Slaunyeh

Given the nature of the books, it's not entirely unlikely that Jon is the son of Lyanna and Rhaegar, but since everyone who could confirm it are dead, he never finds out (I mean, just watch Reed get mugged and killed before he can confirm anything ).

So yeah, it could go either way. Potential greatness that gets thwarted because 'fate is cruel' is not unheard of.

You are probably right about guesting. Since the feature isn't in yet, I hadn't considered that.

And for what it's worth, I think it's more of a design than programming issue. That's the decision they took, fair enough, it's just a pain when I want my asura to blend in with the established asura naming convention.

(Also, I'm the guy who can spend an hour in CoH's chargen trying to come up with just the right name. Imagine how much worse that was before we got rename tokens )

Precisely. Character names are global. What's the deal with that?

I think he's talking about character names, which also have to be globally unique. And while it's a lot easier to just smack random words together to get a passable fantasy name than, say, a "cool" modern nickname in TSW, it's still an issue (if only for the fact that GW2 has a lot more players around the world.)

It doesn't help when some races don't use surnames or, even worse, don't use surnames and use punchy short names like Jeek! or Zinga. It can be practically impossible to find a 'culturally appropriate' name.

I don't understand why GW2 is even doing that, since everything is tied to your global name, anyway. Heck, even WoW's solution was more elegant than forcing you to compete with a couple million other players for a name (I'm assuming the only reason for doing it this way is the WvW stuff). And it's only going to get worse.

I didn't think CO's charactername@globalname solution was a terrible elegant implementation of an otherwise great idea, but it's certainly better than this.

Oh man, that could have been a scathing article on African Warlords. Brace for A_C rage!

Well, that's also why they placed it in Stormreach. So they wouldn't have to coordinate with the developers of the the rest of the setting too much. Xen'drik is the "unexplored" contient, so they had a lot of freedom.

But if you're going out of your way to pick as remote, and as undeveloped, a setting as possible, you could just have made your own, instead of making it not-Eberron.

Eberron was a strange choice. Placing the game in Stormreach, as far from the core Eberron setting was stranger still. I like the Eberron setting, but it doesn't have the brand recognition of Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms.

And it's saying something that the latest update to DDO actually takes your character on an expedition to Forgotten Realms. o.O

Also, I'd reeeeally have liked an entirely urban game set in Sharn. That would have turned the cliché fantasy trope on its' head if anything can.

That's what I love so much about TSW. It's a game that treats me like a grown up. I don't know if you've done the Kingsmouth Code yet... it's not the best investigation mission in the game, but a pretty good example of what to expect.

I'm actually a little surprised it wasn't in at launch (given the somewhat similar feature in TOR) but really, that's just the Developers going "Yeah, we know it's kinda dumb. No, we're not sure why we implemented this, but here's an easy fix for it."

Which I could totally understand.

I would do anything for an MMO based on the Dragonstar D&D setting (anything, that is, short of starting my own software company and go look for funding. Obviously. I'm not crazy).

Yes. That is quite amusing.

*coughironycough*

"No matter how many times you save the world, it always manages to get back in jeopardy again." - Mr. Incredible.

You can ruin everything for yourself, if you so desire. Which I actually find to be a strong point for the game. Enjoy running around shooting stuff and hate having to stop and think? Fine, you can find the solution online. But for those of us who do enjoy those things, the option is actually there for a change. Which is fantastic.

It's all too common to go "puzzles in a game make no sense. You can just google the answer." Well, yes. But some of us like puzzle solving. If every game caters to the same lowest common denominator, some of us will never be happy. I, for one, am glad Funcom took that gamble and I hope it pans out.

I wouldn't really call the GUI crap. It's very minimalistic, but should remind you a good deal of GW2 in its' features. In fact, combat is quite similar to GW and GW2: Limited number of abilities equipped at once. Attacks don't root you, so you (can) move around a lot. You have the same dodge feature. Etc. The ability wheel is a lot deeper (and, admittedly, less transparent) than GW2's selection of weapon + traits. If there's one thing I think GW2 does better, however, it's the combo system. That's really fun to play with, and I do miss an equivalent when playing TSW.

And finally, yes. TSW feels quite unpolished. They aren't WoW or GW2 with (apparent) limitless funding, and that shows.

The sound side of the game is excellent. Even just the login screen music is very evocative. I remember having played the game, for the first time, for just a few minutes and someone asked me how it was. I hadn't really gotten into the game yet, so I didn't have much of an answer, so the only thing that popped into my head was: "The music score is fantastic." I got a weird look from that.

Hope you enjoy it. Let us know when you get to your first Investigation mission. That tends to be the make-or-break point for most people.

And even if they did, that'd be their decision.

Yes, instead of "wasting time" writing this iReport, the OP could instead have spend his time in a productive manner, get a degree in journalism and travel to Africa to expose all those African Warlords and save the world.

We can't all be as awesome as you, Angry. Because I'm sure you have done the above. Otherwise, get off the friggin horse.

Seriously Angry, you are trying to pull the journalistic equivalent of "if you don't like feature X, go make your own game." It's stupid on WoW forums, and it's even dumber here.

Grow up.

I remember asking for exactly a checkbox like that back in the day. We got the reduced enhancement drop-rate instead.

Nevermind IO sets, plain ol' regular boring IOs were no doubt the single biggest quality of life improvement in CoH's history.

On the topic of vendor trash, I was referring mostly to grey items that you can't use. Not, say, a blue item that you just have no use for (which you could always sell to someone else, or give to an alt or whatever).

Most of the IO drops fall into this category. I think the worst offender in CoH were the TO/DO drops when you were way past their level. And I know they introduced a fix so they eventually stopped dropping when you were far ahead of their usefulness. Maybe that fix didn't get far enough, but at least it's a developer acknowledging an annoyance factor.

Honestly, considering the number of good ideas and overall convenient systems in GW2, I was a little disappointed that they had retained the vendor trash tradition.

I should note, however, that if I'm occasionally fairly harsh on GW2, it's because they have set the bar pretty high. And in a few situations they decided to limbo under it.

...I was responding to a comment about repairing gear. Or, rather, I was responding to a response to EvilGeko's comment on gear repair. If that's not what we're talking about, then go ahead and ignore me.

(Also, I suppose you could consider enhancement degeneration a form of gear degeneration, which was absolutely horrible before IOs were introduced.)

What is Planetside 2 like? It's FPS, I assume?

My issue with Global Agenda wasn't actually with the game itself. It was actually a really solid shooter game. Functionally and graphically, extremely well made. My issue with it was that there was no story. Practically no game, except the same boring three missions shooting robots over and over again. I get that it was predominantly a PvP game, but so was GW1. And the Gobal Agenda tutorial hinted at some really interesting story elements that just never got picked up again.

The reason for this is, that while you care about the mechanics of the game first and foremost, others care about the setting of the game first and foremost. If you're sick and tired of steampunk fantasy, then you might dismiss a new steampunk fantasy game out of hand. And settings-wise, GW2 is fairly standard fantasy these days, even if the game itself plays quite differently from most fantasy MMOs out there.

To some people, it doesn't matter that it's a functionally sound game, as long as it's a setting they don't care about.

And that's okay.

Ah all right, yeah that's fair. And it's not a bad setting as it is.