Recent content by Dymus_foh

And thank you for proving mine... March 5, 2008 ? 38 Studios today announced the company has entered into an agreement with Epic Games to license Unreal Engine 3 to power its upcoming massively multiplayer online game (MMOG). So by your 2 year estimate that seems about on schedule to me...

I"m going to call you on this one Ut. Ultima Online: Announced Early 1995 - Released Sept. 1997 EverQuest: Announced Mar. 1996 - Released Mar. 1999 EverQuest 2: Announced Mar. 2001 - Released Nov. 2004 Star Wars Galaxies: Announced Mar. 2000 - Released June 2003 World of Warcraft...

Pessimism about games is the safe bet, it"s like checking in a game of poker. Everyone has been a fanboy and been burned by going all in at some point or another.

The goal I can completely agree with, there are no arguments from this end. The particular route might differ but the intended destination is the same. Thanks for humoring me the last few pages. As always, some very cynical, opinionated, but insightful people around here.

I"ll ignore subjobs because the complexity there is a bit much. Zehn put this nicely a few pages back. I"ll ignore realism arguments on both sides of the coin, because we"re talking about a game, not a sim and I typically only care about internal game consistency, not so much about realism...

Let me flip this around a bit then. The benefits to the final fantasy job system are good for their game. But since there is a tradeoff for everything what did they give up? What was made weaker or what was missing because this was included? How is this any better than having multiple...

Part of why I value my anonymity as you mentioned earlier is that when I"m posting here I"m generally speaking of my personal preferences and experiences. I like my opinions to be taken as they are: Opinions, nothing more, nothing less. I"m not often talking about what Copernicus is or what is...

Generated content is any means in which you relinquish control over placement, layout, and/or aesthetics to the game systems. Star Wars Galaxies, City of Heroes, and Matrix Online all used this. There are times where it is okay, but overall, hand crafted content is often better but also far more...

Okay, I"ll bite... I"m quite literal and thus a generation is defined by an iteration and building upon the best of what came before. Since MMO"s take roughly 5-6 years from inception to completion let"s use that with the overlap. Given that, I"d say we"re in the midst of generation 2 and...

I wouldn"t assume anything about the timeline other than the lifting of the "dark" curtain on the project. Speculating about anything after that is premature. But the advice, especially the last sentence above is well taken.

Creative Director / Design Director / Game Director / Whatever random other title that covers the position is kind of a double edged sword. If someone is good at it they do get to be involved in the content design and mechanics design but they also have to deal with outsiders (quite a bit...

There are more problems than just the superficial realism argument. Here are a couple scenarios (using current MMO"s as an example): 1. Items are restricted by class and you"re going through Dungeon001 with a group. Something drops that you can use and would like so you roll on it. Low and...

"Internal Consistency" It doesn"t have to always be "logical" but it darn well better be internally consistent. Once a rule is established in a fantasy world it shouldn"t be broken except under very unique circumstances. It doesn"t always need to make sense but it does need to be consistent.

It"s far more interesting talking about game philosophy or doing another rant about pricing and business models... 38 Studios won"t be saying anything serious about the game until the time is right to do so. However, that doesn"t stop people from asking or wanting to know something about what...

1. There are things to be improved in any industry. If there was nothing to be improved then people would stop trying. If I had a list of the the top three things of what could be improved it would be the following: - Foster Communication within and between development teams for what works and...