tehixe

Sounds like a way for the younglings to run up large credit card bills to the parents. I'll wait for ToR, thanks.

Rule #1 in making generalizations about games: You must PLAY games first. When is the last time Roger Ebert played a video game? Never? And I assume he's never heard of Braid? How about games like Indigo Prophecy or Heavy Rain, which are effectively interactive movies? Movies are art, but not interactive movies? What a joke. Ebert should go make friends with Jack Thompson and they can just spend all day making baseless statements that cover the whole of the game world. And the rest of us can spend all day not listening to them.

I guess you haven't been keeping up with the news. Your loss, pal ;)

I knew that tabletop gaming had its future on surface PC's. I just didn't think that future was right frickin' NOW! This blows my mind. Of course, it's still outside anyone's reasonable price range. I would expect to see a few of these pop up in game stores in big cities where they can get enough customers, where you'll be able to rent time or pay to participate in surface-based campaigns. But I'm sure it will be years before these PCs are cheap enough for anyone to buy for home gaming.

Bah. I wish I didn't have to play Geralt of Rivia. He's ok, but I really prefer games where I can create custom characters.

Of course, the ability to play him as a drinking, womanizing, murdering sleazeball made it a lot more bearable. I don't like when I'm forced to play a hero with a set, defined personality, especially when it's a nancy boy hero kind of personality (i.e. every JRPG hero). At least when I play Geralt, I can make him conform to my own idea of what's badass, instead of someone else's.

Pure crystalized awesome. I think a lot of people are going to want to play soldiers, because in my MMO experience, the damage dealer is always the most popular class. And soldiers look like exactly that -- the guy who stands back and deals massive damage. Jedi warriors sound like they're going to be tanks, diving into the middle of enemies and probably killing them one at a time (or at least without a lot of focus on AoE attacks) whereas soldiers are all about mass destruction.

Well you've got a point to there. Star Wars does not equal auto win. There have been lots of Star Wars fails, including the prequel trilogy (though it was a win in terms of money). Fortunately, Bioware is essentially improving on a proven model. KOTOR, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect all worked similarly, with hub areas leading to mission instances, in depth stories, lots of characters, etc. TOR is taking that and making it MASSIVE, with a jillion different story paths, lots of character customization options, AND online multiplayer. So TOR has a very solid game company working with a very solid idea, AND it has Star Wars. That's going to be a big win no matter how you slice it.

I think it's pretty much gauranteed to be a smashing success. WoW is remarkable because, though Warcraft had fans, they were mostly RTS fans, because Warcraft was an RTS up until WoW. And the universe, though developed somewhat in the games, had never been the subject of anyone's obsession, that I know of. But Star Wars is the ultimate license, there are people who live, eat, and breathe star wars. There are star wars weddings. Warcraft never had that before its launch, and I think that the intensity of Warcraft fandom is still lukewarm compared to the white hot love that Star Wars has had going for it since its release several decades ago. Not only that, but Bioware created KOTOR, an amazing RPG experience that left its mark on a generation of gamers (this being the lucrative generation who is now 24-39 or whatever the magical age is). I can't say whether TOR will kill WoW, but I know it's going to kick ass and bring home the bacon.

This pisses me off because it's not really an invention, it's just an idea for an invention. Anyone could think this up--in fact, it's already been thought up. Patents like this are just overbroad garabage that companies buy up in order to sue each other and try to stifle competition. After all, it's easier to sue people into the stone age then actually make a better product for less!

WoW has been obsolete for years, but that hasn't stopped it. It never stops any MMO, really, as long as it had a reasonably long period of success. MMOs can continue turning a profit pretty much forever, which is why such oldies as Everquest I are still up and running. A game that people have to buy every month is a powerful moneymaker, even if not that many people are buying it. Even if better, modern MMOs come out, there will be a chunk of people who are stuck into WoW. Once you've invested ten thousand hours of your life, it's hard to walk away.