Titan has been cancelled.

Quaid.. Please don't..

I won't. You're right. He responded with a fucking isometric game from 20 years ago. The argument won't even be fun.

MMO difficulty is not twitch response, but themassively, thesocialdifficulty. WoW is probably the easiest MMO game ever made, if we're even calling it an MMO - I don't (because it really isn't; it's a multiplayer game).

So why does everyone hate Blizzard?

Himeo_sl said:

So why does everyone hate Blizzard?

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Did you just wake up from a years-long coma?

Himeo_sl said:

So why does everyone hate Blizzard?

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The same reason Obi Wan left Anikan to die of his wounds.

They were supposed to bring balance! Not make a CCG!

So a company that made games you like also made games that you didn't like (and later went back to fix), so you hate it?

Honestly, Sony is making the next leap in MMO's, and Blizzard knows it. This is a smart move on their part. The two biggest challenges a "true" next gen MMO has to overcome are 1.) The ability for players to drive content creation AND allow the world to evolve constantly to consistently give that feeling of exploration/learning. 2.) An extremely in depth and powerful AI, to help make point 1 work (IE NPC's change behavior, so old encounters become new). It's telling that one of the features Blizzard wanted to emphasize in this MMO is essentially what Story bricks is trying to do; an advanced AI that adapts and responds to human interaction. If there really were an AI like that, the game world itself would start to evolve content...Combine that with a world where players can build things? And it might just be the real "next gen". I believe Blizzard was working on the AI, but realized that they wouldn't have Voxels, and decided to wait.

Outside of truly advanced AI system and a world which can change through player action--the only other real staggering advance I can imagine is going to be the UI (Namely, Virtual Reality.)...But I think AI is theBIGthing, imo. The more I've played games recently, the more I've come to realize that AI is THE defining factor that is holding everything back. It's the element that is pretty much keepinggreatgames from being perfect. And I think, really, that is one of the primary reasons the whole MMO space took off in the first place--because human players just provide tons of immersion, depth and creativeness. Hell, most genres, like Strategy, to FPS, have just stagnated into online match ups because the AI is so terrible that either it has to cheat obscenely to be challenging (And then it's just frustrating) OR it's a push over because it can't adapt to simple strategies. (It's especially hurting very complex strategy games like Civ and TW; the AI is just garbage.)

Just imagine though; how ridiculous a game like Skyrim would be if every NPC thought, and acted, like a human. It would be the ultimate game, constantly changing, constantly adapting--your choices wouldn't just have an impact, they would CREATE new games for you to play. Now, Idon'tthink MMO's/Games will get to that in the next few decades...but I think a small step forward would still be revolutionary. Hell, NPC's JUST altering behavior based on previous interactions (In a meaningful way--IE like adapting tactics. Raid a town, have it build walls ect), would be enough, for me at least, to classify something as "Next Gen".

Just my .02$ but this seems like a smart move on Blizzard's part. The industry seems like it's on the edge of a big change (Like it was back in 1997). Either VR, or AI or Voxels--something big. Blizzard is going to do what Blizzard does best, and steal that shit and make it better with their ridiculous engineers.

Mist_sl said:

Let's see:

After waiting 10 years for D3, it being released as garbage for almost 2 years, and only slightly less than garbage 2 patches into the first expansion.

Raising the barrier for entry into the MMO space to the point that only mediocre WoW clones and half-assed ports of Asian games can get enough funding to release in that space.

WoW having no innovation in the past 4-5 years... never even adding things like housing that were once considered fundamental MMO features...

Making a "Me Too" MOBA game for no real reason other than not wanting to feel left out.

I think those are the major points.

Hearthstone is the best thing they've released since WoW 1.0, and Hearthstone has really no where to grow given there's really only so many abilities you can put on cards with 3-5 words on them.

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I don't even disagree with this and it's pretty easy to disagree with Mist.

Himeo, D3 and SC2 were pretty bad. HotS is mediocre and HS is extremely limited. That plus a disappointing Cataclysm and MoP launch (though it is much better after a few patches) with 'Yet More Orcs IX' on the horizon... it's pretty disappointing.

'Hate' is probably hyperbole for most of us, pissed or upset is more likely the correct term.

Palum_sl said:

I don't even disagree with this and it's pretty easy to disagree with Mist.

Himeo, D3 and SC2 were pretty bad. HotS is mediocre and HS is extremely limited. That plus a disappointing Cataclysm and MoP launch (though it is much better after a few patches) with 'Yet More Orcs IX' on the horizon... it's pretty disappointing.

'Hate' is probably hyperbole for most of us, pissed or upset is more likely the correct term.

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So, it's basically D3. I never played it and didn't give a shit about D1 or D2.

I also was never into SC, so when SC2 came out it was basically new to me. I had some fun on the ladder and played the campaign. Haven't played the XPAC either.

This is the equivalent of a gaming coma, I guess.

I don't understand the focus on AI. We have humans -make use of them. Massively social interactions have continually taken a back seat to everything else for the sake of casualness. Fucking Ultima Online had more massively interactive gameplay than anything EQN will likely have.

It's not about the technology. It's about the people inside a massive online world. This piece of garbage industry has long since forgotten that. And ever since WoW was released, all we've gotten are new gameplay elements that move us further and further away from the reason this genre ever existed in the first place.

To show the level of fucked up-ness in this industry today. if you ask a random retard dev in the industry what massively interactive might mean, they'll say FB or Twitter integration. It's that far gone down the retard rabbit hole. It's disgusting. It's pathetic. And I hope EQN turns into another E.T. and this industry craters on itself like it's long since deserved.

Himeo_sl said:

So, it's basically D3. I never played it and didn't give a shit about D1 or D2.

I also was never into SC, so when SC2 came out it was basically new to me. I had some fun on the ladder and played the campaign. Haven't played the XPAC either.

This is the equivalent of a gaming coma, I guess.

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You shouldn't be in a coma, you should be dead.

You can't have massively social role playing games that are popular because any hint of a decent population and the shitcock crowd swarms in with the sole purpose of trying to screw around with everything and make it so that no one has any fun. If there is PVP interaction then the shitcock comes in the form of teabagging abusive murder enthusiasts and if there isn't PVP interaction then you have various forms of other harassment that makes you wish you could murder them.

The best you can hope for is for socially interactive games to exist on the fringe. Eve and the former Star Wars Galaxies and currently Landmark which exist as social playgrounds who survive solely because they aren't cool enough to get the attention of griefers. (Or in the case of Eve a massive barrier to entry and its own oddly mature microcosm of political intrigue and organization)

Dumar_sl said:

I don't understand the focus on AI. We have humans -make use of them. Massively social interactions have continually taken a back seat to everything else for the sake of casualness. Fucking Ultima Online had more massively interactive gameplay than anything EQN will likely have.

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Yes, because the 300+ people you want to be doing basic things in town to make it seem lived in should just be people rewarded for daily quests that last 8 hours. After your shift you can go grind mobs.

I used to think Dumar was just old-school, angry, and very good at pressing the right buttons to get a response. (I lurked for many years on FoH, so I kind of grasp the "history" behind this place)

Now, I actually think he's serious...