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no, the only thing a game needs for RP is persistance. Quake et al are not persistant online worlds, so any roleplay gets deleted in the end of the match.
Eve is not a great game. Though it still has a lot of players, it is turning into everquest in space with a decline in entertaining PvP and a completely out of whack risk/reward system. There has been a serious nerf/boost cycle going on for the last two years that sucks the life out of the forums with flame wars and overzealous mods.
I used to play eve becuase it had potential, it hasn't lived up to it. It is not something to aspire to - giving up your ideal game to appease the mass market.
If vendetta had eve quality graphics, i truly believe it would have far more players. The most important things is that the PvP at the core of the game has been worked on for the longest part, and all other stuff can be added from there, like an economy etc.
No MMO is ever finished, you just hope it will continue developing. Vendetta has been developing one heck of a lot faster than eve...
Eve is not a great game. Though it still has a lot of players, it is turning into everquest in space with a decline in entertaining PvP and a completely out of whack risk/reward system. There has been a serious nerf/boost cycle going on for the last two years that sucks the life out of the forums with flame wars and overzealous mods.
I used to play eve becuase it had potential, it hasn't lived up to it. It is not something to aspire to - giving up your ideal game to appease the mass market.
If vendetta had eve quality graphics, i truly believe it would have far more players. The most important things is that the PvP at the core of the game has been worked on for the longest part, and all other stuff can be added from there, like an economy etc.
No MMO is ever finished, you just hope it will continue developing. Vendetta has been developing one heck of a lot faster than eve...
/me sneezes
*hands sarahanne a Kleanex™ brand facial tissue*
Gesundheit!
*wanders off mumbling incoherently about revisionist history*
Gesundheit!
*wanders off mumbling incoherently about revisionist history*
He just went and wrote about us on mmorpg.com We're rabid. I hope Ray doesn't need shots. LOL
I figured that was his game. It's like kicking a dog until it bites and then labeling it "vicious". He came in with an agenda and was actually treated suprisingly well despite it. Our best revenge is to continue to enjoy ourselves.
Oh no, FM, that's cruel and unusual! If we continue to enjoy a game that PhoenixHawk didn't think was perfect, then we're no better than animals!
It's funny how he seems to consider the four man dev team a sin... but then, I guess the idea of supporting a game instead of paying for a finished product exploded what brain he had :/
I don't think anyone should "answer" it. That's his review of the game, it's his right to say what he wants. Earlier tonight I submitted my review, which differs from his somewhat. But it is simply my review, no more, no less. It's not a reply to his.
[Edit]
It's actually just coincedence that my review will follow his. A couple weeks ago I created my mmorpg.com account w/ the intention of submitting a review of Vendetta Online, and found out that mmorpg.com requires you to visit & login to the site on 5 seperate days before they'll let you submit a review. I kept forgetting to go back every day, and just tonight got the 5 points it requires to submit the review.
[/edit]
[Edit]
It's actually just coincedence that my review will follow his. A couple weeks ago I created my mmorpg.com account w/ the intention of submitting a review of Vendetta Online, and found out that mmorpg.com requires you to visit & login to the site on 5 seperate days before they'll let you submit a review. I kept forgetting to go back every day, and just tonight got the 5 points it requires to submit the review.
[/edit]
I think it's ridiculous complaining about role-playing in a game like this. Yes we know content is lacking but that's no reason we can't do it ourselves. Hell I think player and guide created content is the best and has the greatest potential. The IA/VPR/BLAK war is probably one of the best examples of this.
It seems to me like some players expect content spoon fed to them and aren't prepared to think or be creative for themselves. There's a whole universe out there guys. What are you going to do with it?
It seems to me like some players expect content spoon fed to them and aren't prepared to think or be creative for themselves. There's a whole universe out there guys. What are you going to do with it?
I think no-one explained any of the various goings-on in January 2003 to him. ;) That would certainly have qualified.
Well that's the point. There's little roleplaying in the game. You can make up your own within that framework, but to say Vendetta has roleplaying is like saying a persistant game of Team Fortress has roleplaying - yeah, you CAN, but as of yet the game doesn't do much to facilitate it.
For better or for worse, RPG has become associated with an avatar, skill choices and a clear cut role to play. No such things really exist in Vendetta, so what RP exists is player created, not game created.
For better or for worse, RPG has become associated with an avatar, skill choices and a clear cut role to play. No such things really exist in Vendetta, so what RP exists is player created, not game created.
Hit that right on the nose SF, but actually there is more rp in VO then I have see in other MMO's dispite the lack of in-game features. It would be nice to have an avatar, or a pre-defined role, but they are there they just need to be actively persued. Such roles are, Serco/Itani Defenders (Fighter Pilots), Traders, Miners, Medics, Pirates, Pirate Hunters, Bounty Hunters, Assasins, Queen Killers, Mentors (minor role, but a role none the less). Once a little more PvE is introduced there will be a much bigger feel of story driven paths hopefully as the missions will pull you into the story a bit more and make you make choices about what you want to do, which ultimately puts you into a role.
In any case, that guy must have had some bad food, got killed in B8 while typing and had a hissy and quite, who needs him anyway. Most review readers know that one bad review does not make a bad game. Let him babble on, VO's still up and developing right?! =D
In any case, that guy must have had some bad food, got killed in B8 while typing and had a hissy and quite, who needs him anyway. Most review readers know that one bad review does not make a bad game. Let him babble on, VO's still up and developing right?! =D
hey, I need my spoon injection of story... I'm not creative enough to do it myself, thats the reason why I am playing a videogame after all.
Otherwise I would just get out my little legospaceships and start playing with that...
The game should facilitate playing a role. Which does not necessarilly mean you have to play a role, just immersing yourselve in the world that gets created by the stories and the content is already more then enough for me to characterize as an RPG. I really don't need to act as if I'm somebody who I'm not, a thug or a hero or...
but that is only my view...
cheers
Otherwise I would just get out my little legospaceships and start playing with that...
The game should facilitate playing a role. Which does not necessarilly mean you have to play a role, just immersing yourselve in the world that gets created by the stories and the content is already more then enough for me to characterize as an RPG. I really don't need to act as if I'm somebody who I'm not, a thug or a hero or...
but that is only my view...
cheers
This situation and a number of the replies is all rather silly. I came back out of a whim to see what the update they were talking about last time I was around was like and if it was done for that matter as well as to check on this out of idle curiosity (if you don't like this make a new thread, don't reply to this and it will disappear, you're not doing that). For the heck of it I thought I'd write up a response over my lunch break as my typing is pretty fast and so I can whip one up in short order (which is why my replies and such in forums have a tendency to be rather lengthy compare to the norm). So below I'll deal with some of the issues I saw raised when skimming over the posts you guys made. First though to the people that decided while they do find my statements true but decided to continue paying any how, it's your money, if you want to, do so.
Also I mentioned the situation of this game to someone recently and he told me about the what Anarchy Online was like upon release. It too apparently was not quite release ready as was missing game features that were advertised but aside from that also had other problems like a very buggy client that leaked memory like crazy. It was such a highly anticipated game though that when released it had one problem VO certainly does not, server issues due to too many users. There were apparently thousands of users trying to log on, get patch updates and play but the servers just couldn't handle them all at the time so ended up having problems with it resulting in timeouts when trying to log in and some issues when playing due to the servers and not the client. Needless to say users were quite pissed off and complaints aplenty filled the Anarchy Online's forums, as well as no doubt posts by those vigourously supporting the game as many of you are. I happened upon a game review written about five months after release (where VO is now) and all he seemed mentioned as being missing as for game content was the ability to completely furnish your character's apartment and that the client was still needing work. Anarchy Online started off rough but at the time it was quite original, started out with many users, sounds like it managed to clean things up in decent time and is still a popular MMORPG series today.
.
There were two reasons why I was so annoyed in that last post. One, being in the software industry myself (not games, but still software) I find the idea of a company releasing something before it's ready more offensive than most of you do obviously as I and the others here have to kill ourselves getting our products release ready in good time and then improving them and/or fixing bugs found after release. Now here is a company that puts out a product which was not release ready but tries to sell it off as a release ready product they are only adding additional content to. Imagine a business/office program that lacked key functions to make it usable as a business tool such as being able to save or load files, how well do you think we'd do if we released something like that and how many do you think would be paying for it knowing those features were missing? Two, the way the forum mod confirmed my suspicions in such a matter of fact kind of way quite annoyed me. The way he said it was a matter of documented fact that my suspicions and expectations for future action were true you'd think it was stated on the site's main page rather than likely buried someplace in the forum postings that just go on and on.
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Why don't you just leave then...
I already said I was but may only come back to try it again should this hit release level status.
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He said he wanted no sounds in the game...
Completely false. I in fact wrote a post in this thread saying the exact opposite and listed a number of sounds that could be added but have not been as of yet. It was just those three specific ones I had issues with as I noted and for the reasons given in different posts here.
.
It's a MMORPG so it's never "finished"...
If you read the forum mod's post you'd know this game *was* released before it was considered finished or market/release ready due to the devs running out of money again and once it is release ready they intend to put out an "expansion" release of sorts. As that has not happened yet and many of the elements described on the site are not available this game is still not release ready. Upon release a MMORPG should have all the elements worked out and base content ready so only additions to add to the game need to be done, as this is still not release ready the base content is still being developed and added, base content and additional content are two very different things.
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Silly personal attacks...
How terribly mature of you to assault my person when you don't know the first thing about me. You may be interested to know that aside from making my own money and living rather well during down time at work and at times after work when we can we play video games, usually LAN games but had this interested me enough a number of accounts may have been acquired making VO something else that can be played when there's time. Of course since it's not release ready, still missing many advertised features and a less than rosy future ahead from he looks of it that's not going to happen at this time. Behaviour such as yours and the expectation of more should anyone say anything against this game in this small community certainly don't help either.
.
He thinks this is supposed to be like EVE...
This is also completely false. I in fact in just so many words said VO was not EVE, the only reason for the comparison as I've stated before was that EVE has been the only truly successful space based MMORPG. There are others and the only one still around that looks like it would be about what VO would be once release ready is Jumpgate which predated VO, it never did that well, I think was cancelled but then brought back by a small dev team but still has a very small game community, even smaller than VO's. EVE is strategy based, you can fight in it but your success in combat still has a lot more to do with how you set things up before hand. Then EVE isn't churning out tons of new content as being a release level product they just modify what they have and add a little here and there just like other MMORPGs on the market that were actually release ready when released.
.
Claims that I'm attacking the devs for being a small business...
My problem with the devs is that they would release something before it's release ready and advertise features not currently available, not for being small. Although there is a good reason why games are usually made by much larger teams, they take a lot of work. No matter how talented and experienced someone is they can only get so much done, add a few more talented and experienced people and the amount of work that can be done so long as it's all managed well vastly increases. The VO devs have stated that this is the first real game they have worked on, both as Guild Software and individually, before VO they may have worked professionally in programming and other fields plus tinkered with game development but that's not the same thing as we (the software company I work at) couldn't just turn around on day with the team we have now and start spitting out high end games with only a combined background in development of utility and business apps plus our art team. Their team size, expectations, lack of experience in game development, minimal funding and the approach they seemed to use just don't mesh together very well to form a solid game development company. Another knock against them is that by the time they got into it there were at least three other MMORPGs that I think used the same combat model as VO ("twitch") which were already released or publicly known to be in the works. One by Microsoft, Earth & Beyond by EA I think and Jumpgate, all of which did poorly and were abandoned at one time due to that fact before VO was even released. As VO does not seem to be introducing anything truly unique not shared by the other three short of being playable on the Mac and Linux as well as Windows this also does not help their chances of success.
.
He's knocking VO's graphics...
No I'm not, as I stated while a game shouldn't be measured on it's graphics that, the renown of the developers behind the game and the game series in the case of sequels are the three things that get people looking at a game look at the most. With lack lustre graphics by today's standards for a new game series by developers that have never made commercial games before and nothing really revolutionary in the game this game won't attract much attention. With the game still not market ready and development being rather slow at getting it to that level by the time it is release ready their position will be even worse so most will continue to just pass this by without trying it. It also doesn't help that most do not seem interested in this genre in the first place, at least for a MMORPG.
.
It does have role playing capacity now...
How, explain? Since stations don't seem to loose the ability to function without trade goods brought in by traders and also don't seem to loose the ability to make weapons and ships without players bringing in ore and other things trading and mining have quite limited appeal and do not really effect the game universe. Killing another player also has about as little effect on the game as in a game like Quake. Ships and weapons are about the same in each faction from what I can tell so there's not much to steal making them rather like the weapons and items that respawn in time on there own in a game like Quake, but easier since ships and weapons seem at an endless supply, as the money to buy them is not an issue in this game and it can be possible to get all your stuff from one home station. The capture the cargo thing just seems like an option added for "something to do" and is used as something else to do aside from botting and simple PvPing but offers little real reward to the individual or faction they belong from what I know. You can't seem to find then make items so creation of new items is not available as of yet. Exploration also seems to have no use as there are no hidden systems or things to find yet as far as I can tell. The idea that persistence is all that is needed to allow role playing is like saying if you left a Quake map open to players long enough you could role play in it, it doesn't work that way.
Also I mentioned the situation of this game to someone recently and he told me about the what Anarchy Online was like upon release. It too apparently was not quite release ready as was missing game features that were advertised but aside from that also had other problems like a very buggy client that leaked memory like crazy. It was such a highly anticipated game though that when released it had one problem VO certainly does not, server issues due to too many users. There were apparently thousands of users trying to log on, get patch updates and play but the servers just couldn't handle them all at the time so ended up having problems with it resulting in timeouts when trying to log in and some issues when playing due to the servers and not the client. Needless to say users were quite pissed off and complaints aplenty filled the Anarchy Online's forums, as well as no doubt posts by those vigourously supporting the game as many of you are. I happened upon a game review written about five months after release (where VO is now) and all he seemed mentioned as being missing as for game content was the ability to completely furnish your character's apartment and that the client was still needing work. Anarchy Online started off rough but at the time it was quite original, started out with many users, sounds like it managed to clean things up in decent time and is still a popular MMORPG series today.
.
There were two reasons why I was so annoyed in that last post. One, being in the software industry myself (not games, but still software) I find the idea of a company releasing something before it's ready more offensive than most of you do obviously as I and the others here have to kill ourselves getting our products release ready in good time and then improving them and/or fixing bugs found after release. Now here is a company that puts out a product which was not release ready but tries to sell it off as a release ready product they are only adding additional content to. Imagine a business/office program that lacked key functions to make it usable as a business tool such as being able to save or load files, how well do you think we'd do if we released something like that and how many do you think would be paying for it knowing those features were missing? Two, the way the forum mod confirmed my suspicions in such a matter of fact kind of way quite annoyed me. The way he said it was a matter of documented fact that my suspicions and expectations for future action were true you'd think it was stated on the site's main page rather than likely buried someplace in the forum postings that just go on and on.
.
Why don't you just leave then...
I already said I was but may only come back to try it again should this hit release level status.
.
He said he wanted no sounds in the game...
Completely false. I in fact wrote a post in this thread saying the exact opposite and listed a number of sounds that could be added but have not been as of yet. It was just those three specific ones I had issues with as I noted and for the reasons given in different posts here.
.
It's a MMORPG so it's never "finished"...
If you read the forum mod's post you'd know this game *was* released before it was considered finished or market/release ready due to the devs running out of money again and once it is release ready they intend to put out an "expansion" release of sorts. As that has not happened yet and many of the elements described on the site are not available this game is still not release ready. Upon release a MMORPG should have all the elements worked out and base content ready so only additions to add to the game need to be done, as this is still not release ready the base content is still being developed and added, base content and additional content are two very different things.
.
Silly personal attacks...
How terribly mature of you to assault my person when you don't know the first thing about me. You may be interested to know that aside from making my own money and living rather well during down time at work and at times after work when we can we play video games, usually LAN games but had this interested me enough a number of accounts may have been acquired making VO something else that can be played when there's time. Of course since it's not release ready, still missing many advertised features and a less than rosy future ahead from he looks of it that's not going to happen at this time. Behaviour such as yours and the expectation of more should anyone say anything against this game in this small community certainly don't help either.
.
He thinks this is supposed to be like EVE...
This is also completely false. I in fact in just so many words said VO was not EVE, the only reason for the comparison as I've stated before was that EVE has been the only truly successful space based MMORPG. There are others and the only one still around that looks like it would be about what VO would be once release ready is Jumpgate which predated VO, it never did that well, I think was cancelled but then brought back by a small dev team but still has a very small game community, even smaller than VO's. EVE is strategy based, you can fight in it but your success in combat still has a lot more to do with how you set things up before hand. Then EVE isn't churning out tons of new content as being a release level product they just modify what they have and add a little here and there just like other MMORPGs on the market that were actually release ready when released.
.
Claims that I'm attacking the devs for being a small business...
My problem with the devs is that they would release something before it's release ready and advertise features not currently available, not for being small. Although there is a good reason why games are usually made by much larger teams, they take a lot of work. No matter how talented and experienced someone is they can only get so much done, add a few more talented and experienced people and the amount of work that can be done so long as it's all managed well vastly increases. The VO devs have stated that this is the first real game they have worked on, both as Guild Software and individually, before VO they may have worked professionally in programming and other fields plus tinkered with game development but that's not the same thing as we (the software company I work at) couldn't just turn around on day with the team we have now and start spitting out high end games with only a combined background in development of utility and business apps plus our art team. Their team size, expectations, lack of experience in game development, minimal funding and the approach they seemed to use just don't mesh together very well to form a solid game development company. Another knock against them is that by the time they got into it there were at least three other MMORPGs that I think used the same combat model as VO ("twitch") which were already released or publicly known to be in the works. One by Microsoft, Earth & Beyond by EA I think and Jumpgate, all of which did poorly and were abandoned at one time due to that fact before VO was even released. As VO does not seem to be introducing anything truly unique not shared by the other three short of being playable on the Mac and Linux as well as Windows this also does not help their chances of success.
.
He's knocking VO's graphics...
No I'm not, as I stated while a game shouldn't be measured on it's graphics that, the renown of the developers behind the game and the game series in the case of sequels are the three things that get people looking at a game look at the most. With lack lustre graphics by today's standards for a new game series by developers that have never made commercial games before and nothing really revolutionary in the game this game won't attract much attention. With the game still not market ready and development being rather slow at getting it to that level by the time it is release ready their position will be even worse so most will continue to just pass this by without trying it. It also doesn't help that most do not seem interested in this genre in the first place, at least for a MMORPG.
.
It does have role playing capacity now...
How, explain? Since stations don't seem to loose the ability to function without trade goods brought in by traders and also don't seem to loose the ability to make weapons and ships without players bringing in ore and other things trading and mining have quite limited appeal and do not really effect the game universe. Killing another player also has about as little effect on the game as in a game like Quake. Ships and weapons are about the same in each faction from what I can tell so there's not much to steal making them rather like the weapons and items that respawn in time on there own in a game like Quake, but easier since ships and weapons seem at an endless supply, as the money to buy them is not an issue in this game and it can be possible to get all your stuff from one home station. The capture the cargo thing just seems like an option added for "something to do" and is used as something else to do aside from botting and simple PvPing but offers little real reward to the individual or faction they belong from what I know. You can't seem to find then make items so creation of new items is not available as of yet. Exploration also seems to have no use as there are no hidden systems or things to find yet as far as I can tell. The idea that persistence is all that is needed to allow role playing is like saying if you left a Quake map open to players long enough you could role play in it, it doesn't work that way.
I think there should be a new stat. Charisma.
Obviously it can't work like it does in say D&D and whatnot, since there aren't enough communicative bots to take our minds off of actual people. (Which, by the way, is a horrid mistake. No-one really wants to talk to actual people, because, as we all know, people are boring.) With the hideous amount of player to player communication, it would make sense that one's charisma is closely related to what other players think of you. Some might think that this is easily determined with a vote function, but that's just plain ol'e stupid. Everyone knows that people are dumb assholes, and as such can't be trusted to actually make decisions. The only other solution is to make charisma based entirely on what you say. There are two ways to go with this. One is to make a simple bot that reads your mind as you type and determines how nice the thing you said is. The harder way is to make a person only able to talk in pre-set phrases, based on what charisma you have, each one of which has an effect on said person's charisma. Thus, a person with great charisma saying "This thread has got to end bitches. STFU." would loose a fair bit. A person with less charisma would loose even more. Saying "I loves youse all!" on the other hand, will bring up a persons charisma significantly. This method is significantly harder than the mind-reader method, but I think it's well worth it.
PS:
Stop calling Starfisher SF!
StarFreeze is SF.
Obviously it can't work like it does in say D&D and whatnot, since there aren't enough communicative bots to take our minds off of actual people. (Which, by the way, is a horrid mistake. No-one really wants to talk to actual people, because, as we all know, people are boring.) With the hideous amount of player to player communication, it would make sense that one's charisma is closely related to what other players think of you. Some might think that this is easily determined with a vote function, but that's just plain ol'e stupid. Everyone knows that people are dumb assholes, and as such can't be trusted to actually make decisions. The only other solution is to make charisma based entirely on what you say. There are two ways to go with this. One is to make a simple bot that reads your mind as you type and determines how nice the thing you said is. The harder way is to make a person only able to talk in pre-set phrases, based on what charisma you have, each one of which has an effect on said person's charisma. Thus, a person with great charisma saying "This thread has got to end bitches. STFU." would loose a fair bit. A person with less charisma would loose even more. Saying "I loves youse all!" on the other hand, will bring up a persons charisma significantly. This method is significantly harder than the mind-reader method, but I think it's well worth it.
PS:
Stop calling Starfisher SF!
StarFreeze is SF.
Starfreeze [EDIT - Forum Mod.]isn't around anymore. How many post-release people have ever seen Starfreeze? Not that I'm on much anymore, but even my limited time is more than his.
I want my damn two letter acronym!
Phoenix: Your rant on MMORPG.com mentioned the fact that the devs were only four people over and over again, as if it were some degenerative disease of a sin. It's not, inherently. Anyone who actually makes it to subscribing will have figured out everything you were "suspicious" about, merely by skimming the forums and listening to the ingame chat. If they pay at that point, it's with both eyes open.
I agree that the frontpage is misleading, but who ever buys a game based on the blurb a company puts on their website? Lets not be disengenuos here. The problems and potential of VO are apparent after a few hours in game, or even just browsing forum threads. If you like the idea of a game whose development is very open and personal, and like where it's heading, you'll pay.
I'm one of those who more or less agrees with your statements (you're mostly just pointing out the obvious - we already knew everything you said), and still pays. The game may not go anywhere, may die tomorrow, but you know what? I can handle not eating a single pizza every month to see where it goes.
If you want to come back later when it's release level, go ahead. It probably won't ever get there if every user takes that attitude. I think we mostly see ourselves as investors - we put money in, and eventually we'll get a solid game out. In the meantime we have something that can be pretty entertaining at times.
I want my damn two letter acronym!
Phoenix: Your rant on MMORPG.com mentioned the fact that the devs were only four people over and over again, as if it were some degenerative disease of a sin. It's not, inherently. Anyone who actually makes it to subscribing will have figured out everything you were "suspicious" about, merely by skimming the forums and listening to the ingame chat. If they pay at that point, it's with both eyes open.
I agree that the frontpage is misleading, but who ever buys a game based on the blurb a company puts on their website? Lets not be disengenuos here. The problems and potential of VO are apparent after a few hours in game, or even just browsing forum threads. If you like the idea of a game whose development is very open and personal, and like where it's heading, you'll pay.
I'm one of those who more or less agrees with your statements (you're mostly just pointing out the obvious - we already knew everything you said), and still pays. The game may not go anywhere, may die tomorrow, but you know what? I can handle not eating a single pizza every month to see where it goes.
If you want to come back later when it's release level, go ahead. It probably won't ever get there if every user takes that attitude. I think we mostly see ourselves as investors - we put money in, and eventually we'll get a solid game out. In the meantime we have something that can be pretty entertaining at times.
"Now here is a company that puts out a product which was not release ready but tries to sell it off as a release ready product they are only adding additional content to. Imagine a business/office program that lacked key functions to make it usable as a business tool such as being able to save or load files, how well do you think we'd do if we released something like that and how many do you think would be paying for it knowing those features were missing?"
Please post the link where "missing" features were advertised as being currently present in the game.
"Two, the way the forum mod confirmed my suspicions in such a matter of fact kind of way quite annoyed me. The way he said it was a matter of documented fact that my suspicions and expectations for future action were true you'd think it was stated on the site's main page rather than likely buried someplace in the forum postings that just go on and on."
Incorrect. Go back and read the small portion of your orginal post that I replied to. You cited a very specific time period and situation. You got your dates from someplace - a matter of record.
"It's a MMORPG so it's never "finished"...
If you read the forum mod's post you'd know this game *was* released before it was considered finished or market/release ready due to the devs running out of money again and once it is release ready they intend to put out an "expansion" release of sorts. As that has not happened yet and many of the elements described on the site are not available this game is still not release ready."
I said it wasn't as done as they'd like it to be, which is true. Updates continue to occur on a fairly frequent basis, depending on complexity. What I said was that they released (because WE asked them to) to continue to generate income in order to continue development at the current pace. They could keep the game servers up at minimal cost if they didn't bother with content - but they have a vision and want to see it come to life. Is it the ideal business model? No, but the video game business is a hostile environment for a small, unproven startup trying to build a space-genre MMORPG. This is a necessity if we want Vendetta to go forward. I do. I pay my way just like everyone else, with a full understanding of what I'm doing.
.
"Silly personal attacks..."
Whether intentional or not, your tone has seemed hostile from the beginning. You could have expected full-on flames on other sites. I think the responses you have garnered are rather mild (and let's keep it that way, folks).
.
"Claims that I'm attacking the devs for being a small business...
My problem with the devs is that they would release something before it's release ready and advertise features not currently available, not for being small."
Please provide specifics.
"Although there is a good reason why games are usually made by much larger teams, they take a lot of work. No matter how talented and experienced someone is they can only get so much done, add a few more talented and experienced people and the amount of work that can be done so long as it's all managed well vastly increases."
But they aren't larger and the industry is hostile toward this kind of project as you have pointed out- effectively preventing them from being purchased or funded by a larger entity. This is what it is. They are entitled to see their game to the end. Apparently you were interested enough in such a game to come and see it. I'm sorry you are disappointed. I'm glad you took the 8 hour trial and did not actually pay anything. Check back in 6 months and see what you think.
Please post the link where "missing" features were advertised as being currently present in the game.
"Two, the way the forum mod confirmed my suspicions in such a matter of fact kind of way quite annoyed me. The way he said it was a matter of documented fact that my suspicions and expectations for future action were true you'd think it was stated on the site's main page rather than likely buried someplace in the forum postings that just go on and on."
Incorrect. Go back and read the small portion of your orginal post that I replied to. You cited a very specific time period and situation. You got your dates from someplace - a matter of record.
"It's a MMORPG so it's never "finished"...
If you read the forum mod's post you'd know this game *was* released before it was considered finished or market/release ready due to the devs running out of money again and once it is release ready they intend to put out an "expansion" release of sorts. As that has not happened yet and many of the elements described on the site are not available this game is still not release ready."
I said it wasn't as done as they'd like it to be, which is true. Updates continue to occur on a fairly frequent basis, depending on complexity. What I said was that they released (because WE asked them to) to continue to generate income in order to continue development at the current pace. They could keep the game servers up at minimal cost if they didn't bother with content - but they have a vision and want to see it come to life. Is it the ideal business model? No, but the video game business is a hostile environment for a small, unproven startup trying to build a space-genre MMORPG. This is a necessity if we want Vendetta to go forward. I do. I pay my way just like everyone else, with a full understanding of what I'm doing.
.
"Silly personal attacks..."
Whether intentional or not, your tone has seemed hostile from the beginning. You could have expected full-on flames on other sites. I think the responses you have garnered are rather mild (and let's keep it that way, folks).
.
"Claims that I'm attacking the devs for being a small business...
My problem with the devs is that they would release something before it's release ready and advertise features not currently available, not for being small."
Please provide specifics.
"Although there is a good reason why games are usually made by much larger teams, they take a lot of work. No matter how talented and experienced someone is they can only get so much done, add a few more talented and experienced people and the amount of work that can be done so long as it's all managed well vastly increases."
But they aren't larger and the industry is hostile toward this kind of project as you have pointed out- effectively preventing them from being purchased or funded by a larger entity. This is what it is. They are entitled to see their game to the end. Apparently you were interested enough in such a game to come and see it. I'm sorry you are disappointed. I'm glad you took the 8 hour trial and did not actually pay anything. Check back in 6 months and see what you think.
Starfreeze [EDIT - Forum Mod.]isn't around anymore. How many post-release people have ever seen Starfreeze? Not that I'm on much anymore, but even my limited time is more than his.
I want my damn two letter acronym!
Well guess what. You can't have it. Newb.
I want my damn two letter acronym!
Well guess what. You can't have it. Newb.
@PhoenixHawk: "It does have role playing capacity now...
How, explain? Since stations don't seem to loose the ability to function without trade goods brought in by traders and also don't seem to loose the ability to make weapons and ships without players bringing in ore and other things trading and mining have quite limited appeal and do not really effect the game universe. Killing another player also has about as little effect on the game as in a game like Quake."
Okay, first of all, have you ever PK'ed someone? If you do it in monitored space, you take a *drastic* cut in faction standing, and the station guard comes to obliterate you. Do they have a station guard in Quake? Do they have faction standing? Do they have monitored and unmonitored space? Your comparison is entirely unfair.
You also list a number of features that would be nice to have, but I fail to see how any of them really have much to do with roleplaying. Should a station lose the ability to make items if players stop trading? Does crafting really make sense in a post-industrialist society? These are more gameplay ideas (not all of them good ones imho) than immersiveness issues.
I actually think Vendetta Online does an *excellent* job at creating a good RP environment, specifically through the open ended, self-reflexive nature of the game. When you enter the game, you can choose to affect the universe in any way you want. The economy is dynamic, the reputation system is dynamic, you can even become hated by your own freakin nation. Most MMOs would force you down one path or another by selecting a "class" and then giving you an arbitrary string of missions to complete. In Vendetta virtually any playing style is valid, and almost everything you do has a tangible effect on the universe.
Can you see what I'm getting at here? Explain how a game like WoW fosters better RP by funneling you into one of eight races, with everyone doing the same things, talking about the same missions from a disembodied perspective ("lvl 40 pally wtg for Scarlet Monestary!")
When you play Vendetta, there's literaly nothing preset to do, but everything you choose to do has a consequense, so it's *totally up to you* to come up with the RP. It's like having a blank page to sketch on as opposed to playing connect-the-dots. The only thing that's really hurting RP atm is the number of players online.
I invite you to take a little walk on down to the Role Playing forum, and see what's going on right now in game in terms of RP. Now just imagine this if we had 10x more players. We could stage massive invasions into enemy space, trade guilds could drive up the prices of goods at certain stations by declaring embargos, pirates could form organized raids on player trading convoys....
Here are just a few good ones:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/7/9939
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/7/9241
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/7/9859
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/7/9857
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/7/9664
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/1/5940
and who could forget:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/7/9480
How, explain? Since stations don't seem to loose the ability to function without trade goods brought in by traders and also don't seem to loose the ability to make weapons and ships without players bringing in ore and other things trading and mining have quite limited appeal and do not really effect the game universe. Killing another player also has about as little effect on the game as in a game like Quake."
Okay, first of all, have you ever PK'ed someone? If you do it in monitored space, you take a *drastic* cut in faction standing, and the station guard comes to obliterate you. Do they have a station guard in Quake? Do they have faction standing? Do they have monitored and unmonitored space? Your comparison is entirely unfair.
You also list a number of features that would be nice to have, but I fail to see how any of them really have much to do with roleplaying. Should a station lose the ability to make items if players stop trading? Does crafting really make sense in a post-industrialist society? These are more gameplay ideas (not all of them good ones imho) than immersiveness issues.
I actually think Vendetta Online does an *excellent* job at creating a good RP environment, specifically through the open ended, self-reflexive nature of the game. When you enter the game, you can choose to affect the universe in any way you want. The economy is dynamic, the reputation system is dynamic, you can even become hated by your own freakin nation. Most MMOs would force you down one path or another by selecting a "class" and then giving you an arbitrary string of missions to complete. In Vendetta virtually any playing style is valid, and almost everything you do has a tangible effect on the universe.
Can you see what I'm getting at here? Explain how a game like WoW fosters better RP by funneling you into one of eight races, with everyone doing the same things, talking about the same missions from a disembodied perspective ("lvl 40 pally wtg for Scarlet Monestary!")
When you play Vendetta, there's literaly nothing preset to do, but everything you choose to do has a consequense, so it's *totally up to you* to come up with the RP. It's like having a blank page to sketch on as opposed to playing connect-the-dots. The only thing that's really hurting RP atm is the number of players online.
I invite you to take a little walk on down to the Role Playing forum, and see what's going on right now in game in terms of RP. Now just imagine this if we had 10x more players. We could stage massive invasions into enemy space, trade guilds could drive up the prices of goods at certain stations by declaring embargos, pirates could form organized raids on player trading convoys....
Here are just a few good ones:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/7/9939
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/7/9241
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/7/9859
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/7/9857
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/7/9664
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/1/5940
and who could forget:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/7/9480