Originally posted by Fariic

Originally posted by metalhead980

Originally posted by Fariic

http://www.mortalonline.com/faq
Q: Is there any PvE?
A: Yes, the world is vast and large parts lie waiting to be discovered. Besides the hunting of common and rare animals any traveler is bound to face savage beasts or scavenging mobs. Explorers of the non-human or ancient cultures will find their inhabitants highly unlikely to leave their treasures unguarded. Some very unique creatures roam the world as well, and to confront them you will need creativity and cooperation with other players.

 

LOL!

I love when Devs do that. They basically make just your average world full of mobs sound so exciting.

I have no real issue with pve being as shallow as killing roaming mobs but many people will.

Ryzom's Pve kind of revolves around just killing shit and going on rare boss hunts but they added a twist. the mobs arent static, they move with season and weather changes. so If you just grind you have a new experience often.

Ryzom's gameworld is incredible and they also managed to add in good pve mechanics like Non-instanced boss lairs/dungeons, Missions and Factions.

The game does lack pvp though this is why im interested in MO i want that perfect blend of pvp focused action with a solid pve foundation.

The more gameplay options the better, if this winds up being just another Gankers paradise with no other options then ill grow tired of it similar to what I did with DF (kicked ass for a couple months then grew tired of the same sieges and newbie ganks).

Sandbox MMOs need more imo.

 

I don't know what thier full plan as far as PvE is to be honest.  I believe that this point they're more interested in getting the core functions of the game working so it can be released, and then expanding on it from there.

Mats Person, the creative brain behind everything, mentioned there would be tasks.
He said something about a shaman in a village may pay for ears from something.  Or some such stuff.  My impression was that while they call them tasks as apposed to quests, there will be your standard get me this type of quest at some point.

There are supposed to be NPC guilds as well.  Things like Thieves guilds, mage guilds, etc. that players will be able to join if they meet the correct requirements.  While not a 10 man raid or anything, I still consider it to be an element of PvE.

There are supposed to be dungeons that people can explore.  
There are mines; while nothing spectacular, and ultimately there will be a level of PvP involved with them (read: Some metals are in more abundance in the mine ((what a shock)) and player groups may attempt to control who can mine in them).

Thievery.
It may sound strange, but I consider it to be an element of PvE.  Naturally you'll be picking the pockets of other players, but I don't really think of it soley a PvP mechanic.  While it may lead to a fight if the player catches you, it also encompasses the flagging system and the way in wich guards will respond to you. 
To me, at least, PvE doesn't exclude entirely player to player interaction.  Think of crafting.  You make stuff and then you sell it to other players; it's not just a PvE mechanic, it's also a PtP mechanic.  I consider thievery the same thing.  Not strickly PvP, but not entirely void of  PvE at the same time.  I know a lot will disagree with me here.

House buidling.
Taming.
Setting up a shop.
Owning a stable.
Being a miner, lumberjack, herbalist.
Hunting.  
Exploring. 
Map making.

To be honest, whenever I see threads like these I kind of cringe.
No one ever explains exactly what they mean by PvE.  Is the OP looking for raids? Quests? What?
Is it not PvE if you hunt animals for thier skins, or is it only PvE if an NPC tells you to do so?  Is it not PvE if you're out exploring, find a cave, and decide to see were it goes, or if there's anything valuable inside to mine, or does an NPC have to tell you to go there? 

You don't have to have an NPC tell you to gather 9 other people and go kill a minotaur, you can do that on your own, and it's still PvE.  Having 1000 quests doesn't mean a game has more PvE, it means that there are 1000 quests that have you go and do what you need to do to level your toon. 
In MO I start naked.  I don't need an NPC to tell me that I need clothing.  I get the tools I need, then I go about getting me something to cover my danglies, and from there I just do whatever I want.

No one said anything about Quest hand holding.

Quests or missions in a sandbox game are always optional and they bring a game world to life imo. It's realistic that people need shit done in a game world.  Normally these "tasks" are done for currency unlikel XP farming in more linear games.

Also certain features like Raids, dungeons and joinable factions are great in sandbox games as long as there optional.

All of this adds to the game.

When you have a world devoid of Npcs with ffa pvp as its only focus its no longer a mmo but a fps fantasy themed combat game.

I already have access to those, every FPS game with a mod community makes them for free.

Originally posted by dhayes68

Love to see an EvE-esque fantasy type game. covering a whole world and the same level of player controlled and affected environment.

Yeah too bad CCP is making a Gothic Vampire type mmo instead of a Fantasy one.

I would kill for a Sandbox game like Eve with a fantasy setting.

Guess we will have to settle for the gothic scene if MO turns to be crap.

Originally posted by Garkan

It makes you wonder what the real figures actually are, in my own experience from the people in my corp and previous corps more people have multiple accounts than  people with single accounts and I have two accounts with 2 actively training characters.

You would be surprised by how many casual players really play Eve.

People that do nothing but run missions or mine in Empire or players that just trade the entire time. These people only need one account and the empire players make up around 80% of the overall game population.

It's handy to have multiple accounts in 0.0 and in low sec for shit like Cynos and scouts, maybe those people make a second account for pve mission runner in empire or indy character. These people are the vast minority.

As many people that you know with two or three accounts the reality of it is that there are hundreds of thousands of players that only use one.

Originally posted by Thenarius

Originally posted by qombi

Originally posted by Lizard_SF

Originally posted by metalhead980

 

Josher that was a good rant!

Didn't know you had it in you.

Ehh honestly I don't think Good tutorials and solid information on missions is dumbing things down.

Imo dumbing down is giving people awesome rewards from very little accomplished in the game. Like handing Top tier raid items to people that just run smaller player dungeons.

Eliminating a pvp ladder system that normally would take a player months of dedication to recieve rewards and turning it into a personal point collection mechanic where you can get those same items in 1/10th the time.

 

That's dumbing down not giving people information on how the game works and stuff.

 

So, killing 1000 ice weasels to get the Sword of Uberness requires intelligence, but killing 100? Why, any idiot can do THAT!

I guess the ice weasels get smarter the longer you kill them, or something...

Here's a hint: The ability to do nothing for long periods of time is not indicative of intelligence, skill, or ability. "I camped this spawn for FORTY HOURS!" doesn't mean you're smart. It means you have a very large bladder or a very suspicious collection of Mountain Dew bottles, if you etgay my iftdray.

I wish people would stop confusing "length of grind" with "difficulty".

I remember when I started playing EQ2 when it first came out, it took for-freakin'-EVER to grind gathering skills. I once spent four hours just running in circles in a small cave so I could be able to harvest in Antonica. And there was a quest for some kind of heritage boots where you needed 100 stone and 100 wood or something like that, and the resource node spawn rate was loooow and, IIRC, you could easily get nothing from a harvest attempt. When I tried it again in 2007, you pretty much could max your gathering with no effort at all, and the requirements for gathering were much lower and the "rares" were much less rare -- in 2004, I got one "rare" in TWENTY SIX LEVELS, in 2007, I got a "rare" about 1 in 10 harvests.

What did I have to do to harvest in EQ2 in 2004? I clicked on a node and waited.

What did I have to do to harvest in EQ2 in 2007? I clicked on a node and waited. I just had to click a LOT LESS NODES.

Please, explain to me exactly how I needed more "intelligence" to max my harvesting in 2004? I needed more PATIENCE, clearly, or, rather, more tolerance for boredom. Intelligence? I'm not seeing it. I open the floor to you, sir, to explain to me why doing the same thing 1,000 times requires more intelligence than doing it 100 times.

Oh, I played original EQ (and UO, and Isle of Kesmai...) so let's talk "dumbing down". I got a Beastlord to level 45 in EQ1. To play him, I needed to click pretty much two buttons -- "Beast Attack" and "Kick", whenever it came up. Every once in a while, a spell might be useful, but I only could have 8 at a time and most were slow cooldown and could be used about once per fight.

Now, let's compare "hard" EQ to "dumbed down" WoW. My hunter has about 20-odd abilities to juggle in any given fight, and beast management is a lot more complex than "point at enemy". (Hell, the fact that there are many pets with unique attributes and talent trees puts EQ's "You're a cat man? Here's your tiger. You're a lizardman? Here's your alligator." system to shame.) Juggling DOTs, debuffs, managing mana, managing my aggro, managing my pets aggro, dealing with potion cooldowns and item cooldowns and knowing when to use lower rank powers... by any objective measure of "How much information do you need to juggle/how many actions are available to you at any moment", WoW is much more complex than EQ1, at least as of the time I played EQ 1 (1998 for a few months, then 2002-2004). Yet WoW is called "Dumbed down" because instead of going to Allakhazam to figure out how to do a quest, you can actually figure it out from the quest text, and there's no way to accidentally destroy a one-of-a-kind item by giving it to the wrong NPC. (Oh, and you can't start typing "Hail" when you talk to an NPC, and discover you're not in chat mode, and 'A' is bound to 'Attack', so the very first thing you do in the game is aggro your trainer who is 50th level and he kills you instantly. Yes, that happened to me in EQ1, and it happened to a lot of other people. Some people (some STUPID people) think this is a "challenge" or that it makes the game "harder". No, it just shows poor design.)

Incoherent and illiterate flames from people who probably weren't even born when I first played a game via a telecommunications device and who will cry about "WoW kiddies" in 5... 4... 3...

 

You wrote this big long post responding to something you imagined he said. He said nothing on killing more or less of a monsters to get items. He said giving out the same items in larger raid dungeons to smaller group dungeons and he also he mentioned the ladder system in PvP. What you typed was in response to something in your head.

Fact is, it is harder to run a raid dungeon, cordinating multiple people to kill a large monster rather than 5 people going through a small dungeon. Fact is a ladder system is much more an indication of the skillful pvpers than giving points to people just just spend enough time (something you were actually making a reference to yourself in your post, ironic). If it wasn't harder to get together a large group of people and successfully make it through raid dungeons everyone would have done it but they couldn't. What they do is though is complain about the raids as if they were "timesinks" or people that could do them had no life (which is always false). It was just jealousy.

What the arguments come down to always is envy, wanting something someone can't have. Another ironic thing is then the people so obsessed to change the way the game works just to have what someone else has without the difficulty then says the people that can successfully play the game are the ones with no life or are making the game more than just a game.

They need to look in the mirror, it doesn't matter what others have in a game. If you want the same stuff then do what the game requires to have the special stuff. If you feel you can't or not willing to do that then quit and play something easy.

Actually he has a point.
Metalhead was talking about how the old ladder system is harder than the current arena system(called by him a personal point collection). Nothing else could be more false.
The only thing hard at Vanilla's battleground ladder system was getting time to play so many hours, while arena is progressively more complex, becoming one of the hardest things ever put in MMORPG when you reach Gladiator rating and trying to battle for #1 place.
It takes as much dedication as it used to in getting HWL, but it's more dedication to actually fighting other skilled players, and less grinding noobs in battlegrounds. You have to play many arena games each week if you're going for high ratings, because other people are going after them too.
I don't say getting HWL was easy, but(unless grinding is a hard activity) arena takes a lot more twitch, coordonation and strategy than old BG grind. Why do you think so many HWL players failed so badly in arena, even if they tried to play overpowered setups.

No your mistaken I wasn't refering to Arena but how Battlegrounds went from using a ladder system to just a individual honor collection system that kind of cheapened BGs.

In a later post in the same thread I even agreed Arenas were kinda hardcore. Then went on to say how Blizzard is fixing this issue with BG rating systems.

Im sure you would agree turning a ladder system that had you facing an entire server to get rank 1 to turing it into a much easier honor point collection system where awards are given every couple of days is dumbing that particular mechanic.

Originally posted by Fariic

http://www.mortalonline.com/faq
Q: Is there any PvE?
A: Yes, the world is vast and large parts lie waiting to be discovered. Besides the hunting of common and rare animals any traveler is bound to face savage beasts or scavenging mobs. Explorers of the non-human or ancient cultures will find their inhabitants highly unlikely to leave their treasures unguarded. Some very unique creatures roam the world as well, and to confront them you will need creativity and cooperation with other players.

LOL!

I love when Devs do that. They basically make just your average world full of mobs sound so exciting.

I have no real issue with pve being as shallow as killing roaming mobs but many people will.

Ryzom's Pve kind of revolves around just killing shit and going on rare boss hunts but they added a twist. the mobs arent static, they move with season and weather changes. so If you just grind you have a new experience often.

Ryzom's gameworld is incredible and they also managed to add in good pve mechanics like Non-instanced boss lairs/dungeons, Missions and Factions.

The game does lack pvp though this is why im interested in MO i want that perfect blend of pvp focused action with a solid pve foundation.

The more gameplay options the better, if this winds up being just another Gankers paradise with no other options then ill grow tired of it similar to what I did with DF (kicked ass for a couple months then grew tired of the same sieges and newbie ganks).

Sandbox MMOs need more imo.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by metalhead980

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

The only thing in the horizon that looks interesting is SWTOR> I'm going to play that an not worry about what other people are playing.

But if it sucks, then I'm going to come here and bitch about it.

TOR is going to be mostly a solo experience until "endgame" I thought you were more of a group focused guy?

Maybe im getting you confused with someone else? if so sorry.

 

I could be wrong, but I THINK TOR is going to feel sort of like a co-op game until the end game. Not really a "forced grouping game" but not really the solo fest to the top like WoW either.

Either way I'm going to give it a try. KOTOR was one of my favorite RPGs, and I really want to see what the new Hero Engine can do. Also, unlike some posters, I do like the graphics.

One of the most interesting features to me is the multiplayer dialog. I'm sure a lot of players will solo through the content, especially since you can hire npcs', but there might be an active group of players interested in the multi player quest dialog feature of the game.

Also, I've read that people that group will get more phat lewts than solo players.

Well we will get a companion and all flashpoints (instanced missions) will be soloable. so yeah you might get more loot if you in a group but normally if something can be soloed most people will go that route.

Originally posted by Tarka

Originally posted by metalhead980

Originally posted by chiffington

As a long-loong time gamer I can see the point Josher is making, and it's a good one.

I disagree with other posters that dumbing things down means making it easy to get 'raid level l00t' doing other tasks.  Not all of us have the time/energy/interest-in-following-orders to do what they call 'raiding'.

This has always been a funny topic for me. If you don;t like taking orders and don't really like raiding then why should you get raid level gear? Certainly you don;t need it for solo questing, Pvp has different rewards so thats not the reason.

I found nothing wrong with casual players that didnt enjoy raiding to just get blue gear. You really dont need anything else if you only adventuring.

Players get raid gear to keep raiding, whats the point in getting it if you dont like raiding? 

Because primarily whether a player is a raider or not, obtaining the gear is a form of character progression and a continuation of your that players experience in their chosen playstyle. 

It's not about whether raid gear is not needed to kill the rats outside the city gates, because even solo'ers wouldn't want to do that.  If solo'ers (and teams/groups for that matter) are given a progression path which provides them with rewards which are better than they already have, then they are happy because there is something to aspire to which involves their chosen playstyle.     In other words, whilst there is another item to get / another level to get / more talent points to get then the game isn't ending for that person. Once there's nothing more to aspire to, that's it game over until the next expansion.

I agree with people having different progression paths.

Maybe someone should suggest Items that are targeted toward those types of players then. Maybe armor sets for the soloer (one designed to make farming easier w\ less downtime and increase faction gain) maybe armor sets designed to help small dungeon players advance those dungeons?

Imo diminishing raiders achievements by handing items to non-raiders is the wrong thing to do. Give them their own progression system to work on.

Originally posted by Teiman

 

I think the OP is wrong. The idea of removing numerical data from the tooltips, is to make it safe for dumb people. Dumb people get scare of numbers, so is better to make a poor description of a power, than have some factual numerical data. 

Do you have to insult people? First of all, I've never known a "dumb" mmo gamer were all DnD and Tech nerds these people are usually pretty smart.

Imo giving people proper info in a video game doesn't mean it's catering to "dumb" people.

Eve has a fantastic new player tutorial thats getting another tweak in December and that's considered one of the most complex mmos.

I lived in a projects as a kid i've had enough realistic pvp tyvm lol!

With that said wait for MO is seems to be what you want.

Originally posted by chiffington

As a long-loong time gamer I can see the point Josher is making, and it's a good one.

I disagree with other posters that dumbing things down means making it easy to get 'raid level l00t' doing other tasks.  Not all of us have the time/energy/interest-in-following-orders to do what they call 'raiding'.

This has always been a funny topic for me. If you don;t like taking orders and don't really like raiding then why should you get raid level gear? Certainly you don;t need it for solo questing, Pvp has different rewards so thats not the reason.

I found nothing wrong with casual players that didnt enjoy raiding to just get blue gear. You really dont need anything else if you only adventuring.

Players get raid gear to keep raiding, whats the point in getting it if you dont like raiding? 

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by metalhead980

 

Josher that was a good rant!

Didn't know you had it in you.

Ehh honestly I don't think Good tutorials and solid information on missions is dumbing things down.

Imo dumbing down is giving people awesome rewards from very little accomplished in the game. Like handing Top tier raid items to people that just run smaller player dungeons.

Eliminating a pvp ladder system that normally would take a player months of dedication to recieve rewards and turning it into a personal point collection mechanic where you can get those same items in 1/10th the time.

 

That's dumbing down not giving people information on how the game works and stuff.

 

That is just silly. We are talking about games here.

The only reason why players need months to get anything in the old days is because there is a lack of resources to create those things. If there are more developer resources now to create the reward, there is no reason rewards need to space out so much.

Games can't have hard to achieve rewards?  I'm sorry but not everything needs to be handed to someone due to player activity.

If im casual I have no issue with playing for 5-10 hours a week and taking a few months to get something awesome.

WoW even does this with certain achievements. Noone bitches.

Originally posted by Josher

 So whats smarter about taking 6 months to achieve something that should take 2 months?  In a month or 2 it can still be FUN.  In 6 months, it just turns into a tedious, massive time sink that feels like work.   A GAME isn't supposed to be work right?  Or is it=)  

Some people like having things to work for in a mmo.

As an example It was much more satisfying for me to complete the thunderfury quest line for my Legendary than just having it drop like a regular epic like the Swords in BT.

It makes it kinda special imo.

Nothing wrong with wanting something like that not everything needs to be suited to the 5 hour a week crowd.

Originally posted by vladakov

Originally posted by metalhead980

Originally posted by gotha

pve is gonna be more UO style then wow style.  No quests.  But they do have a lot of interesting things planned.  Wait and see i would guess

well when I think pve in a sandbox game I usually expect optional Random missions, Roaming rare mobs and non-instanced dungeons/raids.

Maybe a few optional factions in game to align with.

All standard shit in a sandbox game imo.

 

 

apart from sandbox, WoW had its share of  rare/rare elite mobs with their stories, Wow also has optional factions to align with,  for example the centaurs in Desolace, optional,   the P.E.T.A. in northrend, optional.   WoW isn't really 100% sandbox, but it isn't a complete themepark either...

Sandbox and themepark games share many features.  I don't want to derail my own thread!!!!!  so ill leave it at that.

Edit: see that shit! Im posting is so many thread I forgot this one is mine!!!!!

Originally posted by Thenarius

Originally posted by metalhead980

 

Josher that was a good rant!

Didn't know you had it in you.

Ehh honestly I don't think Good tutorials and solid information on missions is dumbing things down.

Imo dumbing down is giving people awesome rewards from very little accomplished in the game. Like handing Top tier raid items to people that just run smaller player dungeons.

Eliminating a pvp ladder system that normally would take a player months of dedication to recieve rewards and turning it into a personal point collection mechanic where you can get those same items in 1/10th the time.

 

That's dumbing down not giving people information on how the game works and stuff.

Was that an allusion at WoW? Because, you still need a few months to get all arena rewards, unless you're at Gladiator rating, and even then it takes at least 2 months.

I usually use WoW as an example because Everyone could understand me since most have played it.

Yes I agree the arena title is pretty hardcore its the entry level stuff (battlegrounds) that have been made incredibly easy. Remember Vanilla WoW it took a while just to get a blue pvp set lol.

Blizz is fixing that with rated BGs though.

Also another example of dumbing down in WoW would be making raid content easier after the hardcore guilds grabbed world firsts so the regular population could actually try it.

Things like this arent needed imo.

Other games do this as well, like I said its just easier to bring up WoW. If I spoke of VG or AO mechanics being turned to shit most wouldnt understand.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

The only thing in the horizon that looks interesting is SWTOR> I'm going to play that an not worry about what other people are playing.

But if it sucks, then I'm going to come here and bitch about it.

TOR is going to be mostly a solo experience until "endgame" I thought you were more of a group focused guy?

Maybe im getting you confused with someone else? if so sorry.

Originally posted by gotha

pve is gonna be more UO style then wow style.  No quests.  But they do have a lot of interesting things planned.  Wait and see i would guess

well when I think pve in a sandbox game I usually expect optional Random missions, Roaming rare mobs and non-instanced dungeons/raids.

Maybe a few optional factions in game to align with.

All standard shit in a sandbox game imo.

Josher that was a good rant!

Didn't know you had it in you.

Ehh honestly I don't think Good tutorials and solid information on missions is dumbing things down.

Imo dumbing down is giving people awesome rewards from very little accomplished in the game. Like handing Top tier raid items to people that just run smaller player dungeons.

Eliminating a pvp ladder system that normally would take a player months of dedication to recieve rewards and turning it into a personal point collection mechanic where you can get those same items in 1/10th the time.

That's dumbing down not giving people information on how the game works and stuff.

I don't care how Hardcore a pvper you are. You connot disagree that having atleast decent Pve mechanics brings more people to the game and in turn giving you the pvper more people to play with and against.

So with that said will MO have a decent feature set for the pver types?

Originally posted by Alishany

If there is a guild only for female WoW players......
What do you think of its future development?
Will it have a bright future?

Actually My Wife plays on the Gilneas NA server and the guild is made up of mostly stay at home moms.

I won't give the guild name since I don't want you single lonely freaks bugging them but these women do everything from Hardcore raid to Arena with a decent rating.

The guild as it is over 100+ active members and with the exception of a few husbands is all chicks.

No single men allowed is one of the rules LOL!!!!

Originally posted by Demz2

Originally posted by metalhead980

Originally posted by Axehilt

Was mostly a generalization post.  Yes, I realize that sometimes the sub-genres get nitpicked.  Yes, I realize every popular genre has sub-genres (action vs. realistic sports games being yet another example.)

But you visit an RTS forum and talk about the games, whereas in MMORPG.com's forums like fully 20% of all threads end up being about this stuff.  What is/isn't an MMO?  What is/isn't an RPG?   What is/isn't sandbox or themepark?   The obsession goes so far beyond what you see in other genres that I felt safe saying "nobody" nitpicks in the other genres. :P

The reason why is that it devolves into meaningless drivel.  I mean you're calling Dragon Age, a game that quickly opens up into "which of these 3-4 main story branches do you want to do now?" and "oh and which sidequests too?" and you're labeling that a linear game?   What an exaggeration.   There are many games in the RPG genre that make Dragon Age look almost like a sandbox game in comparison.

Not really sure what you mean by "more technical" with AOE and RA.  If anything Starcraft is the most technical RTS on the market (still) due to its superb balance.  Honestly this is the first I've seen "technical" used as a sub-genre (and given the vagueness of the term, there's probably a reason for that.)   Lumping Starcraft in with Warcraft (3) is a bit off too, given the large difference in game depth between the two.

TBH Rise of Nations felt a lot more strategically interesting than any game of the AOE series (whose comparitive shallowness was often masked behind lengthy periods of memorized-build build-up.) I'd say I was a bit biased, having worked on RON, but I've also worked on AOE2:C and AOE3:TAD so it swings both ways.

Don't get too crazy with the RTS example, Certain hardcore RTS players consider anything Blizzard created to be dumbed down for the masses. I'm sure you've played more technical Rts games.

Also, DA:O is linear when you stack it against games like Oblivion and Gothic. Every rpg has side quests doesnt make it a open ended game.

Like I said Ever genre has small sub genres within it but the reason MMO players speak of the sub genres more often is due to mmorpgs not representing them well.

There are tons of linear and open ended rpgs, tons of hack n slash rpgs, tactical shooters, More advanced rts games yet in the mmo genre we have around three to five sanbox games compared to the hundreds of themepark mmos.

I don't blame people for bringing up the topic constantly.

 

 

Yes and certain RTS players consider other RTS games made by other players dumbed down  Go watch starcraft touranments and videos and tell those Hardcore players that actually play the game for a living and win thousands of dollars its dumbed down, they would probably eat u and every other RTS gamer alive.   Starcraft is dumbed down sure thing, meathead.  If making a well made game which people enjoy is dumbed down, then i will take it 100x times over anything that has been developed  with bugs,no content  and planning and detail that blizzard puts into their games.

You think DAO is more linear compared to oblivion LMAO.   I sure morrowind players would say Oblivion is 100x more linear than morrowind ever was.

IM giving examples of what other players are saying in other videogame genres. They don't reflect in anyway what I feel.

All im saying is other game genres have sub genres with in them.

Im not trying to criticize SC or DA:O I actually play SC atleast once a month to this day and I own two copies of DA heh.

I will disagree on your Oblivion comment though. Oblivion took away the need to actually level since everything scales with you but that in no way means its not open ended. Even morrowind fanbois know Oblivion is  a free roam game even if they don't like level scaling.