All Posts by grimboj

./install

Time to make an SK

I'll get flamed for being the one to make a choice but WoW is better. EQ2s combat is clunky, the graphics system lags on the best of PCs, the subscription costs more money, the dungeons aren't instanced but the towns are... Don't get me wrong - I'm even thinking about booting EQ2 now that it's free but in direct comparison to WoW its failures are obvious. In fact EQ2 is your only alternative if you can't get into WoW but are committed to the fantasy mmorpg genre. My suggestion would be to do the WoW free trial then do the EQ2 free trial (if you don't like WoW). The hugest difference between the games is that soloing EQ2 is a complete write off, some people have had success with complementary duos (tank+healer) but solo is about 1/2 as fast as grouping. At the same time this adds a really great feeling of commitment to a group, people really are willing to restart a dungeon and fill the slot they lost as ... well .. what else are they gonna do? lol. The fastest way to lvl in WoW is to solo 1-70 with no only grouping to complete the instance quests.

Edit: Go on wow-pro.com - this is a great index of free guides. Just pick your guide and follow it. Sounds boring but wait to see how fast you lvl. WoW is not very good for leading you between zones.

If they made it free for 2 months I would come check it out. I'm not bothered about an apology - I jus want my game back.

G-U-I-L-D W-A-R-S

Mob - 25xp

Quest+Bonus-2000

roughly 100x XP :P

WoW then EvE. I'm subbed to WoW for 12 months. EvE I keep resubbing on a 90day rota - I play for a few days see some skills I like, resub to lvl them but dont play during that time :P

It still takes atleast 7 days /played for a reroller to hit 70. Thats a month and a half (with no days off) for someone playing on top of a full time job. It would be a stretch if this new mount shaves off 3 hours from that. I get really sick of this whole 'wow is easy to lvl' attitude. How is 3 months exping easy? Once thats done you're then looking at atleast another month before you're full epix pre-kara. That's also per character, what if you don't like your character end-game? WoW has always kept end-game achievable and that is why it succeeded so well. The only other games that do that are GW, DDO & DaoC - all lack end-game PvE content.

Yah dont forget that heroics are here now. You can get T5 gear just for doing instances.

Originally posted by D3mis3

Well I'm playing AoC at the moment, but like most new MMOs, it's lacking in the mid-endgame content. So while Funcom is busy at work with it, I need another MMO to keep me entertained. WoW is one of the ones I'm thinking of (CoX trial was alright, got stale, trying VG atm). Need a few questions answered (I last played a lvl38 last September)

CoX and VG are ones to avoid lol. VG is like playing an atari game and CoX is a really awkward grind.

1. Is the community still generally made up of 12-year-olds? Namely on PvP servers.

Yes and no. The higher lvl you get the better people behave but then I have to ask, why chose a PvP server if player behaviour is a concern? PvE servers have much more age discrimination in guilds (18+).

2. Has leveling speed increased? Which melee class / race is fastest to level? (I have BC)

Yes. You can quite easily hit 70 in 7 days /played with questhelper and a good guide. Rogue.

3. Are the PvP servers any good? I remember when I played usually every night or so we would plan a surprise attack or something on an Alliance town.

Depends on the size of the server. Frostmane is suppose to be good.

4. What PvP server is best? In terms of population and community. A time-zone close to EST is helpful too.

see above :P

OP: I'm same as you I have played almost every game on the market. I have a lvl 47 tank on RFO with maxed skills, if you have ever played RFO you will appreciate that I'm not scared of grinding for endless hours.

You can't beat WoW and people are so quick to say otherwise. I bought 12 months of WoW for $100 and its the best value I've ever got out of a game. I can come home from work and instead of spending an hour trying to find the entrance to a cave I just go to the cave, what is wrong with that? hehe.

I will say, WoW is full of kids but the higher level you get the better people are. When you get to heroic instances people are absolutely pleasant but even in the high 60s you can meet some idiots. Take it all with a pinch of salt.

lol there's a funny bias to your pictures.

GW: Next to a water fall with the sun in your eyes.

WoW: Stood next to a house zoomed right in.

GW & WoW are no comparison. They are both the games that run best on my PC. As the other guy said GW is insanely instanced and there is very little for it to draw. WoW has enormous zones and sometimes draws past the zone line to give a feeling of immersion. There are thousands of different in-game items, GW everyone just has different colour FOW armor.

It's not too late.

The new expansion is coming out at christmas introducing a new class but you need to be lvl 55 to unlock the class. People are constantly re-rolling.

Try a couple of different classes before you commit to one. Druid is the most flexible (Tank/DPS/Healer) but is not the best at either so its a good place to start but sub lvl 20 the lvling can be really unenjoyable.

The most enjoyable class by far is a rogue, it has so many I-win buttons at the moment you will hit 70 in a matter of weeks if you're hard core.

Also, get questhelper before you even play. Its a mod that helps you with every quest.

Aye I always rubber band on EVE, it's a game for very chilled out people and there isn't always something to do.

Originally posted by swifty08

Hey all, Im a former WOW player who got sick of the ridiculous grind aspect and have been looking for a deeper more player driven MMO for a while now and EVE online has definately caught my attention, especially with the offline levelling. Basically i have a few questions.

1. How the hell can i  purshase the game ?? Ive looked at a few big outlets where i live here in England but i havent seen it for sale anywhere, is there any way i can purshase it off the internet ?? Ive seen "expansion" packs aswell advertisied online so im really unsure what im going to actually need to play the latest version of the game !

You can just upgrade from a free trial using the eve-online site (my account bit).

2. If the game's been running since 2003 how am i a player starting 5 years too late ever going to be able to compete with higher players and not get killed all the time (which sounds very very nasty death penalty). I mean how long will it be before i can become a member of a corp. and contribute in a meaningful way ?

I've seen corps accepting free trials recently. The easiest thing you can do is haul for a mining operation, you will get a fair split and the skills take a week at most.

You can only fly one type of ship at once and there is a large element of skill. If you are both flying the same ship then skills will only play a huge part if you are completely and utterly gimped. Player skill will be a huge factor. Especially after lvl 4 skills take a huge amount of time to get a really small benefit like 2 weeks for a +5% damage increase.

Frankly, the game is full of a lot of cowards too. You will very rarely find yourself 1v1 with someone.

3. Wont playing at the start be incredably boring seen as no players will be in the starting areas and thus the first few weeks be rather lonely ?

Eve is an open PVP game. You start in a safe zone where the guards will kill anyone who so much as shoots you. There are a few sub areas where the mobs get harder but nothing too hard. There are then contested areas where there are guards at certain points. There is then an open PVP area with no guards and RvR. These are ranked 1.0-0.0. 1.0 = safe as a city on a PvE server. 0.0 = no guards :) There is an incentive for people to be in every type of zone depending on their playstyle. In a 1.0 you will see end-game people.

Generally im just after a sense of what the game actually entails, you know the typical day to day stuff while playin the game.

There are good and bad points to this aspect of Eve. You can quickly catch up in one specific area. For example: There may very well be 20msp characters that cant fly Exhumers. In 2 months you could fly an exhumer and have something to offer them. Also, No character can be in 2 ships at once and there is a vast array of support ships such as Interdictors, Logistics, Covert Ops. Covert ops is always desirable and Interdictors are always needed to support for 20m sp capital pilots.

It's very difficult to be an independantly uber character at EVE. It is the ultimate forced-grouping game. Almost the entire game is based on the corporation you are in. Most corps will support a rookie with help, advice and a fair split of a mining or combat operation based on your time dedicated rather than the actual input you gave.

Pick your corporation very carefully, give every corp a chance but dont be afraid to leave if it doesnt feel right. Single player goals are very longterm, pick a narrrow specialisation and match it to your corps goals. I.e. Your corp may want ice miners and you maye be specialising in mining anyway. Your corp may want covert ops pilots and the covert ops skills increase your ships output anyway.

Originally posted by BellaH

The real issue with the calculation of subs is the fact that so many people have 4 and or 5 accounts..this is infact only 1 player!

and then there are still many farmers with tons of accounts on 1 ip! and that sort of thing farmers do not link accounts and as such get counted as single subs.

Just my 2 cents for all its worth, but it does tend to lead them to look a little shady in the numbers dept.

Retrad great link!

Every game on the market has gold sellers, unless you can give me statistics then I'm not really swayed here. Plus, gold sellers are regularly removed from the game when they're traced so it's not like the increase in subscribers is a gold seller epidemic.

If a player choses to have multiple accounts then that is up to him. WoW offers little incentive to do so, the vast majority of the levelling content is soloable whilst other games (EQ2, EVE) offer great incentives to duo from the same PC.

As I said, back up your argument or dont expect to be taken seriously. Play WoW on a 'FULL server' for a day and you will realise that these statistics are not BS.

Originally posted by pussaykat

Proof:

http://www.warcraftrealms.com/temp/activity-2008-05.htm

most mmos have 25-50k active players....

talk about biased statistics lol

Seriously guys can anyone produce reliable unbiased statistics to diss WoW?

Any game that doesn't offer a free trial is obviously just trying to steal people's money.

You know that not everyone that buys the game will like it but you still insist on forcing them to take a risk as there's no way you can lose out financially :P

Every review I've seen of AOC follows the same theme "Great game, where's the content?"

Originally posted by Gazenthia

A couple of things have happened.

1) There has only ever been one expansion pack for this nearly 4 year old game, and there are now competitors.

It has 8million players, the competitors have 500k at most (EQ2). Since the '8 million argument' is 'getting tired' I'll go with:

• The combat system is the smoothest on the market.
• The trait/talent system is the best thought out.
• Another expansion due in the winter.

2) They have only added one lone battleground to the game, which you can only reach post 60, which of course requires the expansion pack.

What exactly is the problem with that? lol You want people spread across 100s of different battlegrounds so they all get canned for not having enough players.

3) They did add an arena system, and it is very corrupt and broken. Last I heard, you had to do arena in order to acquire gear that was in the battleground reward selection. So now you have nowhere to turn besides PvE-raiding if you don't like arena.

If you win arena you get this seasons gear, if you BG you get last seasons gear. Since you can just go AFK in and out in BG I'd say thats pretty fair :P

4) Professions are more of a sinkhole of time and resources than ever. Jewelcrafters and miners got shafted in 2.4 when they put epic quality gems on vendors, and the design schema at the end of a rep grind.

Bit of a sweeping statement from a jaded jewelcrafter lol Get it? Jade? nevermind :P

5) Dailies and the rep grinds they are directly linked too, are overwhelmingly repetitive. It feels like the grind that it is. If they wanted everyone to get these reps, have those mounts, and this much money they could have handled it better IMO.

OK seriously there's only so much whining you can do without even trying to offer alternatives.

6) Lack of overall content.

Can I get a whineburger with fries? Name another game that adds raids as free patches?

7) When I was there, it was hostile towards new/fresh players.

No no wait I'll get a whinewrap with a large coke. 14 day free trial? original game now costs $10? They made 1-50 30% faster? TBC down to $20? Am I hitting any nails here?

 Just caus you got bored of it doesn't mean you have to ruin the party for everyone else :P I've played every game on the market and WoW is the only game I really enjoy playing. Combat is sluggish and awkward on other games or just a fruitless grind.

I don't get why people make such a big deal about switching games. As a professional game switcher I view games based on their cost effectiveness. Whatever happens, if you're a serious P2P MMO gamer that enjoys levelling up then one way or another you're going to pay a monthly fee this month of around $20USD/£10GBP. This game costs £25/$50, subtract you're fee (30daysfree) and you're only taking a chance on £15/$30. It's not like companies release a major P2P MMO weekly either, it happens 3 times a year at most. This year there's only real buzz surrounding AOC & WAR. If WAR costs £25/$50 and you pre-order both games then you're only spending £30/$60 more than your monthly fees for that year. Is £30/$60 such a big deal that you need to spend endless hours flaming the forums to convince people to avoid it?

In conclusion, I will be putting my £15 on the table and if it doesn't work out then I'm not going to get upset about it and spend endless hours flaming the forum.

Dual Core athlon 3600+

2gb PC3200

2x ATI X1950 in xfire

2x 70gb 10krpm SATA1 in RAID0

I lag in towns on every game on the market so I don't bother even trying to fix it. In the wild I can run max graphics on most games.