All Posts by Soldarith

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Goodluck!

It is essentially the same story all throughout the world with this title; it isn't just Asia.

First the game was in such horrid shape that it should not have seen the light of release day for a solid two months of bug fixes. Even then the game didn't have an ounce of in-game features that were listed on the website (before release).

Secondly, the game's development company pulled a "bait and switch" tactic on free features, founders features, and subscription features. I mean, they totally rewrote the whole online features comparison table -- AFTER many people had already subscribed/founded.

Third, they acknowledged that they KNEW, for months prior to release, that there were major memory leak problems but couldn't find them prior to release.

Forth, their response/actions towards in-game spammers has been lackluster, to say the most about it.

Fifth, their "support" is laughable at best and at worst it just plain doesn't exist.

Sixth, their billing system was a farce for well over two solid months AFTER release. Did anybody even both to test this thing before release?

Seventh, FSS and Ping0 have signed an agreement with a well-known spamming/farming company, for "future" titles and/or content in their games -- a'la item mall.

I suppose I could go on and on about all the things they did not do right but I won't; it isn't worth it. They have proven that the bottomline is cash and they haven't got an ounce of care for anything else. Otherwise we wouldn't be seeing the whole "You should thank us for our hard work" speeches Bill & team put out, when they announce (6 months later) that they are bringing in shared stash...yeah.

So this is the subscriber content, huh? Wait for months on items promised at release and then be asked to be thankful? I guess that is like being told you should be thankful you still have your job and to not ask for a raise or your position may be off-shored...

They have a reputation that they are 100% responsible for now. When your company name has become a catch-phrase that means you've been duped/screwed, you know that you have pretty much blown your first (and in most cases only) impression. "You've been Flagshipped".

Originally posted by Cronq

Some of you guys are in serious denial.

Even if this guy did fabricate some numbers or was a little inaccurate, the true and accurate chart wouldn't look much different. Even if LoTRO had another 100,000 subs, it's piece of the pie wouldn't increase much. Approximately 16 million people play MMO's and WoW owns 10 million of them. Everything else is scraps, so go ahead and fight about them.

The fact is WoW is the absolute Juggernaut of MMO's. Regardless of how many WoW haters this community has, WoW is the most polished and well functioning MMO out there and can run on any machine made within the last 20 years. For every person that hates it, there are a thousand who love it.

I'm not saying WoW doesn't deserve some of it's criticism. But trying to refute the fact that it is the King of MMO's (population wise) is insane.

While I agree that the subscription MMO market is at about 16 million or so. I would actually say that, if anything, WOW has been a God-send to the market because it expanded the MMO customer base (by a magnitude of millions, across the globe). Meaning: Before WOW, there were not this many people playing MMOs. After WOW, whether they are still playing the title or not, the market customer base has exploded in numbers.

So, if anything, everybody should be thankful that WOW came along - You don't have to like the gameplay, or graphics, or pay them a monthly subscription fee (I believe they have plenty of that, anyway); you just have to appreciate what the title has done for the industry. The industry is more popular today than it ever has been in the past. Investors are more likely to put dollars into the industry because they have a clear example of a smashing success. Players get higher quality games because competition is building. All-in-all, WOW coming to the MMO industry has been the best thing in a very long time.

Not that I am personally interested, I felt others may want to learn more about the just announced new product.

The title is being developed by NetDevil:

http://www.netdevil.com/games/lego.php

The official website can be found here:

http://universe.lego.com/en-US/default.aspx?domainredir=www.legouniverse.com

If a game cannot produce at least a 7-day trial/try-before-you-buy period, then you shouldn't touch it; for a number of reasons. Period.

Originally posted by Athela

I only have a hate/love thing going with one game and don't think too much about the rest.  In my small opinion, these are the upcoming mmos or companies to watch:

Bethesda's mmo

Warhammer Online

Bioware's mmo

38 Studios mmo

Horrifyingly, Hello Kitty Online is going to do well.  Ack.

 

I'm rather surprised that your list did not include Blizzard's unannounced MMO. Other than that one not being listed, I would agree with your list as a "Watcher's List" of news-makers for 2008.

Not that I want to advocate conducting any business with the farmers. However, if you used a credit card for the purchase, you can easily dispute the charge to your bank and/or stop payment on it before it fully processes and credits their account. But keep in mind that if you did use a credit card...you gave them your credit card/billing information. They now know everything about you and they have already proven they don't play by the rules - Take it for what it is worth.

I have to say that I am a bit surprised that you had any difficulties at all in locating the mechanism/form for the free trial product key - After all, it is part of the trial download process (where you put in your email address, date of birth and it is immediately emailed to you). You do not need a credit card. You do not need to disclose your real name. You do not need to tell Turbine anything at all about yourself other than a birthday and an email (both of which can be made up). Simply revisit the site that you downloaded the game from (http://www.lotro.com/trial) and like others have said, click on the link down at the bottom right-hand corner that reads

"Already have the game and need a trial key?
Click here."

<modedit>

Originally posted by morellomre

Hi, i had a few questions as im thinking about picking LOTRO up

1.  Is this a feasible game for the casual player?  I dont have more then 1 or 2 hours a night during the week, am i doomed to stay at lower levels forever?

2.  Is this a WoW clone?  I'm coming from WoW and im looking for something just a little more complex and mature that will keep the 13 year olds away

 

I am a very new player to LOTRO (Began last week) and have been a WoW player since testing, so I'd like to offer this player's perspective to your questions.

1.) Absolutely. Although I do consider myself a "power gamer" when I do play, I cannot play every day nor can I play hours on end on many days. This game feels like I got something done with the time I spend in it. I can focus on one thing to do per play session: Work on obtaining a new trait, exploring a new area, leveling up some of my crafting skills, work on the leveling of my character, make some money on the auction house, etc. I really feel like my time within the game is time very well spent and not "wasted" in the least.

2.) Absolutely not! I have to say that some of the things LOTRO does really shocked me and set it apart from other MMOs that I play. Here is my little list of uniqueness in the game:

    a.) Monster Play (PVP). This is just a blast! For someone who wasn't big on PVP with other games, this is actually very fun!

    b.) Music! Your character doesn't actually just /emote and /play generic music in the game; there is an entire music system within the game! You can 'write' your own music or play some famous music you already love with your character.

    c.) Traits system. OK this part I absolutely love about the game. I am an explorer by heart. This game actually rewards you for some of those 'weird' things you do. Like wanting to uncover/discover all of a particular zone. Or using a certain skill a number of times. And slaying a number of a particular creature...etc. The game rewards you for your actions through traits that you can slot to enhance your character - Similar to how WoW allows you to customize your character with talents.

     d.) Community. I cannot stress this one enough: Overall the community, on the forums and in the game, is the most mature and absolutely most helpful I have ever encountered in all my time of playing MMOs. Period. I was absolutely shocked and it took me a while to get used to it - I mean, who would have thought, I don't see anyone typing in public channels in numbers or cool dude talk; complete sentences, wow!

    e.) Environment and attention to detail is some of the best I have laid eyes on for an MMO. If you've got an awesome game rig, then you will probably be floored at the graphics. My system is going on five years old now and I am absolutely amazed by the beauty and graphics on my system (with the settings turned to medium). You walk around the towns, or the zones, or even look at the gear on characters and everywhere you look you can see painstaking attention to detail and patience. I am very pleasantly surprised on this one.

    f.) The story! Every quest you do has a purpose. Yes, even those "kill xx wolves for us" quests. Just read the text and you will actually feel like you are doing it for a cause/reason - Not just busy work that is totally insignificant.

    g.) Life. From the little creatures that roam the wild and harm nothing to the absolute abundance of townfolk and casual conversations that take place among NPCs, the game is just alive. Everywhere you turn you see life and the world feels like it goes on with or without your involvement - i.e. feels real.

Anyways, that is my perspective. Goodluck with whatever you decide!

Take a whole two minutes a read the game's FAQ on hellgatelondon.com along with the obvious articles on the subscription plan and what you get as a subscriber vs not subscribing.

Originally posted by namelessbob

can get the pre-order key for free from the dutch magazine previewing the game. It says it is a wasp dye kit give away, but the code is really a pre-order code too.

I still had the pdf downloaded, but i don't remember how to navigate the site. The link below is the dutch EA site with possibly still giving away the free wasp dye kit.

http://www.electronic-arts.de/publish/ea_spiele/spieleliste.html

 

Yep. You can navigate through all of that, register to the site, navigate through the eZine and then click the link for the code. The code gives you the Wasp dye kit, pre-order status, beta access, and the founder's offer - all in one code. I picked up two of them about a month ago.

This is just another excuse, in a very long line of them, for some parents to blame someone else (other than themselves) for influencing their children. Honestly, this has all been said/done before with every single piece of media medium that has been invented: Books, music, poems, movies, video games, etc. Some parents (albeit lazy) try their damnedest to find fault and blame in anyone but themselves; when, ultimately, it is their child and their responsibility (no one else's).

And, honestly, if a parent thinks a child hasn't a clue about what sex is, by their mid/later teenage years...they don't deserve to be a parent - This is a clear indication that they haven't even approached their child about the topic, let alone remotely understand what their child knows, understands, or is exposed to already about it.

This just comes down to irresponsibility on the parents' part and wishing to shift blame elsewhere. There are clear ratings on every single video game on the market today. There are parental controls on every single video game console on the market today. There are even parental controls available for computers today. Why, then, are we continuously bombarded with the half-baked notion that these things are influencing our poor children? Correction: Parents influence children and if you don't control what they can see/interact with, you are still influencing them (even more so): You're allowing someone else to do it for you; don't complain when they do.

Here are a few suggestions to help get control over your disk usage (separate from following some of the recommendations already mentioned):

1.) Limit System Restore. Honestly, the default setting really makes this thing consume more than enough hard drive space for restore points. Anyways, it is a good practice to not go nuts on restore points; keep them only before actions which could cause you undue stress (major driver updates, service pack installs, etc). Limit this thing WAY down. Depending on your size hard drive, it isn't unusual to only need it hovering between 1%-3%. Make sure System Restore is only active on one drive also - If you have multiple drives on your pc, choose one and only one to use for restore points and turn off system restore on the other drives.

2.) Take a look at your swap/paging file size. Windows loves to set your min/max to two different values with gigs in between (usually). Look at the bottom of the screen and see what the recommended size is, set the min/max to match this size - This actually helps performance on your drive as well because you will not have windows "thrashing" the hard drive with writes in a space that expands/decreases within that range.

3.) Delete ALL of your online/offline web browser cache from any and all web browsers on your system.

4.) Pretty much delete anything within your temp folder. Don't only look at C:\temp but also look at the Windows\temp folder - Lots of applications love to leave behind their entire install programs here.

5.)  Go to your Windows directory. See all of those "$NtUninstall..." folders (Make sure you folder settings allow you to see hidden files/folders and system folders)? Those are from all of your Microsoft patches, including service packs. These things take up A LOT of room. If you don't intend on uninstalling any of the patches (and you most likely won't - unless they caused a major problem for your system): Delete them! Shift key + delete will blow them right up without stopping at the recycle bin.

6.) Empty your recycle bin.

7.) Search for "*.dmp" files on your drive. These are dump files from system crashes, or unscheduled reboots that, depending on your system setting, can tie up a lot of drive space.

8.) Patch logs. You will find these also in your Windows folder. They begin with "KB#####.log". These are safe to delete.

9.) Look for zip files that you have unpacked or torrents/install files that you have already combined. Keep either the initial files or the final files for the install/movie/program - There is no need to keep both the initial files you downloaded AND the final product. Another good way to look at this is with drivers. Driver programs love to self-extract themselves into C:\<folder name> and launch their install program from there. This is all well and good, however, they leave the folder behind. Typically they are obvious folder names, "Nvidia", "ATI", "Drivers", etc. Just be sure you don't need anything in there before you begin to blow them up.

 *Edit*

Make sure you go into your WoW folder and delete all of those damned patch downloaders and patch files - You really just don't need to keep these on your system. They take up A LOT of room, all combined.

10.) Download CCleaner and make sure you go through the settings for all the applications (like cookies, etc) and keep what you want to keep. Once you run it, it will wipe (up to DoD standard) anything you tell it to. It does a good job at clearing the crap off your pc.

11.) Schedule a scandisk to run on your system after you've done all of this.

12.) Turn your screensaver OFF and run Defrag. Once Defrag is done, enable your screensaver, reboot, and see how you did.

Goodluck!

As my own recent thread in this forum mentions, I did try out EQ again with my girlfriend. However, it just did not work out at all. One thing I'd like to share with other though is the petition/in-game help system. Wow was I in for a shock!

I had a problem trying to use right-click items from inventory. I asked out in general, relogged, ran a full file check, etc - nothing worked. So I ended up petitioning, or should I say "opening a support ticket from within the game". This was just a horrible experience that pretty much sealed the game's fate in my mind. I submitted the in-game support ticket and waited. I did not see any indicator that a ticket had been received, etc within the game. Ran around for a few hours and without any ticket response, I logged out. I ended up just giving up on the game and never logged back into the game. However, to my surprise, over 3 days later I got an email response from SOE support; regarding my submitted ticket. Three days! This is absolutely nuts in this day-and-age! You mean to tell me that in a time where most games have in-game support response measured in minutes, SOE still cannot muster a response within an acceptable timeframe? I can understand if the staff is overwhelmed on a busy night, etc...but three days?! Honestly, there is just no excuse for that poor of a level of support service.

I am sure, somewhere, that SOE does things right - I mean, people still play their games, so they must be doing something right. But I have to say that what I saw in the game made me sick to my stomach and told me (with clarity): Leave your memories alone, don't log back in to taint them.

I will forever remember EQ with my good memories that I took away from the game. However, make no mistake about it, the game had a great number of epic failures.

Originally posted by bezado

 

Mislead? I don't think so. Blueray dvd hold over 50GB and thats not what this is about. I never said anything about storage size did I? The average, if not most of the consumers have no clue. The only thing that is genuine to the knowledge you need to have when purchasing blueray or hd-dvd is, do you have a 1080p HDTV. Because I don't give a damn about storage capacity on a disk, the real thing is that a blueray player will not put out 1080p to a 720p or 1080i HDTV PERIOD! End of discussion.

 

You seem to be misinformed. Why not learn something instead of making yourself sound like a bestbuy tech who just graduated from the 1hr DVD course. Bluerays sound and video are on the DVD not built into the players. The players themselves are not 100% utilizing the capability of the Blueray technology, AKA the data on the disks. You got the movie and the sound, but blueray also has the ability to switch between scenes to alternate endings and different view angles with the push of a button. Plus the utilization of mass effects that are still not fully functional on the blueray players today. So while Directors are adding these things, expect the technology to start to use these things as players get better.

And who the heck asked about how you could place mpeg2 video to a cd? Didn't you mean to a DVD.

 

I feel the need to correct you again, here.

Blue Ray and HD DVD have their own proprietary in-movie navigation and interactivity systems - This is the single largest contention point between the two formats, stopping them from coming to an agreement and ending this format war. Both formats, however, have the capability of allowing some of the following features: the view angel in a scene, zoom, in-movie picture-in-picture, in-movie commentary, etc.

Understand what I am saying here: The players have absolutely nothing to do with what content is on the disc or features that were incorporated into the disc when it was recorded - This is entirely up to the studio, film team, and disc manufacturer. The player, will be able to access whatever content or features were placed on the disc - Just as long as the player is compatible with the format the disc was recorded in. This is why there are standards.

Originally posted by bezado

Both are two entirely different pieces of software-hardware. Blueray is 1080p and HD-DVD is 1080i. Blueray hardware doesn't even utilize the full features of blueray yet, something like only 60% of the actual blueray capability is used.

Most people still do not have a 1080p HDTV to display blueray, a good market of the HDTV used today are either 720p or 1080i. Also consumer electronics said that over 30% of people who have bought blueray did not own a 1080p display to use the blueray enhanced video 1080p, which is why HD-DVD is still the best and can you really hear all those extra sounds clear enough with blueray over HD-DVD hd sound? No. So why bother with blueray anyway.

I think consumers are the ones in the end to be polarized and blindsided, because they do not research and check the technologies before investing money into them.

So how is the 360 a POS because it doesn't have a blueray addon? Please give me a break.

I have to interject here and correct you on a couple of points.

First and foremost: Both Blue Ray and HD DVD format discs display their pictures in 1080p. Period. There is no visual difference in the two disc formats.

Secondly, picture quality (a'la 1080p, 1080i, etc) has absolutely nothing to do with sound quality. A few items are taken into consideration for audio output quality:

Media capabilities. The HD DVD, Blue Ray DVD, regular DVD, or CD you are playing was recorded using what type of sound (linear PCM, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio, etc)?

Player capabilities. Is it coponent, HDMI, etc output capable? If it is HDMI, what version (1.3 being the latest)? Each of these output standards, and cables, have their own audio capabilities.

Output device. Your output device, audio system, HDTV, etc have their own audio capabilities and compatibilities as well. You will need to understand them in order to decide how your sound from the whole system will output and be heard.

Blue Ray and HD DVD differences? Well, it certainly isn't picture quality. HD DVD offers double-sided discs (one side HD DVD, the other side regular DVD), whereas Blue Ray does not. Blue Ray has a higher capacity on their discs compared to HD DVD - Although, you are correct in that the space is not all used. Studio support is another difference between the two formats, as it is ever-changing through the format war.

Sony is the major player behind the Blue Ray format, and Microsoft/Toshiba are the major players behind HD DVD. That is why Microsoft supported the optional HD DVD drive and not a Blue Ray drive on their XBox 360. Do they "suck" because of it? I suppose that depends on which format you are buying. The game console, however, is still fully capable of playing games (it's original purpose) just fine without an external drive attached to it.

You really need to be able to block/report emails you receive on this site from other members. Right now it is pretty uncontrolled and some members take advantage of this by sending some pretty nasty emails to other members.

I'm going to voice the same advice that everyone has mentioned already: Wii isn't for you then. It's ok, it isn't for everybody (certainly it isn't my type of console either) - I personally chose the Xbox 360 for pure power, HD DVD, and graphics.

I will, however, say that when we purchased a Wii for 3 kids this past Christmas, that six kids and ten adults could not get enough of it; the entire Christmas day (we're talking from morning until late evening when we kicked people out to go to bed) - They played ALL day long. It was absolutely funny watching couples "box" one another in the ring, or teams forming up to bowel against one another, or to watch the other interactive games they played - I had a great time watching everyone else enjoy themselves playing with the console.

Like any console, you have to consider their title line-up, their IP (intellectual properties), partnerships, and capabilities before deciding on which console is best suited for your gaming needs - And "none" is a valid decision as well.

There is no mistaking the numbers, however, that the Nintendo Wii is the hottest console to ever land on the market, to-date. The company cannot manufacture the consoles fast enough, and Nintendo is producing more consoles than Sony Playstation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360 combined - They have to be doing something right, to achieve this level of success.