Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by dhayes68

Originally posted by Stradden

MMORPG.com's Jon Wood sues his column this week to talk about the idea of completely re-imagining the way that MMORPGs are constructed.

 Others point at Blizzard's behemoth World of Warcraft as the source of all of the genre's woes, suggesting that because of its success all games that come after it are copies.

I think that GREATLY simplifies the issue, and in doing so gets it entirely wrong.

The impact of WoW's success is not that the followers are clones, but that the scale of its profits has warped the brains of investors in MMO's in a way that retards risk-taking.  Leading to a 'market researched', risk managed' approach to MMO development not by the devs, but as dictated by the investors who, despite investing their money, having no real appetite for risk.

So, did you read the article where I go on to explain that? That's the reason we need a reboot... it was the theme of the article. *shrug*

If that's the case you're both wrong.

ROI is return/investment.  It isn't fear of a small return that investors fear = it's the size of the investment to gain that return.  There are millions of investors who would love to own part of an MMO that has 100K subscribers paying $15 a month.  What there isn't are millions of people who want to invest $4 million for 1% of such a company.

The article is half correct.

The problem with MMO's today is that they are based on previous games, rather than on RPG's.  When EQ, AC, and UO were being developed, the basis was RPG's.  The games weren't perfect, for various reasons, but they were all popular and are all still loved by people, most of whom no longer play.

So, step one would be to make new MMO's based on RPG's, instead of based on other MMOs.

The part that he misses is that if you do that, without learning from the mistakes that other games have made, you'll make the same mistakes.

The ideal design would be to create the MMO based on table top gaming - but to avoid the pitfalls that UO,EQ and AC made.

No one has done that yet.

I don't relish this game on account of Bioware's (over) use of cutscenes either. They should seriously consider marketing their products as interactive stories with combat minigames.

Good, point, I just wish there was a name for interactive stories with combat minigames... oh wait a sec, I think there is!  They're called "Role Playing Games".

Originally posted by metalhead980

 

Wtf are you talking about? WoW didn't take shit from EQ. people were already on the way out when wow released.

How is WoW more polished? EQ has a older engine both graphically and mechanics wise but its not a unpolished game.

EQ has ten times the content of WoW, a more interesting gameworld, better classes, better raids and actual risk!

 

I really wish people that started MMOs with WoW would stop posting.

Actually, the guys at Blizzard have already said that WoW is based on EQ.  I cannot remember the direct quote but it was something like:

We set out to make the best EQ possible.

Originally posted by Rakuji

It's not that WoW took EQ players. It's that WoW reached out to a new consumer. WoW is kiddiefied compared to EQ. But, there is nothing wrong really with WoW other than the extreme lack of challenge.  Though there may not be the clallenge in WoW like there was in EQ, WoW does make things easier for the non hardcore gamer. Someone that only has about 3-4 hours or less a day to play would never get anything accomplished in EQ, but with WoW they can get at least some quests done, do some pvp, maybe an instance , and some tradeskilling. 

The only thing that makes WoW so popular because like most people in the world, they are lazy, and gamers are no differnt. We enjoy everything being handed to us with little effort on our parts.

Not sure if that answers your question to the fullest but thats the input i got.

Well, that's not technically correct.  The vast majority of initial WoW players, were at some time EQ players.

The main appeal to WoW is that it gives a sense of achievement, much more easily than did it's predecestors - primarily EQ on which it was unabashadly based.

What do you mean by 'polish' though?  EQ probably has 4 times the content of WoW and did it with much less money, so it may lack some 'polish'.

I think the world you're looking for is 'fluid'.

WoW has appeal, it can't be denied.  I can't really see how it is a better game than LOTRO, though.  LOTRO is like WoW 2.0.

Sounds like an excellent single player game.  It would be cool if someone were to take this IP and make an MMO.

Previews are advertisement.  Have you ever read a pre-view where they said "this system is total crap."? That is because previews are like movie trailers.  What you're looking for are beta reviews or actual reviews. Those are two totally seperate things.

All you've said in your 1000 words of prose is that 'based on a pre-view I don't know if I will like a game". 

What's interesting or newsworthy about that statement?  But congrats, you filled your contractual obligation for your $300 paycheck this week.

Originally posted by brostyn

Let me see if I understand this. One of the most underpopulated games in existence has made new group only content. Interesting.

Maybe the reason it is underpopulated is because there is not enough group content?

Originally posted by Skuz

Does the U.S.A not have an equivalent body to the UK's "Monopolies & Mergers Comission" ?

Sounds like there is too little competition in certain areas of business which is what has created an unfair customer environment, an awful lot of posts seem to indicate that comcast has far too lage a market share & choice of ISP provider is essentially in a stranglehold.

High amounts of competition is usually the antidote for unfair business practices. 

One of the things that really drives me crazy about Europeans (particuarly Brits) is that they just don't get how large a country the US is.  The amount of money it would cost a new company to create a new fiber-optic network to become a high speed ISP provider is mind boggling.  Look at the same chart I linked above.    The population of Great Brittain and Northern Ireland is 8 times more dense than it is in the US.  Even if you throw out Alaska it's not even close.

Now is your proposal that the existing network owners are forced to lease their networks to other companies?  That's something that they did with our long distance telephone providers 25 years ago.  In the end it didn't help the consumers at all.

Originally posted by nekollx

 Some senstors are trying to force IsP to be more fair and the FCC is on net nutrality for the same thing. Check MaximumPC.com theve covered it quite a bit. The sad thing is all these ISP say "we have a infestructure in par with the rest of the world" but our broadband pentration is 17th in the world, Switzerland is higher then us!

And then Comcast (who put in caps and throtting) have their profits up like 200%

 

Serious it's a sad thing when i can go to japan, get 3 times the speed at half the price and no throtteling and were supose to be "equal"

http://www.mongabay.com/igapo/world_statistics_by_area.htm

The US is over 200 times the size of Switzerland.  Try to compare apples and apples when making analogies.

Why would the government need to regulate when the whole idea of capitalism is competition. Also why would you let an incompetant organization (the government) with no motivation (because they already have your tax money) to regulate private companies.

The government needs to regulate to make sure that one or two companies don't force all the other companies out of business, and then charge whatever they want for their products. It's typically called anti-trust legislation.  What do they teach you kids in school nowadays?  Seriously, how can anyone not know that?

As to the government already having your money.  Liberals don't think of tax money as belonging to the people who paid for it.  They think of it as money that's rightfully theirs, which the government has used it's power to collect from the money grubbing evil wealthy.

The funny thing is, I've never met a wealthy liberal who pays more taxes than they have to.

How do you nominate a post for "post of the week" ?

So, it never occurred to anyone at Aion to enter "Aion Bot Program" into google and hit search?

Talk about a company doomed to failure.

Originally posted by krenalor

Originally posted by grimfall

The warrior thing got fixed about... 5 years ago?  Maybe six.

 

Having played a Warrior let me assure you they aren't "fixed" any class that REQUIRES you hire a Mercenary is not "fixed". Brad STILL is unable to design Warriors in Vanguard, so why do you think EQ1 had it right, because you are a Knight and want them screwed up?

Steel Warrior was asked to support the "Classic Server, the answer overwhelming was "HELL NO!" Warriors are a piss poor design in EQ1, EQ2, and Vanguard and need "fixing".

Warriors were given spells, as well as the ability to rapidly repeat their lvl 51 to 60 class skills.  I don't know the exact date, but it was a little before WoW was released.

I thought the funny part was this by the OP:

For reference my computer loads WoW from launcher to character selection to playing in under 30 seconds with the graphics almost at max. WAR takes about 45 seconds, star craft literally takes 10, Warcraft III takes about 15-20 to get on battlenet. (I timed this all to get a comparison)

BIizzard Fanboy much?

Originally posted by AkumaDaimyo

Originally posted by Phry

they dont use stealth, but use a magical belt of invisibility that allows them to pass by unseen......

 

If you played Kotor you would know such things exist. Your post is fail.

He's saying "they don't use stealth, they use stealth called something else."   Isn't "invisibility that allows them to pass by unseen" the way stealth is used in most MMO's?

I just want to point out if the two major issues with the game are content and balance - adding more content as the blog suggests will tend to cause futher balance issues.

Originally posted by Heltern

Classic server PLUS fix the most broken class in all MMO's the Everquest Warrior In fact FIX ALL THE CLASSES MORONS!

 

Warrior (Everquest)

I had a level Warrior in Everquest and you know what I remember most? Pressing ‘1′ to initiate auto attack then alternating the pressing ‘2′ to Taunt and ‘3′ to Kick. Exciiiiiiting. Who thought it would be fun to create a class that has access to absolutely zero abilities whilist everyone else runs around shooting lighting bolts or fly kicking mobs in the face. I had a freaking /sit macro - a /sit macro - on my hotkey panel just to use up space. /palmface
 

Druid (Everquest)
You know what absolutely drove me mad? Spending hours getting a full six man group together, holy trinity of classes included, to camp one of the spires surrounding the entrance to Splitpaw in South Karana only to find that a single Druid was already camping the whole damn place. Kiting everything that moves to earn himself a ton of exp and plat. Bastards
 

The warrior thing got fixed about... 5 years ago?  Maybe six.

Originally posted by Aemi

Is that names are so limited! With 20 billion people registering accounts over time pretty much every name you can think of get's taken. There are VERY few MMO's that allow spaces. I just don't understand why. Let people put a space! That way if for example I want a name and it's taken I can put Lady in front of it. A boy could put Lord or Sir and so on. And there are so many other  variations.

One thing that really annoys me, is people with numbered names. Naruto5, Cloud10, Sepiroth22 always the same names over and over. I usually go to baby names sites to name my characters based on what I like most on the list. If I ever give birth to a child (let's hope not anytime soon) and I live in Japan, I'll already have a billion names to choose from~

Anyway they should really unrestrict names, and make it possible to make more variations. All they need to add is the ability to space. Or they could always make people choose a unique last name.

Yes, just what MMO's need.

I R Rulez

UR SUCK

King David

Bilbo

The Bilbo

El Bilbo

Teh Bilbo

Just come up with a new name, or use the auto name generator until you see something you sort of like and tweak it a bit.

An actual  improvement would be to remove names that have been taken from the name generators - that is annoying.

Originally posted by Gameloading

What criteria was used to define them as under the radar mmos? Some of those games are among the most played mmorpgs in the world.

This list just seems totally random.  Obviously it's not, but I would suspect that these are games the author played for one to six months, enjoyed some but not enough to stay hooked, and moved on.

In particular I didn't like the double allusion to FF XI's combat system.  One of those allusions could have been used to, you know, explain it.