The article's missing the one thing I learned from my time on PvP servers.

The very best way to avoid a serial-ganking is alts, alts, alts, and more alts.
Kill me once, shame on you.
Kill me twice, I'm logging an alt, and continuing with my enjoyable evening.

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Originally posted by nekollx

well seriously, what questions do you have, ask away!

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Originally posted by Reccoo

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Originally posted by jonaylward

 

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Originally posted by Postal13
With the NDA removed, we can all tell you now how badly this game sucks...
 
It sucks very badly!

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This means exactly *nothing* without any sort of detail added.
I think WoW 'sucks very badly', but 10 million people seem to disagree with me.
 

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what does the CO online NDA being dropped have to do with wow? 

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Postal13's One Senence Summation is as utterly worthless as my One Sentence Summation. I just went a step further and pointed out that 10 million people disagree with my One Sentence Summation.

Unless Postal13 coughs up 4 or 5 paragraphs describing WHY he or she thinks that Champions Online 'sucks very badly', I'll take their opinion for the merit that it has - which is 'none whatsoever'.

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Originally posted by Postal13
With the NDA removed, we can all tell you now how badly this game sucks...
 
It sucks very badly!

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Unbelieveable that (between DDO's plans for the future, and CoX's Architect, and PotBS's "User Created, Developer Vetted" Ship Models) it's only taken *8* years for us to get a few of the things on my Ultimate MMORPG list...

http://jonathonbarton.livejournal.com/154855.html

[quote="Myself, in 2001"]14th-Mar-2001 04:09 pm
I was discussing with a friend today what would make the ultimate in Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game... We both play Vampire:The Masquerade - Redemption currently. Hardly Massively Multiplayer, but it was a breakthrough in that it was the first game to offer a StoryTeller option. NeverWinterNights is looking to do the same thing. The major difference (genre aside) will be that you'll be able to walk from one GM's NWN game to another GM's NWN game. THAT sounds highly cool, in that it creates the possibility of having a persistent world that one can adventure in, moving from one place to another. It also will allow GM's to create stories that are less combat driven, and more character driven... I'm really looking forward to that.

However, I still believe that the MMORPG scene is in its infancy. I mean, like *hours* old kind of infancy. One of the reasons I think that White Wolf waited so long to produce a VtM game was that they wanted to do it *RIGHT*, which meant waiting patiently until the hardware advanced to the point that they could accomplish the "vision" on a home PC. VtM runs pretty well on a 266, and it looks *great* on my 750. I think there is still a long way to go, and many more advanced to be had... Here are some things I think need to be in a game to make it great.

1. Distributed Architecture - Allow individual GMs to host a game that can have "doorways" to other locally hosted games on other machines - Like NWN.
I think NWN is a first step in that direction, but I also think that in order for it to be "complete", there needs to be a server stub that runs on a host machine that does not require a full session of the game be spawned on the GM's machine. The GM can run the server on his own machine, or on a second machine on a home network, etc. He can then log into the game as a GM using the standard game client, just like anyone else. This is one of my biggest gripes about VtM. In order to have a chronicle "active" for people to play in, I need to leave the game itself running. I can't effectively "background" the task. I believe that making it easy for GM's to link to each other should be a trivial task...not significantly more difficult than adding somone to a web-ring is now... (in fact, that would be a good paradigm to work from.)

2. A Standardized, Extensible Modeling Schema: Another one of my biggest gripes about VtM is that the modeling seems to be limited to what's available in the boxed version. Sure, anyone can *SKIN* a model, but creating new models is a whole new challenge. The fact of the matter is that there's a whole *hell* of a lot more Creative Talent *outside* a game company, amongst it's fan base, than there is *inside* that game company, and a smart company will take advantage of that fact, use tools that the user base can get their hands on (industry standard tools would be best) and allow it's fans to do development on new models. I think the community has shown that good work is rewarded, and crappy work is forgotten quickly. An interesting development would be to take a standard humanoid model, and release a customization kit that will "stretch" the model to the dimensions input into the program, allowing a completely customized model (that can be sized to fit a real player, or to create a tall, thin elven character, f'rinstance). This would also allow the program to transmit only the model's size data, with a skin to follow, allowing the customization, without increasing network traffic too much.

3. Customization - I think that this ties into both the previous item and the next item. Users should be able to customize the look and feel of their characters to a large extent, and those changes should be transmitted across the network to players that can see that character on the fly, without having to stop the game, download the model/skin, install it, and restart. Broadband is becoming more popular every day, and I think that the added immersion created by allowing a player to actually put his/her own face on a model is worth the network hit of having to transfer a model/skin to my machine.

4. User Tools - Story Creation, Scripting, Mapping...these should all have reasonably easy to use interfaces, as well as using standard file formats wherever possible. Characters could perhaps use Maya, 3d Studio, Poser, etc. Buildings, trees, etc could use .dxf files, Autocad Native files, 3dStudio files, Poser files, etc...

I think that's it for my first rant on the ultimate MMORPG... :)[/quote]

Given that Entropia has the ability to put real money in, and get real money out, Sweating is generally a terribly inefficient use of your time as a means by which to acquire PED, given that you are in a position to spend real money for PED instead.

1000 bottles takes, as it was said, "a lot of hard work" (when I started, it was taking me over an hour to glean 1000 bottles) to earn...5 PED
Or...
You could drop $1 on your PED card and have 10 PED, just like that, and move on to other, more interesting aspects of the game.

You could even treat Entropia like any other "Subscription Model" game, and play with $150 PED/month.

Sweating is a terrible use of your time, if you have *any* other options whatsoever.

Honestly, if you're looking for a *game*, you might be better off with Star Wars Galaxies. That was my first impression - the animations and graphics are comparable, and the cost per month ($15) is a known quantity.

AHAHAHA...

There is, isn't there.

Old habits die hard, I suppose.

John is his name.
Jon is mine.

Dear John Wood.

This article is more typical sub-standard fare from MMORPG.com

So...is it "Jeregh" as it's listed in the header and footer, or "Jergeth" as listed in the back and forth interview?

Proofreading, Jon.
You really should make your people do it.

Originally posted by Novaseeker
Heh, if you wait that long you'll never be able to level.   Leveling in the game T3 and beyond requires a LOT of scenario play, and if everyone is already at T4 when you start, you're going to be just as screwed as people were if they arrived late to the party for DAoC.

If you come into it having waited to see how the first 6-8 weeks have played out, and what the initial end-game reports are like, it's not going to matter if it takes you a longer time to get through T3 and into T4. You're coming into the game as an informed consumer, not an early adopter, and it's therefore MUCH more likely that you're making a long term committment.

2 months from now, it may take you *longer* to get through T3 than it's taking the mass horde of early adopters, but it absolutely won't be impossible, and because you've never done it before, you won't know the difference, now will you?

Additionally, your stated position makes a fairly appalling assumption. That any (and every) game is completely static and that the Developers lack either inclination or ability to tune the challenges of the game to keep levelling players on the "intended" Time Invested vs. Rank Gained curve.

T3 may be easy because there are tons of people playing it now - if it becomes hard due to a lack of players in that tier, then Mythic will tune the challenges (that might be "WoW Levelling Curve Adjustments", it might be additional non-scenario quest hubs, etc.) to keep that portion of levelling fun for the players.

It's fairly shocking to me to see how many people approach a discussion from the angle of "this is what it's like now, and this is EXACTLY how it will always be - so if you don't do XYZ RIGHT NOW, you'll NEVER BE ABLE TO DO IT. EVAR."

 Originally posted by jedijef
Sony/LucasArts executives looking longingly at WoW subscription numbers is what 'killed' SWG, if by killed you mean 'led to the NGE.' That had very little to do with the PVP system, or lack thereof.

The bit that makes me laugh endlessly is that on 9/27/06, SOE implemented the EXACT SAME SYSTEM that Blizzard removed on 12/05/06 with Patch 2.0.1, because the Developers found that it wasn't any fun, and required ENORMOUS amounts of effort to stay on top (specifically, botting, or account sharing, so your High Warlord was PvPing in the Battlegrounds 24/7)

And SOE hasn't followed suit in TWO YEARS.

BRILLIANT!

There are three kinds of men.
The one that learns by reading.
The few who learn by observation.
The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.
- Will Rogers

The actual graphics take a backseat to both world design and something that just about every developer overlooks... *animation*

I can't play Vanguard or EQ2, because the animations are *terrible* (like... "*I* can do better than that" terrible), while I can't stand WoW's Art Direction (I prefer the semi-realism of EQ2/Vanguard/Age of Conan), but the animations sell it. The characters' movements (in WoW and AoC both) are *believable*. Believeability for the situation that the characters are in goes a long, long way, whether it's an MMO, or Street Fighter II.

"In particular it is less female-friendly than other games on the market,"

Matt - you can take that comment, tear it into large sections and stuff bits of it into every hole you have that's almost big enough for a piece, you 20th century relic piece of chauvanistic jerk.

The fact of the matter is that a large number of the women that I know from my various WoW guilds (which have hovered for the last couple of years at being around 20% being 'chick-gamers') have purchased Age of Conan, and they're loving the **** out of it.

What the he** makes you think that AoC isn't "female friendly" - the (hopelessly, hopelessly outdated) thought that girls don't want to kick ass? What, you think that girls only want to play crap like Hello Kitty online?

News Flash, my wife (who is hardly an exception) is all over Fatalities. She's picking up Brutal Gear every chance she gets - nothing makes her night more than jumping a higher level player and ending the fight with a Fatality. (heck, even if she loses, if the other guy scores a fatality, she /salutes him via tell).

"less female-friendly..."

Pft.

Neanderthal.

Originally posted by lkavadas

 

Originally posted by admriker4

Im confused. I thought the game was free to play ? It sounds like the perfect MMO Ive been searching for ever since Star Wars Galaxies changed.

 

Technically speaking, it's F2P.  You don't buy the client.  You don't pay any subscription.  The ingame currency, however, costs you money.  One PED, Project Entropia Dollar, is worth 1 cent USD.  100 PED is a dollar, 1,000 PED is ten bucks, et cetera.

One PED is TEN cents. 10 to a dollar, 1000 for $100.

You can "sweat" mobs for a basic resource that people will buy for one half of one penny each. (200 Sweat = 10 PED = $1) If you get good at it, and get lucky, you can gather about 80 sweat in an hour. Sometimes you might get 1/4 of that.

Economically, you're WAY better off just getting a Sunday Morning Paper Route and putting the money from that into the game than you are spending your hours sweating, since sweating carries with it the risk of being attacked by the creature you're sweating. Being attacked = Repair Bill = even less economic viability.

Every single shot you fire from a gun costs you PED (remember: PED = Real Money). You kill a creature and loot it with traditional mechanics. However - quite frequently, the loot dropped isn't worth the money you spent on the ammo you used to kill the creature. It's like trying to hunt bear (for bearskin rugs) with $500 (each) bullets.

It is possible to come out ahead (temporarily), but, in the end, Entropia Universe is EXACTLY like feeding dimes into a slot machine in Vegas. Winning only encourages you to feed the beast more dimes.

Originally posted by Shard101

Questing: Terrible. Almost every quest you get shows you EXACTLY where to go on your map. If you are too lazy to even pull up the map screen, it even shows u a little arrow on your radar so you can follow that down the road. At some points I found I wasn't even watching the main screen but following the radar and using my peripheral vision to stay on the road. Kinda takes the "quest" out of the picture and turns it into more of an errand. Next, the quest rewards are stupid. Yeah you get XP but the items are mostly worthless, and the ones that are good, you can't even really measure since theres no way to check your stats(in a sec I'll explain.)

IMHO, this makes it the most "casual friendly" game to date - Even moreso than WoW.
Funcom saw what the 'problem' was that Thottbot and WoWhead solved for WoW players, and fixed it INSIDE the game. If you want "hard mode" go into your Interface Options and turn off your Minimap, since it holds no vital 'gamebreaking' functionality. Problem solved.

Stats: I have no idea if my armor is doing anything, nor do I know what my DPS is before and after equipping all sorts of strength enhancing crap. Where are the detailed character stats? Its all good fun to play dress up in stuff I think looks good, but if I don't know what it DOES, its just that, dress up.

The problem here is that the game has been out a week, and you want hardcore theorycrafting - the detailed character and gear stats are sitting RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU. The Character Stats and what they do are in the Manual (RTFM, people), and EVERY piece of gear lists 1 or more stats, ranging from "+0.1 Defense" to "+5% Sprinting Speed", etc. You KNOW what it does - it says so 'right on the label'.

The problem is that the theorycrafters have only had a week to gather empirical data to use to turn those numbers into hard values (a la WoW "Uncrushability") for the minmaxer/poopsocker crowd.

Gameplay/Environment: Ok so this is why I quit. Guild Wars on steroids. Thats all I can really say. Every single zone I found was so stupidly linear that I found myself forced to take the same paths probably 50 times a day. ITs not one big world, its a ton of little worlds that you can teleport in and out of, again, Guild Wars on steroids. The zones aren't even big enough to support the number of people in them so they are all instanced, there could be 300 people there, but you would never know it sine they are spread across X number of instances. That for me, takes the MM out of MMORPG.

I disagree. Guild Wars had instances for your little group. Yes, Age of Conan does instance zones, but, unlike Guild Wars,  if you don't group with anyone, it's not an entire zone that's locked to "Me, Myself and I". There are other players there, and if it feels 'empty' to you, you might try switching to a different instace - or rolling on a PvP server, where you might be THANKFUL that there isn't anyone else there.

Just my two cents.

Originally posted by kazoul 

There is no doubt there are going to be problems to this game for weeks to come. Not client issues or card issues, which funcom so willing claims to be the heart of their problems. Just the numbers alone dictate that we will all have problems loging in and killing with no lag.

We will see an unstable client for weeks to come purely based upon server stability issues. It will take time for all of us to get in, but given the fact that they will make 50 million dollars on the first day of launch, they will address the isues and give us a PvP game that is stable and worth playing, so much as they can.

First, you have no more degree of knowing the future than The Amazing Karnak.

Second - Lag.
In a radical departure from the structure of every other sizable launch thus far, levelling from 1-20 is (mostly) a solo experience. I very seriously doubt lag will be much of an issue - if you have lag issues in the Tortage 'multi-player mode', just pop into 'one player mode' and level up there, instead. You couldn't do that in any other MMO thus far - so there's been lag with hundreds of players in the same zone. When it's just you by yourself (and everyone else by themselves), then that server data load is reduced quite a bit.

Furthermore, people will reach the end of the Destiny quests at varying rates, and this will further reduce the initial load in the 'starter cities'. I don't actually see how lag in starter zones will be nearly the issue it's been in other title's launches.

"We will see an unstable client for weeks to come purely based upon server stability issues."

So, what is it, an unstable client, or an unstable server? It's one or the other, not both. If the server has load issues and isn't stable, that does NOT indicate instability in the client. Likewise, you can have a client that can't stay loaded for 10 minutes, while the server would happily chug away with an uptime measured in years.

Clearly, you're talking out your tailpipe, and in doing so, you don't even take the time to make a strong assertion. At the start, you're all Doom and Gloom (WE WILL SEE AN UNSTABLE CLIENT FOR WEEKS!!!!). At the end, you're all fluffy bunny about it (BUT DON'T WORRY, THEY'LL FIX IT...AS MUCH AS THEY CAN).
You're wishy washy, and make vague assertions without presenting any scrap of evidence to sway your readers to your way of thinking, or even to get people to argue the other side of the coin with you, and I just thought I'd take 20 minutes of my night to point that out to you.

Here are my assertions.

* Lag will only be an issue when playing in Tortage Day. That issue still will not be game-breaking, since there is plenty to do in Tortage Night, when you're by yourself.

* The Servers will be stable at the loads they were designed for, and Funcom will not exceed that load by leaps and bounds at first. With the Fileplanet Open Beta, Funcom has clearly done LOTS of server-crushing tests recently, and they've implemented patches with specific fixes as a result of that testing. The servers will run as intended, because Funcom knows how many players to let onto the server before it's "Full".

* You'll see far more Clientside issues than you will Serverside issues. No matter how many configurations you test internally, no matter how many beta testers you have - you cannot test EVERY combination of hardware, and I expect there will be Client Crashes every couple of hours of gameplay at the start, with some more frequently, and some being perfectly fine. However, for those with issues, Funcom has surely got a decent set of tools for trapping those errors (crash logs, etc.), and the OS or hardware-combination bugs will be squashed ASAP.

* Age of Conan will not be Vanguard '08.

What's your current system? Unless it's a total TOTAL dog, the odds are good that you'll be in your new game for only a couple weeks, since people are saying that Conan runs on "mid-low" spec machines fairly well, if without a lot of bells and whistles.

If your system is a total total dog, you could pick up a copy of Guild Wars (which is a bit long in the tooth, but still looks nice) and have something that fits the bill fairly well...and will always be there when you get tired of playing other stuff, like that guy/girl you know who you're "just friends" with...

Other than that, I've been in the same situation as you, and I've been bopping around from one Aeria Games title to another. The Racing game is pretty fun, though it's a bit outside 'traditional' MMO-space.

You never, ever, ever get twice the performance when you have SLI enabled - and that's a truism going all the way back to the very first Voodoo cards - yet, you *do* have twice the cost. SLI/Crossfire is not a very good means of increasing your performance from a 'bang for the buck' perspective.

I just upgraded to an 8800GT this week, and even Don't-Mind-Me-I'm-Just-Here-To-Cripple-Your-Machine Crysis plays at 30-40 FPS with goodies turned on.

Get the 8800GT, and put the other $200 you saved toward building a Terrabyte-sized RAID, that way you'll have plenty of room for those 4GB-sized FRAPS movies you're going to want to take...and you *are* going to want to take them - trust me.

Originally posted by Flummoxed

The overwhelming majority of Massively Multiplayer Online Gamers Do. Not. Want. PvP.

Again, I say, if you do not want PvP, stay out of the BIG RED CIRCLES.

All PvP in Pirates of the Burning Sea is CONSENSUAL - and that's BY DESIGN.

Flying Lab actually *fixed* the one issue most people have with PvP - the helpless sensation of being ganked by a much more powerful player/group. They did this by making PvP fully consensual. You have to deliberately go into a PvP zone to be attacked by another player.

Yes, sometimes where you *want* to go is a PvP zone. Sometimes where you are *becomes* a PvP zone.

You *always* have options.

* You can sail the long way around the PvP zone. I did this quite frequently in Beta...sometimes with a Level 50 Freetrader ship packed to the gills with expensive components. Against the wind...it was brutal and time consuming, but I did it.

* You can put off whatever it is you need to do for a few days. The port will either go into contention, or it won't. It may change hands. It might not. Either way, the issue will be settled in a couple days, and that port will once again be PvP-free. Then you can sail in like Flynn.

* If you find yourself trapped in a port that's become a PvP zone...well...that's why you have Alts. Go play one for a while. That's why you have the ability to have multiple ships in multiple ports. Keep one ship in a non-contestable port, and you'll never, ever, be trapped in a PvP zone.

Seriously, Flying Lab talked for YEARS about how the Economy, Production, PvP, and Conquest were tied together intimately. They LISTENED to the people that said they do not want PvP - and they gave you...*gasp* the CHOICE to not participate in PvP.

Hear that?

If. You. Do. Not. Want. And. Still. Do. It. Is. Because. You. Personally. Are. At. Fault.

Originally posted by Anofalye

I absolutely hate PvP with consequences...and I kinda feel I should receive higher in socialising points than killer or explorer...but what the heck.  Maybe I answer fast.  Dunno.

I used to score SEAK when I was more of a roleplayer. I've since come to the conclusion that there are a LOT of really BAD roleplayers out there, and by and large it's a huge waste of my time to try. =)

Imagine my surprise (NOT!) when, this time around, i scored as an EASK.

Current job: IT System Administrator for a mission critical system at an international airport.

Formation:

Past Jobs: Web Developer, All around IT Roustabout

Age: 40