Have to admit it . . . GW2 may replace COH for me

Back handed insult? Where? I'm just saying I don't like something which I feel has already been done to death. No insult intended

Here's the key point though, and the one which either I'm not making very clear or you're simply missing: Whether GW2 is a fantasy game or not. Whether it's different or not, when I was going through games to consider playing and I came to GW2 it just didn't grab me simply because the vibe I got from it was "Just another fantasy game". Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm missing out on some wonderful gameplay experience. Frankly, I doubt it.

I'm not insulting you or it. I'm saying from what I've seen of it, there's nothing that really grabs me about it because from what I've seen it looks just like A N Other fantasy game. If you like it, great, go play it. No loss of sleep here.

*edit - Gangrel - cheers for the heads up on Planetside 2; I'll give that a look

How powerful is your computer? ...because it matters a lot.

No worries... Hell, I knew that I should have spent more time talking to players at the meet over the weekend!

To be honest, it is always a hard one though to get right, I know people that dislike *one* fantasy MMO, but love another, even if the 1st one has everything that the 2nd one does... *shakes head*

This is why I am always willing to help out and point people in a direction or two!

Originally Posted by Paladiamors I love you, I Burnt the Toast!

In genre terms, it fits most of the criteria. In dungeon terms, I see what you did there.

After DA2, ME3 and SW:TOR... honestly, I don't even want them to make another GAME.

WildStar is (in my opinion) worth looking at in depth if you can see past the NCsoft ties.

It does have a frontier planet/Firefly vibe but with the addition of magic as well as technology (for example one faction are rebels/freedom fighters and the other are a universe spanning empire).

Have a Google for "WildStar Central" where you can check out all the video, articles, wiki entries, etc. that have been released so far.

I've been waiting for this game for a {very} long time now, and despite what's happen(ed/ing) with CoH, I will be investing in Wildstar regardless of the NCSoft stamp in the front. While actual gameplay is still locked away waiting to be released to rampant fans, there's promise about this being a pretty "do whatever you want" kind of game that might be an easy follow-behind for CoH players.

Heck, just watch the "Housing" video. It's a Base Editor's dream come true.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Warning: crazy space limit reached. Please delete some crazy and try again.

Seriously. Please make them stop.

After playing DA1 and ME2, it sort of struck me that they were rehashing the same formulas. The DLC and internet connection to check what was tied to your account was very unappealing. I waited on DA2 and ME3 and was lucky enough to avoid both.

SWTOR on the other hand I didn't get away from because it was given to me as a present. Yep ... had the same sort of story mechanics. Gather your allies and make them like you (and one more than the others) before heading out to the big finale.

It's sad. Bioware RPG's used to be practically instabuy for me.

@Kyuu

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.

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.

I'll probably see you in EvE then, since that will probably be the game I move to if CoH closes.

According to that video, it's "powerful enough". Also bear in mind that video was "an early beta" (Again just going on the commentators info) so there could be optimisation that still needs to happen.

My first reaction when I saw the first few seconds of video was "Oh. Battlefield 2143". Not necessarily a bad thing, by the way just not sure it'd be something my other half would want to play.

You wouldn't need to. The way they're going playing all of those would mean you've already played whatever it is they're going to release next.

In all honesty, as much as I'm enjoying SW:TOR it's far too much like "Mass Effect with Light Sabers" for me to want to play at any length. Will see how it goes.

Red Dead was EFFING AMAZING. I never played it myself, but I sat for HOURS watching my fiance play, because it was like watching an epic frikken movie. So amazing.

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

Personally, I was a huge supporter of Bioware right up to DA2. While the plot was fairly generic and predictable in DA1, I couldn't help myself - I loved the characters and it totally sucked me in. But it's not for everyone.

I also liked Mass Effect 2 a great deal at the end. At first, I wasn't so sure, because the first time I played through it I just spent most of my time being angry at the fact that my old crew wasn't with me and that I had to work with Cerberus. The main plot was pretty weak as well, but the character sidequests - which took up the majority of the game - were interesting enough that I was willing to overlook the other things.

But then DA2 came along, and changed a lot of what I loved about DA1. It was rushed and in the third act you could really tell it was a jumbled, rushed mess. Reusing the same areas over and over and over, never leaving the city...some of the characters were good, but there were some bad ones as well, and they took away one of the characters I liked for about 80% of the game.

And then ME3 came along. It had a rough start, because I didn't like the beginning at all. It was too....not Mass Effect, I guess. Too rushed. I wanted more time with the trial. But then it sucked me up, right up until the end, where it just fell apart so completely, and ruined it so badly (in my opinion!) that I can't even bring myself to replay the first two games yet. It's sad.

I did play SWTOR, since my friend preordered it and I wanted to play with him and some other friends. It...the story was decent, the voice acting was decent, but the gameplay just didn't draw me in at all. I stuck around for the Jedi Knight story though, and especially for the Imperial Agent story - that was something that I think is unlike what Bioware has done in the past. Give me the Imperial Agent story with Mass Effect engine and graphics, and gameplay, and I would be a VERY happy man.

But...yeah. I'm not really looking forward to anything they do in the future. Bioware used to be a 'preorder for sure' company, but now it's a 'wait and see for what others say' company, and even then, I'm not sure I'd trust em.

I checked out the Gameplay video and the whole thing just isn't clicking with me. Everyone has Earthworm Jim feet and general cartoon caricature physiques, and the whole world looks like World of Warcraft. I realise that it's a kind of "frontier" sci-fi, which means the game will mostly take place on "wilderness" planets, but it has an art style that's far too reminiscent of Warcraft 3 and World of Warcraft. It just doesn't work for me.

I'll keep an eye out for more videos of the game, but so far, what I'm seeing isn't selling me. Honestly, when it comes to sci-fi, that sort of story isn't what I'm looking for. It seems to me that the Star Wars prequels did more damage to the sci-fi over-genre than anything else, since those movies were basically fantasy with space ships, and now anything even vaguely like them passes for sci-fi, instead. When I think "sci-fi," I think Chronicles of Riddick and more Event Horizon, despite the latter having a distinctly space-magic theme. Or, as my headphones just played - Advent Rising.

Excluding City of Heroes and sticking to just MMOs, I'd like to see something that looks as different from Fantasy as Champions Online and yet plays as differently from Fantasy as Spiral Knights.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

BioWare used to make fantastic games. And because we, their fans, are idiots, we didn't spot the decline early enough. So we bought Mass Effect 3 still on an emotional high from the last two games and judged it on that merit. And when you put it up against the other two games, Mass Effect 3 just doesn't live up. It's not JUST the ending. Like your basic soap opera love story, the ending is just the moment of heartbreak that makes you look back with objective eyes on all the thing you sighed and looked past up to that point. No planet exploration? **** characters that don't go anywhere and have no personality *coughvegacough* Sorry, this plague is killing me. Weaker and less interesting combat, fewer supporting characters and no personal missions?

I look back on Mass Effect 3 and realise that the most touching and heart-warming stories, including the one that actually made me cry... Were basically the capstone of stories told in the previous two games. Every single one of the new stories was pretty much garbage, ending in that crowning moment of suck that was the Protean. At first, I didn't get why he spoke with an accent, right up until I placed what his accent was - African. And I know, because I spent six months with a couple of African students in the UK back in 2007. So he's a stereotype - the African tribal warrior who puts skill and viciousness before society. It's almost like I'm watching a bad anime.

Mass Effect 3 crashed and burned long before the ending, but I'm a stupid guy who lets faith in a gaming company blind me to obvious flaws. Right up until the very end, I was giving the game a chance and believing this would all add up to something, brushing away awkward exposition and flat character moments. Then the "godchild" happened and I knew exactly what I was playing - bad fanfiction. That's all Mass Effect 3 is. The previous two games were built on a complex political structure, ancient grudges and vastly different cultures. Then in Mass Effect 3, it's all resolved so simply you'd have to wonder why it took the Reapers to do it. And then that **** at the end just sealed it - someone let go of the wheel and the writing went off the road, into a ditch and off a sheer cliff. The ending is not just ****, it serves to undermine everything that was good about the series, ruins the Reapers and, pre the "apology" DLC, completely discarded your actions in the game.

The only reason I can enjoy Mass Effect as a "thing" any more is to pretend Mass Effect 3 never happened and the story ended with Mass Effect 2's amazing ending. That game made me care for all of its characters, even girl fanservice character Thane Krios. At least unlike that barefoot elf ******* in Mass Effect 2, Thane was a nice guy. And no Liara. Her voice actress is terrible. Samara may have been weird, but at least she had a more convincing voice. I cared about Grunt, despite his lack of character. I cared about Jack, even if she's the kind of person I'd normally find insufferable. I REALLY cared about Legion as that sort of story is really up my alley. Hell, I might have cared about Thane Krios if the bulk of his character development weren't locked behind a romance path.

As for Dragon Age 2, I have only two things to say: I HAAATE Anders and I love Knight Commander Meredith. It's so rare to see a female character in a game who is strong, capable, authoritarian and charismatic without either being slutty or old. Sure, she was battynuggers crazy and evil, sure, but she was still by far the most impressive character in that game.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

It doesn't really feel "unpolished" to me, at least what I've seen of it so far. It does feel a lot less safety-railed than the WoW/GW model though.

Specifically, compared to every other MMO I've had recent experience with (including CoH), this is the first time in ages I feels like the game is actually talking to adults. I wasn't expecting that. The setting feels a lot more tangible to me because the characterization is rooted in a more... realistic reality. To pick on some modern games CoH, DCUO, and CO go to great lengths to avoid ever showing a church. This game has a line where a priest, standing in a church, says something like (in regard to zombies):

"I've tried prayer and I've tried a .44, but Satan is wearing kevlar and bible thumping just ----- them off."

Then, upon stumbing upon a tribe of hippie drug dealers, one of them repeatedly uses a word I haven't heard in an MMO I've played before (which he says in a "drugged out" voice: "What the ---- was that? It ------- ran off with my -------- parcel!"

They get extra credit for this line, spoken by a character who is introducing the Templars (paraphrased):

"Don't you go around thinking this organization is like something out of an attrocious Dan Brown airport paperback."

There might have been some MMOs out there that catered to adults like that, but this is my first experience with one.

Maybe that's changed, but when I played, it did feel badly unpolished. Animations for everything were jerky and clunky, I kept getting caught on random geometry and several cutscenes gave me camera angles from underneath a British Bobbie's backside. Chatacter creation was also very unrefined, without any real ability to make a character that doesn't look ugly. And I don't mean "bad graphics," I mean a person who simply isn't attractive to me.

Jumping animations were almost enough to make me drop the game on the spot, at least for women. They're THAT BAD. It looks like my character squats and turns into a marble statue that gets slingshotted into the air. It kind of reminds me of those early 1990s dawn-of-3D games with the crude animations where everyone's doing the robot, from before IK and keyframes were invented. It's just... Bad.

Yes, those are all little things, but they make the game feel unpolished, and when I'm trying a game for the first time, lots of niggling little things are enough to turn me off, since they're all I'm seeing. I would have dropped Darksiders 2 on the spot if I hadn't already paid 50 Euro for it, because its first impressions are the worst of any game I've played in the last 10 years.

The Secret World may be innovative and interesting, but it lacks in presentation, and it lacks BAD.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

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.