Bhagpuss

This kind of character creation really puzzles me. Presumably each of those questions has in-game implications but how am I supposed to know at character creation what they are?

The potential implications of some, like the Streets/Common Folk/Nobility one might reasonably be guessed at, but what are we meant to make of a choice between "A spangenhelm, A cap helm, No helm at all". If I've just downloaded and installed the game, how am I going to know what a "spanglehelm" even IS, much less what it says about my character that he chooses to wear one?

Same applies to "Trickster demon, Skull, Ghostly wraith" or "Universal multi-tool pack, Eagle-eye goggles, Panscopic monocle". Either these choices have in-game meanings that I have no way of knowing, in which case it's pointless to ask me to choose between them, or they don't, in which case choosing between them is meaningless.

I'd much rather learn who my character is by playing him. Couldn't the game observe the actions I take within it and tailor my personal story accordingly, rather than pre-build it at this incredibly early stage?

Any reason why customized names couldn't display only on the client where the change was made? Say I could edit my friends list, guild roster or group window, replace" Legolaz" with "Jim" and have that change visible only only by me. That doesn't open an exploits or customer service issues, does it?

Then even if someone did want to give every character an obscene or libelous name no-one else would ever know about it, but the rest of us could just edit out the few names that break immersion for us and move on.

I do like the look of Lime Odyssey and I will definitely give it a go if it gets as far as open beta. I'm more than a little confused over whether that will happen, though, given that the Korean version was pulled because of "a series of critical problems" that were apparently impossible to resolve.

Is the "Western" version being developed separately? If it's just the same game being localized, why would it not suffer from the same critical bugs?

Go Troll Thane or Dwarf Skald. Not that I'm biased.

What Borick said!

I've been on the verge of buying a tablet pc for almost a year now but there's always something around the corner. Probably going to hold off for the Win8 devices but I may crack before they arrive and get something cheap to hold me.

I'd be mildly surprised if desktop pcs still exist as anything more than legacy devices in five years time. Then again, they were saying that about CDs five years ago and yet they still account for more than three-quarters of all music sales in this territory.

The whole thing is a travesty. It's going to split up players and guilds who've been together for years. It puts up walls where none existed. It hands control of our accounts to a company most of us have never heard of (and would like to keep it that way).

PSS didn't want Everquest or Vanguard so no-one knows how Station Access accounts are going to work for players who play one or both of those games and EQ2/DCUO/Free Realms. I also just noticed there's no mention of Pirates of the Burning Sea either.

What makes it even more galling is that we had all this years ago with UbiSoft and look how well that went. Nothing like learning from your mistakes. Honestly, I'm usually sanguine about SoE's ability to shoot itself in the foot repeatedly but this really does take the biscuit.

My hope now is that GW2 lasts me a year or more and by the time EQNext appears this PSS contract has collapsed.

Rubies of Eventide. Ferentus. Endless Ages.

But especially Rubies of Eventide.

Playing MMOs fits into the time I used to spend watching T.V. Haven't watched television since I started playing MMOs and haven't even owned a television for several years. Just traded sitting on a sofa in front of a screen to sitting at a desk in front of a screen.

Can't remember how long ago I first tried Planeshift but it must have been almost a decade ago. I've never done more than walk about for a while and then log out, somewhat confused.

It's nice to hear that it's still going. A quick check shows me I have it installed on this PC, which means I must have downloaded it (again) in the last three years, but I can't recall playing it that recently. Not sure i am likely to change that any time soon. If I want an old-school MMO experience I'll usually fire up Crowns of Power.

(And as an aside, I listen to the radio while I play MMOs and always have done, and I often listen to 1930s radio shows, although not Little Orphan Annie. And I haven't owned a television for many years :P )

Completely agree on the Dungeon maker. I understand that they don't want to get into the whole scripted content thing, but some pre-defined objectives could be added to the toolbox without opening that can of worms.

There absolutely have to be some drops added to player-made dungeons, too. It's just so disheartening, doing entire dungeons without seeing a single item drop. Not even coin. Surely at the very least the mobs could drop the Dungeon Marks as you go along instead of you getting them all assigned at the end.

Naming items is a great idea, too.