As consumers we should do the research before spending our money. Try the demo, read the reviews etc. But to keep it short - if you dont like the game - dont buy it. It amazes me that some people think because they dont like a product its crap for everyone and no-one likes it. That isnt automatically true.
This is one of the best responses to a post I've read here in a long time. Part of the reason why I post a lot less here is because first I've got to read so many posts about how a mmorpg sucks before I can actually discuss something constructive in a thread.
Someday you may come to realize that there is no purely positive state in nature.
Without negative there is no positive.
The Universe creates people like me to counter balance the ridiculously positive 10 foot thick rose colored glasses that some people wear.
NCsoft has put alot of money on TR and the CEO seems to have put alot of faith in the garriots, as it is now TR is very enjoyable but as you reach higher levels you start noticing the lack of content and it starts feeling a bit incomplete however this is normal at release for most MMOs. Saying it's doomed before release is absolute bullshit, even in it's current state there are surprisingly many that are going to subscribe (many because of TR being sci-fi genre and being different from most mmos). The problem is if the TR devs keep their promises (TR not having official forums for devs and community to interact is a bit worrying ), because the things that will supposedly be patched in the first months will pretty much fix TR imo. If they fail to keep their promises however TR will lose most of it's initial subscribers and any future players because of bad reviews.
Amen, brother.
TR is truly what its name means: a blank slate. It doesn't try to appeal the oldskool players (or not necessarily). It's a pretty bold attempt to redefine some of the dogmas in the MMORPG world (scifi, active combat, no raiding, etc). It's risky. And tricky. It's so borderline when you take the MMORPG usual definition that can be pretty hard to digest for some. It's not GW, but it's not WoW, nor UO (in fact, it's probably in the opposite extreme of the former).
For once, combat is something you must actively take part on. Forget the fridge and the cokes while fighting, because if you do, you're dead. You can solo virtually everything (instances will need you to outlevel them a bit, depending on their difficulty, but still). You can login for half an hour and have a blast, finish some quests, and feel that you're in fact progressing. Heck, even you can login 8 hours if you like., the fun is still there. Grinding, for once, is FUN (thank's God). But you barely have to grind, as the quests and instances will give you exp enough and a reason that fits in the game story if you ever need to grind ("Targets of Opportunity" missions). There's no (apparent) intention to stress the social aspect of the game. RPing is something that may or not emerge, I think the seed is there though. And, one of the intersting aspects, some key quests force you to make moral decisions that will affect your role in the world lately. I'm pretty sure that will be one of the keys in "elder game" (end game), when PVP and, probably, RP will have a big part.
Boring after a while? Only well past the 20s. And, well, it was a beta. Content will be added (it was in fact being added during the beta). Buggy? That was the beta purpose, we were there to report and help to iron the game. Patches were applied. Classes, weapons and skills were being balanced (to your taste or not, but they were doing it). It's a stable game. The low level areas (Foreas) are well designed, visually appealing , and have tons of missions and instances. The intention with the higher level areas seems to be the same (Arieki, Plateau). Plains, Incline, Mires had enough missions and instances to keep you busy. There is a problem with experience vs minimum mission level in Arieki (you probably may end there quite before the minimum level required to get most missions), but experience rate was something devs were looking at. And so on.
As long as the devs keep doing their job, this game will give most players an intense, different and fun approach to the MMORPG genre. It may not be fun for you, but it'll definitely will be for others. I really like the concept and intentions behind this title. Just let's hope the devs or publisher just doesn't kill it. This little game just has enough back-stabbers
Still gonna be beta when it comes out this week.
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
NCsoft has put alot of money on TR and the CEO seems to have put alot of faith in the garriots, as it is now TR is very enjoyable but as you reach higher levels you start noticing the lack of content and it starts feeling a bit incomplete however this is normal at release for most MMOs. Saying it's doomed before release is absolute bullshit, even in it's current state there are surprisingly many that are going to subscribe (many because of TR being sci-fi genre and being different from most mmos). The problem is if the TR devs keep their promises (TR not having official forums for devs and community to interact is a bit worrying ), because the things that will supposedly be patched in the first months will pretty much fix TR imo. If they fail to keep their promises however TR will lose most of it's initial subscribers and any future players because of bad reviews.
Amen, brother.
TR is truly what its name means: a blank slate. It doesn't try to appeal the oldskool players (or not necessarily). It's a pretty bold attempt to redefine some of the dogmas in the MMORPG world (scifi, active combat, no raiding, etc). It's risky. And tricky. It's so borderline when you take the MMORPG usual definition that can be pretty hard to digest for some. It's not GW, but it's not WoW, nor UO (in fact, it's probably in the opposite extreme of the former).
For once, combat is something you must actively take part on. Forget the fridge and the cokes while fighting, because if you do, you're dead. You can solo virtually everything (instances will need you to outlevel them a bit, depending on their difficulty, but still). You can login for half an hour and have a blast, finish some quests, and feel that you're in fact progressing. Heck, even you can login 8 hours if you like., the fun is still there. Grinding, for once, is FUN (thank's God). But you barely have to grind, as the quests and instances will give you exp enough and a reason that fits in the game story if you ever need to grind ("Targets of Opportunity" missions). There's no (apparent) intention to stress the social aspect of the game. RPing is something that may or not emerge, I think the seed is there though. And, one of the intersting aspects, some key quests force you to make moral decisions that will affect your role in the world lately. I'm pretty sure that will be one of the keys in "elder game" (end game), when PVP and, probably, RP will have a big part.
Boring after a while? Only well past the 20s. And, well, it was a beta. Content will be added (it was in fact being added during the beta). Buggy? That was the beta purpose, we were there to report and help to iron the game. Patches were applied. Classes, weapons and skills were being balanced (to your taste or not, but they were doing it). It's a stable game. The low level areas (Foreas) are well designed, visually appealing , and have tons of missions and instances. The intention with the higher level areas seems to be the same (Arieki, Plateau). Plains, Incline, Mires had enough missions and instances to keep you busy. There is a problem with experience vs minimum mission level in Arieki (you probably may end there quite before the minimum level required to get most missions), but experience rate was something devs were looking at. And so on.
As long as the devs keep doing their job, this game will give most players an intense, different and fun approach to the MMORPG genre. It may not be fun for you, but it'll definitely will be for others. I really like the concept and intentions behind this title. Just let's hope the devs or publisher just doesn't kill it. This little game just has enough back-stabbers
You kinda missed a few points there. Yes, it was a beta, but I played well into OPEN beta, the 'advertisement' stage where major issues and balancing should be SOLVED and READY, unless you actually want to chase away customers before it goes live. Unfortunately, a lot of problems simply stayed around, LONG after being reported in CLOSED beta.
I must have imagined the persistent killstealing problems in the low-level-areas, the ridiculous ease with which you get stuck ALL over the place, the craptacular interface, the ever-recurring database bugs and memory leaks... the list goes on.
I am not overly impressed with any argument that 'the game will get better as they add more content'. I've SEEN them add more content, new bugs and all. And as to the 'clean slate': really bad joke, nothing new or original about it, including the 'moral choices' (which, at level 36, I had yet to see any effect of).
If you like it and want to play it, good for you, but I think in the end, the number of subs will be disappointing. How many servers in live? Still only 4?
Linna
You were right to the end of the Beta and saw all that stuff? Im sorry but you HAVE to be lying! I was there too and I never had memory leak I NEVER had stuck! And the bugs were minor! "CRAPTACULAR INTERFACE"? Man if you dont like the game its ok, but dont go saying that kind of bull just to get the other guys to dont play the game!
NCsoft has put alot of money on TR and the CEO seems to have put alot of faith in the garriots, as it is now TR is very enjoyable but as you reach higher levels you start noticing the lack of content and it starts feeling a bit incomplete however this is normal at release for most MMOs. Saying it's doomed before release is absolute bullshit, even in it's current state there are surprisingly many that are going to subscribe (many because of TR being sci-fi genre and being different from most mmos). The problem is if the TR devs keep their promises (TR not having official forums for devs and community to interact is a bit worrying ), because the things that will supposedly be patched in the first months will pretty much fix TR imo. If they fail to keep their promises however TR will lose most of it's initial subscribers and any future players because of bad reviews.
Amen, brother.
TR is truly what its name means: a blank slate. It doesn't try to appeal the oldskool players (or not necessarily). It's a pretty bold attempt to redefine some of the dogmas in the MMORPG world (scifi, active combat, no raiding, etc). It's risky. And tricky. It's so borderline when you take the MMORPG usual definition that can be pretty hard to digest for some. It's not GW, but it's not WoW, nor UO (in fact, it's probably in the opposite extreme of the former).
For once, combat is something you must actively take part on. Forget the fridge and the cokes while fighting, because if you do, you're dead. You can solo virtually everything (instances will need you to outlevel them a bit, depending on their difficulty, but still). You can login for half an hour and have a blast, finish some quests, and feel that you're in fact progressing. Heck, even you can login 8 hours if you like., the fun is still there. Grinding, for once, is FUN (thank's God). But you barely have to grind, as the quests and instances will give you exp enough and a reason that fits in the game story if you ever need to grind ("Targets of Opportunity" missions). There's no (apparent) intention to stress the social aspect of the game. RPing is something that may or not emerge, I think the seed is there though. And, one of the intersting aspects, some key quests force you to make moral decisions that will affect your role in the world lately. I'm pretty sure that will be one of the keys in "elder game" (end game), when PVP and, probably, RP will have a big part.
Boring after a while? Only well past the 20s. And, well, it was a beta. Content will be added (it was in fact being added during the beta). Buggy? That was the beta purpose, we were there to report and help to iron the game. Patches were applied. Classes, weapons and skills were being balanced (to your taste or not, but they were doing it). It's a stable game. The low level areas (Foreas) are well designed, visually appealing , and have tons of missions and instances. The intention with the higher level areas seems to be the same (Arieki, Plateau). Plains, Incline, Mires had enough missions and instances to keep you busy. There is a problem with experience vs minimum mission level in Arieki (you probably may end there quite before the minimum level required to get most missions), but experience rate was something devs were looking at. And so on.
As long as the devs keep doing their job, this game will give most players an intense, different and fun approach to the MMORPG genre. It may not be fun for you, but it'll definitely will be for others. I really like the concept and intentions behind this title. Just let's hope the devs or publisher just doesn't kill it. This little game just has enough back-stabbers
You kinda missed a few points there. Yes, it was a beta, but I played well into OPEN beta, the 'advertisement' stage where major issues and balancing should be SOLVED and READY, unless you actually want to chase away customers before it goes live. Unfortunately, a lot of problems simply stayed around, LONG after being reported in CLOSED beta.
I must have imagined the persistent killstealing problems in the low-level-areas, the ridiculous ease with which you get stuck ALL over the place, the craptacular interface, the ever-recurring database bugs and memory leaks... the list goes on.
I am not overly impressed with any argument that 'the game will get better as they add more content'. I've SEEN them add more content, new bugs and all. And as to the 'clean slate': really bad joke, nothing new or original about it, including the 'moral choices' (which, at level 36, I had yet to see any effect of).
If you like it and want to play it, good for you, but I think in the end, the number of subs will be disappointing. How many servers in live? Still only 4?
Linna
You were right to the end of the Beta and saw all that stuff? Im sorry but you HAVE to be lying! I was there too and I never had memory leak I NEVER had stuck! And the bugs were minor! "CRAPTACULAR INTERFACE"? Man if you dont like the game its ok, but dont go saying that kind of bull just to get the other guys to dont play the game!
They removed 'some memory leaks' as late as the Oktober 18 patch. Some, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't all of them, as memory usage for the game kept running up, even though not as steeply as before. Checking is simple: press F4, and see the memory use percentage go up and up and up. Open Task Manager, see what process is eating all that memory, and wow, guess what, It's TR.
The landscape is FULL of places where a player can get stuck. Everyone who ever actually played has experienced this multiple times a play session. New players had better remember the /stuck command well, and had also better remember there is a 30+ second wait between /stuck attempts.
The interface IS craptacular, especially the chat. So you can resize chat a bit now. Whoop-te-do. You still cannot resize other interface elements, like the mission bar, and you still cannot arrange the interface to your personal preferences.
Unless they somehow change every single one of the geometry errors, revamp the interface and plug even more memory leaks (on top of fixing all those OTHER bugs you've probably never seen) between beta closing and pre-order release, all this will still be there when it goes live.
Like I said before, proof of the pudding is in the eating. Go play in live, see who's right. As for me, I'll pass on this one, thanks, i've had all I can stand.
What I percieve to be the problem is all this money spent on elaborate cutscenes, expensive voice talent and freaking marketing programs. $10 says 80% of any game's cost goes straight to hollywood for cinematics and voice talent, and BS marketing directors that don't know anything but how to spend money on "Branding".
You know why? You all demand that.
That's why 99% of console games are good for 7 hours or less. They spend all their money on fecking bullshit instead of spending it on game developers and game designers to develop a game. That is why they are there, to develop a game, right?
There is no reason to spend all that money. People are foaming at the mouth just to see new games. All they need to do is start a blog and index that crap in google. Screw the cutscenes. In the old days you got a picture for a cutscene.
I happen to like this game but that's what's wrong with most of the industry. You'll see a great game, but if the voice acting and cutscenes aren't perfect, and Hollywood enough(you know what I'm talking about, look at Halo3)all the critics down the game and it flushes.
That attitude is what's killing the industry. If you want that _and_ quality gameplay, _and_ 300 days worth of content, games will cost a hell of a lot more to produce. You'd need to spend 10x what you do now for a game to have the game play quality, Hollywood content and all the bullshit marketing.
You want to spend $500 for the box? You need to give something up. I think it should be the stupid drama. At the end of the day, I look at a cutscene or game intro once. I decide whether or not to play by playing it, not watching that cut scene or watching the E3 movies. None of them are anything like the real game anyway.
The E3 movie should be made with fraps and take 10 minutes to make. The game talks, the bullshit walks.
Well just my opinion, but I'm an experienced MMO veteran and I believe that Tabula Rasa will be a great success. Probably not as much as World of warcraft was (although we can always hope) but it will in no way be a failure. The game itself lives up to its hype that it eliminates the boring repetitiveness of the generic mmo. The Ai is no doubt some of the greatest that any MMO has ever had. The gameplay is innovative. Of course its not perfect, as it may lack in a few areas such as number of classes and number of areas, but the game is only going to get better with the Operation patches (similar to Chronicle patches in lineage).
Perhaps one of the most important part of Tabula Rasa is the great interaction between the dev team and community. The dev team actually log on the game and chat with the community every now and then (I have no doubt this will happen in retail as well). There is also a Feedback Friday where a member of the dev team posts a message on the official site discussing the issues sent to them by the community and how they are working on it. The end of beta event was an amazing event, with dev team controlled bossess everywhere and other devs leading forces against them. While I understand many betas have great end of beta events, I have no doubt that the TR team will reproduce these kinds of events in retail.
There are only 4 servers in live, but the reason for this is because each server can hold alot of people since there are multiple instances of the main areas. If too many people are spamming a quest area and u cant kill the mob, just warp over to another instance and bam you can finish the quest in a minute. Think of the different instances within a server as separate servers themselves but servers that you can switch between. This makes it much easier for friends to play with other friends since so many people can be on the same server.
At the very minimum this game is going to get hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
All you naysayers are in for a big surprise. QQ all you like, you are giving nothing to this community and wasting so many people's time.
Ohh, and OP, SWG is where you shoudl be posting this load of smack. That is the game that singlehandedly destroyed an established community, has shown very low to zero follow through by the devs..the list goes on and on....and yet....even it has managed to keep the doors open...and you think TR is going to close up shop within a year?
Tabula Rasa is a game just made wrong in my opinion.
It may not fail, but for me its something I would never consider. Just minor changes can change the entire game and gameplay, and make it enjoyable for all.
All you naysayers are in for a big surprise. QQ all you like, you are giving nothing to this community and wasting so many people's time.
Ohh, and OP, SWG is where you shoudl be posting this load of smack. That is the game that singlehandedly destroyed an established community, has shown very low to zero follow through by the devs..the list goes on and on....and yet....even it has managed to keep the doors open...and you think TR is going to close up shop within a year?
au contraire - I'm giving my opinions as to its worthiness (it isn't worth the price they are asking, not for the box, and definately not for the subscription). Just because you don't agree doesn't mean a hill of beans, if anything, the unrepentant fanbois are worse.
as for the wasting of people's time - have I held a gun to anyone's head and forced them to read any of my posts? no. argument is invalid
SWG? never played it, never will
and yes, unless they radically revamp the gameplay, fix the balance issues, develop a skill tree that actually bears fruit, and sort out a host of other shallowness, I can't see it surviving.
which is really too bad, I had high hopes for this game, hopes that were initially justified, then slowly and inexoribly dashed against the rocky shores of Suck since June.
enjoy yourself, have fun for the next 4 weeks till you hit lvl50, and continue paying your 15 bucks a month in pay-to-play open beta. I'll take another look in 6 months to see if it has improved at all, but by then AoC and WAR will be out. As it is, there are enouh other games far more worthy of purchasing either on the market, or immanent, that blow this pseudo mmo out of the water (and pseudo it certainly is - it's more a third-person POV shoot-em-up with chat than a true mmo)
anyway - in 6 months, provided development continues, it *might* be worth the price on the box and the sbscription fee - it certainly isn't worth it right now
well dude your opinion is based on a low lvl experience , during a beta , thus completly biased and non occurate.
I played the beta saw the imporvments tryed all gameplays ( pretty much all calsses till lvl 30/31)... i wont be subscribing but that aint becasue the game is bad.. becasue itsnt i wont play because its not "my game"
now coming here yealling the game isnt good ? what are you basing you re arguments on ?
there is content, grafics are nice ( that a matter of taste though) action is fun ( eventhough i found it boring )
pointing at skills when you didnt get further than lvl 15 ihes just point out your ignorance.. you could have point out that the tree skill is not wel designed since most of them arent usefull before you reach high lvl but saying it s crap jsut make you ignorant.
i m fine if its not your kind of game ( its not mine either) but its not a good game and i doubt its will fail.. it wont be a maintream game that for sure but its a fun game for lot of people.
Sure are a number of player who want this game to fail for some reason.
All I can tell you is that the players I have seen in the Pre-Order head start seem to be loving it. I haven't even a bit of the usual, "OMG, this game sucks" stuff I'd expect over the broadcast channel from players who are genuinely disappointed. I know of one guy who said he had not stopped playing since the pre-order head start started and was just now hitting the sack after 30 hours of play
I don't know what you thought you learned in beta, but this is not the crappy game you're looking for. I suspect that once the word gets around that this is the case, most of the people who were slandering it are going to be embarrassed that they did.
My advice: Don't go into this game expecting another EverQuest/WoW clone or Ultima Online. Play Tabula Rasa as if it really is a clean slate. It's not... but it's good enough that this perspective will pay off.
Of course, I will qualify this so people don't pull out their hair overmuch by saying that, with all games, people will just not like them because it's not their style. That's not Tabula Rasa's fault.
well dude your opinion is based on a low lvl experience , during a beta , thus completly biased and non occurate.
I played the beta saw the imporvments tryed all gameplays ( pretty much all calsses till lvl 30/31)... i wont be subscribing but that aint becasue the game is bad.. becasue itsnt i wont play because its not "my game"
now coming here yealling the game isnt good ? what are you basing you re arguments on ?
there is content, grafics are nice ( that a matter of taste though) action is fun ( eventhough i found it boring ) pointing at skills when you didnt get further than lvl 15 ihes just point out your ignorance.. you could have point out that the tree skill is not wel designed since most of them arent usefull before you reach high lvl but saying it s crap jsut make you ignorant.
i m fine if its not your kind of game ( its not mine either) but its not a good game and i doubt its will fail.. it wont be a maintream game that for sure but its a fun game for lot of people.
I really dont like this attitude that if you arent max level then you cant express your opinion about a game. Ridiculous, You dont have to eat an entire dog turd to explain that it tastes like crap. You can tell that after the first bite.
well dude your opinion is based on a low lvl experience , during a beta , thus completly biased and non occurate.
I played the beta saw the imporvments tryed all gameplays ( pretty much all calsses till lvl 30/31)... i wont be subscribing but that aint becasue the game is bad.. becasue itsnt i wont play because its not "my game"
now coming here yealling the game isnt good ? what are you basing you re arguments on ?
there is content, grafics are nice ( that a matter of taste though) action is fun ( eventhough i found it boring ) pointing at skills when you didnt get further than lvl 15 ihes just point out your ignorance.. you could have point out that the tree skill is not wel designed since most of them arent usefull before you reach high lvl but saying it s crap jsut make you ignorant.
i m fine if its not your kind of game ( its not mine either) but its not a good game and i doubt its will fail.. it wont be a maintream game that for sure but its a fun game for lot of people.
I really dont like this attitude that if you arent max level then you cant express your opinion about a game. Ridiculous, You dont have to eat an entire dog turd to explain that it tastes bad. You can tell that after the first bite.
I'm going to have to partly side with both of you here.
1. End of level to know the game? Nah. When it comes right down to it, you need to be able to enjoy the game whether you're playing at level 5 or you're playing at level 50. In many cases, you're playing the same game at the high level, just with a higher challenge and more abilities. So the "low level impression" is valid, IMHO.
2. A lot of people dropped Tabula Rasa during the beta with sour impressions. I think they've shorted themselves the opportunity to really enjoy the game as it is in its release state. There was no "miracle patch" at release, it's true, but during the last few weeks of beta things really came together nicely.
2a. Also, I tihnk Tabula Rasa is a game that's heavy on "significance". I don't know about you, but I can't foster much of a sense of significance in a beta when you know your character's going to be wiped. Of many of those people who dropped TR during beta, it wasn't because they disliked the game but rather because they decided they didn't want to spoil it for themselves.
i didnt mention high lvl neither endgame you know ^^
i mentionnend a lvl range where all skills were acquired and obviously something else than the "startup planet" was seen.. that enough to make a valid point imo but judging from a lvl that obviously didnt get far and didnt see much of content is for sure non occurate.
if you consider lvling the "bad part" then you already got it wrong imo.. its more a trial to learn the mechanics before the real content comes in.
like i said previously i wont be playing TR , its not my type of game but its sure isnt a bad game and will make lot of people happy.
I only played Tabula Rasa in Closed Beta. I found numerous bugs and reported them. Some got fixed others didn't while I still beta'd. Then I ran out of time to devote to the effort and went away.
I'm still going to buy the final version.
The reason is simple: I have my own opinion and I want to form it based on something concrete and personal. To be absolutely honest: The posts on MMORPG.com that simply contains the poster's subjective rant are totally useless to anybody. I could write that Game XXX was fantastic or rubbish and it would in reality just be a waste or your time. It doesn't matter if I write several pages of pros and cons, give examples of gameplay, highlight changes in this game compared to another game because if you don't know me, my personal preferences, my gaming history, and my mood of the day the end result is simply pointless.
Reviews are ludicrous if you haven't followed the reviewer for a long time and have seen/heard/played whatever the reviewer has reviewed.
I only played Tabula Rasa in Closed Beta. I found numerous bugs and reported them. Some got fixed others didn't while I still beta'd. Then I ran out of time to devote to the effort and went away.
I'm still going to buy the final version.
The reason is simple: I have my own opinion and I want to form it based on something concrete and personal. To be absolutely honest: The posts on MMORPG.com that simply contains the poster's subjective rant are totally useless to anybody. I could write that Game XXX was fantastic or rubbish and it would in reality just be a waste or your time. It doesn't matter if I write several pages of pros and cons, give examples of gameplay, highlight changes in this game compared to another game because if you don't know me, my personal preferences, my gaming history, and my mood of the day the end result is simply pointless.
Reviews are ludicrous if you haven't followed the reviewer for a long time and have seen/heard/played whatever the reviewer has reviewed.
<Mod edit>
Hmm calling someone foolish, stating that their opinion is worth less than yours. Now who is condescending?
My opinion is not worth more or less than any other person to anyone but me.
Same for everybody else. If you start thinking that your own 100% subjective opinion given in the complete and utter anonymity of the internet without knowledge of the gaming experience, relative preferences, and insight of your recipient (in this case, other forum posters) is of any interest or value, you're a fool.
My opinion about a game is relevant for me and the people who know me and my preferences. To everybody else it is pointless white noise made by unknown entities with immature delusions of their own worth and/or importance.
Saying "this is good" or "this is bad" (insert relevant colorful phrase instead if you desire) is useless.
Simply writing what is in the game could be of value, but any personal bias added would nullify this potential worth. The reason is the sender/reader relationship - it isn't there, so the point of reference is impossible to ascertain with any real proficiency.
I really this is common sense and a lot of people will already be ignoring the people who can't seem to write anything about a game without making blanket statements in the laughable league of "This game is teh best eva!!!" or "This game is complite rubish!!" (including numerous other spelling and/grammar errors and a hideous over-use of exclamation points).
Nitefly's right - this is something you have to form your opinion about yourself. I don't expect everybody to love the game because no game appeals to everybody, so you're going to have to see for yourself.
I will say, however, that you should give it a week in order to change your opinions about MMORPGs. If you're trapped in your old ways of regarding them, thinking that Tabula Rasa is EverQuest/WoW or Ultima Online, then you won't recognize its value.
Same for everybody else. If you start thinking that your own 100% subjective opinion given in the complete and utter anonymity of the internet without knowledge of the gaming experience, relative preferences, and insight of your recipient (in this case, other forum posters) is of any interest or value, you're a fool.
Since you state that all opinions are valueless, could you kindly explain your need to post three replies to the topic ?
I'd venture someone is not being truthful about how important he thinks his opinions are or he would have felt no need to post.
But now that we have peeled away the veneer of self importance, let's get back on topic and discuss why this pathetic shell of a game should crash and burn to send a 100 million dollar message to the gaming industry about wasting money on hype and the perceived fame of pajama wearing self important little developer gods like Richard Garriott.
Save the insults and psych 101 insights into the human condition, let's hear what you have to say about how great this game is and why people shouldn't avoid it like the plague.
this whole website is about personal opinions. Why waste your time tearing down someone elses opinions about things with your own? You are what you say hate. Ironic?
I as well will digress. Its up to the consumers to decide the fate of a product, whether that be good or bad.Personally Im sick and tired of shoddy MMO products. At the moment Im back to playing text based games and shadowbane as I havent come across a single decent title in ages wjprthy of a monthly subscription.Theyre feedin us crap, theyre more worried about makin cash than makin the player base happy. A good example of the opposite is EVE online. While that particular game isnt my cup of tea, I at least have respect for the fact that they really seem to put the player base first. And OMGWTF, I think thats a large reason its such a popular as well as powerful entity. (thats right game companies you CAN be successful w/o copying WOW, just by being MORE concerned about the player base as opposed to what lame rehashed gimmick you are going to try to pawn off on us, hoping the whole while we won't notice your game is one in a heap of sup-par titles.
Personally Im to the point where Id like to see the entire genre crash and burn for its ineptitude at providing quality products that we deserve.
Nitefly's right - this is something you have to form your opinion about yourself. I don't expect everybody to love the game because no game appeals to everybody, so you're going to have to see for yourself. I will say, however, that you should give it a week in order to change your opinions about MMORPGs. If you're trapped in your old ways of regarding them, thinking that Tabula Rasa is EverQuest/WoW or Ultima Online, then you won't recognize its value.
When it was $5 to try it out yes that was a good idea, give it a try for a week.
But now that it has gone live it is not worth $50.00 to "try it out for a week".
There are going to be plenty of unhappy people in the first 6 months of this game because they ran out and bought it based on hype only to find out it is shallow as a kiddie pool and wears thin in just a few hours of play.
People cannot afford to "try out" games at $50.00 a pop, expecting people to do so is not realistic given the current world economic situation.
Comments
Someday you may come to realize that there is no purely positive state in nature.
Without negative there is no positive.
The Universe creates people like me to counter balance the ridiculously positive 10 foot thick rose colored glasses that some people wear.
Amen, brother.
TR is truly what its name means: a blank slate. It doesn't try to appeal the oldskool players (or not necessarily). It's a pretty bold attempt to redefine some of the dogmas in the MMORPG world (scifi, active combat, no raiding, etc). It's risky. And tricky. It's so borderline when you take the MMORPG usual definition that can be pretty hard to digest for some. It's not GW, but it's not WoW, nor UO (in fact, it's probably in the opposite extreme of the former).
For once, combat is something you must actively take part on. Forget the fridge and the cokes while fighting, because if you do, you're dead. You can solo virtually everything (instances will need you to outlevel them a bit, depending on their difficulty, but still). You can login for half an hour and have a blast, finish some quests, and feel that you're in fact progressing. Heck, even you can login 8 hours if you like., the fun is still there. Grinding, for once, is FUN (thank's God). But you barely have to grind, as the quests and instances will give you exp enough and a reason that fits in the game story if you ever need to grind ("Targets of Opportunity" missions). There's no (apparent) intention to stress the social aspect of the game. RPing is something that may or not emerge, I think the seed is there though. And, one of the intersting aspects, some key quests force you to make moral decisions that will affect your role in the world lately. I'm pretty sure that will be one of the keys in "elder game" (end game), when PVP and, probably, RP will have a big part.
Boring after a while? Only well past the 20s. And, well, it was a beta. Content will be added (it was in fact being added during the beta). Buggy? That was the beta purpose, we were there to report and help to iron the game. Patches were applied. Classes, weapons and skills were being balanced (to your taste or not, but they were doing it). It's a stable game. The low level areas (Foreas) are well designed, visually appealing , and have tons of missions and instances. The intention with the higher level areas seems to be the same (Arieki, Plateau). Plains, Incline, Mires had enough missions and instances to keep you busy. There is a problem with experience vs minimum mission level in Arieki (you probably may end there quite before the minimum level required to get most missions), but experience rate was something devs were looking at. And so on.
As long as the devs keep doing their job, this game will give most players an intense, different and fun approach to the MMORPG genre. It may not be fun for you, but it'll definitely will be for others. I really like the concept and intentions behind this title. Just let's hope the devs or publisher just doesn't kill it. This little game just has enough back-stabbers
Still gonna be beta when it comes out this week.
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
Amen, brother.
TR is truly what its name means: a blank slate. It doesn't try to appeal the oldskool players (or not necessarily). It's a pretty bold attempt to redefine some of the dogmas in the MMORPG world (scifi, active combat, no raiding, etc). It's risky. And tricky. It's so borderline when you take the MMORPG usual definition that can be pretty hard to digest for some. It's not GW, but it's not WoW, nor UO (in fact, it's probably in the opposite extreme of the former).
For once, combat is something you must actively take part on. Forget the fridge and the cokes while fighting, because if you do, you're dead. You can solo virtually everything (instances will need you to outlevel them a bit, depending on their difficulty, but still). You can login for half an hour and have a blast, finish some quests, and feel that you're in fact progressing. Heck, even you can login 8 hours if you like., the fun is still there. Grinding, for once, is FUN (thank's God). But you barely have to grind, as the quests and instances will give you exp enough and a reason that fits in the game story if you ever need to grind ("Targets of Opportunity" missions). There's no (apparent) intention to stress the social aspect of the game. RPing is something that may or not emerge, I think the seed is there though. And, one of the intersting aspects, some key quests force you to make moral decisions that will affect your role in the world lately. I'm pretty sure that will be one of the keys in "elder game" (end game), when PVP and, probably, RP will have a big part.
Boring after a while? Only well past the 20s. And, well, it was a beta. Content will be added (it was in fact being added during the beta). Buggy? That was the beta purpose, we were there to report and help to iron the game. Patches were applied. Classes, weapons and skills were being balanced (to your taste or not, but they were doing it). It's a stable game. The low level areas (Foreas) are well designed, visually appealing , and have tons of missions and instances. The intention with the higher level areas seems to be the same (Arieki, Plateau). Plains, Incline, Mires had enough missions and instances to keep you busy. There is a problem with experience vs minimum mission level in Arieki (you probably may end there quite before the minimum level required to get most missions), but experience rate was something devs were looking at. And so on.
As long as the devs keep doing their job, this game will give most players an intense, different and fun approach to the MMORPG genre. It may not be fun for you, but it'll definitely will be for others. I really like the concept and intentions behind this title. Just let's hope the devs or publisher just doesn't kill it. This little game just has enough back-stabbers
You kinda missed a few points there. Yes, it was a beta, but I played well into OPEN beta, the 'advertisement' stage where major issues and balancing should be SOLVED and READY, unless you actually want to chase away customers before it goes live. Unfortunately, a lot of problems simply stayed around, LONG after being reported in CLOSED beta.
I must have imagined the persistent killstealing problems in the low-level-areas, the ridiculous ease with which you get stuck ALL over the place, the craptacular interface, the ever-recurring database bugs and memory leaks... the list goes on.
I am not overly impressed with any argument that 'the game will get better as they add more content'. I've SEEN them add more content, new bugs and all. And as to the 'clean slate': really bad joke, nothing new or original about it, including the 'moral choices' (which, at level 36, I had yet to see any effect of).
If you like it and want to play it, good for you, but I think in the end, the number of subs will be disappointing. How many servers in live? Still only 4?
Linna
You were right to the end of the Beta and saw all that stuff? Im sorry but you HAVE to be lying! I was there too and I never had memory leak I NEVER had stuck! And the bugs were minor! "CRAPTACULAR INTERFACE"? Man if you dont like the game its ok, but dont go saying that kind of bull just to get the other guys to dont play the game!Amen, brother.
TR is truly what its name means: a blank slate. It doesn't try to appeal the oldskool players (or not necessarily). It's a pretty bold attempt to redefine some of the dogmas in the MMORPG world (scifi, active combat, no raiding, etc). It's risky. And tricky. It's so borderline when you take the MMORPG usual definition that can be pretty hard to digest for some. It's not GW, but it's not WoW, nor UO (in fact, it's probably in the opposite extreme of the former).
For once, combat is something you must actively take part on. Forget the fridge and the cokes while fighting, because if you do, you're dead. You can solo virtually everything (instances will need you to outlevel them a bit, depending on their difficulty, but still). You can login for half an hour and have a blast, finish some quests, and feel that you're in fact progressing. Heck, even you can login 8 hours if you like., the fun is still there. Grinding, for once, is FUN (thank's God). But you barely have to grind, as the quests and instances will give you exp enough and a reason that fits in the game story if you ever need to grind ("Targets of Opportunity" missions). There's no (apparent) intention to stress the social aspect of the game. RPing is something that may or not emerge, I think the seed is there though. And, one of the intersting aspects, some key quests force you to make moral decisions that will affect your role in the world lately. I'm pretty sure that will be one of the keys in "elder game" (end game), when PVP and, probably, RP will have a big part.
Boring after a while? Only well past the 20s. And, well, it was a beta. Content will be added (it was in fact being added during the beta). Buggy? That was the beta purpose, we were there to report and help to iron the game. Patches were applied. Classes, weapons and skills were being balanced (to your taste or not, but they were doing it). It's a stable game. The low level areas (Foreas) are well designed, visually appealing , and have tons of missions and instances. The intention with the higher level areas seems to be the same (Arieki, Plateau). Plains, Incline, Mires had enough missions and instances to keep you busy. There is a problem with experience vs minimum mission level in Arieki (you probably may end there quite before the minimum level required to get most missions), but experience rate was something devs were looking at. And so on.
As long as the devs keep doing their job, this game will give most players an intense, different and fun approach to the MMORPG genre. It may not be fun for you, but it'll definitely will be for others. I really like the concept and intentions behind this title. Just let's hope the devs or publisher just doesn't kill it. This little game just has enough back-stabbers
You kinda missed a few points there. Yes, it was a beta, but I played well into OPEN beta, the 'advertisement' stage where major issues and balancing should be SOLVED and READY, unless you actually want to chase away customers before it goes live. Unfortunately, a lot of problems simply stayed around, LONG after being reported in CLOSED beta.
I must have imagined the persistent killstealing problems in the low-level-areas, the ridiculous ease with which you get stuck ALL over the place, the craptacular interface, the ever-recurring database bugs and memory leaks... the list goes on.
I am not overly impressed with any argument that 'the game will get better as they add more content'. I've SEEN them add more content, new bugs and all. And as to the 'clean slate': really bad joke, nothing new or original about it, including the 'moral choices' (which, at level 36, I had yet to see any effect of).
If you like it and want to play it, good for you, but I think in the end, the number of subs will be disappointing. How many servers in live? Still only 4?
Linna
You were right to the end of the Beta and saw all that stuff? Im sorry but you HAVE to be lying! I was there too and I never had memory leak I NEVER had stuck! And the bugs were minor! "CRAPTACULAR INTERFACE"? Man if you dont like the game its ok, but dont go saying that kind of bull just to get the other guys to dont play the game!They removed 'some memory leaks' as late as the Oktober 18 patch. Some, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't all of them, as memory usage for the game kept running up, even though not as steeply as before. Checking is simple: press F4, and see the memory use percentage go up and up and up. Open Task Manager, see what process is eating all that memory, and wow, guess what, It's TR.
The landscape is FULL of places where a player can get stuck. Everyone who ever actually played has experienced this multiple times a play session. New players had better remember the /stuck command well, and had also better remember there is a 30+ second wait between /stuck attempts.
The interface IS craptacular, especially the chat. So you can resize chat a bit now. Whoop-te-do. You still cannot resize other interface elements, like the mission bar, and you still cannot arrange the interface to your personal preferences.
Unless they somehow change every single one of the geometry errors, revamp the interface and plug even more memory leaks (on top of fixing all those OTHER bugs you've probably never seen) between beta closing and pre-order release, all this will still be there when it goes live.
Like I said before, proof of the pudding is in the eating. Go play in live, see who's right. As for me, I'll pass on this one, thanks, i've had all I can stand.
Linna
What I percieve to be the problem is all this money spent on elaborate cutscenes, expensive voice talent and freaking marketing programs. $10 says 80% of any game's cost goes straight to hollywood for cinematics and voice talent, and BS marketing directors that don't know anything but how to spend money on "Branding".
You know why? You all demand that.
That's why 99% of console games are good for 7 hours or less. They spend all their money on fecking bullshit instead of spending it on game developers and game designers to develop a game. That is why they are there, to develop a game, right?
There is no reason to spend all that money. People are foaming at the mouth just to see new games. All they need to do is start a blog and index that crap in google. Screw the cutscenes. In the old days you got a picture for a cutscene.
I happen to like this game but that's what's wrong with most of the industry. You'll see a great game, but if the voice acting and cutscenes aren't perfect, and Hollywood enough(you know what I'm talking about, look at Halo3)all the critics down the game and it flushes.
That attitude is what's killing the industry. If you want that _and_ quality gameplay, _and_ 300 days worth of content, games will cost a hell of a lot more to produce. You'd need to spend 10x what you do now for a game to have the game play quality, Hollywood content and all the bullshit marketing.
You want to spend $500 for the box? You need to give something up. I think it should be the stupid drama. At the end of the day, I look at a cutscene or game intro once. I decide whether or not to play by playing it, not watching that cut scene or watching the E3 movies. None of them are anything like the real game anyway.
The E3 movie should be made with fraps and take 10 minutes to make. The game talks, the bullshit walks.
-Viz
Well just my opinion, but I'm an experienced MMO veteran and I believe that Tabula Rasa will be a great success. Probably not as much as World of warcraft was (although we can always hope) but it will in no way be a failure. The game itself lives up to its hype that it eliminates the boring repetitiveness of the generic mmo. The Ai is no doubt some of the greatest that any MMO has ever had. The gameplay is innovative. Of course its not perfect, as it may lack in a few areas such as number of classes and number of areas, but the game is only going to get better with the Operation patches (similar to Chronicle patches in lineage).
Perhaps one of the most important part of Tabula Rasa is the great interaction between the dev team and community. The dev team actually log on the game and chat with the community every now and then (I have no doubt this will happen in retail as well). There is also a Feedback Friday where a member of the dev team posts a message on the official site discussing the issues sent to them by the community and how they are working on it. The end of beta event was an amazing event, with dev team controlled bossess everywhere and other devs leading forces against them. While I understand many betas have great end of beta events, I have no doubt that the TR team will reproduce these kinds of events in retail.
There are only 4 servers in live, but the reason for this is because each server can hold alot of people since there are multiple instances of the main areas. If too many people are spamming a quest area and u cant kill the mob, just warp over to another instance and bam you can finish the quest in a minute. Think of the different instances within a server as separate servers themselves but servers that you can switch between. This makes it much easier for friends to play with other friends since so many people can be on the same server.
At the very minimum this game is going to get hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
I'll be v.surprised if it manages to hit 6 figures before the churn kicks in
All you naysayers are in for a big surprise. QQ all you like, you are giving nothing to this community and wasting so many people's time.
Ohh, and OP, SWG is where you shoudl be posting this load of smack. That is the game that singlehandedly destroyed an established community, has shown very low to zero follow through by the devs..the list goes on and on....and yet....even it has managed to keep the doors open...and you think TR is going to close up shop within a year?
Tabula Rasa is a game just made wrong in my opinion.
It may not fail, but for me its something I would never consider. Just minor changes can change the entire game and gameplay, and make it enjoyable for all.
au contraire - I'm giving my opinions as to its worthiness (it isn't worth the price they are asking, not for the box, and definately not for the subscription). Just because you don't agree doesn't mean a hill of beans, if anything, the unrepentant fanbois are worse.
as for the wasting of people's time - have I held a gun to anyone's head and forced them to read any of my posts? no. argument is invalid
SWG? never played it, never will
and yes, unless they radically revamp the gameplay, fix the balance issues, develop a skill tree that actually bears fruit, and sort out a host of other shallowness, I can't see it surviving.
which is really too bad, I had high hopes for this game, hopes that were initially justified, then slowly and inexoribly dashed against the rocky shores of Suck since June.
enjoy yourself, have fun for the next 4 weeks till you hit lvl50, and continue paying your 15 bucks a month in pay-to-play open beta. I'll take another look in 6 months to see if it has improved at all, but by then AoC and WAR will be out. As it is, there are enouh other games far more worthy of purchasing either on the market, or immanent, that blow this pseudo mmo out of the water (and pseudo it certainly is - it's more a third-person POV shoot-em-up with chat than a true mmo)
anyway - in 6 months, provided development continues, it *might* be worth the price on the box and the sbscription fee - it certainly isn't worth it right now
well dude your opinion is based on a low lvl experience , during a beta , thus completly biased and non occurate.
I played the beta saw the imporvments tryed all gameplays ( pretty much all calsses till lvl 30/31)... i wont be subscribing but that aint becasue the game is bad.. becasue itsnt i wont play because its not "my game"
now coming here yealling the game isnt good ? what are you basing you re arguments on ?
there is content, grafics are nice ( that a matter of taste though) action is fun ( eventhough i found it boring )
pointing at skills when you didnt get further than lvl 15 ihes just point out your ignorance.. you could have point out that the tree skill is not wel designed since most of them arent usefull before you reach high lvl but saying it s crap jsut make you ignorant.
i m fine if its not your kind of game ( its not mine either) but its not a good game and i doubt its will fail.. it wont be a maintream game that for sure but its a fun game for lot of people.
Sure are a number of player who want this game to fail for some reason.
All I can tell you is that the players I have seen in the Pre-Order head start seem to be loving it. I haven't even a bit of the usual, "OMG, this game sucks" stuff I'd expect over the broadcast channel from players who are genuinely disappointed. I know of one guy who said he had not stopped playing since the pre-order head start started and was just now hitting the sack after 30 hours of play
I don't know what you thought you learned in beta, but this is not the crappy game you're looking for. I suspect that once the word gets around that this is the case, most of the people who were slandering it are going to be embarrassed that they did.
My advice: Don't go into this game expecting another EverQuest/WoW clone or Ultima Online. Play Tabula Rasa as if it really is a clean slate. It's not... but it's good enough that this perspective will pay off.
Of course, I will qualify this so people don't pull out their hair overmuch by saying that, with all games, people will just not like them because it's not their style. That's not Tabula Rasa's fault.
I really dont like this attitude that if you arent max level then you cant express your opinion about a game. Ridiculous, You dont have to eat an entire dog turd to explain that it tastes like crap. You can tell that after the first bite.
I really dont like this attitude that if you arent max level then you cant express your opinion about a game. Ridiculous, You dont have to eat an entire dog turd to explain that it tastes bad. You can tell that after the first bite.
not in a mmorpg
ESPECIALLY in an mmo. I wont play an MMO that Im required to "work" my way through the boring parts to get to the good parts.
if the game sucks from point A to point B, but is better from point B to C, then Ive wasted a good portion of my time NOT enjoying said game.
I want to enjoy the progression from point A to point C, without having to sit through unenjoyable content.
I'm going to have to partly side with both of you here.
1. End of level to know the game? Nah. When it comes right down to it, you need to be able to enjoy the game whether you're playing at level 5 or you're playing at level 50. In many cases, you're playing the same game at the high level, just with a higher challenge and more abilities. So the "low level impression" is valid, IMHO.
2. A lot of people dropped Tabula Rasa during the beta with sour impressions. I think they've shorted themselves the opportunity to really enjoy the game as it is in its release state. There was no "miracle patch" at release, it's true, but during the last few weeks of beta things really came together nicely.
2a. Also, I tihnk Tabula Rasa is a game that's heavy on "significance". I don't know about you, but I can't foster much of a sense of significance in a beta when you know your character's going to be wiped. Of many of those people who dropped TR during beta, it wasn't because they disliked the game but rather because they decided they didn't want to spoil it for themselves.
i didnt mention high lvl neither endgame you know ^^
i mentionnend a lvl range where all skills were acquired and obviously something else than the "startup planet" was seen.. that enough to make a valid point imo but judging from a lvl that obviously didnt get far and didnt see much of content is for sure non occurate.
if you consider lvling the "bad part" then you already got it wrong imo.. its more a trial to learn the mechanics before the real content comes in.
like i said previously i wont be playing TR , its not my type of game but its sure isnt a bad game and will make lot of people happy.
I only played Tabula Rasa in Closed Beta. I found numerous bugs and reported them. Some got fixed others didn't while I still beta'd. Then I ran out of time to devote to the effort and went away.
I'm still going to buy the final version.
The reason is simple: I have my own opinion and I want to form it based on something concrete and personal. To be absolutely honest: The posts on MMORPG.com that simply contains the poster's subjective rant are totally useless to anybody. I could write that Game XXX was fantastic or rubbish and it would in reality just be a waste or your time. It doesn't matter if I write several pages of pros and cons, give examples of gameplay, highlight changes in this game compared to another game because if you don't know me, my personal preferences, my gaming history, and my mood of the day the end result is simply pointless.
Reviews are ludicrous if you haven't followed the reviewer for a long time and have seen/heard/played whatever the reviewer has reviewed.
<Mod edit>
Hmm calling someone foolish, stating that their opinion is worth less than yours. Now who is condescending?
You are missing the point entirely.
My opinion is not worth more or less than any other person to anyone but me.
Same for everybody else. If you start thinking that your own 100% subjective opinion given in the complete and utter anonymity of the internet without knowledge of the gaming experience, relative preferences, and insight of your recipient (in this case, other forum posters) is of any interest or value, you're a fool.
My opinion about a game is relevant for me and the people who know me and my preferences. To everybody else it is pointless white noise made by unknown entities with immature delusions of their own worth and/or importance.
Saying "this is good" or "this is bad" (insert relevant colorful phrase instead if you desire) is useless.
Simply writing what is in the game could be of value, but any personal bias added would nullify this potential worth. The reason is the sender/reader relationship - it isn't there, so the point of reference is impossible to ascertain with any real proficiency.
I really this is common sense and a lot of people will already be ignoring the people who can't seem to write anything about a game without making blanket statements in the laughable league of "This game is teh best eva!!!" or "This game is complite rubish!!" (including numerous other spelling and/grammar errors and a hideous over-use of exclamation points).
Form your own opinion. Ignore the muppets.
Nitefly's right - this is something you have to form your opinion about yourself. I don't expect everybody to love the game because no game appeals to everybody, so you're going to have to see for yourself.
I will say, however, that you should give it a week in order to change your opinions about MMORPGs. If you're trapped in your old ways of regarding them, thinking that Tabula Rasa is EverQuest/WoW or Ultima Online, then you won't recognize its value.
Since you state that all opinions are valueless, could you kindly explain your need to post three replies to the topic ?
I'd venture someone is not being truthful about how important he thinks his opinions are or he would have felt no need to post.
But now that we have peeled away the veneer of self importance, let's get back on topic and discuss why this pathetic shell of a game should crash and burn to send a 100 million dollar message to the gaming industry about wasting money on hype and the perceived fame of pajama wearing self important little developer gods like Richard Garriott.
Save the insults and psych 101 insights into the human condition, let's hear what you have to say about how great this game is and why people shouldn't avoid it like the plague.
this whole website is about personal opinions. Why waste your time tearing down someone elses opinions about things with your own? You are what you say hate. Ironic?
I as well will digress. Its up to the consumers to decide the fate of a product, whether that be good or bad.Personally Im sick and tired of shoddy MMO products. At the moment Im back to playing text based games and shadowbane as I havent come across a single decent title in ages wjprthy of a monthly subscription.Theyre feedin us crap, theyre more worried about makin cash than makin the player base happy. A good example of the opposite is EVE online. While that particular game isnt my cup of tea, I at least have respect for the fact that they really seem to put the player base first. And OMGWTF, I think thats a large reason its such a popular as well as powerful entity. (thats right game companies you CAN be successful w/o copying WOW, just by being MORE concerned about the player base as opposed to what lame rehashed gimmick you are going to try to pawn off on us, hoping the whole while we won't notice your game is one in a heap of sup-par titles.
Personally Im to the point where Id like to see the entire genre crash and burn for its ineptitude at providing quality products that we deserve.
When it was $5 to try it out yes that was a good idea, give it a try for a week.
But now that it has gone live it is not worth $50.00 to "try it out for a week".
There are going to be plenty of unhappy people in the first 6 months of this game because they ran out and bought it based on hype only to find out it is shallow as a kiddie pool and wears thin in just a few hours of play.
People cannot afford to "try out" games at $50.00 a pop, expecting people to do so is not realistic given the current world economic situation.