Hi,
I didn't realise other MMO's were so advanced now!
Hehe, EU is far from being noticeable in the MMO scene for being advanced in any way, it doesn't even nearly reach the visual quality and playability of the the "CE2 Demo", Crysis (
demo download 1.8 GB from Nvidia).
An expensive game engine alone doesn't make a good game by itself, there needs to be a team of qualified developers using it, and this seems to be MA's problem.
Just check the way we're handling our guns, and worse, our swords ...
And compare it to the Crysis demo I linked above. Don't forget to play a bit with the gfx options, you'll realize that you'll be able to run Crysis with significantly more eye candy compared to EU.
But EU doesn't make it's points with eye candy or realism, EU's points are the RCE and the thus more mature community, IMHO. And regarding this I wouldn't think that any of the mentioned 5 MMO's would endanger Cyrene at all.
For sure, the GW2 release will, for a while, reduce the number of participants in all EU. ArenaNet has shown that they know how to make good games. But they also have shown that they are very good in destroying their work due to too much emphasis to PvP, and since the overwhelming amount of players of MMO's since ever were PvE, this isn't the wisest of choices.
The PvP people are always quickly attracted by MMO's, but usually return to their native FPS as fast as they came - MMO and FPS are diametrically game concepts:
- MMO's are all about slow skilling, complicated game mechanics and, most important, the developing of a player avatar. Thus MMO players usually just HATE frequent changes in the game mechanics, since such can destroy the "work" of a quite long time.
- Multiplayer FPS on the other hand are all about quick action, without any grind, on an even & carefully & continuously balanced play ground, preferably using premade toons.
You see, this doesn't fit together. Whatever decision the game company will make, it will send either the PvP or the PvE people into uproar.
This doesn't mean that PvP doesn't work in an MMO at all - it just means that it's a futile effort to cater your MMO after the PvP players, and this is the reason why I think most of these 5 MMO's will fail anyway, sooner or later. They'll fail like the countless tries to do so before. (GW2 might be an exception, maybe ANet has learned a bit from their first try ...)
Many PvE players would happily engage in casual PvP, as long as they'd not loose anything from their hard achieved skills and possessions, and as long as there'd be small incentives - PvP players are playing for the victory mainly, PvE players are playing for fun & improvement of their avatars.
Guess no single PvE player at all would mind the existence of PvP in the game, as long as it can be fully avoided without missing important game features, and as long as it wouldn't create the need of continuous "balance updates" destroying the carefully crafted plan of improvement for their avatars. While the PvP players are crying for those every other day, as long as they're not playing with prefab toons there'd never be a perfect balance.
Ouch, this has become long, and quite off topic too ...
In short, I'd think Cyrene can launch whenever they're done. I'd not necessarily launch close to the GW2 release, this might distract some possible participants for a while.
EU is so much in it's special niche, it cannot be compared with the everyday friendly MMO in the neighborhood at all.
The most dangerous risk, I'd think, would be too much success of the Cyrene launch. Would Cyrene draw too many of the big spenders from other planets these might feel endangered and start countermeasures, to get them players back. This could lead to the demise of NI, and maybe RT, too - I doubt they'd be able to defend themselves for too long in such a situation, meanwhile ...
So I'd love to see a slow, controlled launch, similar to the one Arkadia has shown. This would take quite some time to become fully operational, but it might be worth it.
Have a good time!
PS: For sure I'll be on Cyrene for a while once it opens. I need to have a look at all of this! ;-)
PPS: Howdy all, what a pain, one more forum I have to read ...
