Originally posted by Vannor

I enjoyed the quests and I enjoyed having to do some research and stuff to be able to figure them out. BUT... I'd rather all the info to solving the quests were actually ingame in some way (ingame browser doesn't count) such as in libraries or from lengthy discussions with NPCs. I honestly think that making us use google to solve the quests is a very lazy way of adding a new dimension to quests.

Here in America we have these things called smart phones, which give us access to google from just about anywhere, so having google avaialable to your character in a contemporary game makes a lot of sense.   If you make the in-game questing too difficult, guess what people do?  They go to fan sites and find the quest answers.  If you make them too easy, they aren't entertaining.  I would supsect that many of the quests are solveable without using Google, you just have to know the answers already.

Originally posted by PyrateLV

Originally posted by WolfClaws

Ummm this is normal.

For a company with multiple failing games maybe

No, it is normal for all MMO developers.  The only time a company will not reduce their staff after they launch is if they have them go to other projects.   All this really tells us is that TOR doesn't have 3 million subscribers (something we knew) and that Bioware is not planning on launching another MMO in the future (something we knew)

The guy who did the coding for entering your single player instance isn't needed any more.  The guys who set up the account billing aren't needed anymore, etc etc.

Blizzard decreased their size of their WoW team following the launch of the game.... it didn't seem to hurt their growth in subscriptions much.

Originally posted by nyxium

I wonder if Diablo 3 was a deciding factor in the layoffs? It's been noted that D3 has caused a slight noticable decline in WoW amongst other games at launch, from personal observations.

No.  Businesses of the size of Bioware/EA don't make snap decisions on layoffs based on 4 days of game sales of a game that's not really a direct competitor.

Originally posted by DarthSov

Mind you this goes both ways, it could be anything in regards to the game. Most of mine is more focused around aftermath reactions from the players..

So without further a due, let it fly!

1) The "It should be ready to go by early summer!" delusion that fanboys seem to cling to. Makes absolutely no sense how this can be the case given how little we have been given access to thus far in the beta and also they still have yet to even finish polishing some of the current areas that were availble and even had instances within of incomplete material. Lest we forget the other two races that are still not accounted for that they seem intent on withholding while overhauling them presumably. So why not shoot for something more realistic and reasonable? Like September or some time thereafter?

2) When completely jaded 'critics' claim that the current system cant work without the sacred trinity. Like my brother, who can only surmount petty squabbles to counter the game with and the proceeding to try and emphasis it with petulant teen paroxysms that somehow validate the "arguement", such as "WHATS EVEN TEH POINT TO WARRIOR THEN IF THEY CANT HEAR ME WRAWRRR WHILEZ I TANK THEM ALL??! I SOULN:T HAVZ TO DODGE, WHAT SHIT I CAN ONLY DO THAT TWO TIMEZ ANYWAY"

3) The "gold sink arguement", refer to my current review in that post I made titled "My take on it" for more on it. I don't feel the need to repeat myself on this.

4) Another one from the peanut gallery of naysayers like my brother who say "WELL I DONT GET HOW THIS GAME IS EVEN GOING TO HAV LONGEVITY, ONLY 5 SKILLS IN THAT SKILL BAR AND THEY EXPECT THAT TO KEEP ME INTERESTED WHILE GOING FROM 1 to 80!?!" Again just another case of poor reviewal of the facts on the pseudo critics part. (In the case of the elementalist it being 20 per set etc)

5) The fanboy delusion that somehow pvp is just fine currently. Arrow cart spammage anoyone?

6) Embellishing the myth that DEs are always distinct.

7) Rally system in certain instances, like in the case of WvW wheres its more of a burden then an asset.

8) The lack of clearly defined incentives and mechanics for grouping. (also further constrained by server overflows)

9) Certain elements to the classes that are too restrictive and taxing. For instance, what if I want to play a dominating spiker Mes and not have to use illusions like I did in the last game?

10) "Critics" that say because this game doesn't have proper end game such as raids etc that it wont survive.

Well, that's mine. What are your top ten ?

1. Fans who make a list of pet peeves, that aren't all pet peeves.

Originally posted by fadis

I didn't see anything even mildly impressive in the video.  Bland cartoon-ish fantasy blech we've seen 1000 times before...

 

Who knows what they have planned for gameplay - and that's surely the most important part of it all- but if they bring the same lack of innovation to this project as they brought to KoA... I have little hope for the game.

 

 

What is really mind boggling, is they have in theory been slogging away at this game for years and years, allegedly have over 300 employees (who are not getting paychecks) and they don't even have any character models they can show a year prior to release?

Schilling is going to go down a the next Tucker or DeLorean.  What a disaster.

Originally posted by eyeswideopen

Originally posted by grimfall

lol vgchartz

Make sure to use Xfire stats as your next "proof". lol

LOL providing no evidence at all to your ascertions.  Wallowing in ignorance does not make you correct, only ignorant.

I provided evidence of my assertions. In another thread where Yuui and I already had this argument. Feel free to find it. Hint: both the NPD sales figures ( 330k in Feb and 80k in March with no real change in April ) and EA investor reports ( where, while nice things are said for other EA games regarding profit, KoA is mentioned only as a "successful" release ) are found with that little google tool you're so proud of.

Evidence of your assertions was what, that they did not mention the sales in their Q4 report, where I think they only mentioned numbers for one game?

According to you, every game that EA has sold less than 1 million copies, except TOR.  Good logic there, man.

Also, the quarter ended at the end of March.. today is May 20th.  The game is still retailing for full price.  Think.  It's really not that hard.

So, you're a liar, because you either aren't playing CB of TSW or you're violating the NDA, and now you're making poorly thought out assumptions, and accepting them as gospel.  The only way to get value out of your 3000 comments here, I think, would be to print them on toilet paper.

lol vgchartz

Make sure to use Xfire stats as your next "proof". lol

LOL providing no evidence at all to your ascertions.  Wallowing in ignorance does not make you correct, only ignorant.

Originally posted by Serelisk

Originally posted by Yuui

Originally posted by JeroKane

Originally posted by Yuui

Originally posted by fiontar

KoA was a big dissapointment to me. If the game had been anything like Skyrim in scope and game play, I may have been able to forgive the WoW-like art style, but the game felt like it stepped out of the 90s. My hopes for the MMO were dashed by KoA and seeing this video does nothing to inspire confidence.

If KOA was anything like Skyrim(ala Oblivion: Dragon Grinding Edition), I would not have touched it with even a stick. 

KOA actually had an engaging COLORFUL world, good old-school lore, rpg systems and actually blended combat and rpg parts really well.

Coampred to Skyrims "skeltons, skeletons, lets bash skeletons by clicking mouse and jumping bakwards and then lets go back to that brown tundra~", KOA is miles above that. 

Skyrim was too cinematic. I would not even call it a real RPG. Bethesda has not created a good game since Morrowind(which was awesome.

 

KOA on other hand...have not enjoyed an rpg this much since the masterpiece that was Dragon Age Origins. 

Twilight, Diablo 3 and Mass Effect 3 were also massive successes and won tons of prizes. Were those good things? nope.

I can safely make the assumption that your opinion is in the minority on all three of those fronts.

That those three things were massive successes?  You can safely assume whatever you like, because there is no penalty in life for making faulty assumptions.

Originally posted by eyeswideopen

Originally posted by JeroKane

Originally posted by Yuui

 

38 Studios financial "troubles" have nothing to do with Reckoning and Reckoning selling around a million copies for a completely new ip, hardly can be said to be "flopped". IT was a massive success and a sleeper hit.  The financial troubles are from and because of MMO and the overall scheme on what the hell is going on in there is unclear due to sensantionalist nature of gaming journalism. 

Ehh what?  Gaming journalism?  It is even mentioned in the regular newspapers here in Europe!

There were several articles in various regular newspapers stating how 38 studios isn't paying out salaries this past week in order to make a deposit to pay off portion of their huge loan! And that if they cannot fulfill further payments, that the local government is going to step in and take over with tax money!

So it has nothing to do with sensational journalism. This is just a fact about what is going on right now.

I'm still waiting for Yuui to show us where these "million sold copies" are, as both NPD and EA seem to indicate much less than that.

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=amalur

My internet browser has this thing called "google"...

Originally posted by ActionMMORPG

One spot where I get stuck in my understanding of TSW is if the design is intended as mainstream or niche.

To me being a storyline driven quester places it in the mainstream category.  However, the theme, environment, and skill system all sound niche to me.

I consider niche to mean a game's target market is smaller than a full-on mainstream game, but the game itself does better in catering to the tastes of its own target market.

 

Head on over to wikipedia or a talk to a friend with a marketing degree to get a good handle on the concept of "niche" products.  World of Warcraft is a niche product.

Originally posted by HeavyTraffic

Completely agree.  Gone are the days I buy one of these new MMORPGs thinking I'm going to play them for more than a month.  I determine if the box price will give me value for one month and then make my purchasing decision.

I am currently playing Tera for one month.  I'll certainly get my money's worth and then probably play The Secret World for a month and decide between the two.

The price for this game is standard for games on the PC.  I'm curious why the OP thought this game would be any different from any other PC game unless it's just a troll and I just fed it.

 

This is what I do too... not sure why people who are semi-rational cannot grasp this concept... "$60 for 30 hours of a console game is fine, but if I pay $60 for an MMO, I want to be sure I will spend $15 a month after that first month for a good long time."

OP, when you are saying "too" as in "too expensive" or "too much", using it to emphasize a degree of something it is "too" with two O's.  Also when you use it as "also" like "you bought GW2?  Me too!"

Originally posted by eyeswideopen

Originally posted by TSWSilverfox

REserve your final list's judgement until the later betas. As you said, there are animation place holders and limited character creater at this time.

One month left to release. It's fair to start judging now. After both AO and AoC, it's a fact of record Funcom cannot produce "miracle patches" in multiple months, much less under one.

 

Just out of curiousity, what planet are you on, and what's the date there?

Originally posted by mastersam21

Dont buy anything yet. it's a stress test they want it to run like shit so they know what need to be optimized.

Stress tests are for testing server loads, not optimizing graphics.

EQ would be lucky if it hit a total of 1.2 million players throughout its life, and that i even doubt.

To put it very succinctly, you do not know what you're talking about.  They pushed 400K concurrent players at their peak., that means they probably had at the very very very very very least 800K accounts at that time.  Do you really think that they didn't have 500K people who tried it and quit (they did) by then, or in the ensuing 10 years?

Think before you type.  It's not that hard.

Originally posted by joocheese

Originally posted by drel

I've played both.  GW2 wins hands down!

And I still maintain GW2 will be released soon-end of June is my guess

I hope for a June release but I'm getting myself ready for a September/October release

Six weeks is pretty short time considering they're not confident enough in, what 2 races, to have them played in open Beta.  I would guess late July at the earliest and expect September as well.

Originally posted by ArEf

I was playing an Elite (hardest difficulty) Hardcore Engineer with a cannon, shooting cannonballs all over the place. Weak enemies went flying with a few cannonballs, their ragdolls launching off the edge of the screen, whilst stronger enemies sometimes required me to trade a few hits with them in order to down them.

Huh?  Normal level must be akin to "Joke" and easy mode, you probably don't even have to sit at your PC to beat.

Actually, average is good. Average is just assuming most games are a 7.5. The median would be 5 but thats not the average unless most games got a 5.

Doesn't have to go average good great it can go average great if you assume average is good.

Actually both the median and mean for the number range for 1 - 10 is 5.5.

I can't recall them ever scoring any aspect of a game lower than a 4, though, so they're really working on a 4-10 scale.  Which makes the mean 7 and the median 7, and explains their naming conventions for the scores.

Originally posted by Vesavius

Originally posted by eric_w66

Didn't I play this in 1995?

 

I consider that a compliment to a title, considering where recent game design has gone on the whole.

Some quick math... 10 million registered users,  600,000 fans on Facebook.. that means 94% of the people who tried it didn't even like it enough to admit it to their friends.

Originally posted by SoulOfRaziel

the real reason is because TES online is going to be like any other mmorpg out there but with tes history

Pretty much this.  All the people who have been screaming for Elder Scrolls online for years... it's already been made.  It's called Vanguard and you don't play it.

Originally posted by FrostWyrm

Originally posted by SoulOfRaziel

the answer is freedom.... force players to something will result only in fail... players want freedom to play the way they like

"Forced" grouping IS the way some players like. Those that dont are free to choose a game that better suits them.

The problem is that those who do dont have such freedom, because these games just aren't out there.

 

Originally posted by Venger

Wasn't that vanguards claim to fame.  Remind me again how did that do?  Tank and spank grouping is dead.

Vanguard crashed for completely unrelated reasons to this. If thats your argument, there are plenty of games that were perfectly soloable that have failed as well.

The problem is, and no one has been able to solve it yet, that people want to be able to play there characters all the time.  In the original EQ unless you played one of a couple classes, after level 10 you were forced to group.   It was good because it created a stronger player community (probably only rivaled even today by EVE, which uses PVP ganking to force grouping), but you often did spend a lot of time trying to find a group if you didn't play a druid or necro.

The real problem was class balance, and not how the classes were powerful in comparison to eachother,but how many of each class there were.  For efficient exping, you need a slower and a cleric, so that had to be 32% of the player base, but in reality those classes made up about 15% of your player base, and the clerics probably only 7%.

There have been attempts to address this - make other classes better hearlers, make every class able to do every role, or multiple roles, but those games have also made every class able to solo well, so there was no forced grouping.

The way to design it in a level based game, I think, would be to do like Rift, where each class can play 2 roles (and half of the classes can tank, while the other half heal) and make it so you can solo content levels 1-10, then you need to find a buddy for 11 -20, and by 20+ make the PVE monsters require 3 to 5 people to defeat.

That still leaves the problem of not being able to PVE by yourself after level 10, though, which most people don't like.