Good to see all the I statements in every post also.

I think that the bashing of RPers is happening because this genre of gaming is attracting larger numbers of people these days. It's a number's game. Increase community, increase asshats.

I kinda think that servers from game to game are pretty much labeled one or the other. RP or PvP or both. Don't recall seeing FOR CASUAL NON-RP ONLY. I could be wrong. If not, where do the non-rp people belong. Not all non-rp people like to pvp. So your probably gonna have non-rp people on the servers labeled rp too. Casual players who don't rp may find that people who do a lil strange because it's not something that you run into often in real life.
We all know how things that you may not know about or understand affects thinking. Racism is the prime example.

Personally I'm not an RP type of person in video games. I don't bother those that do it though. The good people in any game will be respectful of any path you choose. The bad ones will be bad. My experiences with bad rpers has been for the most part "I am teh elitist RP person in all the land and your not worthy of my company". My experiences with bad non-rpers for the most part has been, racist, uninformed, elitist noob calling all around asshat smacktards. I've even seen RP'ers bash other RP'ers for not using the games story line, but something they created on their own. I've seen non-rpers bash non-rpers for talking about real world politics or religion with others who are obviously listening and participating in the conversation (not necessarily arguing either). All in all, people will be people.

Hmm, I also think that the word nerd isn't an insult anymore. Geek may still be one though. Computer gaming is on the rise mainly due to computers becoming apart of everyones daily life. Video games is something I think that this, the last, the many more generations to come is just apart of the progression of things. More and more are spending time infront of the monitor. I could argue that many console gamers are looking for deeper experiences and are making the transition to the mmo's found on pc's. I truly believe that if your a gamer, new or old, you are going to try and experience all that gaming has to offer. PC gaming is a large part of the video game world. It's only natural.

Oh yeah, by the way...I like Guildwars too for it's pvp. You actually can see pretty easily what skills your up against. Meaning that just by clicking on your target you can see what he's casting. If you know the game then you can develop little counters to compete with anyone.

For instance....a mage/elementalist is casting a fire spell. You as a war can have a interupt in your skill bar to stop it from being cast (if you get to them in time that is). Disrupting slash or chop I think it's called, can't remember. Assassins have teleporting skills to reach targets faster for huge spikes or interupts.

I agree with thaneb, area84,bonobotheory and krenalor.

Why even waste time trying to convince haters to like a game. WoW will continue to be a largely populated game for the next few years. If you like you like it, if you don't you don't. If you want to convince people to play it, convince the ones who haven't tried it yet.
I'm sure that pool is still large enough.

As for pvp in any game, I flat out think that a game is trash if the classes, lvl v.s. lvl or skill v.s. skill isn't balanced.

I understand that tanks usually do exactly that, but for mages to own them 100% of the time is dumb for me. Why even have warriors then? A warrior should be able to kill anything, just like a mage should be able to kill anything. One class shouldn't be more deadly to another....it should depend on what skills you brought to the table. No class should be uber strong over another.

I also think that there should be more melee classes in alot of the mmo's out there. Why?
Because the majority of the time the melee classes are outnumbered. Take WoW, it's like 5casters-1hunter-3melee, or 6ranged-3melee with druids being able to go melee, so 6-4. With the addition of the dead knight that makes it alil more even.

In guildwars it's like 7 to 3.

It can be argued that all the melee specializations are covered in those three classes, but I beg to differ. Just like you can think up different types of magic to be divided up amongst the casters, other specs could be created for new types of melee ones. You could even have fighters who don't require weps. My 2 cents.

I only said next to impossible to imply the time it would take to identify weaknesses an opponent may have. I know that it wouldn't be impossible. That would make the game unbearable. Applying the word skill to the MMO world imo is pretty funny, but that's another topic.

While it may make pvp more exciting, it has to have limits. A way to develop counters. If it's too broad it looses it's appeal for those who don't have the attention span or the connectivity. Effectively turning it into a what I would call a niche mmo that only caters to a small community. Mind you if it's too broad. Limits and casualties of making certain choices should be in place.

I didn't say that mobs shouldn't have skills, just that if your a random build...so should each monster you encounter. They shouldn't have classes either.

Besides, what difference does it make? Now that I think about it, you'll end up being in a class anyways. You'll either be a healer, a warrior, a rogue, mage, or a hunter type of player.
Making your character average across the board is gimping it. Cut out the middle man is what is being done. Choose from the beginning is what developers are telling you. Fill a role.

ALL CLASSES HAVE SKILLS!

THIS THREAD SHOULD ACTUALLY BE ABOUT ---------> LEVELS V.S. A SKILL SYSTEM <----------.
And I'll take the skill system any day over a level based one.

And why would people do that, well...people are people. If I thunk it, it can happen.

Well, guild names are pretty strong if people stand by them and use from game to game. But to me that's the purpose of being in a clan or guild.

And don't get me wrong, ass tards choose RP names too. Sure you can say more often than not that the ones with non-Rp names will be kid like. Um these are video games. Your gonna have that. Can't take yourself too seriously imo.

Even though a book may be named "Shit! A true story" doesn't mean it's a story about shit.
While it may not appeal to me, it could very well be a cool story. I feel the same about everyone I come into contact within any game. I always give the benefit of the doubt until I'm wronged. I'm no elitist. People who are uptight about anything in a video game(unless it's overall quality of the game minus the community and it's subscription prices), come off as extremely elitist to me.

With that said...I usually have no problems jumping into pugs, or groups with clan/guild members. If i get a John Rambo who aggros everything then fine. We loose. Can't beat them all. I would probably get pissed for five seconds and move on getting over it. Why? Cause by then I have to. Why put myself in a situation where something like that may happen? ROLL THE DICE AND PLAY THE GAME.

Hmm, personally I try to have some sort of name that fits the game or genre. But in hindsight it kinda really doesn't matter to me what kinda name anyone else chooses. Guess I'm just used to playing all types of games and seeing all types of names within them.

I am pretty numb to the name thing.  Like someone said earlier, if it isn't offensive I could give a crap. Beyond that I can't say that I have actually ever fully immersed myself into the roleplay world (gaming wise).

I play MMO's to kill monsters, kill players (loves da pvp man), get gear, and sell my crappy rewards. I'm not like Cartman in the WoW meets South-Park episode where he says that he's the greatest dwarf in all of Azeroth. I do however realize that there are players who roleplay, so I respect them and their world. You have been blessed by my 2 cents.

I can't get it to work either. I have put in the profile address, doesn't work. I have pasted the code that xfire says to, doesn't work.
HELP PLEASE!
Keep getting the ERROR: invalid characters message even though I copy and pasted directly from from xfire.

(I really will feeel stupid tho if i have to type in the code myself)

ok, nvm...it works now.

Originally posted by LeJohn

Let me see if I get this,, you are saying that because Blizzard created a game with mass appel that has some how spoiled all the gamers because now they insist on only getting quality games because they will no longer settle for less than what they pay for?    Bahahaha....   (/wipes tear from eye)

 

Thats like saying that  if you go to a restraunt and order food, and they give cold half cooked food you sould continue to come back until they finely get your food right.... 

 

If anything ,blizzard is guilty of it's proving that players should expect a quality product for their hard earned money. Now if the game is free to play then sure it can be crap as you get what you pay for. And a game that cost $5 a month can be expected to be not as good as a gamne you pay $15 a month for.  All Bliizard did was to set the standard for quailty , not game play but quality, but the min level of quality for any modern game charging the same Sub.

agreed.

Reveal as a skill would be cool, but what would it reveal?  What direction a player decided to go in?  That definitely would turn into THE SECOND MOST MUST HAVE SKILL, second to only a res.

I easily can see where balancing would be an issue in a total skill based system.  Balancing is an issue in any system.  No one wants a particular skill set to dominate all others. At least not with viable counters to it.

I think guildwars does it pretty well.  Class based, but have the option to make your class a hybrid.  It's like basketball,  you don't want your center running point.  Your point guard in the post guarding Shaq. Your cleanup rookie taking the endgame clutch win or loss shot.  

Lets go with a what if in the world of guildwars but with no classes and have the options to have all your skills usable like MOST mmo's. 

Regular ol'human  with the ability    to have earth armor where criticals fail, the rits skills that actually give u health when ur hit, monks too. Regen skills, while using adrenaline sword attacks so no energy is spent on doing damage.  It's just too much imo.  Too much room for godly own all builds.  And balancing them would be hard too because there would be too many uber builds.

I think Guildwars would actually work without the classes though.  Mainly due to the fact that you can ONLY HAVE 8 SKILLS equiped.

Limits like that would definitely have to be in place for a total skill system to work( for me).

Originally posted by Ghost12

 

In regards to the above post, saying that humans perform better with a specialized task is also wrong. Everyone works different and saying that everyone has problems with performing multiple things doesnt even really apply to skills. Skills allow a player to mold themselves to what they want to do, so they would perform even better in PvP. Ironically in alot of games players who excel in PvP are the ones who incorporate some type of hybrid play. Just to let ya know.

Like I want to guess what type of player my opponent is when the possibilities are endless. There has to be some type of limit. And games that are skill based completely will have no shortage of skills making it next to impossible  to know what your up against.  vice versa.  Next to impossible to identify weakness.

To be truly fair also the mobs should be skill based in that system, so that even in pve u don't know what you are up against.  But I'm pretty sure you don't want that.

It's cool for solo play, but for team based play and balancing I don't think it's too cool.  My opinion of course.

And for those PvP players that incorporate some type of hybrid play ironically are playing games that have hybrid classes, so their opponents know that they might be dealing with a hybrid.

I mean wouldn't it suck if a random person joined your group claiming to be a healer, only to find out that once your in combat he whips his sword out because he's actually a warrior.  Then BAM...whipe.....now everyone is pissed off. Go figure. There wasn't any way to know.

Originally posted by snowmonky

As for the grind, I understand your point, since many enjoy the grind and claim that it's the journey that matters. Your character seems more worthwhile when more effort and time was put into it. I understand this notion completely. However, when that journey becomes so long that it takes a year (or more in some MMO's) to even reach PVP range or endgame, the content is limited due to the massive grind.

Completely mindless action. Thank god for pvp, instances, missions and dungeons.  Killing 2-3 hundred monsters per lvl is so repetitive that it's repetitive.

Originally posted by Farseen

 

Originally posted by severius

None of em listed have a community worth the hard drive space they take up.  Once a game moves out of the earliest stages of beta the communities go straight down the crapper.   The largest problem with communities in these mmo's is that everyone thinks that their opinion is more important than anyone else's and haven't learned the simplest ability: to shut the F$%K UP!

 

Now, Jonny.

I have heard great things about EVE, don't get me wrong. And you are right, if you look, at everyone's post who supports EVE they do seem to be a very nice person. In my defence however, you may see the greatest change over time, and eventually say "Wow, this is crazy, I've made a huge difference" however in respect to changes while playing, I see it as very limited. If I log onto Anarchy Online, and I go mission for say 2 hours. I'll complete rougly 3-4 missions, all having their own rewards as items and cash and XP. So there's number one, I get 4 different 'prizes' for completing simple mission which are available literally any time of day. Say I level up, then I instantly get 10,000 IP points to spend on my character as I wish. If I spend them accordingly, I might sneak in getting a few new Nanos (spells) or a new weapon! These are the kind of thrills I like to see happening as I play. Don't get me wrong please, EVE seems to have its long-term benefits, but as for me I choose to witness gains as they happen, hehe.

Just very different ends of the spectrum. And I know one could argue that almost every MMO is like what I have just described, however the difference in Anarchy is that there are over 200 levels to gain, and I believe it has one of the largest virtual maps out of any MMO. Let alone the fact it might even have the most items, and is deffinitely acclaimed as one of the most unique MMO's out there, hands down.

Again though, I want to point out, these are just differences, and by no means is AO better then EVE, I just enjoy it more, and felt I needed to explain why! hehe.

Um, does the actual game play and what you can do in-game count towards what this thread is about?  I thought this thread was about COMMUNITIES. That to me means interaction between the people in the game.  If it doesn't then those empty towns with nothing but NPC's are great communities.  And since I feel a piece of in-game fulfillment  because of it's great rewards coupled with it's vast landscape makes it(any game) a game with a great community.  Sorry for the sarcasm, but I think it's needed sometimes.

Omg, inflation in the subscription pay to play model( which imho is something that we should stand up against, Power buff to the People!)?  This is crazy!

Lol, yeah right.  AoC and it's devs, it's backing co wouldn't have the balls to up the price.  Personally I think that the only way that the standard averages of p2p pc games go up would be if the game were already super successful. Even then it would quite honestly be hard to do.

WoW is probably the only game that could do it might I add, but that opportunity has passed I think with so many being soooooooo sick of it.  Perceived prophetic quality is not justification.  The risk of the game even being successful is too high.  Add in price hike and you instantly turn what could be a widely popular game (making more money) into a niche game that it's only the hardcore fans who shell out the hard earned dollars( which is probably not a whole lot of people).  You have to crawl before you walk. 

Not to mention that it actually has some real competition on the horizon.

God forbid that Xbox 360 players may have a shot a joining the fray for free. The line has to be drawn somewhere. In fact the line was drawn years ago. Albeit in chalk but it's there.  Some say that prices go up.  Well, I say that prices go down just the same.

Also, I read in someone's post that there are way too many FANTASY mmo's out there. There are alot of sci-fi ones too.  Beyond that I'm not really sure what else could be done.  Maybe a horror sci-fi mmo with VAMPIRES or...dun dun dun-------THE NINJA MMO!!!!!
 Can't getaway from feeling that the reason for all the fantasy mmo's is mainly due to ------->SWORDS, AXES, DAGGERS,WANDS,STAFFS, SWEET ARMOR and SPELLS.   In this dynamic I believe is what most want to use.  Sci-fi uses guns and such.
What else is there really?  Modern day stuff like baseball bats, crobars and 9mm's?  While that may be fun, I can hardly believe that anyone wants that.  My opinion of course. You have been blessed by my  2 CENTS.

I guess it's all in the experiences each person has in the communities. From what you should expect and what you can deal with.

From my personal perspective all of the games have pretty much the same types of communities. Of course by that I mean the same types of stereotypical MMO players are in each.

You got the Spammers, botters, role-players, PvP'ers, elitist know it alls, helpfuls, smack asstards (who are generally the problem causers in general chat), the Rambo agro everything players, the griefers,  the NOOBS who are then finally followed by the newbies.

It's a regular highschool lunchroom.

Some games have ppl (ooh, internet speak) who fit into all categories. Some have larger groups of one ie: L1 and L2 win best elitist group.

Currently I'm still playing Guildwars and have to say that it has a terrible community, but I like it.  Rawr. Why?  I guess because when it all boils down...I really respect games that allow you your freedom to type anyway you wish without fear of an account banning. Ofcourse they have their rules, but it's pretty open.  All time though I would also go with something else.

I agree totally with you.  Ever since venturing into this genre have had my ups and downs. I can say that I for one am not looking for an FPS MMo collab. What I crave is more the action console type in a persistent  world. 
Prince of Persia online, Dynasty Warriors or even a fighting game online.

I WANT TO ACTUALLY SEE SOME COOL MOVES IN MMO'S.  More than half of the games out there now have fifty freaking skills that look the same. 

Something like that will probably never come to be in the near future, but one can dream.

Innovation in this genre will be hard to come by.  The climate is stale.  Needs a revolution like what the Matrix did for movie making with 360 slow mo cam.

I am not saying that FPS can't work in the MMO world because it already has.  I'm just saying that it probably isn't the cure for the boring grind or the I have to play forever to get anywhere in this game.

Personally I'm not very fond of the current " I'm a lowbie, so I can't hit u as often", I like how GuildWars does it. The only thing to me that resembles that in that game is how often you critical, or different hits =a range of points. Not whether or not my agility is higher so you miss me more.  Skill based games  hold my attention longer.