You know, every single time I read one of Garret Fuller's articles, I get about half-way through and say, "Lord, this man is physically incapable of writing." It's not like I think his ideas are wrong, or that he's bad at what he does... but I cannot bring myself to finish a single article. The awkward wordings, the mildly wrong grammar, the occasional typo... it just all adds up to a giant headache for me.
Might just be me, I don't know.
Yet, you continue to read his articles? Do you have stock in an aspirin company? ^^ I usually enjoy his articles.
You know, every single time I read one of Garret Fuller's articles, I get about half-way through and say, "Lord, this man is physically incapable of writing." It's not like I think his ideas are wrong, or that he's bad at what he does... but I cannot bring myself to finish a single article. The awkward wordings, the mildly wrong grammar, the occasional typo... it just all adds up to a giant headache for me.
Might just be me, I don't know.
How on Earth, can you stand to read ANY gaming forum?
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
One game not mentioned in transition right now that was not mentions would be DDO. The decision to go from a monthly subscription only to having a choice between that and microtransactions is an obvious attempt to save a game that has low player base numbers. The question is will the new 'facelift' give a breath of fresh air to the game or simply keep it limping along to its inevitable end? One thing is sure, DDO is out in an ocean capsized and can do one of two things - sink or swim.
Yes, I expected to see this new business model as an example in this resurrection article. It was the first thing I thought of when I read the theme of the article.
As for facelifts....Vanguard anyone? Such a waste of potential.
First off, I agree a new DAoC would be a hit. It still had some of the best pvp I have had in a long time, although they would need to tone down the crowd control and stealth, both of which were too overpowered.
I also agree with another poster, that AC1 would also benefit from a sequel. That game still is a fun play even with the very dated graphics.
As SOE, they shot themselves in the foot when they tried to trump Blizzard with a very buggy, high requirements EQ2. If they had taken their time and released it 6 months later they would have had a far better chance. Just another in a long line of bad decisions by their clueless leader.
I am Asian that play both Asian and Western mmo, but the martial art mmo have never appealed to me.
Even to Asians there are good martial arts and bad martial arts games, marital arts simply mean a bit more to Asians which might affect how many play it, but generally a sucky game is a sucky game martial arts or not.
Martial arts remains a small niche since people focus so much on martial arts they lose sight of gameplay (alot of asian developers do this).
DAoC was the only game I ever enjoyed PvP in, normally I won't PvP, but it was really good in that game.
I hope they don't come out with a DAoC2 though. The magic that was Mythic is gone, they have grown fat and arrogant and anything they would produce would be a mockery to their earlier triumphs.
DAoC was more than the game, it was the result of their passionate developers and staff. DAoC2 without Lum or Sanya, or any of the original team who put everything into it would be a train wreck.
First off, I agree a new DAoC would be a hit. It still had some of the best pvp I have had in a long time, although they would need to tone down the crowd control and stealth, both of which were too overpowered.
I also agree with another poster, that AC1 would also benefit from a sequel. That game still is a fun play even with the very dated graphics.
As SOE, they shot themselves in the foot when they tried to trump Blizzard with a very buggy, high requirements EQ2. If they had taken their time and released it 6 months later they would have had a far better chance. Just another in a long line of bad decisions by their clueless leader.
AC did have a sequel. Asherons Call 2. Between Microsoft and Turbine they managed to mess it up so badly that they ended up closing it(right after Turbine sold a lot of us the expansion pack for AC2...)
As for SOE, the less said the better. I place them right up there with EA in terms of poor management decisions, missed/lost opportunities, and down right corporate evil.
UO - continues adding on, profitable, but I have no interest in playing.
EQ - ditto. Kept my interest for years, though. I tried it during one of their free recruiting campaigns, but it was so user unfriendly still, I didn't have the will to relearn how to play after so many years away from it.
EQ2 - disaster - took the worst parts of EQ and made them even worse. Random rare mobs with random rare drops is just stupid.
AC - didn't like it.
AC2 - wasn't bad for the little bit of time I got to play. Too bad it was so mismanaged.
PS - great game, but a little too repetitive and some design decisions were silly. For example, I'm driving a frigging tank but the bumper is more powerful than the huge gun?
DDO - awesome game on its face. Unfortunately, unless you have a good group of friends to play with, it sucks. You end up playing with people whose only aim is to run through the content over and over as fast as possible. They blurt out every step you need to take in each dungeon so you never get to experience the content for yourself.
WoW - kept my interest for years, but I got really bored and frustrated with the level 80 play. Daily quests are a lazy developer trick to pretend they actually added content. Grinding ever more PvP honor for gear in arenas or battlegrounds isn't an RPG, it's a gladiatorial simulator, which I'm not interested in. That only leaves grinding dungeons, which take a good guild and too much of a time commitment - it becomes work.
War - disaster - grinding from about 25-40 sucked. The BGs were so unbalanced, we rarely had enough players on our side, so we rarely won.
EQ, DDO, and War have plenty of cool IP that could be a good basis for a resurrection - if and only if the game itself were developed so that ALL levels were fun to play. It has to be enjoyable enough that people won't want to get a bot to do their levelling.
I might have to disagree with you on the three realms thing in DAoC being the best PvP. The one large problem with the 3 PvP Realms is that when two factions are larger than the other one, then the two big factions end up fighting over the little one. That turns out to be no fun for the little one, and turns a three realm game into a two realm game... for all intended purposes. I personally like the Aion way of doing things where the third faction is a NPC Realm. This can end up being a spoiler and keeping the two other factions in check with each other. I do not know how Aion will work this, but on paper, I think it is a better idea for game balance.
I might have to disagree with you on the three realms thing in DAoC being the best PvP. The one large problem with the 3 PvP Realms is that when two factions are larger than the other one, then the two big factions end up fighting over the little one. That turns out to be no fun for the little one, and turns a three realm game into a two realm game... for all intended purposes. I personally like the Aion way of doing things where the third faction is a NPC Realm. This can end up being a spoiler and keeping the two other factions in check with each other. I do not know how Aion will work this, but on paper, I think it is a better idea for game balance.
How is the third faction as NPC idea not the same as every other mmo? Horde, Alliance, Scourge? It's the same thing.
What Happened With SWG Went Down YEARS AGO! Please Try To Stop Whining About It In Every Thread I Read. Mourn It, And Finally MOVE ON With Your Lives! Thanks A Heap.
How is the third faction as NPC idea not the same as every other mmo? Horde, Alliance, Scourge? It's the same thing.
Because the NPC Faction can be programmed to maintain a balance between the two remaining player factions, not allowing one side to overpower the other on a regular basis. In the three player realm design, it is assume that the two weaker factions would fight the stronger one... which may not always be true. From personal knowledge in ADoC, I know this to be a bad assumption. With a NPC faction as the third faction, the developers are able to maintain a more even balance by direct control this NPC faction. Hopefully, this balance will provide a more challenging game for both the player realms... at least more so than the three player realm design.
I might have to disagree with you on the three realms thing in DAoC being the best PvP. The one large problem with the 3 PvP Realms is that when two factions are larger than the other one, then the two big factions end up fighting over the little one. That turns out to be no fun for the little one, and turns a three realm game into a two realm game... for all intended purposes. I personally like the Aion way of doing things where the third faction is a NPC Realm. This can end up being a spoiler and keeping the two other factions in check with each other. I do not know how Aion will work this, but on paper, I think it is a better idea for game balance.
Did you PLAY daoc?...on almost every server (at least when I played the bulk of the time I played pre-atlantis/catacombs) there was one dominant faction and the other two were about even but certainly less populous than the main one. Yes, this creates a disadvantage, but since the battles were split between Hib/Mid and Hib/Alb, and Alb/Mid, there was usually one-to-three main "battles" going on in different areas at the same time (with smaller groups running around taking towers/ect.) It wasn't PERFECT, but every system since has been FAR FAR worse. In fact, there were very few times when one faction on ANY server held all 6 relics. In fact, I never saw it happen, personally.
WoW, WAR, even Aion. Nothing comes close to the experience of pvp in DAOC. If you have never participated in a relic keep siege, you have no idea and shouldn't even open your mouth about daoc.
Did you PLAY daoc?...on almost every server (at least when I played the bulk of the time I played pre-atlantis/catacombs) there was one dominant faction and the other two were about even but certainly less populous than the main one. Yes, this creates a disadvantage, but since the battles were split between Hib/Mid and Hib/Alb, and Alb/Mid, there was usually one-to-three main "battles" going on in different areas at the same time (with smaller groups running around taking towers/ect.) It wasn't PERFECT, but every system since has been FAR FAR worse. In fact, there were very few times when one faction on ANY server held all 6 relics. In fact, I never saw it happen, personally. WoW, WAR, even Aion. Nothing comes close to the experience of pvp in DAOC. If you have never participated in a relic keep siege, you have no idea and shouldn't even open your mouth about daoc.
Yes, I played DAoC from 2002 until 2004, for a total of 2.5 years, on the Percival Server. Albion and Midgard were fairly even in strength, and they fought over Hibernia (my faction) the whole time I was there. We would logon to find all our castles taken by either one or the other... and sometimes both. We would spend the rest of the night taking them back... to repeat the process the next day. Once in a while we were lucky enough to take a foreign castle, but not very often. It turns out that the two main guilds in Albion and Midgard were working together to keep the fight out of their home territories and keep the fighting going on in Hebernia instead. In many ways, very well played. That is why I would prefer a balancing faction controlled by the Dev's... to make things competitive... for all of the players.
So, yes, I believe I have earned the right to speak about DAoC because I had been on a few Relic Raids. However, I will not get into this anymore with you, because it is obviously heading into a flame match that I will not waste my time with. I have said what I believe and stand by my words. The End.
Even strength login queues in T4 would have solved the numbers imbalance in Warhammer. They further compounded the problem with careless transfers allowing new imbalances on the destination servers.
You want to play in T4? Then play the underdogs and make it a fair fight. You want to kick the dog when he's down? Then queue up and wait your turn.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
I'd love to see Earth & Beyond resurrected. EA bungled the support on that game badly, lack of advertising and content support. It still got a strong following and even to this day I read about it here and other sites about how people would love the game to return. I doubt it ever would, EA's track record with MMO's is very poor. Motor City Online failed due to rampant bugs and hacking, Earth & Beyond from EA's lack of support, DAoC is stagnant and WAR is a letdown.
EA always talks about how they'd love to redo or bring back old favorites. That is all they do however, is just talk. Too busy counting their money and searching for the next gaming studio to bring into their Collective.
Okay I'm really not trying to be insulting here, but....are MMORPG staff actually compensated? I mean they would have to be because Sanya Weathers and Richard Aihoshi contribute regularly, and I can't see them working for free....The point I'm trying to make is there are so many better writers out there, Like Saate at saate.net or Stormdragon or even Faymar over at companyofthewolf.net. If MMORPG can afford to actually pay it's staff and recruit folks like Weathers and Aihoshi, can't they cut the dead weight in lieu of someone who can you know...actually write?
In any event the last thing WoW needs is yet more classes; Fuller actually thinks eight isn't enough? Yes in a game where balance is at it's best is mucked all to hell we will add even more classes in a lame attempt to bring flavor where none is needed, that is just.... brilliant.
I do agree that EQ 2 was sheer arrogance, but any type of sequel in this Blizzard is your Daddy market is doomed to failure; GW 2 will be the exception simply because of the low price point. Honestly what developers need to do is to try to hold who they have in their niche games. Cataclysm will more or less be a major aftershock of the original phenomena and will own the market for the next five years; it is beyond stupid to throw venture capital dollars at that Monster and hope to slow much less bring him down and if that isn't what you are aiming for in the first place why even be in the business? Everyone and his ugly sister are still playing WoW; the handful who aren't have no real bearing on the market.
I agree about a Dark Age of Camelot sequel... that would be amazing. Warhammer is very meh. DAOC is now dead and is beyond resurrection, the game is dated and no face lift could fix it. WOW is the only thing I feel is worth playing nowadays.
And sometimes they wait too flippin' long to get the changes out the door. Blizzard drags its feet and this time will probably pay with massive lost subscriptions.
Azeroth is dead's-ville and folks are waiting for something with polish to come out and give them a chance to explore a new world. I hope WOW falls this time. Sick of Azeroth and gnomish motorcycles. It is time for dive into an immersive fantasy world.
Sometimes games come back, sometimes they're reborn, sometimes they're reworked... ________________________________________________________________________________________________ And sometimes they wait too flippin' long to get the changes out the door. Blizzard drags its feet and this time will probably pay with massive lost subscriptions. Azeroth is dead's-ville and folks are waiting for something with polish to come out and give them a chance to explore a new world. I hope WOW falls this time. Sick of Azeroth and gnomish motorcycles. It is time for dive into an immersive fantasy world.
Its possible, but I doubt WoW is going down, any time soon. They have WAY too many players who are WAY too wrapped up in their various hamster wheels.
If you are sick of the game, go play something else. Thats what I do when I've had too much WoW for awhile. Check out Dragon Age, it should be out later this year.
I don't know about DAoC being dead, I can always see myself going back to it...especially if Aion doesn't pan out. And with the new Ymain project almost done, might be interesting anyways. A new DAoC would be simply amazing though, there's so much lore and variety in the setting, and the pvp in the game is simply amazing.
Comments
Yet, you continue to read his articles? Do you have stock in an aspirin company? ^^ I usually enjoy his articles.
He has great points that he makes regularly. It's just something about the writing style... I want the information, I really do!
... and I tripped and hit the doorknob with my face.
Dunno, maybe I'm just weird like that.
i was saying WAR needed a 3 faction system since i got into closed beta
once the game released i was sadly proven correct.
bring me daoc2!
a multi faction ninja styled mmo would rock faces.
How on Earth, can you stand to read ANY gaming forum?
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Yes, I expected to see this new business model as an example in this resurrection article. It was the first thing I thought of when I read the theme of the article.
As for facelifts....Vanguard anyone? Such a waste of potential.
First off, I agree a new DAoC would be a hit. It still had some of the best pvp I have had in a long time, although they would need to tone down the crowd control and stealth, both of which were too overpowered.
I also agree with another poster, that AC1 would also benefit from a sequel. That game still is a fun play even with the very dated graphics.
As SOE, they shot themselves in the foot when they tried to trump Blizzard with a very buggy, high requirements EQ2. If they had taken their time and released it 6 months later they would have had a far better chance. Just another in a long line of bad decisions by their clueless leader.
I am Asian that play both Asian and Western mmo, but the martial art mmo have never appealed to me.
Even to Asians there are good martial arts and bad martial arts games, marital arts simply mean a bit more to Asians which might affect how many play it, but generally a sucky game is a sucky game martial arts or not.
Martial arts remains a small niche since people focus so much on martial arts they lose sight of gameplay (alot of asian developers do this).
DAoC was the only game I ever enjoyed PvP in, normally I won't PvP, but it was really good in that game.
I hope they don't come out with a DAoC2 though. The magic that was Mythic is gone, they have grown fat and arrogant and anything they would produce would be a mockery to their earlier triumphs.
DAoC was more than the game, it was the result of their passionate developers and staff. DAoC2 without Lum or Sanya, or any of the original team who put everything into it would be a train wreck.
I'd rather they just never contemplate DAoC2.
AC did have a sequel. Asherons Call 2. Between Microsoft and Turbine they managed to mess it up so badly that they ended up closing it(right after Turbine sold a lot of us the expansion pack for AC2...
)
As for SOE, the less said the better. I place them right up there with EA in terms of poor management decisions, missed/lost opportunities, and down right corporate evil.
UO - continues adding on, profitable, but I have no interest in playing.
EQ - ditto. Kept my interest for years, though. I tried it during one of their free recruiting campaigns, but it was so user unfriendly still, I didn't have the will to relearn how to play after so many years away from it.
EQ2 - disaster - took the worst parts of EQ and made them even worse. Random rare mobs with random rare drops is just stupid.
AC - didn't like it.
AC2 - wasn't bad for the little bit of time I got to play. Too bad it was so mismanaged.
PS - great game, but a little too repetitive and some design decisions were silly. For example, I'm driving a frigging tank but the bumper is more powerful than the huge gun?
DDO - awesome game on its face. Unfortunately, unless you have a good group of friends to play with, it sucks. You end up playing with people whose only aim is to run through the content over and over as fast as possible. They blurt out every step you need to take in each dungeon so you never get to experience the content for yourself.
WoW - kept my interest for years, but I got really bored and frustrated with the level 80 play. Daily quests are a lazy developer trick to pretend they actually added content. Grinding ever more PvP honor for gear in arenas or battlegrounds isn't an RPG, it's a gladiatorial simulator, which I'm not interested in. That only leaves grinding dungeons, which take a good guild and too much of a time commitment - it becomes work.
War - disaster - grinding from about 25-40 sucked. The BGs were so unbalanced, we rarely had enough players on our side, so we rarely won.
EQ, DDO, and War have plenty of cool IP that could be a good basis for a resurrection - if and only if the game itself were developed so that ALL levels were fun to play. It has to be enjoyable enough that people won't want to get a bot to do their levelling.
I might have to disagree with you on the three realms thing in DAoC being the best PvP. The one large problem with the 3 PvP Realms is that when two factions are larger than the other one, then the two big factions end up fighting over the little one. That turns out to be no fun for the little one, and turns a three realm game into a two realm game... for all intended purposes. I personally like the Aion way of doing things where the third faction is a NPC Realm. This can end up being a spoiler and keeping the two other factions in check with each other. I do not know how Aion will work this, but on paper, I think it is a better idea for game balance.
How is the third faction as NPC idea not the same as every other mmo? Horde, Alliance, Scourge? It's the same thing.
What Happened With SWG Went Down YEARS AGO! Please Try To Stop Whining About It In Every Thread I Read. Mourn It, And Finally MOVE ON With Your Lives! Thanks A Heap.
Because the NPC Faction can be programmed to maintain a balance between the two remaining player factions, not allowing one side to overpower the other on a regular basis. In the three player realm design, it is assume that the two weaker factions would fight the stronger one... which may not always be true. From personal knowledge in ADoC, I know this to be a bad assumption. With a NPC faction as the third faction, the developers are able to maintain a more even balance by direct control this NPC faction. Hopefully, this balance will provide a more challenging game for both the player realms... at least more so than the three player realm design.
Did you PLAY daoc?...on almost every server (at least when I played the bulk of the time I played pre-atlantis/catacombs) there was one dominant faction and the other two were about even but certainly less populous than the main one. Yes, this creates a disadvantage, but since the battles were split between Hib/Mid and Hib/Alb, and Alb/Mid, there was usually one-to-three main "battles" going on in different areas at the same time (with smaller groups running around taking towers/ect.) It wasn't PERFECT, but every system since has been FAR FAR worse. In fact, there were very few times when one faction on ANY server held all 6 relics. In fact, I never saw it happen, personally.
WoW, WAR, even Aion. Nothing comes close to the experience of pvp in DAOC. If you have never participated in a relic keep siege, you have no idea and shouldn't even open your mouth about daoc.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/darksider
Steam =D
I don't use xfire anymore.
I
I thought this column would be mostly about EVE. Oh well.
Yes, I played DAoC from 2002 until 2004, for a total of 2.5 years, on the Percival Server. Albion and Midgard were fairly even in strength, and they fought over Hibernia (my faction) the whole time I was there. We would logon to find all our castles taken by either one or the other... and sometimes both. We would spend the rest of the night taking them back... to repeat the process the next day. Once in a while we were lucky enough to take a foreign castle, but not very often. It turns out that the two main guilds in Albion and Midgard were working together to keep the fight out of their home territories and keep the fighting going on in Hebernia instead. In many ways, very well played. That is why I would prefer a balancing faction controlled by the Dev's... to make things competitive... for all of the players.
So, yes, I believe I have earned the right to speak about DAoC because I had been on a few Relic Raids. However, I will not get into this anymore with you, because it is obviously heading into a flame match that I will not waste my time with. I have said what I believe and stand by my words. The End.
This debate is pretty ridiculous, frankly.
Even strength login queues in T4 would have solved the numbers imbalance in Warhammer. They further compounded the problem with careless transfers allowing new imbalances on the destination servers.
You want to play in T4? Then play the underdogs and make it a fair fight. You want to kick the dog when he's down? Then queue up and wait your turn.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
I'd love to see Earth & Beyond resurrected. EA bungled the support on that game badly, lack of advertising and content support. It still got a strong following and even to this day I read about it here and other sites about how people would love the game to return. I doubt it ever would, EA's track record with MMO's is very poor. Motor City Online failed due to rampant bugs and hacking, Earth & Beyond from EA's lack of support, DAoC is stagnant and WAR is a letdown.
EA always talks about how they'd love to redo or bring back old favorites. That is all they do however, is just talk. Too busy counting their money and searching for the next gaming studio to bring into their Collective.
Okay I'm really not trying to be insulting here, but....are MMORPG staff actually compensated? I mean they would have to be because Sanya Weathers and Richard Aihoshi contribute regularly, and I can't see them working for free....The point I'm trying to make is there are so many better writers out there, Like Saate at saate.net or Stormdragon or even Faymar over at companyofthewolf.net. If MMORPG can afford to actually pay it's staff and recruit folks like Weathers and Aihoshi, can't they cut the dead weight in lieu of someone who can you know...actually write?
In any event the last thing WoW needs is yet more classes; Fuller actually thinks eight isn't enough? Yes in a game where balance is at it's best is mucked all to hell we will add even more classes in a lame attempt to bring flavor where none is needed, that is just.... brilliant.
I do agree that EQ 2 was sheer arrogance, but any type of sequel in this Blizzard is your Daddy market is doomed to failure; GW 2 will be the exception simply because of the low price point. Honestly what developers need to do is to try to hold who they have in their niche games. Cataclysm will more or less be a major aftershock of the original phenomena and will own the market for the next five years; it is beyond stupid to throw venture capital dollars at that Monster and hope to slow much less bring him down and if that isn't what you are aiming for in the first place why even be in the business? Everyone and his ugly sister are still playing WoW; the handful who aren't have no real bearing on the market.
I agree about a Dark Age of Camelot sequel... that would be amazing. Warhammer is very meh. DAOC is now dead and is beyond resurrection, the game is dated and no face lift could fix it. WOW is the only thing I feel is worth playing nowadays.
"Your Blizzard?" Does anyone proofread these articles?
Sometimes games come back, sometimes they're reborn, sometimes they're reworked...
________________________________________________________________________________________________
And sometimes they wait too flippin' long to get the changes out the door. Blizzard drags its feet and this time will probably pay with massive lost subscriptions.
Azeroth is dead's-ville and folks are waiting for something with polish to come out and give them a chance to explore a new world. I hope WOW falls this time. Sick of Azeroth and gnomish motorcycles. It is time for dive into an immersive fantasy world.
Its possible, but I doubt WoW is going down, any time soon. They have WAY too many players who are WAY too wrapped up in their various hamster wheels.
If you are sick of the game, go play something else. Thats what I do when I've had too much WoW for awhile. Check out Dragon Age, it should be out later this year.
dragonage.bioware.com/
I don't know about DAoC being dead, I can always see myself going back to it...especially if Aion doesn't pan out. And with the new Ymain project almost done, might be interesting anyways. A new DAoC would be simply amazing though, there's so much lore and variety in the setting, and the pvp in the game is simply amazing.