@danyjr @johnwck90 Well, no, I don't, sadly, I got the game too late, in March 2007, after BC, by the time I joined it was already being played in lineages, people played with those who hit level-cap around the same time and farmed Kara together. I joined a guild called Sodalitas and it was all completely elitist: I never even managed to get the keys to get into Kara and never found a way to get them. I never solved this problem of not knowing anyone to play at level-cap with so I never played at level cap in all the years since. Now, I level to level cap and cease playing in all MMOs, so I have a 55 in Rift, a 55 in SWOR, 6 level 80 characters in GW2. They need to have "moral" or "cooperative" or "goodwill" or "communal" servers for people who want to log in and play a game with other people as part of a group and share things, not play for profit within the game world. Problem is the culture of the games ends up making you like other people in it since you are exposed to a cultural atmosphere so you just treat people as instrumentally as they treat you and most MMO players are ruthlessly manipulative and instrumental.
Why would they make a follow up to WoW when it's the main mmo on the market and still a phenomena compared to every other MMO? Until the player base dwindles below one million why would they ever develop anything. Their mode of operation has been clear throughout (they are an american company I believe) to maximise player base and revenue. If they released anything to denude from their player base it would be counterproductive. They will drag the game out as long as it's possibly. Even at 8.5 million players it's still around what it was when BC was lanched, it's still huge. I wouldn't hold my breath for any new MMO from them. For them, it'll be a strategic decision, they'll eke out the development to try to maximise impact but the timing of the release will relate to the market. The market is necessarily limited, there are only so many people who are going to play these type of games so one will always be the main one in relation to market share and this will affect their decision making. My hope is that other manufacturers will release newer multiplayer games with mechanics designed around cooperative play so that you can find one whose culture is great, then the culture will be the main reason to play, like going to a pub you like or something.
Are people tired of the genre as well? I find I tire faster of new MMOs. I played WoW for years, from BC until Cata but in the end I got sick of the culture. But then the problems are with all MMOs I think since most on-line players seem reluctant to play cooperatively except for loot. The problem with the multiplayer aspect is it exposes you to a culture so, if it's a culture of exploitation, instrumentality and non-reciprocity, lacking generosity you just get stressed playing. You are grinding out levels waiting to reach a point where you will be effective and be able to contribute but it's just new hurdle after hurdle. My best memories of WoW, are early on, when the multiplayer experience was new and I played at low levels as a novice with some grouping, but as you play, the grouping becomes less frequent. I just got my SWOR characters to 55 and nobody there seems to want to group except for things you cannot solo. Furthermore, surely people's preparedness to pay to play has to slowly wain as more and more multiplayer options come to the market. How can you justify paying £9 a month when they culture of the games, the central aspect of the experience, is so similar? If you are going to be exposed to the same atmosphere you may as well play for free. The fee ends up being your reason to play and you feel cheated when you are not enjoying it. I played Panderia and levelled a monk to 76 but I just ran out gas and I found when I switched to my 85s I had no will to kill the tigers and level and I just cancelled my subscription.
@JJames3dCG @johnwck90 I played beta twice and it was very dated. I played it on my i7 gt555m laptop and it ran badly for me, doesn't look like the screen shots. the whole interface is too dated. I play a few MMOs and I don't see how this can carve a niche. If Square Enix are relying on the success of this, they will fold. It makes you realise how important it is to release a functional product because of the development of the technology, if you can't establish a player-base early then how are you going to compete? What is worse in the MMO market is that most people who play them, even if they have time to play, can't play more than one at a time so the market can't support so many. With GW 2 now free to play as well as star wars (which is poor), it's a hard market to carve a niche in. Once Elder Scrolls releases, I assume that most PC MMO players will be giving that a go (I will) and maybe that will go the way of star wars, since only WoW seems able to sustain players because people have invested so much time there and seem unwilling to give up on the fruits of their labour provided Blizzard continue to produce content. I can't see that this game can make much of a entree to the market but what do I know?
Does social contact help you with mental health issues and are games an important conduit for contact in a world that is increasingly socially fragmented? You can relate to people via doing in games which once was provided by work so you can manifest personal qualities and experience being valued via game-worlds where the world is now too competitive condemning many to isolation.
@penpusher Personally I think you get the truth of the nature of a game much faster from comments, I look for them before the review. They tell you what you need to know immediately!
The quality of ideas is what makes a great game. When you talk about graphics it's easy to overlook that there is a technical issue about the graphics rendering which is computational and then there is the ideas executed by the art team and integrated with other creative people like writers and the programmers and what is incredible with games of this quality is the level of integration of all this and the amount of labour that goes into seamlessly rendering it all. Integration like that takes a huge amount of prolonged labour and cross-team communication and it's the ideas that you engage with. You don't perceive merely by stimuli striking your retina, your mind is concept-driven and what engages you is the ideas in a game (or film, or text) and this takes a huge amount of labour and integrity on the part of those who devote a good deal of their lives to producing it.
I think the labour that has gone into the world design, the context from voice-acting to scripting to historical details, is superb, it's a beautifully rendered, detailed, integrated, well executed title that runs well even on my i3 525m laptop. I don't play a lot of first person shooters and I play them for the experience, like a holiday, I actually like (and require them to be) them easy with bland combat mechanics because I am not a highly skilled player, nor do I play on high-end hardware. So, far, I am savoring the game, it's an amazing piece of gaming (I didn't play any of the others) with very interesting ideas well developed, it is thought-provoking while you play, you can consider the nature of subordination and the relation to beliefs while you move through the game world. In terms of the integration of different aspects of the labour required to produce this type of representation of a world, it's top-draw and you have to say that in terms of value for money, this is as good as art gets.
Such a pity they messed up the original release of this game, by the time it comes to market Elder Scrolls will be imminent and it's hard to imagine a 2013 MMO competing with that heritage and labour. I never played any of these and, if it's free-to-play, I'd give this a go.
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