EQ2 has had this for years. It's called Betrayal, and it's free.

A 'Dead Pool' is usually a list of celebrities that you think will die in a given year. I thought it'd be fun to apply that to games.

Question

What MMO do you think will die in 2009?

Qualifiers

• By 'MMO' we mean triple-A, P2P, marquee title.
• By 'die' we mean close *all* public servers and refuse to accept new customers for the foreseeable future.
• Bt '2009', we mean calendar year.

No prizes other than bragging rights obviously. I intentionally left out F2P games because in my opinion they come and go too fast to keep track of, with a few obvious exceptions. To kick things off, here are my guesses:

• Matrix Online- If the rumours are true, once DCUO launches, there will be no reason for SOE not to pull the plug on this.
• Age of Conan- I really don't see both AoC and WAR surviving into 2010, and it looks like WAR is putting forth more effort to stay alive.
• Darkfall- I really don't mean to join the hate brigade, but it's common sense. You simply can't run a business the way AV does and expect to turn a profit.

And remember, please keep it civil!

Originally posted by Nadia

venturebeat.com/2009/03/16/gazillion-to-launch-series-of-major-online-games-with-marvel-comics-characters/
 

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Robert Hutter, chief executive and president of Gazillion, said his company has a license from Marvel that will span 10 years. During that time, Gazillion will be able to make any number of online games based on any of the 5,000 characters in the Marvel universe.
...
The first one will likely have options such as subscription fees or the choice to buy virtual goods in order to gain new capabilities inside the game. The title will be aimed at making games more accessible to broader numbers of consumers, Hutter said.

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...wow. Between SOE's yet-to-be-released-but-likely-soon-to-be-ruined DCUO and Marvel's offering sounding like a cash shop game for 12 year olds, it's a sad day to be a comic geek.

Originally posted by premierebori

Originally posted by ZsasZ

1) Exactly what contract did 'we' sign? You may agree to a EULA or ToS, but those can be voided by simply uninstalling the game and/ or cancelling your account.

2) In other words, you're asking a company to *guarantee* profitability and continued operations until some future date. No offense, but it'll never happen.

 

Well, I guess you have a point. However, I am commiting to paying them. I could call my credic company and ask that they reverse the charge. The game company is not going to be too happy about it. So you are telling me that if you payed for an MMO and on the third month it shuts down, you are not going to feel ripped off?

I'd feel disappointed (and, depending on the circumstances, angry), but ripped off? No. It's just like when your favorite TV show gets cancelled two episodes into the season; sure it sucks, but that's life.

Edit: Actually, I can think of one exception; those poor souls who bought a lifetine subscription to Hellgate: London. I'm not sure if they got refunds, but they definitely deserved them.

1) Exactly what contract did 'we' sign? You may agree to a EULA or ToS, but those can be voided by simply uninstalling the game and/ or cancelling your account.

2) In other words, you're asking a company to *guarantee* profitability and continued operations until some future date. No offense, but it'll never happen.

I don't like them, but I think the toggle is an even worse idea. Some people go to a lot of trouble to get their look 'just right'. It may not be the look you like, but it's thier character. Putting on blinders and ignoring or filtering the intentional design choices is tantamount to censorship; sure, you're only censoring yourself, but the fact remains. If you don't like the fish sword, don't get one; feel free to groan to yourself if someone happens to smack you with one. Filtering out blood, sex, and profanity is one thing; that's a moral judgment call. But 'I don't want to see carrot swords, because it's silly and it's screwing up my real fantasy'? Come on.

Point 1: You actually keep track of this stuff?

Point 2: There *is* no end to MMO (except the server shutdown kind), the other side of the rainbow is an expansion back.  If you look at an MMO in terms of 'beating it', you'll never be satisfied.

Point 3: What you're doing is perfectly fine, I bet a lot of people do it.  To an extent, I think companies expect it- you never see an MMO with a term commitment.  I have maybe 6 P2P MMOs that I'm in, and I'm never actually playing more than 2 or 3 at a time. One will get boring, I'll cancel it and re-start another. No big.

Yes, but *all* the boxes say 'Special Edition'. There is no 'Non-Special Edition'.

Tomorrow, and I don't think so.

Originally posted by hbktimf24

 Just won a code for it for free. Im downloading the client now, but i was wondering if it has all current Xpacs and content?

 

www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx

 

The boxed version was indeed 'everything up to and including TSO', not sure about digital versions. I'd assume so though.

Originally posted by Z3R01

I don't see how talking about my son playing WoW is trolling?

Last time I checked WoW is supposed to appeal to everyone from little timmy to grandma to eq hardcore raider right?

Oh and is this the thread You "took care of me in" ? haha.

Your a lame individual if you take offense to someone saying their kids plays the same game as you enjoy.

Need to control that insecurity.

As long as little Timmy is old enough... WoW is rated T for Teen by the ESRB for: Blood and Gore, Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol, Violence

A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do... but I hope you can eventually get another one. I got a X360 a month ago, and it's a blast. I jam out to Guitar Hero on it, I kill zombies on it, and the streaming Netflix is just a Good Thing. Add in the Media Center Extender so I can listen to all the music on my hard drive, and it's pretty much the only entertainment device I need that requires electricity (and it will be if they ever port EQ2 to consoles...heh.).

Originally posted by tfwarlord

 

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Originally posted by ZsasZ

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Originally posted by Jpizzle

 

Why is this such a big deal to people? I'm really curious. Is it immersion?

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<opinion>
I don't think it's immersion as much as inhibiting the social aspects of a game. In something like WoW, where a majority of the game is open, you can group with people 'on the spot', who happen to be in the same area or doing the same quest as you. It's a whole 'hey, you need to kill this guy too? Let's team up!' vibe. Something like that is impossible in instanced games, like Guild Wars, where groups have to be arranged before you leave town.
</opinion>

---

you do know that the areas isent instanced for only that person. each instance holds hundreds of players. I often team up with people in the field, if i need to kill some mobs, which i see other people are after too; so you can do 'hey, you need to kill this guy too? Let's team up!', i do it all the time.

 

Nope, didn't know that, never played AoC. I was just going off my knowledge of instancing in general. Thanks!

Originally posted by Jpizzle

Why is this such a big deal to people? I'm really curious. Is it immersion?

<opinion>

I don't think it's immersion as much as inhibiting the social aspects of a game. In something like WoW, where a majority of the game is open, you can group with people 'on the spot', who happen to be in the same area or doing the same quest as you. It's a whole 'hey, you need to kill this guy too? Let's team up!' vibe. Something like that is impossible in instanced games, like Guild Wars, where groups have to be arranged before you leave town.

</opinion>

(Note; this is just a hypothetical wishlist for what I would consider 'the perfect game', just in case some dev is lurking for ideas.  I'm *not* soliciting suggestions for existing games, my MMO plate is full as it is, and there aren't any games that currently satisfy all my criteria).

Here's what I want to see in a game:

• I want my character to actually make a difference in a game, and have a permanent, game-wide impact. It's a little disappointing to spend time killing a huge boss, knowing he'll respawn a few minutes later. I'm not actually sure how to accomplish this; you obviously can't make bosses one kill only, because everyone wants to kill him; but still, I want to 'leave my mark' in a game. There was one game (I forget which at the moment) that had statues of the top players erected, that's a step in the right direction. Tabula Rasa also named NPCs and items after players, but that was merely an epilogue on a game that was to die soon anyway.
• I want the whole PvP thing re-thought. First off, I want it to matter; if I'm killing what's supposed to be my enemy reward me for it. Give me XP or something. Look at WAR as the right way to do this; you can totally skip the PvE part and still level up just as fast as you could by questing. On the other end of the spectrum is WoW; I get XP for killing random animals wandering the countryside, but vanquishing my hated Alliance/ Horde enemies doesn't get me anything unless I'm in the 'designated PvP area'. I also want it to be fair; I propose a sliding reward scale. Limit PvP to three levels above/ below you; killing equal to your level gives 100% XP, killing three levels below you gives 50%, and three levels above gives 200%. This should help prevent high level characters from just running around and ganking noobs.
• I don't want to do the same things over and over again; most of the time, the noob areas are meant to teach you how to play the game; if this is my fifth or fifteenth character, I think I know how to play. There should be 'threshold' levels, where once you hit a certain level, you can create new characters (of the same race/ class) that *start* at that level. WoWs Death Knights are a great example of this, and I doubt there would be as many running around if DKs had to start at level one.
• I want less emphasis placed on gear, and more emphasis placed on skills and abilities. Think about this; take your strongest character in any game, and strip him naked. How tough is he now? And how much sense does that make? This one's an easy fix; instead of dropping loot that has a bazillion modifiers, make the loot scrolls or something with similar modifiers that affect the character directly. You can have modifiers be mutually exclusive to avoid making characters too powerful, if that's a valid concern.
• I want real persistence; when I log out of a game, my character more or less ceases to exist. What if you could assign a task to your character offline; harvesting, working on skills, crafting, etc? He'd be visible (but not attackable, if that's even a word), but clearly marked as offline character. People could click on him and leave you a message, or browse your player-run shop, or haggle over pre-defined trades; you could even have it set where you receive a txt message or e-mail when something happens.This way, my character feels 'alive', even when I'm not logged in and controlling him.  The constant skill training in EVE Online scratches the surface of what's possible.
• I want longevity; these pixels we spend so much time with are an extension of ourselves; we develop a bond with them. If you release 'Dragon Teeth Adventures' and then release 'Dragon Teeth Adventures 2' a year later, make sure the characters carry over. This is the main reason I don't play Guild Wars any more; with GW2 looming in the horizon, I know it's just a matter of time before my N/E will be rendered obsolete (yes, I know about HoM, and no, it's not the same). It's hard to develop those 'remember the time' memories with almost forced character wipes every time a new chapter or expansion comes out.
• I want a sense of community; WoW has enough players to populate a country, but how many do you talk to outside your own guild or small circle of freinds? Give me ways to find people I want to hang out with, because the sheer scale of volume practically guarantees they're out there. Show me people online close to my age range; people who live near me; people who have similar tastes. Make it optional, because some people are very choosy about what kinds of information gets released, and some younger players shouldn't have it released at all; but at least give us the option. The more time I spend hanging out in your virtual world, the more likely I am to fork over my fifteen bucks every month.

I'm sure there's more, but it's like 2am and I have to get up early tomorrow. These are my wishes; what are yours?

One of the biggest problems with PUGs is the lack of communication. You've got a group of strangers thrown together, and are expected to act as a cohesive unit. If you've ever seen the movie Cube, you know how that can end.  So what can you do about it? COmmunicate! Once you get into the group, introduce yourself, identify your role and objective. Call out specific loot you're interested in (it may not do much good, but it can't hurt). From personal experience, once you do this others will too, and the PUG ends up working a lot better.

Good luck!

My humble submission for Internet Meme of the Month...

Originally posted by Mrbloodworth

Originally posted by Waterlily

Let's dooo iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

It should play in the forum.

It's 2009 guys, it's easy to implement. If you have some time it would be a nice feature. That's all, thanks.

They need to fix this forum software first, the bandaid fix with the Grey over window to paste things in is really annoying. Not to mention the forum does not play nice with firefox.

Your right its is 2009, and the forums have not changed since 2001.

 

The bandaid you're referring to is a filter that keeps arbitrary code from being inserted; not something I'd get into the specifics of, but it is a security feature.

I browse this site using FF3 on my Win7 box and my Kubuntu box and don't have any problems; what specifically are you running into?

Originally posted by jepalano

Just to clear things out, I am NOT involved with this project, found it on another forum where it was promoted, found it interesting and therefor I posted it here.. nothing else. Thanks for the blame anyway.. ;)

Well, you *do* fit the criteria (low post count + obvious badly worded copypasta)...

Originally posted by Samuraisword

www.warcry.com/news/view/89724-Design-a-Blizzard-Theme-Park-Contest

Even Blizzard defines their product as a theme park and not a virtual world.

Warcry scoops MMORPG.com on noteworthy news yet again.

See you in Darkfall if you want real PvP in a virtual world.

 

I just looked at the site, looking for this 'admission'. Blizzard 'admitted' nothing, you just made a bad inference based on your own self-serving pre-concieved notions.

In case there were too many poly-syllabic words there: STFU TROLL.