I cant see myself playing the game for 6 - 12 months, not due to gameplay constraints though. The cost will be prohibitive on my current salary, and the time consumption thereafter would make the education I'm trying to get impossible.
The levelling system is done mostly via quests. You get extra XP for killing quest creatures and accomplishing quests as well as bonus items (armor and such). When you level up, your attributes are increased by one point each I think.
As for exploration... Nigh on infinite. I took a wander from the default human start just to take a look about. Before I knew it I was in goldshire, and a little farther on and I was in Stormwind. Put simply I got utterly lost in Stormwind. The capital is simply mindblowingly huge! The number of shops is astounding.
NPC Interaction is mainly via quests but you can also interact with NPC's to get items (such as armor, or clothing, even enchanted items) for a cost.
I havent had enough time to get to high levels because of downtime but I have seen players at about level 12 or so, but that was in the "Newbie" area.
You can encounter a slew of quests. There are endless numbers of quests to be had. Quests, Quests and more Quests!
Balance feels good. A level 2 player can defeat a level 3 monster, but has a very very difficult time taking on much higher level monsters. As I was wandering in the forests of Azeroth I encountered a wolf that was level 9 or so and it owned me. When I respawned, a defias spy or thief, a level 6 monster, had me spawn camped.
Even so, Death is fairly painless. All you have to do is find your body and you can ressurect yourself with about 25% of your health (so you have to rest). If your body is being spawn camped, you can give up a small amount of XP to come back to life. When I took a look the asking price was about 45 XP, a fairly paltry number considering that killing certain NPC's such as those cougar things in Red Mesa give about 50 or so XP a piece. Even if it is hard to get higher levels, there should be no end of quests available for you to try out. And if you've exhausted every avenue, you can always go on spy missions deep into horde territory <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
You also dont get **** coming up and romping you. You have to ask to do duel and you can refuse the duel, so no high level players coming along and owning you into tommorow.
As far as I can tell the history of the world is given when an NPC gives you a quest. So, lets say I had to clear out a band of Kobolds, it would exposit a bit. I cant remember precisely, so I'll try and capture a screenshot of myself getting a quest to give an idea.
All in all, if I had the time and the money to do so, I'd definately play this puppy.
<!--QuoteBegin-DOOManiac+Sep 5 2004, 12:34 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (DOOManiac @ Sep 5 2004, 12:34 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Why the hell are the Undead on the same side as the Orcs? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> the storyline says that they are a renegade faction of the undead not controled by the burning leigon....
<!--QuoteBegin-Cronos+Sep 5 2004, 01:30 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Cronos @ Sep 5 2004, 01:30 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> It's difficult to tell whats happening while fighting just by a screen so I'll elaborate on it.
Essentially you select what you want to attack by right clicking. You then close in on it and <b>you start doing your standard attack automatically</b>. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The levelling system is done mostly via quests<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> That clinched it. Im never playing WoW.
Ever.
What's the point to combat if you can't aim a fireball at someone's head from 50 feet away [and removing it]? or using a strafing tactic, running up to the guy dodging his arrows, only to do a horizontal slash to remove a misc body part from said someone using your two hands.
You know, the only time i want to have my hands free durring combat is when i'm standing over the poor soul's charred remains, toggling on my "awsome taunting abilities of 'can't touch this - da da da da daa daa da - can't touch this...' " bind, rotating my wrists, and popping each one of my fingers to a job well done; because i deserved it through hard work, not sitting on my hands and waiting for "Misc creep #98234 has been killed!" <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-Maveric+Sep 5 2004, 07:03 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Maveric @ Sep 5 2004, 07:03 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-Cronos+Sep 5 2004, 01:30 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Cronos @ Sep 5 2004, 01:30 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> It's difficult to tell whats happening while fighting just by a screen so I'll elaborate on it.
Essentially you select what you want to attack by right clicking. You then close in on it and <b>you start doing your standard attack automatically</b>. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The levelling system is done mostly via quests<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> That clinched it. Im never playing WoW.
Ever.
What's the point to combat if you can't aim a fireball at someone's head from 50 feet away [and removing it]? or using a strafing tactic, running up to the guy dodging his arrows, only to do a horizontal slash to remove a misc body part from said someone using your two hands.
You know, the only time i want to have my hands free durring combat is when i'm standing over the poor soul's charred remains, toggling on my "awsome taunting abilities of 'can't touch this - da da da da daa daa da - can't touch this...' " bind, rotating my wrists, and popping each one of my fingers to a job well done; because i deserved it through hard work, not sitting on my hands and waiting for "Misc creep #98234 has been killed!" <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
\\toils away at plans to make a non-sucky MMO <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> So, basically, you'd prefer something like a MMO incarnation of Morrowind with better balance? So would I...
Anyway, remember that this is a RPG, not a FPS. Think about how you kill things in Diablo 2; primarily you just right click on them, but there are sometimes subtleties to it - if it's anything like Diablo 2, I think it'll turn out ok. Also, this is an RPG spawned out of a RTS; in both genres, you typically command your avatar rather than embody it.
RPG doesn't necessarily limited interaction combat... diablo being one of the worst examples of combat to me outside of MMO >< We need more stuff that takes on the holy teachings of PSO and goes even further...
<!--QuoteBegin-spinviper+Sep 5 2004, 03:27 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (spinviper @ Sep 5 2004, 03:27 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-DOOManiac+Sep 5 2004, 12:34 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (DOOManiac @ Sep 5 2004, 12:34 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Why the hell are the Undead on the same side as the Orcs? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> the storyline says that they are a renegade faction of the undead not controled by the burning leigon.... <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Yea, and as the undead, you go about killing the mindless undead that's controlled by some zombie master guy. And the Undead, Orcs, the Trolls and the Tauren all want to destroy humanity and such, so they are in aligance.
<!--QuoteBegin-Caboose+Sep 5 2004, 11:38 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Caboose @ Sep 5 2004, 11:38 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin-spinviper+Sep 5 2004, 03:27 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (spinviper @ Sep 5 2004, 03:27 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-DOOManiac+Sep 5 2004, 12:34 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (DOOManiac @ Sep 5 2004, 12:34 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Why the hell are the Undead on the same side as the Orcs? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> the storyline says that they are a renegade faction of the undead not controled by the burning leigon.... <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yea, and as the undead, you go about killing the mindless undead that's controlled by some zombie master guy. And the Undead, Orcs, the Trolls and the Tauren all want to destroy humanity and such, so they are in aligance.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Err, huh?
In the Orc mini-campaign in TFT, there was a sort of alliance between the Horde and Jaina Proudmoore...
LikuI, am the Somberlain.Join Date: 2003-01-10Member: 12128Members
<!--QuoteBegin-Geminosity+Sep 5 2004, 05:22 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Geminosity @ Sep 5 2004, 05:22 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> RPG doesn't necessarily limited interaction combat... diablo being one of the worst examples of combat to me outside of MMO >< We need more stuff that takes on the holy teachings of PSO and goes even further... <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> But Diablo II wasn't good...
PSO's great, why look for another game like it, when you can just play that. On PC. For Free. But PSO also got boring, because you couldn't really do to much, but the different weapons/hacks were worth it.
The undead were all controled by the "grand master" known as the Lich King, he controled them directally, mostly just like how you control an RTS, they follow your every order, and they had no minds. Well, The Forsaken are a faction that is not controlled by the Lich King, their will remains strong as they die and come back to "life" and isnt taken over. They all form their own faction (the said Forsaken), allying with the orcs, trolls, and taurens because of the Alliance (humans, dwarves, elves and gnomes) wanting to kill them for being undead. I love this intresting twist, and it would be pretty weird to play a character where you had no free will. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> Also this is all off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure I got it all right, but someone correct me if I dont. So their basically undead with no master and a soul.
Everyone needs to hop on this bandwagon and PLAY! One more thing I should say about Warcraft III:
The visuals are absolutly stunning. I'm not talking about graphics, ala HL2, I'm saying just what you see in the game. At one point, if your in The Horde (undead, taurens, trolls, orcs) you come to a city called.. orgimmar? I think thats what its called, anyways, its the orcs main city (maybe the trolls too!) and its absolutly <b>massive.</b> I litterly said out loud when I first set foot through the gate into that city, "wow." I mean its that amazing. First off, the walls are huuuuuge. Maybe like.. ten storys high, hell no even MORE I think. Then you go through these MASSIVE tunnels, with extended detail put into them (if you look up you notice several gates that drop down I guess whenenemies attack, not just two sets of gates at the entrance and exists, as well as nice archtexture (SP?)) . When you step out of that tunnel, this is the wow part, the land slops down, and your standing on top of this hill, and down at the bottom is this.. MASSSIVE, MAAAASIVE city, all sprawled out in your view, it feels like a real, REAL city. I maen I even got lost with a map, its that big! I cant wait to see the other main citys!!!!! And what you see isnt even the whole city, theres like.. the ghetto behind that, then an underground section, its just amazing, purely amazing, so are the zeplin and ship rides. You dont get on the ship and it starts you load, you actually RIDE the ship and zeplin, having access to some lower decks, and you can fall off, or attempt to jump on a moving zeplin/ship if your late for the flight/sail/trip. Its.. just.. so much fun.
And about the combat system, there really isnt just mindless .. well one click and watch, I challanged a level ten to a duel as a level seven and won, you actually do determine the outcome of the fight if you do well and choose wisely. I almost died, like twenty health left, but I got him down to one first, so its all good. (you dont fight to the death). LOL at one point someoen challanged me to a duel, cast an area of effect spell that killed me instantly and damaged a nearby goblin npc, that little goblin tore him a new one in a flat two second run, HALAROUS!!!!!
I think everyone needs to try this game out. Theres just so much to see and do.
<!--QuoteBegin-Maveric+Sep 5 2004, 06:03 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Maveric @ Sep 5 2004, 06:03 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-Cronos+Sep 5 2004, 01:30 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Cronos @ Sep 5 2004, 01:30 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> It's difficult to tell whats happening while fighting just by a screen so I'll elaborate on it.
Essentially you select what you want to attack by right clicking. You then close in on it and <b>you start doing your standard attack automatically</b>. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The levelling system is done mostly via quests<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> That clinched it. Im never playing WoW.
Ever.
What's the point to combat if you can't aim a fireball at someone's head from 50 feet away [and removing it]? or using a strafing tactic, running up to the guy dodging his arrows, only to do a horizontal slash to remove a misc body part from said someone using your two hands.
You know, the only time i want to have my hands free durring combat is when i'm standing over the poor soul's charred remains, toggling on my "awsome taunting abilities of 'can't touch this - da da da da daa daa da - can't touch this...' " bind, rotating my wrists, and popping each one of my fingers to a job well done; because i deserved it through hard work, not sitting on my hands and waiting for "Misc creep #98234 has been killed!" <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
\\toils away at plans to make a non-sucky MMO <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Although leveling through quests isnt bad, not most of its done through quests. Sure, they give you exp as rewards, but killing enemies and such helps you along too, plus if you rest (ie sleep, sit, whatever just take a break) you get 200% more exp if your rested than normal. And whats so darn bad about doing an activity (lol, like stealing pumpkins from the humies!!!) and then gaining experience, possibly a level with that experience? I dont see anything wrong, its a <b>hell</b> of a lot better than just hack and slash. What the hell else do you want to give you exp?!?!?! Oh, you get exp too when you explore, IE finding new places, and a decent chunk too.
On combat, yeah you do you standard attack automatically, but once your a higher level fighter/wizard/anything you really dont sit back and watch, your constantly doing special attacks, skills, spells, manuvers, etc.. for instance, one skill can only be applied after the enemy dodges an attack (the skill is overpower: automatically full weapon damage +5 if you activate it after a dodge (only time it can be used) and it cant be avoided) so you do have to keep an eye open and have a quick hand. Once you get past level.. five, six, which isnt hard, you dont sit back a lot.
You'd be a really, really big fool to pass up this great game just because you dont control or aim your every attack.
I know DII wasn't good... that's why I used it as an example of why auto-attack games suck <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
PSO was a good start but they didn't take it further. with v2 and stuff instead of adding more to the combat like I hoped and dreamed they would they just churned out more items. They should've added extended combos and stuff; taken the whole beautifully crafted combat idea and boosted it to the next level -.-
Guns should've been totally redone too... having them work the same as melee was just silly =/
<b>edit:</b> the xp for tasks is cool. PSO has that in the form of quests which were fun and similar though the xp gains for exploring are cool too =3 Though I'll probably give WoW a shot I'm beyond annoyed with lame auto-attack systems. Guildwars seems to have a very similar combat idea to that of WoW from the descriptions you've given and quite frankly I'd rather fight a PSO boss any day of the week. Sure having snazzy specials that accumulate as you level so you can spam them strategically is nice and all but I prefer the free-form freedom of PSO a thousand times better. There's no moves like 'overpower' in PSO because they're just attacks you can do yourself.
A good player in Phantasy Star Online would often pull off feats like advanced attacks (starting a combo before the enemy is range; each successive part of a combo gains accuracy bonusses so if you're up against something you have trouble hitting you start early and walk your combo into them so they close the distance just as you're winding up your most accurate hits) and counters (letting the enemy attack so you can dodge around it and slap them in their exposed flanks/rear). And best of all inspite of all that and the real-time collisions it wasn't a twitch game =o
Man you guys do a terrible job describing this <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Okay, you start the game in your own little area. With the exception of the Dwarves and gnomes, each race has their own 'home land'. Usually this home will get you around level 10 before you leave. Of course, you can leave at any time, but stuff outside is too high level.
So for the most part, you won't see any other races for some time. My first encounter with a non-Nightelf was seeing an orc lying dead at the gates of a small town, beaten to death by the guards.
Characters are relatively straightforward as far as design. I was dissapointed that you had little customization as far as cosmetics. You can't adjust height, weight, any of that good stuff. However, there's a large mass of hairs colors and faces. Ultimately everyone looks the same though, which is dissapointing. Blizzard has ingenously added stats for purposes of statboosting, but disallowed you the ability to really customize it, so there's no min-maxing. You can get armor that boosts agility, for example, but you can't make a character with 10 intelligence and 150 strength and just kill everything you see with powerhits.
ANYway, the game advances as standard as well as a few other ways - you get XP for killing monsters and doing quests, and at certain amount of XP you get a level, which gives you better stats, unlocks new abilities, more health and more mana/rage/action points.
The thing is, if you like going out and killing 600 of Mob X, you can do it. If you rather enjoy objective-based quests, yeah, go for that. I enjoy both sometimes, so no issues here. I've not been forced to grind at all. My roomate says that some of the quests in a level 20-ish part get a bit tedious, and the quests all tend to be pretty challenging.
Once you level, you have several options. For one, you can upgrade your class skills for a hefty fee and by locating a class trainer appropriate for you. As I understand it, the only class trainers for certain classes (to a point, until you get to other race cities) are in said races capital cities. This is a good idea because it encourages lots of traffic in the capital. Which, might I add, is huge. You can get anything there. Merchants around, trainers, places to chill, catch a ride somewhere, a bank, etc.
Anyway you go to the trainer and check your options. The Trainer can teach me Rage for my Druid Shapeshifter, so I plop out 8 silver and get a neat new low-powered rage skill. They have nearly hundreds of skills per class (Most are different levels of the spell). So then I can go and check gear.
To stop people from getting superpowered gear, they've instituted a level cap for lots of gear. The good part is that the cap is not only very liberal (Some good armor I've found requires a level about 8 below mine...), but you usually find loot around your level. It works very well.
After I've checked gear, I've got a couple other things to look at. You can accumulate 'Skill Points' by fighting only (not by quests). Strangely, you don't get skill points for doing well... SKILLS. Anyway, you have a large handful of skills to chose from that cost (at higher levels) a TON of skill points. After several several hours I might have 30 or so. To get a riding mount requires... 600? Anyway, you can chose a trade skill to dump your skill points into and get trained in it with basic gear. For example, skinning. You go out and acquire skinning and get a skinning knife. At first all you can do is skin low level mobs. Then at higher levels (the more you skin the more levels in it you get) you can skin higher level mobs, and skin off better quality hides. In turn, you can sell these hides to leathercrafters for them to make armor. Alternatively you can get herbalism and acquire plants to sell to alchemists, who create potions to sell to warriors. It's all very convenient (some skills I question the full purpose of *cough* fishing).
Some of the classes themselves are very uniqe. For example, the hunter can trap and train wild animals and use them as pets. Nothing too surprising there, except they've made pets work. You have to keep them happy, feed them food they like, let them rest, etc. It's not easy having a pet but it sure is beneficial. Unfortunate thing is that since certain pets require certain foods, the hunter usually is equipped to handle it. For example, fishing can get you fish, which you can feed to the big kitty pets. You might think this is great for fishers since most hunters have kitties, but most hunters grab fishing so they don't have to pay for fish. It's a shame really. Maybe later fishing will be more beneficial.
But I digress, and as you play, you will go into combat (pretty much about 2 seconds in the game). Combat is handled pretty standardly. You have a basic attack that you can use but it's not that powerful. Usually, but not always, this attack automates for you. You then have a pelethlora of abilities and toys and buttons to push, that all have their role. My druid, for example, can cast Fury 3, a very hard-hitting lightning-type spell. However, this spell takes some time to charge up and cast, and I can be interrupted while casting. It also drains a decent chunk of mana. So what I usually do is use Fury 3 while the mob is closing in (if they're melee) then utilize moonfire (an instant-cast light-hitting damage-over-time attack) during the battle. I chipped out and bought myself a fantastic staff too so I'm not scared to use that thing. Occasionally I'll use my Entaglement to trap a mob and hit it with some more Fury 3's or perhaps use it to transform to my Bear Form, a lumbering tank with some pretty strong hits and warrior-like abilities (has a rage meter and certain attacks I can use, for example, a powerful swipe that knocks the opponent into a stun).
I also LOVE the money system. Instead of being 'Oh boy we have... gold...' you have copper, silver, and gold, and the thing is, the money can slip away very easilly. Early in the game (in fact still now) mobs might only drop a handful of coppers. You get most money completing quests. But money scales very well for what level you are. I am currently on my second gold piece, with about 5 silver and 50 copper left, and each piece is 100 of the next, so that's 20500 copper pieces. You don't really go in somewhere and blow loads of cash like you do in most games, if you do that you'll end up flatass broke. I've had plenty an item I've wanted slip out of my grasp since I enjoy keeping some small funds on hand. I currently believe though that I'm accumulating money a bit faster then I'm spending it, but I'm doing a lot of quests and have spent a lot of time harvesting goods to sell to traders, which can be decent.
A big downer here for me is that you can sell any item to any NPC that allows sales, and for the same price. After some treasure-grabbing I can run into town and find a BAKER and sell him hammers and greatswords and he'll take them for just as much as the smithy down the street will. This means that you can get some fantastic money awards pretty easilly for just a bit of time spent killing mobs or searching for random spawn loot chests.
You also have a neato mail system, where you can mail items, messages, and packages to people (for a fee of course), so you can conduct trade transactions from other parts of the world. I thought that was very clever. "The World On Time", eh?
As said before the game world is not only incredibly huge (the first island alone could take me about 10 minutes to run across... and that island is about 1% of the entire world), but it's beautiful too. Though the textures are lowish res and polycounts aren't that high, it has a great cartoony feel that really sets the mood. I tire of RPGs that try to be 'real'. It's not real, don't make it look like it. Wood grains are cheesy looking and pretty plasticy but I never felt they were out of place, for example.
Secondly, the sounds are great. I assume that they chopped out a lot of music tracks to keep filesize low, because I keep hearing the same three or so, but I still like them, they're very well done and very fitting for the world.
The one big major peeve of mine (well two) is that on Darkwater of Darkbeach or whatever it is (you nightelves know what I mean) the forests are LOADED with bears. Billions of them. You step off the path (or not) and get mauled by bears. There are far too many to make fighting in those areas fun, since you usually get obnoxious mobs joining in fights.
The second peeve is that the game time is based on a real 24 hour clock. This is obnoxious since people like me who can only play at night...
... I'm getting REALLY TIRED OF THE DARK...
That said, Gem, you're overstating PSO. Requiring people to pull off combos WILL result in macroscripters, who set up macros to spam their most overpowered attacks with the press of one key. It's incredibly counterintuitive, and a pointless feature. If you put it in and it's 'dumbed down' to appeal to a large non-twitch crowd, then it'll be nearly pointless and just an annoyance. If it's high-pressure then it'll scare a lot of casual MMO players away. And anything in between I'd get a macro for in a second because if I wanted randomass buttonmashing I'd play Soul Calibur 2.
*applauds* Very well said, and yeah, I'm tired of the dark too. Bring us the light damnit, BRING IT TO US!! (actually I think I play in the light but uh.. you get the point)
Hopefully they can make it so its six hour days. Instead of twelve hours, its a bit shorter, and still easy to calculate time.
EDIT:: And when he says the worlds look cartoony, just think of WCIII type cartoony. They look exactally like warcraft III, not spongebob squarepants. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
wow this thread sure does have alot of text for a screenshot thread.. <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
There, it's a moving screenshot. The server just crashed and I shot this just before. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> 5.5mb Divix
again servers are down and this time the character database is down if it has a major problem all chars = gone <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/sad-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> if all characters get deleted i vote we move all NS players to archimonde so we can all play together <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
why are you floating on the ground?<!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->?
Blizzard was probabaly toying with the servers, they have been all afternoon (pain in my butt, came home right when they started) so I'll be surprised if the servers loose all the characters. But it seems like they are comming back up soon, I'm getting more server response.
And if anyones noticed, the forums are also down.
EDIT:: And to post a funny story.. I was inside the Undercity.. well, more like above, but I was in the kings chamber, where in WCIII arthas *SPOILERS (if you still havent played the game)
killed the king
and the voices are echoing and stuff, and I'm standing there going "Do you hear it.." then "they are calling.." then going up to where the throne is and kneeling before it, and mumbling things like "My king.." "I am not worthy.." and just acting like my guy was having this huge, gigantic flashback because i was utterly bored and I wanted to draw a crowd (AT ONE POINT I DID AYAYAY!!!!)
But this one guy kept following me like "SUYF NOOBIE OMG UR SO **** UP!! !OMG OMGOM11! OGMO!!!1" and its like, why do people waste their time harassing others? Its sooo pathetic. I just wanted to go to that guys <s>house</s> <s>apartment</s> <s>trailer</s> dumpster he lives in with a laptop and boot him in the face. I mean if you spend time just to do those things <i>online</i> you really, REALLY need to get a life. Seriously.
<!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Sep 5 2004, 11:54 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Sep 5 2004, 11:54 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> the incessant begging for items in the screens have turned me off completely. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> never seen that, but to relieve your troubles, type /leave 1. to gain those troubles again, type /join general
uh.... well I'll try not to derail the thread again after this but EEK PSO 'combos' don't work like street fighter or soul calibur or anything. It's about timing and it's not very hard to learn nor to pull off. Considering most people have grasped the basics of it within a couple of minutes I doubt anyone would macro it ^^;
Main thing is you're thinking of 2D fighters and supermoves rather than combos; remember that a combo is merely a chain of attacks. Combos in PSO are more like chaining punches and kicks, there's no super moves! However you can't button mash as if you press the button too early after the strike before it, then it fails and you don't do anything, if you press it too late after it also fails.
It's kinda hard to describe PSO to someone who's never played it unfortunately =/
Comments
The levelling system is done mostly via quests. You get extra XP for killing quest creatures and accomplishing quests as well as bonus items (armor and such). When you level up, your attributes are increased by one point each I think.
As for exploration... Nigh on infinite. I took a wander from the default human start just to take a look about. Before I knew it I was in goldshire, and a little farther on and I was in Stormwind. Put simply I got utterly lost in Stormwind. The capital is simply mindblowingly huge! The number of shops is astounding.
NPC Interaction is mainly via quests but you can also interact with NPC's to get items (such as armor, or clothing, even enchanted items) for a cost.
I havent had enough time to get to high levels because of downtime but I have seen players at about level 12 or so, but that was in the "Newbie" area.
You can encounter a slew of quests. There are endless numbers of quests to be had. Quests, Quests and more Quests!
Balance feels good. A level 2 player can defeat a level 3 monster, but has a very very difficult time taking on much higher level monsters. As I was wandering in the forests of Azeroth I encountered a wolf that was level 9 or so and it owned me. When I respawned, a defias spy or thief, a level 6 monster, had me spawn camped.
Even so, Death is fairly painless. All you have to do is find your body and you can ressurect yourself with about 25% of your health (so you have to rest). If your body is being spawn camped, you can give up a small amount of XP to come back to life. When I took a look the asking price was about 45 XP, a fairly paltry number considering that killing certain NPC's such as those cougar things in Red Mesa give about 50 or so XP a piece. Even if it is hard to get higher levels, there should be no end of quests available for you to try out. And if you've exhausted every avenue, you can always go on spy missions deep into horde territory <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
You also dont get **** coming up and romping you. You have to ask to do duel and you can refuse the duel, so no high level players coming along and owning you into tommorow.
As far as I can tell the history of the world is given when an NPC gives you a quest. So, lets say I had to clear out a band of Kobolds, it would exposit a bit. I cant remember precisely, so I'll try and capture a screenshot of myself getting a quest to give an idea.
All in all, if I had the time and the money to do so, I'd definately play this puppy.
the storyline says that they are a renegade faction of the undead not controled by the burning leigon....
Essentially you select what you want to attack by right clicking. You then close in on it and <b>you start doing your standard attack automatically</b>. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The levelling system is done mostly via quests<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That clinched it. Im never playing WoW.
Ever.
What's the point to combat if you can't aim a fireball at someone's head from 50 feet away [and removing it]? or using a strafing tactic, running up to the guy dodging his arrows, only to do a horizontal slash to remove a misc body part from said someone using your two hands.
You know, the only time i want to have my hands free durring combat is when i'm standing over the poor soul's charred remains, toggling on my "awsome taunting abilities of 'can't touch this - da da da da daa daa da - can't touch this...' " bind, rotating my wrists, and popping each one of my fingers to a job well done; because i deserved it through hard work, not sitting on my hands and waiting for "Misc creep #98234 has been killed!" <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
\\toils away at plans to make a non-sucky MMO
Essentially you select what you want to attack by right clicking. You then close in on it and <b>you start doing your standard attack automatically</b>. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The levelling system is done mostly via quests<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That clinched it. Im never playing WoW.
Ever.
What's the point to combat if you can't aim a fireball at someone's head from 50 feet away [and removing it]? or using a strafing tactic, running up to the guy dodging his arrows, only to do a horizontal slash to remove a misc body part from said someone using your two hands.
You know, the only time i want to have my hands free durring combat is when i'm standing over the poor soul's charred remains, toggling on my "awsome taunting abilities of 'can't touch this - da da da da daa daa da - can't touch this...' " bind, rotating my wrists, and popping each one of my fingers to a job well done; because i deserved it through hard work, not sitting on my hands and waiting for "Misc creep #98234 has been killed!" <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
\\toils away at plans to make a non-sucky MMO <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
So, basically, you'd prefer something like a MMO incarnation of Morrowind with better balance? So would I...
Anyway, remember that this is a RPG, not a FPS. Think about how you kill things in Diablo 2; primarily you just right click on them, but there are sometimes subtleties to it - if it's anything like Diablo 2, I think it'll turn out ok. Also, this is an RPG spawned out of a RTS; in both genres, you typically command your avatar rather than embody it.
We need more stuff that takes on the holy teachings of PSO and goes even further...
the storyline says that they are a renegade faction of the undead not controled by the burning leigon.... <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yea, and as the undead, you go about killing the mindless undead that's controlled by some zombie master guy. And the Undead, Orcs, the Trolls and the Tauren all want to destroy humanity and such, so they are in aligance.
the storyline says that they are a renegade faction of the undead not controled by the burning leigon.... <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yea, and as the undead, you go about killing the mindless undead that's controlled by some zombie master guy. And the Undead, Orcs, the Trolls and the Tauren all want to destroy humanity and such, so they are in aligance.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Err, huh?
In the Orc mini-campaign in TFT, there was a sort of alliance between the Horde and Jaina Proudmoore...
We need more stuff that takes on the holy teachings of PSO and goes even further... <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
But Diablo II wasn't good...
PSO's great, why look for another game like it, when you can just play that. On PC. For Free. But PSO also got boring, because you couldn't really do to much, but the different weapons/hacks were worth it.
The undead were all controled by the "grand master" known as the Lich King, he controled them directally, mostly just like how you control an RTS, they follow your every order, and they had no minds. Well, The Forsaken are a faction that is not controlled by the Lich King, their will remains strong as they die and come back to "life" and isnt taken over. They all form their own faction (the said Forsaken), allying with the orcs, trolls, and taurens because of the Alliance (humans, dwarves, elves and gnomes) wanting to kill them for being undead. I love this intresting twist, and it would be pretty weird to play a character where you had no free will. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> Also this is all off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure I got it all right, but someone correct me if I dont. So their basically undead with no master and a soul.
Everyone needs to hop on this bandwagon and PLAY! One more thing I should say about Warcraft III:
The visuals are absolutly stunning. I'm not talking about graphics, ala HL2, I'm saying just what you see in the game. At one point, if your in The Horde (undead, taurens, trolls, orcs) you come to a city called.. orgimmar? I think thats what its called, anyways, its the orcs main city (maybe the trolls too!) and its absolutly <b>massive.</b> I litterly said out loud when I first set foot through the gate into that city, "wow." I mean its that amazing. First off, the walls are huuuuuge. Maybe like.. ten storys high, hell no even MORE I think. Then you go through these MASSIVE tunnels, with extended detail put into them (if you look up you notice several gates that drop down I guess whenenemies attack, not just two sets of gates at the entrance and exists, as well as nice archtexture (SP?)) . When you step out of that tunnel, this is the wow part, the land slops down, and your standing on top of this hill, and down at the bottom is this.. MASSSIVE, MAAAASIVE city, all sprawled out in your view, it feels like a real, REAL city. I maen I even got lost with a map, its that big! I cant wait to see the other main citys!!!!! And what you see isnt even the whole city, theres like.. the ghetto behind that, then an underground section, its just amazing, purely amazing, so are the zeplin and ship rides. You dont get on the ship and it starts you load, you actually RIDE the ship and zeplin, having access to some lower decks, and you can fall off, or attempt to jump on a moving zeplin/ship if your late for the flight/sail/trip. Its.. just.. so much fun.
And about the combat system, there really isnt just mindless .. well one click and watch, I challanged a level ten to a duel as a level seven and won, you actually do determine the outcome of the fight if you do well and choose wisely. I almost died, like twenty health left, but I got him down to one first, so its all good. (you dont fight to the death). LOL at one point someoen challanged me to a duel, cast an area of effect spell that killed me instantly and damaged a nearby goblin npc, that little goblin tore him a new one in a flat two second run, HALAROUS!!!!!
I think everyone needs to try this game out. Theres just so much to see and do.
Essentially you select what you want to attack by right clicking. You then close in on it and <b>you start doing your standard attack automatically</b>. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The levelling system is done mostly via quests<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That clinched it. Im never playing WoW.
Ever.
What's the point to combat if you can't aim a fireball at someone's head from 50 feet away [and removing it]? or using a strafing tactic, running up to the guy dodging his arrows, only to do a horizontal slash to remove a misc body part from said someone using your two hands.
You know, the only time i want to have my hands free durring combat is when i'm standing over the poor soul's charred remains, toggling on my "awsome taunting abilities of 'can't touch this - da da da da daa daa da - can't touch this...' " bind, rotating my wrists, and popping each one of my fingers to a job well done; because i deserved it through hard work, not sitting on my hands and waiting for "Misc creep #98234 has been killed!" <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
\\toils away at plans to make a non-sucky MMO <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Although leveling through quests isnt bad, not most of its done through quests. Sure, they give you exp as rewards, but killing enemies and such helps you along too, plus if you rest (ie sleep, sit, whatever just take a break) you get 200% more exp if your rested than normal. And whats so darn bad about doing an activity (lol, like stealing pumpkins from the humies!!!) and then gaining experience, possibly a level with that experience? I dont see anything wrong, its a <b>hell</b> of a lot better than just hack and slash. What the hell else do you want to give you exp?!?!?! Oh, you get exp too when you explore, IE finding new places, and a decent chunk too.
On combat, yeah you do you standard attack automatically, but once your a higher level fighter/wizard/anything you really dont sit back and watch, your constantly doing special attacks, skills, spells, manuvers, etc.. for instance, one skill can only be applied after the enemy dodges an attack (the skill is overpower: automatically full weapon damage +5 if you activate it after a dodge (only time it can be used) and it cant be avoided) so you do have to keep an eye open and have a quick hand. Once you get past level.. five, six, which isnt hard, you dont sit back a lot.
You'd be a really, really big fool to pass up this great game just because you dont control or aim your every attack.
PSO was a good start but they didn't take it further. with v2 and stuff instead of adding more to the combat like I hoped and dreamed they would they just churned out more items. They should've added extended combos and stuff; taken the whole beautifully crafted combat idea and boosted it to the next level -.-
Guns should've been totally redone too... having them work the same as melee was just silly =/
<b>edit:</b> the xp for tasks is cool. PSO has that in the form of quests which were fun and similar though the xp gains for exploring are cool too =3
Though I'll probably give WoW a shot I'm beyond annoyed with lame auto-attack systems. Guildwars seems to have a very similar combat idea to that of WoW from the descriptions you've given and quite frankly I'd rather fight a PSO boss any day of the week.
Sure having snazzy specials that accumulate as you level so you can spam them strategically is nice and all but I prefer the free-form freedom of PSO a thousand times better. There's no moves like 'overpower' in PSO because they're just attacks you can do yourself.
A good player in Phantasy Star Online would often pull off feats like advanced attacks (starting a combo before the enemy is range; each successive part of a combo gains accuracy bonusses so if you're up against something you have trouble hitting you start early and walk your combo into them so they close the distance just as you're winding up your most accurate hits) and counters (letting the enemy attack so you can dodge around it and slap them in their exposed flanks/rear). And best of all inspite of all that and the real-time collisions it wasn't a twitch game =o
Okay, you start the game in your own little area. With the exception of the Dwarves and gnomes, each race has their own 'home land'. Usually this home will get you around level 10 before you leave. Of course, you can leave at any time, but stuff outside is too high level.
So for the most part, you won't see any other races for some time. My first encounter with a non-Nightelf was seeing an orc lying dead at the gates of a small town, beaten to death by the guards.
Characters are relatively straightforward as far as design. I was dissapointed that you had little customization as far as cosmetics. You can't adjust height, weight, any of that good stuff. However, there's a large mass of hairs colors and faces. Ultimately everyone looks the same though, which is dissapointing. Blizzard has ingenously added stats for purposes of statboosting, but disallowed you the ability to really customize it, so there's no min-maxing. You can get armor that boosts agility, for example, but you can't make a character with 10 intelligence and 150 strength and just kill everything you see with powerhits.
ANYway, the game advances as standard as well as a few other ways - you get XP for killing monsters and doing quests, and at certain amount of XP you get a level, which gives you better stats, unlocks new abilities, more health and more mana/rage/action points.
The thing is, if you like going out and killing 600 of Mob X, you can do it. If you rather enjoy objective-based quests, yeah, go for that. I enjoy both sometimes, so no issues here. I've not been forced to grind at all. My roomate says that some of the quests in a level 20-ish part get a bit tedious, and the quests all tend to be pretty challenging.
Once you level, you have several options. For one, you can upgrade your class skills for a hefty fee and by locating a class trainer appropriate for you. As I understand it, the only class trainers for certain classes (to a point, until you get to other race cities) are in said races capital cities. This is a good idea because it encourages lots of traffic in the capital. Which, might I add, is huge. You can get anything there. Merchants around, trainers, places to chill, catch a ride somewhere, a bank, etc.
Anyway you go to the trainer and check your options. The Trainer can teach me Rage for my Druid Shapeshifter, so I plop out 8 silver and get a neat new low-powered rage skill. They have nearly hundreds of skills per class (Most are different levels of the spell). So then I can go and check gear.
To stop people from getting superpowered gear, they've instituted a level cap for lots of gear. The good part is that the cap is not only very liberal (Some good armor I've found requires a level about 8 below mine...), but you usually find loot around your level. It works very well.
After I've checked gear, I've got a couple other things to look at. You can accumulate 'Skill Points' by fighting only (not by quests). Strangely, you don't get skill points for doing well... SKILLS. Anyway, you have a large handful of skills to chose from that cost (at higher levels) a TON of skill points. After several several hours I might have 30 or so. To get a riding mount requires... 600? Anyway, you can chose a trade skill to dump your skill points into and get trained in it with basic gear. For example, skinning. You go out and acquire skinning and get a skinning knife. At first all you can do is skin low level mobs. Then at higher levels (the more you skin the more levels in it you get) you can skin higher level mobs, and skin off better quality hides. In turn, you can sell these hides to leathercrafters for them to make armor. Alternatively you can get herbalism and acquire plants to sell to alchemists, who create potions to sell to warriors. It's all very convenient (some skills I question the full purpose of *cough* fishing).
Some of the classes themselves are very uniqe. For example, the hunter can trap and train wild animals and use them as pets. Nothing too surprising there, except they've made pets work. You have to keep them happy, feed them food they like, let them rest, etc. It's not easy having a pet but it sure is beneficial. Unfortunate thing is that since certain pets require certain foods, the hunter usually is equipped to handle it. For example, fishing can get you fish, which you can feed to the big kitty pets. You might think this is great for fishers since most hunters have kitties, but most hunters grab fishing so they don't have to pay for fish. It's a shame really. Maybe later fishing will be more beneficial.
But I digress, and as you play, you will go into combat (pretty much about 2 seconds in the game). Combat is handled pretty standardly. You have a basic attack that you can use but it's not that powerful. Usually, but not always, this attack automates for you. You then have a pelethlora of abilities and toys and buttons to push, that all have their role. My druid, for example, can cast Fury 3, a very hard-hitting lightning-type spell. However, this spell takes some time to charge up and cast, and I can be interrupted while casting. It also drains a decent chunk of mana. So what I usually do is use Fury 3 while the mob is closing in (if they're melee) then utilize moonfire (an instant-cast light-hitting damage-over-time attack) during the battle. I chipped out and bought myself a fantastic staff too so I'm not scared to use that thing. Occasionally I'll use my Entaglement to trap a mob and hit it with some more Fury 3's or perhaps use it to transform to my Bear Form, a lumbering tank with some pretty strong hits and warrior-like abilities (has a rage meter and certain attacks I can use, for example, a powerful swipe that knocks the opponent into a stun).
I also LOVE the money system. Instead of being 'Oh boy we have... gold...' you have copper, silver, and gold, and the thing is, the money can slip away very easilly. Early in the game (in fact still now) mobs might only drop a handful of coppers. You get most money completing quests. But money scales very well for what level you are. I am currently on my second gold piece, with about 5 silver and 50 copper left, and each piece is 100 of the next, so that's 20500 copper pieces. You don't really go in somewhere and blow loads of cash like you do in most games, if you do that you'll end up flatass broke. I've had plenty an item I've wanted slip out of my grasp since I enjoy keeping some small funds on hand. I currently believe though that I'm accumulating money a bit faster then I'm spending it, but I'm doing a lot of quests and have spent a lot of time harvesting goods to sell to traders, which can be decent.
A big downer here for me is that you can sell any item to any NPC that allows sales, and for the same price. After some treasure-grabbing I can run into town and find a BAKER and sell him hammers and greatswords and he'll take them for just as much as the smithy down the street will. This means that you can get some fantastic money awards pretty easilly for just a bit of time spent killing mobs or searching for random spawn loot chests.
You also have a neato mail system, where you can mail items, messages, and packages to people (for a fee of course), so you can conduct trade transactions from other parts of the world. I thought that was very clever. "The World On Time", eh?
As said before the game world is not only incredibly huge (the first island alone could take me about 10 minutes to run across... and that island is about 1% of the entire world), but it's beautiful too. Though the textures are lowish res and polycounts aren't that high, it has a great cartoony feel that really sets the mood. I tire of RPGs that try to be 'real'. It's not real, don't make it look like it. Wood grains are cheesy looking and pretty plasticy but I never felt they were out of place, for example.
Secondly, the sounds are great. I assume that they chopped out a lot of music tracks to keep filesize low, because I keep hearing the same three or so, but I still like them, they're very well done and very fitting for the world.
The one big major peeve of mine (well two) is that on Darkwater of Darkbeach or whatever it is (you nightelves know what I mean) the forests are LOADED with bears. Billions of them. You step off the path (or not) and get mauled by bears. There are far too many to make fighting in those areas fun, since you usually get obnoxious mobs joining in fights.
The second peeve is that the game time is based on a real 24 hour clock. This is obnoxious since people like me who can only play at night...
... I'm getting REALLY TIRED OF THE DARK...
That said, Gem, you're overstating PSO. Requiring people to pull off combos WILL result in macroscripters, who set up macros to spam their most overpowered attacks with the press of one key. It's incredibly counterintuitive, and a pointless feature. If you put it in and it's 'dumbed down' to appeal to a large non-twitch crowd, then it'll be nearly pointless and just an annoyance. If it's high-pressure then it'll scare a lot of casual MMO players away. And anything in between I'd get a macro for in a second because if I wanted randomass buttonmashing I'd play Soul Calibur 2.
Hopefully they can make it so its six hour days. Instead of twelve hours, its a bit shorter, and still easy to calculate time.
EDIT:: And when he says the worlds look cartoony, just think of WCIII type cartoony. They look exactally like warcraft III, not spongebob squarepants. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<span style='color:yellow'><b><span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%'>*HINT HINT!*</span></b></span>
There, it's a moving screenshot. The server just crashed and I shot this just before. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> 5.5mb Divix
again servers are down and this time the character database is down if it has a major problem all chars = gone <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/sad-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> if all characters get deleted i vote we move all NS players to archimonde so we can all play together <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
:edit: Mobeus, it's a bug, I thought it was funny.
And if anyones noticed, the forums are also down.
EDIT:: And to post a funny story.. I was inside the Undercity.. well, more like above, but I was in the kings chamber, where in WCIII arthas *SPOILERS (if you still havent played the game)
killed the king
and the voices are echoing and stuff, and I'm standing there going "Do you hear it.." then "they are calling.." then going up to where the throne is and kneeling before it, and mumbling things like "My king.." "I am not worthy.." and just acting like my guy was having this huge, gigantic flashback because i was utterly bored and I wanted to draw a crowd (AT ONE POINT I DID AYAYAY!!!!)
But this one guy kept following me like "SUYF NOOBIE OMG UR SO **** UP!! !OMG OMGOM11! OGMO!!!1" and its like, why do people waste their time harassing others? Its sooo pathetic. I just wanted to go to that guys <s>house</s> <s>apartment</s> <s>trailer</s> dumpster he lives in with a laptop and boot him in the face. I mean if you spend time just to do those things <i>online</i> you really, REALLY need to get a life. Seriously.
I would go check myself, but I'm having trouble unzipping the client.
and if you have a .rar from the stress test, just drag and drop the World of Warcraft folder onto your desktop, it will take awhile but it goes.
Human Male Paladin
Tauren Male Hunter
Night Elf Female Priestess
Undead Male Mage
never seen that, but to relieve your troubles, type /leave 1. to gain those troubles again, type /join general
Main thing is you're thinking of 2D fighters and supermoves rather than combos; remember that a combo is merely a chain of attacks. Combos in PSO are more like chaining punches and kicks, there's no super moves! However you can't button mash as if you press the button too early after the strike before it, then it fails and you don't do anything, if you press it too late after it also fails.
It's kinda hard to describe PSO to someone who's never played it unfortunately =/
Anyways, back to the screenies huh? =3
<b>clarification edit added</b>
<img src='http://www.cabewse.com/screenshots/Snapshot6.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />