Search results

From what I can see, Bioware"s game has a lot more fantasy than Sci Fi. It leverages the "Jedi" and a lot of story, and it doesn"t look like it has space combat. It looks more like EQ in space with a rich storyline, nothing revolutionary. STO looks more intriguing, but based on their...

Blizzard and innovation are not synonymous. Blizzard is not on the cutting edge, ever. They take existing properties and retool them and make best of breed, like WOW from EQ. So, unless someone makes a sci fi product worthy of re-engineering then I doubt it"ll happen. The other option is...

Dozens of failed MMOs later, and designers and teams still forget that rule. I personally hate balancing. Balance is overrated. Fun should be the requisite goal, and every class should not be equal. Enact enough variety and different encounters that the min/maxers have no easy answer. I...

I believe consensus has been reached. Mythic has done the best job with feedback. It"s a shame I wasn"t a big fan of any of their games, and DAOC was so half baked at release. 38 Studios people: Take note.

Definitely. It seemed to devolve, but it wasn"t rosy at the start, either, and it definitely went from bad to worse. There were very few leading edge guilds early on. Nag and Vox were never on farm status on most servers until ROK. Trak was a nightmare when Kunark was released, and it took...

Yes and no to this. I do miss the social aspects of grouping. In EQ and early WOW we had the same people so grouping felt like a team setup, and it was fun. However, I really like logging in for 45 minutes and doing dailies and feeling I"ve accomplished something. It sucked in EQ when our cleric...

I think there should be positives and negatives for bringing different classes. Choices and fun should weigh more than making things so vanilla the goal is just to get any 25 with 16 DPS, 6 healers, and 3 tanks of any variety. Really, what they are talking about is what EQ2 did at release...

Part of the problem is healing has remained static and AD&Dish throughout the Diku MMO timeframe. We have the same HP model. tank X has so many HPs. Healer has base spells Heal. Heal More. Heal a shitload. Cure Disease. Cure Poison. Cure Curse. Etc. It"s all a big spreadsheet with...

We"re stuck with crappy class based games and grief based PVP skill systems until the tech gets good enough to build a truly immersive MMO. Basically, we need a holodeck.

This quote is interesting coming from someone at 38 Studios, a company that is leveraging insiders to make a buck off the established MMO genre, I think. The problem is that everyone see"s Blizzards copying of products and offerings and their subsequent revenue from not innovating and follows...

This is a bad analogy any way you slice. I think what you want to say is you have a passion for gaming. Most games do not provide much value. It"s like bad movies. I"m sure Uwe Boll also thinks he is helping the world and has great satisfaction in his work. Forgive me if I disagree. The only...

In a word: No. The average IT pro working in a good medium to large sized company will get more skills, build a better resume, and generally have a better quality of life. He"ll also have more time to game. Game companies attract people due to the allure of playing. The problem is work and...

Nice write up, Arden. Definitely very relevant to the discussion here. I"ve done the exact reverse drive when I went from Cali to Maryland in similar situations a while ago. Ditto here. The problem is even the best games companies are in flux and can go from prince to pauper overnight. None...

We need a new technology built around MMOs more than we need public quests or more "better" PVP. Something, anything that will provide a paradigm shift away from the diku-based static-world leveling clones we see released over and over.

Don"t get me wrong, hiring talent within the industry in some regards is wise. Network programmers from SOE or audio people from Blizzard should be poached. My issues are with the modus operandi in the games/MMO industry, and especially with design and development. Still, some games like...

As a designer, If you"re lucky enough to get in which seems a matter of timing, nepotism, and location then what do you do if your game is mediocre? How many good opportunites are there? It doesn"t seem hard to find guys to design levels and implement creative/artistic stuff. The problem is...

I"m sure the forums could be a catalyst for 38S getting some good resumes and hiring people. It wouldn"t surprise me if Irene was a regular on this forum, given her gaming background. Personally, I stay as far away from game development companies as I can. I did database design work in the...

I like this line of thinking, and it sounds somewhat like what was announced from the Bioware people for their SW:TOR MMO. In reference to my earlier post regarding dynamic content, yes it"s extreme to want things overtly dynamic, but the failures of dynamic content in the past were more so a...

In my opinion, a dynamic world that changes and evolves is the holy grail. If you kill an NPC, he"s gone. Kill a boss. He"s gone. Every MMO respawns the same critters over and over. Most are based on running through the same dungeons killing the same critters over and over. A lot of MMOs...

As someone who has worked in corporate America for a long time, and moved between small and large companies, this post really hit home in contrasting the differences between the two. Most of us who work for the behemoth"s know that prioritization takes a back seat to the whims of executive...

I think the bigger point is getting designers who live, eat, and breathe this stuff. Raids are important, but so are classes, quests, immersion, and the rest of the game. If the people making your game didnt play UO, EQ, DAOC, and WOW and be immersed and tear up all the content then they...

That in a nutshell is why all current SOE MMOs suck. They are controlled by the suits, and not designed and run by the people with the love and passion. I dislike WOW for the same reasons Genjiro does, but it is a creation of love and the raiding and design are by those who know MMOS, have...

Of course, since you"ve said how terrible it is over and over and it wasn"t ready for release, you certainly didn"t buy it at launch though?

The problem is so many MMO gamers will play 300 hours burning through the content in the first month of an MMO that only has the first half fleshed out, and get upset because it isn"t a mature product. Heck, as has been pointed out WOW was the same as AOC, but with even less content and...

/concur DAOC, EQ2, etc all have boring unattractive housing models. UOs could have been good if it wasn"t wracked with issues and exploits, but that was a very different game paradigm. The only one that did anything at all fun and innovative was the original SWG and it"s architect built...

The word that comes to mind here is Carebear. The thing about UO that is missing is danger. WOW PVP, even on the dedicated servers has no danger. Neither ultimately did DAOC. The problem is many PVPers are nasty evil bastards who live their online persona by the mantra of schadenfreude. A...

Tangent time from the genre wars: If I were 38 studios, and I were friendly with SOE and my game was 2- 2 1/2 years from completion I think I"d leverage the PS3 and build the game on it. The PS3 is much, much bigger in Asia than the 360, which is a more hardcore MMO market. In 2 years...

Until there is a proven market in MMOs for anything but fantasy, it"ll continue to rule the roost. To use a visual analogy, non fantasy MMOs are a la this:

I"d argue what is needed more than innovation is evolution. Right now MMOs are static respawning worlds of repetitiveness. People may enjoy them and they may have upgrades and better UIs, raids, or other things but that doesn"t change what they are. In EQ, EQ2, or WOW you run around doing...

I"d argue innovation is not required. Upgrading and refining, yes. New, no. What is more important is keeping it simple and fun to get into, with a lot of carrots to keep the masses playing. The successful MMOs by and large are more copy than anything original. The ones that tried new...

THere are some decent non EQ clone MMOs out there, a la EVE and some of the non American ones. I think what you want is a dynamic non level based immersive world that offers fun and variety. The problem with that is the technology isn"t there to develop this sort of game, yet. The closest...

Thats a bit black and white. 3 years from now WOW will still be a strong MMO. Given there are no strong contenders on the market, and they are planning the next expansion post Lich King, I doubt they are even considering a successor for WOW. Why would they? I also believe they will not...

I never said it wouldn"t be a hit. I merely pointed out they would be spending a lot of money on a product that would probably solely take market share from themselves. Plus, unless it was something new, and not Warcraft in space, there is the probability for it to be mediocre, which Blizzard...

Possibly, but my guess is Blizzard has already done some homework on this and their opinion differs from yours. Also, since most of their subs would probably come from their current WOW populace, why would they spend 100 million dollars to create an MMO where their biggest competitor is.. them?

Unfortunately, you probably will never see a WOS. The problem is there isn"t a good model to start from. Blizzard doesn"t really create. They morph, refine, and polish what others have started with potential. WOW is an EQ clone, taking the base formula and vastly improving it. Think of it...

It was 90% when WOW was released. It was also loaded with EQ clones, of which WOW was one, and seemed to do ok. MMO + high fantasy = safer bet. I"m not even sure if there is a mainstream market for anything but high fantasy MMOs at this point in time. it doesn"t matter the genre, just if...

The problem with a win/lose analogy is that the better game and software companies almost never lose. They either win small or win big. These are the Valve"s and Blizzards who rule the roost of gaming. Part of the reason they sell so well is their longstanding reputation. I think this will be...

Forgive me for jumping in late, but as a long time DBA working in IT, I see some issues here. All these points are solely related to leadership. Good leadership encourages productive feedback and intergroup communications. It also enables teams not to have to reinvent the wheel. The...

I"ll bet when you finish the entire series, you"ll end up a huge George RR Martin fan, like most fantasy people our age. I"d take your time as the man doesn"t seem in a rush to finish it, which is maddening. Martin also certainly likes to do the unpredictable. In regards to Salvatore, he...

This one interests me far more than two fantasy retreads: The Agency