The Next Big MMO?

Huntn said:

Thanks for the report!

It really sounds like a MMO is a MMO, but I'm currently on the jaded side. I'm probably repeating myself, but I've come to realize that when a MMO becomes too much work, and that everything you achieve exists only as long as the game lasts, that it is not in my best interests to work to hard too hard in a game. I absolutely love the environments that WoW has created. It is breath taking flying over amazing landscapes watching the critters and other players doing their thing. But I've reached a point, as I did 2 years ago, that I realize the world is terribly shallow. I start yearning for a world with more depth. Who know when such an artificial world will be created? But if someone was to do it, would not surprise me if it was Blizzard. I'll try to stop whining now.

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I think WoW has realized they need to add some more drastic changes if they want to keep the subscriber base rolling in. So in the Cataclysm expansion next year, they are revamping the entire world via some “geological event” in hopes to bring back a lot of repeat subscribers I suppose. And you can fly everywhere. They said they were going to up the graphics engine as well to meet advancement of hardware. Perhaps they are going to do what EVE did with a "premium client" option where it has DX10 graphics and such? Dunno.

OTOY is a cloud graphics engine effort to bring a realistic world to MMOing. You can see some clips in Youtube. Their model revolves around streaming HD video to you while computing all the graphics on their end. They are also computing more realistic physics.

Star Wars seems like a super carebear game to me so far. I suppose if that’s the case it would have a pretty good appeal to saga lovers and RPers but it doesn’t look like they are putting a lot of effort into PVP aspects of it. It has a KOTOR like combat system but I’m not sure how that will play into end-game “raiding” since that type of play seems to drive a lot of other MMOs. And what's disappointing is that their web site sucks. You'd think that a "game designer" at this level would have a much better web page to spread propaganda at least. But it's pretty B-rated.

Mackilroy said:

1. It's more of a learning cliff...

2. It's not brutal, but it isn't forgiving like WoW. Besides, if you're a part of a corp they'll usually have some sort of policy worked out to replace whatever you lose in battles, though that's only in 0.0 space, not in Empire.

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Losing all of your quest rewards every single time you die is pretty much the definition of Brutal.

Unless, you're thinking in Hardcore terms like Diablo where you die, and you lose the toon.

rasmasyean said:

And here's what happens when you can't take a learning cliff...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns9oAGnK9CU

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Is this slideshow supposed to be funny or interesting in some way? I got about 3 minutes in, and >yawn<.

We've all heard people QQ about being PvP'd, especially when they're a lowbie getting picked on by a veteran player. And then the vetran will spend a bunch of time gloating about how they blasted that lowbie, hoping they "got'um good 'nuff" that they'll never come back to the game. Who's really the loser, here?

A guy who has no idea how to play the game getting beat on by a seasoned player and getting ticked off about it, or the seasoned player who needs a gang of hardcore, suburban-living e-thugs to back up his fragile little ego?

I know that may come off as a little Carebear and Emo, but I'm surprised people pay to have to deal with that kind of highschool crap.

Rampant.A.I. said:

Losing all of your quest rewards every single time you die is pretty much the definition of Brutal.

Unless, you're thinking in Hardcore terms like Diablo where you die, and you lose the toon.

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Nah, it isn’t exactly as you describe it. It’s more akin to loosing vendor items.
For the most part, you can replace everything you lost via use of currency. You just have to make sure you don’t lose what you can’t afford to replace so you don’t get set back too far.

The exception is if you use and lose really rare valuable items that aren’t really easy to come across. In this case you just have to be extra careful about the situations in which you use them in. And as long as you have the currency, you can still find someone who might be willing to sell it to you.

You can think of everything you use as a consumable. And even some single use items costs more than some ships.

The Star Trek Online Beta started yesterday.

Huntn said:

I appreciate the perspective! These days, "end game" is sounding more and more like a dirty word.

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Well, speaking of “end-game” and EVE…

Some people consider end-game as fighting and doing things in “contested zones” so to speak. If you get into a corp early on, you can basically jump directly into this activity without doing any “quests” at all. Other than the training ones that is (which is recommended since it’s not obvious how to play). There are always roles for lowbies flying lowbie ships (which are the most expendable) so many corps would gladly provide them for free and be glad to have an extra hand. You can even participate in advance stuff like seiging a station to a certain extent.

And as you are doing these activities, you don’t really have to worry about XP because there is none. Advancement and skilling is based on time (which can be augmented by in game items but that’s not necessary). So you can theoretically not even play at all other than character maintenance and be able to fly big ships later on. How you get the money for it is another story… Incidentally, you can buy it legitimately by RL purchasing Game Time Codes and trading it for in-game currency in the forums. Such a scam from CCP…lol But I’m sure they make a killing from this mechanic.

A cooler mechanic of EVE is that if you earn enough ingame money (ISK), you can actually buy timecodes with it...thus never having to pay monthly fees. A pretty sweet deal. I've got a friend whose been playing for about a year and a half and never paid a cent past buying the initial timecard to activate his account.

Ah, Eve... I remember the "good ol' days" (back when Titans were first introduced and none had yet been fully built) when we didn't have a "warp to within 0m" option in our context menu, or a "dock" button that warped you to a station and docked for you automatically. We used to have to do that s*** MANUALLY. UPHILL. BOTH WAYS. THROUGH 10 FT OF SNOW. The learning curve back then was Mt. Everest only covered in slick ice instead of snow. And the tutorial was seriously 6 hours long. I'm not even joking. Now? The tutorial and beginner missions combined take no more than an hour or two. And there's a new Epic Story Arc to help new players gain some steam and experience and make some money after the tutorials so they don't have to go begging for handouts to get anywhere rather than actually work for their Kredits.

World of Starcraft

(that would be pretty flipping sweet!)

waffle911 said:

Ah, Eve... I remember the "good ol' days" (back when Titans were first introduced and none had yet been fully built) when we didn't have a "warp to within 0m" option in our context menu, or a "dock" button that warped you to a station and docked for you automatically. We used to have to do that s*** MANUALLY. UPHILL. BOTH WAYS. THROUGH 10 FT OF SNOW. The learning curve back then was Mt. Everest only covered in slick ice instead of snow. And the tutorial was seriously 6 hours long. I'm not even joking. Now? The tutorial and beginner missions combined take no more than an hour or two. And there's a new Epic Story Arc to help new players gain some steam and experience and make some money after the tutorials so they don't have to go begging for handouts to get anywhere rather than actually work for their Kredits.

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Haha, I do remember joining the game and reading some old hint “bookmark a point X km past gate in direction of approach for your next warp you wind up near the gate…” and I was like …WTF is this strat supposed to do?

But even when I first played, after doing the tutorial, I still barely had any clue what to do next. Lol Its like these guys had no idea how to write acclamation training gameplay.

Even as they automate the tedious parts of the game a bit more, they did add a lot more things into the game to complicate your equipment choices and play style a bit more than before. So I’d say it’s still a learning cliff. And since there aren’t any “classes” in EVE and you can basically play any imaginable “class” (given enough subscription time), there are just WAY to many choices and decisions to make with added items.

Fly this ship setup as a tank.
Fly this one for a light-tank / buffer.
Fly this one for a back-up healer / minor-debuffer / DPS / blah.
Fly this one as a custom plz pwm me magnet… (my favorite! )

Is nobody else interested in Final Fantasy XIV? Admittedly, I've only ever played Everquest and WoW and never played Final Fantasy XI (so I don't understand the hate for that one) but the TGS trailer looked cool to me.

The Bioware Star Wars one looks cool but I'm not that big on the Star Wars universe.

Now a Harry Potter MMO is just screaming to be made IMO. Can you imagine getting sorted into a house based on a personality quiz your first year and then progressing in skills and alignment through quests/adventure/classes at Hogwarts until adulthood where you would be either part of the Order of the Phoenix, Death Eaters, or neutral in the end game... Being Slytherin wouldn't necessarily make you evil just more self serving and ambitious...

Rampant.A.I. said:

Losing all of your quest rewards every single time you die is pretty much the definition of Brutal.

Unless, you're thinking in Hardcore terms like Diablo where you die, and you lose the toon.

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It's not as bad a death penalty in EVE as it might sound. Most of your items will be kept in station cargo bays, so you definitely won't lose everything you have upon your ship getting destroyed. If your ship is lost to an NPC, chances are you can go out in another ship with a group of friends to kill off the NPC and then loot your own ship. This allows you to recover much of the contents of your ship. If you are "podded" by another player (that is, the capsule you eject in is also destroyed--something NPCs can't do) you will clone to a station. This causes you to lose any implants you had, and it is possible to lose trained skillpoints if you didn't have a clone of an appropriate level.

Essentially, if you keep your clone up to date with your skillpoints and your ships insured, you're not going to lose much upon death in EVE.

Tralmek said:

It's not as bad a death penalty in EVE as it might sound. Most of your items will be kept in station cargo bays, so you definitely won't lose everything you have upon your ship getting destroyed. If your ship is lost to an NPC, chances are you can go out in another ship with a group of friends to kill off the NPC and then loot your own ship. This allows you to recover much of the contents of your ship. If you are "podded" by another player (that is, the capsule you eject in is also destroyed--something NPCs can't do) you will clone to a station. This causes you to lose any implants you had, and it is possible to lose trained skillpoints if you didn't have a clone of an appropriate level.

Essentially, if you keep your clone up to date with your skillpoints and your ships insured, you're not going to lose much upon death in EVE.

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However, the exception is when you sport “rare” items where you will not be able to insure the total “market” cost of replacing it.

But theoretically, you can equip “sufficiently” and lose very little upon death such that you can sustain continuous play in the same level ship with little income. If you want a bit more power (in the same level ship), then you risk losing more…which actually sort of balances the game in such a way that super veterans have ever smaller advantages and if they choose to use those super veteran equipment, they will be set back much further than a noob loosing noob assets.

But the real advantage of being a veteran (other than player skill…ummm...theoretically hehe) is that you would have cross-trained. To make an analogy, you would be able to play a warrior or mage or priest or rogue, etc. (and even merchant) depending on which ships and items you can equip. Or even hybrids. Some will work situationally, some will be retarded anytime/anywhere.

Ultimately, the game is not really about the items you have. It’s about the money you have and can make. No one really “inspects” each other to see what elite gear you are wearing. There was actually a corp I was in that sold ships so cheap that blowing it up was a small profit when getting the insurance. I mean, not to the point where one would do that as an income strategy, but as you can imagine, it becomes your choice in other equipment you will lose. But then when you are “grinding” you get so much usable items and money that you can start trading for others as well as buy other ships from the corp or players.

Oh, and if you want a 21-day trial, you can PM me your email.

rasmasyean said:

Ultimately, the game is not really about the items you have. It’s about the money you have and can make.

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Very true.

A little bit off-topic, but bioware has released Dragon Age (RPG). It looks pretty decent so if you like Bioware, the makers of KOTOR, maybe you might like this in the interrim until TOR.

And here's a pretty decent site that seems to have good functional structure imo. It says it's a Free mmo site, but it lists all sorts of mmos.
http://www.onrpg.com/

The next big thing is defenetly going to be Guild Wars 2.
I really really can't wait!

Huntn said:

mousouchop on Aion:


What do you primarily do in WoW's end game? And from a game-play standpoint, why don't you have a been there done that feeling in Aion?
Thanks!

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Well, in endgame WoW:BC, I raided pretty heavily. Did many 20 man raids... I quit the game for a year before/around the time LK came out, and just picked it up again a few months back. I just got a new main toon to 80, but haven't been in any raids in LK yet. I haven't played in over a month due to heavy school work.

Aion's single player has a very familiar feeling. I cannot attest to the group dynamics though as I have never done more than solo in the game. I honestly am no expert on Aion as I have barely played, you may get a better opinion of it from someone who has done more than just getting their toes wet. haha.

Blizzard's next MMO as long as it is scifi

Huntn said:

Last I heard that is going to have a monthly subscription. I'll tell you what I did not like about the original GWs as far as MMOs go- invisible walls, no jumping, no accidental falling to your death, and 100% instanced questing space.

My impression is that it could be pretty good if you had dedicated parties, people you partied with on a regular basis. For a comparison, in WoW, 30% of the time I would meet people out in the wilds by chance and group with them on the fly as necessity dictated. Could not do that in GW. I wonder if any of that will change with GW2?

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Probably going to be the first "real" MMO I will join. Real as in like on-par to Eve Online, WoW, etc.