BigJonno
04-30-2004, 05:11 AM
Gamespy has in interesting review policy for MMORPGs where they give an inital "out of the box" impression, a proper review once they've spent some serious time with it and a follow up a few months later.
This week they've played Lineage 2 (http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/lineage-ii-the-chaotic-chronicle/510174p1.html) and City of Heroes (http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/city-of-heroes/509278p1.html) and have some good first impressions.
One's favourable, one's not so hot (let me give you a clue, L2 sucks) but they're both worth reading. Of particular interest is a situation of bots and AFK macroing at it's absolute worst.
Even worse, though, are the collections of characters with names like "AdenaFarmInc1057" from servers in China or Korea. They're easy to recognize because they claim whole sections of the game, farm it, and turn their gold over to a character named "AdenaFarmIncBoss." These guys are the ultimate exploiters because they'll take those collections of adena and auction them off on eBay for about $50 US per 1 million adena. They don't talk (and even if they do, they don't speak English) and they'll kill you if you come near their patch of game. All this means that they "lock off" sections of the world, don't participate in player politics, and contribute nothing to a game utterly dependent on player interaction to be fun. Then they sell their stuff to players who use their unearned equipment to make life miserable for other people.
This week they've played Lineage 2 (http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/lineage-ii-the-chaotic-chronicle/510174p1.html) and City of Heroes (http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/city-of-heroes/509278p1.html) and have some good first impressions.
One's favourable, one's not so hot (let me give you a clue, L2 sucks) but they're both worth reading. Of particular interest is a situation of bots and AFK macroing at it's absolute worst.
Even worse, though, are the collections of characters with names like "AdenaFarmInc1057" from servers in China or Korea. They're easy to recognize because they claim whole sections of the game, farm it, and turn their gold over to a character named "AdenaFarmIncBoss." These guys are the ultimate exploiters because they'll take those collections of adena and auction them off on eBay for about $50 US per 1 million adena. They don't talk (and even if they do, they don't speak English) and they'll kill you if you come near their patch of game. All this means that they "lock off" sections of the world, don't participate in player politics, and contribute nothing to a game utterly dependent on player interaction to be fun. Then they sell their stuff to players who use their unearned equipment to make life miserable for other people.