Originally posted by djvapid

I like people who post on here as if their opinion mattered to anyone that it actually needs to matter to.

 

And we like people who read our comments and respond to them, even though nobody's opinion matters in the long run.

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

My response to Vanguard over the years has always been the same: Refund me the box price from buying it the day it launched and give me an entire month free and I might check it out. Since that is not going to happen, I will never set foot in that world again.

 

I played the day it launched and it was literally the worst launch I have ever seen. The world crashed every hour and reset the saved data (both character and the landmarks that were supposed to be marked forever by the first person to find them). There were bugs all over the place. And, even though it was brand new, there wasn't a big population which was likely due to people trying to log in, seeing the game crashing a couple times and saying the hell with it.

 

You can't do a launch like that and expect all of those people you burned on the box price to ever come back and give you another shot. Even Final Fantasy gets that and gave people months worth of free time for how awful and unfinished their game was. But Vanguard? No, they just took everyon'e money and didn't give out and compensation for the massive unfinished, bug filled, crashing mess they released.

 

That was me as well - the only game I ever pre-ordered without being in the beta first. I found myself fighitng the game as I played, trying to enjoy it even though the compass and chat window were nothing but blackness, and quest text overwrote itself. The final straw for me occurred when I walked into a bank for the first time... and felt this overwhelming need to stand in one place, on a rug was suspended in the middle of nothing. I could see thorugh the world.

Talk about a lesson learned the hard way.

I'd try it again if it was F2P (never did say that I'd come back if they fixed the big breaks). That's always been the key for me.

I would love to help out with the beta; may I have a key, please?

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

A)  12 million other people have not left WoW. 

 B) .... people on this forum forget this EVERY SINGLE TIME A NEW GAME GETS ANNOUNCED. Everytime there are people who are like "Oh this time will be the time that WoW gets killed." No it won't. It wasn't last time, it won't be this time, and it won't be next time. 

Pardon the way the quotes are working, but I felt compelled to address two points, here.

A) If there's one thing I've noticed, it's that, since WoW's inception, the subscription numbers have always, always gone up. This is in spite of the fact that, about 2 years ago, a couple of million people did leave WoW for several of the games that came out at the time. They did not go back. In fact, around that time, it was worked out that less than 2 million people between the US and Western Europe were still in the game; the rest were in (generalizing) Asia. The problem with the "12 million" figure is that, although Blizzard claims these are all active accounts, they are not. They do count inactive accounts & "honorably" closed accounts. The only ones they don't count are banned accounts.

B) And here, I'll do an abrupt about-face. I wholeheartedly agree with you, and I've said something similar -- as has everyone who's noticed this pattern -- the only thing that will pull WoW down from its pedestal is WoW. 

/derail over. Sorry.

I'll tip the hat to LotRO on this one, as well as another MMO currently in closed beta (and, therefore, the NDA forbids me to say more). Fact is, I've never read Philip Roth nor, unless requested to do so by a college class, would I be interested... non-genre fiction has never appealed to me. However, both games compare quite well to professional fantasy fiction.

My one complaint for these and all MMOs is that NPC development always suffers; what rare exceptions I've found amount to a smattering of NPCs over the course of hundreds of hours of encounters with your usual, two-dimensional variety.

Originally posted by Rohn

Mortal Online probably should have been #3 or #4 on the list.

 

Agreed. My graph for MO would look like this:

_____^___^_^^||||||||

The horizontal lines are when you enter the game and wander around, accomplishing absolutely nothing. The carats are for each time you read and re-read the help files, just to see if you're missing something about the "simple" process of harvesting from a tree, NONE of which are harvestable anywhere near you. That last is the brick wall you hit when you realize the few instructions provided don't actually make sense, and with arms thrown up in disgust, you mutter, "Stupid game is stupid" and uninstall.

Ryzom was also suggested; a good choice for a great and challenging game.

Eve definitely deserves the #1 spot, a game I couldn't stop playing even though I once, just once, thought I might shed tears of frustration because I simply could. not. get. whatever it was I should have already understood about whatever it was that I was doing at that moment. Wow, what a game!

There's more than one way to look at these numbers -- the standard gaming numbers are probably staying about the same. Social gaming is on the rise because of those who never got into gaming, before -- at least not online.

And I also agree with Ambrose. I got "hooked" on the social games for a while, and almost all of them are annoying, sooner or later. In fact, almost every game on Facebook relies on bugging your "neighbors" and friends for help, therefore adding more players to their pool of advertising recipients. In general, you get gifts from neighbors that THEY want returned; requests for specific items YOU need go unanswered. And there's the other half of the problem. These are, once you boil them all down, anti-social games: see how many people you can annoy, proving your selfishness, before people stop playing with you.

Well this is sad news for the readers; as many have said above, we've lost the best columnist on this site. I know you'll take your talent for perspectives into everything you do, and that might end up as a boon to your readers in the long run, but MMORPG loses a level (or three) with your absence. 

Originally posted by Senadina

If Vanguard were free I would definitely play it. I liked a lot of what it had to offer: diplomacy, crafting, all the races and professions. Just not enough to pay a monthly fee for a dying game.

 

Exactly this. And I do think that going F2P would save this game.

This isn't new, though they may have expanded it (the quests) or added new goodies (yay).

Aha, HERE is the IP I never thought would happen.

Originally posted by jnsereno

Did they change the character models yet? I didnt like the old ones.

[Mod Edit]

 

While a variety of character animations have changed since original launch, I don't beleive there had been any plan to make changes to the character models, themselves. So, no.

Originally posted by Emeraq

Originally posted by lordtull

Don't worry people once GW2 comes out most people will leave this game and LOTRO.A one time price for all the content you can handle and a hands down better game peroid!!

 That's speculation on a game that isn't even released. Granted, I'm definitely getting GW2 at release, but I doubt I will ever stop playing LOTRO, and if EQ2ex is good, I will likely play it on and off as well.

 

Weighing in right here - Tried EQII twice, found it terribly boring both times, never got past around level 5 or so before uninstalling. Point: If you're bored with WoW, EQII is old news, and going F2P doesn't make the game any better.

Regarding the other two, GW2 definitely has my attention, and I admit that I love their business model. LotRO has been my game of choice for a long time (as in, original launch), but since I have a character in Moria, I don't expect to need more than the F2P game, and I'd be buying the Mirkwood expansion either way. New LotRO players will have the hardest time making a decision about the game -- become a VIP, pay by the pack, or grind rep for Turbine Points and hope you make enough to earn each pack as you go?

I'm just going to keep my reaction simple:

Ooooh....

Forget the skepticism; this is a definite "wait and see".

Originally posted by elocke

Because based on the chart, you have to pay $200 a year for that extra 10 levels.

In Lotro, I can keep my regular subscription and I get everything.  In EQ2, on this model, the regular subscription still doesn't give you the extra 10 levels.  That's the difference.

 

Or, in EQII, you can just not buy the last ten levels... and get the rest of the game for free. My "oh my..." reaction certainly applies, here. And if this works, I can see Vanguard getting the same treatment. Kudos to Turbine for leading the way with this, but SOE's counter-move is brilliant.

Select a role within a game construct and play it by fleshing out your character with personalized touches. Essentially, as the character grows, so does the role you play, and character may equal role for this purpose.

A role-playing game at its core requires that a group of roles are filled by players, and if roles are required, there must be a purpose for these roles. In other words, a true sandbox game ... (hm, never thought about this in this way) cannot be an RPG. A lot of sandbox characteristics may exist, but for a role to have any relevance to a game, there must be a story or plot around which those roles must work to grow and overcome obstacles.

At best, a true sandbox game with no story and no quests, nothing to achieve or complete or overcome, can best be described (in this context) as a CPG: a character-playing game. Roles require purpose; characters do not.

By the way, Jon, thanks for a great topic for discussion, and a chance to consider perspectives about something few people can mutually define.

On the most complex character generation screens, just creating my character can take an hour! So, while I do consider this part of the game important, because I prefer the complexity, I'd be counting my hour from the moment my character drops into the game world. I'll tell you simply -- an hour can be much more than you need, or far less than you need, to determine if you want to continue playing. Some games take about a week, others take about ten minutes.

Key factors:

1. Looks. If the screenshots are already bad, I don't even try it.

2. Playability. Is there something for me to DO while I learn the intricacies of playing? (Mortal Online failed here). Are the controls and camera angles fairly intuitive? (Camera's usually easy, but I've seen several that can't be properly mouse-drive, just click-the-ground to move, ugh.)

3. Complexity. And until I find my perfect game (think Complete Morrowind for the sandbox options), this will always be a little bit of a let-down. Vanguard actually comes pretty darned close because of their wonderfully complex crafting system, but I made the mistake of buying that one at release, the first and last time I made that error. LotRO definitely has the delicious quests, but more openness in personalization of the game would be wonderful... and the list of great games that aren't THE game goes on.

Originally posted by mxmissile

should add

• We do not allow Flash ads

to that list, then the ads here would be at least tolerable

 

This is my issue as well. We know that MMORPG.com cannot control which ads are used by their advertisers, but while I have NO problem with static advertising, and if I ever click though on an ad, it's only on the ones which DON'T flash at me. The blinking, flashing ads are the ones I want to block. Actually, if they just run through their animation one time, then hold stationary on the last frame, that's also OK.

Originally posted by Cruoris

if a Lego MMO wasnt the most retarded thing id ever heard of, id think this was a really great idea.

 

Hello Kitty Online is a real game. If that isn't bad enough, another game was recently announced, one so bad I honestly can't even remember the title -- I think I blocked it out, too traumatized by the announcement to recall. LEGO Universe, on the other hand, has some real potential, from what I've been following over the last several months (on and off).

Originally posted by pepsi1028

I like this new staff member.  He's on top of everything, keeps posting things we want to know, and keeps it simple without the dreaded wall of texts!

So keep posting like this please!

 

Actually, Jamie's been here for a whie now, and we like her too!  ;-)