Rookerith

I'm pretty sure Hudson Entertainment is still active. Other arms of Hudson, such as "Hudson Soft USA" are closed in favor of Hudson Entertainment as the main international branch.

Sigh. They put this during Gen-Con. Smart.

Guess I wont be going this year to SOE Fan Faire.

It's really not that bad. 2-3 months I'd say for someone fresh without too many friends to help you, playing regularly (4-5 times a week, maybe one weekend day.) About there, give or take.

While the game has a ton more solo-friendly content then it did at launch, and it's possible to solo, you're still going to feel gated from doing quite a few cool things because of how this game was really designed with grouping origionally in mind. See, while you can get away with a lot of solo grinding to level, there is so much content that is made for groups, so many dungeons, and parts of a zone where the monsters are basically elites.

If you have a friend to mentor down to your level, that helps immensely. If say a level 80 turns into a lvl 10 via the mentoring system, their skills don't completely fall inline with a level 10, they still are far beyond that level in power. You'll perform as if you were a full 6-man group with that one person. Having someone to hang with you in that fashion turns this game from a chorish grind, to a fun, "nothing can stop you" blast through content.

I wouldn't recommend going into this game alone, unfortunately.

As for the pvp battlegrounds, they're coming out as the expansion releases, meaning 10 more levels. If you were already at cap, and wanted to play, you'll be a bit closer to being on even footing with the rest of the player-base if you were coming back for this..as everyone will be leveling, getting new items, etc. I can't say it'll be a full gear reset, as the devs have said shard-armor and the like will probably hold up over quest rewards on the way to the new cap..it'll still be better then it is now.

Here's my thought on double-exp weekends.

I tend to think the games that offer it more then once in a blue moon, fundementally have something wrong with their leveling curve. double-exp events tend to say the game has a noticable grind, and the 2x experience weekend should elate some positive reaction from the player-base, when infact, if the game was just produced with a reasonable exp grind, that masked the time spent leveling with well paced content, it simply wouldn't be needed and you could have better events, like you know, actual events that require you to do more then flip a X = X*2 switch.

You didn't quite get my reference, When I said I wouldn't play your game I was referencing that when you have an mmo, yourself, your very own special place, I wont play it, then you wont have to worry about people that find your mmo's website difficult to use!

I am glad you think the quality of their website, or, lack-there-of, is part of the beta application test. Anything to win the argument, right?

I generally don't come on massively.com to argue with people. Seriously, it isn't worth it. Glad that is what you come here to contribute, though, jibes at people. Awesome.

Fantastic, Pbintx2001, I wont be in the beta for your game then!

I like the idea for their game. I have just signed up for their forums and do not know the proper channels to communicate bugs to.

Honestly, if you can't get a beta application page correctly done, though, I'm worried about the creation of the mmo itself, because that, my friend is leagues and bounds beyond a web form. ;) But certainly, I agree, if I got in the beta, I'd let them know my displeasure with the beta application page.

Perhaps I'll take a crack at you, because you feel you needed to take one at me? Atleast my punctuation and sentence structure would make -sense- in my beta bug reports, atleast I would capitalize and spell words correctly in my report. Maybe the shift-key, commas, and the such, boggles you a bit, right?

Alright!

It works in Firefox 2, just not IE 7...though the button shows up halfway down the beta signup, instead of at the bottom...it really doesn't make sense. But whatever, I'm signed up!

Looks very interesting. I miss Ultima Online and the other sandbox games.

I just attempted to sign up for their beta.

As I get to the bottom, after filling out all the info, I see that the form is missing a submit button. Fantastic.

If the application process is down, removing the submit button "probably" isn't the correct way to get the form down, guys.

"In terms of in-game originality"

Sorry Lesley Smith, but this was actually in Ultima Online. You could write in the books. Like heritage items, and the such, EQ2 is just rehashing ideas that have already passed. I'm not saying it's not a good idea, and I'm glad they're adding it in, but they aren't revolutionizing the wheel with roundness or anything of the sort.

I require headphones while fighting zombies in order to drown out the voices in my head... It's why I haven't picked up the game yet, the voices...waagh!