Because all “Male Gamers” are the same, right, and have to like the same things?
What a maroon.
Troy[/quote]
Don’t worry about Ebonstone, he’s just the local jackass.[/quote]There’s nothing local about my jackassedness!
No offense, but Enhancements are just like the combat: excrutiatingly boring.[/quote]
Wow. That’s something your continued posts on a game you personally don’t like have in common with enhancements and combat then.[/quote]Clever, but a little too wordy to truly be witty.[/quote]
But the target doesn’t get to be the arbiter.[/quote]
Unfortunately for you, he does.[/quote]
If the target spent more time dodging he would get smacked less often.
Ignorance much? My non-hovering blaster solos just fine. My sons level 30 dark/regen scrapper was soloed at least 90% of the time. Burn/provoke tanks can solo really well. Almost any invuln or regen scrapper can solo. Any blaster can solo. Most defenders not specced for healing can solo. Most controllers can be built to solo but generally are slower at it. Same with tankers.
– Xaroc
Ebonstone, if you want to meet up in-game, my current Toon is Mister Buford Nuttyton. I’ve been building up my Toon-Up track, so I’m helpful to have on a building run. Put me on your Friends list next time you’re on. :P
yuri,
have you picked one yet? If you go with CoH, send me a tell if you see my chars online sometime and we’ll team so you don’t have to go solo (if you want). I’ll probably be on Virtue as Uncle Shin or Drunken Phu, but I’ve got some other characters that are still early level that I like to dust off every once in a while and would work great in a team with another new character.
And for the obligatory ad:
For $12.95, you can download the client and the first month of play:
http://store.turbinegames.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=ac_dm_en&Category_Code=AC
The client is about 380 megs. If you’re on dial-up and don’t want to make that download, wait a couple-three weeks; we’ll be offering burn-on-demand CDs that can be shipped to you.
I haven’t picked one yet, will by next weekend. I had everquest evolution in hand but it was $10 more than I’d seen it for at gamestop a couple of days ago so I will probably stop by there.
And for the obligatory ad:
For $12.95, you can download the client and the first month of play:
http://store.turbinegames.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=ac_dm_en&Category_Code=AC
The client is about 380 megs. If you’re on dial-up and don’t want to make that download, wait a couple-three weeks; we’ll be offering burn-on-demand CDs that can be shipped to you.[/quote]
Sorry I left you off the list, Jessica - does AC2 also have a download option?
-Walt
Shouldn’t you be advertising Saga of Ryzom?? :)
— Alan
Picked up Everquest at Best Buy for $19.99. Haven’t installed it, I’ve been doing a war III ladder run since the new patch. I probably will install it this week since I’m off on vacation.
Probably not, since she went on leave of absence from Themis to take over as producer of the Asheron’s Call games.
And for the obligatory ad:
For $12.95, you can download the client and the first month of play:
http://store.turbinegames.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=ac_dm_en&Category_Code=AC
The client is about 380 megs. If you’re on dial-up and don’t want to make that download, wait a couple-three weeks; we’ll be offering burn-on-demand CDs that can be shipped to you.[/quote]
Sorry I left you off the list, Jessica - does AC2 also have a download option?
-Walt[/quote]
Yep, you can buy an AC2 CD Key and download the game at http://store.turbinegames.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=ac_2_en&Category_Code=AC, or download the 15 day free trial at http://www.gamedaily.com/pc/title/downloads/?id=3358&source=00001.
Probably not, since she went on leave of absence from Themis to take over as producer of the Asheron’s Call games.[/quote]
Actually, I drank the Turbine Kool-Aid and left Themis entirely over a year ago. I’m now in the Turbine Los Angeles office as executive producer of the franchise. I can now conclusively state from empirical research that 40 degrees above zero is much better than 40 degrees below zero.
Oh, and I’m looking for two additional content designers, hiring immediately in the LA office. These are permanent, full-time positions. See the job description at http://www.careerexchange.com/cejobs/DetailTurbine.asp?turbinSCDDI if you’re interested or know someone who is.
Since Toontown is mentioned, I’ll just throw in Puzzle Pirates as well. It might throw you off, but if you like puzzles (which really doesn’t need to be the games main draw) it offers a surprisingly rich mmo experience.
Large guilds, crafting, nation building, wars, PvP… and cute little pirates puzzling.
Me I’m taking a break from that, doing a bit of CoH - which would be my suggestion from the original list. Easy to get into, easy to solo and easy to find groups in. Something you might move on from, if you find that you like the genre, since it lacks depth.
Of course, I just got my WoW key, so maybe that’ll be my new favourite, allthough I’m a bit burned on fantasy.
Your initial choices are pretty horrible to be honest. Strangely, the best MMORPGs are still the first generation efforts. That’s not some bizzare old skool nostalgia, it’s an unfortunate fact. So either try UO, AC, EQ or DAOC. Dark Age Of Camelot would be a pretty good one to start on I think. Easy to pick up and play but with a surprising amount of depth and a decent endgame to keep you happy. Also it’s still very much evolving at a pleasing rate.
Folks keep mentioning “depth” and the lack thereof in CoH. CoH has a very nice combat model, and, well, that’s about it. But I find that EQ is 98% combat model, and DAoC is the same. So I don’t quite get what folks mean by “depth”. If you mean lore, then I think CoH compares favorably with DAoC, what with the missions and the differing turf wars between the gangs and such. Especially on a “lore per content” ratio basis.
If you mean trade skills, do these things actually add depth? They’ve alwas struck me (in all the implementations I’ve seen; I hear SWG may actually be different) as repetitive button clicking for advancement (i.e. the exact same thing as combat, except less interesting because there’s no dynamic adjustment going on).
Is this what folks mean by “depth”, or what? If it’s endgame content to strive for, I can see that I guess (EQ has raiding, DAoC has RvR, SWG has… erm… Jedi-ness?), but I wouldn’t tend to consider that “depth” rather than “length” (i.e. there’s a very long, very strong endgame to aim for that’s not there in CoH). I would tend to consider “depth” more of offering many choices of things to do/ways to play, which I find CoH>DAoC>EQ (primarily because you really can do CoH stuff with whatever characters you have on hand, and your play style changes based on classes; DAoC is somewhat like this, but you’ll still need your tanks, your healers, your stealther/stealth buster, your CC, and EQ at this time is very focused on needing a good core class for the contemporary expansions being released).
Not quibbling with your assessment of the games mentioned, but those are all 3rd generation efforts. DAOC benefited most from that history; it was built with the benefit of Myhtic’s 18 years of experience in the field, with 2nd generation games built for GEnie, Kesmai, Engage and AOL before raising their own funds and doing it themselves.
I mention it only because people sometimes forget where we come from and what went on before the Internet and large production budgets popularized the genre.
I’m not saying that CoH lacks something those other games mentioned has. I’ve never played EQ or any of the games trying to be “EQ - but with less suck”. CoH is my first combatcentric mmog.
For me the lacking depth is a certain je ne sais quoi … I’m not sure I can explain what it is, but I feel it, when it’s not there. And then I unsubscribe. Put simply the mmog in question must offer me different goals, paths and types of gameplay (like Puzzle Pirates does… at least for a while). In CoH there’s only (admittedly very fun) combat and levelling, which is fine. For a while, and then I unsubscribe…
Great question about depth. I’m not sure I have an answer, but to me it means a sense of variety, choices, complexity of decision making (rather than mere minutia). Does the game offer a variety of types of combat, in a variety of environments, against a variety of foes? Do you have different ways of approaching each combat, and does each combat require you to choose the most appropriate tool from those available? Is it a question of spamming the same combo of keys each time, or do you have to tailor your actions to the situation?
Also, depth involves purpose or point, in that a game with depth gives you a reason to do things. This could be backstory, some sort of payoff, different game modes, whatever.
On these sort of questions I think CoH measures up pretty well, except in the area of payoff (I think PvP will help a lot here) and variety (in my admittedly rather limited exploration of the game it seems combat while nicely done is pretty much the same whether indoors or out, and the selection of environments seems a bit limited). I do agree with those who find CoH somewhat lacking in a certain indefinable way, which is why I let my subscription lapse for the moment. It simply isn’t as compelling as the WoW beta or DAOC for me.
Can you provide a comprehensive rundown of Puzzle Pirates? When I played it I only did the ship puzzles and looked at the inventory system. Can you talk about the other aspects of the game with special attention given to any novel ideas therein or any elements that work very well? What, specifically, makes it a “rich mmo experience”?