Haldur

EQ was my first MMO, and I still have fond memories of it. That said, I would never go back to it. Maybe, just maybe, I'd give Ultima Online or AC a try, if there were no other choices. But you'd have to pay me to go back to it now.

Part pf the problem is that MMOs are, by nature, action-driven and not story-driven. In order to be story-driven, you'd have to either have a whole lot more text/conversations or a whole lot more cut-scenes. What you want is more of a movie expereience. A lot of video games TRY to be that, but I actually hate that trend because I don't want to watch my games, I want to play them.

What you probably would like better is more of a text adventure-type game, or even a movie or television show or actual comic book, than an mmo. It's the nature of MMOs (at least successful ones so far) to be more action-driven.

I may have stayed a LITTLE longer with WoW had the community been better. But I doubt I would still be playing it.

I also had a huge problem with the community in EQII. I don't know how it is now, but back then, the game felt like it was designed to encourage antisocial behavior (people would literally abandon their group deep within dungeons simply because they got what they came for and didn't feel obligated to help those that helped them, even if it was just to get people safely out of very dangerous places.. I do blame the community, but it was the game design itself that helped encourage that kind of behavior.

There are actually some real examples of great communities: CoH, and Lotro. Rift, at least on the roleplay server I was on, also had a good community. I don't think you can understand how bad another community really is until you experience what a good community can actually be like.

@Azurdane
Yes, rules are meaningless (and counterproductive) if there is no way to enforce them. That's why I feel RP-encouraged servers and RP-Friendly servers are a better alternative, at least when the companies are unable or unwilling to intervene.

The corollary to that is don't call it a role-playing server if it really isn't one, and it won't be one if there isn't at least a miniscule of actual enforcement.

As the offerer of gaming services, you can set whatever rules you like on any server you like. But I would hope that any policing that is done is with a very light touch, except where absolutely necessary.

I PERSONALLY do not rp except on very very rare occasions (usually when I'm trying to be funny, because I find most fantasy game universes to have at least some inherent absurdity to them that I simply cannot help myself to point out through satire).

That said, I also do not want to break the rules except when I feel that those rules are absurd as well. And enforcing RP rules are usually not absurd -- they are intended to create an environment where RPers can have fun.

All that said, I would HOPE that any purveyors of RP servers would have a very light touch with regards to enforcing their rules -- there's a vast difference between objecting to someone else interfering with your pursuit of RP happiness, and someone else merely pursuing their own fun in a way that does not directly interfere with someone else's enjoyment of the game. Plus, there are always people who come into a game as complete noobs, and may not be familar with even what "RP" means, let alone what MMO culture is like. So you don't want to make their early experiences make them feel stupid or like outsiders. A light touch is necessary for that.

But kick the actual trolls, of course.

I hate social networking. If someone I know wants to talk to me, I really wish they'd talk directly to ME. Best case, I get a phone call or visit, worst case, an e-mail.

I keep asking my niece for her e-mail address. Finally, my brother explained to me that she never checks her e-mail, she only uses facebook. And, no joke, I got a panicked phone call from my brother begging me to log into my niece's face book account to delete something she posted via her cell phone that would have been embarrassing to his in-laws (kids don't know any better).

There's VERY little that I feel I have to share with the world, certainly not my plans for the weekend, or lack thereof. No one cares, except possibly those people I'm close to, and those people deserve at least a phone call, and not an public posting on the internet. I know this because I don't really care about most of the notifications that I get daily from Facebook.

My real friends call me. (heck, plenty of people I don't really know or like call me as well). But at least if someone goes to that effort, I know they really want to talk to me.

I don't care what it's labeled as, so long as its well done and fun to play.

The one thing that scares me, though, is the mention of cut scenes. I've seen that overused in games before and it's usually not something that appeals to me. Generally, the games that use cut scenes that I HAVE liked, tend to use them sparingly. I find that they can, when overused, interrupt the flow of a game and disrupt its pacing. It's usually better to let the story be revealed through the action.

@Haldurson

One more thing I meant to say: Not all games, though, need to be solo or group friendly -- but for me, I like a balance.

Optimally, there should be paths through the game for both solo and group players. I like to solo on occasion, but even more than that, I like to group. What I don't like is being forced to do one or the other.

My favorite example of a game that is both solo and group friendly is City of Heroes. In fact, I'd say that the balance that CoH does between solo and grouping is better than in any other game I've played. A lot of newer games could learn a lot from CoH in that respect. (Rift, for everything that it does right,, doesn't have enough group content, for example, especially at pre-max levels.

In any sufficiently complex game system, you simply cannot balance for both PVE AND PVP at the same time without making changes to one that do not affect the other.

Furthermore, game balance is complicated when you are talking about team play. If a class works great for soloing, but not so great in team play, (a very common occurrence nowadays) is that a bad or a good thing? Does that make the power unbalanced? Or is it simply a niche that has to be filled? Invariably, people will complain that they can't find a spot in groups, yet solo players may actually love the class.

My opinion is that balance is overrated as a goal to strive for. The guiding light should always be, not for balance, but to make sure that all classes bring something unique to the table that make them equally desirable, even if they are not equally desirable in every situation. Who says that every class really NEEDS to be as good at PVP as they are in PVE, or vice versa?

Rift was not a perfect game, but one thing they really got right was the class system. Multiple builds for each character allows you to have that perfect class for the particular situation when you need it. There's still balance issues, but they are lessened by the fact that if something doesn't work for a situation, you can always change it on the fly.