Is it bad that the only one that even made my eyebrow quirk was Dance Groove Online?

Either heard of some, already, and avoided them or the names just don't evoke anything other than a grimace or a "meh?"

Yeah. I think "meh?" covers it.

"... SOE looks forward to continuing its leadership role in the online games industry..."

How can they continue a role they don't currently hold? That's some epic-level delusions of grandeur, right there... never mind wishful thinking.

As much as they might've originally been able to claim this with EQ, they well and truly blew that away with their screw-up of not only SWG but every other game since then, too. I very much doubt they'll ever be in that position, again (given the way they deal with their customers).

That line, alone, made me laugh both heartily and derisively.

I sympathise with the people that just lost their jobs... but on a positive note: at least they no longer work for Sony?

A bright side to everything.

Originally posted by arcdevil

Originally posted by charris1980

it's transformers MMO :)

so they will call it "transformables", and voila! a new IP!

Major Content Update #1: Energon Cuboids!

Scattered across worlds, these coveted items are occasionally englyphed with information that will help you unlock a new profession....

*snrk*

Originally posted by beauxaj

Say does anyone remember Space Hulk? oooh that was a great one back then.  

Doesn't mean that blizz doesn't make a great game.

Space Hulk was tons of fun (both board- and computer-game versions).... in fact, I wouldn't mind setting autowatch for these re-hashed "new" news posts (which aren't new) and rabid fanbois and trolls, alike. They all need shot to pieces before we have to put up with them. :P

As for Bliz: it's just a pity that people are willing to define "great game" as something that's little more than a dumbed-down, weak-lored, badly-balanced grind-fest. Sure, WoW is well-polished (now) and (arguably) fun to play, when you're in the mood for a game that doesn't require you to have your brain switched on (most of the end-game raids, now, can be completed by Joe Newbie Bloggs and his 9-24 little sheep with no more than a pre-written raid guide that's usually available before the raid instance has even been released to live servers)... but given how long WoW's now been out, the money they've had available and the (arguable) competence of their staff, I wouldn't expect otherwise. That said, once you're past the novelty factor, it really does get boring, quick; new content is shiny but, in Bliz's case, it's little more than re-hashed content or (horribly) re-coloured textures that you were glad to have seen the back of, the first time you were unlucky enough to find them (they pushed "asset re-use" to its limit and then broke it, years ago).

What's more of a pity is that the few games that actively attempted to challenge WoW's supremacy in the marketplace - and might've had a chance of succeeding - either pushed themselves out the door too quick, outright deceived their prospective playerbase or mixed and matched a bit of both. Par for the course, the last few years, really.

Can Blizzard build and release a new game that'll draw people in and keep them playing? I don't doubt it.

Will it have smooth game-play, be graphically impressive and draw good concepts from other peoples' IP? I don't doubt it.

Will it be dumbed-down, badly balanced, have pointless and ignorable lore and be a grind-fest? I don't doubt it.

But at least it'll be something that's "not WoW," while we await other companies trying to do it right (or at least as well).

We might even get lucky and one'll succeed.

That said, excuse me for not holding my breath; I'm cynical, not suicidal. :P

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Originally posted by Cristina1

From [devs'] words they are going more for WoW formula, unless you consider that sandbox *rolleyes*

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Originally posted by Deewe

For the record both the above features still aren't in WoW ;)

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Invite can be shortened to /i (since release). Any command can be shortened, if you add the shortened version to the command-list and I wrote an addon years ago that did exactly what you describe (without needing to add stuff manually).... because I missed that functionality from SWG. *cough*

Originally posted by JYCowboy

With all the moaning and groaning you guys do, I find it funny that SW:TOR is being developed with the same devs as SWG had at launch.

I don't think it's funny; I think it's massively disheartening.

I just hope that they don't make the same mistake, again; otherwise, it's simply another SW game that I avoid like the plague.

Originally posted by Shreddi

1. Has this game really upgraded their graphics much since it first came out?
2. How are the numbers.
3. Server populations pretty high?

1. Not really.
2. Terrible.
3. Nope.

All-in-all, it's been nothing but a horrendous disappointment since the CU. Welcome to the SoE MO.

Originally posted by MindTrigger

Is this the patch that brings back the pre-nge game?  :P

Probably not, hence: who cares?

The only reason I still follow SWG's updates is because then I get to imagine what pre-CU would've been like with them.

La la la. :)

You guys really need to do something about your submission-to-publish speeds on these articles. I mean, seriously, Noblegarden has almost finished by the time this has shown up!

Unfortunately, the Noblegarden event, itself, is just as underwhelming. Masses of people sitting around, camping egg ground-spawns so they can grind out all the achievements and gain the title of "the Noble"; campers getting snarky and irritable when people - who are actually trying to get into the spirit of the "egg hunt" by running around after new eggs that they haven't already picked up - run up and "steal the egg they're camping."

There were people on my server that have sat up for at least 8-10 hours (straight) just clicking the same 2-3 egg spawns, in proximity to each other, and being outright hostile to newbies that would run up, notice the egg and pick it up - most times due to the camper being in rabbit form and nigh indistinguishable from all the other rabbits running around or not being visible due to the bush they're hiding in. Why? Because they want one of the rare drops, to fill out their achievements and the RNG hates them so much that they've collected at least 23 white tuxedo shirts but no pants. (or they've failed the "Un'goro rabbit-gauntlet" challenge and need to be polymorphed, again). Nngf.

Holiday spirit? Yeah, right! There are achievements and titles at stake: spirit be damned!

In short: another grind-fest by Blizzy. *yawn*

Actually, speaking of badly designed events.... Children's Week is about to start! When'll we see the news article for that? Second week in May?

*snrk*

Originally posted by Zorndorf 

NO the real innovative thing in patch 3.1 is dual specs

Meaning omnivalent classes can be full healer/full tank or full DPS class just by having 2 talent point settings and choosing with ONE button to become a tank or healer.

Watch the activity in the dungeons (as from level 40) go up by 200%. No more waiting for that healer/tank. 

Except that the dual-spec ability will cost an inordinate amount of gold, so only the people with 'mains' and a lot of extra cash will be willing and able to DS their alts.

So, I very much doubt the lower instances will get any more love than they do, right now; which is to say: next to none (unless you're high-level and are kind enough to drag a low-level or four through, while you go for the achievements you missed whilst levelling). I guess I'm sad, in that I actually miss the hour-or-two hell-for-leather runs through Scholo and UBRS, or the timed runs through Strat, that actually took skill and a moderately clued-up group. :P You just don't get that buzz, any more, especially with the arguably "care-bear" heroics that are available, now, and I fully expect new instances to be worse, with what's-his-face leaving (or having left) Bliz.

Don't get me wrong: I'm looking forward to Ulduar and the ability to dual-spec... but the grind is still no better than before (regardless of whether it's better than other games or not), PvP still sucks (opinion from 3 years on a PvP realm) and Battlegrounds are still unbelievably  biased towards one side or another, due to a badly designed battlegroup mechanic.

People may not agree, of course - but that doesn't make me wrong. ;)

I'd already fallen asleep waiting on Acclaim actually doing something with this game within their licensed regions; especially after already having installed their client, created an account and then getting frustrated for over a week and a half of seeing it sit at "Pending," with no response from their *cough* Support *cough*. Then, when they finally did respond, it turned out that there wasn't actually any point in having an account because it wasn't even available to play, yet.

Yeah. That was fun to find out.

Can't say I'm overly surprised by Acclaim's ineptness, though; they've repeatedly proven that they're pretty damn good at dropping the ball.

Enthusiasm for TCoS? Long gone.

Originally posted by chriswsm

Amiga games were never that bad (I had a 500 & a 1200).  48k ZX Spectrum perhaps

There were enough that were that bad - or worse - to justify making the statement. ;) The games that even the open-air-market pirates couldn't sell for £1-per-disk. ;)

Every gaming-system/platform has its bargain-bin rejects... IGG just seems to be trying to mass-produce them. :D The most disturbing realisation is that there are seemingly endless waves of lackwits that consistently spend money on them. :P

...

It's also telling that the thread de-rails are more amusing/interesting than the article or the game it's about. :P

They mixed up their screenshots with ones from an old Amiga game archive, right? *snort*

Decent guide. You really do need much better proof-reading, though.

Ugh. Friend linked me the pic directly and told me to check it out. My response was "Looks like an SG team. Wait... this isn't meant to be SG-1, is it?" His response was a snort. That pretty much sums up our opinion of CME, on the whole, too.

The only indication this might have been the SG-1 team, for me, was the Daniel-wannabe on the left purely due to him wearing glasses.

Gotta say... I'm looking forward to this game less and less, the more I see (I'm not doomsaying... purely my opinion).

Originally posted by Mrbloodworth 

Yes it was, because its a forum topic in the news section that he copied and pasted. They do this all the time, and the reasons you say its not his fault, is the same reason they need to directly link to the article.

I didn't say it wasn't on the site - I said it wasn't obvious. :P And the forums aren't the front-page news reports.

Regardless, I agree, thoroughly, with you that more direct links should be posted to topics.

It just didn't look like Sz's fault, this time. :P My bad. I should've known better. ;)

Originally posted by Mrbloodworth

Please please PLEASE link to the article, and not just the sites home page.

There isn't an obvious article on the site. The 2 most recent site-news posts don't even contain that text. It was probably sent out by Teppy to be used as-is.

For once (heh), it wasn't the News Poster's fault. :P

Originally posted by Tails1

im sure the game is better than what we saw on the movie,

It'd better be.

I understand they're in early beta but, given their (terrible) videos thus far, these screenshots aren't giving me any more confidence. My current opinion is "still not impressed." Looks like an amateur reskin of CS, at best (that female model they've chosen to use is horrible). I think they need to focus less on pumping out low-grade shiny and more on development - they already have peoples' interest (it -is- SG after all ).

In an effort to be optimistic, though: their scenery looks.. nice?

I have my fingers crossed. I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to play an SG MMO.

Link is here - but it's not worth the effort.

Total waste. :|