All Posts by Batavier

If DDO has failed, it is because Turbine tried to bring a PnP game to our screen and advertised it as an MMO. Most D&D sessions I have played and heard of involved maybe three or four players and a DM. Sometimes bigger groups, but hardly ever more than 12. So if you want to create a game that resembles the play style and experience from the pen and paper game, it is logical that it's not massive. Combine this with the expectations of the average MMO gamer and there we are: a game (with flaws) that doesn't feel like an MMO and doesn't cater for 'normal' MMO players (be it casual or 'hard core').

If you know what to expect from this game, by e.g. reading the official game site, then you will be less disappointed and will enjoy your stay more.

Oh, and the game is hard to come by in Europe. Turbine (Codemasters) has to make the game available for download in Europe as well.... :)

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Originally posted by Tonal
My most memorable DnD moment was getting the Basic Set home, and reading it. Again and again and again, and wondering if it would ever remember all the 'rules' HAHAHA. Our first game with me being DM, as I knew everything of course.. :P and 2 players. I don't remember the details ( I was 9 or 10 I think ) but we had a great laugh. Looking back I know wwe got a great many things wrong, we over powered our characters etc, but those first few months of playing every day over summer were great. Later games, as we grew older, added more players and became better players in better campaigns were probably more fun, but you can still never beat the firt time you do something.

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OMG, yes. I remember the basic set (still browse through it now and then). The first adventure. 1 Dm and two players. Great stuff...

The two statues in the castle. We didn't trust em, so we threw bits and pieces of Kobalds at them to see if they would move or react. Not very lawful good, but hey, we were greenhorns back then.

Thanks for the good review and the helpful responses. Currently playing AoC (sorry! :) ), but I think I'll give DDO another go once I have had enough of Conan or Funcom shuts it down... :)

Fact is: Funcom is in trouble because AoC didn't turn out to be the cash cow they expected it to be. Gamers are pretty harsh and if they don't like a game, they stop playing it. Quite simple, really. And if they stop playing it, the money stops coming in and then your shares drop. Bad economic circumstances or no bad economic circumstances. :)

There are quite a few good things about AoC, but they've been implemented poorly. And even though I'm still having fun, it's getting a bit lonely out there. :)

Well, I'm no fan of mr Godager, but I'm not sure if putting someone new in charge of AoC is really going to help. I'm enjoying my stay in AoC, but even I can see the glaring problems facing the new guy.

I wish him good luck! :)

OP list is a joke. Most MMOs offer that (and more). But that's not what AC is about. For me it was about immersion in a world that was not based on elves and dwarves etc. Exploring exploring exploring.

And yes, I know it's evil to speak of the little brother called AC2, but I liked that game too. It had many flaws, but it did possess some of the story of AC and it did feel special. And yes, I cursed the Great Devs in the Sky for making certain decisions, but I still had a good time.

The AC universe needs to be used in a new MMO soon!

So sad. :(

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Originally posted by Kaiserjager

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Originally posted by Frey

WARHAMMER ONLINE is coming out this Thursday 18th Sept 2008!  Savour your remaining days WoW, you have kept the seat warm for WAR...
But do not worry World of Warcraft, you will not disappear into oblivion...  You will merely become just another face in the crowd.
Take care everyone! 
SUBMIT to WAR!! :)

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Ah yes, the new Holy Grail of MMO's, last one was AoC and that didn't turn out too well.
What is the next one for the ardent crusaders? Aion?
TCOS after that.
Earthrise after that.
Fallen Earth after that.
And so on and so forth...
And onwards to infinity, each and every one will probably consist of too much hype and too little content.
Well, let us see how well Warhammer does after a few months. My bet would be not too grand but not too bad. Unles the game cures cancer it will fail to live to its own reputation.

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You're probably right, but I think it's a problem of most (if not all) MMOs: too little content and too much expectations. I'm not sure 'hype' is the right word, perhaps 'hope' would be better. Plus it seems that many players rush through the content of a new MMO, little as there is, and reach the level cap in one or two weeks. And the the moaning and b***hing starts: not enough content, bugs, etc. I'm glad I'm a casual player with lots of other things to do besides playing MMOs. That leaves me months of play and the opportunity to actually read the text of the quests... :)

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Originally posted by TalRasha

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Originally posted by ILOVEFUNCOM

It is a FACT coming from FUNCOMs financial reports and how else can you explain servers that arent super busy yet have 415,000 customers?  The answer is lots of servers and people not playing as much as you might be used to.  Sorry if you wish it was different but these are the facts and facts unlike OPINION do not lie.

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That answer is partly correct.
People are indeed not playing as much as you might be used to. I'm one of those people, who has not played in about 8 weeks.
However, I'm still one of those 415k, since I am still in my 3 months subscription.
 
What this means is that your 1 of 20 are playing 1 hour each day is a faulty assumption.
It is more likely 1 of 5 are playing 2 hours a day, while the other 100,000 subscribers will never play again and are just waiting for the subscription to run out.

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I'm afraid you are right, the coming of WAR was probably not good for subscriber number either. On Saturday night running around in the Fields of the Dead and seeing only three or four other players should say enough... Luckily most content can be seen solo. Except for the dungeons, but I missed those in WoW as well because I cannot play for many hours at a time. :)

I'm still having fun with AoC, but it is clear that Funcom needs to seriously change things in this game. I haven't reached level 80 yet (only 43 at the moment) and though there are a lot of good things to say about this game, there are also many bad things going on.

I'll just wait and see what happens, I'm a humble casual player on a RP PvP server. :)

To OP: guessing about numbers or using outdated numbers will not get people back into the game or convince them the game is great. Many people already condemned AoC and probably will not give it a second chance. Too bad really, but there it is.

I think it's one of the great problems of most MMOs: lack of end-game content. Combined with the people who seem to want to rush through the content to reach the level cap, this spells: bored people trolling the boards. :)

I've seen it many times, people complaining about the lack of end-game content, even though they haven't even explored the entire world or tried more than the quests needed to get to the max level. You cannot beat that as a developer. Perhaps you can slow it down with a system Guild Wars has in place, but even then...

Ah well. :)

As for Balrogs, as mentioned previously: most of them were killed in the War of Wrath (Silmarillion, @ work so can't give you page numbers or chapters), but some of them managed to escape and went into hiding. E.g. the Balrog that was disturbed by the Dwarves in Khazad-dûm.
That suggests that there may be more Balrogs and with Sauron getting stronger and stronger, it may be possible that they become more active as well.
 
As for evil Ents... I find that harder to believe. At least, if you mean evil = pro-Sauron. Ents were made to protect the trees from Orcs and Dwarves. Ents are very pro-Elves and by nature very protective of their trees. Morgoth created his own 'ents': the trolls (at least, according to Treebeard if I'm not mistaken), same as he created the Orcs to mock the creation of the Elves.
But then again, how bad is it to create 'evil' Ents? Or more than a handful of Balrogs. Ents are free people, they have a mind of their own and can decide what actions they take. The fact that it is not very logical for them to choose the Sauron side, if only because of the trees that are hurt by Sauron to built his war machines, does not make it impossible for Ents to choose his side. Humans, Dwarves, Hobbits and Elves also cut trees...
At least for me it's no reason to not play this game. I like running around in the Middle Earth that Turbine created. And yes, I imagined Tom Bombadil to look very differently from how he looks in game, but that's no reason for me to stop my subscription.

Perhaps it's not just the number of subscriptions that makes or breaks a game. Perhaps companies need to take into account the amount of money and effort (costs) it takes to keep a game alive.

The Devs always said that making something for AC was relatively easy. If they made a new item for AC2 it took much more time to create.

So less Dev time, means lower cost and thus it takes less subscriptions to keep a game afloat.

I'm sure there's more to it than just this, e.g. good will, but it's something to keep in mind.

As always a good reply by Thorongil :)

Indeed, why would they want to make a game to 'beat' WoW? Turbine just wants to make money, not beat Blizzard. If they can pull that off and make some happy customers (especially the ones that lost faith after AC2 and/or DDO) that's a nice bonus. I certainly hope that power gamers are *not* attracted to this game and that the majority of the players will be roleplayers....

I certainly hope that the naming policy will be more strictly enforced than in WoW. LOTRO to me seems like an average MMORPG with a few nice twists (monster play, LOTR atmosphere, original quests), if they screw up the naming thing, that will be one more step towards 'mediocre' and 'meh'...

I really loved AC2 and miss it a lot. Including the bugs and the lag. I'd stop playing WoW straight away if I could play AC2 again. So saying it's like AC2 won't put me off. But I realize I'm a minority... :)

Nice post. This is what gaming in MMO's is about. Friendships and meeting peeps!

I have a 6800GT and used a blackmarker to change the sticker on it to 7900 and it's still running pretty good. So no problems with Nvidia here!

It would be nice if you could do some things solo. There are always times where you don't have much time to play or you just want to solo a bit. But IMO a MMO should have a lot of multiplayer content. Multiplayer being anything from 2 to n players. I always liked the 9 person groups in Asheron's Call 2. I think 6 (as in a certain other game :) ) is too small a number to really take on some challenges. Then again, two or three player groups can do a lot, when well played.

I certainly hope WaR caters for both solo and multiplayer play, and I think they will do that, from what I have read here and there.