Ironik

I guess if you're talking about Epic Fantasy like LotR and Conan, then I suppose that's mostly the case. Although the Narnia movies are fairly light and colorful.

Fantasy in general, though, can't really be characterized that way. There have been quite a few light-hearted and colorful Fantasies in the past decade. Just off the top of my head:

Alice in Wonderland
How To Train Your Dragon
Tangled
The Sorcerer's Apprentice (iffy)
Toy Story 3
Pirates of the Caribbean
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Kung Fu Panda

Definitely. That limitation was a bummer. I had the same issue with bases. I'm the only surviving member of all the SGs I was ever in, so I keep getting the message about upkeep... and those messages are years old. I can't even recall the last time I was in any base.

After DA2, ME3 and SW:TOR... honestly, I don't even want them to make another GAME.

In genre terms, it fits most of the criteria. In dungeon terms, I see what you did there.

Since they actually listen to you, that's evil. Arcana-evil.

I think that conceptually the Mission Architect fits better with CoH than PvP and traditional Raids. I agree that the form it took was a mistake. It's part of that thing I hate: explaining game mechanics with game lore.

I was disappointed by the presentation of the AE. When it was first announced, I sort of thought we'd be creating missions out in the open world, utilizing existing NPCs. Player-created content is brilliant and I've done my fair share of mods, even as far back as the original Lode Runner on the Apple][e, so I was stoked by it. I enjoyed making the couple of missions I created once I was done with them, but it was clunky getting through it and I had to sort of squint to make the AE missions from other people work for me.

Basically for some I pretended that we were traveling to an alternate Earth, ignoring the backstory of the AE building. Eventually I created a character named Avatari (avatar + Atari) who existed only in the virtual world of the AE missions.

What do you mean by that?

I have created a monster.

Uh-huh.

Emo Phillips:

I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said "Stop! don't do it!"

"Why shouldn't I?" he said. I said, "Well, there's so much to live for!" He said, "Like what?" I said, "Well...are you religious or atheist?" He said, "Religious." I said, "Me too! Are you christian or buddhist?" He said, "Christian." I said, "Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?" He said, "Protestant."

I said, "Me too! Are you episcopalian or baptist?" He said, "Baptist!" I said,"Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?" He said, "Baptist Church of God!" I said, "Me too! Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you reformed Baptist Church of God?" He said,"Reformed Baptist Church of God!" I said, "Me too! Are you reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1879, or reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?" He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915!"

I said, "Die, heretic scum", and pushed him off.

Retroactively.

Like I've said for years, it's a stupid addition to the game that hurt it.

I don't read rian's posts, and I saw nothing in what you wrote that contradicts the basic fact that GW is derivative of WoW on a basic level. The should have disguised it even more if that's what they were going for, but they clearly are aiming to siphon off some of WoW's playerbase and are taking aim squarely at them. That's why they have so many races which are similar to ones you find in WoW.

That was one of the things that undermined WoW for me. One of my CoH SGmates kept blathering on about how he could roleplay better in WoW, and then I killed one of those giant chickens and got a glass of ice cold milk as a drop. I have no idea how one roleplays THAT nonsense.

This sort of thing just points out the limitations of Real Life Emulators when they have simplified economies which cause more frustration than anything else.

That's what the wiki says. /shrug

They are as similar as LotR and Shannara are. Every bit of lore you can point to underscores that. LotR takes place in an imaginary world of long ago, while Shannara takes place in a world after some apocalypse destroyed one similar to ours. These are minor details.

Look, I'm not trying to kill your cat with a spoon, so there's no need to get upset that I'm pointing out the obvious similarities of these games. If you like them, then great. More power to you. Of course there are subtle differences between the two, just as there are between Middle Earth and Shannara, but you simply can not look at the two things side by side and claim that the developers of GW did not take the inspiration of their game directly from WoW. There are simply too many points where they line up. Of course they changed the small details -- they don't want to get sued. But there's no way you can successfully argue that the races and professions in GW are substantially different from those in WoW. That's like saying because Superman is an alien and Shazam is a kid who transforms they are substantially different. They aren't.

Yes, a later addition that I argued against since its original inclusion in the game. The first background of CoH was much more open and vague, allowing players to determine the source of their abilities. Over the years it has become more and more constrained and follows the lead of games such as WoW and GW with their magical source for everything.

Annoying.

I think it's just a bridge between High Fantasy and Steampunk, really. It may eventually sort itself out into a separate genre, but right now it's basically just Epic Fantasy with a couple tech doodads for flavor.

There is a sub-genre of High Fantasy called "Hard Fantasy" which has really only started taking shape over the past 40 years or so. I suspect it's derived of two primary things: rules-based fantasy games and the fact that science works. Dungeons & Dragons and the like only work if you have hard-and-fast rules that everyone can understand and follow. Everything around us exists because of science. The confluence of these things results in weird mash-ups like Star Wars (space fantasy) and the WoW-GW-WH40k types which have fantasy science. It's not really a new thing so much as a slight remix of existing elements. (Which, I would argue, is really the only way we get new sub-genres anyway.)

Doesn't everything in GW2 ultimately descend from the various dragons? That right there is your "magical wellspring." Throwing in some sci-fi and steampunk tropes as set dressing doesn't change the underlying genre.

Which, I will point out, is neither good nor bad. I don't happen to care for Fantasy games any more because ultimately they all feel the same to me. If you like it, super. I don't care. Doesn't change what it is, though.

I do NOT believe that "all fantasy is the same." In fact, a greater majority of my college education was dedicated to sifting the finer points of sub-genres. What I'm saying is that claiming that GW and WoW are vastly different is like saying cars and pick-up trucks are vastly different. They aren't.

He started it.

Yeah, Guild Wars and World of Warcraft are like night and day.

I mean, in GW you have the tiny little Asura, which use steampunk magic-science contraptions, whereas in WoW you have little Gnomes, which use steampunk magic-science contr--

Er, in GW you've got your Charr, a race of warrior feline humanoids who form unbreakable bonds of loyalty, while over in WoW you've got the Tauren, a warrior race of bovine humanoids whose loyalty has proven unbreaka--

Well, in GW you do have the Norn, shapeshifters that were driven from their homeland who can choose an animal form such as bear or wolf, while Wow has the Morgen, shapeshifters that were driven from their homeland who can change into werewolves...

Okay, okay, at least in GW you've got the totally unique race called Sylvari, who are not human or elf, but rather a humanoid plant. They spring from the Pale Tree and are a gentle people who nonetheless have mastered war, yet do things with honor and chivalry. And WoW has the boring old Night Elves, a peaceful people who were forced to war when their World Tree was damaged yet still behave with honor and chival--

Yeah, completely different.

Look, GW and WoW are variations on the same theme. City of Heroes and EVE are just about as different as two games can get. GW and WoW are like Lord of the Rings and Shannara: so many similarities that it becomes futile to catalog them. CoH and EVE are like The Avengers and 2001: A Space Odyssey, where the points of similarity are tenuous at best.