Arena.nets new game revealed

[Mithrandir]

It's good because it implies you won't have to fight with another group for spawn. Who likes sharing anyway  (that was ironic). I had sometimes wish that would happen in DaoC when you try to fight in Mithra's Tomb at peak hour.

I don't know. I've never played a MMOG where I've had trouble finding stuff to kill... Granted, I wasn't always getting xp at the "optimum level", but the fun in MMOGs should be in the journey, not necessarily in just all the high-level raids.

Then again, maybe I'm just wierd.

And Mithra? Come on now, how long were you in there for? 4 lvls max? :) Plus, that dungeon has all sorts of stuff to whack on. Though I suppose I can understand the Legionnaire room getting... umm... crowded... during prime.

I suppose I'm gonna have to grumble to myself and chaulk this one up in the "I-Don't-Like-It-But-Can't-Really-Explain-Why" column ;)

But the problem I see with it is that, when you are in a good group and there is too much people around, you usually explore and try to find another camp of monsters to kill. Anyway, that's what I did when I had nothing to hunt. Instanciating zones might limit exploration for some.

Exactly. I'm not sure if you're famailiar with Hib DAoC, but prety much 45+ everyone levels at the exact same spot: Fins in CF. People will just sit down by the camp, on lists for multiple hours, and just sit there waiting for a spot to open up.

These people become so accustomed to just one way and place of exping that it becomes their only way of exping. Some of the most fun I ever had in DAoC was a ragtag group of Fin-list wannabees jetting around CF smashing whatever was in the way. In fact, I imagine 99% of Hibbies don't even know about the forest scorpion, gorbochend, formorian (well, parthelonian now), granny, etc. camps just within that zone.

But... whatever. I suppose there can also be something said for letting people play the game however they want to.

[bschultz]

hey there Die alot! long time no see! how ya been?

[Nick Tandoori]

Graphics are ok but not awesome, but it's not whats important. Gameplay is the name of the game and should be for every game in my humble opinion.

Thanks for the link to the gamespot article you provided. I also thought the graphics were acceptable, but from the Gamespot article I understood that they've hired a few new graphics artist in order to polish that area. The switch to NCsoft may have given them the needed financial boost to allow for them to hire additional people.

Also I've been wondering about the business model of Arena.net. How are they going to offer continuous updates to a product with only a one time payment? From what I understand, currently these are just plans for the Northern Americas and Europe and Asia may have to pay for the game differently. What may also be possible is that in order to unlock parts of the world, extra cash has to be donated. Some kind of toll system where your creditcard is plundered if you cross a border in the virtual world. I’ve sent Gaile a mail about this, but I imagine she’s having one hell of a time answering questions to everyone already :)

Also I’m wondering what happened between ArenaNet and Blizzard. Both at one point decided to do a MORPG, which of the two was first, and how did the other party respond? Was the way an MORPG should be implemented the reason for the break? Somehow it interests me as both parties so far seemed very amicable towards each other.

[Occhidiangela]

Did Arena evolve over differences in opinion about how to build WoW?

Sort of makes sense. :)

[Wiccan]

i can not wait for this game!! i will not be buying wow since i dont like pay n play games never had but if d2 was play n play i would do it in heart beat! lol

[CelticHound]

Ideas, screenshots, and "This is what e hope to do"s are nice and all, but a game they do not make. I think we can all take Horizons as evidence of this :)

You made me go lookup the site. On March 27th, they accounced that Horizons would be published by Atari.

Hmm... It seems that Dave Allen isn't mentioned anywhere on the management page of the Artifact site. Also, nothing at all about Demise, except a support email address. Wonder what the deal is?

-- CH
(early beta tester for Mordor 2)

[Mithrandir]

Hmm... It seems that Dave Allen isn't mentioned anywhere on the management page of the Artifact site. Also, nothing at all about Demise, except a support email address. Wonder what the deal is?

Actually, the entire original team quit because the boss was such a jack ass: making huge scoping promises that could never be reached (fully deformable terrain, mob populations that - if over hunted - would go extinct, tons and tons of different races, ground-breaking graphics, etc.), comlpetely lacking any sense of "Hmm, now's the time to shut up" AKA PR skill (in one chat, he announced that launching fetuses out of catapults was going to be a feature at launch), and - here's the kicker - attempting to elicit sexual favors from female staff members for raises, promotions, etc.

So the company was bought out and "the boss" quickly canned.

Last I heard, the game was cancelled and it was revealed that "Horizons" was actually just a hoax to try and get people interested in Artifact Entertainment... and thus its webgame "Race Wars" (or something like that - I never gave enough of a *beep* to even be within a mile radius of a computer running that website).

I still fondly remember Lum's multiple page-long rants bashing the game and its fanbois who believed that this alleged Holy Grail of all games would actually come to fruit, even though Artifact employees admitted it was essentially being made in a garage.

[Roland]

Excuse this person's poor typing skills. If you can get past the slew of typos, the article isn't half bad. :P

http://www.loadedinc.com/e32003/page.php?t...page.php&id=137

Not sure what to think, but thus far, I still like it. We'll see. :)

[Taem]

Guild Wars, haw? Wow, that game looks awsome! The screenies alone make me want to play it. I can't wait.

[Occhidiangela]

When he left, that site really took a turn for the worse. I stopped visiting.

[Mithrandir]

When he left, that site really took a turn for the worse.  I stopped visiting.

http://www.brokentoys.org

[Occhidiangela]

slownewsday is where I first saw his stuff. Thanks for the link. :)

[Mithrandir]

slownewsday is where I first saw his stuff. Thanks for the link.

You didn't read Lum until SND? :( Unless you went into the archives, you missed some of his best rants ever off of lumthemed.net

Don't go into Broken Toys expecting "old school" Lum writing though. He doesn't have a whole lot to rant about anymore since he's actually in the MMO industry and he also doesn't have nearly as much time (or drive, I suppose) to write.

Still, he was a good writing style and is a pretty witty guy :)