Originally posted by WSIMike

Originally posted by Clocksimus

I've played the top 3 games on the least and couldn't be more upset with WoW winning. WoW is still  WoW and if you didn't like it before cata odds are you will still not like it now.  The award is for the most improved MMO, not for the MMO that has undergone the most  noticable changes.  I was subbed into cata for 2 months and will no longer resub back to WoW as the game really is exactly the same as it was before, just for  a lack of a better word, 'reskinned'.

 

AoC which was horrible to start out and EVE, an MMO that seems to be always taking the right steps forward....  These games should have been the two up for the title of most improved. 

What are "just changes" to you, are indeed improvements to others.

Having been giving WoW another go with the expansion myself, i have to say the game has - in my opinion - definitely improved. I'm typically very hard to impress when it comes to WoW and have had a very "meh" overall opinion of it. However, with this expansion, Blizzard has seriously made a lot of improvements and I'm seriously impressed.

The use of more in-game cinematics and introduction of more actual lore to the proceedings is an improvement to me. The Warcraft series has always had great lore, that's always been rather "absent" from the game in my opinion. It's nice to see them bringing it more into the gameplay.

The re-designed areas and the increased detail that has gone into them is definitely an improvement over the old ones. I only barely recognize most of Darkshore anymore the place is so ravaged.

The addition of flying in Azeroth opens up new possibilities to exploration and questing... also an improvement (not to mention ability to get around more quickly :-p). It's an improvement to travel, to accessibility of areas, to avoiding unnecessary aggro on the ground, etc.

The use of phasing in the lower level quests, along with various other activities that were typically only available in the higher end game is an improvement. I mean FFS, a huge chunk of shoreline sinks into the ocean during a quest line in the Worgen starting area. You enter a house, and the shoreline is a few hundred feet away. You feel an earthquake while you're in the house, run out and the damn shoreline has advanced inland to a couple yards outside the door. An entire chunk of land is swallowed up by the ocean.. while you're playing. Boats were destroyed and sunken. Bodies are floating in the water. No loading screens. No delays. It happens dynamically, in-game, in real time. I'd say dynamic environments are certainly an improvement over static ones. I know there's a similar event in Redridge Mountains where you blast away an entire area of land there too, so it's not just a one-off gimmick.

The detail of the texture art in the environments has been noticeably improved.

Old areas have had new locales opened up. Familiar NPCs who used to just stand around are more interactive, helping you out in some quests, etc.

Addition of the game's new water (which is fantastic), god rays and volumetric clouds in some areas (particularly Uldum and Twighilght Highlands) are definitely improvements in the visuals/atmosphere category.

Barrens has been wrecked... definite improvement there (okay that's more a personal thing than anything :-p).

It's typically been very difficult to impress me when it comes to do with WoW. However, with Cataclysm, I have to say I'm seriously impressed. I honestly don't know how anyone could say - with any degree of honesty - that there have been no improvements to this game. I just listed off a handful above, and I could list of several more areas the game has improved.

I personally have a difficult time believing that anyone who's given the game a fair review can come away and honestly say it hasn't improved.. but merely "changed a lot".

But that's just my opinion, of course.

Very well put WSIMike.

Even though it was introduced in a limited form with WotLK, I would have to say that the expanded and improved use of the dynamic phasing system is one of my favorite things that Blizzard did with Cataclysm.

Another plus for me was Blizzard reworking the Talent Spec system. Not by expanding and adding more bloat to it, but by trimming it down and stripping out most, if not all of the redundant and useless talents. Sure, there will be those that want to p&m about <insert class here> being nerfed, but it is a great improvement IMO.

Besides that, Goblins are just plain fun!!!

"Anything Can Happen"

Since Farmville wasn't on the list I had to go with EVE Online.

Thanks for including all the active games currently registered at this site on the ballot. By including all the games that are currently registered here on this site maybe we won't have to wade through the "Where's the NOTA option"...

Originally posted by Garvon3

Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by Garvon3

Innovation implies building upon something, doing something different, taking something in an unexplored direction, bringing new features and gameplay. WoW did none of these.

 

It directly copied the gameplay mechanics and general setup of EverQuest, but made leveling up faster and made the game focus more on the solo player experience (something other MMOs had already done). The reason WoW gets copied is because it makes the most money. The reason it makes the most money is because it's the easiest and had the largest initial budget for an advertisement campaign.

There, your "contradiction" is explained.

So in other words, wow copied everything from other games and did nothing original, but because wow makes a lot of money it is the reason everyone else is copying the same exact concepts from games that were already in place before wow existed and that is the fault of wow. 

Again I submit to you, how can a game be both the chicken and the egg.  

 

 

 

I didn't say it was "the fault of WoW", I said it was essentially responsible.

While all those features existd in the massively successful EverQuest, it didn't break out into the mainstream mainstream until WoW. Reason being, EQ didn't have the marketing power to reach out to the FPS junkies, housewives, bored 12 year olds, and spike tv watchers of the world. WoW DID have that massive marketing budget, and aimed directly at those people.

I'd compare it to the Wii reaching out to millions of non gamers, but at least the Wii did that in an insanely innovative way, motion control. Nothing WoW had was unique, but since it was the FIRST many people heard of, they associated those features with WoW alone. And so, while EQ was, at the time, the most profitable MMORPG, it wasn't so high above its competition that everyone was copying it. WoW on the other hand, grew so large that it is the only game big wigs ever see when they look to the market to see what sort of game to invest in.

Now slow down there hoss. SOE didn't have the marketing power? Seriously?

GM controlled monsters attacking towns? Twas done in UO like what, 10+ years ago? 500 person battles? How is that innovative when Tasos was touting 2k person battles over a year ago? Seamless and no instances? Again, done umpteen years ago by UO. Total revamp of the Darkfall world? Are you sure it wasn't just updating the world graphics and a whole bunch of fixing/finishing of existing content?

If Darkfall would actually make the alignment system and city walls mean something and not be so easily circumvented, THAT would be innovative. 

I had to go with WoW because it is just a wee bit more than just a quest zone revamp. If you were to actually try it, you would see that.

Originally posted by Phelcher

Originally posted by hasaosan

sorry my post gat mixed in with the quote just look at the bottem

 

start with nice we have a troll :D

 

and fyi i was the biggist troll on MO so i can surly say we can smell our own :D

 

 

Sorry,

Your post^  is based on imaginary thoughts you have about me & not the facts. Again... (for those who are unable to read, or reserach their facts), I've been beta testing & playing Mortal Online for over a year now & my insight and warnings about Mortal Online, stem from my 29 years of computer gaming & 14 years of on-line gaming.

Your a self admitted troll...   (ie: meaningless...)

 

 

 

Sorry Phelcher, but the original post was an entertainment piece based on the authors adventures while using some imagination. What it was not, was a review piece on the game as a whole or it's mechanics(or lack thereof).

Regardless, your unsolicited views on the mechanics of M.O. and self rightuous back-patting is what it is.

The intentional hi-jacking of this thread to push your agenda is by definition trolling.

Again, es lo que es.

Great read, even though your references to Charles Bronson and Michael Palin was lost on a majority of your readers.

What's amazing is that there are those that ignore the fact that this article is for entertainment purposes only and not a sounding board for their personal agendas regarding M.O..

I will be looking forward to your next offering, regardless of game.

Originally posted by DarthRaiden

Do you like to be part and live on Agon ? Do you like to make experience on Agon alone or with friends ? 

There is your reason...

No one will tell you, "oh today you have to do this and to do that ..."...This is a sign of themepark quest driven games..

Its you that is responsible for the reason behind what you will do in your gaming session ...and this is a sign for a sandbox environment..

If you can answer both initial questions of my post with 'yes'  you have a sufficient reason..

Don't make it sound like its the games fault for when you just dislike it..

I have to ask why try to turn the the concerns that the o.p. brought up into a "Themepark vs. Sandbox" argument? 

Darkfall is no different than any other game. While there isn't a robust questing system in place, a player still HAS to do certain things in order to accomplish certain things. So yes, you are forced in the broader sense.

Heck, I don't HAVE to do anything in any game. Whether it be Darkfall, WoW, LotRO, Warhammer, Vanguard, etc...

As I stated in my  previous post, there is always room for improvement in Darkfall. This is supported by the simple fact that there is a development team whose sole purpose is to fix and improve the game.

"Don't make it sound like its the games fault for when you just dislike it.."

So you are saying that Darkfall is perfect and beyond reproach? I don't even think Mr. Tasos would share in that sentiment.

Originally posted by krunkenmonk

Could it be what is missing most is a feature not-so-much unlike what WarHammer offers in the form of battles for control of areas? by this i mean that imho the hugest thing DarkFAll is lacking is A REASON for doing something.

dont get me wrong, i love the game and you've hit it on the head when you said if you like darkfall there is NOTHING else

but some form of a global power struggle would do it for me i think.

It isn't so much as what is missing but that there are so many items that need some attention, as you eluded to in the o.p..

"DarkFAll is lacking is A REASON for doing something" - Exactly. Tack on "or makes no sense" and you have a pretty good picture of some of the issues Darkfall still has after nearly 2 years being on the market.

Darkfall has been stated as to "Have a lot of potential". The problem is that it has been the case since launch. There are a lot of (ex)players that wish for Darkfall to be better than it is, and there is nothing wrong with that.
 

As far as "if you like Darkfall there is NOTHING else"? I have to disagree.

Just replace the word "Darkfall" in that phrase with pretty much anything else and you'll see what I mean.

I don't subscribe to the "Darkfall>All the Rest" ideology.

Originally posted by lunatis

Some people say that it's very bizzare to play as another sex in an online game, do you think it's simply fun and for the look, do people take this too seriously, or is it linked to an identity problem?

 Oh RLY?   "Some people" as in people you know IRL, virtually, have only read, demographic, etc... ?

  Honestly I don't think about it until I run across threads like this one, then I may recall it briefly in-game once or twice. But it is    definately not something I dwell on in-game, or outside of my game time with the exception of these all to frequent threads.   

  I would have to say yes. I would also say the people that take it too seriously are the same "Some people" in your opening statement.

 Odds are that there are those that play (MMO)RPG's that do have an identity "problem". I wouldn't bet against it.

Personally, I can't remember the last time I caught myself "staring" at my characters "backside" while playing any game, but if I do I certainly don't have any thoughts of "OMG That's !!!"

So when I read the, " I would rather stare at a "backside" while playing" excuse, I have to laugh and question why anyone would actually be looking at their avatar that intensely for it to actually be an issue.

Now THAT I find to be bizarre.

Now, with all that being said, I have played both genders where multiple characters are allowed. I based my decisions off of what most people would consider to be RP'ing.

Example:

 U.O. 1997 - My first character was a Male Warrior. I pictured a Warrior as being male (picture Arnold in Conan) and being that I am male IRL, it fit nicely. Now, my second character was going to be my dedicated Tailor and yes, that character was Female. Why? It is what I pictured when I thought of a tailor IRL. So for me, it fit within the context of the game and character role.

Now if someone finds my example to be bizarre, simply fun and games, or an identity problem, I really don't care to try and change their perception on the matter.

Now, I also had a cross-dressing male character in U.O., dressed in all the latest neon fashions.

Why? Because I could.

Thankyou for yet another good read. I thoroughly enjoy your "style".

I am just curious as to "who's who" in your CLIO results. (I am guessing that the PC161 is the black)

Also this:

"Skype Certified"  -  I am pretty sure that two Dixie Cups + piece of string = Skype Certified.

But seriously. I find the "on-ear" PC161's to actually be more comfortable than my "over-ear" FATAL1TY MKII's, not to mention being much more "wife freindly" as was mentioned in another post.

Originally posted by -Zeno-

Originally posted by UbberGoober

I think they're a Defense contractor. It seems that way, they were listed as one of the Companies that attended the2006 exhibition in Athens Greece on Conventional Systems for National Defense on Land Sea and Air.

Here's the website.

[url]http://defendoryinternational.gr/home.htm[/url]

 

And here are the companies that are listed Aventurine S.A is one of them

[url]http://defendoryinternational.gr/list_2006.htm[/url]

 

Here's a small snipet of the companies listed.

 

ASTRA (SES ASTRA S.A.)	LUXEMBOURG
ATK	U.S.A.
ATLAS ELEKTRONIK GmbH	GERMANY
AVENTURINE S.A.    <-----------------DF Developers.	GREECE
AVIATION INDUSTRIES ORGANIZATION (AIO)	IRAN
AVIATION WEEK	U.S.A.
AXON ENGINEERING	GREECE
AXON S.A.	GREECE
BAE SYSTEMS	UNITED KINGDOM
BAE SYSTEMS (International) Ltd.	GREECE

 

 

What do you guys think? WHy would a Defense Contractor be involved in a MMORPG? I wonder who's backing them financially.

Old news.  They did defense contracts to help fund Darkfall.  I forgot where I saw this but it was known well before Darkfall even went into beta.

 It is old news. But Darkfall was funded with grants from both the EU and the Greek government. It is also my guess that since the upper management of Aventurine are of Middle-Eastern heritage that oil and write-offs play a part in it also.

Originally posted by RougeReaper

I started playing world of warcraft and I was wondering if I should play as a death knight, they start on lvl 55. Any good or bad things about this class?

Just in case you didn't know. You will need to run a character up to level 40 to unlock the DK class. So you will have plenty of time to study up on the Death Knight.

Now as far as good or bad things about DK's? Just 3 words for you...

"GET OVER HERE!!!"

Originally posted by Ozmodan

They are finally coming to the realization that you cannot have a wide open pvp game and expect it to hold a decent audience.

It is a nice thought that players will police themselves, but in actuality it never works. 

While they have improved the game, the wide open pvp still remains with few consequences, this will never attract much of an audience in the game's current design.  Of course the hardcore will scream if they change it, just like they did when Ultima added a non pvp image, yet EA found an increased audience by doing so.  Not saying they need to go as far as EA did, but they do need to address consequences to attract more players.

I'll have to agree with Ozmodan, even though I still log in a couple times a week. What is amazing is that Aventurine has done very little to make the Reputation system actually be more than a minor annoyance. That is one of the biggest reasons that I will not resub when the time comes. That and being able to use a simple spell to circumvent city walls. It makes little sense.


As far as players policing themselves? It was proven ten years ago and a few times since, that it doesnt work. Raph Koster wrote a nice piece on just that subject.

Enforcing social mores online, or policing the virtual world 


Someone else mentioned the adage about first impressions, and I will have to agree. Tasos has stretched the truth for many years, and hyped Darkfall to a point that far exceeded its capabilities. I am not going to bother with giving examples of this, there are plenty of posts in the Darkfall forum if anyone is interested. Just look at his reaction to Ed Zitron's(Eurogamer) review  of Darkfall. Tasos taking his little temper tantrum puclic was completely un-proffessional and damning to Aventurine's reputatuion as a serious Publisher/Developer.


So they want to finally inhance player/dev communication? I find that to be laughable. Again, Aventurine has had 8 years to develop their communication with its fanbase, and they are just now figuring out that paying attention is crucial to keeping them happy? I just wonder if they are going to actually start policing their forums, and do away with the FFA aspect that I am sure keeps many interested players from even giving Darkfall a try. They can start by getting rid of Brannoc. That's all I have to say about that.

 

Originally posted by Realbigdeal

Originally posted by nileq

I have a family, and very limited playtime. But I have found a very nice clan that accept that I just log on when I happen to have time, and not demand that I do this or that.

 

You can play DF very casually if you want to.

So thats mean you serve as a water boy in your clan? Good job.(I mean good job for real like a work that you finally found)

What im trying to say is, the reason why we hate DF is because its a fake sandbox game. You cant do what ever you want and you cant take part in the politic if you didnt do your PVE work 1st. UO back then didnt had grind so it was a real sandbox.

"UO back then didnt had grind so it was a real sandbox."

I must disagree with this part. UO has always had a grind factor. I would point towards Magic Resist, Taming, Poisoning, Stealing, and Stealth when it was introduced. Heck, pretty much everything had a grind factor to it. I spent plenty of nights running back and forth through fire-fields and fighting blade spirits. But those were easy compared to Taming.  Just sayin'...

I feel the difference is that UO had many more options to choose from, not to mention having the ability to have alts.

The way Darkfall is now is that there really isn't anything in between newbness and not-newbness (Vets, bah!! Games barely a year old!) , that keeps the feeling of "The Grind™" to a minimum. Sure, you'll have those that don't mind the way things are and just see "The Grind™" as just being a part of the game. But I would have to say that the majority of gamers these days don't have the same sentiments.

Maybe Aventurine can fill in most of the gaps soon enough to keep the doors open long enough so that Darkfall is a little more fleshed out. Dunno, we'll see.

 "Taking out the long term progression or "grind" would kill DF"

I don't feel that taking out the "grind" as it is now, would hurt Darkfall any more than leaving it as is.

Aventurine should reduce the "grind" a bit more, and put either a hard-cap(preferred) or soft-cap(still works for me) for skills.

Couple that with giving you "x" amount of skill points to distribute as you see fit at character creation, and the ability to control what skills lock/raise/lower.

Hmmm, seems like I have seen this setup elsewhere...

I just don't see the "whining" going away until the "gap" between new and older players is a little less painfull.

Originally posted by Vinterkrig

..... and where did this silly pie come from ?

Michel Delving

I thought everyone knew that.

Unfortunately, these pies are probably a little more accurate than one would think. IMO

I would like to see Aventurine lower the price point of Darkfall with the next major "expansion". throw a little advertising out there while they are at it.

4. Doctor (SWG) - What can I say, noting like setting up at your favorite space port to sell the best buffs on the server.

5. Commando (SWG) - As mentioned by others, Commando was a fire spitting, grenade chunkin death machine.

Bonus Class: Defiler (EQ2) - I ran with a Shadownight, Warlock and a Necromancer, was a match made in Hell.

Oh, and for clarification, the UO and SWG were the "Pre-*" versions.

I would say throw the team that worked on Earth & Beyond (Westwood Studios) with original SWG team. 

Raph Koster would be in charge of the bridge, with Rich Vogel as his number one.

Then throw Derek Smart in there just for chits & giggles.

Besides the obvious 2 (EQ2 and AoC) I would say Vanguard, which was mentioned also. Vanguard looks really nice when the graphics are cranked up, really nice.

Edit: And yes, LotRO is quite nice also.

The 260 is plenty, and NVidia seems to have fewer issues anyway. Main thing with Darkfall is having plenty of CPU power and ram, considering that Darkfall relies much more on the CPU than the GPU for running the game.

And of course, maintaining a clean machine can only help things along.

Make sure to turn post-processing off also, makes a world of difference.

P&P DnD in the early 1980s.

First PC game was Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord by Sir-Tech, blazing along on my Turbo 8088!! 

Followed by the complete Wizardry series. Also played all the "Quest" series games by Sierra Online during the same time period (Kings, Space, Police, Gabriel Knight, etc...). Played UO from launch until 10th anniversary, along with stays in most all other mmos that have ever existed.