SWG combat update, followed by the NGE.

Slavish imitation of the superficial appearance and play of WoW, with not so much as an atom of the quality.

Originally posted by googajoob7

Arthas is nt a lot more than a poor mans Sauron and living in his poor mans version of Mordor .

On the contrary, Arthas hired Sauron's art direction team and they did a bang up job with Icecrown.

But Arthas is NOT Sauron.  He's more like Saruman, and even that's not a very precise take, because he thinks he's the badass of the universe.  The whole point of taking over Azeroth for him is it's the first step in taking on the Burning Crusade that spawned him.

Originally posted by ktanner3

DS9 is my favourite as well, but I don't think anyone who dosn't like it lacks a sense of quality or aesthetics. It just isn't their cup of tea. I didn't like it myself until I checked it out again on DVD. That was when I grew to really enjoy it. My favourite part about it is it dared to question the utopian idealism of the Federation that had been established on TNG.

"It's easy to be a saint in paradise": The Maquis part 2

"The federation is a noble people as long as their belly is full and their holosuites are working.Take away those creature comforts and those same noble federation members can become as brutal and savage as the most blood thirsty klingon."

-the Siege of Ar-(some number)

One of my favorite DS9 scenes is the one where Quark introduces Garak to root beer.  You can read it for yourself here: http://www.fiveminute.net/forums/archive/index.php/t-890.html, just scroll down a bit to get to the good stuff.

Originally posted by Demz2

I liked Voyager, but loved DS9, got every season of DS9 on DVD, its blood awesome.  Everytime i think of Star trek online, i think it should be like DS9. DS9 had it bloody alll, intersteller wars, diplomacies, treaties, espionage, factions fighting factions, space stations, the bloody lot.  There is no messing with DS9 is was sick as hell.  It was more of a slower pace than Voyager, DS9 was all about the art of war man, Crytpic Make it like DS9 u monkeys.

What made DS9 the best series for me is that you had so many interesting supporting characters.  Dukat was the most fleshed out villain Trek has ever produced.  Garak was far and away the most interesting supporting character of any Trek series.  There was actual character development on DS9...Sisko went from being "I ain't no fracking Emissary!" and "boy does this assignment suck!" to "You betcha I'm the Emmissary!" and "I'm going to retire on Bajor!" and the evolution in his attitude was credible..

Originally posted by TheHatter

Classless sandbox where Jedi was a title hard to obtain.

To a pointless empty world class based game where you can start out as "Force Sensitive" and where Crafters can't even advance past lvl 1 and dancers can just dance in Cantinas.

Hatter, they DID fix the level thing for traders and entertainers.  They can move on up to level 90, so they don't get pwned by kreetles now.

They don't have any combat chops, though, so they'll die to stuff around their level and above.

Originally posted by Axehilt

What went wrong:

People named Abe like Game A, and similar games.
People named Bob like Game B, and similar games.

1. SWG sold a game like Game A.
2. The Abes liked it and stayed.
3. The Bobs hated it and left.

3.5 A Game B type game came out and sold a zillion copies, which made LEC and John Smedley look bad.
4. SWG patched the game to be like Game B, in order to appeal to the Bobs, but without the polish and smooth gameplay of the type B game that sold zillions of copies, because SOE doesn't do polish and smooth gameplay, it's poison to them
5. The Abes hated it and left.
6. The Bobs were still gone; they weren't coming back.

 

I added the red.

Otherwise, you've got it down very nicely.

Originally posted by nekollx

Nice points, i always found it funny how the game tries to paint you as "the hero"

 

"Their not dead, just arrested and telported away" Say the guy gunning down Hellions with a assault riffle and flaming hands.

 

"their just mindless monsters," say the Paladin cutting up Orc, and Goblins in a Hoarde Camp.

"Their aliens, this is a hostile world!" rationalizes the Tauren mage char broling humans.

"The Asians does not value life the way we do"

"The Slavs are sub-humans"

"The only good Indian is a dead Indian"

"The wogs begin at Calais"

Making your enemy less than you is a time tested method of breaking down moral taboos against killing fellow humans.

Originally posted by Comnitus

Look on the bright side, though. Most of the WoW players I've talked to have said that they'd prefer a skilled under-geared player than a stupid kid who bought his super elite, fully-geared toon on eBay and doesn't know that you're not supposed to cast Misdirect on the Priest (giggle). I understand your argument OP, but for the sake of team-based activities, at least, I think this "invasion of privacy" is to be expected.

I think the thinking WoW players would agree, but there are plenty of players out there who use the shorthand of gear and achievements to judge a player overall, and yes, it's very possible to find a well geared player who is a wipe magnet in a raid, because they haven't the slightest clue how to play their class.

Which may be why they fall back on achievements, but it's very possible that the puppetmaster pulling the strings of some well geared, achievement laden toon has no clue how to play it because that puppetmaster wasn't pulling the strings on the toon when it got all that gear and all those achievements.

SWG had this problem bigtime prior to the NGE, when getting a Jedi took a great deal of grinding to accomplish, and plenty of players went the Ebay route (the easy path, which of course leads to the Dark Side..), got themselves a glowstick boy, and proceeded to embarass themselves by having no clue as to how to play the toon.

Originally posted by Aisin

The bigger chunk of the SWG community are a bunch of players who only care about what shiney reward they get dropped in their inventory and finding the quickest and less involved method to get it.  And .. they aren't the least bit scared to demand your rare rewards be made available to them.

 

Well, they're not getting my savage humbaba mount, so rots o'ruck with that!

Originally posted by Bob_Blawblaw

I find it so ironic when I read the O-forums from time to time, that whenever someone calls for changes in the game, other posters cannibalistically devour the OP and tell him/her to deal with it or leave. Then they bitch that there's nobody playing.

Could there be a connection? Hmmm.

Logic and critical thinking skills are not something desirable in the NGE target audience.  Remember, "too much reading" is bad.

Originally posted by LordDraekon

How many times do you think people can fight the same "epic" battle before it becomes routine? I venture into to Wintergrasp for only two things: herbs and the occasional Fishing Daily. To me it's just another zone.

One of the inherent limitations of the MMO form is that "epic" can't be replicated.  It's one shot, and you're done.  Doing it again doesn't give you the same feeling as the first time.

It's interesting that when I first explored Northrend on my main, it had a totally different feeling than when I did it on my alts, because...I'd been there before.  The magic of going from Dalaran to Dragonblight, picking up flight points, escorted by one of my higher level guildies is totally missing from taking my DK or Pally through.

You can't go home again.  Having done it once, you won't have the same experience as the next five times.

"Just following orders..."

The "No Russian" scenario has you just following TWO sets of orders:

That of the terrorist leader...and of your superiors who gave you the infiltration mission.  "Don't blow your cover" means you are, at mininmum, a passive observer to a massacre.  The entire purpose of your larger mission is one that is, ultimately, to protect the very people you're watching being slaughtered by the terrorist cell you've infiltrated.

Of course, the game only gives you one way to "correctly" solve this puzzle.

Originally posted by Acidon

Well you know better than me.  I've never really been the end-game sort of player.  Been there in some games, but not most.. any not WoW. 

While we can agree that some players with a low score can be great, and some players in a high score can be.. not so great, it sounds like overall the score means quite a bit.

From my personal perspective, it struck me real funny.  That's a perspective from the outside with no *serious* interest in the game though.  I can understand the perspective from someone who players WoW as their main MMO - with respect.

 

Acidon

Oh, I don't want to undercut your idea on this at all. Your point is skillful players in good gear can outperform unskillfill players in even better gear.  The thing is, gear is an easily quantifiable measurement of how good a player should be.  However, there is a pretty well known phenomenon in WoW that the experience of leveling up to 80 may not help you much in raids, and the game changes dramatically when you're engaged in dealing with raid NPCs, particularly bosses.  It's very easy for a hunter or warlock, for example, to use only a fraction of their abilities leveling up, and once they get to raiding they discover that all those extra buttons they didn't have any use for while leveling DO have a use in a raid.  So it's easy to aquire the good gear without having that level of skill, because others can carry you due to their skill and gear.

Which is where the "know your fights" and "I want to see your achievements" thing comes into it, because a lot of raid achievements are for beating raids under specific condtions, such as kill raid boss X within 20 minutes of raid boss Y, for example.  If you have that achievement, it gives some clue as to the level of skill you've got as part of a raid group.

One of the problems with WoW pre BC was that some of the "ultimate" endgame content, such as the 40 man raids, could be done by 25 skillful players carrying another 15 along for the ride (and the loot) who might have uber gear but not the skills that such gear should reflect, which just underscores both our points, I think.

Originally posted by Ceridith

Yet I'm reminded of starting area for the latest class that was added to the game, Death Knights. While this area serves to not only teach you the basic functions of that class, it also serves as an introduction to the lore of that class. Part of this requires killing civilian NPCs. My first thought was "heh, well this is a little abnormal". I didn't really think about it, until I carried on with the quests. Many of the NPC civilians wouldn't fight back, they would instead shake in fear or flee in terror, and you could hear their screams in the sound of the game. This... was different. No longer was it simply killing yet another NPC, it started to feel like it was more.

Perhaps this was the intent of the developers, but I couldn't help but feel that tinge in my gut that I just didn't like it. I did keep pushing, and got through the starter area, and never had to worry about it again. But whenever I think about those quests, I can't help but remember the feeling I had doing them, to the point where if at all possible I would prefer to avoid doing them again, or in the least turn my sound off next time.

Yeah, the DK starting zone is quite the trip in WoW.  For one thing, you're a minion of the Lich King...true, not a mindless zombie or wight or something similar.  You're not quite undead the way some plague of undeath sufferer is...which makes for an interesting time as a Forsaken DK.  Still, you've got some degree of free will, which is why you're valuable to the Lich King, it allows you to be more flexible than a Stitches knockoff...and be given more challenging and interesting missions than being mere cannon fodder.

So, you're sent into the Scarlet Crusade's enclave and, yup, your going in there to deliberately terrorize Scarlet Crusade non-combatants, which is explicitly a quest objective.  Some fight back, but most cower in fear.  You're supposed to slaughter them to complete the quest.  True, they're affiliated with the Scarlet Crusade, which is not a nice organziation, as we all learned when we visited the torture chambers in the Scarlet Monestary, but still...

Then you get to the chapel that's burning, and you are directed to kill a captive Argent Dawn NPC of your race who you apparently knew before you fell under the Lich King's influence, who pleads with you to remember your old self, the hero and do the right thing for your particular race, be it Night Elf, Tauren, Orc, Gnome...or Forsaken (you fought him off once, you can do it again!).

Of course, once you get to the battle at Light's Hope Chapel, you're liberated from the Lich King and you become, once again, a "good guy", although your homecoming to Stormwind or Orgrimmar is less than festive., unless you think being pelted with fruit is festive.

Still it disturbs me a bit that they were not able to keep the story going...how NPCs should be a bit wary and not quite sure about a Death Knight, even one vouched for by heroes of the Argent Dawn.  The terrible things you did in the Scarlet Enclave should haunt your newly liberated psyche, but it's like it never happened at all.  You just carry on like you started up in Dun Morogh or Mulgore, no big deal...

Originally posted by Acidon

Anyway - I was reading random chat and *everyone* advertising for a group wanted you to send them your "gear score".  I was like "lol".. that's what this game has come to?  Let me tell you all something.  GS != Player Skill.  Maybe good enough gear in WoW makes up for player skill.. I don't know.  If so, then I'll shut up (which i'll do anyway, but whatever). 

One of the things about WoW is that a lot of it is about the numbers.  The gear, in particular.  For example, you need to have a certain defensive level of your gear to be able to successfully tank some raid bosses.   Likewise, you need to have a certain hit level to be able to reliably DPs some raid bosses.

One of the things I noticed when I first started doing level 80 content (daily heroics) with my guildies on my main, a hunter, was that because they had raid level gear from running Naxx a bunch, the heroics weren't all that difficult.  They could easily carry me with my quest greens and blues.  Slowly as I raided more, my gear started moving up past mere 200 level stuff to 220/240 stuff, and I was one of the toons carrying the heroic.

The numbers are that important to what raid content you can do.  In fact, the raw numbers of your armor are all that matter for the entire first encounter in Ulduar...the vehicle siege part where you're just driving around in tanks and on choppers.

So gear scores are important for PUGs, it's just the way it works.  If you're running around in quest greens others have to carry you in heroics or raids.  Once you hit the endgame content, the nature of the game changes.  Gear becomes VERY important.  Enchantments become important, because every little bit helps at that level.

It's true that you need to know the fights, and you need to have a solid button mashing rotation down, especially if you're DPSing or healing.  But gear is enormously important.  It's the nature of the beast.  If the numbers are not there with your gear, you'll need more heals, you'll be more brittle in the boss fights.  Skill only goes so far in WoW if you don't have the numbers in raids or heroics to keep up.

Just changing a couple characters out from different classes with less advanced gear means the difference in the Argent Tournament between a quick dispatch of the Black Knight and a wipe by the other faction's champions.  It really is quite amazing how much seemingly tiny mathematical differences make in the way the game plays.

Originally posted by Frobner

And one more thing about why I think alot of these games failed.  They lack humor.  One of the greatest part about WOW is the humor that Blizzard puts into it.  I still remember the day when I started WOW and met the boming dwarf NPCs in Dun Morogh.  I mean -  I still stop by them to giggle.

WAR has abit of that... on the Destruction side.  The Order is just one big boredom when it comes to humor.   Humor in AOC... Doubt that ppl from Norway have humor after playing it...  Other than two puppy and cat jokes... Bunch of nothing.

One of WoW's most attractive features is the many playful takes on pop culture.  Two words: "Harris Pilton", the blood elf female with an attitude.  The Kessel Run.  The entire /silly thing where the human talks about these gnomes and a lost piece of jewelry.  The Star Trek references. The game is chock full of pop culture asides that make you smile.  "This is only building that fit Brog!  Goblins make buildings too small!"

SWG didn't do this as much, but my guildies did.  There is so much you can do with pop culture references in an IP like Star Wars, things that are trite and silly but just crack you up, like running into a bunch of Nightsisters and saying, in spatial, "I've got a bad feeling about this".

Originally posted by Bagguns

Originally posted by Frostbite05

To put it simply people like and enjoy playing solo because they don't have to rely on others to get the job done. One of the most dreaded things in MMO's is the pug. They more or less end with someone pissed off halfway through a quest or whatever then break apart. When you solo its all you. You can make sure it gets done with a much higher chance then if you are relying on others to do it.

 

I disagree. 

One of the things I like most about mmos is the PUG.  Most of the time I always have fun in them, even if they do fail.   Unless you get someone in there that is a complete tard, then they do suck.

PUGs are totally unpredictable things.

I've been in PUGs that formed the basis for a guild.  I've been in PUGs that have given me friends for the duration of my time in the game.  And beyond.

I've been in PUGs that were nightmares, that broke up half way through a dungeon because someone got pissed at someone else, or someone had to go.

PUGs are a roll of the dice.

Having said that, I prefer to do most things solo, not PUG.  I'll be happy to quest with someone I already know, for several reasons; it means I can anticipate their play and they can anticipate mine, and that we'll have an equitable division of the spoils.  This is important to me if you're doing a dungeon where you actually care about getting some of the loot.   Idiot mages who insist on rolling "need" for leather gear drive me nuts, for example.  But I've been in PUGs where someone will jump on ME for not rolling need for my warlock and have insisted (prior to the 2 hour BOP rule change in WoW) on submitting a CS ticket to give me BOP gear that would be very helpful.

So, PUGs are something of a gamble.

Goes with the territory.

Originally posted by Torak

It's a shame that it's FPS games that are excelling at this type of thing more and more while MMO's which should be the leaders of the pack, stay the course and refuse to change at all.

 

Well, single player games are much more controlled from a story telling perspective.  You lead the player down a path, and they're on it.  They can vary things a bit (KOTOR with lightside/darkside, GTA with its sandbox elements) but overall, you don't have many options.  There's only one way to advance the story.

MMOs, especially sandboxes, offer a lot more freedom...and developers lose control.  Which scares them.  A lot.  It's not just a control freak thing, but the fact that you can't anticipate what will happen like you can in a linear RPG or FPS.  Players stress the rulesets in ways that you didn't anticipate because "working as intended" is the holy grail...you see this in WoW where players find other ways to beat raid bosses that the developers never saw coming, because they get tunnel vision, fast.  So they go back and change the rulesets of the raid to get the players back on the path THEY (the developers) want them on.

IF the sandbox game had the sales/subscription numbers that WoW has, then yes, which ever sandbox game did that would be the one that is seen as the template for clone status.

Just as WoW is not talked of as a "EQ clone" (although you can make a case for that), the theoretical smash hit sandbox game would not be called a "UO clone".

Because what is missing from the entire issue is not what the subgenre of the monster MMO is, it's what made WoW the 800 pound gorilla.  WoW just happened to go the EQ levels/class/combat first route.  That's not the primary reason for its success.

If a UO clone, if you will, was the monster, then many things would not have happened.  For example, the SWG CU and NGE wouldn't have taken place.  SWG was already a "UO clone"...so no need to be "like WoW" superficially, which is all the CU and NGE did, because those two efforts didn't capture what made WoW a success.  SOE doesn't do polish, doesn't do relatively bug-free.

THAT is the missing element...the one that no one seems to be interested in replicating, instead doing the "ship this if it's ready or not, we're ready for our close up, Mr. DeMille" of the idiots in suits running the gaming companies.  Who don't seem to have a clue as to why WoW has done so well.

Originally posted by maplestone

However, I can't help but think that in MW2, the "controversial mission" was just a part of the coldly calculated marketing plan intended to get it free advertising on every evening newscast: the ultimate amoral use of morality.

 

A great deal of truth in this sentence.

There is no such thing as bad publicity.