Perhaps the most creative and well done trailer I have seen... really peaks your interest and tells a story at the same time. You have to watch it a few times to really catch all of what is going on in there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4tZNhEvQR8

I am the type of player where i need purpose in order to PvP otherwise I lose interest quickly. PvP to get points, titles, earn loot or only personal rewards from the"grind" do not give me enjoyment or reason to continue with these games. However PvP in order to protect your lands, your relics, your guilds property, protect your aliance from players deemed "evil" is what it is all about for me.

Daoc was the first feeling I got of this with the frontiers, keep and relic defenses. Eve Online went a step further by Corps and Aliances claiming important parts of space and policing it as they see fit. The game had built in UI to classify other Corps and alliances so that you can easily tell if they were allied friendlies, neutrals or enemies. The player driven politics this created was second to none out there. Corps declaring war on others for 'whatever' reasons. Possibly hiring mercenary corps to do their bidding etc all possible with the UI as well. Quite amazing and what all sandbox game should evolve into in my opnion. Of course Eve was a bit more hardcore as death hurt so much but because of the nature of space it was also a lot harder to be killed. This also made it such a huge adrenaline rush when you got a kill and looted all the floating remains... wow what a feeling, posting that kill record on your corps website :)

So I realize Xsyon is not at this lvl today. I dont even know what the death penalty is in Pvp? From what you guys know about the game , the dev goals, interviews etc, do you see it going this way? Have they stated they will have Ui functionality to facilitate this type of player driven politics? Certain areas worth fighting over etc? I really hope so as it has peaked my interest from what I have started reading so far.

thanks

Lots of games are "still around" and it does not make them good games...  Fallen Earth was and is a mediocre to poor game at best shown by population and reviews. I expect this game will fall into Fallen Earth's territory or worse... hey there is always 1000 people out there that love a game to death like Horizons or Rhyzom but we all know fail... is fail...

I dont think DF or Eve are the best comparisons... you dont have to look far and long ago to find its identical twin.. Fallen Earth.. and we know how well that thing did... /sigh

I dont see any changes with this and the improvements that will be made were already coming but this is a PR move to try to save face and whatever customers they still have.

1. Sounds like they didn't fire anyone they demoted and shuffled people around.
2. They replaced their current old fart cronies with other cronies who worked on different FF--- titles. Which in my view they will still hold the same archaic way of thinking and console minded personnel.
3. They didn't hire anyone from outside the company to give the game a fresh look or perspective especially for the western market.(which is what the whole FF series needs to be honest)
4. I think the game has too many deep seeded flaws in core game design that some UI changes and the like will not reinvent the game or bring in droves of people.

My point, the damage is done on the PC version and it will just be a beta test for the PS3 version which is their last gasp on making this a success and getting some money recoup.

I would say your article is misleading because these games were never really on the radar. They are more games that are underrated because they were not widely massively popular.

Age of Conan is something that should be on this list. A game with a ton of pre hype and "radar" but now is on life support and not talked about much anymore.

Killing time with The Witcher and Heroes of Newerth Beta

Heh

Budweiser once sued a small mom and pop flower shop for using "This Buds for you" on their store sign. Anything goes these days.. sadly.

I think you would have to include Anarchy Online if you were judging based on the anger of players. This was a game that promised to much new and innovative ideas at launch but technical difficulties or partially implemented things had players quitting in droves in the first free month.

I recall at the time EQ was #1 at ~400k subs and AO sold 100k boxes on day 1 and was thought it was going to shatter this number soon after but so many things were broken that people left in droves and almost put Funcom out. Couple of things i remember most and happened to me directly was not being able to zone at times and being stuck in a noobie zone or city for days. Other things like server outages for 24 hours while they tried to fix things or worst of all random server crashes that caused character rollbacks that sometimes lost days of xp/items etc were untollerable.

This was really the first example of how players were not going to tollerate bad launches or promises that did not deliver and made a dev team pay (literally).

Playing on this theme your next article should be most hated or infamous lead devs. Gaute Gadager who finally paid the price here with AOC was at the heart of AO as well. You could add Richard Gariott of Tablua Rasa and Mcquaid for Vanguard in the mix. This would be an interesting article as well.

I dont think GW2 should be on the list because it has no monthly fee. This alone gives it a huge advantage over the rest because you are not counting subscriptions but just sales of boxes. What would WoW's actual number be if it was just to count all the boxes and expacs sold? 15mil? I am sure about 5 million people have come and gone from Wow that are no longer counted.

Also a real hindrence for some people is paying a monthly fee for a game. To many people they just wont do it out of principle and would prefer to play a free MMO or fps etc so this is again a hindrence on this list.

As for the list I would say Aion should be in the top 5 as well Blizzard is making some secret MMO game as well. If that releases before 2012 you can add that to the top 3.

Not sure if anyone mentioned it but what about the first Warhammer Online by Climax. I recall really following that game and was so disapointed when it got axed. It was being done different than what we got out from Mythic. It was supposed to be more dark and gruesome etc... Oh well here is some nostalga.. check out their last E3 video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkQvPQJ1_Dk

I was thinking about what would make sense for guilds in this game in terms of the story universe and be slightly different than the usual. The first thing that popped into my head was Asheron's Call system with of course major tweaks.

For those of you who never played the game there were no guilds like you know them today. It was setup like a monarchy and branched down like a tree or pyramid. Example If I pledged allegiance to player Irenicus I would be known as his Vassel and he would be my Patron. If Irenicus pledges to player Keen and Keen pledged to no one then the Monarchy would be under Keen's name. If someone looked at my details it would read something like DrMccoy vassel to Irenicus, kingdom of Keen. If you id' Keen it would read Monarch Keen, 100 followers (example). Everyone can have 5 (or maybe was it 10 cant remember) vassels so thats how you grew your kingdom.(guild)

Now here is the great thing about the system. Vassels would give their patron a % bonus to their Xp. It was not xp removed from the vassel just a % bonus extra given to the patron. In turn the patron would give things to the vassel either their time (taking them hunting etc) or just giving them items etc. Depended on your relationship and what you wanted from the patron/monarchy. The best situation was always a Patron who had like 3-4 vassels and setup a group and all partied together. The interface would show your vassels and you would just see the xp rolling in for you as a patron. It was always nice if you were away for a few days and log in and see the message "Your vassel Romble has earned you 1003000 xp since you last logged in!"

Of course Keen would reap a ton of xp at the top because the xp filters to the top. Usually the leader would be the highest level just because maybe has has like 100 followers and generally people pledge allegiance to someone higher level. However there were cases where someone like Keen may only have Irenicus as a vassel and Irenicus has 10.. therefore Irenicus is also getting 99 of the followers XP pushed up through the chain as well which could push him passed Keen in levels.

A couple of other things i liked about the system. You could not get invites to be a vassel from just anywhere, you had to be next to the guy because you would actually do the bow to him haha in the pledge animation. But the nice thing about it was you had to get to know the guy and it built real friendships that usually formed just around random grouping(or helping retrieve a body) and got to know someone and became his vassel.

Of course this worked really well in AC because the level cap was like 150 lvls or something and took forever to get to max level(i played 2 years and got to lvl 80) so in the modern game i doubt xp bonus would be a huge deal but perhaps other bonus scheme can be thought of to reward the patrons/monarchs etc. I'll tell you what it did breed loyalty when you found a good patron and the opposite hurt feeling when someone left you over a squabble. I think it would fit in nicely with the whole Star wars apprentice thing and could be used as a nice twist. Of course I would add in a lot of the niceties that current guild systems have but this would be one main core piece. It would add for a lot of nice player bios and possibly player created stories/vendettas etc down the road.

Your thoughts?

I agree with most of the list as well. I would remove Stargate worlds and Eve Online and replace them with FFXIV and Jumpgate Evolution.

Also Blizzard is making a 'secret' mmo and of course as soon as its announced it will jump into the top 5.

to the OP.. well that is why there is chocolate and vanilla.. people like different things.. choice is good.. stay with wow if that's your thing. however coming here and stating that just to stir shit up.. well whatever...waste of time.

i look on the positive.. those screenshots look almost like real photos.. props to the Aoc Devs and artists.. that is real talent.

After years of research ... i have done it and finally came up with the perfect formula for MMO brilliance. I will reveal this to you all now.

(DAOC + AC) + (10%*Shadowbane + 25%* Guild Wars) - WoW = AoC !

Yes, thank you I know i have blown a lot of your minds. Let it digest and sink in..

thank you 

to OP- you missed a few things.. some internal cleanup prep..you know defragging hard drive, cleaning up old junk on hd, deleting temp files etc....basically run through some of the system tools in accessories.

All will help with peformance...

thks avery, i will have to paste my comments into that thread as well..

Can anyone elaborate on what it is for AOC? I havent seen much info on it around. Are there differences between Pvp death and Pve deaths? I am always torn on this subject.

To me a harsh death penalty is body recovery where you could potentially lose your items or get pvp players to take them off your body. In Eve your ship blew up and items were left floating in space for anyone to collect. So basically some permanent loss. (the motto always being dont fly what you cant afford to lose) Harsh is also excessive xp loss on a pve death (this one i hate in any circumstance as I feel it's more a time sink and frustration for players)

To relate to this, some games that have these and variations
Asheron's call-original game- Body recovery and vitae penalty all of which kept stacking with consecutive deaths. (vitae is like a res sickness but can only be worked off by getting xp)- both same in pvp and pve
Eve- pvp and pve- instant loss of items (ships, items, implants) some recoverable in space and some partially insurable in $$
EQ- body recovery and killer xp loss at upper lvls- pve only (from what i hear never played eq)
DAOC- xp loss on pve, less xp loss from receiving a player resurrection or praying at your grave(spot where you died) and res sickness, PVP 5 min res sickness no other losses

Advantages of a harsh death penalty...
- Players take deaths seriously. They play better and don't fool around as much in a difficult spot.
- Adrenaline rush for a nice pvp kill where you know that player has suffered significant loss(items, money etc.. ala Eve)
- The feeling of risk vs reward... going somewhere dangerous and the feel knowing if you fail you may lose something valuable
- When accomplishing something difficult with that fear the after math sense of great pride and accomplishment.
- True PvP players/guilds will fight and not trash talk on the boards and never see them in game.
- Real consequences to bad or foolish play or smack talking in public
- With a body to recover I made instant friends all the time in AC. So many requests (can you help me get my body) which essentially turned into a mini quest and also got to socialize and meet future friends. Some of the best stories involve body recoveries from players who were naked trying to recover 3-4 bodies
- Making the player spell resurrection important again!!! In Wow when was the last time you got a res in PvP? Probably never as a priest wont waste his mana on you when its just as fast and more efficient to res at the graveyard.

When I played AC I loved to explore spots where no one had gone and of course I got myself in trouble plenty of times deep in a dungeon alone. There was a sense of fear to keep going because you could quickly get yourself in bad trouble after a few consecutive deaths. It also had great adrenaline rush when you were able to get something special out of it.

Disavantages of harsh death penalty
- In the case of like Eq harsh xp losses are extremely frustrating where you sometimes loses hours and hours of progress and can make you want to quit the game. Especially deaths that happen due to others incompetence.
- Loss of potential irreplaceable items
- Leads to pve groups arguing and breaking up quickly. (although this could be debated this happens even in any game when a death occurs)
- Specific groups are sought out because they are optimal leaving out marginal players or classes for fear of deaths
- Discourages PvP(DAOC had a fun pvp system and encouraged ppl to go out there because there was no real death penalty) For PvP to be successful in all arenas you need people and many wont pvp if there are significant losses.

Advantages of easy death penalty (ala wow, probably the least harsh death penalty that i can think of in any game)
- Less frustration
- Ease of play
- Quicker character progression
- Willing to take risks
- Willing to PvP
- more variation to group makeup, more willing to try unconventional group (druid as your only tank etc)


Disadvantages
basically missing all the advantage points i listed in advantages of harsh dp.

So for me I am somewhere in between. Of the current games I like DAOC but would like to mix in some sort of possible permanent loss of items in death. Unsure if I would include that for PvP unless on a pvp specific server type with different ruleset. Tough call because of all the plus and minuses I listed.

Where do you stand?

Gonna bump this one.. definately go there and check out his videos on each class lower in the page. He does an excellent job and adds some informational commentary on his vids.