The easiest way to lose an argument is to use hyperbole.

The OP is the most articulate and intelligent poster I have ever encountered. I hope his writings are forever imprinted on the memory of Humanity.

See?

Oh, and Funcom sucks, but I don't think AoC is that bad... Too bad I refuse to play it because of the former.

Not to be pedantic or anything. But you just made an arguement against playing any and all RPGs, period.

Why ever bother leveling past level 1? Or getting any items beyond the stuff you start with? You'll just replace them with better stuff later.

Sounds to me like you're burned out-- Remember, you don't have to play MMOs, RPGs or even any games at all. Something, which once I realized or I should say remembered, that made me much happier.

Here's my reason: I think to myself 'I wonder what the last couple of months have done to improve AoC'. So I start the patcher and read the most recent patch notes. Then notice the link to all the patch notes and after remembering my forum account name/pass I get: "you don't have permission to view that". Even though I can view the rest of the forums and their, apparently, sanitized content.

So, I go from 'maybe I should try AoC again' to 'Fuck aoc' by lack of attention to detail...

Details are important(and yes, I'm easily insulted... By companies out for my money, at least :)).

City of Heroes/Villians.

You could... Read the books? Or listen to the audio books...

But if you truly don't have time for that, I suppose you could start at, where else, a wiki: http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Though, it is quite incomplete...

(edit) I found a place that's probably more suitable for what you want: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.asp

...Since we're on the subject. Does anyone know if Tom Bombadil makes an appearence in LotRO?

I really don't care about the game much. But I just have to say; I'm getting fucking sick of the world revolving around children...

Over a thousand hours? I think you're thinking of Lineage II. :)

That is the only 'mainstream' MMO to have such a large advancement curve...

I can answer the second question definitively, if not the first:

No, you won't have to download everything again; just the new stuff.

As for the first question. Though I've not played it in quite a while. My, outsiders, view of EQ2 is that it's popular and stable. Sort of like how EQ1 is still viable and stable. By stable, I mean that it's almost certainly not going anywhere... I imagine the day SOE starts closing MMOs, even horribly unpopular ones like MXO, is the day they leave the business altogether.

And, though its certainly not WoW, in terms of population. It has a pretty large user-base, which I think is likely to remain fairly level through the 'upcoming' releases(AoC, WAR, ect.).

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I do know EQ2 is heavily CPU bound and limited to one core. But, I've overclocked a Wolfdale to 4.2GHz... :)

I built a new computer last week, spurred in part because of Conan(and Mass Effect), but mostly because I desperately needed one. And with this game being 3 computers old for me, I thought I'd like to see it, finally, owned (Cysis is playable on very high on this thing...). Where it was very disappointing on my last computer; even though I built that a year after EQ2s release.

I was considering subscribing to the station pass for a month, so I could also try Vanguard(and maybe PotBS) again. But I noticed my EQ2 account says that it's "pending" until 08/01. Which, I'm thinking, means that the time they gave unsubscribed account holders to try the game again sticks around until it's used.

Does anyone know if that's the case?

Thanks.

I disagree. At least for myself. Given my type of personality, if a game makes doing things one way overwhelmingly superior to the way I would prefer to do that something, I must do things the more efficient way. Even if doing so makes me unhappy with the game and doing it the way I want to is 'possible' but unrewarding.

That is how it is in WoW. Sure, you can grind your way up, and I've tried it-- indeed, I am one of those weird people who actually likes asian grinders, namely Lineage 2-- but, I can't justify playing WoW that way, when I know in the back of my head that I would be making far better progress if I were doing things the way the were 'intended'...

You're saying AoC is like that? If so, I may about to be very pleasantly suprised... The type of 'freedom' EQ1 offered was always my favorite feature of it. And, really, no game has replicated such freedom since EQ1 and it's contemporarys. Vanguard is the only game to come somewhat close, but... Well, Vanguard.

This install is taking forever, though-- it's driving me crazy. It'll be over 45 minutes, soon. I hope there isn't much patching that needs to be done afterward...

Well, I got it. And I'm utterly unhyped for it.

Before yesterday I knew virtually nothing about it, other than what I read in the occasional posts that got my attention on the front page here. But, I should've known better than to think I'd be able to pass up a major MMO release-- I play, or at least try, them all.

So, it's installing now. And I know practically nothing about it, other than what you can read in the manual... It'll be a new experience for me, as usually I know as much as the developers about an MMO by the time it's released. :)

I wish they'd realize how idiotic it is to have their news, patch notes and forum only readable by subscribers...

For someone like me who bounces between MMOs all the time, it basically kills the game unless I've recently tried everything else I like first. What usually gets me resubbing to a game for a while are new patches. But when I hear about one for EVE I go to read about it, get told to fuck off and think of them to do the same...

I just came from reading a democratic political blog... And you people are nuts. You make people who follow politics looks sane. You make pundits sounds reasonable...

...Invisible walls? People are getting upset that there may be invisible walls in a game? So upset that they're canceling preorders and utterly writing off a game they've been following for months or years?

Invisible walls have been in virtually every 3d game ever made. And all MMOs I can think of, including AC. So I suggest you all calm down until you hear that there might be something unusual about the use of invisible walls in this game as compared to others(All I've seen is blown out of proportion rumour mongering).

No. Corrupted and deleted characters do not happen all the time. I still have a character in EQ1 I made on it's release day that I occasionally visit and whom is perfectly intact. Indeed, though I have played most major MMOs released since EQ I can still access each and every one of my characters in all of them... Except SWG's, of course ... Concerns such as this are why I never seriously play MMOs except from big companies or small companies with a good fanbase and/or long history; like CCP.

I really don't think this story says much about item malls vs monthly subscriptions, though, just the lack of quality of the company in this case. I think item mall supported games can work, but their operators get too greedy and make the items too powerful and too costly. A game supported by an item shop shouldn't cost much more than 15$ a month for your average player. But with most games with item malls it's easy to spend many times that, and often it's even  required.

Once western developers start using item malls-- and they will because it uncaps the amount of money an MMO can make per subscription-- the prices will become much more reasonable and it won't effect balance so much, just speed and convenience. Of course there'll always be complaints of balance.

Well, I meant it more as a snark against the federal government. :)

But, still, 300 million dollars seems a bit much. Especially to a company who has never made an MMO before.

300 million for an MMO? Something's not right about that... Is it being funded by the US government?

How about a system of diminishing returns?

Allow all abilities to be spamable but those that would normally have a cooldown get a penalty the more often they're cast before their cooldown would normally have been up.

For example. Say an ability does 100 damage,  would normally have a 5 minute cooldown and takes 50 resources. But someone casts it three times in a row. So, as a penalty, triple the recast and double the resources needed for every cast. So it does 300 damage, but took 300 resources, and made the recast 30 minutes before further penalties would be added for using it.. Or something like that.

Such a system would take a while to balance, and would only work in PvE(as it would lead to major spikes in power). But I would love to see a combat system without cooldowns.