- Sidekicking and adaptable team difficulty for missions (depending on how many people there were in the team) in City of Heroes. Basically that meant we could play with anyone at any time and the missions wouldn't be either too easy or too difficult. The game was all about teams (something that can't be said about Champs Online) and imo was fucking awesome for it.

- 3-way Realm vs Realm combat (DAOC)

- Warhammer's Public Quests.

Originally posted by Daedalus732

Wow, there certainly are a lot of would-be moral policemen in this thread making a lot of baseless accusations and ridiculous claims.

You would think that violence was invented the day video games hit the market by the some of these people talk.

But talking to people like this is like talking to a wall. Most people who think violent video games cause violence in kids just believe it because they've heard it somewhere, and it's a convenient explanation. We certainly wouldn't want to probe too deeply into the real issues that cause violence: Wealth disparity, Resource problems, Uncontrolled population growth, Religion, and Ignorance. Then we might actually have to blame ourselves rather than pixels on a computer screen and the programmers behind them. 

What people are really upset about is being put in a situation where concepts like "good" and "bad" become fudged and moral decisions are turned on their heads. People are so hilariously uncomfortable with taking on an "evil" persona or seeing the world as something besides black and white that they cower in the corner and scream how morally depraved the people are who show them a different perspective on the world. It would be funny if these people didn't have so much political power in real life.

This is all just scapegoating. All the moral police can go sodomize themselves with pine cones as far as I'm concerned. Their scapegoating hurts our economy, it hurts our species, and it detracts from the real issues at hand.

They're afraid of true empathy and thinking of others because then they might have to change and admit to things they aren't willing to admit. They're like that complete moron several posts above that wants the terrorists to be arabs. White, English-speaking mass murderers can't possibly exist.

Every time an issue like this comes up in this forum, I see this horde of intolerant assholes circle-jerking throughout threads and making the world even worse than what it already is. I do hope they grow up someday, though, and learn to think instead of holing themselves up in an illusory bubble of reductionism.

Originally posted by metalhead980

Originally posted by Scorchien

It really feels like a Movie with Gameplay elements not a "Game"

 

 

Are you new to Bioware games? Kotor, Jade Empire and Mass Effect were the same exact way.

That's what you get when you play a Bioware game. You get a cinematic linear rpg.

Basically playing through a Epic movie.

I don't understand why people complain, unless you stopped playing Bioware rpgs with Nwn you would already know what to expect.

"It feels like a movie" Duhhh........

 

What he's saying is that he feels his interaction with the thing is minimal. Up until Jade Empire and KOTOR 2 the linearity and cinematic tinge wasn't bad; I think they had a nice little balance between player input and scripts. Shit like Mass Effect tilted the balance towards the cinematic, leaving us with an interesting story that is barely playable. I think it works better on other games, like CoD has demonstrated, but in RPGs it can become a tad boring.

Originally posted by Cyborg99

Originally posted by RadioMaryja

say what you want cyborg. dragon age is great game, miles ahead of oblivion in terms of everything. im looking forward to play dlc and some good usermade stories. havent enjoyed rpg since baldurs gate. im scared to start ego draconis cause im DAO spoiled :) and whatever you say about linearity in this game. i like it, and ALOT of people will think the same. im glad i bought this game and ill probably play it at least 3-4 times, like i did with bg2. DAO linearity > oblivion sandbox.

 

liana > morrigan :D

 

I'll say it again, I enjoy some linear games and they dominate the market. I'm just correcting the comment that Oblivion is more linear the DA when it clearly isn't. You can have fun playing DA and thats great, just don't get the illusion that DA is a sandbox game.

Dudes, Cyborg is right. You're just messing around with the definition of 'linear' to suit your arguments in a pretty fallacious way. Whatever decisions Dragon Age enforces on the player aren't comparable to the ones Oblivion can give you; I mean, what if I don't wanna do ANY of the options given to me by the game? Oblivion does give you the option to ignore the main story altogether, Dragon Age does not. Games like Oblivion are linear only when it comes to the main story, but has a world that is bigger than the story and includes it, while others like DA have nothing (the content doesn't exist) outside the main story and related little side quests. 

It seems like the Old Republic MMO from Bioware seeks to combine both aspects, though, so we'll see how that goes.

Originally posted by AndrewGoat

 

That said, most people have high hopes for this game. Noone knows if it will fail or succeed. That's also kinda up to each person. The people playing WAR, Age of Conan, Aion, etc, probably find the game to be pretty successful, whereas those who played it and DIDNT LIKE IT think its a 'failure'.

 

"Heres why:"

It is, simply, because they deny the TRUTH about their FAILURE even as it emerges in front of their VERY eyes and SLAPS them with the magnificent WHITE GLOVE of futility. As a somber feeling of defeat and rage takes over their bodies, they NEGLECT the BASIC IMPULSE of tears and head-banging against the wall in order to PRESERVE THE LIE of their PATHETIC conformity. Visionaries like the OP see this and sigh at our collective deceit, drawn to mixed feelings of contempt and compassion, the kind of compassion one shows the wounded animal in the road; he imagines the civilized world as free and enlightened, and yet, out of pure necessity, asks himself : "Is this innocent, savage animal worth saving? Will it be able to understand the principles of the civilized man?" Wrought by the dilemma, spirited about the possibility of 'teaching a man to fish', he reveals the inevitable, the omega, the ESSENCE of his dear animal's existence: "SW: TOR will fail." As he walks away, nay, as he flies away in the golden chariot of Reason, he can only hope. Behold, for we have been shown our destinations.

Originally posted by Vagrant_Zero

I too believe Bioware isn't going to do a traditional beta (which nowadays is pure marketing BS anyways). So I don't base my speculation of release date off the lack of beta.

I'd rather hope they do a traditional beta, and not the marketing BS that gets labeled as such nowadays. :) 

 This game will FAIL in the FACE of the 2012 WoW expansion that WILL END the world as we know IT. It is, as the good ol' men say, THE SECOND coming. that will end THE world. As WE know it. WORD EMPHASIS

 Been wanting to try this out - many thanks!

 You know, there's a lot of things that make for a good community, like several posters have already noted. One of them is a good PvP system. I remember that in DAoC there was a kind of permeating sense of 'nationality' which was very cool, because it meant that people would sometimes go out of their way to help others "for the cause". When I played Age of Conan there was something vaguely similar in the Culture PvP server (which, precisely after remembering how fun DAoC was, I didn't hesitate to jump in); we used to see this egyptian (I know they're not egyptian, but I remember them that way) guild that liked to raid the lowbie zones to kill everyone in sight, and there was this one time when we (hyboreans) started broadcasting for help along various zones. After 15 minutes or so, a lot of people responded to the call just because they were getting to kill those damn snake-lovers. The fight lasted for like an hour, and we even got some aquilonian guilds into the fray; the mayhem was grand, and it was a very fun battle. I met several good people that day, and I believe most of us were having a great time just kicking each other's asses. Of course, the game was a mess and I left shortly thereafter, but I think the community at the time was strong. 

I had a similar, if a lot more tenuous, experience while playing Warhammer. Needless to say, DAoC was the greatest of those games in terms of establishing a strong sense of commitment with a community. I think Warhammer had too much of the 'do-it-for-the-loot' // "play scenarios like you're playing Unreal Tournament" mentality to work as effectively, but the potential was there. In any case, the most important thing is that DAoC had both a nice little space for downtime AND great PvP. The community was awesome... perhaps that's the key point developers need to reach again.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by girlgeek

 

So then....if you are able to USE your imagination, which obviously you ARE.....why does that not stretch into gaming for you?  I'm just curious.....

Because I can see where the non-reading population could easily feel like you do about RPGs and MMORPGs, but it's hard for me to understand why YOU feel the way you do about them.  I mean, the suspension of disbelief is really part of gaming in ANY game.  So is your complaint really just the fact that "the world doesn't change in any way that can be measured?"  Blizzard has at least TRIED to do some "changing" with it's phasing technology, but in MMOs that presents an entirely NEW problem, being that if you're not in the same place in quest progression, you don't see the world the same as the next person....

So, I'm not wanting to argue....just wanting to understand the seemingly recent trend to not reading quests or caring about lore, etc.

 

Because the story in MMORPG sucks balls compared to the list I just gave you.

If I want to read a good story, I'll read something from one of those authors.

Also, a game is supposed to be interactive.

A single player game IS interactive.

Play Fallout 3.

There is  a quest, to either disable the Nuke in a town, or fix it so it will blow up the town. There's a lot of back story and quest dialog.

I read it all.

Why? Because if you blow up the town with the Nuke, guess what? The town is actually blown up. You can't rest there again, can't buy weapons, can't get quests there, EVER!!!!!

Now that's something I really need to know, because it really matters.

Fix the nuke, don't fix the nuke, and what happens in an MMORPG? I get 100 xp and some boots of crapiness or 5 gold.

Why do I care about the story? NOTHING happens, except I get xp and gold or an item. If that's the case, tell me what the reward is, how many mobs to kill.

When you start making a dynamic world, where my actions matter, I'll start reading the story like I do in single player games.

I also read the dialog in KOTOR. It matters, because game changes depending on your actions.

Also Phasing is pointless. It doesn't change the game world, just gives the Illusion of change.

Real change means ALL players see the same thing.

girlgeek, the problem with MMO lore is that it's completely pointless and/or meaningless and/or uninteresting. One of the main reasons for that is exactly what Imhotep said, that's it's basically a lie. You have to realize that MMO lore is completely different from reading. What you read in a book is only in your mind, created in your imagination (which you emphasize so much). A book is not an interactive medium, it's basically all about you. On the flip side, what you SEE in a videogame is represented in your imagination and has a very specific, definite form. You can change the appearance and sound of a character from a novel at whim. In contrast, if that very same "widow in the house" from the example has a voice-over in the game, it's very probable that you won't imagine her with another voice. You also won't be able to change her appearance, unless you close your eyes every time you go speak to her and imagine her anew. So, in games, the way you relate to the stories is not left entirely to your imagination, in fact, your imagination is subjected to whatever visual and narrative forms and rules the game establishes beforehand, which are quite a lot more specific than in books, even realist novels choking with detail. 

Also, it needs to be said that in current MMOs the design and gameplay are prioritized over any and all lore. Basically, you need to kill 10 rats because the game is geared around one type of avatar interaction which is combat. If the game was about building a house, then you'd need to look for 10 bricks or whatever. The stories and backgrounds for whichever activities the game puts you in are only secondary to the mechanics of such activities, making the stories revolve around clichés and uninteresting, entirely predictable developments. Since most gamers have played a lot of games in their lives, every other time we encounter these things we just know, at least intuitively, what quests are about: the gameplay mechanics. This makes the stories pointless, because not only are they filler for the design, they're also mostly filler in the worst sense, replacing what could be an engaging story. If you don't believe me, just look at most adventure games or many a single player game - stories develop interestingly and the game mechanics are either integral to their development or only secondary.

Therefore, the main problem with most MMO lore, as I see it, is that the stories don't tell you anything at all. They're just there to logically connect gameplay mechanics. 

It's not that they have to be written like hi-quality literature, it's just that companies need to be more careful about how they build up their games and what they decide to put on as focus (the marketing campaign for Dragon Age was geared almost entirely towards Bioware's prestige, but the implications of that prestige are in the realm of 'great RPG developers', 'great storytellers', and so on; the combat system and graphics and whatever were secondary to all that while the campaign lasted). Are they building up a world with a story to tell, or just a game with a bunch of nice little mechanics to keep your motor-functions entertained?

It's just that, as commercial products, bright and shiny games attract a wide audience over a lot of age groups, and therefore there's a lot more money to be made. I agree, though, we need some games with distinct graphics, and not only imitative ones, but which pursue a specific look (very much like what Blizzard did with Warcraft 3).

Originally posted by Nightbringe1

Originally posted by Plutonicwoes

In fairness then male outfits need to be more skimpy, let's not make this all 1 sided, eh? 

 

Go play City of Heroes.

You can make a male character wearing nothing but a flesh colored thong.

Obviously, that should be the standard armor for females across all games, regardless of theme, visuals, and any woman's opinion. In fact, let's extend this New Policy on movies. Hell, let's do it for REAL LIFE!! HI 5 BRO

Originally posted by Mrbloodworth

Originally posted by skydragonren

Originally posted by docminus

I am happy to see that you choose to do a first impression and not already a review.

This game certainly isn't for everyone who wants to jump and casually play without thinking. I can agree that I feel a bit uncertain about the skill distribution, but there are some helpful hints ingame describing possible templates for possible "classes".

And yes, as you wrote, crafting has a mayor impact on the game, since you basically loot very little weapons/armor. So you either buy them from others or make them. And that which NPCs offer, is useful and not just a fasade for a shop as in some MMOs for dumping junk loot. I find it very satisfying to have crafting my own armor and wearing it afterwards. Also the fact that you can queue your crafting items and they will continue to be made when offline and give you (small) XP!

Closest I ever felt to SWG preCU/NGE. People complain about cookie cutter MMOs, well, here is one that isn't (all the way at least). Not saying it is perfect, but it certainly is different.

 

 

This is one of the things I never figured out about MMO's and the communities that play them.

WHY let me repeat WHY do MMO players feel it is a must to horseshoe themselves into a "template" of what is "good" or "acceptable".

Reading this in the first impression peice is actually the only thing I read that made me WANT to play it. The ability to go down my own path, without being told or lead into a set path.

I forsee this going like FFXI soon where people are like "nah you dont have such and such skill combined with this and that so you aren't coming, you template is jacked up!".

This ruins games, I am sure the dev made the skill training this way for a reason. To try and prevent the above scenario. Which sadly enough, is exactly what it will lead to.

 

Because video games are played as a form of entertainment.

 

Also, the guides are there as, guides, not a must.

Yeah, but I believe it's a bit more fulfilling when you are actually engaged with your entertainment, instead of being mindlessly connected to the 'fireball' hotkey. If you want to completely turn your brain off while being entertained, well, there's stuff like action movies or pop music or whatever. Which isn't bad at all - I just think that videogames, due to their interactive medium, should be quite engaging. 

But you're right about guides being just that. I guess I just wanted to post. Sorry :P

Originally posted by Babylon9000

It still sucked after launch day.
 

That's why so many people demanded their money back, and why MMORPG.com has it rated so much lower than it's competition. (7.3 vs. 8.5)

The game was simply launched to early period.

Champions is a perfect example of the OPs point of Beta Hype.

Besides this was not supposed to be a "Lets defend Champions" thread. It was supposed to be about how MMOs are currently marketed and how that is affecting the consumers.

The point was that the reviewer on that site used arguments that were not relevant to why the game sucked after launch. He or she (I don't recall) was using a previous experience that the public at large didn't have and couldn't compare by themselves. That's why I agree with MMORPG's review of the game, because it focuses on the actual content and problems of it, instead of building a narrative of tragedy around it to make an evaluation. The people who read MMORPG's review and get the game anyway know what they're going into in a way that is fair to them and to the game, which isn't the case with the other review.

It seems you missed my point entirely, so let me explain: the article could have used some examples, and the Champions release was the first one that came to my mind. The problem with generalizations, "MMOs do that", is that it's a safe place for the writer and for the companies - he's not compromising and at the same time the individual companies are freed from most responsibility. I believe that if the writer took a bunch of examples and pointed them out, the article would be a lot more effective, and people that don't know about the workings of the industry in that sense could become aware of what they're buying into when publishers offer them beta keys, and the publishers themselves could then face the consequences a lot more consciously and maturely than what they're currently doing (remember that interview with one of WAR's designers in which he, in a fit of anger after all the complaints and whines about the game's release, said something like "LET THEIR CREDIT CARDS SPEAK!"? That's just handling the situation in a completely unprofessional manner, thanks to them over-hyping and over-promoting their Beta as a game preview...).

So I'm just saying that if the article would be more confrontational, I think it would be a lot more effective than what it currently is.

Originally posted by kraiden

Because if games werent hyped we wouldnt make any money as Gaming journalist perhaps?

 

Nice topic GFuller!!

And therein lies the problem - game journalism is mostly limited to following the hype and act as a mere extension of the industry. Articles like this as well as the rest of the columns are, imho, a good step towards countering the 'traditional' status of gaming journalism, although they need to follow the arguments a bit deeper. Like this article, for example, opened a good topic of discussion but I felt it could've said quite a lot more, and after a solid introduction it sort of suddenly fell quiet.

It's OK to point fingers and all, you know. Like what Cryptic did with the Lifetime membership of Champions: offer betas for a game (Star Trek) surely to make an impact on the gaming community (sections of which might not necessarily be geeky) and make a profit based on the new idea that beta test is basically "play the game early" and no longer a real test. I know of a lot of people who bought the lifetime sub to Champs just because of the Star Trek thing, and not because of the game per se. Beta, turned into a noun and no longer an adjective of 'test', has become a marketing aspect, but the problem with it is that it seems that no one has told the developers of games themselves yet, and they continue to treat it as test, tweaking things and changing the gameplay oftentimes considerably to the detriment of those silly people who were just in to try the game out for free, who, usually, complain to no end in forums like these. What they need to do is create a sort of 'limited-time free trial' just after launch to appeal to all those people while at the same time being more careful about their tests.

Following that same example, people, including reviewers, therefore tend to fall into the trap and violently react to any wide change made to the game during beta test in the silliest manners possible; the Gamespy review of Champions was riddled with stuff only those 'I'm playing the game early' people would be concerned over, like the launch day patch that made mobs harder. Instead of giving a decent overview of the game, its aims, the design choices, the possible meaning it might all have in your life ('will I become addicted to boredom and play 5 hours a day even when I don't like it, like WoW?'), the review was just kind of a short rant about a before that didn't even EXIST for players who bought the game when it launched and an after that is actually the more realistic standard measure for an evaluation.

E.T . the extraterrestrial.

HELLO KITTY ONLINE is the ONE and ONLY game that has made WOW TREMBLE in its goddamn PANTS!!!

PANTS!!!!

Originally posted by green13

Originally posted by zarzu

i am not really getting what your argument is here.

It's this.

There's bugger all difference between players having an attack they have to use to build energy, and players having energy-free attacks they can use while energy just regenerates naturally over time.

I see your point - I think that the difference, in theory, is minimal. In practice, it comes down to how the player feels about combat, not so much about what actually happens in the game. CO's combat is more tactical (setting off powers on-the-go) while the classic one is more strategic (setting up a plan of attack before engaging), so to speak, but after all it ends up being more or less the same. The thing is, the player is constantly required to input something to keep going, while that's not part of the classic model, where you just have to carefully calculate and time attacks in a certain order to be effective; you don't need to 'keep going', you just wait for your mana to regen. Now I agree that "more action-oriented" is pretty deceptive, but it's actually somewhat suitable to describe the feeling of having to do something absolutely all the time instead of throughout short spans of time.

Maybe we should call it "feels more action-oriented" :P

Originally posted by ghost047

Originally posted by Ziphen

Originally posted by green13

Originally posted by ghost047

Originally posted by green13

I know exactly how it works.

But it doesn't add to being more "action oriented". And that's exactly what previewers of the game are saying.

The only difference between a normal mana regen model and energy build up from attacks, is you have to fire off your single endurance building attack.

Either you don't know or don't understand, there's is a downtime between battle for you to regenerate your mana, not in CO, you kill and you jump to the other mob. Let's say you fight a boss, no one is going to say, I'm out of mana, cannot attack anymore (and the mage doesn't do anything anymore). In CO, you constantly fight against the boss.

As I said before, I know exactly how it works.

I also understand exactly how it works.

Have you ever played CoH? Apart from the early pre-stamina levels, it's extremely rare for anyone to ever need to rest between fights. You can almost always run straight from one to the next. It's been a while since I played it, but WoW was pretty much the same, except for rare, really intense battles. And I've been in the Aion closed beta, and it's exactly the same there.

And I've read several previews by people who have played the game who confirm that it isn't any more action-oriented than it appears, including this relatively recent one.

http://kotaku.com/5319869/champions-online-combat-preview-challenge-accepted

Still Feels Like A Cool Down: Technically, the spells in Champions don't need cool down periods after you cast them. However, you can't cast higher level spells without building up endurance with low-level attacks. It's a little bit less boring to mash the X button over and over than just sitting there and watching the timer on your best area-effect spell expire; but it still feels like a cool down period just the same.

All CO has is a CoH brawl-equivalent attack which regens mana, in place of natural "over-time" mana regeneration.

Like I said in my original response to this particular claim - while I think that taking most powers off of individual cooldowns was a smart move I also think the "it's more action-oriented" claim is pure hype and will be quickly seen as such.

 

 

 

The same reviewer goes on to say this,

"Champions Online shakes that up a bit by giving the player more to do than just stand there and kick. At any one point during combat you could be kicking someone's shins, raining fire down on them from the air while you hover overhead with your fiery fairy wings, dodging an attack with a well-timed mashing on the A or S button, or waiting for a command to pop up and tell you to mash a button to collect an item drop or escape an enemy attack or hold. You're always moving in Champions, always changing targets and never not mashing on an a button once combat gets going. Big plus."

Sounds more action oriented to me. In CoX or WoW, you never had to worry about blocking, which adds a whole new action oriented scheme.

 

Also, what makes it feel more action-oriented, is you can move while using power (exept for some) which you can't in almost every MMO.

CO's model lets you control your "mana" flow in wasy the regular model doesn't. That alone makes it a lot more action oriented simply because it lets you be a lot more spontaneous during combat. In other terms, CO's model is basically the regular model but under your control, making it a more dynamic experience; you wanna fire off that super ultra blast from hell? you gotta work for it, plan for it during combat because you can't just walk in, fire it off and then run away while your endurance/mana regenerates. Both models look like the same in paper, but imagine a combat situation and you'll easily spot the difference that makes the "more action oriented" thing make sense.

Originally posted by green13

"skipping the light fantastic" if they get over 100k makes it sound like he's not even sure he'd buy it.

And it looks bad to those of us who know that CoX's subscription numbers have generally hovered around the 125k mark and have even gotten up close to 200k.

To sell off CoX then spend several years in development to create what is essentially a sequel to CoX, and then not do as well... That comparison can't help but be made.

I honestly thought they could do better. Obviously no-one wants to make claims like LOTRO did and then spectacularly underperform, but to publicly say you'd be thrilled with a number this low....

Yeah but they're now in direct competition with CoX as well as those who will 'pass' to wait for DCU. I think they just don't want to be disappointed with their game - using your LOTRO example, I bet plenty of people were disappointed (from devs to publishers) at its retail performance and positions were cut as well as (maybe) some of its funding. That's why they gotta be realistic as to not end up in the bad side of publishers; I don't think they'll under-perform, so if they meet their ends, then they didn't fail in the eyes of the publisher, and if they surpass them, then they're fit for more funding and no real losses are sustained. Another example is Warhammer. They promised the Virgin's pearls and then when everything went to hell Mythic got merged with/under Bioware and Mark Jacbos got fired.