Earth and Beyond was terrible, I played it for a little while, just to get to know it, but it was such a terrible way they had implemented the "Elite" idea. EVE exists now . They did what E&B could have done but failed to deliver, amont that great graphics.

When will people learn, permadeath will NEVER work within the constraits of what we know as contemporary MMOs?

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Maybe thats the point "what we know as contemporary MMO's". Albite I do I agree, it wouldnt work in wow.

I see the probme in players getting bored with a game, because there is no real challenge, you cant die, so why not just try that white dragon, what can go wrong....

That SWG thing had some good ideas, but it wasnt thought through, as the result was that hardcore players got tired of resurrecting.

Im sure there is a way and people will think "doh!... why didnt I think of that" someday.. in the future.

A "real" mech mmorpg, oh wait, i'm already making that....ok then, uhm...in order of preference.

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No your not Mordekai... it got cancelled (those damn distributiors no imaginations!), but.. it will come sooner or later. AO do have a mech thingy.

Bladerunner, is in development afaik, just not any news on that yet.

Porn industry - I coudl see how that could work, im not sure about how much people would be um.. playing the game. or playing something else.....

If you can believe in people keeping developer secrets  I only have one thing to say... "I got this tower I wanna sell... its in Paris... the locals call it Eiffel... you can get it cheap!"

well.. ok. 2 things..

the solution is what is called method I call random predictiveness. A random but predictable (to the develper) solution. If the answer is dynamic and the calculation is not.

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here are no secrets in MMOs. Assume every last mechanic will be known, every spawn point accounted for, ever quest detailed, all formulas researched. There's just no way around it. I don't know the exact reason why people are so eager to share potentially valuable information, I just know that this is how things are.

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I disagree

I dont care about high-end stuff. I just want to run around and shoot some stuff now and again...

This game does NOT allow that, cause while the ad says RL economy, there is nothing RL economy about the ammo for the guns.

Ammo cannot be produced, it is a heavy expense even if all you wanna do is kill nubi stuff, you will not be able to afford it.

Thats why this game sucks. It sucks your wallet dry.

PvP, yay! Seems like everyone is talking about that or is there a vast majority that thinks that PvP in most  games just doesnt work? Shold all end-game be pvp or have you a better idea?

In most MMO's you have to loot whatever you kill, and most often when patient enough you will find that advanced super spell scroll, you have been looking so long for, although at the same time wondering what a dumb orc would do with a scroll....

Is that really fun? Or is there an alternate way?

While noone has ever figure out a way to make permanent death work. How do you feel about it. If a way could be found to make it real, fun and playable.

None of the game industry of MMO's are working towards part of this above, none. In their book, virtual reality is dead, worlds are dead, themeparks are what earns them the $'s.

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Thats not the truth... it will come.

But for now... the MMO designers are hopeless, non innovative and really mostly tragically funny.

ouch, no more sandbox... im SO afraid your right about that. And thats too bad, cause some of them actually kick-ass and it is really what people are asking for despite the success of WoW.

I remember Vanguard, I kind of ordered it by mistake, but was pleasently surprised by the quality of the graphics that I saw, it was without a doubt the best so far. While it graphics didnt really focus on the atmosphere in the game, like Wow does, the quality was so good it didnt matter, it was just better.

Character generation was a joke. I tried create diffierent types of characters, different starting points and setups, but most if not all classes were so like each other that playing more than 2 classes was just impossible, if I wanted something new. Same type of spells, same way to play them, same challenges, and no variation at all. This is one point Vangaurd loses heavily to Wow.

One class surprise me positively, the psychic class. This was different, fun and worthwhile trying out.

When it comes to contents, Sigil did a good job mostly. I kind of went stop at level 15-16 because of lack of contents that I could solo, this happened on almost all my characters. When I got past that, I came to a complete stop at 25. None of my character were able to go further, simply no missions or dungeons or anything worthwhile I could hunt down.

Missions are not better or worse than that of other MMOs. There are very little new inventions.

On the static dungeon part however, Vanguard stands out as the absolute best MMO yet. There are a lot of them, they are fun, different and a good challenge.

As with most of the current MMO game design, this game will last you 2-3 months before you have been there done that and all you are staying around for is your online friends.

My conclusion: This business needs new game designers, someone with just a little vision, a little ingenuity.

Obviously this guy havent got a clue about playing an NT. NT's are fun to play because you have to carefully select your actions to stay alive. Its a challenge that is far beyond what you will find with your Doc, Enforcer, Soldier. With an NT you actually have several choices of game play.

A bad NT however, could easily destroy the fun for the group.

The really sad thing is taht there isnt a single MMO out there that promises anything but grinding / old EQ ways. Not a single game designer in charge, who can come up  with the new out-of-the-box idea that this genre needs. Not one.

So... you will have to live with games like Vanguard for a long time still.

A journalists most important work is to create a debate. AJ certainly did good here.

I went searching for facts on the net and found several market surveys with interesting information.

1. 30% of all players are girls. Take 3 players and one of them will be a girl !
2. Girls are much more likely to play MMO's than other games (the social aspect maybe). This means that the ratio of girls are actually more than the 30% (which was for all games). So it might look like it is closer to being 4 out of 10 are girls.

These numbers are measure every year by ELSPA, which is the UK producers association, and as far as I have the numbers back, this has been so.

It is said games are not a girls world, but MMO's just might become just that.

3) The sudden success of World of Warcraft dramatically changes the common held idea of what an MMO was supposed to be.

4) Microsoft, as any buisness, wants to offer a product that will compete in the market. After the market changed drastically with the release of World of Warcraft, it became less attractive to produce a game that didn't conform to the new market's standard.

5) All of these added factors changed Microsoft's approach to Vanguard, and Brad being the stubborn idealist that he is, would not comprimise.

Am I missing anything?

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You are missing a lot.

Wow did not in any revolutionize the design of an MMO. They made a full blown copy of EQ, which was already a success, knowing that people would come from EQ because of this.

You are right in, that the market has changed, or rather expanded. China has been opened up and Wow has had a great success based on the other stuff that Blizzard has done (the warcraft series). Blizzard has been lucky with many of the things they have put out, but they did not invent anything new. They are just good businessmen, something this genre lacks.

I also believe Vanguard is a far better made game than Wow. But it isnt new or inventive or revolutionary. It is just better graphics and more classes.

6. Vanguard has a huge landscape on 3 continents (that I know of). Combined with the far better graphics (compared to wow) this makes exploration great fun.

ok I also gotta comment on that camel. I had to adjust my camera, so I did not look straight into its... behind. But the quest was fun and had a beutifull otherwise.

Contents of the MMOs is something that undoubtedly are going to change. I work on a project that will do so. But you wont find it in any of the warhammer, age of conan or other games like that. Currently all MMO makers are too afraid of the lack of customers, to make the bold step forward that it is going to take. That is why we got Wow a full blown copy of the origianl EQ, and latest Vanguard, another copy of the same concept. We know that concept works. EQ had a couple of million people playing it, Wow now has 8 million and Vanguard is just starting to get off the ground, going through the tough birth that all other mmo's has also had.

So for now, we will have to settle with the same old stuff that we have known since the launch of the first EQ, but that isnt all that bad is it? Vanguard shows better missions, graphics, but does take time to remove the last bugs. But I doubt that Sony/Sigil was after anything but a follow up for Wow, which Vanguard truely is.

If you want fun stuff, you will have to propose it to the developers. They lack the imagination currently and need all the input they can get.