It seems quite alive to me, but I have a hard time gauging how much Eberron is actually used in home games. Living Greyhawk if nothing else keeps Greyhawk afloat. I don't own Eberron books, but there seems a fair amount of source material and Dragon/Dungeon articles in the last year to support it. Based on that I'd have to say it's alive.
Is Eberron a dead world yet?
- Thread starter Emirikol
- Start date
Cthulhudrew
First Post
Charwoman Gene said:
Yeah, but he also got killed by a group of kamikaze nilbogs, which pretty much makes him a complete embarassment.
DragonReader
First Post
Emirikol said:
In my opinion many of them have been quite good. I especially liked the Dragon Below trilogy by Don Bassingthwaite, the Heirs of Ash trilogy (only 2 books released so far) by Rich Wulf, The Orb of Xoriat by Edward Bolme, and the Dreaming Dark trilogy by Keith Baker. There were other good ones as well. Only a few that I did not like (I have read them all except the Crimson Talisman which I have heard bad things about).
Arkhandus
First Post
Twowolves said:
Now I'm just wondering how you get your computers so cheap. I spent over a thousand dollars on my current machine, a very average computer (maybe slightly above-average when I first bought it), around 6 years ago. Over that span, we've gone from Playstation 2s to...what, PS3s? Yeah, there's a big shift. A lot less money to spend on a game console than my current computer (even if you measure by other systems, there's still only 2 new non-handheld systems by any other company; like GameCube and Wii, frex). Certainly, if you expect to buy every single console system out there, then you would be spending a lot more than on a single, decent or good, gaming computer. But I've never known anyone, personally, who felt an unholy compulsion to buy every single console system. Certainly there are plenty who buy 2 systems (like an Xbox and PS2, or Xbox 360 and Wii, or whatever), myself not included. The PS2 I bought in 2001 cost less than my previous computer (that I had replaced in early 2001); if my previous computer had been a quality gaming machine in the first place, comparable to the PS2's efficiency, the gap in cost would've likely been higher; but my old PC was only mediocre.
Along with occasional bugs and such trying to play computer games, it stopped working for certain games altogether in the past 2-3 years or so. Didn't matter if I reinstalled them. Somethin's messed up with the machine now, and I can't even fathom how it has ended up like that. I can't play NWN anymore. Can't play PS: Torment anymore. Can't play MechCommander anymore. Could hardly play MechWarrior 4 anymore if I tried (it wasn't running too reliably just before I uninstalled it). Can't play StarCraft anymore. Don't even want to try some of my other games on this machine now.
And I never did anything to mess it up; my father and sister certainly made some stupid mistakes using the computer, but not often enough that I would expect it to mess the machine up this much. I had to get this computer because my old one didn't have the specs to run any of the newer games that were coming out around 2000-2001. It would've ran like molasses if it could handle them at all (it wasn't a high-end machine when we got it, anyway). And it wasn't even a very old machine at the time. My father and I couldn't upgrade it piecemeal or anything; we're not tech geeks (though by now I am somewhat tech-savvy). On my current machine, the only way to make it work properly would likely be to chuck out the hard drive, the CD-ROM/CD-RW (which has ceased functioning for no discernable reason), and probably much of the computer's memory, replacing them all just to get the machine to stop having inexplicable errors every other day that mess up work and/or force us to reset it.
Not at all. As I said, I wasn't sure about several companies, because I had little experience and reading to make an informed decision, about whether or not I could've expected them to do a better job with DDO. And mind you I mentioned UO2, not UO as an example of a good MMO; UO was one of the first few, so give it a break. The designers had to start somewhere. The team learned a lot and UO2 seemed to be shaping up into a great, and different, game just sharing the same setting (kinda). Then EA decided to kill it during alpha testing or thereabouts. Blizzard makes great games, to be sure, but they do tend to rehash stuff that Blizzard or other companies had already done before. So if they did make DDO, it would probably be fun and all, but play like a superficially improved clone of WoW or EQ most likely. Story-wise it would probably still be great. We've already seen how Sony botched Star Wars Galaxies, and EQ2 is a bit of a dud, and now they've got a new fantasy MMORPG I forget the name of; Vanguard maybe? Which seems neat, but is probably going to be a lot like EQ's and WoW's grind in play.
Now, I'm not saying that these companies would've messed up DDO for sure, just that I don't think they would've done it justice. They still would've done a better job than Turbine, IMO. DDO has some aweful design conceits that keep many folks away from it, myself included. Certainly there are some who like its design and enjoy the game; but a lot of D&Ders and MMORPGers will not.
I just have to put in my 2cp on the tangent here.
First thing is that is sounds like you are someone who buys off of the shelf computers every 5-8 years. That's fine. Nothing wrong with that. But if you have the ability, doing part-by-part upgrades every so often makes for a much faster, cheaper, and more reliable (usually) computer.
I am no longer in the hardware scene like I was years back, but I still buy a new cpu, video card, memory, hard drive...something every year. Even building from the ground up, I can and have build very respectable computers for under $500. Once you have that basic framework you can put $100 a year in to it to keep it up to speed without too much problem. It will never be cutting edge, but it should be able to run most games without any problem.
Yeah, there is no comparison here. Knowing on a console that a game will just flat out work is a huge deal.
Arkhandus said:
First thing is that is sounds like you are someone who buys off of the shelf computers every 5-8 years. That's fine. Nothing wrong with that. But if you have the ability, doing part-by-part upgrades every so often makes for a much faster, cheaper, and more reliable (usually) computer.
I am no longer in the hardware scene like I was years back, but I still buy a new cpu, video card, memory, hard drive...something every year. Even building from the ground up, I can and have build very respectable computers for under $500. Once you have that basic framework you can put $100 a year in to it to keep it up to speed without too much problem. It will never be cutting edge, but it should be able to run most games without any problem.
Yeah, there is no comparison here. Knowing on a console that a game will just flat out work is a huge deal.
Twowolves
Explorer
Arkhandus said:
Well, let's see, a PS2 was what, $250? A PS3 is around $600? Sounds like more than a brand new, better than average PC to me. Didn't say a word about multiple systems.
I haven't had a "new" computer in almost 10 years. I have parts in my current system that I've had for at least that long. Upgrading last year to a top of the line (at the time) video card was less than $250. A 512 RAM chip is around $100. Hard drives are now less than $1/Gig if you shop around.
It sounds like you don't know enough about computers to be able to inexpensively upgrade, which is fine. But it certainly doesn't hold true in general that keeping a PC able to run the current top of the line video games costs any more than keeping current with the consoles.
I'll grant you, releasing games too early and letting the consumer be the "Beta-2" playtesters is killing the market. Sure you can download patches for free and fix about 90% of the bugs, but in the past few years, waaaaaay too many games are released with waaaaay too many bugs. It's a problem.
Now, as for your particular machine, it sounds like if you can't run games on it that you once were able to, it's a problem with your particular machine. I can still run all of the games you mentioned and more on mine, I can assure you, and my main hard drive is about 12 years old. You could probably fix all your main complaints with $100 and a trip to best buy or comp USA. Again, your example won't hold true for everyone when comparing PCs vs consoles.
The original UO was so messed up, I wouldn't trust the design team to make any new game worthwhile. Part of the reason EQI was so successful was it learned what NOT to do from EA. Vanguard is radically different from other MMORPGs I've seen (not that I've played it, but from talking to people), in that it's gameplay is not completely centered around combat and "rat hunting". I actually liked a lot of SW Galaxies, but they threw everything away to make "Diablo in space", so I wouldn't give SONY much credit for designing games anymore. EQ2 is supposed to be basically the same as EQ with lots of gameplay upgrades, but by then, WoW had come along and changed everything (no rat hunting!). Plus there are still a lot of people who still play EQ1, so they split their own market.
So, what, specifically, is wrong with DDO, in your opinion? Frankly, I absolutely LOVED Temple of Elemental Evil, bugs and all. By the time I got the game (for $10, no less), not only had private individuals fixed most of the bugs, they had banded together to add content to the game, unraveled code, and added in more gameplay features (beyond bug fixes and new quests). Even though it was a prime example of how game companies are screwing over their own fans by releasing buggy as hell programs, the fixed game was a lot of fun! It's a shame they shot themselves in the foot with that one, because the system once hammered out could have been used for many, many sequels.
So, what's wrong with DDO? What is it doing to drive away D&D fans, or not doing to lure them? How is it designed so poorly as to be deemed a failure?
Im sure I remember a group of adventurers from Krynn gunning for him as well as it was the first time I had seen anyone suggest playing a minotaur.Cthulhudrew said:Yeah, but he also got killed by a group of kamikaze nilbogs, which pretty much makes him a complete embarassment.
MoogleEmpMog
First Post
Grymar said:
Which will still amount to appx. $1000 over the lifecycle of the first comparable console, and $500 over the lifecycle of each additional console after that - provided you never have to replace the base $500 unit, I mean. It will always be more expensive over said lifecycle than a typically costed console at launch (about $300), much more expensive than a lower-costed console or one a few years after launch ($100-200), and even more expensive than the allegedly overpriced PS3 ($600) through four generations of console hardware.
So even in the best-case scenario of someone who is comfortable doing their own upgrades, you're STILL spending more to tread water in each lifecycle.
Now, if those extra polygons-per-year are truly precious to you and you desperately need the most technically sophisticated graphics available at any given time, yes, you're getting something extra out of the deal. If you primarily like RTSes, FPSes or MMOs, you really have no choice but to upgrade your PC, since that's pretty much the whole PC lineup and, on the flip side, the only place you can find (really good) examples of those genres.
Ironically, my original comment about making an Eberron console RPG was only peripherally related to this discussion. I specifically meant a console-STYLE, or Japanese-style (JRPG) if you prefer, game, to target a different demographic than what the existing Forgotten Realms games were drawing on. IE, turn-based, story-driven, 'railroad' plot with explorable extras, and so on. Just to, y'know, sort of bring the thread back around to Eberron, and all.
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