enhanced subscription-based model.

I purchase FFXI on launch day years ago, and have cancelled and re-subscribed several times. As long as you don't delete your account with Playonline, you don't have to re-buy anything, you can simply reactivate the account.

FFXI is not a good game to just wander into. After the first few levels it becomes almost impossible to solo, and the scaling XP requirements make it progressively more difficult and time consuming to level.

However, that isn't the worst of it....

Many people think people able to switch classes on one character is a nice perk, to not have to make multiple characters. However, the underlying concept on this is that your character is defined by their active primary and secondary classes. In essence, even if your primary class is maxed out, you're not even remotely as powerful as you should be, due to the necessity of levelling your secondary class.

To do this, you switch to the secondary class (which sets your active level to level 1 when you first get it) -- AND DO EVERYTHING ALL OVER AGAIN. Yes, you must level up from level 1 all ver again, buy equipment, etc. Your secondary class is a max of one-half the level of your primary class, so at level 4 you will finally enjoy having level 2 in your secondary class.

Unless you have a group of friends, an active guild, or are just plain sadistic, I don't recommend jumping into te game lightly.

LotRO isn't exclusively designed for casual players, but it is more accomodating towards those type of players than any other MMO to date (especially with the new features being added for "reputation grind" to allow comparable rewards to raiding).

Turbine has learned a lot over the years between AC, AC2, and DDO. I think they're finally stategizing and adjusting their focus based on what the average player wants, not just the vocal minority. They know that to try to beat WoW at its own game right now would be folly, so they are creating their own identity by intentionally doing things differently. Kudos to them.

Take a look at the verbiage when you are approved for a new key (I've removed the link/key information):

Congratulations on receivin Archlord and allow you to play for free forever no risk and no fees!

Can someone please spell and grammar check this -- and then fix it! That is an example of both poor english, and a lack of professionalism (either from MMORPG.com or the people at Archlord). Just because something is being "given away" doesn't mean you should not take the time to at least phrase it correctly!

A MMORPG doesn't have to be a "WoW" killer to be successful - it merely has to be profitable and self-sustaining.

I think GnH will do fairly well, assuming they have a successful Open Beta phase of testing. I'd say 100-200k subs in the beginning.

I too am interested:

cronin4292@hotmail.com

My thanks to anyone kind enough to send one :)

- MC

At this point (not having played since Beta), I would only try Vanguard again if they offered a 7-day demo of the game - server merge or otherwise. Too much was broken/flawed during Beta for me to consider buying the game then; I won't consider buying it now unless I can experience the "fixed" game myself.

I'm interested in seeing how the game has come along since the Open Beta. Anyone who wants to send me a referral has a shot ot me subscribing if I like it! :)

cronin4292 -at- hotmail -dot- com.

Thanks,

Mike

My dislike of DDO has nothing to do with level advancement rate/cap, it is a combination of two features:

1. DDO was converted from a initiative/turn-based-system to one of the most real-time MMOs out there (meaning you literally click the mouse button to swing your weapon, and press a button to block with your shield in real time). While converting DDO to an Everquest/Wow/etc model would have been a moderate change, going real-time completely changed the dynamic of combat.
2. Enhancements. Sure, they sounded like a great way to customize your character, but D&D 3rd edition was already the most customizable version yet. All these bonuses did was throw the class balance of D&D (balanced over the course of decades), and moreso, the multi-class balance, completely out of whack.

Add in the ease of obtaining magic items, with the small overall pool of magic items (compared the the cannon material) and you have a game that says it is D&D but plays nothing like it.

I can't comment on role-playing, as I only did it in short spurts and it seemed fine. Then again, RP is about the people, not the game - you can RP in any game out there with the right people.

If someone ever makes the equivalent of a modern Pool of Radiance (the AOL Online Version, not the Console Game), with a semi-turn based MMO engine, I'll buy stock in their company. And no, NWN/NWN2 do not count, as (sadly) they don't work well as MMOs.

You can't use the words Expert, Veteran, or anything else signifying superiority in you post if you would like the general population of MMORPG.com to take you seriously.

Even though the majority of your points are held to be true by many people, you do yourself a disservice by presenting them in such a manner.

I personnally think LOTRO is a great game, and would have done quite well four years ago. Now, it just doesn't have enough innovation or longevity to draw me in. Which saddens me, as a huge LOTR fan. I do wish the best to anyone currently playing, and hope the game is quite successful for years to come.