Nucleon

I dunno, mixed on this one. No sound/music of any kind and no easy to access purchase history makes it quite difficult to consume.

Lol that game looks silly, fast paced and entertaining. I would never have tried it before, but after reading the preview and watching the twitch I will absolutely open it up one Saturday when the GF is away and I have nothing to do but burn some adrenaline.

Depends on the circumstance. Quick chat functions are essential for in-the-moment communications.

But full chat is needed for less intense moments. Lets be honest, the gameplay in a lot of MMOs isn't what keeps us coming back, the human interaction is what makes it fun. It's all about critical mass though. If you have too few people, (500, it's rampant non-stop trolling. But if you get the ratio and size of the channels right, then it helps make a game feel alive. Of course there needs to be ways to turn chat off.

For as much as people rag on Barrens chat, it's never a dull moment.

@Alph So instead of a game where players buy and sell goods through legal and regulated channels, you prefer all transactions to instead go through unregulated shadow markets?

With or without the RMAH, players are buying and selling goods with real money. That's a fact. Go ahead and type "buy diablo 2 items" in Google. Search Ebay or craigslist for Diablo 2 items, you'll find pages and pages and pages of items and characters for sale. It's going on right now.

And no, I have no desire to use the RMAH, but it's basic economics that open markets reduce crime. Reducing crime is a good thing, even in video games.

@aurickle All I can say is that Aurickle is here dropping knowledge bombs. Spot on in all comments. There's this thing called economics, and for some reason people like to pretend that it doesn't exist. Some players are cash rich and time poor, likewise some players are time rich and cash poor. Neither side is "better", it's just a fact of life and games which can cater to both audiences, but give neither an outright advantage, will succeed over those that don't.

Whoa, did no one notice that sentence - "Lifesteal items are also on the chopping block". That's a huuuuge change. How is that gonna change the meta? If you notice a lot of tanky bruisers have inherent life steal of some kind: Udyr, Tryn, Irelia, Sion (ult). So that's a boost for those characters. But a lot of range AD characters like Cait, Graves, Vayne build a bloodthirster either first or second, and this really slows them down.

With lifesteal a good offense is a good defense. Without it carries will no longer be able to unload on someone while under fire, confident that their lifesteal will keep them alive. There are many cases where I've seen a Vayne or Tristana able to slaughter two or three people simply because their life steal was greater than the incoming DPS.

@akubura "Whenever that PR came out and said lower your expectations of D3 it really just killed all my interest in it."

First, there was no such press release, the press release was actually stating the exact opposite of that. Second, if you read the actual thread on the forums, instead of relying on what people say on forums (including my comment right here), you would see that Bashiok's post was entirely tongue-in-cheek to an original post which was a serious troll.

So if a PR that never happened, regarding a comment which was an obvious joke (when read in context) is enough to make you not want to play the game. Me thinks you were never interested in the first place.

@Daeths "I seem to remember" eh, care to enlighten us with specifics?

For as much vitriol and mountains of internet hate sent towards D3, I've seen maybe 4 valid points against D3, and mythical "gutted" features isn't one of them.

1) After 10 years of dev, is this really enough "new" to justify the time?
2) Will the game be challenging enough for vets and easy enough for newcomers.
3) Will the RMAH be a bust or turn into one of those features like matchmaking, which although maligned by many as destroying "community", is basically a requirement in any new game released.
4) Will the game have the longevity and quality to compete against the currently packed marketplace of games which includes WoW, SWToR, Torchlight 2, GW2, and many more AAA games competing for our dollars.

This is an interesting case of a development team who had the vision, had the developers, but lacked the guts to really go for it. If they had gone whole-hog for the dynamic world, Rift could have been the game everyone is hoping GW2 will be.

I remember quite well during the Rift beta and pre-beta players complaining about zones conquered by invaders until they were driven back, back then the invasions stayed forever. Trion removed that so people's questing would not be interrupted if enough players weren't online to beat the invasion back. After that the invasions became meaningless token grinds. Sadly, it is exactly what many of the loud members on the forums asked for.

There's a saying, which I will butcher, that goes something like, it's not about creating what people want right now, it's about creating what people don't know they want. Rift could have done it, heck they still can... but they won't unless they really go for it.

Why is every post about a "F2P" game filled with hate anytime a new pay-feature? Games don't make themselves, and they take a lot of people a lot of time and effort to produce. You want content? You want features? Pay for it! Every company has to figure out a way which is enticing but not punishing. Rewarding, but not required. It's a delicate dance. And if you don't like, go play a different game.

Unless you want to pay a subscription fee (which players didn't) or put advertising in game, then the studio has no choice but to charge for extras. You spend more money on starbucks, movie tickets, your 10,000 text phone plan, your 150 channel cable subscription, your totally awesome megaman iPhone case you bought for $10, or whatever other frivolous entertainment stuff you have. Why are F2P games ANY different?

The money has to come from somewhere... You know there was a time where when you wanted to play a game you had to put down money, up front, without even seeing/playing the game. You had a box with pretty pictures, and some text on the back to judge. There wasn't YouTube videos of the games, or free trials. You want to go back to that? Really? Really? Yea, I thought so... 1st world problems.