Originally posted by Chessack After all, the manual, if done properly, does not merely explain the basics of how to play the game. It also provides a reference for you, that you can use to look up things. If you want to memorize everything in the game go ahead, but I like looking things up, and it is often easier to do that with a good manual that has an index in the back, rather than trying to surf the damn web for help on forums, player-made Wikis, etc. If I just want to look up what the prime requisites are for a class, I should be able to turn to a manual to find out.
This is a discussion about MMORPGs, not single-player games. What MMORPGs have you played in which the rules have changed so little from release that six months down the road a manual printed at release could be a useful reference for anything beyond the very basics of how to play? MMORPGs continually add new content, change rules, change basic designs, change items, and change huge chunks of the interface.
If an MMORPG changed so little that a manual printed at release is still a useful reference six months or a year down the road, it's either the best designed game ever or the developers are not doing enough work to justify me paying a monthly fee.
It's always good now and again to got to your local game retalier and browse through the boxes.
Used the download for CoH and CoV's combined edition from NCSoft, mostly because it was £14.99 from the site. Same price as play.com, but difference is i could play it that night by downloading.
box - will take up room, i have enough MMO boxes and collector edition ones (have you seen the TBC Blizzard collectors box, i had to find room especially for the damn big heap of crap - art book is nice from it though)
manual - pffft useless in over a month, ie: read the WoW manual (it's funny reading the descriptions of the paladin and shaman, and then looking at them now).
The only good ones were GW which was full of lore then gameplay. but then most people don't view it as an MMORPG, even if it actually follows the defination of one perfectly.
free buddy key - only thing i use it for, is once i cancel and feel like retrying it... then realising thank gawd i cancelled. yeah i can do without.
cds - useless, you end up patching half the game eventually.
It's always good now and again to got to your local game retalier and browse through the boxes.
Used the download for CoH and CoV's combined edition from NCSoft, mostly because it was £14.99 from the site. Same price as play.com, but difference is i could play it that night by downloading.
box - will take up room, i have enough MMO boxes and collector edition ones (have you seen the TBC Blizzard collectors box, i had to find room especially for the damn big heap of crap - art book is nice from it though)
manual - pffft useless in over a month, ie: read the WoW manual (it's funny reading the descriptions of the paladin and shaman, and then looking at them now).
The only good ones were GW which was full of lore then gameplay. but then most people don't view it as an MMORPG, even if it actually follows the defination of one perfectly.
free buddy key - only thing i use it for, is once i cancel and feel like retrying it... then realising thank gawd i cancelled. yeah i can do without.
cds - useless, you end up patching half the game eventually.
more downloads please for MMO's.
Unfortunately for me i live in Scotland and all the lines are owned by the infamous BT. I can only recieve 2Mb broadband from them as i live in a small town near Inverness called Forres, in the time it would take to download a game i could have gone to the store, bought it, got home and installed it. Plus i usualy pre-order now for the added features. If you pre-order from gameplay.co.uk you always recieve the game early.
Oh i tried Gameplay.co.uk first, i know if i order before 5pm, i get it the next day.
biggest problem - "may take a week to get stock", and they do take up to a week for the new stock unfortunetly. Good company though, they have a download PC games for a sub price and that is pretty good too.
and it took 2 hours to download 2.3Gig not perfect, but meh... it was Virgin Media. Not that i minded it let me watch American Dad Vol. 2 which had arrived from play.com that morning.
The thing about stores is game, and gamestation seems to be stocking less and less of the older MMO's like CoH/CoV, EQ2 etc
Only thing i found down there this morning was Vanguard (£30) and the guild wars boxes (£9.99 for the first one, and £14.99 each for the other two).
Comments
This is a discussion about MMORPGs, not single-player games. What MMORPGs have you played in which the rules have changed so little from release that six months down the road a manual printed at release could be a useful reference for anything beyond the very basics of how to play? MMORPGs continually add new content, change rules, change basic designs, change items, and change huge chunks of the interface.
If an MMORPG changed so little that a manual printed at release is still a useful reference six months or a year down the road, it's either the best designed game ever or the developers are not doing enough work to justify me paying a monthly fee.
I want both ! If I buy via a brick and mortar store I want a dvd. I hate MMO's that use multiply cd's to install like WoW.
Of course if am to lazy to go to the store at least give me the option to download the game online.
Games I've played/tried out:WAR, LOTRO, Tabula Rasa, AoC, EQ1, EQ2, WoW, Vangaurd, FFXI, D&DO, Lineage 2, Saga Of Ryzom, EvE Online, DAoC, Guild Wars,Star Wars Galaxies, Hell Gate London, Auto Assault, Grando Espada ( AKA SoTNW ), Archlord, CoV/H, Star Trek Online, APB, Champions Online, FFXIV, Rift Online, GW2.
Game(s) I Am Currently Playing:
GW2 (+LoL and BF3)
Used the download for CoH and CoV's combined edition from NCSoft, mostly because it was £14.99 from the site. Same price as play.com, but difference is i could play it that night by downloading.
box - will take up room, i have enough MMO boxes and collector edition ones (have you seen the TBC Blizzard collectors box, i had to find room especially for the damn big heap of crap - art book is nice from it though)
manual - pffft useless in over a month, ie: read the WoW manual (it's funny reading the descriptions of the paladin and shaman, and then looking at them now).
The only good ones were GW which was full of lore then gameplay. but then most people don't view it as an MMORPG, even if it actually follows the defination of one perfectly.
free buddy key - only thing i use it for, is once i cancel and feel like retrying it... then realising thank gawd i cancelled. yeah i can do without.
cds - useless, you end up patching half the game eventually.
more downloads please for MMO's.
Used the download for CoH and CoV's combined edition from NCSoft, mostly because it was £14.99 from the site. Same price as play.com, but difference is i could play it that night by downloading.
box - will take up room, i have enough MMO boxes and collector edition ones (have you seen the TBC Blizzard collectors box, i had to find room especially for the damn big heap of crap - art book is nice from it though)
manual - pffft useless in over a month, ie: read the WoW manual (it's funny reading the descriptions of the paladin and shaman, and then looking at them now).
The only good ones were GW which was full of lore then gameplay. but then most people don't view it as an MMORPG, even if it actually follows the defination of one perfectly.
free buddy key - only thing i use it for, is once i cancel and feel like retrying it... then realising thank gawd i cancelled. yeah i can do without.
cds - useless, you end up patching half the game eventually.
more downloads please for MMO's.
Unfortunately for me i live in Scotland and all the lines are owned by the infamous BT. I can only recieve 2Mb broadband from them as i live in a small town near Inverness called Forres, in the time it would take to download a game i could have gone to the store, bought it, got home and installed it. Plus i usualy pre-order now for the added features. If you pre-order from gameplay.co.uk you always recieve the game early.Oh i tried Gameplay.co.uk first, i know if i order before 5pm, i get it the next day.
biggest problem - "may take a week to get stock", and they do take up to a week for the new stock unfortunetly. Good company though, they have a download PC games for a sub price and that is pretty good too.
gameplay.metaboli.co.uk/
and it took 2 hours to download 2.3Gig not perfect, but meh... it was Virgin Media. Not that i minded it let me watch American Dad Vol. 2 which had arrived from play.com that morning.
The thing about stores is game, and gamestation seems to be stocking less and less of the older MMO's like CoH/CoV, EQ2 etc
Only thing i found down there this morning was Vanguard (£30) and the guild wars boxes (£9.99 for the first one, and £14.99 each for the other two).
Plenty of actual games though, just few MMO's.