Marcellus

@Masync9 Do you know any MMO service providers that will *actually* delete your account and erase any record of your membership? I don't.

Perhaps they are referring to the never ending trial?

I will create a Trooper using the "large" body style and name him Joose. He will be a Combat Medic and will liberally distribute tasty green healing juice to all of his allies.

@Mad Dog

The PvP will be instanced, as I understand it, likely similar to Global Agenda's PvP. Otherwise, the majority of the games content involves open world PvE.

@Fabius Bile

It is free to download and play, and isn't PvP exclusive. Those are reasons enough for me. There are a number of differences between this and PS2 that might appeal to different types of gamers.

@Caerus

You beat me to the Steam reference!

NOOOOOOO!!

Hey, you guys remember that all-in-one launcher by that one company? It didn't do very well either. There virtually was no benefit to it what-so-ever, and the company eventually tanked because of it.

I think it was called Steam.

... oh wait.

I would love to recreate my Hero from Champions Online: Red Impetus. He was a tech-based psychic.

You guys are totally missing Scarr's point. I will keep this simple: there is a difference between a completed gaming experience ready for launch, and an evolving game world.

The MMO industry refuses to accept and implement standards that have been proven and refined by long term successful titles like World of Warcraft and Eve. An auction house (or similar method of barter and trade) is just an example of one of these standards. MMOs have little excuse to exclude such a system, and yet we continue to see games launch in an incomplete state, ignoring what should be industry standards. They are incomplete because they offer only a partial gaming experience at launch, which is wrong, regardless of your feelings on an evolving game world.

Five or six years ago, MMOs had the luxury of launching in an incomplete state (a la WoW or any other game releasing around that time). That's because the genre was still young an relatively unpopular. UO and EQ had made some waves, but the genre didn't really explode until WoW began to perfect its systems (albeit over a 2 or 3 year time span). At that time, players were willing to accept "mistakes" because they didn't know anything different. MMOs were new and glamorous. Because of WoW's success, and it's long running life, the majority of the player base now expects that sort of refinement in ANY. MMO. THEY. PLAY. Regardless of whether or not that expectation is reasonable, an MMO will not experience the type of success WoW has enjoyed unless it can launch with the type of polish and completeness of a "6-year-old" game.

In short, MMOs no longer have the luxury of launching in a semi-beta, incomplete state if they want to experience real success. Players expect, unreasonably or otherwise, a completed gaming experience right at launch.

I'm curious how someone might argue that a game is too addictive by design. Wouldn't that implicate every casino in the US? And those have been around a lot longer than MMOs. This is ridiculous, in my opinion.