different starting cities could cure some of the 'omg i've done all these quests before' blues.

for character faces/sliders - take a peek at aion.  I love their character avatars. 

I don't need 'immersion' so much as i need to not have my computer at 5 fps because its trying to load a zone with 230920 players in it.  ugh

the way i understand it there is a new game in the works but they won't be calling it eq3 or vanguard 2.  It is however, a rumor we got at last fanfaire and nothing substantial. believe at your own risk.

getting back on track from the venom spewing boycotter...

I would like to see *more*, not less of the path choosing/class choosing.  the original fell by the wayside because you *forgot* skills as you went up.  Suddenly your tank type who had from 1-10 been using a sword could not do so any longer because he was a monk.  That had a crappy feel to it.  skills you used shouldn't just vanish or be forgotton - but i wouldnt  have a problem with them never going past lvl 10 abilities either. 

Personally i'm a little tired of artificial weapon proficencies.  spears for shaman?  really?  range weapons are basically forbidden to clerical classes - what's up with that?  why are clerical classes restricted from swords? (dungeons and dragons this ain't - so why are we harnessed with that arbitrary rule?)

I would like to see a break away from 'class balancing' and more of 'game balancing.'  Fpr instance - (no pun intended) some of us will never, ever raid.  Tried it.  didn't care for it.  Might try it again but unlikely to devote my characters lives to it.  They're not going to stop making raids and raid zones that i'm never going to go into - i could care less, other than the raiders thinking they're some how special because they like to raid and i don't.

So why not have a choice about it?  get to lvl 50 or whenever the raids start in whatever game and be able to *choose* to take a more raid focused path over a solo/duo/small group path.  and make it stick - no more people whining that no one wants a necro in a raid - well, look at your choice dude - you chose to take a character built for solo. 

Right now thats going on but people are whining because it isn't an obvious choice.  I think they should make it a more obvious choice.  choose to buy a skillset and go from necromancer to, say soulweaver (or some other dramatic sounding name) and give them skill sets more useful to a large group.  Make them raid for the points to become such a thing in the first place in smaller places that unlock the bigger ones.  then they can tweak the classes for raiding and leave the non-raiders alone if they're happy the way they are.  Same for PvP - make actual PvP classes.  Earn some PvP points.  Unlock PvP zones and classes.  Leave the nonpvp classes alone.  Make spells that screw up pvp just not work for the pvp classes - that'll learn em.  and will give people who dont' want to pvp a chance to keep abilities that pvpers loathe - because it won't make a difference.

Yeah, i know most people hate pvp zones as opposed to servers.  I don't.  I've played PvP - i'm just not in the mood for it day after day so i can't really build up a character on a pvp server.  I played and enjoyed pvp when my hunting partner was online - which didn't happen often enough. 

Something to steal from a pvp game i actually liked - i'd like there to be stealable bases.  that would be some pvp for sure - to defend a base/dungeon you took over, cleared of monsters... let antoher guild try to take that base.  i'd like to see it so only an actual guild (give them a leetle flag) could sit on it - but they could hire in nonguildies to help them kick out the previous dudes - including the respawned now loyal monsters. 

I dunno, it just seems like it would be hard and fun and ...yeah.

I've found that people who equate what you play with your sexual orientation and gender preference are people who can't get over it.  I.E. if someone says such a thing to you - they are sexually insecure and can't use imagination over the physical world - they can't use imagination over genitalia, its impossible. 

My advice - just pat them on the head and reassure them that even if they found the character being played to be hot, it isn't gay as long as they thought it was a girl.  cripes.  people - its a game.  This is just like the skunkbrained twaddlemaster who insisted that someone's male character could not beat their male character because a woman could not beat a man. 

Yes.  If you are a woman playing a male character, this guy insists your character cannot beat his because women can't beat men in a fight.  Obviously someone who's never been in PVP online and just plays freeform in chat channels.

If you don't like being around men who play fem toons, don't play.  At all.  we dont' need the narrow minded and unimaginative to bring the gaming world down another notch just because you equate image with reality.

::laughs:: wrong.  I was once pegged as a man and the chick who accused me of being a man would not beleive otherwise because i described the npc i was playing as being very very busty and 'bouncing' down the stairs.  And while most of my toons are guys, the few girls i do have where you can make them boobtacular ... i often *do* make them extremely endowed.  Why?

1) I'm extremely endowed and dont' see anything wrong with it.

2) i'm a roleplayer and some of my characters are built for comfort, not for speed.

Granted, i don't go for freakishly boobtacular.  But i'm a DD and i dont' see anything wrong with a character who's a DD.  Thats what corsets are for.  I'm not nippin' in my waist, i'm making sure my tits don't beat me to death while i'm riding a horse. (true story.  Never ride a horse without proper support, omg.)

<and edited again and again for horrible typos.  its early, shoosh.>

this was the first year of everquest when i got the worst of it.   It is not nearly so bad now as it was then - maybe people matured. i haven't had anyone pester me for cybersex in 6 years.  ... On the other hand, i only have one female character...

you know for about  the first 20 levels there were no pants that had graphics?  My half elf girl ran around with her butt exposed constantly.  Thats the Dev's faults, not the poor hapless nerds who got an eyefull of buttcandy every time i ran by. 

I'm female and i primarily play male characters - there are several reasons.

Starting out, i played a female character.  I got hit up for cybersex about every 15 minutes.  People would rp out some pretty disgusting acts - and my guildmates remarks when i mentioned being irrtated at someone rping out ...shall we say, making a uniquely male mess on my character ... 'you must have lead him on, you probably deserved it' etc, etc. 

You are treated differently once people know you're a 'real girl' online.  the really annoying demands for proof of gender stop if you play a guy.  I don't know why it matters, i never have.

So i quit playing female characters for a long time. it wasn't worth the hassle. 

Some of my male friends play female characters because "If i have to stare at someone's ass all day, I'd like it to be an ass I would look at anyway.'

I think thats the best reason to play a character of a certain look of all - because you like to look at it.  I mean - i play a druid who shapeshifts and I like to take a shape that doesnt' give me any real benefit - because it looks cool. 

Maybe people could stop worrying about gender in a digital world if they weren't so hot to cyber.

Frankly - this is one of the few columns that *does* cover F2P games and i think most of the questions seem to be from people looking to pick at things. 

Over all, i've liked the F2P format - I just don't have the time to play a F2P game while i am paying for another game.  'I can always play that, but i pay for this one so i should play it!' has been one of my reasons for neglecting the F2P offerings.  I'm not terribly interested in most of the games that are drifting in from the Orient...Except Hellgate, which apparently is supposed to be F2P in America soon. Yay for game ressurections! I always considered it F2P because i didn't need the monthly fee - i had plenty to do without the extra content. 

DDO is back on my hard drive.  So is Hellgate - practicing for the reopening.  I dont' play DDO often enough to want to pay for it unless i get hooked again - and its much more li kely that i'll spend money on it *and* get hooked if i play it casually.  I was just considering signing up for the monthly content on hellgate when it crashed and burned so the F2P model is making me salivate. 

So i think the F2P market definatly needs someone to be reporting on it.  And while i admit - i am Bitey the Troll from EQ - i think some of the picky ratfaced snots demanding perfection  here are the real trolls.

troll not allowed in the original eq??  ... I played a female troll named Bitey on the Xegony server... 

Everquest needs to be PvE - PvP servers simply are not as popular and there's a reason for that. 

I've played PvP.  I don't mind most of it - but in a game where a lvl 25 character cant' even HIT a lvl 80, its bogus.  80 lvl 1 characters should be able to swarm a lvl 80 and at least muss his 'do.

Everquest 1 and 2 are both PvE with special servers and rulesets for PvP.  So - if they made PvP part of the game, and integral to it, it would no longer be Everquest and irrelevant to this thread.

I'm just tired of anorexic twig elves, stocky, stubby humans and breasts like cantelopes on anything mammalian and female.  I'm surprised they haven't just started sticking random mammoth breasts on iksar and sarnaks.

And i'm also very much tired of having to be a 'level' to do things.  Maybe if they could give us things like in city of heros - pick your baseline, pick your set, then pick your subset, and then 'additional powersets' that would work out better.  I'm just really annoyed with having to put up with *other* people's idea of what a ranger or druid should be, or a paladin or wizard or whatever. 

User created content has been bantied about for ages - and yeah, i would really rather someone put it through a process so we don't end up with the penis banner for every guy who thinks he's funny.

I'd like skill, not level based abilities - i'd like classes to be suggested but not locked in - instead of 'a ranger' or 'a scout', let my character take the parts that i want - speed, stealth, tracking, animal affinity, archery - and not have to have the rest of the cobbled together rogue crap.  Same for wizards - if i want to specialize in teleportation yet be a pet based caster, let it be by the skills i pick, not by a 'class hat' i have to wear.  I'd probalby be the slow arse who'd have way too many skills and would be leveling at the speed of glaciation, but that would be my choice and you can pick your johnny 3 skills character and have just as much fun if thats your cup of tea.

I'd like more character customization.  Why can i make my nose tilt up or down but breasts are one size fits all?  why is everyone so *fit*?  can't we have scrawny or tubby gnomes? 

User Created Content: yes.  it would have to be donated.  however, if a user actually created a lot of viable and usable content, could they not potentially be hired and actually paid for it?  at the very least, User created content would open up character customization up somewhat - wigs! give us wigs!!!!!  personal tabbards, banners, think of the furniture and tapestries and rugs, the clothes... yeah, some of us are all about the appearance of things or who the hell would ever level a carpenter to 80?

I'd like competition to be optional.  I do not join MMO games to be in competition - i want to play cooperatively.  All the epeen waving really makes me sick - i don't raid.  Not because i don't enjoy the game or because i can't do as i'm told and follow cooperative orders - Im good at that - but because i can't stand 5% of the raiders -  incredibly obnoxious, overbearing and rude lootwhores who think that's what the game's all about.  Note.  5% ruin the rest of the experiance for me.

And yeah.  5% can ruin an entire experiance.  if you only had 5% rat urine in your drink of choice, would you still drink it?

All jokes aside - I quit eq1 because at end game it stopped being fun - and i hadn't even reached the actual level cap yet.  I started eq2 and i accept that they are SOE and are there to make money.

They do a lot of things i find idiotic - this is not really one of them.  This stuff is *optional*.  and they GIVE you 150 of their eq bucks to start with.  I've played some of the real cash games and I didn't stick with them.  I have a subscription, and for now i will be keeping my subscription. 

If you don't want the optional items - don't buy them. If you don't like others having them either, quit the game.  Trust me.  We don't need you.  The only people who are going to buy some of this stuff are the fluff types - like me, i worked up to 80 carpenter and i love to decorate my house and guild hall - and the 'gotta get to end game!' types who I don't play with anyway.  Heh - we turn our xp off half the time to keep at a level where we can get through some of the lower level content! I was much more upset about the stupid card game giving items from buying a damned card pack - i don't play those games.  I really got annoyed hearing how people were shrieking that they had spent hundreds of bucks to get a shrinking cloak and considered it *essential* to their game play - and SOE nerfed it because it gave pvpers an unfair advantage because not everyone could or would get the cards.

I honestly have looked and do not see any game breaking items. I doubt i will buy anything unless its a omg awesome house item or a mount thats too cool not to spend some lunch money on.  And anyone who shrieks we shouldh' thave to pay for in game items, I'd love to check and make sure you don't have a baby dragon in your house, or any of the pre-order items, or anything else that OMG is rendering your game experiance IMPURE! 

SHUN THE IMPURE GAMERS!!! SHUUUUUUNNNN!

My gang and i are really enjoying the updated interfaces, the quieter and less noticable lag and over all improvements!  The crew and ship displays make it easier to see what you're doing and what your crew is doing, and tell which parts of the ship have been hit.  I haven't tried the privateering yet but may soon do so on an alt.

they did some upgrades since last week and the lag is down significantly so that our playstyle has changed a bit - its got a much better feel and lag is only noticable occasionally - if you wait it out after about 5 min it calms down and is unnoticable once more. 

I havent' really found it to be a 'grinding' game.  I play everquest, everquest2 and city of heros.  you want to talk grinding games?  I quit EQ because of the monotonous grinding required to level.  City of heros can also get firmly into the grinding rut.

It's not the 'best game ever'.  Its a good game.  Like it or don't, i couldn't care less.  But  other people liking it or not liking it will not stop me from enjoying it.  There are some very popular games out there that i think are piles of whale drek - enjoy em all you want.  I won't.  No one requires you to like games i like and vice versa.

get off the negativity bandwagon.  Its a nice little game.  its not for everyone.  thats all.

its very nice that you can talk to the rest of your guild in vent.  Too bad we dont' all have vent so if we group with you, its done in silence while the rest of you talk to each other.

  This is a little bigger than that - in theory, anyone who joins the group can use it.  We don't have to try to mesh to whatever the other person's using, its built into the game. 

I have been in test - both group and guild work very well.  we experianced framerate drop when someone joined or left the voice channel, so don't try to add someone in the middle of a fight - add them and wait for the game to settle down first - it does.  We didnt' test out private message chat yet - we both only had a few minutes to jump into the game.  its surprizingly clear and fast, no lag while talking once the connection was established.  You can adjust someone's volume from clicking on their 'personal' tag - so just the same way as you would inspect or mentor by right clicking them.  you can do it apparently by slash command too, but we didnt' have time to mess with it yet.

I tried to get this for a freind in england who is playing but so far no luck at all.  the only place i know of who sells the game cards is Target, a retail store in the USA.  I asked Disney about this issue and they said that right now that is your only recourse, to buy them through Target. 

I was in the beta for Pirates of the Burning sea.  I have the type of account with Sony where i would not have to pay more per month to play this game. 

I still don't want it.  Pirates of the Burning Sea bored me snotless.  It is a ship to ship combat game, effectively a war game.  Its beautiful but the graphics can make my computer choke and stutter on even lower settings.  I have not played since beta - i lost interest in it pretty fast and went back to PoTC.

I agree with *that* 100%.  I was trying to play AoC using Xfire with someone and their baby shrieking in the background - not untended, mind you, i could hear the woman talk now and then who was taking care of him/her/it - and i was ready to turn it off.

I also cannot convince people it is not meant for a constant monologue of their stream of conciousness, nor is it meant for them to sing, neither under their breath nor loudly, nor that we want to hear them breathing so heavily its like having a darth vader leaning over each shoulder.  I do not want to hear their children, their TV, their dog or their spouse, i do not want them to try to answer the phone without muting.  I especially do not want feedback squealing and such caused by thier not paying atttention to where they're putting their mike when they get up to take a leak and forget to mute it.