Alisto

There aren't enough cutting edge single player RPGs released at it is, so I wouldn't want them to move over to MMOs which are mostly inferior to good single player games as far as I'm concerned.

I'd only get excited about it if they allowed us to create our own mods, which others have also suggested. What would be the problem as long as we keep paying them money? I think that's the only real reason someone would get into the MMO market now, as innovation seems to have generally ground to a halt. Not that there was much to begin with.

So is the lack of optimisation that some are claiming due to debug mode being enabled in the client, or are people playing with the version that's actually going to be released now?

I'm sticking to my promise to now pick up a new MMO until it's been out for at least a year, so I'm just asking out of curiosity really.

Lovely image. Finally something to really compete with LOTRO for scenic views by the looks of it.

I think that Codemasters are right to delay the launch until all the problems have been ironed out. We've all seen far too many botched releases to want another one, I think.

I've been a guild member, an office (on a few occasions) and a guild leader, taking over (with another person) leading a guild when the original leader moved on to a raiding guild. We ended up merging with another guild, but there was mainly so we were big enough to cater to both raiders and more casual players, though that's always a compromise that will lead to some becoming unhappy.

I think you have to have some sort of application and vetting process in place. You owe it to the people already in the guild to avoid inviting people in who will reduce their enjoyment of the game. That doesn't mean that the process has to be involved, I usually just asked them to post an introduction on the guild forum and then group with them (or get another officer or someone else who I think is a good judge of character) to play with them a little. Then I'll invite them in on a probationary period of a few weeks if they aren't totally unsuitable. I'm a pretty laid back person, and so you'd have a be really dysfunctional/immature to be turned away before getting to the probation stage. It's really up to the rest of the guild if the person stays. Piss off enough people and you're out..

Once they are in they can play as little or as often as they want as far as I'm concerned or have as many alts as they like, though this really depends on the game, as some make it real hard to identify who is who.

As long as they aren't just there in name is all I ask.

I've just been bitten too many times in the past to now buy a MMO without at least getting into the open beta.

I will sometimes give games that I played at release a second go if they stunk at release, but make a free trial available later on. I'd wouldn't even consider going back otherwise.

Free trials also let me try games that weren't on my radar and that I was a bit iffy about, such as Global Agenda. which I found I enjoyed, but which I think is still not as good as Planetside in some respects.

Isn't the whole point of these games to role play a hero? Aren't we all doing that? If you want a challenge them there are plenty outside of playing games.

Yeah. I wish we could all put this stuff down on our CVs as evidence of our perseverance and teamwork. Compared with getting the Cleric Epic, most other things would be trivial. ;)

My biggest rite of passage would be the first (and currently only) time I reached the maximum level in a MMO. I've played loads of them and only stuck with one long enough to do it, which was reaching level 50 in EQ2 about a month before the first expansion and level increase.

One day I'll do it again, I'm sure, but I'm an experience junkie (as in wanting to try new things and explore, not wanting to gain level experience), and I like to try all classes/skill combos in the games I play, which isn't conducive to high levelling. It keeps me entertained though, but does make it hard to commit to a guild and do high level content, which is a shame, but I find repeated raiding very dull anyway. Once you've beaten a raid a few times, what's the point in doing it again?

Was that the one where you would have one set of raiders fight their way down and then have the rest just to their deaths into The Hole and be rezzed at the bottom? At the same time you'd have to keep the landing area clear I think. Been a long time!

Getting your epic weapon in EQ1 truly was epic. That mixture of camping rare spawns, travel, and raiding. It took ages. It truly was epic, even more so with some classes requiring very long raids (more than one usually) and camping for spawns that only appeared every week or so.

I never actually managed to get my Druid epic. By the time I'd got almost to the end I got fed up of how slow EQ1 could be and had moved to other games. Still have fond memories of my time in my first MMO though. I wouldn't choose to get back though, and prefer to keep my rose-tinted memories rather than ruin them by comparing it to a modern MMO.