I think the thing to note here, is that they aren't "making" money by not putting up a classic server, and they won't "lose" money if they do.

Although I think Cataclysm was an interesting idea, and could have worked very well had it been done right, the world of WoW wasn't set up for it. It wasn't built, to be destroyed. 

Yeah, $7.99 isn't bad. Cheap really. I'll be resubbing most likely. I had high hopes for this game, and I'm curious (not excited, but merely curious) what sort of changes 2.0 is really going to bring us.

It's a second chance I'm going to give them. But this time, I won't be so forgiving. (Not that it matters all that much though... right?)

Side note: (i wouldn't go so far as to say E3 costs millions of dollars lol, but you do have a point)

ArenaNET has taken an interesting stance hen it comes to their GW2 and I respect them for it.

For 1) They are sticking with their "It'll be ready when it's ready" stance. Promising nothing, until it's been, at least what they feel, is complete. So i'm not surprised at all that they aren't afraid to not show off at E3.

and 2) This isn't the first time they skipped on E3. E3 is not a consumer trade show or convention it's a trade only expo, it's for industry professionals and vendors and not the general public. ArenaNet isn't building a game for industry professionals or vendors, so what's the point of showing there? They choose to attend where they get direct interaction with us as players themselves.

I think the concept of "levels" is something that is engrained in the genre but isn't necessary. It's been an unspoken rule that levels must exist for a game to be fun. But that simply isn't true. Chess has no levels, but is fun. Many board games are void of levels, but are fun...

Why must MMOs have levels, and quests.. even ones that try to revolutionize the genre do so by simply applying new rules to the same mechanics.. But none are brave enough to attempt changing the mechanic all together and standing behind it.

I've seen it said before, that some games have really good revolutionary ideas, and the reason the idea fails isn't because it wasn't a good idea, but because the developers didn't throw themselves fully into the development of the idea. It tends to be a secondary afterthought added to the common and familiar mechanics of the game.

I think it would be a great experiment to see an MMO without levels. I think it's very possible. At the very least, levels that don't effect your abilities in combat.

I've thought about this quite a bit actually. I've often pondered the irony of having 80 levels, spending a 7 days blazing through lvls 1-79 and then a year or so at lvl 80. What's the point of even having all this "content" 1-79 if people don't do anything but blaze through it.

What I would like to see is a world where achievments, renown, and perhaps levels, were all gained by accomplishments. And the accomplishments were all relatively the same "lvl" and spread across the world. That way If I'm just starting out I won't be prevented from joining my friends who've been playing for months.

If everything was fairly the same level, and abilities wern't what grew but a players influence on the world rather, their treasury, status, and reknown in the game, other ways of "improving" a character.. then repeat content on the same character wouldn't be trivial. It may not yeild the same quality of rewards, but it wil still prevent the same challenge.

I can tell you why I've never played a tank.

The Community.

MMORPGs have such hot headed quick to anger players.. that any mistake warrants a barrage of insults and asshatery. I never liked tanking because I generally don't like the people I end up grouping with in pickup groups, and hate being responsible for their survival. So I tend to stick with the pure DPS classes, no support, no healing, no tanking.

However i recently starting playing Rift with friends and I've loved every minute of being a tank. But.. I'm grouping with people I know, who are allowing me to learn to be a tank in a safe and fun environment without all the negative energy pick up groups tend to come with.

Tanking is a learned skill beyond just the mechanics of the game. Learning what information you need to monitor, what information is important and when, managing aggro, learning the dungeons layout, how the mobs react, aggro and link ranger, on top of learning the actualy abilities of their class in that particular game. Learning all this stuff is difficult if you've never done it. And the current community atmosphere does not foster a healthy learning environment.

Low population on your server does not equal low population on all servers.

I have characters spanning 3 different servers. One I stopped playing on because it consistantly has a Queue. Wait WHAT?! A Queue. Yes a Queue, never very large. But just the other day, it did in fact have a queue. And thats a server that usually is marked Medium. The other two servers I play on remain very active.  Even during non-peak hours there were enough people to fight about how to clear the rift invasion that was occuring. And these are on servers that 90% of the time are marked as medium. I've yet to encounter a server that's dead... but... I havn't played on them all. I've played on 3 of what, 50 NA Servers?  If you don't like the population on your server, they are about to give free transfers. Which will be followed I'm sure by server merges.

But it is a catch 22, if players feel like it's dead. It doesn't matter if it's true or not something is making them feel isolated and thats bad.

This phenominon isn't unique to the MMORPG community. It's happened before, and many of us saw it happen.

Arcade Games: Once upon a time arcade games ruled the world of gaming. What happened? The market became saturated with clones and half-assery.

Wii: Known for being a non-hardcore gaming system. What happened? The market got flooded with clones and half-assery.

FTP MMOs: Ingenius! But... it's flooded with clones and half-assery.

Now the entire genre is maturing to the point that it's reaching it's saturation point. Too many developers playing it safe, and too many players getting tired of it.

I'm 99% certain developers read forums like these. But it isn't because they are looking for advice really.

MMORPGs are VERY expensive to make. Anyone with any experience on a design team can tell you a huge chunk of time gets spent cutting ideas. In order to increase the focus of quality on the features they feel matter.

A GREAT example is Square Enix and the Jump mechanic, and Guild Wars with a swim feature.

Both Arena and SE read these forums regularly, and both of these features are insanely popular for their rather minimal impact on these games.

The #1 reason they were cut in the first place is because they are a) Not necessary and b) have more of an impact behind the scenes than they do in front of them.

Adding the jump ability to FFXI means artists must spend time creating animations for each race, armor sets have to be tested, as well as reprogramming physics for various zones. At the time of FFXI's conception they were aiming for running the PS2, eliminating anything that was "uncessary" and didn't contribute to the gameplay value was cut. Same for Guild Wars.

Even such a modern and powerful game such as the upcomming game Guild Wars 2, they've already made certain swimming will not be in game. Why? Because the amount of time that simple feature would demand would retract them from their main features. 100hrs creating swimming animations, ai, physics, and zone design is 100hrs less spent making the Dynamic Questing system better, zones prettier, and classes more balanced.

I'm not saying there aren't good ideas floating around the forums. But the community as a whole has a proven track record of not knowing a clue about what their talking about.

My Characters name is Rheyu, She's only a lvl 7 Goblin Shaman I made the day before the servers went down. I'll be on all night tonight, and all day tomorrow. I just worked a double over the weekend so I plan on spending lots of time in vitual worlds over the next day or two ^_^

If you have an IM of any sort, just message me with your SN and we can see about meeting up in game and working out a schedule. I dunno if you were wanting to create two new characters to static together, or what but I'm up for anything that beats running around Telara alone. Hehe.

Originally posted by Tymora

I'm looking to get into Vanguard.  I tried it before but the guild I was in decided to move away from the game, leaving me doing mostly solo stuff which turned me off (it would for any game, but especially for this one).  I would like to find a static group of players that are committed to the game, or a guild that is fairly active to join.  If anyone out there is interested in the same, let me know!

 I'd group with you! Unfortunately my play times are a bit awkward. I can play late night (usually 11pm-7am CST) during the week and then during the evening (3pm-11pm CST) on the weekends.

So if you're a late night gamer id be up for making a regular adventure group. Even if it is for just a few hours when I first log on.

I think idea is cute, but I don't think it'd be a viable "MMORPG" idea. Perhaps a psuedo-MMO like the .hack// series. Where the MMORPG was simulated. But it could be taken further almost to a Guild Wars perspective. Where it's MMO in the sense you're connected with a million people, but not in the fact that you're only playing with about 5 at a time in your own private version of the world.

It almost reminds me of "A Game Dev. Story" Available on the iPhone. If have an iphone, and havn't played it. You should check it out. The game plays through 20 years of the game design industry. Very similar to your ida.

I do however feel the portion about a MMORPG where you can buy/sell/rent/lease property is something quite valid and something I'm sure has been explored on the drawing board. But making a game like that "Fun" is quite a challenge.

YAY! With SOE comming back to life I can get back into Vangaurd. I was quite productive while I was gone though. I did a 2nd playthrough of Dragon Age, played through and completed my first play through of Dragon Age II, got two gym badges on Pokemon White, and played a million Flash games on Kongregate.. lol I didn't realise how much time MMOs had been stealing from my other gaming interests. Gonna have to re-examine that. Anywho, see you guys in game!

2557

Although instancing can have an effect on immersion I seriously don't get why it's such a big deal.. It doesn't effect actual gameplay.. unless you're on a bad network and loading screens take 20mins in which case it's niether the fault of the game or it's loading screens...

Besides does anyone here even know the difference between a "zone" and an "instance" it's all a matter of interpretations since both are technically the same thing. However a Zone implies it's a publically accessible area while an instance implies it is a personal or private area with limited access by other people (usually only people in your group).

Anet made no promise of a "seamless" world they only promised a "persistant" world.  

As long as what I'm doing between loading screens is a great deal of fun, I couldn't care less.

The lawsuit is frivelous and sad. It's people looking to take adventage of a bad situation. If you're information actually gets used, and you actually lose something from the attack I could understand it, but to request compensation because you're data may have been compromized.. meh.

I had a PSN account, my information could very well have been in the information that was stolen. You know what I did. Took 30 minutes out of my day to call my bank, checked my accounts, changed a few numbers, and voila. None of the information they have taken even if it was the CC number and Security code is useful. It's all useless to them now.

Our information is under attack constantly without our knowing. There isn't anything they took that half a dozen unauthorized people don't already know about any of us.

Originally posted by Everket

Really unfortunate for us who just signed up for a sony game again, but how often does this happen? Well its a once in a lifetime and I'm sure we'll be able to play very soon. In the meantime I'm catching up with some singleplayer games.

I did the same thing. broke out DA2 gonna finish it up later today.

*sniffle / tear* Ugh... Now I have to face real life -.- *crawls in corner* I feel safer here...

I wish i knew where to go now -.- lol I was excited to settle down in Vanguard for a little while >,>

Well there we go... The day after i download and start playing the game... boop they turn off the lights -.-

Ugh Oh well.. finding somthing else to pass the time.