I would have done, but i feel that a 1 day trial is not long enough to get a decent feel for a game

To be honest, i am impressed that Funcom had the guts to charge the EU/UK people *more* than other MMO's charge in their own regions. The US customers get the game at the same rate as other MMO's in the US. However, in the EU... subscribers are being charged €14.99/month to play (normal rate for MMO's is €12.99), and in the UK, they are being charged £11.49 (normal rate is £8.99) So i feel that they are pricing themselves out of the competition as well (especially as their refer a friend promo that is running right now is a 1 day trial)

Agreed... In the Oracle case, i believe that they actually *most* of their money via the paid support facilities that they offer, and not the actual sale of said software. I would also like to point out that there are strict rulings on handling peoples personal data as well which would have to be taken into consideration (which is why I feel that the selling of MMO accounts will NOT be allowed for the forseeable future, if at all).

For WoW, it is actually seperate time zones for each region... so *ideally* to avoid minimal patching issues you should have a seperate game installation for each region that you play in. I would say that the same applies for Rift as well, especially if you play on both regions on a regular basis (especially around patch days, unless you enjoy having to patch your client multiple times whilst character/region swapping).

If you are meaning to talk about the state of play with the free transfers, because they at the moment have chosen not to allow FREE server transfers at this point in time. Which is exactly the same reason as to why only 2 RP-PvP servers can transfer to non RP-PvP servers (in this case Lord Calypho and Huntmaster can transfer to RP-PvE or to a PvP server). Because they have chosen to allow it right now. However, with the fact that there is a global account for the game and no region locking (ie you can create a character on ANY of the servers that you choose to), I see no reason to stop it from happening in the future it will more then likely be when the paid transfers come through.

1st character was called "Bel"? if so, where is your beard? ((yes, i am an Eddings fan))

This I do agree with 100%. You will tend to find as well that quite a few of them have their own voice server hosting (Ventrillo, Teamspeak, Mumble) as well... which tends to get used when *NOT* in ops as well for general socializing. *edit* I would like to point out that the *average* typing speed for someone is just 40-50words per minute (can be as low as 25words per minute), whilst someone listening should be able to easily understand up to 150 words per minute... so explaining something verbally in a common language is normally 2-3 times faster than just typing it all out, which is handy for those long explanations....

How easy is it to get the client? *goes off types in Ventrillo Download into google* *clicks 1st link http://www.ventrilo.com/download.php * There you are.

I managed to get Enoch on The Progenitor server. Works marvelously as a "group" name and not as a surname. Beckett, Ramona, Ennoia, Laibon.. more to come as i make them. I couldn't get my forum handle as a character nor legacy name... but i managed to get the above so i am overall quite chuffed.

I was in a similar position... when the game *launched* I have been known by my forum handle in real life and across several MMO's (where it was available). Unfortunately, when I loaded up the game for the 1st time, chose my server, and logged in... I was unable to get my *usual* name. I thought what the hell, lets try to get it as a legacy name. I will admit i am not the fastest leveller in the world, but it was taken. Both times, I have had to choose something different. But i have still managed to keep a similar theme going across all my characters... Flip side, my main character is Ennoia (which is kinda fun anyway playing with some Greek people ) So whilst I can understand his position, I do also have to agree with Scorpienne in that it can allow you spread your wings and maybe take a *slight* change in how your characters are named. I have also suffered something similar happen to me in City of Heroes, when they merged the EU and US playerbases. In this case, it was your global name (identifier for cross server chat/characters, EU and US were separate entities in the 1st place, limited by account as to which side you played on) Here, precedence was given to US account holders if there was a naming clash. There were clashes in the Global namespace, and some people lost out to their own inactive US accounts, other to 5 year+ inactive US accounts. Some people left the game, others adapted and chose an _EU identifier or a totally different name. If they do ever introduce a global chat system (in particular with Custom Chat Channels), then i feel that there will be other people who will up and leave just because someone else got *their name* 1st... sorry bud, in this case everyone is a special snowflake, and I know it sucks that someone took it, but this is one case where *unique* has to be *unique*. *shrugs* TL;DR I empathize with the guy, however I would never quit a game over it.

I did a google search, found a link to an older post. I am not 100% sure that this work, but apparently it can be done using AutoHotKey Hope that helps (thanks to Pryath who wrote up the stuff i have stolen from his post!)

Eve is a "single shard" in that there is only one server, and its performance in any one given system is limited to the hardware that the system is running on. Thankfully now, they have resolved the "too many in one room" problem by making the game itself run slower to make sure that everything that happens, does happen, and "on time" (I am, of course, referring to Time dilation). However, that is a "gameplay" mechanic to resolve a singular problem... to many people in a single solar system can make the processor that it runs on scream, cry and throw random things out of the server park. Of course, there was (and still is) a larger problem out there, that would help resolve the problem even more... making the Server tech run *fluidly* over multiple threads and CPU's. Shame that the Eve server tech *doesnt* do this... which is why *ideally* you still have to notify them of any large fleet battles out there (just so that they can move to you over to a higher spec server blade). I will state that i am not a coder, so I am not so sure as to how easy it would be for them to code any of the proposed changes. One thing that you do also have to think about is "do we limit the number of people in the system so that we do not overwhelm THEIR CPU/GPUS if they decide to run everything at high details" (honestly, with some large fleet battles, i would still recommend that you drop details in Eve), just to make sure you have decent enough FPS.. or do you try to rewrite part of the engine so that it drops graphical quality so that it always hits a certain FPS (which for a fast moving game, i would recommend)

Fair enough, but to be honest, i have yet to see a single game that has resolved this 100%. I however would put this along with the next part that you listed (as they focus with textures). Opinion. Although i do feel that there are quite a few that need sharpening up to a higher quality. Its called an art style. *shrugs* Care to list some examples? Honestly, I am not 100% on Agree to an extent, but i also feel that some of this fits into the art style part that i listed higher up.

And TOR is also set a few thousand years before the movies... stuff can change in that amount of time

Not that i have noticed, The only problem i have with it is that it is stuck in the bottom left of the screen, where i have my social/chat window located, so it can be a bit hard to read sometimes

You don't need to be 64bit for multi-threading applications. You can do that well enough under a 32bit environment Definite possibility here... Although personally i would prefer that they actually try to get the loading times sorted out *before* they go the 64bit route. I am not sure as to how easily they can take their heavily tweaked and modded version of the Hero Engine into a Direct3D 11 version, however I would expect some features of Direct3D 11 to make it into the client at *somepoint* in the future, as to when though... I am not going to hazard a guess.

Agreed, more bars would actually ease the problem... how many extra? 2 or 3 more i would say should suffice. A macro system *could* also help alleviate the problem, along with being able to save/load different keybind layouts.

or so you assume....

I would like to correct you on something: The Tabula Rasa naming system was *not* account based. It was server based. Whilst that was indeed a *nice* bonus, it *SUCKED* for some groups of people that i knew and put them off playing the game. Plus side though: It was your surname that you were known by in game, and it generally avoided the primary name. Here... I dont actually use the "legacy" name as a surname, and only have it visible on a couple of my characters. However, i do feel that if/when they give you the option to merge legacies across servers, and make it "account" based... it would be super. Granted, it will annoy those who transferred old characters to a server where they already had legacy unlocked Poor design on their part... I would be inclined to say with hindsight, yes it was... however, the version that we have currently *does* work... as long as you are willing to stay on a single server. PS: When cross server mailing comes in, along with a cross server chat system (ala City of Heroes), then that is the time that Legacy should be made account specific (and not just server specific). *queue gnashing of teeth from other players*

And rather unsurprisingly word filters can be easily circumvented with some imaginative uses of full stops, forward slashes etc etc Also, you have to remember that *some* word filters (depends on the company) can actually interfere with foreign languages as well. Of course, a word like "Scunthorpe" get censored every now and then (depends on the game), even though it is a proper town in England, having been around for over 900 years (Escumetorp is its original name in Old Norse). Granted, that is one notable exception... however, i do hate people who try to circumvent the profanity list. There are some words out there that *DO* offend me... The rude slang word for the female privates (hint: rhymes with punt), offends me greatly. However, i do play with the word filter off... because even simple words with an accidental mispelling suddenly gets censored out (hits for example). *shrugs* If you repeatedly swear, you are going to my ignore list. If you try to bypass the profanity filter, you get petitioned in my book.

Agreed... althoguh i use the G13, with its 3 profile pages... *shudders*, hell, i have Control and Shift bound on the G13, as quick modifiers for the Naga AND because I changed the binds in SWTOR to combinations of what i could get way with on the G13... *shudders* bind G1 to "1" Bind G2 to "2" Bind thumb button 1 to "Shift" Bind Thumb button 2 to "Control" Change keybinds in SWTOR to use combinations of that and the Naga in Numpad mode... LOTS OF KEYS TO PLAY WITH!

Once they allow more characters slots on the server then i am willing for them to allow paid character transfers... having 8 to a server is very limited, considering that there are 16 potential classes to play (8 on either side).

I don't know about the Nostromo, but i know that with the Logitech G13 you can assign mouse buttons 1-5 (or double left click) to any of the normal keys (and assign the joystick as a mouse if needed)...

I agree it will be interesting, but you always have to remember the dates that the reports cover. I have read some reports in the past, where they came out *just after* a big expansion release (literally by a couple of weeks), and so people were assuming that the expansion (which you had to pay for) did not increase earnings for the game, whereas in the *following* Quarterly report, it actually did increase earnings.

I agree that closer to the 1 year mark we will hear more and more about stuff that they are planning to release... although i would still be wary if they announced an expansion more than 6 months in advance....