I think you are ´surprised´ that fan base is positive about this system the same way people are surprised at how successful WOW is.  These forums are the vast minority of players.   The unpopularity of WOW (and all things wow-like) here is just because people here are much more hardcore than most players.  Most players don´t even read their game forums, let alone go to a third party site to post.

WOW and SWTOR learned that players need to advance their characters and only random, and sometimes crazy RNG systems just do not work.   Players also don´t want to feel like they have to compete with the guildmaster´s girlfriends 3rd alt for loot.

The only people who use the term welfare gear are ones playing games with less than 100,000 players.

Originally posted by stayontarget

It's the awesome new future, at least that's what every game developer / game publisher has been telling us (or more like pushing down our throats). 

WooHoo say hello to freemium / f2p / pay2win or what ever the hell they call it now.

AOC is the only game that has really blatently gone with the play2win model in a traditional MMO.    DDO has a lot of power enhancing things in the cash-shop, but it is also a very non-competitive game with no real pvp.  Lotro the same way, EQ2 same way

Originally posted by Rawiz

Originally posted by Onigod

Originally posted by Rawiz

Funny how the new Conan movie seems to be about PvP, yet our beloved Craig pushes out PvE Bosses for PvP'ers to kill, and says it's not really PvE! Mr. Bori is just horrible and I wish he had been fired 2 years ago.

Does this man even know what PvP and PvE mean? a Boss mob placed to the world is PVE. A quest to kill 10 enemies in zone X is PVP.

Craig is probably the worst GD I've seen with a product, that HAD so much potential.

FUNNY how this game has nothing to do with the movie and that the game that came out way before this movie should be like this movie? the movie and game can be completely diffrent the movie maker could add little zombie dogs if they think it improves their movie.

FUNNY how FC themselves keep spouting about a movie tie-in to go with the new Conan. It's funny right? No, I guess it's not funny. it's just a fact.

I don't actually know, if you're just trolling or uninformed. Either way you're very mistaken.

But what will be the ´tie-in´..  will it be a mini-pet given away on an obscure gaming website that was seen in the background of a scene in the movie?  Are they going to create entire new zones and NPCs in the game based on the new movie?  Both are tie-ins.

My guess is there will be nothing in the theatrical release of the movie that mentions AOC.... in the same way the SW movies never mentioned SWG.      So I think the theatrical debut will do nothing for AOC.  Are people going to see a rather ´medium´movie and suddenly decide they need to play an MMORPG?    And most people familar with AOC who happen to see the movie are going to know the games reputation anyway.

The only hope is with the dvd, and then only if the game comes included... and even then it is a stretch to think that translates into actualy $$ for funcom.

Originally posted by nihce

Originally posted by Vonatar

Originally posted by nihce

Originally posted by pupurun

I seriously think that it's the other way around. Everyone who has tried/played the game will certainly feel an interest to see the film.

I believe that that number could be between 1.500.000 to 2.000.000. Add all the Conan lovers that do not play pc games and all the fantasy movie lovers you got a huge number there....So the tickets will get a serious boost...

The film by itself does not show anything biggie...Won't affect people in a way to make them go play an online game....at least not the same way the opposite way 

I gave as an example LOTRO. THere were thousands of people I met when I played at start/beta who never touched MMO before. It was the IP that brought them to the genre

Yes, but IP does not a good game make. LOTRO is the biggest fantasy IP there is, yet the game still went F2P since Turbine managed to drive a lot of players away with certain things about the game (Radiance being one hot topic).

F2P is the model of the future. It is a way to make more money. 

F2P is the model of the future for games that can´t retain subscribers.   There isn´t a company out there that doesn´t want the predictability of $15 per month.   DDO is making a lot more money now than it did as a subscription game, or that SWG is making.

F2P is like CPR.. it is a way to keep you from dying, but not the way you want to live your life.

Of course.. every game should be free, players should not have to pay anything.... sounds great.

There is no ´cash-shop´uprising that is showing that subscription based models are old or outdated.  There are just a bunch of games that are not worth a subsciption that found a way to make some money.  DDO won because it didn´t end up like SWG..  It is actually making money for it´s developers.

But there are millions of players happily paying $15 per month to Blizzard, and Blizzard is happy to have that predictable income... because it allows them to plan the future with much more certainty then a cash-shop game.

As a consumer, of course we want free, or at the least ala-carte.   But there is also something said for the predictability that WOW gives ( is wow the only subscription game left besides new games like Rift??).

I love DDO, only started playing it a month ago..  but you can see by the dev comments that the future past a few months is very uncertain.  Are druids coming?  etc etc.   Can they hire a few new people not knowing if a new item in the cash-shop will be a hit?  What happens if they have a month where everything they put in the cashshop flops?   Wow can tell with certaintiy that the same number of peopel paying $15 per month this month will also be paying in 5 months.

But I think AOC has really shown the bad side of cash shops.   They open a new server and immediately put epic gear in the cashshop that you can buy for real life money.  I would much rather pay $15 per month and know that the only things in the cash shop are going to be vanity items, and the devs don´t need to sell those items to maintain it´s staff.

I person who doesn´t think questing is fun doesn´t like a questing game?  wow, big shock

A person who doesn´t read quest logs complains about thier not being enough lore in game? wow, big shock.

Here is the thing.. everything you said about WOW can be said about every other game out there (MMORPG wise).  WOW has done a much better job at questing then most games... there is phasing, vehicle fights and just a ton of ´tech´things that are added to the game to separate the necessary ´go here and kill 10 boars'  quests.

You went and bought chocolate ice cream, then complained because it tasted too chocolatey...  WOW is a questing game, and it does questing better than any other game.. but if you hate questing, you are never going to like wow or any other mmorpg.

Originally posted by Geowash

Originally posted by Isturi

TY OP for this post. It made me loled. It seems sadly that Blizz is scrambling to do whatever they can to maintain there grip on the MMO world.  Thankfully we don't have to wait to much longer for the gambit to swing.

Yeah I dont know how they are going to pull of saving there game when so many great MMORPGs are headed our way... ArcheAge, Guild Wars 2, SWTOR, and Tera? Plus Rift keeps getting wayyy better as it goes along and same with Aion. 

Thanks,

Zach Sharpes

Yeah, I don´t know how they are going to pull of (sic) saving there (sic) game when so many great MMORPGs are headed our way.. AOC, Darkfall, LOTRO, Warhammer, Aion...  Plus EQ2 keeps getting wayyy better as it goes along and same with SWG.

SWTOR may, or may not be a good game.. but it is the only one that will have a million paying subscribers 2 months after launch.  SWTOR will also bring in a lot of new people, rather then steal people from WOW.   SWTOR is VERY VERY SLOW gameplay wise.  They are doing a lot of new things.. but I doubt WOW players will like the gameplay.   Being forced to listen to long questgivers tell you a story before pickign up a quest?   Lots of non-eventful travel time?  I am not saying it is good or bad, but it is vastly different from WOW.   Imagine if WOW forced that ´slow scrolling´of quest text...

But honestly.. were you around when AOC and Warhammer were being launched within a few months of each other.. everyone was so sure that it would be the death of WOW.  SWTOR isn´t in beta yet and hasn´t had anything except quick press clips released.  But just after watching one 5 min movie, I know it won´t threaten WOW.  just way too slow of gameplay, way to much RP... just too different from wow where players don´t even want to return to questgivers anymore.  Again, not saying TOR is bad, just different.

I think there are three different areas of the new talent trees

1.  Being unique -   This did not change at all.  You still have roughly the same number of ´wiggle room´ talents as you had before.  In the past, you had more options, but they were mostly very bad options.   I do think the devs failed a bit here because they spent a lot of time and effort on the new trees, it was a golden opportunity to allow more customization.   But while they failed to make things better in this regard, they certainly didn´t make them worse.   B minus

2.  Removing boring, add mastery -   This was a positive.  I think Masteries are overall very good..   It is hard to remember back to Vanilla, but right now, most specs are very different, and yet mostly all viable.  While people will complain about their spec being 5% below some other spec.. this is peanuts compared to vanilla when usually only 1 spec ever was viable.  B plus

3.  New player experience, level 10 -   This area really shines.  Anyone remember the old days playing a spec like feral?  You would put your first 10 to 15 points into the feral tree, but you ended up playing as a balance druid.   Same thing with shaman.   Level 10 is awesome now.. you choose your spec and you start playing like that spec.    You get class defining abilities at lvl 10, and you start immediately getting talents that improve those abilities.  A plus

The biggest disappointment is just with #1.. they really should have gone back through all of the trees and added 5 or so more useful talents that required some real desicion making. 

It is not a bad game to play through leveling the first time now that it is free.  If you are bored, or burned out with your current game, it is something to entertain you for a couple weeks.  If you ever played AOC before, it isn´t worth playing again because nothing really has changed.

Originally posted by Lasterba

People are beginning to discover that Rift has exactly zero depth.  You can rush to max level in 2 weeks then sit around and do nothing...or make an alt and do the exact same quests again for 2 more weeks.

What ever happened to games that couldn't be "beaten" in less than a month??

/sigh

I think your comment goes more to the problem with Rift.   AOC had a similar problem... alts were forced to do the exact same quests, and even though there was some variations in gameplay because of your class.. it still felt very boring doing the same quests in the same zones.

When WOW launched, you could level 6 characters to endgame and not do the same quest twice.   This bought Blizzard a lot of time to really dial-in endgame because even though endgame characters were stagnant for many months after launch, playing new races, and especially new factions gave you a very different feel to the game with completely new zones and quests.

Originally posted by GreenHell

 Because the game takes itself a bit more serious than does some other games. Making a game 'hard' or 'complex' does not make it better than another. EQ EQ2 and VG were not any more difficult than Rift or WOW. Like Rift, they just took themsleves more serious.

Can I have an example of how you think that Rift takes itself more seriously than WoW and how do you think that it is in the same catagory as VG? Rift is far more similar to WoW in just about every way.

Here is a hint.  Every player who plays a game thinks ´that game´ is more mature than other games out there.    I say the same thing about WOW.. I think it is for mature adults because it allows us to jump in, play for 30 minutes and accomplish something significant ( insta-porting to dungeons, relatively fast dungeons etc were all designed to allow older players to play in short amounts of time).    In other games, I have to log in, spam to find a group, wait for the group to get to the dungeon.. and maybe 20-30 minute later actually start the dungeon, which requires an hour to complete...  so if I want to make any progress with my character, I have to have 90 minutes at least to play other games.  In WOW, most dungeons I can be done with in less than 30 minutes from the time I first log in.

If you go on the AOC forums, they will say their game is geared towards ´mature adults´because it uses lots of blood effects and has nudity....

But no matter how you slice it,  almost every person will say their game is  ´more mature´ than other games...

Originally posted by reillan

 

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Originally posted by elocke
You want to talk boring, Dranei starting zone and islands for leveling to 20...ugh, horrible.

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The Tauren starting area is hell on Azeroth

I like the Tauren area the best, just because of the landscape.  The quests are typical of WOW, and I guess one of the reasons it is my favorite rather than the gimmicky goblin starting zone.  Kinda the same as Nagrand.. even though there are a lot of ´kill 20s´.. the landscape make it relaxing to play.

I am not trying to be rude, but you basically described what is ´fun´ for you...  running around mindlessly killing mobs for no prupose but to nearly break the game.  People like different things.  If you don´t like something to begin with, you aren´t going to be i a position to distinguish ´mediocre´ from ´great´.   You have to be interested in storytelling to know when a company does it well.

I like beer.. I can sit back and enjoy the great qualities of a good beer.  I don´t like wine..  I honestly can´t taste the difference between a $10 bottle of wine to a $100 bottle.   Does that give me the right to tell the people who make the $100 wine that their wine isn´t that good?

I think many RPGs are made like porn movies.  The most important part to the developers are the action scenes... and the scripting and acting get just enough attention to make it seem like there is a story.   Bioware builds both parts equally.  They also have people on staff who are good at character development and fleshing out characters.. there are just memorable characters from many of their games because they put the effort into adding emotions to the characters.  I still remember characters and their personalities from BG and NWN1... they felt like real people.

Originally posted by NeVeRLiFt

i always wonder why they never added a dye system or an appearance tab

they already answered this numerous time.

1.  Dye system -   Ever play UO?  While you may like the idea of tinting your gear a bit... the majority of players will destroy any sense of ´style´ to the game.  UO got to the point where when you went into any city it looked like clown vomit.   Green gear from Outlands had a bad reputation of making you look terrible.. take that to extremes and plaster it in every city... that is what the game will look like.

2.  Appearance tab -  There are two issues with this..  The first is, we already have it with the equipment manager.  If you want to look like a fisherman, store that clothing and you are 1 click away from being able to go to your áppearance´ tab.   The second issue is just artistic and realism.  Some players want to ´hide´their armor.  They want all the benefits of their armor, but want to look like a fisherman at the same time.  I am with Blizzard on this one.. Gear recognition is a pvp advantage... what will end up happening is EVERYONE will be forced to look like a fisherman in pvp because it gives them an advantage of hiding their spec.  In PVE.. it just ruins immersion and will be abused.  You really want to run a 5 man with a tank who is wearing a wedding dress? or worse, the guy who is naked.

Originally posted by twodayslate

One of the most obvious signs of a bad game: when there is so little to do in the long run that 10 characters is not enough.

There are 10 different classes and each is pretty unique, there are also a lot of specs within classes that are very unique and fun.  Throw in the fact that there is a single class (druid) that has 4 different playstyles completely and you only get 2 specs.....  I think it says something great about the class designers at WOW that there are probably 25 very different specs that are all viable.  There are very few specs that are so similar that you don´t want to play both.

I have 10 level 85s, each with dual specs.. and there are still a handful of specs that I really want to try..   Fire mage, Demonology warlock and Marks Hunter just to name a few.  It also says a lot about the questing and endgame content of WOW that I want to do it on 10 different characters.

To the OP.. I doubt they will add another character slot if they only add a new race.. but if they do add a new class, they will definitely add another character slot.  I am doubtful they will add another class.. there are a lot of problems with it.  First, it will be hard to add anything unique at this point.  They have 30 specs that cover almost everything possible.  They also will NOT add a class that requires unique gear or stats.  For instance, a monk that requires str on cloth.  Any class that does get added will need to fit into the gear system already in the game.  Finally, they won´t want to add a dps class just because of queue issues.  If they do add another class, it will be a healer.

You can´t say anything in here without the trolls jumping in. ´omg..the whole game is boring´...

Honestly, the first 5 levels of the goblin area is the worst in the game.  I think the reason being is it is just too gimmicky... most of the quests you don´t feel like you are playing a class at all because you rarely use class abilities.   Once you get off the starter island and onto the bigger island, it feels a little better.

Also the ´cannot leave´ thing is pyschologically annoying.  On my first goblin, I would not have left the island until the quests were done anyway... but knowing that I could not leave  rubbed me somehow (same with Worgen).

But really, to me, it was just there were too many gimmicky quests.

It is more fair because the developers can control the number of particpants.   In open world,  the number of players matters more than anything... the side with the most players has a huge advantage.  The devs can also control respawn rates in a battleground and not have it affect questing.  

It is also more fair because it diminishes class balance issues and synergies.    In WOW, when you get down to 3v3 arena games, it is all about class synergies of your team, and to a lesser degree, getting lucky and fighting against a class that is weak against your class.

In battlegrounds, like 10 or 20 man..  There can be a size advantage for one team, but it is only going to be 1 or 2 people, and maybe only for a short time.   There is also likely to be more different classes present.... so that one class that is the bane of your existence probably has to deal with a class that is the bane of his existence.

My guess is 400k -500k.   My evidence?

1.  They have not sold 1M clients yet, so the number must be less than 1M

2.  They have basically closed 40% of their servers.  You have to figure they are being conservative with closing servers, so the number they have left is less than 60% of what they had at launch.

I don´t fault them for doing a lot of free trials and reduced priced sales.. that is smart if they have servers available and no queues.

The thing is, it is NEVER going to get as high as it was at launch.  Everyone who wanted to play the game was able to play the beta, and the game launched during a lul in WOW´s content.   WOW has new content now and SWTOR and GW2 are on the horizon.. there just are not that many people who are going to ´find´ Rift that haven´t found it already.

Originally posted by xKingdomx

I've downloaded the F2P version and played it for a day or two, level'd up to 15, but isn't terribly impressed by the game yet. The game is decent, definitely had a P2P feel to it, but comparing to the reviews I've researched before hand, it doesn't really match up to me.

A lot of reviews, including a few user review on this site, make the tortage starting area seems like wonderfully designed and innovatively engaging. Why the area seems decent, I'm not sure I'm seeing the greateness of this starting area. Can anyone explain to me more detail than saying "Oh tortage is like so good, AoC was so fun up until level 20, then turns back to the generic questing" I just don't get it, Tortage is fine, but its just not that amazing to me?

Tortage is only really great compared to the rest of the game.    It is like eating dirt, then later eating poo and saying ´wow, that dirt wasn´t so bad´.

In all seriousness.  When it was launched, Tortage was actually pretty impressive because of the graphics, voice acting and music.  There was a good flow of questing etc.

The thing is, time has passed it by.  Those features are common in games now and nothing special anymore.  Tortage is still a decent place to quest and level.. but it isn´t above it´s peers like it was 3 years ago.   There is still a very large drop-off in quality once you leave tortage, which is why AOC has floundered all these years.  Once you have done Tortage twice, or 3 times, the fun wears off, and then you are left with the shell of a game post lvl 20.

TLDR ... the reviews are old.

Originally posted by stealthbr

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

 Your example happens to be one of 2 like it in the entire game, the other being in Tangleroot. The Tangleroot one is only done that way because you get extra EXP for not killing things, otherwise there is no reason not to.

 

As a matter of fact some quests that used to be able to be done by a sneaking rogue or other no lethal means had requirements added that took away that option. Turbine decided long ago to remove as many options in a quest as possible.

False. Most quests grant you the option of getting past the vast majority of the monsters. It's not necessarily skipping every single monster, but having the ability to kill only what is necessary for quest objectives gives the dungeons a far different approach. Furthermore, some quests like Let Sleeping Dust Lie and Stealthy Repossession are failed if you kill a certain number of monsters. In most quests, if you are able to skip past monsters, you can definetly save up resources thus making the quest soloable. Indeed, if you take your time to think about all the encounters and all the tools at your disposal, you will learn to tackle the dungeon in various different manners. For that reason, creativity is a key principle in dungeon crawling and killing is never the only option. I would recommend you view some of Ghoste's or Mr. Cow's videos and how they have devised ways in which to solo quests without necessarily killing everything. It seems you have much to learn about the game if you think killing is the only choice.

Yeah, I am finding this out by taking different characters through the same dungeon fairly soon after each other ( I usually do about 5 quests then switch toons).   There are a bunch of dungeons where with my fighter I just went in and bashed every mob I saw.. but found it just to be much easier to stealth past them on my Wiz2Rogue1 character.  I also learned not to bash all the containers right away.

There was one cool dungeon where you could kill the rogues by blowing up explosive barrels next to them if you could stealth close enough to them.