As a long time UO player (still have all 3 accounts lol) I am looking forward to MO to actually be good enough to make me want to switch. LoTRO did for a while but it was to easy (1 - 60 in a few weeks). I am hoping that MO will be a bit of a challenge. And the PvP! I can't wait to try the PvP! But I will likely wait 3-6 months after launch to let them get things worked out and to see if the game will be around that long. Until then I will be in Fallen Earth.

Originally posted by glofish

it just occured to me that bashing that goes on on these forums are like listening to criticism that Glenn Beck puts out there: absurd, exagerated, populist, manipulative and just flat out dumb.

 

Nothing that NCSoft does could possibly be right - just how glenn beckian is that

 

(for readers outside US, don't ask, you're a happier person not knowing who Glenn Beck is - unless of course you are like him)

LOL! To true. Just do what I do and ignore everyone :) I am glad that someone reads the TOS and takes the time to post about various aspects of it (regardless of the game). I have been MMO'ing since UO/The Realm (do not laugh) and have yet to make it through a TOS :/ Maybe if I had a nice cup of coffee, some popcorn, and more time than it takes to read the bible I would. But until that time please continue to let us know these little quarks!

Thanks to the OP for attempting to do something constructive on here! 

 I would definantly not say that Aion is setting ANY sort of benchmarks in the MMO industry but I will say that it is entertaining for a short amount of time. PvP isn't what the game gives you, it is what you make of it yourself. To the OP: Great job entertaining yourself.. I would have loved to have been there to watch it lol!  :) I remember events such as this happening back in the day playing UO (tamer in a dungeon is still one of my favorite times) and in AC ("Crap he is trying to run.... SHOT HIM! SHOT HIM!) Good times :)

Originally posted by UnSub

Originally posted by HalfEmpty

Btw, are all the authors really as diabolical as their portraits make them look?. Taken together, they look like something out of Batmans' rogue gallery..

Wachter is an experienced community manager, so he knows the importance of making people afraid of you in order to maintain their respect and compliance.

After all, would you annoy the guy in that picture? No, because he looks like he'd show up at 3am knocking at your door, wanting a little 'face time'. ;-)

LOL! I would not in any state of mind think of offending him :)

Excellent article that hits on many valid points. We have all seen the effects of changing the games core play (UO when they split it into Trammel and Felucia... Pretty much killed it for myself, my guildmates, and many many others. Then again with the AoS expansion.) and it is NEVER pretty. WoW had the right idea when they designed it. Dumb down the game to the point even an 80 year old woman could jump on and play with no issues. I do not agree that when Blizzard releases their next MMO that it will hit the same status of WoW. They just released the right kind of game for the masses at a time when there were very few developers in the MMO scene. As for SOE their reputation will haunt them forever. The only thing they have done right is to change Infantry Online back to a free game. I am afraid that even getting rid of the upper management will not be enough to save them. 

Originally posted by Silverwatch

sucks to be so poor you cant afford a spacebar, i feel for ya!

rofl. 

Originally posted by tryklon

 What about the new video.

Capturable mounts, how many games let us capture our own mounts?

Whips, how many MMo's have whip as a weapon? =P

We see houses being built, but also what it seems to be rows of houses, villages we may call it. If the game allows this, how many games allow the building of villages of player houses? SWG did, but the feature was dead for a long time, and it was very unfortunate.

Ultima Online for both those questions. You could tame your own mount. You could build up player cities. If going back to 12 year old technology is innovative and moving the genre forward we have a lot to be worried about. Whips is new but nothing special there. It is just another weapon.

 LOL! Aren't there clauses in the TOS for the games? I know there was one heck of a long one for Xbox LIVE and assume they have the same on PSN. Now I have never taken the time to read them personally but it stands to reason that they have considered this possibility when writing the TOS's. Due to the length of them resembling a Stephen King novel it stands to reason they are covered. 

Now if this man wins.... I will have lost all faith in the legal system (more so than already). Anyone remember when that lady sued McDonalds for not having a "Warning: Coffee is hot" on the side of their coffee cups? We have all seen the most pointless lawsuits be won by the plaintiff.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by Goronian

Originally posted by Teala

What if questions are moot.  It didn't happen that way so there is no sense in talking about it.   It is a waste of time and effort.

It's a good excercis for your gray matter and an interesting point to discuss.

What is moot is going into threads and simply posting, that the thread is moot, thus wasting your time.

 

The answer to the OP is very easy and very frightening.

... Simply there wouldn't be anymore PC games (except free to play browser goodies) since 2006 ...

Blizzard single handedly helped survive the much plagued and pirated software of PC gaming.

You would all be playing on consoles.

Was the massive money making of WOW that important in the history of PC gaming?

YES, it clearly was. No one would invest any further in PC gaming because of its pirated status as of 2005/2006. Forget the intrest in MMO's these days: you would ALL be playing Mario#27 as a fantastic liniair jumping game :)))

And btw UO was a TERRIBLE game as ... a game, so it would NEVER have gottten further than a handful of players anyway so that wouldn't have helped the PC gaming at all.

 

Without WoW we would not have the mass of piles of crap that have been released since that time. Without UO we wouldn't have a MMORPG market besides "The Realm".... Do we really want tons of "The Realm" clones? And to say UO was a terrible game is just poor sense of judgement (then again you think WoW is the best thing since prostitution, credibility lost). Player housing, player towns, interactive Seer quests, GM's that actually do their job, US BASED customer support, player vendors, guilds, Factions (Order vs. Chaos), quick ways to teleport from place to place, PVP, dungeons, NO INSTANCES, OPEN WORLD, sailing, etc.... etc..... etc.... How many other games have this complete of a feature set? And do not forget, UO wasn't designed as a game so much as it was a social experiment to show to possibility of gaming creating communities and drawing them together in an online world.

 Ahh Memories! Now I have to dig out my old disc's (do they even use CD's anymore?!?!) and play it again.

Originally posted by Guillermo197

Would you come back?

No, fancy overhaul doesn't make Aion's problems magically dissapear.

The botters and cheaters aren't going to magically dissapear with a fancy upgrade.

It would have been better if they put all their effort and energy in securing their game client first, so it's not one of the easiest hackable clients as it now is! And so pretty much an open invitation to cheating and botting! Just like all their other games (lineage series) have been and still are!

As long as NCSoft keeps being lazy and relying on crap programs as GameGuard (as NCWest might have been bold removing it, the Asian versions of AION are still using it and continue to use it) there is no hope for this game.

It will continue to be a bot infested korean grinder full of cheating kiddies (WoW's community looks even good in comparison) and a fancy overhaul isn't going to solve all that.

my 2 cents.

That more or less sums up my feelings on ever playing this game again.

 I am liking the looks of it so far!

Originally posted by Ruyn

To the haters, are you upset that you cannot build and ride in a player made ship?  Is your game just a boring instance from which you have completed the easy to hard mode?  Maybe you want more in an MMO than just a glorified carrot on a stick.

lol sure! Whenever I want these things I log into that one game.... been out for 12 years now.... oh... Ultima Online!

 I would have to agree with the above poster. While it looks like it may be interesting the graphics just don't do it for me ;/

Originally posted by MikeB

Originally posted by Cleffy

Probably a hardware reviewer.  No way anyone else would swap out 2-5870s for a 5970.  The 5970 is equivalent to 2-5850's at stock.  If you get one from an OEM with 2 8-pin connectors, then you can overclock it to the equivalent of 2-5870.

 

If you're lucky. From the reviews I've read even though ATi binned the cards for the best boards and put the best components on them the overclocking potential seems to be hit or miss at the moment. I'd rather pay the extra $$$ and have the guaranteed speed of 2x5870s, than save a few and only have the potential for it through overclocking.

It all comes down to the drivers for the OC'ing. Thats why I suggested waiting a couple of months for ATI to flush the drivers out. I had no issues myself when it came to OC'ing this thing. 

AMD's cpu department could learn a lesson from the gfx department when it comes to OC'ing. I was not at all impressed with my ability to OC the Phenom II x4. Had to put it on watercooling to break the 3.9Ghz barrier. 

 I am no hardware reviewer lol. I happened to get one from my company and decided to see what it could do as a true power gamer would. As I said I did see HUGE gains when running it on my HDTV but not so much otherwise. The nice thing is if I decide to I can swap back in my 5870's. The biggest gain comes in when you decide to OC this card. Just look at the FPS gain OC'ed vs. stock (a minimum of +10 fps on max settings, that qualifies as a huge gain for me).

 Thanks to the company I work for I get to see a lot of the new technology on release day. Want to see the new I9's? (Joking about the I9's :) The 5970 blows my 5870's out of the water when playing max settings on a HDTV but is comparable on an average computer monitor. I would LOVE to have gotten my hands on a second one to try them in X config, but I am happy with what I get. Wait for a couple of months for ATI to flush out the drivers and we will see even BIGGER gains in performance.

 So I recently received a new toy to play with... A Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 5970 gfx card! As you might know by now I am a pure max power gamer. This new bad boy blew my mind even with upgrading from the dual 5870's I am running now! Super easy to OC this thing just screams through games on max settings while plugged into my 40" 1080p HDTV. There are a few downsides to it. It is a power hog, but that is to be expected with the abilities this has. It is HUGE! If you have a mid-tower case you will more than likely need to remove your HDD cage depending on where your mobo's PCI-E slots are. It gets HOT if you have poor air circulation but that is to be expected. It idles around 53-58c for me which isn't bad at all. While playing games on max settings it hit 80-82c which is still below the safety threshold. It really all depends on your cooling setup. The biggest downside is the price due to it being new. Expect to pay $650+ for one of these right now but give it a month or two.

For a complete review featuring benchmarks read over this: http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=21179 

Will Nvidia ever catch back up to AMD/ATI? Only time will tell!

 It looks like you should have no problems using that PS :) Doesn't look like a bad price either for it.

Originally posted by Thillian

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

"Overstretched on launch. Fallen Earth is broken in too many places. Wait a while and the ambitious world could become impressive." 55%

"The only thing you can't craft is better combat"

It is all about comparing to a would be Fallout MMO. Whats with that, can't they take a game and review it for what it is instead of comparing the game to another of another genre?

"Combat is real time and, bucking the MMO trend, relies largely on mouse ability rather than stat calculations. It's a refreshing decision, but a clunky game engine renders it frustrating, particularly during server lag. Ranged combat is acceptable, if stilted, but melee battles are weak. Group combat is also hamstrung by this issue, despite a helpful and friendly community."

I am interested to see if F.E players agree about the combat mechanics, I like the look of the game but with others on my plate at the moment I do intend to check out F.E. next year at somepoint.

PS. PC Gamer magazine US pg 81 Holiday edition.

Don't get me wrong I see a really good community for the game it is just as coming from someone who loves to craft and also the real time combat element, is what the review says semi true for the game in combat terms?

Weird, last years, games that recieve below 60% I find enjoyable, and games above 90% I find to be an utter crap.

They don't rate the quality of the game.

They rate the appeal to mass market. If a game will appeal to mass market (their readers/customers) they give it high. They might mention negative things, but they still rate it over 90%.

If a game will not appeal to mass market and try to attract a niche market, they will give it 50-60%. They are not really reviews, they are just predictions how well did they do in the general public.

They have nothing to do with movie critics, these usually do that the other way around.

I have to agree with this post. I personally do enjoy the game and they were right about the combat. I don't have any issues running it whatsoever on my gaming rig (see sig.... I shouldn't have an issue playing ANY game on it) and was able to play it (albeit roughly) on my laptop (dual core 2ghz, 4 gigs gaming ram, fast hdd, oc'ed onboard gfx card). 

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by illanadan

 Simple. Don't "force" me to do either. I will play the game as I want to play it. What is the big fuss about? I hate raiding so I don't raid. I hate being penalized by being unable to get the "leet" gear that comes from raids, but I suck it up and keep on Solo'ing. At the same time those that are "groupers" are doing what they enjoy. As I see it everyone wins. Some people just won't be happy unless everything is their way and this is simply human nature. Learn to accept it or get out of the MMO Genre. Dev's will NEVER be able to make everyone happy, thats just a fact of MMO's.

 

Which one is it?

First you state people can do what they want, then you state Devs can't make everyone happy.

Can Devs make everyone happy, or can everyone do what they want?

Obviously if you want a game that encourages grouping, solo players won't be happy. If you want a game that encourages solo play, groupers wont' be happy.

if you think you have a design that encourages people to group and solo at the same time, I'd certainly like to hear it.

Both of course. Do you listen to yourself? People CAN do what they want. If they want to raid, raid. If they want to group, group. If they want to Solo, solo. Get the drift? The dev's making everyone happy has nothing to do with the players playing how they want to play. If the player isn't happy with the game then they have the choice of going to a game where they are. Once again it is what the player wants. As for the last sentence, did you not read where I said Dev's CAN NOT make everyone happy? It is simple human nature.