The MMO's to challenge Warcraft

the problem with having loads and loads of playable classes is balancing, if you have 4 or 5 races and x amount of classes then its easier to balance the overall game so people dont feel left out, also theres the unique missions and items and what not.

with devolopment times for mmos being so damn long and costing loads for the current smaller set of classes and races it would take even longer to have loads and probably be posponed so much it never came out :P

It almost made me cry when I read:

"Conan the Barbarian was the making of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and considering how big he is you'd be a fool to ignore it. The move into the world of online gaming is one that came as a bit of a surprise to me, having seen the movies a long time ago and having heard very little about the franchise (which has quite a strong comic book fan base) the last thing I expected was a move into games."

Good lord, that's a poor understanding of history, and poor research. A fancy website like this should've caught this mistake before going to press. For shame.

Conan was invited by author Robert E. Howard in the 1930s! Yes, 1-9-3-0. That's a good 50+ years before Arnie portrayed him on the screen. Therefore, there is a COPIUS amount of backstory and lore for the upcoming "Age of Conan" game.

Oy.

Sorry oyjord, but you've misunderstood the sentence you quoted.

Conan the Barbarian was the making of Arnold Schwarzenegger

That statement says that what made arnold Schwarznegger famous was Conan the Barbarian, not that Conan was made by or for arnie. Perhaps best to inquire in future before reprimanding people wrongly ;)

Welcome to Bit-tech though :)

To be honest what I'm waiting for is a game where skill and not age of account are the deciding factor in combat. WoW was horribly addictive when I played it, but it soon dawned on me that I could never make anything of myself in that game because of the grind system. Ditto, much as it pains me to say it, for EVE online. Time is critically important in that game, because even if you play for a long time you won't skill up any faster.

The games to get my attention are Huxley, because it's a shooter and that levels the playing field. Pirates of the Burning Sea, because, duh, it's got pirates in it and Conan because legend has it that the combat will be skill based.

To be honest though I hope games developers don't borrow too much from WoW because WoW is a very nasty piece of work. As a recovering WoW addict looking at what it does to people I'm pretty shocked by it. It's masterfully coded to be as addictive as possible and while I'm sure a lot of people don't see anything wrong with playing the same game for four hours a day every day for over a year personally I think it's dodgy. Games should require skill, not time.

That's why I play Guild Wars - well, that & the fact that I don't feel like I'm loosing out not playing just because I've spent my monthly fee (Guild Wars has none). Your points about the addictiveness of MMORPGs are too true though. I remember a few stories of people in Asia (Korea I think) DYING as a result of online game addiction. Honestly though, even in a skill based game, practice improves your use of those skills.

Originally Posted by Tyinsar
That's why I play Guild Wars - well, that & the fact that I don't feel like I'm loosing out not playing just because I've spent my monthly fee (Guild Wars has none). Your points about the addictiveness of MMORPGs are too true though. I remember a few stories of people in Asia (Korea I think) DYING as a result of online game addiction. Honestly though, even in a skill based game, practice improves your use of those skills.

That's just it though, I'd rather practice and be good, as in having the skills to pay the bills personally, rather than grind to get the +1 or +2 on a stat that might turn the tide in my favour on the dice rolls. I know there is some measure of skill and strategy to WoW, but the fact is you're always playing the stats no matter what. Guild Wars is very good in that respect, not directly skill based per se, cos it's still about the random numbers, but the way you can just pull a max level PvP character out of nothing is refreshing.