Well...actually there is a large underground fungus monster in D&D, not sure you'd want to be able to play it as it just sits there and does nothing the majority of the time.

Sigh....

Originally posted by Adamantine

Originally posted by Evile

4 hours to cross EVE's universe? Even using jumpgates that is massivly wrong. EVE is MUCH larger. 

EVE wins without even a close matchup for size of universe. If you measured it in miles, even more so. 

 

At first I figured the OP didn't include EVE because it is simply not even close, or fair to compair other MMO size to it.

Most of this is just empty space.

World size is about space you actually have to fill with content.

Agreed. Space games don't fit in this category as they are mostly just empty space (no pun intended).

Played this briefly when it was in beta. Won a free copy from this site, and after gathering a nice layer of dust, I finally installed it. Its, ok I suppose. Although the tutorial leaves much to be desired. Simple things are not clearly explained.

Crafting, how the hell do you even figure this out? After much searching it seems to craft you have to go to a whole other quadrant, wtf?

Money, ok I understand its the future and you have no money, but apparently you do need some sort of monetary means. Of course they neglect to mention this to you in any real detail. Later I find out there aren't just one or two forms of credit, but an uber complicated mish mash of monies to buy anything from a hypo spray to a starship. Its almost like the Perfect World game system where having 20 different currencies (and not explaining it) are the norm.

I understand its an MMO, and I watch the movies and shows, but this game is so overly complicated in what could have been a much simpler way to do things. Can see why nobody signs up to play it, as the system is so overly complicated, when not flying around, the game seems very imposing.

Flying thru space is fine, and shooting things is ok as well. Nothing special. Spam the space bar for phasers and hit 2 for torpedos and after a while, bad guy dies in a nice fireball. After a while it gets kind of old. Went to upgrade the ship with new weapons and well ran into the problems above.

Now I've played my share of difficult game systems, some easy to play, others hard to master. But they always explained things clearly and consisely. Even Anarchy Online with its implant system, weapon builds and economy was easy to understand.

Now I could ask the community, but the real problem is, should I even have to? I mean its crafting. It shouldn't be that hard. Even upgrading your ship should be explained better. The whole thing just seems as confusing as beta was. The overall flying and mission thing is nice and interesting, the buy, sell, get equipment, upgrade, craft and overall managing things is just so over the top that its no wonder people get turned off. At 40 yrs old, I shouldn't be scratching my head at a game with a monthly fee.

Oh and it has a cash shop to boot. Thats just utter greed. Monthly fee OR a cash shop. Not both. Time to go back to f2p games.

layed it up to level 5. From what I have seen, new players are at a severe disadvantage. Some idiot decided that all the alpha and cb players were allowed to keep their ships, levels, items, etc..  So you have a bunch of fairly large and well outfitted ships running around with people in the level range of 25+. Now, the game is open pvp all the time, and you can find colonials or cylons or the third non playable entities all over the place.

As for what to do after the tutorial is a tad of a letdown. They seriously just tell you to go out there and mine, shoot, and do w/e you want with no real direction. No quests, no objectives (besides mining and killing the other side), and not much point. Without a group your a sitting duck for most of the populace, and even worse, if your a poor gamer who doesn't want to spend a dime, your gonna have a real hard time competing.

All the extra ships, best equipment, boosters etc, are all purchasable with cubits only. Cubits are the in-game currency that you have to buy to really get anywhere. Oh sure you can try to complete the list of assignments to do for a little amount of cubits, but since most everything above basic level requires some cubits to spend, your going to find yourself at a severe disadvantage really quickly.

The flying is also kind of slow, like flying through jelly. You do have skills you can train based on level and they "train" in real time. They give increases of 1% here or there and get longer and longer as you get higher levels. At level 3 I was at 2 1/2 hours of real time to train. Insane.

The game is clearly a cash sink. So unless you got money to burn, or dont mind mining asteroids all day long. This is one to avoid.

Maybe in other games, but not DDO. Dungeons and Dragons was always about a group of heroes out to vanquish evil and right wrongs. The pvp aspect was thrown in for the people who just wanted to test their mettle against others.  It is not anything near to real pvp. There are no rewards for it just to see whose build is better. Thus the arguement is useless.

When I was playing in Cb and EA, we were told about the token system that was in place for some korean law. I undertsand a company needs to make money, but this system is not the way. People in places other than korea like to play these games for as long as they want. To limit that in any way, shape or form is a great way to alienate your game from the populace.

This is a system that should have been removed for the NA release. I could see spending money on weapon buffs, or certain skills or even things like mines that give more ore. Stuff like that. To keep this token system in is a really bad idea.

Take Allods for example with its curse system (and b4 that the FoD), when it first came out the game was playable until the upper levels at which point the FoD made it unplayable. Now the curse system has a similiar effect.

Suffice to say, gimping players in any way in these games is a great way to turn people away.

Tons of other games that have item shops that actually work, Perfect World is a fine example of providing non game breaking items. LOTRO/DDO are another idea that works very well. Both PW and Turbine have gone the route of "you can play the game just fine w/o a sub or spending money in shop, but there are advantages to do so..."

As an above poster said, companies like NCSoft and Nexon just do not seem to quite "get it" in regards to the culture of NA/EU.

LOL. This was my exact idea.

EKP33-W8J-83RA

KHL71-T1J-14PE
 

1. Go to www.perfectworld.com  
2. Login using your Perfect World Entertainment username and password.
3. Click on the "My Account" link.
4. Click on "Redeem Beta Keys".
5. Enter your beta key.

Have fun.

As a free player in the realm, currently have a 26 dwarf champ. Now I have unlocked Lone Lands as a pack, and the story seems interesting, but not enough for me to pay actual money. Still, its a fun diversion where the deeds sytem is useful for gaining points, but for me the things that should be free are not.

Horses, get a free one then gotta pay 195 points and 500 silver just to get the simple horse. While most people will have the points by 15, there doesn't seem to be much choice in spending the points on a horse, or opening up the next area.

So as a f2p player, you have several choices, none of which are remotely fun. Grind the deed system in each newbie area (elf, hobbit, etc.) to gather all the points necessary to get the next quest content, even though by then most things are gray. I have gotten Bree almost finished and dwarf was about half done. Its time consuming and have already hit my gold cap of 2 gold (unlock for 495 points to raise to 32), have no horse currently, altho have gotten to do skirmishes which are interesting grind battles.

Suffice to say, I could see the game picking up a few new subs, but for people doing the free experience, the thrill will go away soon.

The end-game content currently is non existant as there is no way to see Frodo throw the ring into the volcano at mount doom. The cap is 50 for free, 65 for sub. And most of the well known lands from the movie are currently not available. So when you hit the 65 cap what is there to do? Not much. Grind legend items, a few raids, monster-play (which is limited to 1 zone), craft and basically re-roll.

The game is unfinished, prolly should not have gone f2p with no current end game content and frankly is a pay-to-play game with a tease of some freedom. As the author stated, its a longer trial game, with a cash shop.

I just wanna try that polar bear raid....

Well when anyone does actually get on, avoid the east coast server. Seems to go down an awful lot....like now.

Of course the real game is watching that Examine line of the updater...maybe it'll move past it this minute, maybe not...

Well I for one had played the DDO F2P version and did actually sign up for it with a monthly payment (more for the points), so I'm pretty sure this is a good move on Turbine's part with LOTRO. That being said, the lag I've been experiencing this opening weekend shows a bit of non-thinking on Turbine's side.

I understand that there is a european version of LOTRO, but yet the NA version is not IP blocked. Now, I'm all for community and all, but when you have people logging into the game from all over the world because this version is now free, your gonna have some serious issues.

The past 2 days I've personally experienced the usual lg, rubberbanding, loss of chat server, connection issues, updater not matching version of game, put in a queue, game freeze, charcter freeze (while game continues around him) which of course leads to lag death, and all the other usual occurences of over clogged servers.

Now I know it may not be fair to do an IP block, or warranted, but by making one version accessible but not the other is kinda eff'd up. I probably should have done some research to find a better server than what the game gave me (starts with a dw), but still, the game should be able to handle such a load. At least put some limits on the server capacity if it starts going laggy at some amount of users.

Will continue to play it, may also sub to it eventually, but in its current state some hard decisions are going to have to be made. As for the vets and lifers from other countries outside NA that play in the NA version I have little comment on that aspect, as its common sense that ignoring your own regions game and going for the furthest one away instead is basically kinda screwing yerself.

Labor Day Weekend

The majority of the US is off today as well as last week.

Last days of official summer and most go on vacation, businesses close, and kids worry about school. Funcom probably has a skeleton staff currently to keep things running. CS should be back in ful swing tomorrow.

No need to have a coronary over such a minor thing. Go read a book.

No "this game sucks posts".

This game, which is the english version of Red Cliff Online (published by Perfect World), is a nice break away from the typical PW faire. The game revolves around 3 nations fighting for supremacy over feudal China. Based off the Romance of the Three Kingdoms stories.

If you happen to play the game until level 10 or before, yes I can agree, the game will stink for you. After 10 though when you finally get to the first major town (before Chang'an), you really start to get the feel for what the game presents. Very in-depth story based quests. 18 different weapon styles of which you can sub-class any combination which presents many custom options.

The game has "campaigns" which are basically the dungeons for the game. Providing a party of 1-6 an opportunity to play through a story arc of the main plot. Many different areas or regions to explore. Tons of in game events in terms of boss encounters, of which can be beaten by groups of much lower levels.

Each weapon has strengths and weaknesses. AOE, long range, single, healing, even offensive magic are all present. Like to dual wield, several options present themselves. Virtually non-stop amount of quests with the various Enforcer NPCs who will give infinite quests of the same mobs (kill 12 of x) for a divination luck item which can give out several random prizes from awesome to not so much.

Fishing abounds with tons of rewards, with the unfortunate chance of catching a giant alligator which is not too happy about being caught (lvl 60 elite), and proceeds to kill everyone. LOL.

Crafting. Tons of crafting, very easy to start. Later items are better than ones in quests. Can even customize extras for the weapons via added bonuses and upgrades.

Mounts and Mounted Combat. Can get a variety of horses and other things to ride on, and eventually get into mounted combat.

All the usual PW things are present like "embrace", cash shop full of non game-breaking  items, treasure hunts, marriage, titles (functional as they provide bonuses and are cumulative), and of course Territory Wars between the 3 nations.

PVP after level 40, fashion, clan vs. clan, legion (groups of clans) vs. legion. No fantasy style "monsters", but it does have fairly large animals.

Tanks, stealth, healers, mages and everything inbetween are all present. Even a combo system and "afk leveling (thru book reading)", and of course accurate and motion captured weapon styles.

Good game, very in depth. In CB, but soon to be OB.

Wow. This post grew immensly. At any rate, my original opinion still stands.

The game is called FREE REALMS. As in Free, as in not P2P. The items and classes are supposed to be mostly free. Hell, SOE is not the original creator of microtransactions, but from what I have seen of other f2p games, they don't seem to goto this extreme.

The majority of eastern games provide items that boost or make your character god like with exp buffs and health potions. Some of them when bringing this scheme to western shores, lower this to things like costumes, and minor items, while the bulk of things are obatainable through quests or some other premium fee.

Hell, even Dungeons and Dragons Online features weapons, armor, potions, abilities, races and even classes for sale in the shop, but they are also obtainable in game for free. Turbine understands that creating an environment where the in game store is an advantage to be sure, but one that is not a necessity.

Free Realms chose to make the game difficult to play without using the store. Even the p2p model subscription does not provide you with the items necessary to actually have an advantage in the game. That is the crux of the point of the post. Sony is charging money for items, costumes, etc. that the subscription model does not cover. This is pure greed.

I am not saying that Sony has no right to not make money, just that their company practice of the game is modeled towards providing the richest players the ability to have a distinct advantage over others. And with this game being marketed to kids, and where kids are concerned fitting in and being part of something requires kids to emulate each other, which in terms of this game, requires money. Which is the crux of the problems that this game has.

Not to mention it is rather complicated in the may things you can do, buy, sell, quest for, job changes, just too much for the averaage kid or adult to handle. The game of Free Realms is a money-maker with kids and some adults, but treating your customers like bottom feeders is not good business. Remember that SOE customer service is industry-wide known for not caring about their customers.  This particular game is an example of that attitude. The game used to be pleasant to play, but now has grown into a monsterous money making machine.

Well the FOD is being removed next or the following patch. Still though, being 1-2 shotted while trying to quest or reputation grind is just plain annoying. Its a beautiful game with many nice parts to it, pity the pvp system as it stands is so blatantly unfair that it actually rewards the higher level players from ganking the lower ones.

These games really need to take notes from games like WOW and DAoC where the battlegrounds were instanced to certain levels, and pvp isn't forced upon you, rather it is an option. You don't have to go into the frontiers to level to max, but it does provide some rewards like relics and treasure. Of course DAoC has devolved into a pvp fest and new players should beware.

WOW I have not ried the BGs, but I hear it works a bit better than the pvp system did at launch. The main synopsis I have seen so far is that most of the games where pvp is available on a global scale, are the games that have a small following or are chock full of gank fests.

Allods is a good game to check out, just beware that after getting to the Holy Lands, its a gankfest, unless you have a friend who is high level to act as bodyguard. Or you just plain don't mind dying 50+ times as you strive to complete the quests to get to the next gank zone. The next zone isn't quite as bad as the previous since most of the ganking comes around the central lake for fishmen rep. After that land, you go to the other side of Asee-Teph where there is also little pvp as the monsters are too many and really dangerous, not to mention the land is rather "open". Its really just the 23-27 levels that  suck.

Correct. Hitting mobs of the opposite faction while in the Holy Lands raises your flag. As for not raising your flag and just PVE in this zone, well you can do that, until the other side with a War Banner comes over and kills you. The Banner allows them to attack anyone irregardless of flag level.

Unfortunately the game still has major flaws. To get the best PvP gear, you must pvp grind for the time period of a week (as the points reset every week), which means you must kill a lot of players from the other side. So, this is done with the help of a high level player or a bunch of them who with banners, just roll through every area of the Holy Lands, including your starter area.

So yes, as soon as you hit Asee-Teph you are forced into PvP whether you like it or not. Quests take you all over the land and their are frequent quests that have you killing the other side mobs. Add to that the banner system, and you will quickly realize that your safety in travelling is limited by the other side. And banners drop from normal monsters as well.

The system is flawed as there is nothing stopping a high level player from ganking a low level player. The game encourages such behavior with the pvp title/equipment system. If you have avoided being on the wrong side of a banner flagged player, then consider yourself lucky, that luck will run out soon.

Also this pattern does not change much when you leave Asee=Teph as the 2nd and 3rd areas on this allod are also pvp zones. Its a fun game up until level 20, after that, it gets annoying.

Well, tried it again after a 6 month hiatus and not much has changed. 1 race available. Poor controls, the mouse especially is way too sensitive (can spin circles with the slightest touch). Was in alpha and yes it has come a long way, can enter any building, rob npcs, just dont expect to kill things out of the gate. Its VERY difficult to kill things without a group, at least at lvl 1 it is.  I'd say its an open-alpha, not beta, irregardless of what the dev says. Oh and there is no system options to change settings currently.

I used to play WAR and unsubbed for the very fact that BWs could level a group of anything in a matter of seconds. Add to that all the other classes on order that used to be able to stun, knockdown, knockup, rinse and repeat til your dead, and the game became seriously not fun. No point in coming back at this point. Nearly 2 years and still have 4 missing capital cities, generic races (skaven would have been better), completely unbalanced classes, boring gameplay, and broken city raids. The game should be left to fade away.

As for DAoC, I will always treasure my memories of that game pre-SI edition. Now its just a mish mash of who has the best connections to get the best artifacts for their battleground twinks. What was a story driven MMO, rich in myths and legends, has devolved into a useless pvp fest in battlegrounds and little else.