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things like longer travel times are more conducive to that feeling of being in a fantasy world. if your goal is to simply create a multiplayer game that doesn't have longevity, then instant travel is fine.

i misspoke. i meant that a game's story shouldn't be the focus because a game is restricted by its content. eq had a wonderful story but the game's design didn't rely on it.

who gives a shit about a story in an mmo? mmo stories are half-baked and don't sustain people's interest. while everquest had fascinating lore, its story served as the backdrop and allowed the the player to be the star so to speak. you scoff at role-playing but the idea of the player being the...

and yet this thread is full of people who don't understand that eq was a fundamentally different design, thus provided a completely different experience. features like death penalties are often considered nothing more than an inconvenience and the people who argue against them aren't able to...

rick's reaction to seeing his dead wife was some of the most pathetic acting i've ever seen. i'm convinced they're turning it into a comedy.

was it luclin that introduced that new texture pack or was it something that was an optional download before luclin? i couldn't have any of that shit enabled because it was such a resource hog.

i used earthlink dial-up briefly and i experienced the worst packet loss. the game worked fine on aol lol

what video card did you guys use to play eq? i bought a $2000 dollar dell right before eq came out and whatever card it had wouldn't run kunark very well. i upgraded to a voodoo3 at that point.

dude, only a small segment of the population even knew what an mmo was in 1999. they were mostly nerds who convened somewhere to play d&d. it had no foreign servers. it attracted maybe 1,000 players outside the u.s. it had no marketing. as you can see, it didn't operate under ideal conditions.

yes. it was capped at 500,000 for a variety of reasons. it existed during the genre's infancy, it wasn't developed by a company with an illustrious history, and millions of dollars weren't put into marketing the game across the globe.

for some reason the gif stopped being animated when i posted it. in the next shot the tattoo is on his left shoulder

did anyone notice the continuity error involving daryl's tattoos? heh

having everything safe and calculated doesn't make a good mmo. i suggest you read about the psychology of mmos and why people really play them.

wow isn't a well-rounded mmo unless you think mundane quests in cartoon land are cool

i don't resent blizzard's success but to defend them from a gamer's perspective is absolutely fucking absurd.

the silent protagonist is a more effective way of allowing the player to feel like he's part of the story. that's precisely the reason that viewpoint is used. i'm not even sure why we started focusing on elder scrolls games because countless games have used the silent hero to great effect.

oh, i forgot. you wouldn't be able to hear the protagonist speak in cutscenes. you have absolutely no idea why different perspectives are used. and there are games other than elder scrolls that use the silent protagonist convention. i'm not trying to argue. i enjoy the more cinematic games...

people are placing too much emphasis on character perspective. a silent hero wouldn't change the storytelling of mass effect 3 much. like i said, it would simply change the way you relate to the character. you would feel like you were part of the story as opposed to being on the outside looking in.

the zombies never really were scary. all they do is shuffle aimlessly about. i'm frankly surprised anyone has been killed by them in the open. the writers do attempt to make them scarier by having large groups of them appear out of nowhere and surround survivors. i just laugh at those parts...

this is seriously among the top 5 shows of all time. i started watching a couple of weeks ago and caught up today. i had disregarded the show because the premise didn't appeal to me but boy am i glad i gave it a shot.

the problem is you think the traditional linear form of storytelling with a primary conflict and climax is the only one that exists. while games like fallout 3 and skyrim do have central plots, their strengths lie in the breadth of secondary conflict and character personality. every conversation...

uhhhh what? i've acknowledged that there are different forms of narrative

dude, elder scrolls games are populated with hundreds of npcs who share information about the games' worlds and often send you on quests. that's what storytelling is.

no. you just have a very narrow definition of storytelling.

bethesda's storytelling is very solid. you extract bits and pieces of the story from the game's characters. it's not shoved in your face through cut scenes.

what's wrong with bethesda's storytelling?

character perspective is simply used to influence the way a player relates to the character. you can take shephard and stick her in fallout 3 without changing anything else.

not every game has cinematic qualities. there are countless games in which variations of the silent hero are effective. there's half life, fallout 3, and the elder scrolls series to name a few. the silent hero route would work in mass effect if it were in first-person and lacked cutscenes

different types of silent protagonists exist. there's the established, defined character who simply doesn't speak and there's the often nameless character customized to the player's liking. they serve different storytelling functions. the best way i can put it is like this: one character allows...

why do people hate eq2? aside from the ridiculous amount of abilities and the tendency to rehash a few zones, i thought it was a good mmo. it had a healthy community, a lot of the quests were enjoyable by today's standards, and the zones were fun to explore.

the silent hero commonly used in rpgs is a representation of the player. it serves a purpose so why abandon it?

yeah totally. there's no value in gathering resources in a fucking fantasy game.

if it's anything like dragon age 2, no thanks

i'd like to see more artisan skills in an mmo. maybe have a player visit a mine for 30 minutes to get materials. that would keep some casual players busy

i think people are overstating the effect something like youtube has on the mysterious elements of mmos. i can't imagine most guilds would be quick to divulge their secrets by posting videos. players could have just easily posted strategies on their web sites during the eq era and everyone knew...

seriously, what's with the length of some of these british shows? i was blown away when i found out there were only a few mr. bean episodes.

i'd like to see some combination of open zones and instances. i have no problem with the concept of instancing, especially for raid content. my problem with instances lies in their current use because they usually go hand and hand with an mmo's shitty story and i hate that the story has become...

this is called conjecture

are you referring to vanguard or darkfall? vanguard flopped because it was buggy as shit and was released during wow's peak. darkfall was an amateur hackjob. neither was handled properly. and the amount of scripting and choreography involved in a raid depends on the number of people, not on...

his post was interesting because it was completely wrong