Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

Who in this thread is playing, or going to play Aion?

Like to try and hook up with some folks inside/outside 38.

Seems I"ve lost the drive to play WoW, or any of the MMO"s out there right now. I"m back to just "gaming", swapping around WWII stuff, playing some more Sid Meier"s stuff but not sucked in by anything.

Tried RoM but, well, there just wasn"t much different about the experience.

Amazing what we are starting to want/expect from game play in MMO"s.

Now I can click on an NPC name in my quest book and the game will walk me to him? Hmmm.

Tell you one thing I did like, when I was solo"ing early this red flashing WARNING came on the screen telling me I was near so and so, who supposedly was a bad mofo. Of course I sought him out, and he and his 59 little wolf pups crushed me.

I"m trying so hard not to purchase AION as I think it"s a WOW clone, but I really have the MMO itch right now and it seems the only decent option unless I want to go back to Azeroth...

I"ve been trying to fight the urge with Popcap games and Sid Meier on Steam, but it just isn"t hitting the MMO sweet spot.

Hey, I haven"t tried out Darkfall.. It can"t be that bad, can it?

Same, Plants vs. Zombies, far funner than it should be...
Heard some pretty negative things about Darkfall, looking forward to Aion, just trying to figure out the schedule for the testing right now...

Eh. Once the new game smell wore off I realized it was just going to be more of the same. The "community" that typically builds in beta will fall apart as we all flock back to our WAR/AoC/WoW carry-over guilds and fragmented community. The "This is just like WoW but prettier!" will stop being a novelty around level 30 when the grind starts to kick in. And when you get your shit pushed in by 6 to 1 odds everywhere you go in the pvp zone you"ll think "yup...just like WoW alright."

I"m sure it"ll be popular with the pvp crowd for a bit. Then like the self-cleaning oven they are the population will dwindle slowly as the rich get richer and the poor say "fuck this shit" and go back to free epix in WoW.

I enjoyed Aion because it was nice to see a game pushing forward with in game cinematics to progress the story and other novelties, but for every step forward Aion takes, it takes 10 steps back. I honestly hope I"m wrong and it"s a breakout hit and Blizzard has to start innovating with WoW again and not just relying on their "Super sekrit" mmo to win us all back.

Anyways...

I will say one thing. If you get a gamefly account, don"t rent like 12 JRPG"s in a row. It will crush what remains of your soul.

Guys, after a little investigation, I have discovered Utnayan"s true identity!

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Sean said:

And Christ - some of you want to play MMOs way the fuck too much. I personally do not want and do not need to raid every single week for the rest of my life. I"m all for lull periods in raiding.

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I like you, we should hang out more.

Got this gem of a comment:

Yeah let"s make games around dudes who do nothing but play them, but make sure he has time from grinding to beat the newest Final Fantasy!

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Probably from someone who"s burned out on MMOs countless times.

Number of times I"ve burned out? Zero. Why? Because I don"t expect there to be something for me to do in them every hour of every day.

Some of you have adiseasewhen it comes to MMOs and you"re always looking for a new fix. Learn to play other types of games mixed in with your MMOing and you"ll accept the fact that is logistically impossible to generate content at the rate you crazies demand it. You"ll enjoy the genre more.

At this point I"m jealous of Hatorade. He plays so many terrible games that in slumps like this, even normal games must be amazing. Aion looks interesting but the grind sounds exactly like Dragonica"s, and that is the reason I"m not playing that. That along with the negative issues I see people post in the thread don"t make it appealing. If enough people get interest to get something rolling though I may join up, job hunting is no fun and I get burned out coding in my free time. Would be interesting to see what kind of mangina Zehn would roll.

On Popcap, I blew through plants vs. zombies, fun but replayability just isn"t there. For whatever reason games need coop for me to find them more enjoyable. Pixeljunk Monsters is a good example of a coop tower defense that was fun(although a girlfriend that wants perfect scores every level makes it painful).

Ngruk said:

Seems I"ve lost the drive to play WoW, or any of the MMO"s out there right now. I"m back to just "gaming", swapping around WWII stuff, playing some more Sid Meier"s stuff but not sucked in by anything.

Amazing what we are starting to want/expect from game play in MMO"s.

Now I can click on an NPC name in my quest book and the game will walk me to him? Hmmm.

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Remember these moments while your game is in development. I personally don"t think what we"re seeing is a result of what the players "want/expect". And yes, having your hand held to that extent kinda sucks, doesn"t it?

Sean said:

Got this gem of a comment:

Probably from someone who"s burned out on MMOs countless times.

Number of times I"ve burned out? Zero. Why? Because I don"t expect there to be something for me to do in them every hour of every day.

Some of you have adiseasewhen it comes to MMOs and you"re always looking for a new fix. Learn to play other types of games mixed in with your MMOing and you"ll accept the fact that is logistically impossible to generate content at the rate you crazies demand it. You"ll enjoy the genre more.

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I don"t expect enough content to keep it interesting 8 hours a day 6 days a week indefinately, of course that"s absurd.

But instead of each patch being a 4 - 8 weeks of content followed by 4 - 8 months of boredom, it"d be nice if they paced it somehow to keep it a regular thing and keep the players coming back. I just hate the cycle of "play 2 months, finish game, quit for 6 months until something new is added then come back to a brand new raid group because everyone has quit and come back so many times." It makes it impossible to form a long term connection to your character or the people you play with, it trivializess everything that draws people to the genre in the first place, the idea of a consistant character and a consistant world.

But we hate artificially long leveling curves remember? If you can"t hit max level in a few days played, the damn game just has too much of a grind!

I never really cared how long it took to get from level 98-99. What is more important to me is how much fun I am having. Granted early on in a game leveling fast is often a driving factor of the fun but after about 20-30 levels of leveling I"m ready for a fun focus in another direction. Forced and unforced grouping, trials of individual and trials of group skills. Focuses on profession growth, focuses on economic skills, focuses on materials gathering. Focuses petty improvements (pets, housing, gotta collect em all stuff, titles).


Then at the end game I like to see another boost in leveling speed but as a result of the skills learned from the slower mid levels. Such as mass group grinding, Mass group questing (see public quests) Employed tactics learned from the skill trials. Guild tactics, focus on guild strategies, focus on large group skill trials. Advanced tactics and usage of everything learned from other levels but combined into one. Mass market economic focus. Mass market economic guilds enabled to work together for alternative endgame choices (I.E. guild of we like lots of fucking money). Guild of PvP ers. Guild of PvErs. Guild of Petty.... err casuals (focus on pet collecting, title collecting, etc.) Also player created guilds in competition for a few major houses of each type mentioned above.


Maybe I dream of a boring game?

Sean said:

Some of you have adiseasewhen it comes to MMOs and you"re always looking for a new fix. Learn to play other types of games mixed in with your MMOing and you"ll accept the fact that is logistically impossible to generate content at the rate you crazies demand it. You"ll enjoy the genre more.

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Honestly had a guy in a old guild that use to get extremely bitter whenever a new single player game would come out because it meant some of us would be online less. He use to give soap box speeches about loyalty to the guild heh. I agree with your views on it though. I find single player games (rpgs mostly) keep me going on MMOs. I log in, raid a few hours and go play/do something different.

Feels much healthier to me and I don"t burn out in 3 months.

If you"re spending 8 hours a day playing 5 hours of single player game and 3 hours of MMOing, how is that any better/worse (to you as an individual) than spending 8 hours of MMOing? 8 hours of gaming is 8 hours of gaming.

Of course the Suits in charge want folks to pay for a month and then log in for an hour a week. That"s almost free money. And many of the features that move the game in this direction also masquerade as "accessibility" features, thus drawing in the casuals. Its a double win... for the Suits.

For the Gamers, not so much.

Ngruk said:

Who in this thread is playing, or going to play Aion?

Like to try and hook up with some folks inside/outside 38.

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I have it on pre order, via Steam. It"s bug free, decent graphics and not a bad game. But it doesn"t justify the hype and sales figures it is getting. It"s because we are in the middle of the worst period of releases in gaming history for RPGs/ MMOs.

Interesting marketing ploy they are running on Steam, regular edition is ?24, collector edition is ?44, but, of course, you don"t get the collector edition goodies that come in the box, just the in game freebies.

I predict that a lot of the people who are casually looking to Aionn are going to be very disappointed once they hit exp curve takes them off guard with how steep it becomes

Addendum:
Newerth and Quakelive are enough to fill my non-MMO cravings when they hit

Ninen said:

If you"re spending 8 hours a day playing 5 hours of single player game and 3 hours of MMOing, how is that any better/worse (to you as an individual) than spending 8 hours of MMOing? 8 hours of gaming is 8 hours of gaming.

Of course the Suits in charge want folks to pay for a month and then log in for an hour a week. That"s almost free money. And many of the features that move the game in this direction also masquerade as "accessibility" features, thus drawing in the casuals. Its a double win... for the Suits.

For the Gamers, not so much.

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I wouldn"t really say it"s better or worse, just less obsessive. Gaming for 8 hours a day to me just shows that you have too much free time on your hands. Spending 8 hours a day focused on a single game is a obsession. Don"t get me wrong now. To each their own. If you want to poop-sock your life away on MMOs then knock yourselves out. Just don"t get pissed off because companies do not make games with you in mind.

I agree with Sean. Learn to branch out and play other shit and you will enjoy this genre more. Content will last, and burn out is kept at bay. Some folks around here won"t change MMOs like they change their socks because nothing keeps them entertained for long.

It"s better in that it prevents the following :



1. My wife telling the guests John wouldn"t be joining them for lunch Christmas "99 as he was camping the Goblin King in the ice dungeon;

2. Rush four minute showers while the raid is mid CR;

3. Beating the end boss at 4.30am when you"re due in work at 7am.

Lost Ranger said:

I agree with Sean. Learn to branch out and play other shit and you will enjoy this genre more.

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Anyone who hasn"t should have a play through FFIX. Some of the dynamics are reminiscent of what to expect in FFXIV online, next year. Which is my way of leading into the subject of MMO in game mini games, viaTetra Master,the FFIX in game card game that they took to an out of game client.

Was a great little game. Would be cool to see these kind of things in an MMO and confined to Inns in an MMO; it would really give that "Tavern" feel where the community meets together for a beer and to chill out.

I really doesn"t understand why there are no mini games in inns/city already. Are they so costly/require so many time to do?