Just been reading all this stuff on Cryptic, and I am absolutely amazed at how massive these guys must think their d*cks are to pull off this crap. I mean, really, if Blizzard / SOE does it, they can count on their subscription base to be large enough to handle the crash, but Cryptic are a small company and they're already trying to fleece their subscribers?

Examples

Bait and switch tactics: Cryptic promised that they'd never release game effecting content in the cash shop, which is a blatant lie, they're selling respecs and were going to sell a zone to fill up a content gap until enough people cancelled for it to hurt. They also promised Champions Online players to give free major content 3-4 times a year, and they've not seen a hint of that yet. Their recent zone fiasco ( they were going to sell a zone to players to fill up a content gap that was introduced because they hit the panic button JUST before release, as people were levelling too fast ) is a sort of reverse bait and switch tactic, as they decided they might actually survive by not selling it, although I suspect this was how it was set up all along. Expect for something similar to happen in STO.

Firing community manager: They fired a community manager for actually talking to the community and clarifying that the zone mentioned above would not be free content. I mean, firing someone for doing their job? Ridiculous.

Cash shop in a P2P game / Pre-order bonuses / Life-time subscription bonuses: I just find this ridiculous on the whole. A P2P game should never, EVER have a cash shop. There's a reason it's pay to play. Pre-order and life-time subscription bonuses are just disgusting on the whole. They suggest the game doesn't have enough content to stand on it's own two feet, as well as trying to get players to buy a game before they can read a review of it. I hated what EA did with Dragon Age on this, too.

Trying to steal major guild leaders from CoH: Cryptic tried to tempt major supergroup leaders from CoH by offering them early beta access. IN GAME. Not only is this a breech of NCSoft's EULA, but it's just ethically wrong. Cryptic's reply to the outrage was: "lol so what?"

I mean, I don't know about all of you, but to me these tell of an unethical, moneygrubbing and downright titheaded organisation that has no respect for players, employees or other companies. Why anyone still plays their games I don't know.

( Note: This may all be the work of Atari using Cryptic to make quicky $$$ without ruining their own name. )

{Mod Edit}

I hope enough people stave off going back, to be honest.

Hell, the game is crappier than CoH, anyway.

This is something anyone that purchases things online should be aware of.

If you're suggesting what I think you're suggesting, then it sounds very similar to RuneQuest's rune system, where you had runes that you could use temporarily or permanently depending on what spell you were casting. Certain combinations of runes would do certain things, like two death runes ( which were in the shape of a cross that was meant to represent the sword that brought Death into the world ) would cause more harm to be done around you, on both sides of the conflict.

Blizzard = Call of Duty MMO

I called it.

Originally posted by arcdevil

According to CCP CEO Veigar Pétursson “with more professional males in the 25-35-year-old age range losing their jobs, he has seen the number of subscribers soar since the economic crisis began. CCP Games has been profitable since 2004, but all profits are currently invested in Eve Online and also into creating World of Darkness, a new online subscription game about vampires targeting an 18-25 year old, female demographic”.

 In the quiet words of the Virgin Mary... come again?

I am going to play this game and get so much e-pootang it won't even be funny.

Originally posted by Goronian

Dude, I'm on these forums for less, than a year.

To WW4BW:

I agree completely. I feel, like many RP opportunities fly completely over the heads of both devs and players. I still feel, that it is possible to have good RP in any game - it just depends on the player, really. Too bad most RPers are either weirdos, have weird fetishes, that they push into your face or just plain suck at RP. 

He's saying that RPers always make these threads and say that RP is dying.

Which it is, and it's quite annoying how people try and pretend it isn't, even on RP servers. I mean, in y'olden days, everyone on Argent Dawn RP'd, from raider to dedicated RPer - even if some of them weren't up to the standards of others.

Nowadays, you're lucky if you get a gruff yes or no to most questions about RP.

Originally posted by DeaconX

Is that so? Interesting... I've always liked the idea of being turned... Can people also be turned, or is it strictly a 'Born as a pureblood werewolf' type deal?

Basically, a werewolf either has sex with a wolf ( in wolf form ) or a human ( in human form ). This determines the form the werewolf feels most comfortable in. If it's born from a wolf ( lupus ), it's more used to the wolf form and more feral, if it's born from a human ( homid ), it's more human and more comfortable as a human.

If a werewolf ( or any of the changing breeds for that matter ) has sex with another, it means that a metis is produced, which is basically an extremely disfigured werewolf, and they're the outcasts of society.

http://wiki.white-wolf.com/worldofdarkness/index.php?title=Metis

http://wiki.white-wolf.com/worldofdarkness/index.php?title=Garou - Main werewolf article.

In WoD, you don't get turned into a werewolf, you're born one.

Originally posted by SgtFrog

everquest, but in its current state...not like the one in the sc...like the stuff from underfoot

Underfoot?

Originally posted by Axehilt

<snip>

The idea is that not everyone would be interested in becoming a shaman / being a disciple of a certain god ( although a few people can HeroQuest the same myth at once, as different gods ) but it'd provide a good enough experience to make up for any development time lost on it.

Originally posted by Ceridith

Whoa whoa whoa... hold on, wait a second here...

Blood Elves have more than one gender?

Of course they do, silly. Female and hermaphrodite.

Originally posted by Goronian

You forgot "2D Ultima-like games". I voted "below the ones listed", because seriously, it doesn't matter.

And since when "Oblivion on max" is considered "medium"?

Oblivion on max still has pretty crappy textures etc.

EDIT: Also, hence why I reserved the second post, it's for styles of graphics, not graphics quality. =p A high quality isometric game would be Kingdom Reborn, for example.

Now, what is your preferred graphics style in an MMO?

Photo-Realistic - Crysis etc.
Semi-Realistic - Vanguard, EQ2, etc
Western Stylized - WoW, WAR, etc
Anime - Mabinogi etc.
Isometric View - Ultima Online etc.

So, yes, the game is close to perfect in terms of gameplay for you. Not perfect, but no thing ever is. But, what's the minimum graphics you'd deal with to play this game?

Very High Quality - Crysis etc
High Quality - Age of Conan etc
Medium Quality - The Elder Scrolls : Oblivion etc
Low Quality - Everquest 2 on low settings etc
Very Low Quality - Everquest etc

See below for preferred choice of graphics type.

Originally posted by Goronian

It's that funny thing about WoW roleplaying - they can't RP worth a darn, yet act all high and mighty, setting ridiculous rules and looking down on any character, tha deviates from their Racesue roles. Fun.

"WTF YOU KANT BE AN ORK PALADIN FFS"

I always liked how they flipped out when they suggested that class / race restrictions should be removed, because they make no sense.

Originally posted by Axehilt

<snip>

It really wouldn't work in a themepark game, but in a sandbox it'd more open up new skill trees or change the physical properties of the land. Take for example one of the two HeroQuests that that guy did. The player wanted to become a shaman, so the guy allowed him to start a HeroQuest without telling him which myth it was specifically, just asking him to read a few. Becoming a shaman would mean opening up another skill tree, shamanism or whatever, and would be open to every player.

Now, if you land around where your village / whatever was, you could attempt Orlanth's ( the primary god of the Orlanthi, god of thunder etc ) Rainmaker HeroQuest, where you go and slay a giant serpent and find a water spirit in it's corpse. This could change the landscape around the player.

Permadeath wouldn't be needed, just a significant penalty for failure, to balance out the possible rewards that the player can gain from attempting HeroQuests.

EDIT: I really think the lack of class quests in WoW was ridiculous. They were some of the best quests in the game. They got you very immersed in the game world itself.

Originally posted by mate0377

Nice story I just dont understand how can you "hear" someone macroing ?? I've been playing DF for 3 days so I am newb

I'd guess the precise repetitive sounds are the way you can tell.

Originally posted by HeliosXII

The point is, they're now giving you something for free what they were originally intending on charging you for.

You should be thanking them, or at the very least acknowledging that it's the right thing for them to do.

Regardless of what you want to believe their motives are, doing this is the right move for them. You can call it an underhanded scheme to try and milk their oblivious customers for all their worth, but give them credit where credit is due FFS. I think they've at least earned that, with all the bending over backward they've done to appease the gluttonous, ungrateful masses that play their games.

People should be thanking them for doing what they should've done in the first place? I think not.

But, yeah, it looks like the expansion is similar to a Darkfall "expansion", i.e. very little content being called an expansion because it gets players much more excited. This is, at most, a patch. They have subsequently retconned it into an expansion to make it sound like they were selling an expansion pack, and not just a zone.

I hope their subs have dropped enough to teach them a lesson permanently, and I hope they stay that way if they plan on trying to pull another one of these.

Originally posted by Calintz333

Pay by time is awesome and I wish more mmos had it. The moment you log in your timer starts until you log out. As long as the price was not something crazy like $15 dollars for 15 hours I would be ok with the pay as you go. Hell id prob like it more than the standard 15/mo sub. 

Something along the lines of $15 dollars for 40- 50 hours. $20 dollars for 70-80 hours and like $25 for unlimited play  for a month sounds reasonable to me.  Personally I think this would be beneficial for almost everyone, and if the time got rolled over every month and stacked up it would be great for casual players and non hard core. Actually the only people I can see really complaining over a pay style like this is those hard core log in every day from 8am-12am kind of players. 

That's a 1/3 more expensive than current subs. What the hell, man?