f13.net

Redwood City, CA May 6 -Trion World Network will unveil its first videogame, Heroes of Telara™, at E3 2009. Heroes of Telara™ is a fantasy Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) where everyday gamers are forged into legendary heroes. In Heroes of Telara™ players are challenged to conquer the unknown in an epic, ever-changing world. Heroes of Telara™ will feature an unprecedented level of rich and dynamic gameplay, driven by recurring events, unexpected challenges and limitless new content.

"Trion is excited to share what we have been working on and to reveal the universe of Heroes of Telara™," said Russ Brown, vice president, Channel One, Trion. "The team is producing a magnificent new universe in which players can immerse themselves in endless adventure."

Already in place is a high-caliber team from the games, media, and Internet industries. We have worked on, developed, and shipped over 100 original titles, including such bestsellers and hit series as Heroes, Might and Magic, EverQuest, World of Warcraft, City of Heroes, Lineage, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Pogo, and Sims. Utilizing our proprietary core technologies, we're hard at work on our first titles to be released in North America, Europe, and Asia.

What the fuck. Where are these people nobody has ever heard of getting funding? In this economy?

The trailer made me think of WoW only with modern shading and textures. Way to piss away $100 million - making another WoW clone. I saw nothing in that trailer that differentiated it from WoW in any way whatsoever.

Meh.

What the fuck. Where are these people nobody has ever heard of getting funding? In this economy?

Let's be real:  if Vanguard had released completely finished, with all the barrens actually filled in with "stuff" and not looking like a shitstain with glowy pixels, it'd quite possibly be a respectable title (at least for a time).

What the fuck. Where are these people nobody has ever heard of getting funding? In this economy?

Not sure how we got from a short video showing some landscapes, to "Vanguard".

Just making Fantasy comparisons, that's how.  It has nothing to do with anything more specific than that.
It was just to point out the void that still exists for a quality western-style AAA high fantasy game; even done DIKU style.

How long is awhile?

Not sure how we got from a short video showing some landscapes, to "Vanguard".

is this New Coke^TM?

I dont mind the game looking like WoW w/perdy graphics as long as it's truly high Fantasy and has mechanics that work and are fun.  WoW is not high fantasy and as we know (even with all its success) is quite a joke of a game mechanically.

Huh?

The heck? How is anyone except people asleep for the last five years not going to look at that and say Unknown IP + Unknown company + carboncopylook = << WoW? And they got how much in investment?

The game looks fine, but the trailer showed the same games we've been playing for ten years, when the last four of them have been dominated by the one title that still has too many competitive advantages.

Are they trying for a strong China play hoping that the new WoW operators bork it enough to chase people into a new almost-but-not-exactly-like WoW?

I guess it has something to do with the length of time it takes to make MMOs. When they start, and make a look, its "original", by the time it comes out, or starts to see the light of day again....there have already been 5 others that came and went.

Just a theory.

What are you "huhhing" for?  Did that statement go over your head?  If you disagree, say why...

-DLRiley+clownshoes

But but, does it have twitch!

(and I'm semi-serious. If it's just hotkey button mashing against a GCD, worse off for them).

They started making this 23 months after WoW broke every record there was. Your hypothesis would be more a propos for AoC... or Duke Nukem Forever before it died :-)

The heck? How is anyone except people asleep for the last five years not going to look at that and say Unknown IP + Unknown company + carboncopylook = << WoW? And they got how much in investment?

The game looks fine, but the trailer showed the same games we've been playing for ten years, when the last four of them have been dominated by the one title that still has too many competitive advantages.

What are you "huhhing" for?  Did that statement go over your head?  If you disagree, say why...

The part about "joke of a game mechanically".

I don't get the drift…

Ahh... well, do you honestly think WoW is a mechanically deep game?  It's not.  It was designed to be simple (yet deep enough, but not too deep) so it could appeal to the masses, hence its success.  The combat engine, the race structure, skill structure, stats and all their usages are extremely simple.  Also, the game in reality doesnt really offer a whole lot aside from polished gameplay (which I guess in today's world is a lot).  And depthwise Warcraft has never really been the cat's meow either.

Simply a simple game done right.  Nothing more.  Hence, it's a joke mechanically.  Most 1-person devved indy MUDs offer more depth and complexity than WoW for god's sake.

I think you're assuming way to much.

Carboncopylook?

You hate DIKU too much.  I like DIKU, I see no problem.

But so far their entire positioning is WoW with graphics++ it seems. Here's hoping for the secret sauce.

Would you jump on a new MMO just because it had a diku foundation?

“With Heroes of Telara™, Trion proudly presents the first in a series of revolutionary video games on the Trion platform,” said Lars Buttler, CEO of Trion. “Trion is showcasing what server-based gaming can really give us: fun, beautiful, fully dynamic, massively social, ‘live’ video games.”

With server-based gaming, Heroes of Telara™ can trigger extraordinary events challenging the player to overcome obstacles and embrace the role of hero. Using a unique class system that allows the players to play every character class in the game and choose a class specialty, or “subclass,” the hero will be well equipped to overcome these challenges. Combining this with an easy-to-learn combat system, players will be prepared to stand against the most powerful foes and hordes of enemies.

This isn't one of those "Everything is streamed from the server (including visuals)" things is it?

Play with Anyone
Experience the world and share your journeys with players of all levels. Your destiny is in your hands.
   
Master Every Skill
Train in every profession and engage in any crafting activity. Use the dynamic class system to specialize in prestigious class abilities.

So this makes what...

Copernicus, The Secret World, Warhammer 40k, World of Darkness, TOR, and this guy launching within (ballpark guess) 18 months of each other or so? It's gonna be a fucking madhouse come 2011 - 2012.

Except half of those will most likely be pushed back or canceled.

Except half of those will most likely be pushed back or canceled.

This literally looks like Everquest 2 again.

A few days ago, a trailer for the upcoming fantasy MMORPG “Heroes of Telara” was released, revealing its existence to the world. (Even though those of us attending E3 have already had emails about it for a few weeks.) After watching the trailer, a lot of gamers (myself included) came away thinking, “Looks good, but just another fantasy MMORPG.” After seeing the game in action and actually learning about its feature, it's definitely going to be something to keep an eye on; and, right now, it might even be the most promising upcoming MMORPG of 2010.

As we gathered from the trailer, “Heroes of Telara” fits into the fantasy category. However, it's what Trion classifies as “stylized but realistic fantasy.” In other words, it may look like there are magical forests and magic throughout the land, but it also has a realistic styling to it, counter to most fantasy MMOs where players play giant dancing bulls and miniature cat-like martial artists.

The art as a whole looked great – especially for what is likely an early build – but the most promising features of the game are its truly unique aspects, including the technology behind it.

Trion's biggest boast is the technology powering their game(s). While most MMORPGs and MMOs utilize client-based gaming, with most of the content on the side of the client requiring large patches (or patches in general) when content is changed, “Heroes of Telara” is going to be a server-based MMORPG. What this means is that the developers can add new content such as quests, events, new monsters, etc. and have them happen on the fly, without players having to prepare with a patch.

In addition, the server load is going to work in a much different way than MMOs on the market. In most MMORPGs, server processing power is broken up by geographic aspects. So if 200 people are fighting a monster in an area, the area will lag. But in “Heroes of Telara,” if 200 people are fighting a monster, the game will pull some of the processing power from something not being used (like crafting or NPC movement) and throw it behind combat, to help combat lag.

So sure, the technology behind the game sounds great. But what about the game itself? Granted I only saw a brief playing session, but some of the features in this MMORPG are basically an answer to things every longtime MMORPG player have wanted.

First and foremost, there's no longer a need for alts. Once you create your character, if you head into a town you can change your class. Each class levels independently – they're just all tied to the same character. So if your friend is a mage and you're a mage, you can switch over to warrior, and not have to log out or switch characters.

Not only can you switch classes, but the game features a system known as the “subclass card system.” Basically, monsters and quests will drop subclass cards. Using one of these cards will change your character's subclass, giving you new unique abilities further customizing your class. Some of them shown include Berserker, which turned a warrior into an offensive area-based fighter; and a “gravelord,” which allowed the player to summon skeletons and shoot bolts of demonic energy.

Being able to switch both your class and subclass for your situation is a huge part of the game's strategy. Whenever you're playing, quests and heroic events (as well as larger multiple player/regional events) will start up on the fly. The one shown in the demo involved the town of “Smith's Haven” being attacked by imps. The result? The town burned down. After killing imps, a major demon appeared. The berserker warrior tried to attack the demon, but the demon had a point blank knockback that wouldn't let a warrior within range. So after switching to the gravelord subclass, he could send in skeleton servants, and cast ranged attacks until he was weak enough to finish him off by switching back to berserker and using a lunge attack. After the demon's death, the event was complete, the town rejuvenated, and a huge crowd of players raucously cheered the successful hero while confetti rained down from windows and roofs of buildings above.

So will the game turn out as great as they're making it out to be? It's still too early to tell, and it's never good to base everything off of a single staged demo. Right now, though, it's shaping up to be the most promising MMORPG of 2010. Now we'll just have to see if it can keep that title, especially with a few days of E3 left to go.

I like being able to switch classes.  But how in the hell are they going to run a game like this on server side only?  Those graphics look good, I just don't see how thats possible.

As we gathered from the trailer, “Heroes of Telara” fits into the fantasy category. However, it's what Trion classifies as “stylized but realistic fantasy.” In other words, it may look like there are magical forests and magic throughout the land, but it also has a realistic styling to it, counter to most fantasy MMOs where players play giant dancing bulls and miniature cat-like martial artists.

In addition, the server load is going to work in a much different way than MMOs on the market. In most MMORPGs, server processing power is broken up by geographic aspects. So if 200 people are fighting a monster in an area, the area will lag. But in “Heroes of Telara,” if 200 people are fighting a monster, the game will pull some of the processing power from something not being used (like crafting or NPC movement) and throw it behind combat, to help combat lag.

After killing imps, a major demon appeared. The berserker warrior tried to attack the demon, but the demon had a point blank knockback that wouldn't let a warrior within range. So after switching to the gravelord subclass, he could send in skeleton servants, and cast ranged attacks until he was weak enough to finish him off by switching back to berserker and using a lunge attack. After the demon's death, the event was complete, the town rejuvenated, and a huge crowd of players raucously cheered the successful hero while confetti rained down from windows and roofs of buildings above.

For many years, the only thing anyone knew about Trion Worlds was that they had raised a lot of money. At E3 2009, the company finally revealed their first major MMO project, an epic fantasy game called Heroes of Talara.

“At its heart, Heroes of Talara is about making heroes,” said Chris Mancil, the game’s Director of Community Management.

It’s a line many games have used, but Trion has a new idea on how to achieve it. On top of regular MMO quests, one core feature of the game is dynamic quests where players should have a chance to change the world and get recognition for it.

For example, in the demonstration they presented, imps and demons began to attack a town that the character had just left. There, was essentially a giant quest open to everyone in the area, regardless of level. There were groups of imps and they had lit the town on fire. The quest was not instanced at all and the town was significantly different. On the fly, Trion was able to swap out the buildings for ruined, burning structures without so much as a loading screen.

Both lower and higher level characters could contribute to the quest in their own way. Even if a character was brand new, they could help out through fire fighting while higher level players tried to take down the demonic invaders.

Eventually, once enough demons were killed, a giant demon appeared. Whoever killed it (or did the most damage) gets recognition across the server as a Hero of Talara.

Once the demon had been taken down, immediately fireworks began to go off and the townspeople returned to the city to cheer their new hero. The fires were out, the buildings restored to their former glory, ready for another day. However, while the snap was sudden, Mancil did point out that had no one saved the village, it would have been destroyed, which could unveil a new line of quests, just as its rescue could.

While the version we saw was abbreviated, Mancil said that the eventual goal is to make this style of content accessible to hundreds of players simultaneously and that even the players who do not necessarily kill the demon get some kind of recognition for their contribution.

These kinds of quests happen in three ways. They’re not live events, in that GMs would need to enter the world and play the demon. Instead, they can either be triggered through a timer, a trigger in the world or the random decisions of the Trion team.

“Every time you login, something is new,” explained Mancil. They want to create a world that goes beyond the regular day-to-day MMO experience and encourages players to react and take on world altering events.

They also are giving the players a lot of flexibility in how they approach these events. Rather than make new characters each time someone wants to try a new class, a single character is capable of being any of the game’s traditional fantasy RPG classes. At any point while in town, they can simply swap with the click of the button. Each class, though, has its own level. It’s not as if players can jump from level 50 Cleric to Level 50 Rogue, even if they had not levelled up that far as a Rogue. They need to level each individually. During the swap, they also automatically change gear, although exactly what happens with inventories between classes is not yet decided.

On top of this, the game focuses heavily on subclasses. The best loot in the game is subclass cards. These can be employed on the fly, regardless of time or location to alter the core of the class to suit the group or encounter at hand. For example, a Warrior is generally more of a tank type, but when alone, he can turn himself into a Berserker to fight multiple monsters at once. Then, later on, when fighting the epic demon, he changed into a Summoner type to bring in multiple skeletons after it became apparent that melee wasn’t going to cut it.

The theme of heroism returns in the way combat happens in Talara. There are two major differences from the average MMO. First, the NPCs are rarely if never wandering around aimlessly, waiting to be killed. They have their own goals and motivations. Players tend to find bandits skirmishing with guards, not sitting around a camp fire. The second is that as each player wants to be a hero, they better damn well fight like it. The combat is one vs. many, as players take on many monsters at a time. In our demonstration, the warrior would knock back multiple enemies with a giant, stylized staff. Beyond this, though, the combat is intended to be very familiar to fans of MMOs. It uses special abilities and hotbars.

Artistically, the game makes a lot of nice strides forward. Humanoid enemies have expressions on their faces that actually change. No longer do they look like wax figures as they blindly smack players. The game’s artistic style is stylized, but “realistically rendered.” The effect is a very detailed, high-fantasy world that looks full of life. When they say stylized, they don’t mean cartoony or World of Warcraft. This is a much gritter artistic vision.

The game also has a very deep draw distance for scenery on the horizon, all of which is able to be explored. When something is visible over the hill, players can actually walk there. For example, they showed us another zone, which seemed to have its own theme, but was only distantly visible.

Trion is also very proud of their server technology, which enables them to do things like swap out entire towns for burning ones on the fly. It also has dynamic load distribution, which means that if one player is in one are and 100 are in another, their servers will react and provide the area with 100 players more processing power, which should improve their performance.

Heroes of Talara is scheduled to enter Beta testing very soon and Trion hopes to launch it in 2010.

Subclass cards are loot.  I kinda dig it.

Subclass cards are loot.  I kinda dig it.

From what I hear, their "revolutionary intelligent resource sharing server" is all HP/windows/SQL server/.NET. I can't think of any other MMOs with MS stack backends. Flat files, linux, oracle, and MySQL are all pretty common, but not windows. Is this a first?

stuff

“Every time you login, something is new,” explained Mancil. They want to create a world that goes beyond the regular day-to-day MMO experience and encourages players to react and take on world altering events.

If this is legit, I will play this game.  Of course, I'm not holding my breath.

Even if it fails as an experiment, I'd really like to see someone attempt a dynamic, changing world.  Seasonal changes, political changes, environmental changes.  I know it's tough.  But it's got to be tried. 

Seasonal changes

"The class system and dynamic events, on the other hand, are intriguing as hell, recalling the job system of Final Fantasy XI, only without the pain-in-the-assery of having to trek back to your house to switch professions. It should make both grouping and soloing a less time intensive process"

Any media that shows dudes and/or ladies running around with giant polearms makes me irrationally giggly. If they made a World of Polearms Online Forever, I would be the happiest little boy.

Yeah, I dunno. We'll see if they can pull off these bold claims.

Did I mis it or has Bill Trost really not come up yet?

Not just some guy. It's Scott Motherfucking Hartsman.

From what I hear, their "revolutionary intelligent resource sharing server" is all HP/windows/SQL server/.NET. I can't think of any other MMOs with MS stack backends. Flat files, linux, oracle, and MySQL are all pretty common, but not windows. Is this a first?

Not just some guy. It's Scott Motherfucking Hartsman.

"Dynamic Content" looks like randomly spawning Public Quests.

He also mentions that fauna reacts to alien fauna coming out of the rift by running away. This implied a VW interactivity that then seemed a bit contradicted by watching the horrible MMO mechanic of 9 mobs stood still next to a player killing one of their mates.

Rifts was an awesome game. (Your link is messed up by the way)

Damn straight, Wormwood was host to many a gaming night for our guys. No M.D.C. / S.D.C. discussions permitted however.

(http://www.palladiumbooks.com/Merchant2/catalog/images/809.jpg)

The noise about dynamic content has me interested, in sort of a "yeah let's see if that still exists by beta" way. All it needs now is a famous athlete to come here and post some empty bullshit so a bunch of starfuckers will blow this thread up to 50 pages while spewing nonsense and calling him by his first name.  :why_so_serious:

Good eye.  Aggro was turned off for the demos.  (Easier to stop to go into detail on whatever you're being asked.)

I've trained myself pretty thoroughly in those by not paying attention. :)

By the way commiserations on the end of your F13 celebrity. One page you've got Schild raving about you next page WUP is lamenting your company doesn't have Michael Jordan on the dev team. I'm sure it was nice while it lasted.

Mildly interested, need to know about pvp before i really give it a serious look though.

they're doing a RTS (End of Nations)

Thanks for clarifying that Scott.

That's very interesting. If a player walks into a field of mobs and they don't all just stand there but aggressively support each other are we heading back to the EQ paradigm of needing a group to grind optimally? Does it also bring back the dreaded train to zone?

Most interesting bit of the video was the final 30 seconds, where Hartsman talked about how they are using console-experienced artists who know that if they go over budget their game typically won't ship. That kind of discipline needs to be standard for MMOs if they are going to progress forward.

"massively social gameplay"

That there is a very insightful phrase Mr. Hartsman. Hats off. :)

I'm going to steal it and abuse it heavily.  :grin:

mechanics that net out to "more players arrive = cool!"

But isn't Hartsman the exact opposite of Dr. Demento in terms of game developer status?

Haha - Hey, Craig :) 

Thanks, but I can claim close to zero credit for that one.  It may have even been Lars I heard it from first. 

I liked it a lot too.  It really is a concise way to describe collections of mechanics that net out to "more players arrive = cool!"

I didn't see anything in their website's video that screamed new and interesting to me. Just some flythroughs showing it was remarkably similar to a DIKU (NPCs / Mobs standing in one place, zones, fighting big monsters).

Very interesting post by Raph Koster talking about dynamic POIs in Star Wars: Galaxies, mentioning Heroes of Telara as the modern form of it.

http://www.raphkoster.com/2010/04/30/dynamic-pois/

I do hope a lot of emphasis is put on improving the standard and very generic MMO combat formula. It would be disappointing to see the core of the game play exactly like any other MMO

Right off the bat players will notice that Rift is indeed a traditional MMORPG in terms of interface and mechanics. We didn't get to see much in the way of different menus and that sort of functionality, but the game does employ the standard highlight and hot-bar mechanics that have become a staple of the industry.

We start to butt our heads against the dynamics of what "truly dynamic" is. The wandering monsters table from Dungeons and Dragons is dynamic, at least compared to static spawns.

...

 That also teaches an important lesson - dynamic events need to dominate - if players value doing their farm raids over your event they'll resent your event. Maybe if you don't get your butts out of Naxx and defend the banks you'll lose your stuff or something.

...

Another way would be classifying wandering encounters as one-off and repeatable and recording in each player character's dataset whether they've met a one-off encounter.

I think manually doing it is rather defeating the object of using computers to run games.

Where are the scantily clothed babes?

And it's almost like "what's the point" of making a completely server-based game, when essentially you're still scripting complex events.  To me, if you're gonna ride the rocketship Dynamic, you have to have the human element involved.  Dont half-ass it with fancy code that people will still chew up and spit out and can be represented in your typical client-side single player RPG.

And you might THINK it's easier to satisfy people with a scripted "reliable experience," but tell that to the game studios, especially MMO devs.  They'd beg to differ given the current state of the genre.

Developers can't trust GMs to manage game content, nor would they want to.

Just a thought: what Trion mean by "dynamic" may have nothing to do with what Raph means by dynamic or expects Heroes of Telara to achieve. And I'll eat my hat if they what mean has something to do with moderating by hand. 

Second thought: it's pretty healthy that Raph drives engineers like Musashi and Brandon a little nuts. He's the ideas man, the visionary. Good ones should challenge the practical people.

Maybe dynamic content just means it moves around a lot so it's always in a different place.

Don't mix up dynamic and random.

That, I believe, is the Achilles' heel of "dynamic" game worlds. You can't make systems take outside factors into account unless the players can make a logical connection between cause and effect. If players fail to do so they'll feel frustration, helplessness and in the end quit since they apparently just don't get the game.

Very good point Tarami, yet doesn't that logic lead inescapably to just re-inventing WoW? (Players know what to expect, are comfortable).

It would depend on what the random factors influence.

A seemingly random encounter?  Not so much as long as it's fun and rewarding.  SWG's resources were completely random.  That wasn't a source of frustration but a game unto itself.  (Well, if there was never a good resource available, but that could be weighted to fix that.)  If users expect one event to lead to another, because that's how the game works, then surprises won't be so off-putting.

If it's a system where abstract concepts lead to odd results players cannot directly see, such as WAR's Realm control?  Then it's utter frustration.  It doesn't have to be that way.

The better question is, "why do players even NEED to make a connection between cause and effect?"  In what manual does it say you have to pamper your players to the point they need to understand the how's and why's of every little thing that happens in a game?   Leave that shite for the static world min-maxers.  It's by no means a given.

I logged in for the first time. I was asked to go find a tree. Apparently there wasn't a tree for several square miles. I stopped right about there.

I'm going to be a bit blunt here: I'm willing to bet money that the thought of dynamic (as in player-influenced) content is so tantalizing to people because of how it would enable them to affect the world and how it would let them influence other people by playng the game well and that it has very little to do with how other people can affect them. At its core it's about the acquisition and display of status.

Wow's approach is, to my mind, optimal. Automate the events so you can have complex behaviours (Lich king attacking Orgrimmar!) or emergent behaviour (Zombie infestation!) that a human GM would not be able to replicate.

Fail. I can't take the rest of it seriously after that. Pile on the false dichotomy between "robotic soul-suckingly static game" and "bizzare hellworld that catasses can exploit to unplayability" and I can't even work up the interest to post a lengthy response.

To go back to the original argument - in the Wurm thread, this was posted:
This is an example of a reaction when an effect can be observed, but its cause cannot. MrBloodworth explained that this was because the newbie area is heavily farmed, since all new players get that task. The tangential reason is that the world dynamic in the sense that it is influenced by player actions. Making for example the trees grow back faster if the area is more heavily farmed is actually going to make the world less dynamic, as the individual experiences will more strictly conform to a static design (the task is supposed to take yay effort to complete.)

An apparent example. In a generic DIKU, there's a heritage mechanism for instance bosses that does so that every time a boss is killed, it will be replaced by a slightly more powerful mob that drops slightly better loot. Are new or sporadic players going to be able to beat this new and improved boss, six months down the line? The answer is most likely no. More dedicated players have dictated how the game is supposed to be played and at the same time taken some of this power out of the hands of the developers.

Wow's approach is, to my mind, optimal. [...]

On what Heroes of Telara dynamic content will be? The version they actually implement will be PQ's that aren't always available. I'd put money on it. And then some clever person is going to wonder why content that hides itself is a good thing. Unless your game has excess content and can afford to sacrifice some base-line content in this fashion.

No, they have them all the time. It's "Children's week" at the moment. That's the advantage of the approach, seasonal events for zero cost once implemented. Sure, they could do more with it or evolve it faster... but it's probably not a high priority.

Have a new player plant a tree before they cut one down?

Crossed my mind. Other things preclude that happening though, like where the sprout comes from and, we get a new player about ever 5-15 minutes. Sometimes whole groups of 30.

Sorry, I was posting to illustrate that balancing "static" things VS. dynamic (and by dynamic, we really mean you can screw yourself, not with out recourse though)

Doubt it not though, HoT is basically "Rifts: Online."

I wonder if this thread in any way prompted the lawsuit.  F13 is a fairly visible entity on the web.

Are you seeing something I'm not?  Because the only media I've seen for this game looks nothing like Rifts, at least as I remember it.  Rifts RPG was a sci-fi post apoc thing, an "everything and the kitchen sink" mishmash of magic and giant robots and psychics and aliens and powered armor.  I'm not seeing anything in Heroes of Telara that isn't standard fantasy.  Their classes look like warrior, rogue, mage, etc.  their announced races are Elf and Humans with pretentious, unpronounceable names.  They don't even use guns, as far as I can see.  Is there more out there that I haven't seen yet?

Do you agree that both products would mutually benefit by parsing off eachother?  Or am I the only fool to think this.   :oh_i_see:

In essence, this lawsuit should actually be to FORCE Trion to add the "s" onto Rift (making it Rifts), not to make them change the name entirely.  This way everyone wins.

It's the opposite. It's Rift not Rifts because it's a real stretch to claim all variations of the word especially since there's a pre-existing fantasy literature IP called the Riftwar Saga.

You're right in the sense the core books started in that genre.  But the entire "multiverse" encompasses pretty much everything, including Fantasy.  All of these "planescapish" games start with a basic lore template and then pretty much branch out to everywhere from there.  Trion's game simply starts Fantasy, but since it's server-side and their design is "planescapish" there's really nothing preventing them from branching out like all the others do.

The above statements are retarded. You should tell that to who ever told you such things.

Licensed properties

Palladium Books has licensed some of their intellectual properties to third-party developers. In 2000, Palladium's flagship line Rifts was licensed to the now defunct Precedence Entertainment for a collectible card game. In 2004 Rifts was licensed to create the Rifts: Promise of Power video game for the failed Nokia N-Gage gaming platform. Only one licensed role-playing game book has ever appeared using the Palladium engine, Rifts: Manhunter.

As of 2004, Palladium Books optioned the Rifts film rights to Walt Disney Pictures. Jerry Bruckheimer Films is said to be developing the movie in conjunction with scriptwriter David Franzoni. As of 2006, there is no information regarding the movie available on IMDB. An April 19, 2006 press release [3] by Kevin Siembieda stated that "until Jerry Bruckheimer has a script he loves, the movie can’t get the green light." In the January 15, 2007 press release [4] it was stated that the movie option has been extended one year.

Financial troubles and the "Crisis of Treachery"

On April 19, 2006, Kevin Siembieda published a press release[5] stating Palladium Books' critical financial difficulties due to embezzlement and theft resulting in $850,000 to $1.3 million in damages[6] coupled with a series of delays in licensing their properties for other media (the N-Gage game, the still in-development Jerry Bruckheimer movie, a MMOG license, and other potential deals). They raised money to continue operations by selling a signed and numbered (but not, strictly speaking, a "limited edition") art print by Kevin Siembieda, as well as urging fans to buy directly from their online store if their financial situation allows for it.

An April 26, 2006 article[7] in the Kingsport, TN Times-News, revealed that Steve Sheiring, Palladium's former sales manager, had been sentenced in a plea bargain to a misdemeanor conviction, one year of probation and ordered to pay $47,080 in restitution to Palladium Books in connection with these thefts. It also provided more information about the thefts, which took place from 2002 to 2004 and were only discovered when Palladium took inventory.

Responding to the controversy engendered by such a low settlement amount in relation to the large loss figure claimed in his earlier press release, Kevin Siembieda posted an open letter[8] to the Palladium forum explaining the matter. Siembieda stated that he had not wanted to make public Sheiring's identity out of the fear that overzealous fans might get into trouble by committing acts of reprisal. He explained that the heaviest punishment Sheiring had been likely to receive even without the plea bargain was probation. Siembieda had a choice between getting any amount of settlement money at all to pay critical bills, or spending more time and money to attempt to get his "pound of flesh" from a man who was reportedly broke anyway. Given the urgency of Palladium's situation, Siembieda did not feel he had any real choice but to take what little he could get.

During the week of May 7, 2007, Palladium announced that revenues from increased sales of its books, its Open House and the art print sales had covered most of the immediate-term damages incurred by Palladium. The period of financial instability became referred to by Siembieda as the "Crisis of Treachery", in keeping with his stance that the root cause of the difficulties was the embezzlement engaged in by Sheiring.

Gamesradio: What is the progress of the Rifts® MMORPG?

Kevin Siembieda: I'm afraid right now it is stalled. Every time we think we have found a company that can do the job, something happens to kill the deal. The company goes out of business, fails to get the necessary financing, or experiences other problems that put an end to our hopes for a Rifts® online game. We're still looking for an established electronic game company who can make this dream a reality, but right now we are stalled. A pity, because we think Rifts® is the perfect vehicle for an epic and endless MMORPG with unlimited possibilities.

The above statements are retarded. You should tell that to who ever told you such things.

Rifts is a ADND1 based ruleset that never streamlined, it has super damage weapons and armor, hella percentile checks and basically the books are a fucking mess. 

Not exactly a Second Edition, because most of the rules remain unchanged, ...

From your link:I like the possibilities the setting allows given a good GM and group, but Hoax' assessment really isn't far off the mark.

Story > Rules.

The attempting to be neutral wiki article says the same as well.  Don't worry though Bloodworth has no need for objective assessment after all he's a Rifts GM arguing with me that he understands what people who don't play Rifts think of it.  In typical Bloodworth fashion he seems incapable of remembering what he was responding to after he's typed 5 words of a reply so he just says stuff that is somewhat related, maybe, sort of, dim the lights and squint at his posts and it might make some kind of sense.

Nobody is saying Rifts sucks and DND games that play like a wankfest version of pnp Diablo are cool dude.  Thats not even what we're talking about.  Rifts is just a fringe neckbeard extra complex the way old school PnP'ers like it game system that nobody cares about and sure as fuck shouldn't be suing anybody because they are using the word Rift because it makes them look stupid.  That's what we're talking about.

... which pretty much leaves it up to an argument over which rule set works best for your story. If you want your story to have dino-mechs fighting magic Terminators from the year 3125 on an abandoned space station circling a singularity that, if activated, will destroy all time, magik and space, then yes, Rifts is for you.

That said: Rifts is a rules mess at its base, especially when you take in the expansion books. You can use homebrew rulings to fix things, but that doesn't mean Rifts is a balanced RPG system.

if you run games that are based on role playing, character, and setting, its a fucking gold mine.

Rifts is bad and if you like Rifts you are a bad person. Mr. Bloodworth.

http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/109/1096726p1.html

Souls and other stuff.

The whole rift thing sounds lot like a modified version of Warhammer's public quests.

http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/109/1096726p1.html

Souls and other stuff.

Which was not a bad idea in itself.  The only problem with Warhammers public quests is that they vastly overoptimistic about their own popularity so you had three different public quests per single quest hub X three quest hubs per zone X three zone pairings per tier.  So just between levels 1-10 there was 54 different public quests, all of them almost deserted.  If it had been  ONE big public quest at the end of each zone that sorta tied everything together instead that would have worked out a lot better.

Which was not a bad idea in itself.  The only problem with Warhammers public quests is that they vastly overoptimistic about their own popularity so you had three different public quests per single quest hub X three quest hubs per zone X three zone pairings per tier.  So just between levels 1-10 there was 54 different public quests, all of them almost deserted.  If it had been  ONE big public quest at the end of each zone that sorta tied everything together instead that would have worked out a lot better.

The "death zone" was something Funcom came up with in the original AoC design.  You were supposed to fight your way out of Hades everytime you died, but they eventually did away with that for some reason. 

Ghambit whining about a game he isn't a pre-launch fanboy of.  Nothing new there.

You were supposed to fight your way out of Hades everytime you died, but they eventually did away with that for some reason.  Anyways, nothing new there either.

If they're smart they'll make the death-zone some kind of social area with housing perhaps.  Buy mats (at horribly expensive prices), change armor, laugh at other dead people, etc.

Players will begin life in the Shadowlands. Not to be confused with the titular location of a certain Anarchy Online expansion, the Shadowlands is sort of a place between life and death in the Rift universe. Players are all former heroes of a past war that rocked the world, and begin as what the team refers to as "Ascended Souls", a Telaran slain during the great Shade War and resurrected to combat the forces of Regulos. As one of the Ascended, players have access and the ability to commune with the souls of Telara's many fallen heroes. Basically this serves as the lore reasoning behind death and the multi-classing system.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-2010-rift-planes/700767

Gameplay demo.

The dungeon looks awesome.

I recognized it as DIKU right away.  I like DIKU though.

I don't think most vets despise the Diku as much as they let on at times.

No.

Hey, I can play DIKU, I can even enjoy myself with it. But man, I really want someone to do SOMETHING-THE-FUCK-ELSE. DIKU has been done, well done, overdone and badly done. It's time for some new shit to bitch about, but MMOG's keep serving us the same old shit with the same old problems and the same old inherent flaws and telling us it's the NEXT GENERATION OF MMOGS. No, assgobllin, if it's DIKU, it's not, it's the same first generation shit we've been playing since EQ.

Oh that's a good post.

Can we just agree that DIKU has been used in very horribly boring ways in MMOG's and move the fuck on?

I've given up on hating DIKU at this point I just hate auto attack + hotkey combat and refuse to fuck with games that have it unless they are incredibly compelling in some other way.

No. D&D is not DIKU. What you're describing is essentially nothing.

You're just removing all the traditional attributes of a DIKU-derivative and calling me stupid for not thinking PnP games are DIKU. They are not, have never been. They just share some aspects.

Can we just agree that DIKU has been used in very horribly boring ways in MMOG's and move the fuck on?

Would button mashing "active/directional/real time" combat based on EQ/UO derivatives be more fun? Err AoC, FE, DF, TR, TCoSB, say your wrong.

All these mechanics are merely tools; you either fuck up with the tool or you dont.

Thank Cthulhu.

The trinity goes all the way back to MUDs.  Tanks, DPS, Healers (not much CC in the MUD days).

I wouldn't say RIFT is borrowing heavily from WOW, but more furthering the genre (I hope).  From SojourMUD to EQ to WOW to whatever is next.  Everyone had the trinity concept in some fashion.  New comers will see it as a WOW clone, I'll see it as an amazing progression from the MUD I first started playing in 1994.

Yes the combat would be more fun. Double super infinity more fun when it comes to pvp.

Was the combat in Darkfall or Spellborn less fun by virtue of them being half assed shit games or because the combat mechanics were inferior? Seriously your point is WoW is a better game than everything else including everything else that has had some other form of combat mechanics and therefore auto attack is the best combat system?

Piss right the fuck off.

Rift looks interesting in its evolution of the PQ - making it random, making it player influenced - and some of the classes look interesting, but it isn't reshaping the genre wholesale. With any luck it will be polished enough and fun at launch.

Anyone who expects more than this is kidding themselves.

A random heroic dungeon in WoW: 1 tank, 1 healer, 3 DPS; the epitome of the Holy Trinity and DIKU?

Except Blizzard could make a few changes:

* Prevent mobs from landing critical strikes
* Scale mob damage based on the target's armor type (cloth<leather<mail<plate)
* Add a computer-controller mercenary that heals whoever has the lowest health.

Suddenly you're looking at a random heroic dungeon with 4 DPS, and the funny thing is, for the vast majority of the player-base the experience would be exactly the same. Mobs would still be running all over the place, but this time by design. So no longer a DIKU?

The trinity goes all the way back to MUDs.  Tanks, DPS, Healers (not much CC in the MUD days).

Is this some kind of tangential troll? When people say DIKU they are shortening the term DIKUMUD.

No shit, the trinity goes back to MUDs. That's what this entire page is about!

I'm a DIKU hater, but that's due to burnout and knowing the limitations of the game within a few minutes of playing it. Hell, I'm not even really that interested in games that have the basic mechanic of "targeting mobs". Much less tanking/healing.

It really doesn't work all that well.

A random heroic dungeon in WoW: 1 tank, 1 healer, 3 DPS; the epitome of the Holy Trinity and DIKU?

Except Blizzard could make a few changes:

* Prevent mobs from landing critical strikes
* Scale mob damage based on the target's armor type (cloth<leather<mail<plate)
* Add a computer-controller mercenary that heals whoever has the lowest health.

Suddenly you're looking at a random heroic dungeon with 4 DPS, and the funny thing is, for the vast majority of the player-base the experience would be exactly the same. Mobs would still be running all over the place, but this time by design. So no longer a DIKU?

I'm not saying that the Holy Trinity is worse, I'm saying that when it comes to the Looking-For-Dungeon-tool, Blizzard could get rid of the trinity and apart from boss battles the vast majority of the player-base might not even notice.

Seriously, during the ~10 years I played PnP RPGs from all kinds of genres, I never once came across anyone suggesting they would "tank" a monster or anything as nonsensically mechanical. It may exist as a concept in some RPGs, but it's never-ever required, unlike online games.

I mean, if I GM'ed a group and the warrior said "I taunt the orc!" without verbally doing so in an appropriate language, I'd laugh and have the orc kick the rogue in the nuts. Threat just doesn't make sense in a PnP RPG in my opinion, because you have someone actually playing the monsters. It makes sense to have someone strong and/or tough but that's just a group flexibility consideration, not a mechanical one.

That and PnP is an obviously much more controlled environment. 

Wait, what? I need to pay more attention to the mmo forum.

"We fully expect that people will discover new and exciting things that never occurred to us, and that's ok... that's part of the fun.  We're not trying to overbalance everything and make everyone feel exactly the same."

the Saboteur (a class that specializes in sneaking up to five bombs onto a target, then detonating them - preferably when the mob is appropriately loaded down with de-buffs).

Also, details about classes have been linked or explained by Scott in blog comments (Keen and Graev, Game by Night, probably a few others) all over the place.

Hey.  Happy to drop some authoritative answers:

Rift, Invasion, Defense and other overland events are not instanced. It may look like it from the videos, but, no — It’s a seamless world that dynamically changes and responds to what’s going on in it. The events can also alter the existing world population in interesting ways.

The events themselves are public, in that people’s contribution determines their reward via an implicit grouping system that keeps track of everyone who participates in any given event.

On the classes/souls: You choose your Calling (think: archetype) when you start, and the first soul (think: class) inside of that calling. That’s your soul. You can obtain the rest of the souls appropriate for your calling over time.

e.g. A warrior who started out as an Reaver, could collect a Champion soul later on, and then a Beastmaster soul, and then a Paladin soul, and so on.

As you level up, you’re able to control more souls at a at once – You start out being able to only have one Soul active, and eventually you can control and spend points in three at a time.

At the most, that high level warrior could then have three souls “loaded” into a role (think: spec) and spend points the way they chose across all three.

So, I could have a tanking role that spent exclusively in Paladin…and then also have a role where I spent exclusively in Reaver… and then also have a combination Champion/Reaver/Paladin… and then also have a Champion/Beastmaster/Reaver (which is a really good dps combo), and change between those four Roles/specs at will.

We call those Roles, and you can swap between them in the field. currently, the game supports characters having up to 4.)

And then – Yep, that takes place in a world that also has instances (dungeons, raids, etc), quests, and so on.

Hope that makes sense!

- Scott

If you watch the gamescom trailer you'll get a quick look at a fire rift.   :grin:

If anyone is interested I run an official fansite.

http://www.riftjunkies.com

Okay, that write up has me wanting this out now.  That said, they better take their time and do this right. 

Not that it'd stop me from buying the game, I'm kinda a dumb ass that way.

Frankly, just the fact that Hartsman posts here and comes off as a reasonable human being drastically ups my chances of buying this game.

Anyone know if more info has been posted about crafting? I haven't been able to find anything new and I realized that is still my only concern for this game as of right now, that I don't want the crafting to resemble EQ2 at all. Sadly, the only things I've seen is that you can have multiple crafting professions and the bit on the faq about how they have some robust system planned.

Massively's hands on:

http://www.massively.com/2010/08/18/massivelys-hands-on-with-rift-planes-of-telaras-dynamic-conte/

Yeah that multiclassing stuff looks wicked! Been on my radar because of Mr. H, but visuals are pretty awesome and the class mechanics look great. Too bad it's an mmo :P

I'm digging the class system presented here, but it seem like it'll be hell to balance.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/gc-10-rift-planes/703481?type=flv

The more i think about it the more it looks like they just separated their version of wow talent trees into different classes.

Class system is nigh-incomprehensible and will utterly mystify anyone who's not already a hardened MMO geek. Lore suffers from way too much "After the Tururrhbjbhsrf Civl War, the forces of Foghdjhsd learned to harness the power of Lowdfihsfhjk!" type stuff. Unless you've taken ten years and three games plus expansions to establish and build up your lore (like you know who) you need to keep that shit simple.

Best one, imo, came from AutomaticZen (http://forums.riftgame.com/showthread.php?3112-Final-PAX-Impressions-Your-Moment-of-Zen). Great job on a solid write up.

I'm interested in how they're planning to balance the multitude of options while building classes. 

I'm not sure if "balance? fuck balance" is the way to go.

I'm not sure if "balance? fuck balance" is the way to go.

Fuck balance, just make it fun.

Honestly?  Balance in a PVE game is nothing more than a cause celeb for whiners to complain about someone else having fun and not playing the game 'right' (i.e. their way).  Fuck balance, just make it fun.

I'm interested in how they're planning to balance the multitude of options while building classes.  

I also am interested in the fact that WoW found their talent trees to be too in-depth with too many filler talents, so they scaled them back.  Yet Telara seems to be embracing those filler talents to flesh out their trees.  The whole concept of 'concentrated cool' seems lost.  

People like my dad who enjoy playing WoW, so slightly less dps than the rest of the party, and don't spend endless hours (or any, for that matter) reading about specs are going to be lost in a min/max world with the amount of options.  

I also am interested in the fact that WoW found their talent trees to be too in-depth with too many filler talents, so they scaled them back.  Yet Telara seems to be embracing those filler talents to flesh out their trees.  The whole concept of 'concentrated cool' seems lost. 

I think Blizzard found they promised the moon, hyped its awesomeness for a year, revealed trees nearly identical to what existed, got flamed for it, then realized redesigning 30 talent trees in a week to live up to their promises is hard.

I'm okay with that, since the only way to make this class system better in my opinion would be to not restrict the mage/cleric/warrior/rogue sub-specs to whichever you picked first.

Gracias, senor.

And, good meeting ya. :)

Edit: Segoris got it.



Threash:
From what has been explained, it's pretty much WOW without Arenas.  PVE/PVP servers and battlegrounds.  Maybe some objectives in the world via rifts for PVP?  The only PVP specifically mentioned is the battlegrounds (warfronts) and of course open world PVP on PVP servers.

I hope this doesn't turn into WAR.

It won't.

Because it's going to be worse.

He wasn't referring to the quality of the game.  :oh_i_see:

A further suggestion would be to participate in threads outside of this one.

Ok, so back to the original statement... in what ways would this game be "worse" than WAR?

Ok, so back to the original statement... in what ways would this game be "worse" than WAR?

FFS. He meant that it would be worse than WAR because it would attract more starfuckers, not because it would be a worse game.

Again, I am sorry if I gave the wrong impression but I do not believe I deserved the name calling or accusations. 

Welcome to Fight Club. If this is your first time, you have to fight.  :why_so_serious:

Relax - the warning is that if all you are here to do is follow around a red name and / or gush heavily over a single title, you probably won't last. Post in a few different conversations, be aware that people on these forums can be old and grumpy and you'll be fine. If you feel strongly about anything around politics and / or religion, stay out of the Politics forum.

The problem is no one knows who you are.  I recommend posting an introduction thread in the General Forums.   :grin:

FFS. He meant that it would be worse than WAR because it would attract more starfuckers, not because it would be a worse game.

I did? I meant the game is going to suck because it's just another poor copy of a copy. Let me try to summarize my reasoning in video.

This is WoW.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPuhmAhM93Q

This is war and rift:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w5l8aaMFKE

...and this is Eve?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh6y_UTp5wI

Welcome to Fight Club. If this is your first time, you have to fight.  :why_so_serious:

Relax - the warning is that if all you are here to do is follow around a red name and / or gush heavily over a single title, you probably won't last. Post in a few different conversations, be aware that people on these forums can be old and grumpy and you'll be fine. If you feel strongly about anything around politics and / or religion, stay out of the Politics forum.

Thanks folks.  I may have over-reacted a bit, was just kinda surprised at some of the posts after mine.  One thing that is easily forgotten when posting on forums is that every forum has its own 'personality' and you have to realize that when you post.  This one seems to have a very interesting personality!  :awesome_for_real:

Anyone have a bear-poking emote?

I did? I meant the game is going to suck because it's just another poor copy of a copy. Let me try to summarize my reasoning in video.

Guys, I am not sure where the venom toward me has come from. 

Welcome to F13. We eat our own young.

I remember when the F13 welcoming committee rolled out the red carpet for me.

(http://coolmusic.no.sapo.pt/private/retard.jpg)

Welcome to F13. We eat our own young.

Welcome to F13. We eat our own young.

It's like FFA PVP in forum form.

This has a bonus on GW2 that means a lot to some people: NCSoft has nothing to do with it.

To me the biggest enemy is simply GW2.

Of course if it requires a supercomputer to run, that'll be undone.

I remember when the F13 welcoming committee rolled out the red carpet for me.

To me the biggest enemy is simply GW2. However interesting a lot of what I see and read about Rifts sounds I know I won't invest in 2 MMO's like this at once.

They both talk about dynamic content (admittedly in slightly different ways, but neither looks a lot more promising than the other atm).
They both have an interesting and somewhat novel metagame going for skills&feats and such.
They both look gorgeous (slight edge to GW2 atm I'd say, but maybe that's just because I've seen more in depth footage of it).

It's like watching Tyson Gay sprint; he's almost inhumanly fast and would win any other day, but Usain Bolt is the guy people came to see.

Unless this launches months before GW2 and I just can't resist scratching my MMO itch any longer, I can't see me choosing this instead.

How about a summary instead :)

... but Scott H seemed to dominate the talking...

Not that I know of, though I don't know about the comic book guys.

Curt Schilling is going to be there though.   :awesome_for_real:

Sorry, I'm wary of shilling for my own site twice in one thread.   :awesome_for_real:

Also, guild beta applications are up (forum thread).

http://forums.riftgame.com/showthread.php?3774-Beta-Guilds

It'd be funny if we could have Hartsman sign us up as Bat Country. ;D

Must resist temptation...  This is the only game that is currently piquing my interest as far as upcoming mmos go.

Guild Name:
Bat Country

Number of active members:
Hard to say. Hundreds? Dozens?

How long has your guild existed?
Since 1999™

What games have you played together?
Collectively everything ever released...and some not.

What is your guild play style (casual, raid, PVP, etc,)?
Chaotic bordering on absurd.

Please link to your guild website if you have one.
forums.f13.net

I think I might take out the web address so fanboi stalkers don't find one of Scott's hidey-holes.  :grin:

edit: I did redact the address.

Please note: it is very important that you make sure your guild members have signed up  for a Trion account (https://account.riftgame.com/en/outside/new_user.html). If your guild is selected, we will only be able to invite those members who are registered with us. So make sure they are all signed up and ready to go!

I think I might take out the web address so fanboi stalkers don't find one of Scott's hidey-holes.  :grin:

edit: I did redact the address.

I've run the EQ2 chapter for years  :why_so_serious:

Not an official association as far as I can tell. Just when they email me (since I posted, neener neener), I can give them a list of the trion forum accounts to send the invites to. That's how I read it, anyway.

I agree with Lantyssa, we're probably pre-banned :P

The official forums make me  :ye_gods: MMO players are nuts.

I think I might take out the web address so fanboi stalkers don't find one of Scott's hidey-holes.  :grin:

edit: I did redact the address.

Is that because you are the only person who has been playing EQ2 for that time frame?

Also, while they've only officially announced a few mage classes on their site, we know there's at least Warlock and a druidy class they can add.  Healing mage?  That's hawt.

It seems like the tradtional armor type (plate/chain/leather/cloth) then type of stats for a given role dynamic will have to be drastically different in this game. Unless of course, each type of item is limited to a single archetype, and the stats all are something like "health, ability damage, brain power" which work on each soul role.

"brain power"

I am so requesting a stat called that on Monday, just to see what people do.

Eek. That's a first warning sign for me. Probably nothing, but I'm wary of stage-managed beta 'events' rather than a 'warts and all' experience. Hopefully there will be a full open beta later.

So if your beta key is flagged VIP you get in to all of them, and otherwise it's just a chance?

If this is a way of booting all the people who never actually test anything and never actually help make the game better its very smart. If its anything else... its probably something bad?

If this is a way of booting all the people who never actually test anything and never actually help make the game better its very smart. If its anything else... its probably something bad?

What do the [G] and such mean?

Defiant and Guardian being the two factions, right?

They are seen, but Trion have said that anything they haven't officially released is not definite at this point, 6 months before release. Though I hope you're right.

I agree with it possibly being a very smart move, but I also worry that the people who get in will just make a lot of noise and not be all that well thought out (similar to the current forums in that manner, typical pre-beta community) to be seen more in hopes of becoming a vip. Additionally, providing enough constructive feedback will be more difficult only being allowed in on a single weekend since that may lead to only specific areas being tested after being transplanted to that level/content (which reminds me of WAR, and that's not good) or this will end up having the best starter area ever as many wouldn't make it past the first few areas in a weekend.

At this point, they still haven't released info on a number of souls and other key functions, which would lead me to believe they may not still be balanced and tested all that well. I'm guessing they're being tested but to what extent if they are still planning on running a pretty restrictive style beta and have less than 6 months until the end of q1 2011 when they plan on releasing (10/1/10's IRC chat just re-confirmed the goal is q1 2011 release). This is making me shift my focus to the developers confidence in this game if there are still a lot of things that can't be released (pvp, crafting, various souls and abilities, macroing and the extent of their functions).

I'm trying to stay positive though, as this is a game I'd really like to see succeed, and hoping this beta ends up being a good move. Of course, this is all dependent on if they are using beta as a test bed and not a promotional move. Also, I do like that Trion is going back to the smaller beta style from pre-wow era (while running under the title of a long alpha, essentially), I think the best way to compliment it would be to give those weekend passes to people and make them available for either a month's worth of weekends, or each weekend that beta lasts while having their core testers test the changes that come about from the weekend feedback during the week. That would give enough people a long enough time to provide positive feedback and give the devs a better idea of who is actually being constructive and who is using it as a trial.

Of course maybe I'm off base on everything, who knows

WAR worked great in beta when everyone was the same level and bunched into the same area. It was only when the game went live and people simply played it for fun that some of the issues became apparent.

Because the first rule of mmo is: People are broken.

I'm willing to sell Sky to Hartsman to get into the "all-the-time" pool.  I hear he's handy around the house, and I'm sure he won't mind the exchange.

I received no email about a beta possibilty, and I signed up a long time ago :(

Woo a key was applied to mine account. (no email tho)

"Community Beta" whatever that means.

This key doesn't guarantee that you will be invited to the beta, but it does greatly increase your chance, so stay tuned for future updates.

Woo a key was applied to mine account. (no email tho)

"Community Beta" whatever that means.

Log in to your Trion account.  If there's a beta key there, then you're likely in the pool for a community beta. 

There's a beta key there, but its the PAX one that's been on it for a month. I've heard nothing via email or anything else from Trion since signing up.

I believe that there are two types of Keys.  VIP Beta Keys which is beta access anytime all the time, and everything else (convention keys, forum keys and all that other stuff).

Also if you're in/near NYC for the Comic Con the dude who did the comic book is handing out VIP passes if you ask for them.

I'm no one special, but I got that email. Am I going to have to download 12 gigs to get a small 4 hour window of beta time?

I'm not driving four hours to comic con, if it's a one-weekend preview type beta, I can just wait for release. Should be a pretty awesome game and I'd rather see it done than half-finished.

No one has said how the downloader will work. If it's like WoW/LOTRO trial with downloading as you play or if it will be as bad as FFXIXIVIXVIXIVX's. I'd guess a direct downloader and a torrent option (official or not).

I'm apparently in the October pool, mine's dated the sixth. I think I ate an hour before getting in.

-VIP = access all the time
-Pax/Gamescon/Pre-October Community are the same pool
-October and later community are a different pool and supposedly not as likely to get in compared to the other community pool
-Unsure if there are, or will be, any other pool levels or not yet

There was a beta signup thread way before the guild thread, might have been from that, too.

Ricardo Sanchez, Trion VP of Digital, came out swinging during the Trion panel at New York Comic Con 2010. “What we’re creating is the most polished and complete MMO released since 2004… Basically, it’s pick whatever you want from an MMO and we’re going to give it to you.”

OK. I think I deserve unlimited beta access for changing the thread title.

Be wary of the official forums.

There's a special combination of Vanguard Fanboyism, WOW hatred, and WOW Fanboyism.

I love the undertone of "This time, it will be different! He'll stop hitting me for sure, this time!".

I was told that I had to include Twitter by my the guy that runs it with me.  Sorry. :(

Lost at needing to use Twitter. :cry:

I was told that I had to include Twitter by my the guy that runs it with me.  Sorry. :(

:argh:


This contest has made me realize that I'm such a whore for this game if I'm signing up for twitter. Though, I am curious, how do people know someone actually did the facebook and twitter steps when people have different names on those sites? I'm guessing they don't know since there isn't a link back to the action being required in the contest

Overview

Justicars are healing clerics who fight shoulder-to-shoulder with their allies in close combat. Conviction builds with each swing of their weapon, bolstering nearby comrades and powering the Justicar’s potent healing magic.
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Strengths

A Justicar’s healing comes from damage dealt in close combat. Thus he can survive and thrive in the thick of the fighting while ensuring his allies do the same.

Weaknesses

A Justicar’s divine magic depends upon his melee prowess, so foes are wise to try and keep the Justicar from the front lines.


Background

Nidris the giant wolf crept unseen through the Faering Wood, following the scent of the invaders in the domain of Greenscale the Primordial. He tracked this war party of humans and Dwarves to an overgrown temple. Among stones pulled apart by vines, they bowed their heads in prayer, led by a Dwarven cleric who wore chainmail under his robes of office. He knelt at the remains of the altar, leaning on what looked to be a staff.

“Bidding farewell to your gods? They’ll soon be devoured by our lord Greenscale.” The impish voice belonged to Corrigan, a changeling who rode upon Nidris and fancied himself lord of this forest.

“Shed your worldly concerns,” said Corrigan, “and frolic with us in this paradise.”


A coven of winged faeries that doted on Corrigan buzzed out towards the group and began tugging at beards, pulling at tunics, and rifling through pockets for sport.

“I will frolic when I am done with my prayers,” said Thorvin Sternhammer, Justicar of Thedeor.

“A lackey of the gods!” taunted the changeling. “Do absolve us of our sins before Nidris devours you and I use your holy staff to pick the sinew from his teeth.” The faeries tittered mischievously. Nidris growled, shaking the forest.

“You wee winged demons misunderstand my faith. I am not here to absolve you. The god of battle showed me how that fat toad you call master could be beaten.” The faeries giggled and continued to painfully braid his beard. “But the strength of my faith lies not in sermons, and this is no preacher’s staff.”

The Dwarf brandished his maul of cold iron. “Absolve you? I’m here to smash you!”


The maul landed with a mighty thud, flattening a flittering faerie. Nidris howled in challenge, and Thorvin glared into its eyes. He swung his bludgeon at the tiny sprites, knocking some to splatter against the great wolf’s pelt.

Thorvin’s soldiers charged, their courage bolstered by his conviction. Teeth and metal clashed, and though Nidris bit and clawed the invaders, the soldiers’ wounds healed with every blow their cleric struck. The tide of battle turned, and soon the mighty beast found himself bloodied and nearing death.

“Flee! Flee!” screamed the terrified changeling, his mocking tone drained away. “This is no mere mortal, but an avatar of war!” Nidris yelped like a pup and turned tail, but Thorvin crippled the beast’s leg with a swing of his maul.

His heart pierced by the spears of the soldiers, Nidris collapsed with a final anguished cry, Corrigan tumbling from his back. Scrambling uselessly, the Changeling tore himself on brambles as the stout cleric strode toward him.

“I repent! I repent!” the changeling sniveled.

“I know you do, lad,” said Thorvin as he hefted the bloodstained maul. “And I’ve got your absolution right here.”

They say Corrigan’s death rattle haunts the Faering Wood to this day. He had met Thorvin Sternhammer, whose crusade hounded mighty Greenscale across all of what is now known as Mathosia.


Quotation:
“Many preach their vision of the gods. They speak of love, and health, and happiness. I am here to tell you the truth of the world. Anything good must be fought for. You must stand toe-to-toe with your demons and crush them. Only then will the gods bless you.”

No, I just want them to wear reasonable armor.  One can still look feminine in full armor.

Everybody knows that the best armor is basically a thong and bra with a few bits of metal sewn on.

Rift: Planes of Telara - Dynamic Dimensions Trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Sv_dyPQkHI)

Any further posts with just a link and no summary, discussion, explanation, or commentary will be deleted. Put a little bit of effort into it (this goes for everyone, not just MrB).

We use a per pixel shader technique called normal mapping where we take the lighting information from a very high polygon model and apply it to a lower polygon model in game. So the way that light bounces off the model makes it appear much higher polygon in game than it really is. Few mmos out there are fully normal mapped so we are truly next gen in that regard.

I was just talking about the normal mapping in EQ2, loved it so much...