Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

Of course not every cell phone has web functions and not all of them are universally compatible. I can get onthe web, but it"s not THE web, it"s a built in browser thing that lets me check email and a couple of things. The downloadable games don"t all work on every phone either so you have that issue as well..

And the buying characters/gold argument fails when it breaks the TOS.

Twobit Whore said:

Honestly, does someone with 16 hours a day actually accomplish more in a game like WoW than someone who plays 4?

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Err, yes. That gold you dismiss covers respecs, enchants, gems, all of which everyone needs, and consumables for raids which are still very expensive. Good luck affording that Mongoose enchant if all you do is log on, raid, and log off, and good luck getting a raid slot when you show up with suboptimal crap while doing progression raids. That"s not even covering expensive consumables like Haste potions/absorb pots and the other stuff you need on progression.

And what % of players does that apply to?

And for that matter what % of players would use a cellphone interface for a game? Enough to make the investment worth it? Would enough people join your game (who wouldn"t otherwise without that one feature) to cover the costs of developing and supporting it?

Gaereth said:

These games have been about time vs reward since the beginning. To say it is somehow a problem now is silly.

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Go back and read my post again. I already acknowledged it"s a long-time issue with MMOs. How does giving Timmymorepower make any sense? That"s my argument.

I don"t understand how a cell phone interface would give unemployed powergamers or college kids a bigger advantage. Those guys can already sit at their computer 12 hours a day and adjust their prices. It seems to me like it"s the opposite; now interested gamers who have a job can check their shit in a minute during a coffee break or in the car if they feel so inclined.

2bit you do realize that you"re arguing against people using a cell phone for the auction house right? A fucking auction bid. Get a grip on priorities and perspective. There is no disadvantage at all. You log in using one type of media and you do shit in a game. Whats the big deal?

Timmy has more optional power as does Bob. Bob might actually get more out of it since Timmy would probably have been in front of the computer anyhow.

I look at it like the old EQIM stuff. Timmy doesn"t need it because his ass is planted in front of the pc the vast majority of time while Bob could make great use out of it at some point during his 12hr work day. Timmy gains something he probably won"t use very much while Bob gains the opportunity to do something he never could.

Look at it like remote access for the game. If you are in front of your game computer a large percentage of time why would you need remote access?? It wouldn"t change anything for you except for an occasion now and again. Whereas the guy that can"t be in front of his game computer nearly as much would gain a lot more from remote access.

I don"t know....I see Bob gaining more for himself than Timmy gains. You can"t compare Timmy"s and Bob"s time to each other because it just can"t be compared. Its never going to be fair so why even worry about it??

What you can do is enable Bob to gain more from his time. You enable him to be able to get more from what time he does have. He will always fail in relation to Timmy...but the point isn"t to compare him to Timmy it is to compare Bob with extra access to Bob without extra access...that is the only thing that counts.

Draegan said:

2bit you do realize that you"re arguing against people using a cell phone for the auction house right? A fucking auction bid. Get a grip on priorities and perspective. There is no disadvantage at all. You log in using one type of media and you do shit in a game. Whats the big deal?

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No, I am arguing against one example of the type of influence I feel that shouldn"t be allowed. I"m sorry that someone got stuck on the AH thing, but thats really the only example that is feasible compared to what we have in games today.

But no, people should not be able to have bid wars via their cell phone. The "big deal" has been discussed ad nauseum and if you can"t be arsed to keep up then sorry.

I look at it like the old EQIM stuff.

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Which would be great. Guild chat, private channel chat, tells with people, even reading game mail. Those are all perfectly awesome to have, if it is economically and technologically feasible to get them on a cell-phone, PDA, browser window. That should be the extent of it though, imo of course.

Fog said:

I don"t understand how a cell phone interface would give unemployed powergamers or college kids a bigger advantage. Those guys can already sit at their computer 12 hours a day and adjust their prices. It seems to me like it"s the opposite; now interested gamers who have a job can check their shit in a minute during a coffee break or in the car if they feel so inclined.

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I was more referring to Highschool-aged kids and the younger employed crowd that can goof around on the internet weekdays while at school/work. I would think there are a greater number of those than gamer bums and, as a result, a better place to focus on player balance initially.

But yes, I agree with your point that the hardest of the hardcore wouldn"t benefit from such a perk, whereas others (including somewhat-less hardcore players) would.

Who cares really, it"s not that big of a deal. Powergamers who play all day will always have an advantage over the casuals, this isn"t going to somehow magically make that go away.

I do however hope these would be things they would put as back burner down-the-road types of concepts to be implemented. Trying to do all this for a launch will either take forever or take away time for important things: lag and framerates, fun gameplay, innovative combat, raid content etc should all come first before the frills. I would also like to see an AH more like the one in FF, its the best one to date.

Twobit Whore said:

No, I am arguing against one example of the type of influence I feel that shouldn"t be allowed. I"m sorry that someone got stuck on the AH thing, but thats really the only example that is feasible compared to what we have in games today.

But no, people should not be able to have bid wars via their cell phone. The "big deal" has been discussed ad nauseum and if you can"t be arsed to keep up then sorry.

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Only argument you"ve made is because you don"t think it"s fair if people with PDA"s can"t do it when others have to use a keyboard and a mouse. That still doesn"t make sense to me.

In the list of things that will make or break a MMO being able to access the auction house via cell phone is very, very, very low on the list. If they announce tomorrow Tabula Rasa or Vanguard supports mobile texting no one would give a shit.

Seems like a dumb thing to put into v1.0 of your MMO, there are things way more important to people and having a whole new interface into your system sucks for QA and dev patching.

Twobit Whore said:

And what % of players does that apply to?

And for that matter what % of players would use a cellphone interface for a game? Enough to make the investment worth it? Would enough people join your game (who wouldn"t otherwise without that one feature) to cover the costs of developing and supporting it?

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Then that decision is up to the developer. Seriously go back to spamming VG threads with your utter crap.

Aww someone is still sore I didn"t jump on his AV is balanced bandwagon.

Of course it"s up to the developer.. hi, this is a developer-type thread. Welcome to the party.. too bad you are late.

Nah, I really don"t care what anonymous people think about me. You are just typed letters on a message board in the end. Just tired of you spamming every dam thread by pulling crap out of your ass.(like you really have a clue what the developer"s costs would even be). At least Utnayan stayed focused. You are like a lost ship now that the VG fad is over.

Maxxius said:

like you really have a clue what the developer"s costs would even be

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Did I claim to know? How could I make an assertion in the form of a question?

Edit: nm, not worth inciting the rest.. this is a discussion about developing games, not individual posters... try to remember that guys.

I can"t be assed to read the last couple of pages of flames but I will say EVE "almost" did it right. Having played EQ from Aug 99 till Nov 05 then EVE I think skill based MMO"s are the way to go. Screw classes, or actually I should say classes are irrelevant. The freedom that can be obtained via a skill-based system greatly outweighs any thing a class based system has to offer. No more will you see the concentration of folks to a certain race due to stats. Instead you will see an emphasis on location and starting cities that provide interesting quests.

I don"t think you can compare the skill system in EVE to any class or skill system in a fantasy MMO.

Greyskye said:

I can"t be assed to read the last couple of pages of flames but I will say EVE "almost" did it right. Having played EQ from Aug 99 till Nov 05 then EVE I think skill based MMO"s are the way to go. Screw classes, or actually I should say classes are irrelevant. The freedom that can be obtained via a skill-based system greatly outweighs any thing a class based system has to offer. No more will you see the concentration of folks to a certain race due to stats. Instead you will see an emphasis on location and starting cities that provide interesting quests.

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I might"ve said this earlier in the thread, but skill-based systems are also nice in that you don"t get level segregation to the same degree. One upside of SWG was that people could start contributing to groups pretty much from the get-go, albeit in a limited fashion. Maybe more importantly, groups of friends can keep playing together despite big differences in playtime.

Havelock said:

I might"ve said this earlier in the thread, but skill-based systems are also nice in that you don"t get level segregation to the same degree. One upside of SWG was that people could start contributing to groups pretty much from the get-go, albeit in a limited fashion. Maybe more importantly, groups of friends can keep playing together despite big differences in playtime.

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Good point. But it varies from game to game. EQ2 you have the mentor system. WOW you just level quickly and gear separates you at the high end. EVE you"re useless anyway for a few months, plus you really don"t improve your character actively anyway.

Unfortunately there will always be a barrier between established and new players. EVE might be the only thing close, but I never experienced the game. I"ve heard you could be a certain type of ship that jams people or kills drones or whatever. That game is hard to get into.