Need for Speed World

[Minvaren]

Link : here

"Need for Speed World is the world's first MMO racer - a completely new entertainment experience for speed junkies all over the world," producer John Doyle boasted in today's announcement, apparently overlooking EA's long-defunct Motor City Online--originally a Need for Speed title--and Invictus' free-to-play online racer Project Torque.

Those who cannot remember history and whatnot.

I enjoy the NFS games on the average, but I can't see forking out money monthly to play this sort of thing.  Heck, I wait until they hit $20 or less to even pick them up, to be honest.  What do you all say?

[Shatter]

Reserved for whitty comments I cant think of now but might later

[Falconeer]

Since I am an old MCO player, and I pined over it for years, I followed nostalgic forums for a while and I remember someone mentioning some of the original MCO team was working on a "future MMO Need For Speed title". If they have even just one former MCO member in the team, I hope a thunder will strike their offices as a punishment for being so shameless.

[Furiously]

Motor city online and dark-wind don't exist in their universe I'm guessing.  I'm not surei get the mmo'ability of a racer. I can see a microtransaction system working perhaps.

[Falconeer]

For instance, MCO had so many real engine parts, bodies, etc., that trading them to tweak your cars or actually building them from scratch was so close to the real thing. Seriously, that game was crazy. Nothing that I know of came even close to the level of detail of the car building/tweaking part of MCO. The key was "rarity", you could really have unique cars and they weren't attainable just catassing. Let alone RMTing. You had to win event races, special auctions, trade them with other players or just win them in races where you could put your money or rare parts or whole cars on the line.

[HaemishM]

I enjoy the NFS games on the average, but I can't see forking out money monthly to play this sort of thing.  Heck, I wait until they hit $20 or less to even pick them up, to be honest.  What do you all say?

If this is following the trend of the other MMO properties EA is focusing on (Tiger Woods Online, FIFA Online, Battlefield Heroes), you won't have to pay a red cent to play. You can purchase items and stuff in the microtransaction shop, but you won't have to pay to play. Believe it or not, I think this strategy is genius. Both FIFA and Tiger Woods are using already built engines, cutting dev costs and time. FIFA is supposed to be out in June (I'm betaing this), Tiger Woods is already out as is Battlefield, and the ones that are released are doing well AFAIK. A F2P Need for Speed sounds like a fun diversion.

I bet each of these properties will end up more profitable than Warhammer. 

[Falconeer]

Beta starts tomorrow. It's basically open, and if you go here and apply chances are you are gonna get approved immediately.

It's free to play, by the way. Even the client is free, in pure Asian style (game developed by EA Singapore). You have to pay to progress over level 10 though. It's like the Warhammer and Conan permanently free demo.

Game launches july 20.

[Mrbloodworth]

I suppose it will appeal to SOMEONE. I guess. 

[Falconeer]

Aye, to me. Are elves really better than cars?

[Mrbloodworth]

Aye, to me. Are elves really better than cars?

You don't know that there are not elves IN your cars.  

[Malakili]

Aye, to me. Are elves really better than cars?

Eh, if I'm going to put money into cars, I'll put money into my real car :-D.  Yes, I realize people's car budget is not the same as their gaming budget, I'm just being a smartass.

[HaemishM]

If it's as well done as the Tiger Woods Online F2P game, it'll be decent enough to play for free. TWO is a bit sparse in terms of different courses you can play for free (they have like 10 courses but freeloaders can only play 1-3 at any time without paying up - they rotate the courses you can play for free).

[eldaec]

Aye, to me. Are elves really better than cars?

Eh, if I'm going to put money into cars, I'll put money into my real car

If I'm going to put money into elves or cars, I'll put money into my real elf car;

[NiX]

A honda? Reallly?

[UnSub]

A honda? Reallly?

Well, it is for elves.

[NiX]

Well, it is for elves.

That's what Daewoo is for.

[Engels]

apply chances are you are gonna get approved immediately.

Has anyone got a reply after the beta signup? I'm not sure if that's NDA breaking or not.

[Mrbloodworth]

Aye, to me. Are elves really better than cars?

After thinking about this more, I should maybe inform my brother about this game.

[Falconeer]

Honestly, I haven't read an NDA anywhere. Anyway, cool so far. But it's no Motor City Online*, not even close. Sigh.

*FAKE EDIT: By that, I mean there are no real parts, there is no real car tinkering. It doesn't even look like Project Torque. It's the more like the EA version of Drift City.

[Ralence]

Link to instant beta keys from fileplanet, no membership to FP required. 

[HaemishM]

NECRO!

Think this is in open beta. I got in without any trouble, regardless. It's pretty decent for a F2P game.

[Engels]

Thanks for the heads up. In game and driving!

[HaemishM]

Not sure what kind of NDA is on this thing. But the driving is actually pretty smooth with keyboard - mouse is mainly used for menus and not at all during driving. I'm not sure how much of a long-term game it is, but it's certainly worth a casual relationship.

[FatuousTwat]

Tried to play this, but just kept getting errors/crashes with the downloader.

[tgr]

It doesn't even look like Project Torque.

Jesus, how the fuck can they stick "massive" on everything? 2-20 IS NOT MASSIVE! It hasn't been massive for almost a decade now (if not longer).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsYc7CY5MFU

It's not even racing when they can just drive through eachother. Christ, my liveforspeed/nascar racing 2003/grand prix legends background is weeping now.

 

[HaemishM]

I can confirm that you can run into each other quite spectacularly in NFS: World. No it ain't any more Massive than Project Torque - you get 8 player races, and when you aren't in a race, you do run through other players in the open world part. But the open world part does allow you attract cops for pursuit mode, which is actually more fun than the races. You try to outrun the cops while disabling as many of them as you can, dropping scenery on top of them, running through or avoiding roadblocks, etc. It's totally arcadey craziness, but it's damn fun. For a F2P w/ Microtransactions game, it's pretty good so far.

[Engels]

So this game's setting up to be the ultimate in microtransaction schemes. It uses two types of currency. Normal 'money' you win through racing, etc, and then 'Boost' currency that you obtain through an in-game kiosk that hooks into your EA account. This uses EA 'points'.

The items you need to give you an edge in the game are not available through anything but Boost points so far. The problem is that without the 'powerups', there's only a very slim chance of winning the races.

For example:

There's a powerup called Traffic Magnet. You 'cast' this magic spell and the leader in the race will instantly cause cars on the road to crash into him. You buy this power up through Boost(tm). You can also buy a Shield power up to protect you against Traffic Magnet being cast on you, but you guessed it, that costs Boost points too!

In other words, you can maybe win the single player races through luck and good skill without boosts. The AI does cast Traffic Magnet on you at least once if you are in the lead, but if you're very good at driving, you can evade oncoming vehicles. In multiplayer, chances are virtually nil of you being able to avoid the onslaught of Traffic Magnet casters.

[HaemishM]

You can also get powerups from the post-race rewards draw (random loot!) but it won't be nearly enough to keep up, you are correct.

[Engels]

Have you gotten either Traffic Magnet or Shield as a reward? All I've ever gotten was nitrous, I think...

[HaemishM]

Only nitrous here as well, so you may actually be right. But surely it wouldn't be like EA to nickel and dime you to death on a game? 

[Engels]

The reason it pisses me off so much is that I think its a very fun game. Not sure I'd pay a monthly fee, but the basic mechanics and the game play have clearly had a lot of work and polish put into it, and its gonna get hosed by greed. Its game over before its even released.