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I'd read it, if the shit website didn't send me back to the Age Gate every time I click on the "ESO Veteran Content" vignette, then back to the homepage. No, there's portals to the instanced 12 man "Challenge Mode on Steroids that yield no specific reward - yet" (since you can retry as much as...

Yep. The rumors about it being a raid-zone and whatnot are gone: it's a pure max level dungeon, but outdoor (original!). The Trials sound like Challenge mode dungeons on steroids (and for 3 groups). Not raids; there doesn't appear to be anything gained except bragging rights for now. I...

Exactly. They want to prevent the "group with higher level second account, /follow, gain xp".

The point is, in EQ, you bypassed any API whatsoever; you dug stuff straight from the client's memory. There's nothing stopping people from doing the same thing with TESO if all they did was to remove the access to data thru an API. If the data is in memory, the botmakers will find it, parse it...

Intern programmers in action. Enjoy them. That assumes their architecture is capable of doing that. They probably banked everything on the mega-server being the be-all-end-all, discovered there's an absolute cap, found out that they would need six months to rip and redo the intern's code, and...

Every time I see that, I'm reminded of anold novelin which there's a civilization that's barely incomprehensible, is spewing some ramblings that seem disconnected from reality... ... and when you read the author's notes (on CD! In hypercard format!) you discover that basically, the guy had...

Yep. The whole idea of the mega-server is that basically, you have a central character DB (with appropriate replication and distribution so that it can sustain the load), and then a bunch of server rack full of server blades where you spawn as many copies of any zone as necessary to accommodate...

So, there's a mega-server, then an overflow to the mega-server (that is not an additional instance within the mega-server)??? Oh, my. Suddenly, you are filled with confidence with their software engineers.

People were making bots in EQ, a game with no API whatsoever.

At this point, why are you pre-ordering a game (this game or any other)? Pre-orders made sense 15 years ago, when pre-orders told your retailer how much boxes he should think of ordering, and if you didn't ensure your box on massively popular titles, you might face weeks of waiting until the...

"Pain and suffering hits YOU for 20 damage. You died"

Ok, soit's time to have your traits come from doing specific stuff (or pay for them)

In practice, people do that. It's called rolling and gearing your raid alt. And within guilds, it's routinely done, Soandso logs off his Warlock, and logs in his Druid, which runs to the raid zone, and the next boss fight is joined. The WoW devs have recognized this necessity for a long time...

The Trinity is only one possibility, though. I think I need to restate every month or so what you need for an interesting combat vs non-soloable mobs: - The combat needs highly distinct roles by distinct characters. - Those roles should be complementary: a role by one character should...

You have classes. Your "character build" is basically done in three steps: 1) Pick a class from the ones you know. That gives you the type of armor you can use. 2) The class gives you 4 ability slots, which depend on each class. Like Blademaster would be 1 of each defense, offense...

Don't know. I've done probably a hundred hearts total, but thousands of events. I remember a video showing a map of Queensdale's scripts, and there were about 1.5 times events compared to hearts on that map. The difference is that all the hearts are visible, all the time (even completed) so...

Yes, but then, it becomes a bet. In this age of short leveling curves and rush-to-endgame, there's a very small window in which you actually play the game with other people. After the initial rush, the levelling zones and dungeons become empty, populated only by a handful of rerolls and...

Not only that, but the game actually discourages that (at least in PVE, never PvPed there and am not interested). Champion fights is mostly based around large insta-kill spikes that you need to identify and dodge. Your absorption and healing capacity is irrelevant to those spikes. There's a...

Note that this is not, in itself, an indication that there are no defined roles. I have no problem with having a character being able to fill any role. WoW's paladins and druids are immensely popular because of that very flexibility: they can switch to tank to heal to melee dps (and to range dps...

The onus of proof is on the innovator. Is it possible to have a role-based gameplay that's not the trinity? Possibly. Can SOE do it? Why not. Do I believe their promise? No. They have to prove. They have to show. Just saying that it is so doesn't mean it is, and thus, until they prove they...

Yup. Enough Elder Scrolls fanboi to fuel the cash grab.

Yea. No matter how good you are, there's always someone better than you. Except for ONE person in the entire world. But that's not you, nor anyone you know.

They did add a few skills not too long ago. Not many, but some.

With passion, of course!

My battle.net euro site lists as "expected Fall 2014", and, well, Dec 20th is officially the last day of that season. Sounds like the usual US lawyertalk ("can't have unwarranted assumptions. What's the last day of autumn?")

At that point, I'm starting to envision a kind of immersiveMighty Quest for Epic Loot. Minus the loot for now.

Stuff that makes the most money is usually maintaining business processes. Usually poring over a heaping pile of junk in banking code. Been there, wrote my Cobol, saved my soul quickly.

Somewhen this year. Probably september, at the rate they're preparing for beta. Veteran of much MMOs war, heh? You can never go home afterward.

But that's exactly how we pass judgement on a game. We see how it plays when we start (or even before we start), and the only way we're going to play it if the start doesn't generate enthusiasm is if we get dragged thru it by a fanboy friend who insist we have to play it. Otherwise, by the first...

Levels are the single most thing that de-MMOify a game. There's a reason why WoW made the whole "the game starts at max" and most MMOs have levels go as fast as the wind - because if you and your friends have different playtimes (and you always do), you find yourself quickly separated by those...

Crafting = A Tale in the Desert. SWG is barely scratching it. When A Tale in the Desert tells you there's a "mini game" for Gem cutting, you don't expect to get a block of random faceted junk, 3 different orientation of saws, and "craft what you can".

Actually, cooking in GW2 is probably the most interesting of the recent tradeskill implementations because they took care of making it close to "real" cooking. It's got an interesting mix of low-level reagents and high level ones (how many tradeskills require reagents you find in a level 1 area...

Hearts were there because there's quite a lot of players who were brought into the MMO with the WOW experience. These guys need a direction. Something that tells them: get your ass here, there's something for you. Hence, hearths on the map. Group-level events and end-of-meta events are what's...

No, but they tried to make it into aFacebook game, which failed badly.

You still keep your templates, right? You just have to refarm the resources.

Play turn-based strategy games. Anything that doesn't outright suck is easily a 100 hours play. Just. One. More. Turn...

Welcome to GW2!

Yup. One main raid to down the Miasma deployments, one additional raid to defend the rally points, and a couple groups going round to rescue citizens. x3 for each area (I hate Toxics btw. The Finish Him is a pain). It's starting to get organized, but the constant overflow is a pain. For a...

Mana, HP, and click rez. Is there anything else necessary?

I suspect people think they're going to see one of these. And are going to get the other: