Dlangar

I think a traditional fantasy mmo set in an underwater environment with some arbitrary means by which you can breath is just.. well.. a recipe for disaster.

BUT.. I think there's huge potential for a futuristic underwater mmo with fast, 2-man submersibles, torpedoes and sound-wave guns, fantastic creatures to kill with teams of scuba divers with motorized suits and cool underwater weaponry.. giant domed cities with glass tubes connecting them. Think Seaquest DSV, the MMO. I could *totally* get behind something like that...

Dusty

I wrote a post with almost the exact same title just over 2 years ago -- but with a whole different list of things:

http://ofcourseillplayit.com/?p=102

I couldn't agree more though, there a ton of great mechanics in CoH that I still don't find in any other MMO today.

Dlangar

There's a line? No one told me there was a line.. :P

I would love to see a breakdown PS3 vs. PC sales for the title so far. Can one of you guys get right on that? :D

I'll be leveling my new night elf mage in WoW, and playing a bit more of The Beta That Shall Not Be Named (tm pending!).

Dusty

Sera!!! I'll be there helping to put the smack down on some crims Thursday night! And put me in the drawing! Game name is 'Dlangar', natch!

I think for me the thing that set's Aika apart from just about every other F2P MMO I've played is the Pran. While many MMO's have pets and pet mechanics, I can't think of any where the pets are *account* wide, and you are limited by account, not by character. The fact that newly created characters can share and use previously created Pran for your account gives you a unique notion of persistence amongst your alts. Add to that the ability to shape and mold your Pran into the type of pet that most fits your playstyle, and you have a game mechanic that is *truly* unique and interesting amongst MMO's.

It's as if Peter Molyneaux had a hand in developing it.. >.>

I've played about an hour of this already, just going through the starting missions, customizing your character, etc. For a facebook game, it's actually pretty nice. I like the way they integrated friends as members of your agency, the production value is very high, and the spam quotient pretty low.

The combat is a simple rock/paper/scissors model (at least at first appearance) and code breaking is done through minigames, (to no one's surprise).

I give it a thumb's up for being a nice flash based game with a great art style and good production value.

Dusty Monk

http://ofcourseillplayit.com

Mr. Garriot's reasons for jumping into the social gaming arena amount to just about the same as everyone else's that I've seen, ie., "You're an idiot and will be left behind if you're not onboard with this!". But what is far more interesting, IMHO, once you get get past the social gaming stuff is the backstory he gives on some of his design processes back in the day when he came up with Ultima 4 and Ultima Online. If you're a fan at all of some of the games that founded the CRPG genre, it's well worth the read.

Dusty

I can't make it for the Wednesday night get-together, but if you guys create a guild of massively fans & staff, I'd definitely join you and get in on that!

Good luck Wednesday and have fun!

Dusty