There are some elementalist videos out. They show some of the spell effects and whatnot. Pretty neat...the graphics are looking quite nice.

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/loadNews/16839

Though imo it's been in development WAY too freakin' long.

GW2 looks pretty good. Even though I have my problems with MMORPG's I must say that their pricing model (no monthly fees) appeals to me very much and that I enjoyed myself a lot with GW1. Still, not sure if I'll get it. Will depend on critical reception and participation of our CK sect.

On a sidenote: in GW's case it makes sense, but why are other MMORPG developers charging full price for their games (or as it is, their game clients) even if they have monthly fees in place? Wouldn't it make more sense to make the retail copies as cheap as possible - say 10 bucks - and then capitalize on the monthyl income fees from increased amount of users willing to 'give it a try'. As we are all aware, any good MMORPG can be very addictive, especially in the early phases when you're building a character and getting to know the universe. Charging high prices for MMORPG's with monthly fees just seems to create a financial hurdle that may be profitable in the short term but damaging over the long term.

Unless you're WoW of course. Blizzard could be selling human faeces in boxes as 'WoW: Cataclysm' for 30 bucks a piece, simply on the strength of their brand and franchise.

They charge full price because they are out of business 6months after release.

Good point. I hadn't considered the possibility that that is an actual business plan (as opposed to trying to create a long-term sustainable platform), but that does seem to be the case for 80% of all MMORPG's. Over a 2-year run it seems to be the case for every single MMORPG except for WoW, Eve, Everquest, GW and UO.

Warhammer and Conan are still going strong and make lots of money but from the point of the original business plans they are failures. There was one interview with Warhammer MMO team and the interviewer directly asked something in the lines "How come you make millions and the project is still considered a failure."

I think the cash up front is meant as a way to try to make up for the significant up front R&D costs. Most of these MMOs are in production for years before they see the light of day. Most of the big ones, too, have migrating flocks of MMO-players just waiting for the game to come out. By selling copies for $50 + first month for free, the MMO developer gets $50 x a few thousand players to try to catch up to all that front-end expenditure.

At least, I bet that's what it is. And not every MMO charges for the client. DDO obviously doesn't, but since it's got a free-to-play model, that probably doesn't count. EVE-Online lets you download the client for free. You still have to pay a monthly fee to play, but no up-front cost.

Also, many of the older MMOs have very cheap boxes, though admittedly not free. *shrug*

If I were an MMO developer (and some day I may be), I would probably charge an up-front cost for the client as well, at least for the first 6 months or so. As new player subscriptions dropped, I'd probably make the client a free download to maintain growth. But that's just me, and I'm not exactly a business expert.

Err, regarding GW2, I'm sure Shiny and I will play, depending on reviews. Ultimately, this is an asian MMO, so there's a decent chance it'll suck, original GW not withstanding.

I'll definitely be playing Ox, I loved Guild Wars far too much to miss out on it's 'true' MMO counterpart. I've just returned to GW for some casual play actually. The videos are looking amazing for GW2 and I really am looking forward to this more than any other game I think. I'm sure it will keep me interested for a good few years, maybe even dragging me away from WoW! After all I only picked WoW up when GW became stale.

If you read through the article as well a lot of the elementalist stuff seems to be basically the same as in GW. Glyphs, signets, auras and attunements. The elements are the same (fire = aoe, air = single target, water = cc, earth = defensive) just beefed up a bit more. I'm kind of intrigued by the hotkey system as well. We gain 2 slots but only have direct control over 5 of them... not sure if I like that or not.

On a side note, GW is 5 years old this week, just picked up my 5th present a couple of days ago. Scary to think my character is so old!

Haha, I don't even get emails anymore from the game since the spam email account I used for it is lost. So I never really logged in anymore in the past 3 years...maybe I'll resurrect it if it gives some advantages for buying GW2.

yea, I haven't logged in for quite awhile. I used to log in every once in a while for the birthday presents, but I haven't even cared about that for quite awhile. The art still annoys me. Ah well...function over form!

Oh I never get emails from them, am signed up to the newsletter but nothing ever comes through. I still have the RSS feed on my google homepage though.

I find it amusing you moan about the graphics now Satis, I looked back over some old threads the other day out of boredom and you were raving over how great they were

All advantages Ox are from your titles and things in the Hall of Monuments. So you'll have to actually work at it, you can't just pick it up once a month til GW2 comes out if you want to gain anything

heh... I liked some of the graphics, like the areas and backgrounds and stuff. I was never too much into the character graphics. Too anime for me.

/me hopes Pevil doesn't drag out some old topic where I rave about the awesome character anime graphics