So many people shill on this site, it's actually kind of disgusting.

Vanguard was beyond amazing when it was first released, and for a couple years.. but SOE had limited support for it even then. Thus, the game went downhill from there.

Even the originality of VG is somewhat broken now. I went back to it and did another stint when "Silius" was the dev lead, and I have to say... most everything he did completely sucked the soul out of that game. People were really excited about the Ancient Port Warehouse raid area, but aside from that... 

They gutted the "civilization" system, removed the concept of racial cities and "I hate you" factions like original EQ. Then they added a widespread teleport system. So people stopped exploring cities, because it was virtually meaningless. Then they stopped using boats, because you could just teleport, so why bother? 

Then they added in the Trial Island, and the whole concept of "growing in your own piece of the world" was gone. 

It's sad, there was so much potential. Out of every game I've played over the years, Vanguard was the best "explorer's world". Kojan was amazing. Even more amazing was when I eventually left Kojan, abandoned my roots and went to Thestra, and eventually Qalia. Going into Qalia was... well I'll never forget it.  There was absolutely nothing, nothing better than getting in a sloop and sailing through a continent with a friend. Sailing into Skrillian Point to see the sky dotted with flying creatures, finding out it's a hollowed out volcano... Running into the hills to suddenly come across a civilization carved in the rocks, the gnome city.

How could someone abandon this game...

Who said the Secret World was supposed to be "scary" like survival horror? I don't think that was ever implied?

It's horror themed, and I'm sure there will no doubt be some very spooky moments throughout the game, but by no means is the whole game supposed to be like Silent Hill in 1999....

Flawed article, imo.

I doubt they'll be sending e-mails immediately.

There is absolutely no reason to have a general or global chat in MMOs, especially something like TOR, which will be saturated with players. Not only does it break immersion, but people just bicker and piss all over each other 24/7. I always shut it off.

I prefer proximity chat, or maybe a guild chat. People can still "spoil" the game in /say or other proximity, or just be asshats still, but the likelihood is slim to none in comparison. People tend to be more social, and have a sharper edge at wanting to be friendly and interactive in proximity chat; think Cantinas in SWG, perfect example. I've always hated global in games, it never made sense and always made me want to slam my head into a wall.

I enjoy PvP actually.

First of all, I've never seen a game that was totally "balanced". It's just a complete misnomer. "Balanced PvP" with various classes is an oxymoron. It just doesn't, and shouldn't, make any sense.

What always happens is the dev team spends an unholy amount of time (wasted potential and wasted resources) juggling "flavor of the month" class builds. They do it for years, until the game suffers a cruel, stagnant fate. Worst of all, the PvE suffers eternally, due to nearly ALL the focus put on appeasing the raving "BALANCE PVP" fanatics. Trying to make 16 classes able to stand toe to toe with one another, and still maintaining individual "uniqueness" (LOL), good luck with that. That's why everyone uses the exact same gear and virtually the same strategies at end-game.

This is why the locked class system with the holy trinity is completely archaic. It can be done, and be fun, but don't pretend like you ever balance this shit, because you can't. I think skill decks (ala Secret World) are the way of the future, at least a step in the right direction. Hopefully, we'll see how it pans out.

It isn't a must. Balance is not that important.

This is just a paradigm you construct in your mind because you haven't seen anything else done successfully, or you refuse to accept it.

Soon enough, this whole paradigm will collapse, and everything will change. Then "balance" will be a subjective and unimportant term.

This is why I'm looking forward to The Secret World. A massive skill set to choose from, and a wide range of clothing to be unique. So whenever someone complains like someone pissed in their cheerios, then you can just tell them to stfu and try a new skill deck from the supposed hundreds of other skills.

So yes, in a nutshell, the rabid "competitors" ruin MMOs and a lot of games in general. Devoting time to "balancing" a world with clearly different races and creatures, classes, abilities... into something sterile, is just absurd. If it's supposed to be different, then let it be. If someone wants to compete, let them go play fucking chess or something, where you get a fair advantage on both sides. Though these types of people will inevitably suck at chess because they have to use planning, and their wits, etc.

Heaven forbid people use their imagination or get devoted to their characters, for the sake of atmosphere, ambience, themselves and those around them. Not to mention.. the human race..... but that's another discussion for a different time.

Originally posted by Mightyking

This thread is kinda ludicrous when you know how Rift got butchered for having too small cities and world map.

People are mostly complaining about the hubs being farking ENORMOUS, with no design put in to make them at least feel like a city or hub. Really, it's comical. Again, it wouldn't be so bad if they put it in more NPCs and static events for atmosphere, but they have like nothing. 

I went to a few hubs, including starter zones, and really it's crazy. Every room after the other is like a 20,000 sq. ft. antechamber, cathedral-ceiling monstrosity. You go into these colossal chambers and there are a half dozen NPCs if you're lucky. What are they doing? Well, they're standing stock-still, maybe pretending to have a conversation with someone or nothing. Hardly any props, or little scenes to gawk at, and it's always so quiet. If the token orchestral Star Wars soundtrack wasn't present, then it would be so dreadful and obscene; the music does alleviate some of the craziness of the enormity of all things.

It needs more... something. I don't know. I will be enjoying the game, but wow, lol.

To the people saying "it's better than being too small".  lol... Like there is no middle ground between silly-small and ludicrious-large.

I will be enjoying SW:TOR (Sweater) as much as the next guy, but I am not going to overlook the really bizarre and/or lazy design choices in regards to the atmosphere, ambiance, environment, etc. etc. They seem to have this design philosophy of not giving one iota of shit for making you trek back and forth all over the place, and they also have this amazing philosophy of spending a colossal like 200 million on the game; and you're telling me they couldn't make these high-traffic areas more interesting, and more dense with 'life'? 

Not buying it. It really is the biggest pebble in my boot with TOR. Another pebble would be the jarringly low-res textures for a 2011 PC game, but that I can forgive on it's own if the accompanying game is stellar, but if the atmosphere is lacking and has nothing to distract you, then the graphical shortcomings stand out. So it's a two-fold negative with this one.

Again, I'll enjoy it, definitely, but for a while I will be shaking my head asking why they couldn't pump some of those millions into better environment design. Really, just smfh. So much potential wasted.

Originally posted by GeminiStatic

You guys are such haters.. are gamers really that whole new brand of depressing haters?

Is that your draw.. that's basically your whole plan here?

Post a mysterious link with little to no description of it, and no elaboration on why you are even posting, and when people say "what", you call everyone a "depressing hater".

Yea, totally going to draw some positive attention to your game with that  strategy pal.

Originally posted by Marchosias31

Did Mr.Mustard kill Colonel Sanders with the candle in the bathroom? 

The real question is, did the maid place the "candle" in the bathroom, because she was manipulated by the Illuminati into working for Mr. Mustard? If so, was it setup  to initiate a hit on Colonel Sanders once they found out the good Colonel was working inside a splinter sect of the Templars? Why was Colonel Sanders working with the Templars anyway, when it was already assumed he worked outside of the chosen and instead pursued goals for "hidden-tech" for the military-industrial complex ?

What do the Dragon have to do with any of this or do they have a hand in this at all?

What is the candle really, I mean really? Are you implying that the candle is actually an occult artifact that could possibly be used to cause a blight by whichever society unlocks it's secrets first?

You sir are on to something, a game is afoot, that much is clear.

Originally posted by alkrmr

my guess is that with this being the final test before launch, they are only really concerned with testing the backbone and used an older build with low textures due to download size with the increased amount of invites this makes downloading the game even possible at this point

That is possible, but I highly doubt it. I've seen dozens and dozens of betas/releases and this is always said. "Wait for beta", then "Wait for some updates".

Anything is possible, and I'll withhold my judgment for when it goes gold. I'm not that bitter, but I'm not keeping any expectations either.

Originally posted by dubyahite

I haven't heard anything about this "high stakes development" enlighten me. 

Hundreds of millions.

The colossal EA/Bioware pairing.

In other words, the "make it or break it, how are new MMO studios going to convince investors to invest if this one drowns", high-stakes.

I was completely unimpressed with the graphics overall. I didn't get a chance to play that long, but from what I saw, with the lack of effects, high-res textures (seriously, some of the textures are straight out of 1998, it was actually quite shocking), lighting, shadows, etc, etc. 

Looking at some of the terrain textures is really jarring, it would garner the same effect if they just painted textures in a single matte color. Most of the 'armor' and clothing is treated in the same regard as the terrain. I don't have much issue with the character models, the facial features and styling is on-par with other games and gets the job done.

If I could sum up the "the graphics" in about one word or more, it would be: Low-res, or Unoptimized.

Everything else.. well, the dialogue trees are nice, but we've seen it all before in Bioware's other games. I enjoyed it, but I realized "Once it's done, it's done", and what will be left over when I get tired of the inevitable "going nowhere" dialogues? Well, we're left with basically a mainstream MMO clone that we have all seen for 10 years now. Kill this, kill that, fetch me this, fetch him that, then wear this outfit that the whole server will be wearing at the same time.

Worth $60? Probably. It's perfectly capable of passing the time to get your money's worth. It's just so underwhelming, with the supposed "huge budget" and high-stakes development we've heard oh so much about.

Originally posted by Gyrus

So, MMORPG.com, just to be clear... are we going to see one of these 'news' stories every single time Funcom release a couple of paragraphs of text and a sceenshot?

 

Because really, it's just a bit annoying.

 

What if Turbine was to release the Isengard quest pack one screenshot at a time?

Or CCP did this with Dust 514?  Or... well... you get where I am going with this?

(yeah... well I might release the rest of this post later... you know... Funcom style?)

Sorry, but it's really interesting. No other game like this has ever been released.

You're welcome to ignore it, or heaven forbid, even avoid posting in the topics.

It's hard.. I know.. I know, but we can all make little steps to achieve our goals.

Originally posted by itchmon

Originally posted by mesmerise

As a Mainer, you cannot hide these "wealthy businessmen with local ties" I know that they are really from Massachusetts buying up more Maine seaside property!! At least I know what my peers at Cheverus High School were really studying....

M

 

shades of "under the dome" by stephen king (and, ya, almost every other SK novel :) )

Reading Under the Dome was like reading an essay or diary that one of my neighbors wrote. King makes absolutely no bones about being in, and writing about Maine. It is a little creepy reading a novel of his at times, because he really nails "Maine" down in whatever he writes about. So after I read a few hundred pages, I look outside and think to myself.. "Oh shit...".

I haven't actually read much of King's novels, especially ones based in Maine. I fondly remember The Shining, which wasn't based in Maine (one of the few), even that was creepy after seeing the movie. 

But yea, another Maine guy here (if you couldn't guess), I'm really excited at seeing what Funcom does with the New England locales. New England is always creepy, it really doesn't need fiction to make it so. Everywhere you go, there seems to be an eerie, hidden story behind everything.

EQ2 "Extended" sounds like an absolute nightmare. What exaclty is extended about it?

Also, how much must you hate yourself or others to play on the EQ2X servers? If one is unable to "afford" $15 a month for entertainment, then how does one even have a computer or the internet?

I'm like so many others in this thread (and community) where I always believed MMO's were world simulators, alternative realities, and hubs for gaming nerds the world over. Where everyone can get together and truly explore another reality.

Back when EverQuest came out, I thought, gee.. this is pretty fricking amazing, the first expansive 3D forray into an online universe. It can only get better, and expand more and more. The worlds would simply grow beyond imagining, and innovations would be awe-inspiring gaming triumphs, where every studio would compete for the next amazing feature.

How naive and spoiled we all were.

Now MOG's today are little more than what they were from the beginning.  These decade-old formulas. Grindfests, uninspired worlds or too-inspired and under-delivered. 

You see, the average person in this world is truly a mindless being, who watches American Idol and is only half-aware of his or her surroundings. This applies to gaming also, and it is what investors fund for.. the largest pool. So all the rest of us perceptive folks scrounge what we can from the joyless scraps we are given.

It's not all bad, there is plenty of joy to be had from a lot of online games, but you really have to put into it and try not to ask for too much. Though it is sad, when you think what games could be today, were it not for the lowest common denonimator factor.

There isn't a better RP community than the Lord of the Rings Online community.

Really, look at the source material one can draw from, for crying out loud. On top of that, it has the best options for RP goodies. The tavern hubs, the musical instruments and band play, drinking, smoking pipes. It's all there. The RP community is rich, and mature, and it's really organized if you're into that. Otherwise, it's the easiest and friendliest RP community where one can near effortlessly roleplay.