From the article:

"Please note that character names will not be affected. We are merely unifying both server lists and as such, all characters will remain on their original server."

Just account names and global 'handles' will be affected.

Originally posted by randomized

You mean the 'Your account has been haxxored, goto battlenet.virus-r-us.com and login' messages? No I get those and don't even have a battlenet account.

 

You know, now I have to wonder if someone got my address from a friend who both has me on Facebook and plays WoW? I started getting tons of those recently.  And I have never played WoW, nor do I have a battlenet account.

Originally posted by EliminatR

christians are profiteers

 

No. Humans are profiteers. God said "give away all that you have, and follow me" (paraphrased) It's those who USE God (aka 'religion') for their own profit that give Christians a bad reputation. Not everyone that calls themself a "Christian" truly is one. God also said you will know them by their deeds. If they are profiteers, they are not following God, but Mammon.

Originally posted by ZenNature

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

Yes it is such a fact that human nature wants microtransactions that no other major services use subscriptions........ oh wait.

 

Telephone service/cell phone service/cable and satellite TV/Internet/Magazines/Netflix/Radio/Xbox Live/insurance/ etc. etc. etc.

 

With how successful those services are, and how many of them are tied in directly to daily life, it would seem that a monthly subscription is the thing that is part of human nature, not microtransactions. Although it is nice to see how greedy developers that want to milk their players dry like to spin things.

 

Those are terrible examples. Telephone services are notorious for charging additional fees for various extras. Cable and satellite charges extra for pay-per-view specials. We subscribe to the internet, but then have to pay extra for so many online services. Magazines have special issues that they either offer as a bonus to subscribers or charge additional for them. TV/Radio/Internet is arguably just an advertising medium these days for more products (a LOT worse then cash shop advertising). Insurance lets you subscribe then asks you for a deductible payment every time you need it.

 

So really, you're just hurting the argument against RMTs. If anything, MMO developers are slowly following suit with the way the rest of the world already works. Charge consumers for everything that can be sold. I don't like it, but I think your examples have kinda highlighted why they are moving that direction.

 

Very good points. Another example - airllines. Remember (if you are old enough) when luggage was just 'free'? When meals were served on planes for the price of a ticket? Now you get *maybe* a soda, a tiny spoonful of stale nuts, and a fee for your bags on most airlines.

Those of us who are old enough may remember when the phone bill had two parts. Local service, and long distance. Now there may be 20 line items on there. Each little 'value added' costs another monthly fee. I love the scare tactics for things like 'maintenance' fees. "If you call us for a problem with your phone, and we send someone out, and the problem turns out to be in your lines inside the house - without this contract you may end up paying a $90 service call!" 

Any business out to make a profit will try to see where and how they can squeeze the consumer just short of driving them off for good. It's called greed, and yes,  I believe that's part of human nature.

That being said, I have no problem buying "I want" items (like special costume pieces, etc.). As long as *not* having them does NOT affect gameplay (i.e.  - I feel it's wrong if you're gimped unless you fork out cash) I think that is not a bad thing. Many of the things CoH has sold have been special emotes or costumes that players themselves have asked for. It takes time and money to create these things, so why not let people have some non-essential add-ons if they can afford it.

Originally posted by raistalin69

WOW, ran into a bug that had been in game for monthsand got locked out of a dungeon for a week. filed a ticket, was told it was fixed and there was nothing wrong, just wait a week and it would reset.

i waited a week, tried again, and got locked out for another week. when i filed a ticket i got the response that the bug had been fixed and to stop filing tickets about it.

this is at the same time that the forums had all kinds of posts about how it hadnt been fixed.

no point in paying for a game when the end game doesnt work and the developer wont even admit there is an issue.

 

Yeah, I am considering leaving 66 months of City of Heroes over the same kind of stupidity. The game ran fine on my system. I have two currently active accounts and frequently play both simultaneously. The system easily handled two instances of the game on two monitors, without breaking a sweat.  So along comes Issue 17 and "Ultra Mode" - suddenly I began having constant crashes to desktop. Not random, not once in a while - *every* single time I played, ranging from 20 minutes to 45 minutes of play. I began to search the forums and found others talking of having issues with memory leaks, so I began to watch how the game utilized my RAM. I found it was gobbling around 1MB a second  at times, until it hit around 1.8 GB or so and crashed. So I called support. Besides telling me to do things that completely hosed my system (like uninstalling the firewall I had carefully trained for years), they finally gave up and 'escalated' - which mean I got shunted to email support with a 'supervisor'. Even though there are people in the forums with EXACTLY the same issue I was having they proceed to tell me that the game "There are currently no known memory leaks in the City of Heroes application." and that I am  "currently the only player reporting this issue at all to us."  All I know is this: it worked fine for years. I had not changed a thing on this computer from the time it worked, until the time it broke. Disabling one monitor stops the leak, however, it shunts my icons (and I have a LOT of stuff on my desktops) all to one monitor and only *sometimes* do they get put back properly (using Ultra Mon). I am not happy with their 'support' basically trying to **** down my back and expecting me to believe it is raining.

I feel your pain.

Originally posted by delateur

What is with people saying Cryptic games lack story?  I find the story arcs in CoX to be pretty interesting, overall, and some of them are quite good, with in-mission scripting and cinematic events taking it to a new level.  The same can be said of some of the architect missions that are available. No, the story is not one that follows you from beginning to end, unless you take into consideration the epic archetypes and the special missions they have available, but the story arcs and task forces have a fairly meaningful plot that helps to give your character a sense of purpose as you are going through the game. For me, it definitely detracts from the eventual repetitiveness that all MMOG gameplay eventually devolves into.

 

I agree that the Cities of stories are very layered and well-written. I am a wanna-be writer myself, and that is what attracted me to the game and held me there. I totally agree with the plots keeping the character involved as they exist within the world. It makes role-playing so much better if there is a solid story foundation for it.

I have never had an interest in faeries or elves or whatever, so I haven't played any of the fantasy genre, so I can't speak as to their stories. The appearances of the characters in WoW kept me from ever trying it so I don't know if it has any kind of story or not. Part of the immersion factor for me is the ability to individualize a character to the point where you feel you have created something that is uniquely yours.

Good stories foster good RP, really. With a lame story, what kind of 'role' is there to play within? The one thing I'd like to see is more diversified story lines - where decisions branch off into differing consequences.  And I think that too, will eventually happen.

I know writers get frustrated when people skim through the content. But truly? For ever PL'er or lewt farmer there are a few quiet souls that are enjoying the journey far more than the destination.  :)

I got as far as the "GameOnMac" part and decided that no, it has nothing that appeals to me. I have zero interest in gaming with overpriced nerd-bling and control-freak computing. As Ozmodan so eloquently put it, I don't need anyone deciding what I can and can't do and see on my devices. The first 'anti-Apple' strike in my little black ratings book was years ago,  when I installed iTunes, and then later opened a .jpg file, and found that without asking, it had changed my file association to some proprietary picture viewer. It got uninstalled immediately. Then recently I had a Mac user borrow a thumbdrive to give me a file for a project we were working on together. When I got the thumb drive back, it  seems it had been infested by a bunch of new, hidden folders and files. All because he copied one single .doc file? Now I have a (hand-me-down) Touch simple because I needed a PDA to run a drug-lookup application so I don't have to depend on carrying one more fat text book around to classes and clinicals. I hate it. There is so much you can't change or customize. As for an iPad? If someone gave me one, I'd simply sell it and buy a small netbook. I like this site. It has interesting articles, and information on the game I play. Sorry, no interest in GameOnMac.com.

Yeah, I think the emails may have gone out in batches, perhaps? I see the winning responses posted at 4 pm something and I got mine at 6:32? I thought it was perhaps my mail server snagging it for some reason (though it shouldn't - mmorpg.com is whitelisted) but now I see I wasn't the only one who got late notice.

I use ABP, and simply opened the preferences and did Edit > Find >  searched for mmorpg and cycled through until the I found the exact filter rule that had the ="_blank" entry, and disabled it just to see if it would make any difference. So far, no problems. I found a link to another website in one of the news articles and was able to click it with no problem. That being said, I agree with their ad policies, and am going to disable ABP for this site now.

Movies: Virtual creations of someone else's fantasy in a flat, one dimensional plane that allows only vicarious observation. The storyline is fixed and (except for being resurrected for the milking of tired sequels or remakes that will be constantly compared to the "original") there is no growth or expansion of that creation during the life of said movie.

Video games: Virtual creations of someone else's fantasy in a mutlidimensional aspect that allows the observer to experience the content for themselves, in their own way, at their own pace, and very often with varying results.

MMO video games: Virtual creations of someone else's fantasy in an almost living, breathing experience that creates an interactive "community", and in the case of some (like City of Heroes/Villains for example) allows the individual the ability to create their own unique characters, write elaborate back stories, create their own content, influence the direction the game takes by making choices in their play, and definitely vary the results.

Now, as an amateur but very prolific writer, I can tell you that it takes much more talent to write running, interactive stories that change and allow for growth than it does to write a single story that is then set in stone. To say nothing of the talented graphics artists that designe the virtual 'world' in video game, the coders, the folks that write the dialog (script) for the NPCs, etc. The talent and creativity that goes in to making a good video game is every bit as tasking as making a movie, especially in recent times since Hollywood iseems to be now morphing into "CG iz the r0ckz0r" mode where movies are just video games you can look at but not play.

Methinks Mr. Ebert somehow has a personally soured opinion of video games and was reflecting that rather than any relevent information in his "review". It's *my* .01 opinion that opinions are like .... well you know how the saying goes... Personally? I hate movies. They aren't interactive enough to hold my attention. But that's just my personal taste and I don't go around spewing that like it's some kind of gospel. Hopefully Mr. Ebert will learn a lesson from this spectacular example of how to plant his foot squarely in his mouth.

Originally posted by yureineko

My Sunday school teacher told me that the King of Kings was Jesus.

I am sorry I missed the first 2 iterations of this title, cuz I am seriously ready to try my hand at being the savior of all man kind (in a spiritual sense).

At last, a game where one wrong step can get you crucified, literally.

I heard that the end-game is way better than the levelling part, and it goes on forever.

 

Heh.. that was the line of thinking that got me to click the link to the story to see what this game was about.

Demons and angels were the same beings. Demons just made the wrong choices. :P My first character to 'go rogue' (officially) will be a succubus. She's been a traitor to the cause (of her evil 'master') all through her career, and will defect officially when she can. She bypassed the more unsavory contacts, refusing to work for scum Westin Phipps, and ultimately refusing to betray Ghost Widow, because she understands her desire for wanting to be human. Both my first two 50 heroes are Nephilim, halrf sisters. Demonology is a hobby of mine after being married to one for nearly 13 years...  ;)  So not all demons are 'evil'. (Rarely is anything ever purely evil or purely good).

That aside, I like the set as far as the whip and animations. I am not a big fan of the 'skull head' demons. And for a prince? He looks more like an overgrown imp. The whip is pure coolness. However their method of 'spawning' the hellfires was... amusing to say the least. (I won't spoil this - you have to watch it for yourself). Summoning animations are fantastic, as are the dismissal animations. I realize they can't get the 'look' everyone wanted so I guess I will settle for the little cowheads. :P

Originally posted by eludajae

If you think about it the virtual world extends to the real world around us, we text eachother on our phones, talk to distant friends on our phones and these are the "real friends" but we sit in game many have voice and other times we use Vent or something simular, and these friends are our "online" friends. Lots of our "real life" friends we see less than our online friends. So really a friend is a friend period. The medium by which you communicate, phone, email, over a pizza, or in an MMO isn't the point. There are no virtual friends and real life friends, there are just friends. And when you lose one its a loss that you feel no matter what happens. But I also like to look at the half empty cup and call it half full, I still have other friends and hopefully I will make a few new. Never to replace the ones lost, but new friends to tell our little online legends about them when we were online together, there is nothing more theroputic than sharing a "no shit there we were" story with a new friend about a friend that passed on.

 

Great points, Eludajae!

I have been saying this for years. I met my husband playiing an MMO. I met the other significant person in my life playing City of Heroes. Friendships that started online often extend into the realms of reality.

There is no "virtual" world. Online is a form of communication. Just because the digital data of the online venue can be manipulated to simulate 'worlds' does not mean we have created anything. It isn't like you are using some dimensional portal to step into another reality. It's a mode of communication just like Eludajae pointed out - like texting someone, calling someone, or even (for the older crowd) pen pals. 

Putting that in perspective proves that yes, the friendships are real. Behind every keyboard and monitor is a real living, breathing human being. Granted, the mode of communication makes it easier to be misleading as you have a certain measure of anonymity. But I have found that the 'for real' people - the good ones, are exactly the same either online or when you finally meet them in person. You have people who are phony, no matter how you meet them. You can find good, honest friends online. Becoming friends with them is no different than if you'd met them at any other social function - say a garden club or at the gym. You can care for someone regardless of what method you use to communicate. My husband and I carry on about 75% of our marriage via cellphone (thanks, Verizon, for having free member to member calling or we'd be too broke to pay my CoH subs, hahaha). His  job requires him to travel to where he is needed. Does that mean our marriage counts for any less than a marriage where both people live in the home and are only away from each other for a few hours on some days? Of course not. So why should a friendship where distance separates be any different? It ISN'T.

Originally posted by Nytakito

Developers don't go to trade shows, Managers and Directors and people in Marketting go to those events.. Occasionally the Lead Dev or Architect will be there.  The developers who are actually responsibly for over 99% of the code that will be released are generally busy coding away during these events...

Guess you just proved the article's author correct on every point though MMO_Doubter, hats off to ya.

 

Of course not *every* dev can run off to every event and spend a weekend (or week) being schmooozed by adoring fans, but I do know that there are always devs from CoH at their conventions.  Maybe not the entire team of coders, but the people who show up from CoH are people who contribute in a huge way to making the game.

I believe the third 'learner' type is kinesthetic - not meaning so much 'moving while learning' but rather a learner who learns by active participation (jargon: "hands-on learner"). Kinesthetic learners are often the ones who dive into something and enjoy experimenting with things to see what they do, rather than reading the instructions. They learn best by repeated performance of an action.

There are also hybrid types. Those who learn things by hands on but also read the instructions. Or those who can do something but need to hear someone explain it before they try.  Then there are those who balance (or vacillate between) all three learning styles - which unfortunately is typical in learners with problems involving the ability to focus where they need to move back and forth between learning styles to absorb the material they are trying to learn.

Kinesthetic learners are sometimes misdiagnosed as having an attention deficit disorder. If faced with a learning method that involves a lot of visual (reading) material, they can become quickly distracted, negatively impacting their ability to absorb information.

The more interactive the 'tutorial' is, the better I feel it teaches. Allowing the learner to partcipate rather than just read static text enables them to learn both visually and kinesthetically, And I am not talking about just reading about a task then completing a simple action. I am talking about actually engaging the player in a meaningful experience during the tutorial, as if they were really in the game. Especially for those of us who have the attention span of a two year old with a bottle of energy drink.

I never really noticed  the City of Heroes 'wall of text', but then again, the first time I read it, I had played the game since long before they added the 'enhancement' part to the tutorial, so I was more just reading it to see how they were presenting it. The game itself is built around elaborate story-lines, which involve huge amounts of reading via the game 'contacts', so that extra bit didn't seem out of place to me.

Another thing I've found in-game roleplaying to mimic the real life roleplaying. Remember the little group of play-friends you had as a child? Remember how there were usually one or two of the group that were the "deciders"? They alway seemed to be the one to appoint the roles. They were always the mom/dad/hero/boss and you were always the child/minion/villain/victim? Th best solution? Don't play with them. I have seen some of the rabid types mentioned in the article. I laugh at them and move on. Because they *need* control and there is no way to change that behaviour. Just like the bossy, bullying children, they *need* to have their way to feed their own egos.

Playing (of any kind, not just role) with others involves thinking about how you impact them, and how they impact you. To be successful, there has to be give and take. And just like real life, you must remember that the relationship may not take the exact direction you wish it to. If the people you are playing with are reasonable and mature (keywords, here) then RP can be fun and a good break from the mundane reality. If you end up with the kind of RP'ers described in this story, it can be more stress/drama/grief than it is worth.

As for ERP? Meh. Lots do it. It doesn't bother me. I can play along, or no, whatever trips their trigger (but sometimes they can be incredibly surprised at how bizarre that trip can be... hahaha... especially fun when RPing two characters at once).

My main hobby is writing. I love plot twists. RP is a lot like writing in a present, ongoing tense, but doing it collaboratively. Not always easy. But it can be fun, and a great creative outlet.  :)

Very good story, Jamie. You bring up a lot of interest points. If you ever get to Liberty server in CoH, you can 'meet' my little 'family' (but only over the summer, *sigh* - the rest of the year I am chained in a cave surrounded by books). I promise I am not cliquish at all and I won't show up with ears and tail looking for love.   :P

I consider Wikipedia something to be taken (like the rest of the "Internet") with a grain of salt. Just because someone typed something and put it on a webpage doesn't mean it is accurate. And due to the fact that you have a bunch of people with no lives and nothing to do but sit around and bicker over what should and shouldn't be there, sometimes good content gets deleted because it isn't 'properly' referenced, and sometimes downright erroneous content stays because there are citations and references (that are just as erroneous).

FYI - most colleges do not allow citing anything on Wikipedia as a legitimate source. I agree with this. Anything that can be edited by *anyone* and everyone cannot remain accurate.

As for the history of the game in question (and other MMOs), perhaps this site should begin compiling some kind of history database on games. I think it would be a nice addition to the material already here.