Where we have come from, where we are and where we are going

[AmigaFan2003]

Does anyone else feel like the TNGC is slowly dying?

Our glory days of Planetside and WoW are now a distant memory.

Have we been hit hard my the three MMO failures we experienced last year (PotBS, AoC and WAR)? Have people become disillusioned with online gaming - the core of our community?

Has the lack of decent MMO's this year weakened the bonds between members?

We had a few bright glimmers - namely the few people playing TF2 and L4D but I don't think they are enough to sustain a community this size.

I feel our only hope this year is Jumpgate Evolution. I'd appeal to everyone to sign up to the beta via viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7649 even if you don't think it's your sort of game. Alot of people tried out Planetside just out of idle interest and I consider that game and the outfits in the TNGC our greates achievement and the greates gaming experience I have ever had.

What other MMO's do we have in the next few months?

I feel we're rapidly running out of time - we need to do something to stimulate the community. JGE is my suggestion - I'd like to hear others.

[Firejack]

As I said to Alastriona the other day. Reading the website stats for this year is frankly depressing. The amount of people (excluding bots ) is dropping significantly each month. We are almost at the point were we can drop down a tier in our web hosting

In terms of the next game the community plays I think as Cranks said in the past its best not to build up hype for a new game and then watch as everything fails around you. Really we need sit back and let whats going to happen, happen in terms of the next big game.

For myself personally I'm no longer planning for any new games. Finding it harder and harder to find a regular slot in my life for gaming. Last year I was in a position to relaunch the Myriad Apocalypse Project in Left 4 Dead which had been my long term aim since 2007. However that never worked as I simply ran out of time and decided to scrap everything and not buy the game or servers.

Looking back on how we have done so far as a community I think we've done ok. Checking out various other communities that have lasted over a year or two you see most have been privately funded/ sponsored or fortunate to be in the right place at the right time. We are the exact opposite at this moment in time. No significant income and we have suffered horribly in terms of being a victim of circumstance.
No one could of predicted Age of Conan, Pirates of the Burning Sea and WAR would all be so flawed beyond their early promises. Empire: Total War has been a shocker too. 6 months ago we would of have 5 or 6 people on Xfire every night chatting about the latest news and getting all excited. None of us saw any mention of the severe bugs the game had, the non-existent multiplayer campaign and non-functioning lobby system. Creative Assembly lost it sparkle for me personally with the way they covered up the faults.


Looking ahead there are so many games coming out one surely has to be a winner. Even if its a simple game that gets us off and running again and recruiting new players and hopefully bringing back some old friends too I'll be happy.

From the middle of next month I'm probably dropping Team Fortress 2 and picking up Empire:TW and giving World of Warcraft another go. Until September which is looking like silly-season for potential new games.

[AmigaFan2003]

You've basically echoed my thought there FJ.

What I'd like to see most is enthusiasm for the community, rather than enthusiasm for a particular game.

[Theodora]

personally i've simply found over the last year or so that my circumstances have changed rather, i'm simply not sitting in front of my computer at the times i would have been previously and it's hard to set aside time, whenever i do have time and feel in the mood there's often simply noone aound to join up with

there's also the fact that many of the big releases of the last 18 months have been heavily disapointing, either buggy incomplete or both.

i'll prob give ETW another try now with this big content patch and see if they've improved things but as fj says, my faith in creative assembly which used to be totally rock solid has been massively shaken by how they've handled the whole release and support of what should have been one of the best games of the year...

[prinses]

its too bad games dont turn out to be as everyone likes them.
I do have to defend some of those games a bit, ppl tend to look back at the bad things about a game more then what you enjoyed.
potbs/war/aoc i all enjoyed them and the ppl i played them with, sometimes sad to see alot of them that come from the 'core' tngc members aint that active here anymore though. But i played all of them for a few months but after some time you lose interest or dont see a good future in it and stop playing.
Its still more time played then most single player games ppl buy till they get tired of it.

Anyways i dont get my hopes up about games being the 'wow-killer' the only ones who can do that are blizzard themselves since wow is just a well designed allround game and other games that are renewing or focussing more on 1 part of a game get stepped down cause its not a actual wow clone or something, we are all spoiled by having all types mixed together, well made perhaps but too much routine of the same mix, no real changes make the game dull for me.

-So taking on and looking at announced mmos to come, jumpgate evolution (coming soon??) has a good chance of success with us since its a different genre mmo. Looking forward to trying this game out. space mmo ftw!
-Aion coming in september, looks alright ill have to see how it turns out but early rumors (from the fanboys) sound good.

now theres alot of other stuff being developed, star wars the old republic, stargate worlds, star trek online (wtf scifi??) new final fantasy and then i prob forgot a few.

Now just dont get too excited and enjoy the games good sides and ignore the things you dont like
i dont really care how big we are/would be. as long as we play together again sometime and enjoy playing!

[Theanon]

really hope we'll find a game this year everyone enjoys playin.
like you can see on my signature i've been bit dissapointed on new games on PC and even lost allmost all interested in wow.

[Tzar]

Well since I`m finally finishing my preps for my college entry exam (which is in 2 days, wewt) I'll have more time to check out some new games. Apart from my usual WC3 play, I heard a lot of good things about JGE and the SW MMO from Bioware if i`m not mistaken, so those 2 are my bet. Also, played a game called The Last Remnant lately, felt kind of fun, would reccomend it!

[Crank]

I think the fact that this thread only has a few responses says a lot. In the past there would have been pages and pages of discussion and likely bickering.

It's sad but I cant see the killer game ever coming. Even if it did would anyone have the motivation to set up a division, and would there be enough people to support them in running it and build it up? A lot of people have moved on now, personally I still visit the forums but I'm not really sure why.

Of course I may be underestimating people, I hope so.

[Kati]

I'm still lurking around, waiting for the right moment to spam...

On a more serious note I'm having my eyes on Aion. I played in the beta #3 and really liked the game, even though it's slower and harder (at least for assassins) at lower levels than other MMORPGs. Graphics are good, characters look pretty awesome (at least IMO, and the character customization is AWESOME) and I, even though I've done it all before, enjoy the quests. I've pre-ordered the game and will be playing in the upcoming beta #4 (this weekend). Perhaps I'll even reach level 25 to try some PVP, but I'm only 16 now so...

I've been reading about the different features and such and it seems like a pretty good game, and there's something about having your character wink at you that makes me smile just a little bit. Or why not seeing your character brush off sand if you're in a "sandy" area, or play with the water if you're in water, etc...

NOT TO MENTION FLYING WITH WINGS!

Yay, late response. I don't usually read this section.

[Alastriona]

I'm still lurking around, waiting for the right moment to spam...

On a more serious note I'm having my eyes on Aion. I played in the beta #3 and really liked the game, even though it's slower and harder (at least for assassins) at lower levels than other MMORPGs. Graphics are good, characters look pretty awesome (at least IMO, and the character customization is AWESOME) and I, even though I've done it all before, enjoy the quests. I've pre-ordered the game and will be playing in the upcoming beta #4 (this weekend). Perhaps I'll even reach level 25 to try some PVP, but I'm only 16 now so...

I've been reading about the different features and such and it seems like a pretty good game, and there's something about having your character wink at you that makes me smile just a little bit. Or why not seeing your character brush off sand if you're in a "sandy" area, or play with the water if you're in water, etc...

NOT TO MENTION FLYING WITH WINGS!

Yay, late response. I don't usually read this section.

Watching a video of flying combat gives me the impression that the combat might be fast paced or is it more slow, turnbased like WoW?

I noticed how much the interface resembles Guild Wars, which is from the same publisher but different development team. Should I be getting my hopes up for fast paced tactical pvp combat that guildwars had. Or is it WoW with wings?

[Kati]

I don't know how it works for casters (I'm planning on creating a caster next beta) but for melee you have to keep chains going to get more damage and also debuff the enemy. The higher you get in the chain the more damage the ability does, usually. Oh, and you get bonuses depending on how you move. Forward lowers your defenses but you get an attack boost, strafing left or right gives you a defense bonus and moving backwards gives you a defense bonus while lowering your attack ability.

Seeing how I've never played guild wars I don't know how guild wars pvp is different from WoW pvp, but from reading the beta forum people say that it feels a lot like guild wars pvp, which I hope is a good thing.

Apparently it's also fun to sneak into the enemy land, position yourself with a huge height advantage, then glide down (you can glide with the wings too) and attack the unsuspecting victim(s).

[Alastriona]

people say that it feels a lot like guild wars pvp, which I hope is a good thing.

Yes. Thats a good thing.

[TerraWater]

Well everything dies eventually, but we seem to still have quite a number of people on the forums.

Cheers