Stupid

I also picked Allods. I just was re-trying this myself a couple of months ago and found it to be much improved over the initial release, and very accommodating to non-cash shop players like myself. But I'm completely done with DIKU-style MMOs; I made it to level 22 and quickly lost interest. I'm curious to see how different players will feel about the game.

"If you look at the history of the people investing in an MMO and achieving success, it's a small number."

That really depends on how you define "success". If you mean getting 10M+ subscribers, then yes, you're correct. By that definition, you can count the number of successful MMO products on one hand.

If, on the other hand, you mean "profitable", then you would be completely and utterly wrong. Even "failed" MMOs like WAR and AoC are profitable. Free-to-play MMOs are profitable. Maybe they aren't money printing machines allowing their CEO to bring home $10M plus benefits, but the developers of little fringe MMO products like Wizard 101, Puzzle Pirates and even Free Realms... those guys aren't exactly living in a cardboard box down by the river and wishing they had never started working on an MMO.

Just because a movie isn't a blockbuster, doesn't mean it sucks.

I followed ArenaNet people all around PAX and hung around their booth for *hours*. I never got a Charr plushie even though I wanted one so bad! If I win I promise to feed him, to hug him, to love him and to not perform any medical experiments on him!

I really enjoy the flexibility of the housing system. It lets the player show off their individual creativity and explore their artistic side. Even with only a small selection of elements, some really amazing spaces can be created.

@Space Cobra E3 isn't a "con" like PAX, It's "industry only" which means that unless you are a developer, publisher, press or somehow in-the-industry, you simply don't get to attend. Being a consumer of games is not enough. One of the reasons that E3 almost died a very deserved death a few years ago was because they were handing out passes to retailers like Best Buy and it became frightfully easy to obtain one of these. I attended E3 from 2002 through 2006 as part of a dev team and at the end it was ridiculous. They're keeping a much tighter reign on attendance now and the show is better for it.

I wasn't interested in DUST at all prior to this year's E3. I knew about EVE, but didn't play it -- it's just not my cup of MMO tea. But the advertised integration between DUST and EVE sounds extremely exciting.

The platform that it is released on is 100% immaterial to me; I own (and play on) all of the current gen machines. Sure, it would be nice to have it on a PC. As a 40+ year old gamer, I'm much more comfortable with the mouse and keyboard combo that I've been using for the last 20 years. I'm a bit of a spaz with a dual joystick controller. But I'm getting better and at my age I'm not expecting to be in the top tier of players anyway!

PS3 makes the most sense from CCP's standpoint, and they are the devs. So, there you have it

@Richard Jae

Long periods of stasis can sometimes result in a slight case of major brain damage.

I may the only one to say this, but Phantasy Star Online. (I've been a MMO fan for a -long- time.)

If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, put a bloody sailor suit on it!

If you asked me, I'd be more concerned with the F2P "cash shop" model they chose than whether or not it is marketed as an MMO or something else. The devs may think that being labeled as an MMO comes with certain assumptions about player skill being unimportant, but being a cash-shop game comes with even worse ones!

Cash-shop games typically mean that whomever spends the most real $$$ is going to win the fight, regardless of player skill. When the other guy pays $1000 for invulnerable armor, a one-shot sniper rifle that auto-aims and reloads every 0.1 seconds, a jetpack that lets him fly around the map at 10x normal speed and invisibility/stealth mods... it stops mattering how much "skill" the other players have. Anyone who has played -ANY- PvP game with cash shop items will tell you that.

And don't think the price of admission will stop it from happening. For every 100 people who say "No, that's too expensive" there will be one guy who will spend whatever it takes to win every fight. And he will.

More's the pity.

@Drakkenfyre

It's not like $60 (for six months) is a huge cost.

A lift pass for six hours of skiing costs $90. Green fees for a single day of golfing is more than $100. Even a two hour movie costs $10 these days!

$60 will barely buy a new game. And most new games these days take only 10 to 20 hours to complete, right?

No matter how you slice it, you're going to get much more entertainment value from that $60 that you will almost anywhere else. Even if you only play for three hours a month (for six months), you're still getting more value than you would have gotten just going to see one movie a month for the same timeframe.

Anyone who regrets paying a $60/6month fee, but owns a $1000+ gaming computer needs a reality check.