Kotaku 
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Denver, 7:01 PM
Sun Nov 29
8 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/27/09
I believe it is still kicking. I used to betatest it.
11/27/09
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11/26/09
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11/26/09
Of course Blizzard makes their money based on people paying the subscription bill every month, but I think they are still making some positive steps to make the game at least a little bit less of a time-drain. It will still take forever and a day to get all the really elite gear and experience the cutting-edge raid and arena scene, but now it is much easier for a casual player to make their way to the substantial endgame in a short time.
11/26/09
11/26/09
They *cannot* compete directly with WoW, a game that has several thousand quests, 80 levels, two expansions, dozens of free content updates and five years of polish right out of the gate.
From my experience with AoC, the best thing they can do is craft a very solid experience from start to current level cap (if the game had been Tortage all the way through, WoW would have lost a lot of players) that doesn't devolve into grinding at any point, and have just enough post-cap options so that people stick around for a few months while you add stuff. If you need to start off with a level cap of 50 or whatever to make that happen, so be it.
Secondly, nothing pisses people off more than being unable to play games that they have bought. This means that enough servers, and ones with solid uptime.
Don't think too big. I know that when I started playing WoW in May '05 battlegrounds hadn't yet been implemented, and that was a good six months after the game's launch! Polish what you've got, especially the class balance, and players will find their equivalent of the Tarren Mill battles.
Finally, if you launch with only one endgame instance, make it a good one. Raiders are so spoilt by WoW's instance design that they will simply not tolerate tank and spank anymore. An idea might be to simply avoid that path altogether and instead try and craft a more intimate, personal experience (like ToR seems to be doing).
11/26/09
Look at AoC, which for awhile looked like it could become something special. But it was released as practically a beta, unable to complete craftables and other stuff, the world taking a sharp dive south in detail after getting past the starter areas. I'm sure things have changed now, but its hard for people to get past that first impression they already got, and by then they've moved on to something else.
The two MMO's that look the most promising to me that are upcoming are DCU Online and Star Wars: Old Republic. Both have a built-in audience and an already familiar world, with Star Wars having a great pedigree already being an extension of the awesome KOTOR games.
11/26/09
With the established world of Star Wars and the pedigree of the team making the game, I'm really looking forward to The Old Republic. I'm just can't see it launching relatively bug free!
I think it's a little sad that you need that kind of well-known, confidence-inspiring label is required to go the distance against WoW, but its a side effect of the genre I suppose. Your first time with an MMO is always the most exciting, other games (including WoW expacs) need to have other hooks to bring you in.
11/26/09
Looks like I have to set aside my passionate fanboyism of Halo to serve a needier cause. For Great Justice!
11/26/09
11/26/09
11/26/09
SO many commenters saying Guild Wars doesn't count. Why? Because it is highly instanced? Psh.
Guild Wars is awesome. I enjoyed my time with it.
11/26/09
One day, I decided that I had enough, and uninstalled.
Nothing against the game itself, or it's players. In fact, I met quite a few nice, generous, well-grounded folks in my tenure as a rogue.
However, I could no longer justify spending the amount of time that was required to really play the game and get, what I felt, was my money's worth. College, other games to play, art to make, jobs to do. I just simply couldn't continue with the time-sink that is WoW any longer.
11/26/09
They talk about casual players but at the rate they dump content if you don't at least try to keep up at some pace you are left so far behind it's ridiculous, PvP or PvE wise. It's a double edged sword the rate they come out with content.
I really laugh at people who played to level 15, or even just 30, and said the game sucked. They really didn't experience the game. To me that's like loading Super Mario Bros 1, running into the first monster and saying the game was garbage and quitting.
11/26/09
Alot like say warhammer tried to take interface and gameplay ideas from wow and recreate it in the warhammer setting.
I know alot of mmo games say they arent WOW but they are obviously trying to be WOW. But what they dont understand is what makes blizzards game so good and so popullar is not in things like skill level, the gameplay, quest types, or anything like that you can simply copy. It has to do with blizzards ability to really put alot of effort into making their games good with a good staff of game designers and the fact they will work on a game for a year just balancing it and doing testing on it to make sure it runs as best they can.
Blizzard has talented people working for them, they will balance their games are much as humanly possible, they dont want to release a game till its actually read and not just getting close to a deadline, they do their best to test and debug their games, thats what other studios dont get.
11/26/09
The reason I dont play, and, this is my opinion, I know a ton of people that enjoy it, the reason is, I find it to be incredibly fucking boring.
Seriously, I cant play it, there was a time when I could play mmo's I played UO, Runescape, FFXI, Silkroad, Rose, and up to level 8 WoW, recently I tried WAR and COH as well but I couldnt get into them.
The only MMO type game I could stand playing these days would be a new PSO, but to me, theyre so god damn boring.
11/25/09
My roommate in college last year had a boyfriend who played WoW religiously too. He only got to see his girl for a couple days every two-three weeks...and he would spend much of his time with her playing that game. It makes me really sad when I think of it now, because she is a wonderful girl. How could a guy ever think to neglect his girl in favor of a game?
I tried playing WoW once before. Just the demo. There didn't seem to be an experience there that I wanted. I went for about 3 hours before giving up.
Mind you, I've found that generally I've lost a lot of interest in gaming recently. I find the random craziness of life a lot funner. Plus real life has more boobs.
11/25/09
I have a couple friends who spend a lot of time playing, and I just don't get it. I've watched them both play. They just go into some PvP server, put on some shitty metal music, sit back, and cast "Damage over time" spells on other players whilst running around in circles and healing themselves.
I DON'T UNDERSTAND. I guess I'm just not one for giving a shit about leveling up in video games. I also never could understand it when one of the same friends kept on PRESTIGING IN CALL OF DUTY 4!!! WHY!?!??!?!
He would always complain afterward about losing all of his perks and weapons. I don't understand the mentality!
11/25/09
I have a friend or two whose reason d'etre revolves around playing one multiplayer shooter or another at the expense of everything else. They sponge off their parents, make half-hearted efforts to find work, schedule what little temporary work they find entirely around "game night(s)" and focus entirely on the games to the exclusion of hanging out with real friends or just doing stuff that doesn't involve playing those goddamn games (like growing up and digging themselves out of the holes they dug).
I also got my head talked off about how difficult it is to manage clans and all the personal lives of their virtual friends, and the social aspects of these games (whatever they may be, I just see my own online opponents as robots to avoid or destroy in what little time I spend on multiplayer games), and I just find it irritating.
I hate WoW, I hate what it does to people, and I hate what it brings out in people. I can't help but associate the game with socially-retarded shut-ins and unmotivated layabouts adrift in some crappy fantasy world, and I'm not too keen on anything else resembling WoW either.
11/25/09
This!
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11/25/09