Originally posted by Amaranthar

What you're saying is true, but I do see the games as a cause as well as the players. UO had a lot more Roleplaying because it was such a Sandbox, and allowed the players to run events of all kinds instead of the game dictating what you do next through quests for levels and gear.

One of the problems with the player aspect was that the two sides had to fight about it. And the stigma aspect of it has sealed the fate of Roleplay as the loser. But when I ran accross players who wanted to mock my Roleplay, I always made an effort to ignore that and turn them. Like so....

• 
  NonRPer: "Are these MOB's tough?"


• 
  Me: Aye sir. But they are weak when put to the sword, if you can heal thyself enough to get past their magical attacks."


• 
  NonRPer: "Roleplayers suck."


• 
  Me: "Eh? I'm not sure what you mean, (name, regardless of how non-Roleplay it is), but we can sure use your sword here. Will you join us?"


• 
  NonRPer: "Aye, I think I will."

That sort of thing happened a lot more than not. Unfortunately, most RPers didn't take that tact and instead reverted to slinging insults back. Few of these people would join our RP guild, but they were polite in saying no "it's just not my thing". And that worked fine for both.

 

I swear sometimes it's like UO was the LAST real online Roleplaying Game ever made. It's the only game I've ever played where I can remember people actually doing it.

Maybe if they make a sequel, or RG's latest project pans out to be anything like UO, we'll see it again.

Great article, Coyote!

Originally posted by ammonite

Originally posted by rawfox
....

So, where is the crowd ?

Playing Skyrim?

Win.

Originally posted by Purutzil

Hurray ToR launch! *Goes back to playing Skyrim*

So true. I haven't even met Esbarnd(sp?) in Riften yet.. I've restarted my character so many times... Once on purpose, the other because I think I was too high level for the main story from all the smithing/alchemy/enchanting and side quests I did, so zones were incredibly hard and I was chugging healing potions faster than I could get them.

Oh.. And SW:TOR.. Good luck.

Not technically a movie..

But Game of Thrones.

5 Faction PvP. :D

Originally posted by MrBoots

Even the best facebook games so far have been about sending annoying messages out to beg people on your friends list for items. I don't see that changing. You don't need a facebook game. You need a game that has an app that ties it to facebook. Something that lets your friends know how you are doing in the game but doesn't annoy them to the point where they want to block/remove you.

And as we know, things never change, right?

I bet they used to say, "Online games are nothing but a bunch of games played by geeks connecting on dialup to their BBS'.. A niche audience at best."

Technology can do wonderful things. You have to be thinking of the future, not the present.

I personally enjoyed Rift a lot more than WoW, and I had been playing WoW since vanilla closed beta. Lots of reasons why, but I'm sure it's all been said before.

That being said, I have no interest in STWOR - Much like WoW, and now Rift, it looks like all they're doing is taking what's out there, refining it, and adding a small twist. Not to say it won't be good, but it just holds absolutely no appeal to me.

I unsubscribed from Rift, not because I was bored or didn't enjoy it, there's just too many single player games coming out that I simply want to play more with a limited amount of time. Skyrim, Diablo III, Kingdoms of Amalur.. Those games alone are going to eat every free second of time I have. And until they come out, I have a backlog of PS2 and PS3 games I've never even taken out of their packaging.

Originally posted by Shallak

Because there's more vegian then carnivore (following your drift) that plays mmo and WOW proved it? MMOs are made to make money. Balance point vegian, so you invest there. Which is sad, because I also like the risk. Not insane, pointless risk, but a real challenge.

Anyway, carnivore is a dying race, more people are leaning their diet with veggies. *sigh*

 

Unfortuantely, he's right.

There are for more people who want the instant gratification. They're the same people that don't like movies where if something doesn't blow up in the first 5 mintues, it's either a chick flick, or it better be a comedy. They want to be entertained, and entertained NOW.

Story? Story is so analog. Good character development? Unless it's a brief 3 minute flashback to how the guy became a ninja, what good is it?

They don't have patience, and they THINK they don't have time.  And they're the majority.

People (let's face facts here, older people mostly, like myself and I suspect the author) were brought up in a different culture, where everything took time. That culture is slowly fading away - It's been replaced by a culture that measures everything by the second.

It's the double-edged sword of technology, and it's unavoidable. We can't say we'd be any different if we were brought up in this generation either, because, quite simply, we weren't. But you can always tell which is which when the power goes out.

While I agree in principal with the idea of RMT purchases, there's one issue I don't think they've thought through:

What happens when they shut the game down? You MUST play online, after all, and one day, many many years in the future, they'll want to get rid of the server. What are the legal repreucssions of selling an item by way of taking a cut of the action, only to eventually one day destroy everything they made a profit off of?

It's one thing when it's player to player.. There are not garuntees. Now you have a corporation involved, and the lawsuits WILL fly, if not soon, than most definitely in the future.

That better be one iron-clad EULA.

One more thing I forgot... You mentioned no new zones?

Rift has 2 of them coming. They are not complete, but were temporarily accessible on the live servers (As an oversight, no doubt). Ember Isle was one, and I don't remember the name of the other.

So they are coming!

I am currently playing Rift and enjoying it. I've played MMO's since the days of Ultima Online, and I can safely say, I can not remember a single game that pushed out content of consistant quality as Trion.

Six months and there are, what, 3 raids available (Greenscale, River of Souls, Hammerknell? Not sure, I'm not even 50 yet) and a plethora of instances and expert instances? WoW did NOT push out content this fast, and to this day, still does not. I remember it was some time before Molten Core was available.

And I say consistant quality, and not perfect, because as always, there ARE bugs. But the turn around.. It's patches every other day it seems! Plus the Soul system (A balancing nightmare in and of itself), rifts, invasions, achievements, the crafting systems, wardrobes battlegrounds, free server transfers? That's a LOT to have within 6 months.

People say, "Well, it's just a WoW clone"... I love that argument because it illustrates how amazingly poor some people's memories are. When WoW launched it did EXACTLY what Rift did - It took the best elements from existing games, and put it into their own. You establish the basics, and THEN you innovate. What do the SWTOR fans think they're doing? Ooo.. Adding voice! INNOVATION! Other than that? WoW clone in the Star Wars universe. And really, that's FINE, nothing wrong with that, but don't put lipstick on a pig and call it a fox.

Give credit where it's due. Say what you will about the game if it's not to your taste, but as a developer, Trion ranks right up there with Blizzard in my book.. and in some ways is surpasing them.

Originally posted by maskedweasel

http://www.primeonline.com/

3 Faction PvP, lots of options for an economy, looks really promising. (though its a sci-fi setting)

 

And Sanya is the community rep! Bonus!

Other than that, I'll just echo the sentiment that UO and DAoC are in DESPERATE need of a remake. They were so good, and highly recognizable as being ahead of their time by those that played it.

DAoC, especially, if they just upgraded the UI and graphics, it would go a long, long way to bringing people back in.

Originally posted by Lord.Bachus

But then those souls had hardly any DPS output..

 

So, prepare for the fact that healers will become even rarer in PvP, who wants to play a class with low survivabillity and low DPS?

I don't know.. My wife and I both play Sins, and we are in the same room, so we sync who we pick for targets. Whenever we pick a cleric or a caster who blatantly must have Chloromancer, not only do they surive surpirse attacks from stealth (Incapacitate, Assasinate x2, backstabs from at least one of us, punctures x2.. ), they also manage to get at least one of us down pretty good, and generally survive long enough for reinforcements to come by.. We take out tanks quicker than we take down most healing specs.

I haven't had time to play since I was patching.. How heavy were the healing nerfs? They way they phrased it, it sounded like it wasn't a major wack with the bat.

Originally posted by Haytme

Last I played they still needed to work on Balancing the Classes...

They kind of are... They appear to be making nerfs towards PvP healing, which I think will go a long way towards balance.

Some of these healing souls simply had TOO much survivability because of the healing..

Originally posted by TheMaelstrom

This looks promising. I'll be keeping an eye on it for sure. Thanks for the post!

My pleasure!

Originally posted by OgreRaper

You had me at 3 faction PvP.......

DAOC.... in space? That would be a dream come true =P

 

That's EXACTLY what I'm hoping for.

However, I wish they'd do a more sandbox-ish approach where there are no classes, but skills available to each faction, some unique, some common, and you can make them whatever you want. Some skills can not be used in combination with others would prevent OP templates, but that's just wishful thinking. I'd settle for the classes just not being mirrors of one another. :)

Originally posted by Zorgo

Not trying to be preachy or anything but I feel a lot of players are so habituated to finding the path of least resistance to max level, they bring their problems on themselves. They chase rifts or grind dungeons or quests ad nauseum because they see huge xp gains - forget the xp bar and focus on getting your money's worth out of everything the game has to offer - that's my suggestion.

I agree with this whole-heartedly, and much like Zorgo, without passing judgment on others. Play the way you like, but if you always rush to get to the end, you'll always get their fast enough to feel like there wasn't enough to do.

I've put maybe 10-15 hours of play into the game, and I'm still not out of the first zone. I think I just hit 14. I really enjoy the lore, and I'm a slow reader, so that right there adds a lot of play time to my total hours. Plus, trying to figure things out, scower every corner of the zone for artifacts and other collectables, helping others do rifts and quests, messing around with different soul combinations to see what I enjoy..  I'm slow, partially deliberately and partially by necessity.

But I'm in no rush, and I'm really, really enjoying it. Although I did the same with WoW, took my time and had fun, I think I'm having more fun here than I did with WoW.. Especially vanilla. Trion really took the Blizzard approach and learned from what other people did, and in my opinion, just did the same thing better.

I just got this game not 3 days ago.

Just to let you know my MMO pedigree, as it were, I have played UO, DAoC, WoW, WAR, Lineage 1 & 2, Atlantica Online, Shadowbane, Runes of Magic, Allods Online, and I think one or two others I'm having troubles remembering.

If you have the time for commentary, a guy named Sambonz on Youtube has been doing a "Let's Play" series on Rift. He and his co-commentator for the series get a few small details wrong, but overall, it gives a very good and detailed walk through of the game. They move very slowly, but the commentary is entertaining and they're fairly thorough. Plus he's an Aussie, so the accent is awesome. I highly recommend it.

http://www.youtube.com/user/sambonz#p/c/542A83349B2CF031

I am currently playing the Gaurdian faction. The first thing I noticed, after leaving the starting area, is how much there is to do in even the first zone. You don't really get how densly packed this game is with content (Quests, Collectibles, Rifts, Invasions, etc.) until you're actually in it. A lot of it's protractors will state it is repetative conent, WoW-like, etc. They are right, in some regards, but all of that is irrelevant if you are having fun. The thing is, it took WoW years to get to the point Rift is at now, and some things, even then, Rift does better.

It was stated that rifts are like PQ's from WAR. Yes, and no. The tears that form into rifts pop up at random intervals at random locations (Yes, in the same places, but you never really know where the next one will be), can be opened by anyone, and the loot isn't directly based on some sort of contribution as harshly as WAR was. Everyone gets good, useful stuff.. Those who were there longer obviously get more, but no one leaves empty handed. And no random roll for a top-shelf item. That mullarky went out the window, thankfully.

Invasions are neat. Major rifts spawn invasion forces that go after strategic points and towns, and can kill quest NPC's (and I believe capture cities, though I haven't seen a capture yet) if not stopped. On my server so far, for both these and rifts, there are always people around. Public groups make it simple to work together, and generally if you call out for help in general, you'll get help.

The soul system is awesome. You pick an archtype, and from there, there are 8 other classes (One is a PvP soul) you can mix and match abilities from. I personally find it fun and interesting to try the combinations.

And me personally, even though it's instanced and not 3 faciton based, I am enjoying the PvP. It's a lot like WAR (More WAR than WoW anyway), but I find it very fun, as does my wife.

The crafting is also interesting in that it is also like WoW, but it adds just that little bit more to make it interesting. For instance, yes, you harvest from nodes, and always succeed (I think.. Well, at the low levels so far anyway), but you can do things that WoW doesn't let you. Any weaponsmith can add a component to thier recipie to give it something like extra Strength, or Dex.  I'm still new to the game, so I don't too much about it, but it seems very well done.

There's tons to do, and if you ever played WoW, it should feel familiar and comfortable enough that you'll have no trouble getting into it. Once you're in, you'll see just how deep the rabbit hole goes.. I am personally having a blast, as is my significant other. Should definitely give the trial a shot!

Good luck, and hope this helps.

I think they are a relatively small, new company, utilizing the Hero engine, so implemenation can be pretty fast.

And as with all targets, it's probably going to be a bit later than that.

Sanya Weathers (Of DAoC fame) is now working for a new company, Pitchblack Games, making this game.

http://www.primeonline.com/

And yes.. There will be jetpacks.

http://eatingbees.brokentoys.org/2011/06/20/somewhat-paraphrased/

Finally.. An MMO company that listened! Here's wishing them the best of luck.. I'll be keeping an eye out.

Question from the site:

Which Family Guy character would you not like to see?

Stewie's Sister

Peter's Daughter

Meg

... Awesome.