Note

"...fallen fowl..."

I tripped over a pheasant.

This game has incredible combat and some great writing, they just needed to double the experience rate from 1-12 so that people could see it for themselves within an acceptable time frame.

It's so sad that Activision botched the launch with their incomprehensible "Acclaim Coins" pricing model and a complete lack of marketing or fanfaire. The non-English Euro launch was just as lacklustre.

I've just tried to get in game to capture some videos of my favourite classes and fallen fowl of the launcher problems. I really hope someone manages to pick this up and give it the relaunch it deserves.

I completely disagree with darkkhorse. The combat system was fantastic! The problem is that this fact is hidden for around 12 levels incredibly long levels. Immense travel times and poorly laid out quests are likely to bore players before they get to experience it.

I'm sure the devs tried to ease players into this complex system but what they actually did was create a slow, stunted and unsatisfactory introduction. I'm normally the first to say that the first 10 minutes of a game speaks volumes about it's entirety, but never has the best feature of a game been so poorly represented in the early levels.

The benefits of deck building and the rotating bar aren't obvious until you are given a space of 4 columns and 3 rows to play with (out of 6 by 6). Before then your choice of combat options is seriously limited and the ability bar really does look like an excuse for a cooldown. In fact the "cooldown" is likely there to allow you to move and dodge in between actions.

Add to this the fact that you don't even get to choose skills like combo openers and have to stack your deck with uninteresting "weak attack" abilities and you've got some fairly poor combat. By level 12 my Adept was throwing status effect bombs, storming in with his AoE sword attacks then backflipping (literally) to safe distance to headshot and throw another bomb. Stunning stuff!

I felt severely underwhelmed by these videos. The dev voiceover only served to point out what was missing from the game. Every time he threw out a buzzword it reinforced the exact opposite in my mind.

The combat model they are using is tired and their implementation looked lackluster (they should have turned off godmode, trivial combat is not exciting to watch). Obviously this isn't the finished article but I hope characters spend most of their time with A LOT more abilities than the few in the video or things will get boring fast.

I'm mainly on the fence because Bioware have shown no compelling reason for this to be an MMO. I have a feeling that I'd prefer KOTOR 3 with or without multiplayer support (no centralised servers). Giving other people dialogue choices in my story does not warrant a subscription fee. I really care about the gameplay and it sounds like they're giving me much more bang for my buck with Mass Effect 2 (and its upgraded combat).

Might have something to do with Chelsea trying to make a name for themselves in the US.

Much like Man U are capitalising on their brand by expanding into Asia and playing their pre-season matches over there, Chelsea have played their pre-season matches over in the US for at least the last 2 years (Chelsea vs either AC or Inter broke some sort of US attendance record I believe).

"There is Only War" is a generous free patch, not DLC. Please don't blur the lines between updates more than they have been already.

Expansions: Substantial (generally boxed) content.
DLC: Smaller, often poor value-for-money updates.
Patches: Free, often necessary, somtimes generous additions to the game.

Seconded! I just left a comment to much the same effect on Massively.

Not that they'll change it now, I was just a little disappointed that they stuck to the tried and true MMO combat mould with this one.

I counted at least 72 Christian Bales in that voice lineup. Full voiceover is commendable though, so I'm not complaining.

Also, I saw a hotbar. If this were any other game that would have been an immediate turnoff. I am DONE with hotbar combat. I've been mashing them for years and am already happily settled in a game that uses said combat system. I'm ready for a new experience.

For the record I will be buying this because it is KOTOR 3, 4, 5, etc (and won't necessarily bring anything else to the MMO table). Other studios take note, you do not have this luxury to fall back on.

I think Mr Pickels is trying to get across that this guy was stopping him from doing anything that would result in him losing health. Like killing mobs or attacking another player, i.e. playing the game.

The guy following him had the upper hand because he could wait for his moment to strike and Mr Pickles could not attack him or deter him by any other means.

I definitely prefer more organic class systems. Mixing and matching skill boxes in SWG was a thoroughly rewarding experience and I think I would similarly enjoy UO's skill system, though I have no experience with it.

I don't mind having archetypal classes to image yourself after, i.e. "I want to be a flame throwing mage". But, there should be a way for me to define my own role within a group, to choose what utility my character would bring to the fight besides damage.

DnD's and FFXI's multiclassing are on the right lines. Guild Wars' dual classing is even better, allowing you to pull your limited abilities from 2 separate pools. Talent trees (a la WoW) are nice when classes are set in stone, but they aren't really character customisation so much as a requirement to be effective at whatever part of the game you wish to play.

Yeah, that archetype system didn't work for EQ2 at all. If you already knew what class you wanted to end up as it was a satisfying way to progress through the game, once, and only once.

The system fell flat on it's face when players made "wrong" decisions. It essentially made you play for hours longer than necessary before you found out whether you enjoyed playing your chosen class. Then it was incredibly boring to level yet another "weak mage" back to that decision point to pick another class. I believe this is why Tabula Rasa implemented clones and I sincerely hope that AoC has an equivalent option for those of us with alt-itis.