On the one hand you have the Tolkien family that does the books etc.; and on the other you have the Zaentz corporation that is in Hollywood and exploits Tolkien in the same way that any Hollywood company exploits any property they get their hands on  .I think that lately the Zaentz company has been getting too Hollywood and full of themselves and need to be reigned in a bit.

I think the family is right: therev seems to be now 2 parallel kinds of Tolkien product lines: book and movie.I just bought the Tolkien calender which I've been doing since '73 and there were 2: 1 which illustrations from the Hobbit novels and 1 with illustraitions from the Hobbit movie.

One of the things that I've always liked about  LOTRO is that their view of Middle Earth is not the movie version. I hope they stay that wayl.

I think that they're 2 different teams that don't really have anything to do with the other.

The graphics people have a head start tho in  that a company can license a really good graphics engine, while you can't do that if you're in the story/game play department.

When I first saw the commercial for MoP I thought that they were going to introduce the Pandas as a Third Faction and that would be a totally brillliant move that would bring WOW gameplay up to date with all the other more recent games.

When it launched and I discovered that it was the same old Hoard/Alliance nonsense that has been around for 8-9 years I was seriously angry that their own commercial lied to me.

I think MoP was a serious disappointment and a major misstep on Blizzards part. They could have reentered the modern MMO world but they just threw it away.  People say that only Blizzard can defeat WOW and they sure did it this time.

Originally posted by vee41

Originally posted by Thillian

GW2 hardly offers any reasonable exploration.

It is not exploration if you follow a mark on your map for the next Vista or Heart Quest. 

Exploration is if you can walk off-path and discover something that was not already marked on your map before.

The world is too small and too much filled up with mini-attractions and lacks any opportunities for real exploration.

Promoting exploration in games doesn't neccessarily mean that you give a small treasure chest behind every three.

 

While there are markers, there are loads of stuff that is not marked in anyway. Found some good things just by wandering to some place that on map had absolutely nothing interesting going on.

There areall sorts of things that aren't marked on the maps.

Just yesterday I did the dragon's mouth Vista in Lion's Arch and I decided to see what happened if I jumped down the mouth.

First you have to survive the jump,then you find the maze,then you go through 2 invivible walls,then there is the longest jumping puzzle I've found so far-with corridors,spikes coming out of the walls,jumping,climbing,etc.

None of it is on the map.

MesmerCast

For years I looked for a good Lovecrafty MMO that would recognize the way the world really is. Struggling against evil in a world you can't hope to change but you struggel anyway. Nowadays everyone in MMOs are  going on about 'dynamic events' that change the environment permenently-how little those elves know...

Originally posted by ProPatria

Well the starship combat is engaging...if you can get past the concept that in our far flung future massive starships will circle each other endlessly firing from ranges no farther than 10 km's!!!!!

The ground combat is probably the better of the two....and that is not saying a lot.

This is mainly true of the Federation. If you want fun combat get a Klingon Bird of Prey. They are infinitely more manuverable and fun. But most people play Feds and yes, the Federation is pretty boring.

"Ten or so years ago, players weren’t necessarily considering whether or not to play the latest and greatest MMO based on the answer to the now ubiquitous question: “So, what is there to do at level cap?” Maybe some of you were, but the notion of reaching level cap in most MMOs was often far enough way to be achievement enough. Frankly, it often took a while to get there, and the significant trek to level cap in most MMOs kept people hooked for a good while.

In a post-World of Warcraft world, where MMOs often quickly usher their players to the level cap in order to kick off the ‘real game’, the aforementioned endgame question has become paramount. This, combined with the fever pitch level of excitement many gamers are expressing for Guild Wars 2, has left many MMO veterans a bit perplexed. “Wait a minute. There are no raids in Guild Wars 2? No real power to chase? So what do you do at level cap?” they often ask. It’s an understandable question. ArenaNet is shouting (proudly) from the mountaintops their intention to cast off many archaic MMO tropes with Guild Wars 2 and it turns out a traditional endgame is on the chopping block as well."

Finally MMOs are beginning to get away from WOWs shadow.

By perplexed 'MMO veterans' perhaps you mean lazy MMO veterans who never want anything to change from 8 years ago.

Well if they don't understand things they can always go to Pandaland.

Originally posted by Cursedsei

I'd actually have to disagree about the idea of necromancers not fitting in with the Sylvari motiff. As a relatively new race (we are talking probably 25yrs old at the start of GW2) everything is still a rather new experience for them.

 

Death being one of the biggest. Because of how young they are in the world, there has only been a couple of deaths for them. So it would be no surprise for a Sylvari to become a necromancer in order to study and learn about the idea of it, and how it possibly can be used. Besides, its not like Sylvari Necromancers haven't been done before.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Killeen

If you read the Guild Wars 2 book "The Ghosts of Ascalon" the Sylvari character in there : Killeen, was a Necro. A lot of funny stuff and very usful in a place like old Ascalon.

When I first saw pictures of the Sylvari I though "Cool, now I get to be an Ent!" ( and go to Divinity's Reach-their version of Minas Tirith). What Tolkien would call an Olvar.. Calling them Elves minimizes them. Even in LOTRO you can't be an Ent.

I think the Asura are the Elves in this game-although  they are Noldor Elves rather than the usual Sindar/Grey Elves that you always see.

Guild Wars 2 is being released by NC Soft.

NC Soft also publishes Aion whose Anniversary is at the end of September.

NC Soft has no reason to compete with it's own games.

It's nice that you're getting to write again.

This and the last 2 columns are an interesting change of pace from the usual facts/criticism articles that one sees at MMORPG.com.It's sort of like the screenshots section that way.

In closed so I can't but in  3D Vision the whole thing is gorgious.

Has anyone noted DX-11 Tesselation effects? I'm not even sure what that would look like.

I've been using a Chaos/Blood build for a while now-'all magick, all the tim'e It is very versitile. The elements were always there just not a 'deck'.

I don't know about violence but I was watching the press conferences on both TV and the live streams and I thought it pretty funny all the swearing that the TV coverages had to bleep out.

TSW has an Egyptian section.