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[RogerWain]

The only problem with a large number of the dev team being active gamers is the ease we get distracted with the latest games (I am also included in the distracted list   )...

Curse you Skyrim - we are sinking hours into this game, it does have great visuals and the level design both indoors and out have a good flow. So I have asked the team to look at the game as an example of level design, and pick holes in it...

I am sure we're not the only ones affected by latest game releases (BF3 also comes to mind)

[HE-Cooper]

I'm loving Skyrim, as with most of them. Truth be told, this one is feeling even more similar to Fallout 3 than I've felt in the past, but all I want is Fallout 3 all the time, so that's good. And I think a lot of the gameplay trimming they've done finally makes a lot of sense. Like athletic skill causing me to jump everywhere I went in the last one. Finally the skill up system is only based on productive action, and scales based on value of action.

I really recommend just playing through the main storyline in linear fashion, it's a great track in and of itself, and provides a good pacing of gameplay and rewards, which I hadn't felt with the previous games. Then decide if you have time, and go back for the completionist win all the things playthrough.

PROTIP: if you notice the "As the sun sets you feel an overwhelming hunger" message, don't forget about it while finishing the dungeon you are in...unless you really mean to.

[JoshHalls]

Yeah, I love how everything comes out in November any more :-).  New Zelda is out as well and will require me to go steal back a Wii at some point. 

[BraedonH]

Yes.. there goes my weekend to Skyrim. Completed as fast as possible xD

[joshwebb84]

also don't forget you can use your time gaming to see what others have done in their games and you can see what they did wrong and you know how to do it better lol  like I play quite a few MMORPG's right now and since I have been working on my Own MMORPG I get a sense of where the MMO's I play have failed and where I can do it better lol


so in other words Playing others games while you make your own = R&D for your game

[HE-BENNETT]

That can be the worst though:  "Hey! I can see that tiled texture/sharp poly edge/lower res texture on the back of the shield that fills up 1/8 of my screen... "

etc.

Being too close to game development can be terrible for immersion

[joshwebb84]

That can be the worst though:  "Hey! I can see that tiled texture/sharp poly edge/lower res texture on the back of the shield that fills up 1/8 of my screen... "

etc.

Being too close to game development can be terrible for immersion

LOL that wasn't exactly what i meant rather the mechanics lol  but i also see your point too but I not saying go into playing a game to finds its faults but while your playing a game its faults will stand out to you if they are major I mean every game has it faults but you  can learn from where other games have failed ... if you don't learn from others mistakes than you will end up making the same mistakes.. like now days most MMO's are riding on Wow's success and build their games cloned after wow with nothing unique to them but other than a new GUI skin and thats not what gamers want is just another WoW, yea sure they want alot of features in the new games that WoW has pretty much made a MMO standard but at the same time they don't want where WoW has failed to  be in a new game or they will put your game down and just go back to WoW lol 

[shadowfire]

That can be the worst though:  "Hey! I can see that tiled texture/sharp poly edge/lower res texture on the back of the shield that fills up 1/8 of my screen... "

etc.

Being too close to game development can be terrible for immersion

I do this in the star wars beta... walk around going ooh thats nice... oh they coulda done that better... hey why is that sand crossing the staircase at an exactly even flat edge?

Drives people watching me play up a wall... I do that with movies too.

[shadowfire]

That can be the worst though:  "Hey! I can see that tiled texture/sharp poly edge/lower res texture on the back of the shield that fills up 1/8 of my screen... "

etc.

Being too close to game development can be terrible for immersion

LOL that wasn't exactly what i meant rather the mechanics lol  but i also see your point too but I not saying go into playing a game to finds its faults but while your playing a game its faults will stand out to you if they are major I mean every game has it faults but you  can learn from where other games have failed ... if you don't learn from others mistakes than you will end up making the same mistakes.. like now days most MMO's are riding on Wow's success and build their games cloned after wow with nothing unique to them but other than a new GUI skin and thats not what gamers want is just another WoW, yea sure they want alot of features in the new games that WoW has pretty much made a MMO standard but at the same time they don't want where WoW has failed to  be in a new game or they will put your game down and just go back to WoW lol 

anybody who wants a game with anything resembling wow plays wow and isnt looking for a new game... gamers specifically want a game that is NOT wow or they would be playing wow.  As for your "that WoW has made an mmo standard".  WoW didnt make anything an MMO standard except thier stupid quest system where quests are always and perpetually announced with icons above npc heads and quest lines that always lead to the next quest and are set up so as long as you follow the quests you will never stop doing wuests until you are max level which takes bout 2 weeks if you "do it right".  Other than this everything wow has is stolen from much more classic games such as asheron's call, dark age of camelot, everquest, anarchy online, ultima online... they just made it "popular" with the "non-nerds" and thus everyone thinks wow is responsible for it's creation and implementation... where as in fact wow screwed up massively on a number of things from magically shrinking dinosaurs that become tiny when tamed to druids who cant cast roots in a small cave covered in roots but can cast starfall through an entire mountain to a hunter epic weapon quest that always gave you a sword even if you were specced for the bow to the complete and utter destruction of warcraft lore and standardized history such as making blood elves part of the horde and making undead part of the horde as well where as blood elves, undead and the horde were all enemies in a nice little triangle death pact with the horde having only used undead in the earlier years of the war due to the side effect of having been created by the scourge but stopped using undead when thier chieftan turned against the scourge.  So to WoW I say LONG LIVE THE IDIOT MASSES! now lets go make games that are NOT WoW...

Thank you this has been "Nightshadow's rant against all things WoW and people who praise or glorify WoW for having done anything special or unique to advance the world of MMORPG's"

[joshwebb84]

That can be the worst though:  "Hey! I can see that tiled texture/sharp poly edge/lower res texture on the back of the shield that fills up 1/8 of my screen... "

etc.

Being too close to game development can be terrible for immersion

LOL that wasn't exactly what i meant rather the mechanics lol  but i also see your point too but I not saying go into playing a game to finds its faults but while your playing a game its faults will stand out to you if they are major I mean every game has it faults but you  can learn from where other games have failed ... if you don't learn from others mistakes than you will end up making the same mistakes.. like now days most MMO's are riding on Wow's success and build their games cloned after wow with nothing unique to them but other than a new GUI skin and thats not what gamers want is just another WoW, yea sure they want alot of features in the new games that WoW has pretty much made a MMO standard but at the same time they don't want where WoW has failed to  be in a new game or they will put your game down and just go back to WoW lol 

anybody who wants a game with anything resembling wow plays wow and isnt looking for a new game... gamers specifically want a game that is NOT wow or they would be playing wow.  As for your "that WoW has made an mmo standard".  WoW didnt make anything an MMO standard except thier stupid quest system where quests are always and perpetually announced with icons above npc heads and quest lines that always lead to the next quest and are set up so as long as you follow the quests you will never stop doing wuests until you are max level which takes bout 2 weeks if you "do it right".  Other than this everything wow has is stolen from much more classic games such as asheron's call, dark age of camelot, everquest, anarchy online, ultima online... they just made it "popular" with the "non-nerds" and thus everyone thinks wow is responsible for it's creation and implementation... where as in fact wow screwed up massively on a number of things from magically shrinking dinosaurs that become tiny when tamed to druids who cant cast roots in a small cave covered in roots but can cast starfall through an entire mountain to a hunter epic weapon quest that always gave you a sword even if you were specced for the bow to the complete and utter destruction of warcraft lore and standardized history such as making blood elves part of the horde and making undead part of the horde as well where as blood elves, undead and the horde were all enemies in a nice little triangle death pact with the horde having only used undead in the earlier years of the war due to the side effect of having been created by the scourge but stopped using undead when thier chieftan turned against the scourge.  So to WoW I say LONG LIVE THE IDIOT MASSES! now lets go make games that are NOT WoW...

Thank you this has been "Nightshadow's rant against all things WoW and people who praise or glorify WoW for having done anything special or unique to advance the world of MMORPG's"

I wasn't praising wow lol because for one that is the one mmo that i have never played more than fifteen mins..  but in fact with this generation wow is the staple to compare other mmos to just like with wow people said it was just another EQ which by the way I have played  like when I was 14 or so not really sure of the year lol becuase that how long ago I played it but if you read between the lines of my post you would see  that I was pretty much saying now days people do the same thing with wow with mmo's now as wow was compared to the mmos b4 it

[joshwebb84]

That can be the worst though:  "Hey! I can see that tiled texture/sharp poly edge/lower res texture on the back of the shield that fills up 1/8 of my screen... "

etc.

Being too close to game development can be terrible for immersion

I do this in the star wars beta... walk around going ooh thats nice... oh they coulda done that better... hey why is that sand crossing the staircase at an exactly even flat edge?

Drives people watching me play up a wall... I do that with movies too.

LOL btw are you in the Nightshadow guild on the beta because there is a guild called nightshadow lol



but on the star wars game seeing as they just lifted The NDA for the beta to me its really boring lol the only thing to me  thats exciting about it is the story line but for me its not enough to justify making ppl pay 15 bucks a month just for the story line if all ppl wanted was a story line then they should just continue playing KOTOR lol because to me  thats all it is is KOTOR III in a mmo setting which is not enough reason to pay 15 bucks a month lol

[shadowfire]

That can be the worst though:  "Hey! I can see that tiled texture/sharp poly edge/lower res texture on the back of the shield that fills up 1/8 of my screen... "

etc.

Being too close to game development can be terrible for immersion

In many ways what we are looking at with star wars is a continuation of Guild wars/Phantasy Star Online game series.  In both cases the original release was simplified but future releases expanded on the solid foundation to allow for much more variation.  The only difference is in GW and PSO/PSU everything was instanced once you left the main meeting areas and into the actual game.  Where as in star wars it is not so much the same as you walk in and out of instanced areas constantly but much takes place out in the open as well... thier seemless transition into the instances though is really well done.
I do this in the star wars beta... walk around going ooh thats nice... oh they coulda done that better... hey why is that sand crossing the staircase at an exactly even flat edge?

Drives people watching me play up a wall... I do that with movies too.

LOL btw are you in the Nightshadow guild on the beta because there is a guild called nightshadow lol



but on the star wars game seeing as they just lifted The NDA for the beta to me its really boring lol the only thing to me  thats exciting about it is the story line but for me its not enough to justify making ppl pay 15 bucks a month just for the story line if all ppl wanted was a story line then they should just continue playing KOTOR lol because to me  thats all it is is KOTOR III in a mmo setting which is not enough reason to pay 15 bucks a month lol

[JMurdick]

Regardless of personal feelings about WoW, SWTOR, or Skyrim they all have their strengths and weaknesses.  Two of the three have proven that they are successful (and highly rated) games and the third is likely to do so.  As a student of the industry, look at each with a critical eye as a game developer instead of just a gamer (game-player) and recognize what each has done well.  Because you may not like WoW, but 12 million people or 3.5 million in sales in a week is a great success.  And so they have done something right in order to achieve both.

[shadowfire]

Regardless of personal feelings about WoW, SWTOR, or Skyrim they all have their strengths and weaknesses.  Two of the three have proven that they are successful (and highly rated) games and the third is likely to do so.  As a student of the industry, look at each with a critical eye as a game developer instead of just a gamer (game-player) and recognize what each has done well.  Because you may not like WoW, but 12 million people or 3.5 million in sales in a week is a great success.  And so they have done something right in order to achieve both.

I will only secede to the fact that WoW accomplished one thing well... it opened the door of online gaming to the masses of idiots and "non-nerds" who thought of online gaming previously as something only for nerds and dorks as well as created a game for all generations rather than a focused group.  Beyond they accomplished nothing worthwhile.  It is our job as real gamers making games for gamers to undo the damage WoW has done by releasing quality games for the people so they can see there is a lot more to gaming than mere repetitive bashing and huge required guild raids every week that suck out your soul and turn you hollow.  In this way we are the future of online gaming so long as we can avoid the mistakes most large game companies have done which is to try and repeat what wow has done.

[HE-Cooper]

Personally for me, wow is hands down the greatest MMO to ship, and I've worked on many and played most. Best world, best story, best look and feel, best gameplay, best raiding, best time versus reward balance, best class balance.

I point that out, not because I would ever wish to have a subjective discussion of value at this high a level, but only to provide balance to your thought process when you think about who and what type of player you are targetting. Inability to parse out why wow works for so many on so many levels, regardless of what you personally look for in a game, is a handicap that I don't want any of our developers to have.