OT: What other games are people playing??

[KroolDeath]

I just went and checked the Eve Online website and it does look pretty cool. I thought it was a busy but I guess not (Maybe that was Earth & Beyond that I was thinking of).

hmmm...

Krool

[Arryn]

Wasn't E&B supposed to go poof this month?

[KroolDeath]

Yea, I think it was E&B, but for some reason I had it in my mind that it was Eve. Actually, I'm still looking over Eve and it looks damn cool. Of course, I could be really wrong here. But it seems much more player driven than any other MMO game.

Krool

[Aku]

Yeah E&B is suppose to be poof this month or has gone poof already.

And yeah in SWG starting characters get owned by rabbits...its sad.

D&D Online I want to keep an eye on. They said you can play it like you do your paper and dice sessions. Now that is really cool because its hard to find people to play with that live nearby. Too bad the game is coming out in late 2005. I hope it actually turns out good and can be an mmorpg you can play once a week and still feel you did something. All the current mmorpgs out are horrible time sinks and hours can pass and you feel you accomplished nothing.

[Aikamun]

Since the subject changed to Eve Online (my Last MMOG ever), I will tell you why I quit:

1. Bugs. I played a little over a month and encountered a huge quantity of bugs personally. Also, monitored the help channel and heard of tons of other bugs. I do not believe Eve has enough paid Subscribers to adequately support the game.

2. Lag. Like all these games, lag kills. Eve has it in over-abundance.

3. Experience System. You gain skill points per each unit of time. At the end of one month playing you will have a little under one million skillpoints. Some players already have 20 million skillpoints. You can NEVER catch up, no matter how long you play each day. This puts you at a severe disadvantage in any player vs player fights. I estimate you are at a 5% to 25% handicap at the minimum.

5. Mining. Mining is the key to Eve's economy. If you have the minerals, you can make most of the gear and ships in Eve. Mining became the most boring grind I have experienced in an MMOG, which made running missions my only source of income. Some people don't get bored from mining and power to them.

6. Uber Guilds. Like all MMOs, Eve has its uber guilds. These are the largest and most established corporations. They do not recruit newbies. Personally, I am not interested in leaving friends and the corporation behind who had helped me to that point.

7. War can be declared by one corp against any other corp to avoid retaliation by the police. This mechanism is used by larger corporations and player killers to take you out wherever and whenever they please. Another advantage of being in an uber corporation.

8. Etc., etc. The list could continue indefinitely.

One of my characters had developed a persistent display bug at the end. CCP was telling me my screen should be showing various things which was not the case. This was the final nail in the coffin for Eve.

But, this is just my opinion. You might love Eve.

Aikamun

[Lex]

Hmmm.. I've been reading alot of reviews on Eve, as well as their site, and the more I read, the more I'm interested. The "problem" with Corps is also the main attraction of Eve. It means there's alot of activity that's player driven. As for the Skills system, I was under the impression that they did it that way to level the playing field for people who couldn't spend every minute of the day killing monsters. This way, reguardless of how much time you can commit to being Online, you'll still level up at the same pace as everyone else. Sure it means if you joined the game a year after others, you'll be pretty far behind, but since the real power is with Guilds, it's seems less important to have an insanely high level character, and more practical to be friends with the right people (kinda reminding me of real life a bit). On their site, they say there's over 2000 player Guilds/Corporations (compared to 140 NPC Corps). Sure it might be lonely at first, but the community is definitly there! (their site posted that Last monday they had 11,200 people Online.. that might not be the 100,000+ Ultima Online would get, but isn't that pretty good anyways?)

But then, that's my impression from the basic reading I've done. I still haven't played the game yet.

[Aku]

Anyone know anything about Guild Wars? This game may be interesting.

http://www.guildwars.com/

There is the link. Tell me what you think.

[KroolDeath]

Hmmm.. I've been reading alot of reviews on Eve, as well as their site, and the more I read, the more I'm interested. The "problem" with Corps is also the main attraction of Eve. It means there's alot of activity that's player driven.

Lex, thats the same line of thinking that interested me, its not story-driven but driven by the players, up to and including the economic model.

I am still looking into this game of course. I'm going to cruise around their website some more. Looking at the interstellar map, it appears there is plenty of room for growth without having to join one of the existing corporations.

Krool

[Lex]

I've got a long list of games I *MUST* play. So the time commitment of Eve is a bit worrisome. But nevertheless I'm pretty sure later in the week when work eases up, I'll sign up and spend several days reading every rule/story/forum/guide and really check it out for real

Edit: how cool would it be to start a Corp called Dominions (although in a space setting, it'll get confused with the Dominion from DS9)

[magnate]

deccan said:

I'm curious:

1) Does the software enforce the rules?

No. It just steps through the turn sequence and moves the cards for you (and keeps count of damage, I presume). Stuff like disallowing illegal targets it doesn't do. I guess that would make for some interesting debates.

deccan said:
2) Is it legal?

As far as I know they've not been sued or challenged. It doesn't use any of WotC's code (it was written from scratch), it just uses the same card artwork. Since you can d/l the card art for free from WotC's own site (at least until Scourge) I don't see a problem. They may have some issues with the newest sets though, since WotC don't provide them as encyclopaedia updates (I think they have stopped supporting the encyclopaedia in order to push people towards MtGOL).

deccan said:
I agree that sealed deck is probably the most fun way of playing it, unless you find someone who's willing to forgo "power gaming" and play theme decks. Some of the most fun games I've had include playing an Ice Age deck against a Fallen Empires deck.

The absolutely coolest deck I've ever seen was a Lich deck.

Coolest deck I've seen is a Stasis deck. If you're prepared to use the less common formats (1.5 et al.) it can be a lot of fun without sealed deck. Just restrict the powerful cards to 1 each (making a lot of them undesirable) and ban a load of the others. Or, as you say, use the block restricted formats - I love Ice Age!

CC