Originally posted by ciid

Must be nice makeing games in china and not paying any money to the developers of the 15 peices of software you used to clone someone elses game.Dont support chinese games.

It's a korean game :P

and this reincarnation of an old ass game will not be full of hackers because.......

  Faxion is simply horrid. Bad graphics, horrible gameplay, just something you would expect from ex-Wolfpack devs.

  As a game of interest I checked the website and talked to the community for a bit.  As most niche sandbox game communities goes I found em to be quite friendly.  Is it related to it being a mainly crafting game or the desperation most indie sandbox gamers feel knowing their game might not make it ? Who knows.  Talking with many and reading the forums the conclusion is simple.  The Buy It recommendation in this article is a bit of a joke considering the state of the game right now.  Imagine my surprise when I did not actually see alot of fanboys on irc and on forums. Most people who play this game are rational.  They admit the game has many problems, but they consider their pre-order as a donation instead of a subscription because they see the potential with where the game is heading.  Before anyone recommends paying for it they should make sure the developers can deliver.  The first trial by fire will be seeing if they can resolve the server issues the game is experiencing by march 15, or how they react if it is not.  We all know game launches cannot be pushed back forever.  On a positive note they already passed the test of honesty acknowledging problems within their product. The obvious recommendation for this game should be Wait and See.

  From what I saw it's more or less a WoW clone, or L2 clone depending on the PvP options. Nothing innovative. Doesn't look too bad graphically.

Originally posted by Emergence

Don't let anyone ever tell you that permadeath, full loot, FFA PvP, or sandbox games are "niche" and not worth investment because they won't produce profit.

There are MILLIONS of players who want all of the above, making it a very, very, VERY LARGE market for those type of games.

 

And what's pathetic is how people are so ignorant on what profit even means. Servers do NOT cost that much, nor do employees. People here have no idea how much money even 1000 people bring in, let alone 5000 or more.

If a MMORPG has 5000 players, it is a huge success and creates massive profit. Costs are very, very low compared to the ridiculous, overwhelming profit.

Even a "Dead" MMORPG makes millions per year of profit. This is why DAoC or Everquest 1 won't die. Probably ever.

 

600,000 full loot PK's just shows there are more than 1000 players that would LOVE a good FFA PvP game. You could easily find 1000 players here that want a permadeath game (which is considered far above full loot ffa PvP in the term of hardcore) and that alone can make a MMORPG well worth being made. And if the game is F2P? 1000 players make A LOT more than 15/month!

   600k deaths does not = 600k PKers lol.

   Server costs add up quite a bit, especially since their cost increase isn't steady but exponential with increase of load.

   Employees don't cost alot ?  Maybe in china they don't.  I'm not gonna give you a rundown on wages across the globe, but you'll probably need around 100+ subs(20 euro each)  in a civilised country to pay ONE employee, and that's minimum for an inexperienced college grad. Probably more but I'm being extremely conservative here.

   Return of investment is probably the biggest killer of games obviously. Publishers and banks(loans) want to see a return as quickly as possible, which in turn can adversly affect the product and force devs to make dumb mistakes.  It takes a while to break even on the initital cost alone.  EvE was a lottery winner in that regard as it is in my view the luckiest game in the history of mmos considering it kept getting invesment despite being a tremendous mess.

   Taxes, yes they exist. Need I explain this one at all ?

   Offices, obviously not a biggie for bigger publishers but for a small indie developer every penny counts.

   I'm sure there's more but I think this is enough to show running a game is no walk in the park financially speaking.

Funcom is the best example of a developer not listening to it's testers actually. Only when the roof was caving in on them they decided to do something about the game.

  Main problem with most beta tests these days is simple, fanboys.  They are the ones who follow the games early on, post up a storm on the forums, inflate the devs' ego.  They are the first to get in and they are the ones who give the most input. They are the ones who shout down any proposed drastic changes due to their zealotry.

   The developers are like an overprotective mother nursing its own child.  They tend to lean towards small changes in hopes that they will be enough, instead of facing reality that their child might need a serious operation.  Now in the real world you would go to a doctor for the diagnosis. The role of a doctor in their beta tests play the established names in the community who have the trust of the developer.  Now some of these folks might not be fanboys, but they suffer from similar character flaws.  Most of them will not want to destroy their good rep in the community by throwing out doomsday scenarios, even if that is what the situation calls for. 

   The developers are just that, the creators. They set out to create something they feel passionate about(I hope)  Deviating off course too much might,in their minds, be a betrayal of what their vision is.  This also is the reason they will rather listen to the sweet allure of fanboy optimism. 

   Lastly, fanboys are to blame :)  They polarise the conversation with their optimism that the voices of reason don't even register and only the extreme negative reactions are heard. Of course those extreme reactions are usually a symptom of a game gone terribly wrong. However the developers usually see them as trolls or people who want a totally different game than the one in the makes.

   Bottom line is most testers opinions are swept under the rug as far as the direction of the game goes. Devs are too set in their ego-trip of a joy ride to even want to change a broken system. 

Well the UI is straight out of WoW.  Quests are your standard affair.  Random Rifts couldn't be more boring.

I'm sure it will be flooded with veteran players who will make it boring and full in no time anyways.

  Game is free, it makes no money, it really isn't worth it for anyone to go after them. Mods infringe on copyrights every day and they are more well known than this game .

Originally posted by Scot

There seem to be far to many Pro's as oppossed to Cons for something that scores a 6.5.

It seems a reasonable person gave the score and then a DW fanboy wrote the review. Grats mmorpg.com I love your reviews.

The Timed aspect is straight from the preceding video games. However the time is very short and doesn't allow for any detours during the game. You have to rush through the missions alot faster than in other titles and it makes for  very uninteresting gameplay. That was basically what turned me off from the game and I haven't been back since.

Mmorpg.com writers have integrity ? lulz

Horrid piece of gaming I must say. I've seen plenty of great games made by one man teams, no idea how many people work on this, they need to find a better hobby.

Originally posted by BillMurphy

Not to address anyone specifically, but this is part one of a multi-part article.  It does indeed only cover the beginning aspects, with my opinions of what I've played thus far included.  The second article next week includes more specifics, but will still have some things missing that were available to me during the 1-9 section of the game.  Mainly because I don't want to bog the articles down with too much minutia.  There's a lot to cover even in these first few levels, so I beg pardon if I leave some things out. 

As for needing negatives to somehow make you feel better about my preview... ice has one bugged power.  Sometimes the your new gear doesn't show up right away on the character panel when you equip it.  And I got stuck inside Raven's tortured mind once.  There are plenty of little bugs in the game, but nothing that hampered my enjoyment of the title.

The second part does indeed mention some negatives, but by and large I really do enjoy this game... READ: WHAT I'VE PLAYED OF IT.  So you'd better get used to reading about how much I like it... shockingly, I'm paid to give my opinion and this happens to be it.

Relax folks, we at MMORPG.com are not out to get you and we're not part of some large conspiracy aimed at your wallet.

Funny, you didn't mention anything about any bugs in the actual article.  I do agree this is just your opinion, wheras it should be a critique.  Saying that a game is consolish when it is made for a console ... not really a negative if you think about it.  People wouldn't be wondering where mmorpg.com's loyalties lie if this wasn't one of many such marketing previews.  It isn't a conspiracy, it's just the reality of doing business. Anyone who claims they can get insider info and exclusives and be fully critical of the publisher products is either naive or a downright liar. 

  I have to agree a bit with the nay-seyers in this thread, big surprise.  What people forget is that acess is everything to sites like mmorpg.com.  They make money on ads, and get people to come to their site with content and sweepstakes from game publishers. You know what happens when you make too many negative reviews , especially toward big publishers ? Zero acess, no sweepstakes, no beta handouts, no ads.  Publishers have plenty of other sites to go to who play ball. If you think these are conspiracy theories then you know nothing about the game business.

   This preview is suspect not because it is so positive. It is because there is almost nothing negative the player has to say. Now either this game is the end all of gaming, the WoW killer and the second coming of Jesus, ORRRR the guy is just another fluff boy who writes previews for this site.

I thought the game was awful. Everything from the evnironments to the mechs looks downright ugly. The combat is a joke, it is boring and heavily repetetive, very much like EvE.  It is obviously a niche product, but I don't see it getting far. Why play this boring product if you can play a more refined and fine tuned boring product like EvE ( boredom is my opinion obviously)

1) The Incredible Hulk (Grey)

2) Sting (the singer)

2) Venom

3) God

3) Kthulu

These crappy f2p games are amazing. In that they amaze me with their stupitidty. How is it an Open Beta if you need a  key ?

Allods started off with a decent cash shop too, till they realised the money coming in was crap and made drastic changes.