Sueco

"common people can be lied to believe that the Empire is a good thing thanks to a good propaganda system"

And democracies don't? WMD's anyone?

As it has been stated, Sith and Republic have different morality systems. Sith believe in order through strenght and learning that your place in the world is earned, not given. The Jedi view all life as sacred, no matter how vile.

Both belief systems have obvious drawbacks and advantages, but more importantly, both are perfectly coherent within their own belief structures. Sith know that truces only serve a purpose, and have no inherent value. Jedi view a truce as a sacred commitment.

Its Aristotle vs Machiavelli all over again. Any anthropologist will tell you that a society will construct a belief system that portrays them as "good", and others as "less good", whether they are mongols, nazis, or modern democracies. No small wonder we view the Sith empire as evil, we are all born and immersed into a very Republic-like society. Ask someone in a society that values harmony over personal expression, and suddenly the Sith don't look so bad. Of course, we can never entirely escape the belief system we grew up in, but view this as a humbling example of the diversity of human thought.

I see this all the time here in Sweden. Europeans have trouble understanding why not everyone immediately accepts the human rights charter as a self-evident, sacred truth. So much for enlightenment, right?

Think to fairly assess GA you have to put things into perspective.

Once you get past the oh-wait-this-isn't-planetside-ragequit and the oh-wait-this-isn't-WoW-ragequit crowd, you'll see a lovingly made game that while not perfect, certainly deserves some praise.

Gameplay is TF2-like and as polish goes it comes pretty damn close to Valve's classic. Add talent trees, interesting abilities, customizable looks and a social framework and you have a pretty interesting game.

Its not massive because you are never with more than 40 people in a room, but unlike TF2 you actually have an incentive to find 9 other people and hone your skills, AvA. While I don't think that the game will earn my subscription now that SC2 beta is out, the game gets a lot of unwarranted crap because a lot of people go into the game with wildly misinformed expectations. HiRez made what they thought was right and you can see that they really care about making the game great, unlike some "real" mmo developers out there. I'd understand of the game got a 7, I'd give it a 7 perhaps, but a 5.5 is either a nerdrage or plain unprofessional scoring.

Well i kinda bought it on impulse and I'm not regretting it. The comparison with TF2 is appropriate, as game dynamics is as refined as in Valve's game, but there is an additional layer of customizable skills, talent trees and personalized looks. A fine shooter with some MMO elements sprinkled in.

Now the main course, AvA I can't speak of be cause I haven't played it, but if they allow a political landscape to develop and support it properly, we can expect some pretty nasty and interesting stories to develop, much like in eve, with confrontations not being ship-to-ship but as 10v10 encounters. The AvA meta-game could add much needed meaning for what otherwise are random CTF-esque scenarios with little personality to them.

Gameplay-wise the GA is impressive, but they need to take a page on immersion from games like WoW or ME2 in order to make their world something more than a finely distilled arcade experience. Worth the buy if you liked TF2, and promises great things to come if the developers put their storytelling hats on now that they've aced gameplay.

I think what blizzard means with "broad appeal" is that they realized that WoW was essentially an MMO-ized version of Diablo 2 game mechanics, which means a steep level curve. 5 lvl 20s in WoW get wtfpwnd by a single lvl 40, and itemization being king, this creates two kinds of players, the "geared" and the non-geared. Putting those in the same PvP context was a recipe for fail.

These mechanics also made the game "hardcore" friendly, which means that someone who has invested enough time in a game can completely destroy casual players with no challenge, again a game-breaking mechanic. Blizzard likes hardcore players but they realize that they are always going to be a minority of the paying customers. Normal people can't muster up to the level of hardcore players so eventually you have to either choose going hardcore or leaving wow. Most people ofc leave wow, as I did.

Blizzard wants to create something as a fun as WoW but that isn't frustrating if you don't play it fulltime, in order to keep all those lucrative casual monthly payers. That's part of the reason for the IP switch too, WoW and D2 are all to associated with competitive gamer culture. If they manage to pull it off, they'll have MY interest.

Actually EvE is an extremely good example of what happens in the real world as well. The Ponzi money is gone, and no amount of crying and righteous vengeance is going to bring it back. I'm not saying release the old man, but the sheer amount of rich people being unable to accept their own stupidity was a great source of amusement long afterward. Yes I gave a lot of money to someone I had not vetted completely and therefore ran the risk of loosing it. And I lost it. But its still so unfair waaah! waaaah! why me!

Countries have done this and far worse to each other throughout history. World trade is FAR more unfair than anything that's ever happened in it EvE, and it happens every day, and yet we can live with it because it we keep it out of sight. In the real world, promises are only worth the threat of force that can be put behind them. As any political scientist will tell you, force is ultimately the source of all power, and justice is only the agreed institutionalization of force.

The useful lesson that EvE teaches is that it is ultimately you and you alone who is responsible for your own fate in the universe, be it in New Eden or planet Earth. Be thankful if you've learned that in New Eden, Earth isn't as forgiving.

I love the sandbox premise of the game and the fact that a lot of towns and villages are player created, owned, defended and raided. It is believable dynamic world where you do not survive thanks to a baked-in morality system but thanks to collaboration with other players.

However, as long as the core issues of naked fighting and bloodwalling remain, i will stay clear of that game.

If you are asking me, Blizzard knows that sandbox games like Darkfall and EVE are on to something. I'd guess they are also busy taking notes from Left 4 dead and its procedurally generated challenges...

What they also probably realize is that WoW is either a full time hobby or it nothing. Whatever you want to do once you reach 80, you need to invest a lot of time and sacrifice some things like social life, at least if you are serious about high level raiding and arena.

I think their "mystery mmo" will have sandbox elements, procedurally generated random content so that no replay is ever the same, and have a much softer leveling curve and gear curve so that the game attracts a wide following of casual players. Blizz should want those casuals since a subscription pays no matter how you play the game. I think one of the biggest mistakes they made in WoW is how the leveling curve goes up exponentially... 5 level twenties cant even scratch a lvl 60 and so on... that made the game into a level race.

People tend to think a good CEO is someone who systematically undermines the organizational culture of the companies he runs as long as he maximizes short-term profits.

Since he is not invested in the future of Blizzard itself, he can happily pressure them into making low-quality, serial products, claim he has maximized profits, and be out in ruining another great company within five years.

Chronic miopia is typical of this business thinkin. Personally I do not regard them as good businessmen, since all they do is squeeze human capital for quick gains. Real businessmen build things like Blizzard. Vultures maximize profits.

I'm having a blast in beta. Especially the travel powers are impressive. After rocket jumping your way through the desert, you'll never want to jump into a 3 sec cast mount ever again.

Give the game a good try, if it don't float your boat, get Aion. But stop trying to diminish a legitimately well-made game because you don't like it. You know when something is made with love and this game is, period.

Then again it might not be your cup of tea, but that's another matter.