Actually Aspen Colorado looks just like that in the fall - entire hillsides of impossibly phosphorescent golden leaves.  If you let your mind drift even a little you can actually "see" the forest realm of the Elves.

paraphrase of aurick post 

What it comes down to is that Jack could have taken two roads:

Road 1 was to bring MMO's to the Star Trek crowd by giving them the things that they love about Star Trek, but in an MMO format.

Road 2 was to bring Star Trek to the MMO market by dressing up a standard boring MMO in a Star Trek costume.

Option one would have grown the MMO market, but taken longer to really do right. 

Option two is quick and cheap, but ultimately only adds to the competition within the existing MMO market without actually bringing anything new to it.

Cryptic chose the low road, and I think it's going to hurt them. 

Nice analysis, and unfortunately probably correct .

"...intense PvP on the ground and in space,..."

Godammit does every mmog developer have his head up his ass these days??? Don't they look around and see what players are actually Playing and Paying for by the Millions?!  It sure the fck isn't  PvP!   Fools.  Epic fail   Pew Pew in space, Great. 

And here's a thought - why don't bands and game publishers do concerts in mmogs?

With all the games that have empty "pubs" and "arenas" that no one visits because there's nothing going on in them, i'm surprised no one has said hey, let's video a live band playing a set, motion-capture and 'avatarize' it, and then run it in-game as an Event. 

The band would be on stage as in-game characters (non-interactive with the players for obvious reasons), the music would be good quality, and players could jump around and socialize in an Event setting.

The music could even be appropriate to the fantasy setting - think: SteelEye Span plays IronForge or Marilyn Manson plays Undercity!   

1.  Well i thought it was excellent.  Very tight musically and video-wise.  The studio, choreography and editing work on this was top notch Professional.

2. 2nd Life is about as much of a mmog as FaceBook is, but...

3. So what.  There is SOME degree of cross-over with our genre and as the largest virtual world Social Network it's not a bad idea to track what's going on there in case they some day accidently do something  interesting and innovative that applies to us mmog guys. 

Originally posted by Ionselon

Why so much hate over a review?  A review is nothing more than the reviewer's opinion of the game. 

No, this is where much confusion arises on game news sites.

A Game Review is a Product Review and is supposed to be an unbiased and thorough Examination of Product Features (or lack thereof).  It's intended to Inform the reader about the content of the game.

This is different from a film or concert review , which are Event Reviews,where indeed all that's being expressed is whether the reviewer liked the event or not.

Game reviews can express like or dislike in the summary but the primary purpose is to Inform and educate, not to give Opinion..

DING!!!  GRATZ!!!  May you spawn another 800 lb gorilla mmog sir.

Despite the h8 from self professed leet gamerz, WoW hits the sweet spot for genuine fans of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Play Gaming.

Originally posted by neonwire

Originally posted by Samhael

Hmm. This article makes it sound like PvP is going to get forced down your throat.  Quite change from their original line from Chris Cao : "PvP will always be consensual. You'll either choose to play on a PvP server, opt-in to a PvP zone, or take egregious actions that will flag you for PvP."

Stuff PvE! We've been seeing boring restrictive PvE games for years. Whats the bloody point in playing a game about heroes and villains fighting each other online with thousands of players if you cant actually fight against each other? To complain about it is just retarded 

Oh boo hoo that nasty player just killed me.......THATS THE WHOLE POINT!! LMAO!!

Wrong.  That's NOT the point.  The DC Universe is NOT some simplistic pk Fighting Game or pointless squad level Shooter.

Read the comix, watch the films - The Conflict isn't about a bunch of  fools running around ganking each other over and over and over again.

If that's what the game degenerates to, then it will be about as successful as Shadowbane.

This probably sounded good in a design doc and in brainstorming sessions, but it should have gotten axed by an experienced producer in the proof of concept prototype stage.   DOA imo.

The world looks WONDERFUL!  I wanna live there!

Whoa!  Look out!  This could be an Eve killer! 

not.

It'll have all the same distinctive features that every other IGG game has.

Originally posted by Samuraisword

When a developer cheats the virtual world concept by selling in game advantages, does it matter?

Valid argument. 

In fact, why don't these "item shop" mmogs just go ahead and sell bot programs in the shops. 

Just like some mmogs did with gold farming - make bot sales part of the game.

Needs more special effects.

Not a comment on the style, just looks like somebody mis-labeled the article or pictures.

The backgrounds may have been game rendered (though even those look suspiciously too uniform), but those comic book candy-colored disneyland ships?  They're either hand drawn concept art or untextured and unlighted as previously suggested. 

I like how when you mouseover any shot on MMORPG.com it always says "Earthrise Screenshot" 

The pics are nice, they've gone for the slightly stylized look, personally i prefer extreme photo-realistic but these are good.

Originally posted by Thillian

 I didn't read AoC news for some time

Yup, DX10 and most everything else has been explained and is in the process of being corrected since the departure of the original lead designer.

The AoC development cycle had to basically start over from scratch after the mess left by the previous guy, the new guy re-prioritized everything and the current work being done is to most everyone's satisfaction.

The general consensus is the game's finally in good hands and heading in the right direction.

will there be PG-13+ rated "emanation points" ?  Think of the possibilities! 

Yay, another IGG cookie cutter clone, with a thin "sci-fi" veneer tacked on so you can distinguish it from the other 50 identical titles they churn out every week - big eyed pouting anime toons that shoot sparkle clouds out of wands, er guns. 

Honest to god i think they've got a big automated script that creates this junk.  Shuffle the word list around a bit, throw some different clothing on the characters and viola! you've got a "new" game every few days.

lol ironic, will Indian gamers now have to struggle with outsourced Customer Service located in VietNam or Shanghai or Mobile, Alabama?  "Hey y'all, I'm Ashwatthama Patel, what's y'all account numba?"

Ah now see this is exactly the kind of mmo a small innovative company like Funcom should be doing - small, niche, creative, different, and something they could support.  

Funcom should create a Major Market Division and hand off AoC to that division.  Then concentrate their mainstream Core resources and efforts to this Secret World project.

DorkFall = dead man walking. 

All that's left is for the corpse to FINALLY fall over and start stinking up the place.

edit: beer induced rant deleted by author.