New efforts!

[ukaserex]

  I built him as a sapper, and he was quite good at it.

I wish I could say something like this. I didn't even know what a sapper was when I built mine.

[Arcana]

Wish they would have given those power choices before they closed the game. Did anyone else think that the new power pool sets may have incorporated some of those powers in them? They fit thematically with what some of the powers were supposed to do (slow target, -regen, etc).

Thought they would have made a really cool blaster/blapper power sets.

The devs tended to avoid giving players explicit copies of NPC powers they didn't already have access to, post launch.  Not that it was forbidden or anything, but the thinking tended to be that all other things being equal when creating new powersets for players the players should get powers they hadn't seen before, and conversely new NPCs should be given powers the players haven't been using for a while.  Also, even though it takes more time and resources obviously, when the opportunity arises to make a new critter or a new player power most of the devs that get that opportunity are more likely to use the opportunity to try to execute new ideas they had rather than just copy another power and call it a day.  The number of new powers any dev might get the opportunity to make was limited.

[adarict]

I wish I could say something like this. I didn't even know what a sapper was when I built mine.

Technically, I didn't know what a sapper was when I started him either.    It was a happy accident, after the fact.  I picked electricity pretty much because it looked cool, and since it DID talk about draining endurance, I figured it would be useful.  It wasn't until I really started adding EndMods in that I realized how effective it could be.  Then I decided to put EVERYTHING into EndMod, and voila! I had a sapper.  I guess even that isn't entirely true.  It wasn't until IOs came around that I REALLY became a sapper.  Prior to IOs, I did a good job as a sapper against minions and lieutenants, and even a bunch of bosses.  After IOs though, almost nothing gave me trouble.

[Harpospoke]

Thank you for this kind of commentary.  As an avid AE writer who possibly wrote the last AE arc to go live ("PENGUIN Part 4: Waddle On" went live around 8 p.m. Eastern and got 6 hits of feedback before close), I pushed for the creative side of the Architect Entertainment, trying to get people to realize it was more than just a bunch of farms and nonsense missions.

Should we get the game back and should the AE even function, I definitely aim to continue with "PENGUIN Part 5: Waddle Home" and to rework the storyline for "Hammer and Sickle of Paragon City."

And that raises another question: if the arcs still exist in the AE system, how would they ever match up with their creators for editing purposes?  Merely by the coincidence of a global name shared with the original identity?  Or would the AE potentially be wiped to start from scratch?  Or would it even work at all for the creation of new arcs, if it were merely running from a permanent "last day" state?  It would certainly be disappointing to lose access to that part of the game.

Good thing I saved all the old AE arc files for my missions.    Recreating them would take time, but it would be time well spent if I ever got the chance.

I hope you get that chance.   I probably played some of your missions.   There were so many cool things in the AE.   All I heard was people complaining about it though.   I had to wonder if they ever bothered to set foot in the AE section of the forum where all these writers were posting their hard work.   More stuff than I had time to try to be honest.

The author of that quote never took musicians into account.   They constantly do the same thing over and over and get different results (improved playing).   We call it "practice".   

....Or was the author claiming musicians are insane??   

"Playing an instrument" is the "same thing" every time you pick it up, but I would venture to say that you do not do the "same thing" every time you play. Otherwise you would only be good at one song, or a few practice chords.

That's how you improve your playing...by playing the same thing over and over.   You learn each chord by playing it over and over until you get it under your fingers.   Same with various scales.  Or a new technique.   If you do it different every time you'll never improve.  You have to train your brain.

   Eventually you can take all those various things you did over and over and apply them where and when you need them.   It's like a big snowball....the more you learn through repetition, the easier it is to add new things through repetition.

Mozart taught himself to play instruments at four and wrote original musical pieces by five.  I'm sure there was some effort involved but he wasn't alive long enough to expend the amount of effort it would take most people to get there.  There's a tendency for many to (want to) believe that natural talents and prodigies don't exist because they think it diminishes the respect for hard work but the truth is some people are born with a combination of an inclination and ability to do certain things that others aren't.  That doesn't mean they don't subsequently work hard at those things or that other people can't get good at those things through hard work, but in my experience while most people have the capacity to get good at most things, it is not true that everyone has the same potential in everything.

If anything, we tend to underestimate the potential most people have to do most things.  We assume it takes significant intrinsic talent to get anywhere.  The problem is the opposite: we can drive people to do things we assume it takes significant intrinsic talent to get good at, and assume that if the work they put in generates results that must be an indicator of intrinsic talent.  Often though, the amount of effort required to excel at that thing is simply torturously high.

Seems like a combination of natural gifts and stubbornness to me.   If I have any special gift for hearing melody I'm not aware of it.  I've always been able to sing in tune, but my singing did get better as I worked at it.   If I have anything, it was an interest in melody from a very early age.   I still remember the first song I heard on the radio as a 4 year old and how that affected me.   So *maybe" I was born with an inclination toward music?   I feel like I've always been able to hear a melody and sing it back...but that sort of thing can also be learned to via ear training.

That would certainly help with the desire to spend hours perfecting the skills you need to play music.   I'm thinking Mozart was born with that desire and that made spending the time to learn violin and piano into "playing".   We learn a LOT of things in our first years on earth so it makes sense that if a person was born with a brain which was wired in a way where music would send endorphins flying all over the place, that would become an obsession for them.   So maybe that's what a "child prodigy" really is.

For guitarists, it certainly helps if you are born with bigger hands.   ...But then I've seen people excel at guitar with short stubby fingers too.   That's where the "tortuously high effort" you mentioned comes in I guess.   They wanted to play and nothing was going to stop them.

When Mozart was the young age of 3 years old his father noticed an inclination towards music (That is what talent is) he had a natural drawing to it and wanted to play all the time.  You better believe no one told Mozart to "Get in the other room and practice" that is the start and the end of "natural talent."  His father taught him everything he knew about Harmony, Melodiziation, Arranging, Composing, Pedal Tones,  and their modern Theory system.  By the time Mozart was 9 years old and wrote his first full piece he had probably practiced already for  thousands upon thousands over hours.

Agreed for the most part.

But at the same time, two different people can have the same inclination to practice and work at it the same way....and end up being very different musicians.   That may be where the mystery lies and what causes people to search for a magical "gift" which some are born with.   With Mozart...his work definitely made him a great musician....but where did the notes come from in his compositions?    If I worked just as hard, would I be able to compose like him?    I don't know...but I kinda doubt it.

And I'm sure you've noticed that two different musicians can practice the same amount of time and one of them will progress quicker than the other.   Some of that could be attributed to poor practice habits (you can practice wrong as you know), but even if they are both instructed by the same person the end result often varies.   The "slower" student can still achieve great things, but may have to work a little harder.  (i.e. more stubborn)

It's not how many years you have played, its how many minutes.

I like that!

I'd say its quite obvious musicians are insane.  We are most certainly chasing the dragon.

It is a never ending journey.   Always more to learn.   I guess that's what games strive for.

For me, what's 'moral' and what's 'lawful' aren't always the same thing.  And times change.  People change.  Landscapes change.  Giving people rent ware and then pulling the rug sounds like a nasty, corporate trick to profit from the vulnerable and trade on people's good nature then kick them to the curb when you've got what you wanted from them.  And the publishers then wonder why MMO fans may be fickle or give them the shoulder.  (as in cold...)  NC Soft's MMO games seem largely lacklustre to me.  But they closed down the one 'gem' they had.  Was it business?  Or was it personal.  Old bones, I suppose. 

But I have the client.  I bought 'their' game 3 times!  Coh.  CoV.  Going Rogue.  I gave them subs for the best part of the years CoH was alive.  I think we're entitled to a solo game, a micro-server with Lan '8 man' team capability.  That should have been built into the game as insurance (all MMO games...) should the inevitable happen.  So that the fan base can play the game and their creations.  And the community can still peer to peer with 8 man teams.  Show some good will and match fund the fan base for a Legacy server to cover the running costs.  Keeping 100-150k players 'onside.'  A gesture of humanity.  Of honour.  The latter of which takes many forms.

Azrael.

I'm right there with you.   I think some basic things are going to have to eventually change with online gaming.   I see no way to maintain a game industry where you build a fan base for game and then it goes away forever.   No costumer base is going to put up with that forever.  I personally cannot bring myself to get emotionally invested in another game because I know the same thing will happen to all of them.   Someone will come up with a better way and the costumers will go to that instead.

[Arcana]

And I'm sure you've noticed that two different musicians can practice the same amount of time and one of them will progress quicker than the other.   Some of that could be attributed to poor practice habits (you can practice wrong as you know), but even if they are both instructed by the same person the end result often varies.   The "slower" student can still achieve great things, but may have to work a little harder.  (i.e. more stubborn)

Stubbornness implies persistence, but I think persistence is not enough.  That persistence has to be directed towards useful effort, and not all effort is useful.  Probably most important is that persistence has to be coupled with some kind of iterative self-reflection and assessment.  Some people are better than other people at self-assessing what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong.  Teachers can't be around all the time, and people who are able to self-assess and have the persistence to apply themselves have a significant advantage over people who can't or do not.

Learning can also have cumulative effects that magnify small advantages.  Sometimes getting better makes it easier to get better, particularly when it improves the ability for someone to self-assess and feedback that into better learning.  When you have positive feedback cycles happening like that, where learning something improves your ability to self-assess and teach yourself, which improves your ability to learn something even absent teachers, a small advantage at age ten can magnify exponentially into a huge advantage by age twenty.  So much so it can be hard to see what the initial advantage even was by comparison.

[LaughingAlex]

Stubbornness implies persistence, but I think persistence is not enough.  That persistence has to be directed towards useful effort, and not all effort is useful.  Probably most important is that persistence has to be coupled with some kind of iterative self-reflection and assessment.  Some people are better than other people at self-assessing what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong.  Teachers can't be around all the time, and people who are able to self-assess and have the persistence to apply themselves have a significant advantage over people who can't or do not.

Learning can also have cumulative effects that magnify small advantages.  Sometimes getting better makes it easier to get better, particularly when it improves the ability for someone to self-assess and feedback that into better learning.  When you have positive feedback cycles happening like that, where learning something improves your ability to self-assess and teach yourself, which improves your ability to learn something even absent teachers, a small advantage at age ten can magnify exponentially into a huge advantage by age twenty.  So much so it can be hard to see what the initial advantage even was by comparison.

Sirlin sometimes talked about this in his book "play to win", especially at the beginning when he talks about "the scrub".  Granted scrub is often used in place of noob, but the way he describes it is an inferior player who just thinks that merely playing will improve skill, when in reality that can actually make you better at making mistakes.  What matters is an ability to assess oneself accurately in comparison to better players without constricting yourself with artificial rules.  Better players end up reaching ever higher levels of play because they do not waste time banning tactics at any point.  Instead they focus on learning the counters to those tactics first.  And that good effort leads to even more tactics being discovered exponentially in games with a lot of depth.

I saw this happen to me in city of heroes.  As I discovered a new tactic, I'd often discover two or three more tactics that one more basic tactic unlocked.  At first it was simple debuffs, but later it turned into crowd control and buffs.  From an over-defensive illusion/force field controller, to knockback-based defensive tactics protecting a very high speed kinetics build and gravity/force fields or gravity/time ect.  City of heroes had immense levels of depth.  And sometimes learning a powersets nuances led me to combine that one with another oddball set or even just swap a powerset combination by switching from defender to corrupter for science.

But it's depth was also in a way that it wasn't a game that started out wide, but as you got deeper in it's depth it also widened rather than narrowed.  It had an appearance of a small hole in the ground that got ever wider the further in you went, reinforced and held together by strong replay-ability.

[TimtheEnchanter]

I think some basic things are going to have to eventually change with online gaming.   I see no way to maintain a game industry where you build a fan base for game and then it goes away forever.   No costumer base is going to put up with that forever.  I personally cannot bring myself to get emotionally invested in another game because I know the same thing will happen to all of them.   Someone will come up with a better way and the costumers will go to that instead.

I think that may be part of the reason that MMO's are now in a slow decline. In the beginning, people felt they could dedicate enough of their time to it and treat it like a life-time hobby. There was no reason to suspect that MMO's couldn't be kept running for decades. We know that isn't true now, and we're very jaded by it. Like first teenage love, we enter into it expecting a happily ever after, as long as we give our hearts fully - and then the worst happens. In the case of MMO's we know now that we're going to get dumped no matter what, so there's not much of a point in bothering anymore.

[Arcana]

I think that may be part of the reason that MMO's are now in a slow decline. In the beginning, people felt they could dedicate enough of their time to it and treat it like a life-time hobby. There was no reason to suspect that MMO's couldn't be kept running for decades. We know that isn't true now, and we're very jaded by it. Like first teenage love, we enter into it expecting a happily ever after, as long as we give our hearts fully - and then the worst happens. In the case of MMO's we know now that we're going to get dumped no matter what, so there's not much of a point in bothering anymore.

Also, mobile games and for that matter social media now exist to scratch that itch in a way that they didn't to the same degree when City of Heroes first launched.  An MMO today has to compete not only with the veteran Eve Onlines and World of Warcrafts that exist with over a decade of accumulated content, they also have to compete with the Clash of Clans and Fallout Shelters of the world that let you scratch that MMO itch in five minute increments at any time anywhere and cost virtually nothing (unless you want them to cost something).

Most people think of MMOs as games that contain communities, but over time I've come to see them more as communities that contain games.  City of Heroes was structurally more like a fairground that people went to see what was happening, maybe play a few games, ride a few rides, eat a deep fried twinkie, and go home.  Yes, City of Heroes was designed like a game with gaming rules and gaming conventions, and yes there were a lot of people who played it that way - as a single holistic monolithic game, but I think most of the long-term veterans didn't interact with it that way.  They logged in chatted with friends, maybe leveled an alt for a while, saw someone was organizing an ITF and jumped into that, and then waited for the next incarnate trial to launch, and then logged out.  Fairground.

Rattling around in my head is an idea for an evolution of the MMO that goes all-in on that concept.  Elements of that idea kind of exist.  City of Heroes and City of Villains were once two distinct games that we could somehow move between.  Perfect World has a kind-of sort-of single login to a portal that can connect you to lots of different games via Arc.  Champions Online had the idea to make different game zones into completely different genres.  I wonder what it would look like to make something called HyperMMO where you log into ... something.  And from there you can socialize and whatever, and then "portal" yourself into different games.  The games would be connected in a way that would somehow make it make sense for "you" or your character to be able to go from place to place, playing different games with potentially different rules but with some unifying principle.  And when a "genre" becomes stale, unused, or unprofitable, the company could phase it out without shutting down the entire "game."  The incentive to keep the global thing running is that it is in effect your entire customer base.  Your character could live on forever even if its ability to enter "superhero world" might one day get curtailed.  You could still enter SecretAgentWorld or DinosaurJoustingWorld.  There would still be a sense of continuity.  And if enough people ask for SuperHeroWorld, you could always bring it back.  Or you could make SuperHeroWorld2.0.  And really as long as people were playing SuperHeroWorld1.0, there would be no incentive to shut it down anyway.  Even if only five people were still going there, put it in maintenance mode and let them be.  You have to keep the servers running anyway, because they are also running WorldWar2World and HopscotchAndPoniesWorld.

I don't know if this is a really good idea or a really stupid one.  Right now its just an intellectual exercise, like thinking about how light sabers work.  But if you like thinking about game design theory, HyperWorld begs some interesting questions.  Like what game balance rules are actually necessary, and which only look like they are necessary because no one has ever challenged them?

[Sinistar]

I think that may be part of the reason that MMO's are now in a slow decline. In the beginning, people felt they could dedicate enough of their time to it and treat it like a life-time hobby. There was no reason to suspect that MMO's couldn't be kept running for decades. We know that isn't true now, and we're very jaded by it. Like first teenage love, we enter into it expecting a happily ever after, as long as we give our hearts fully - and then the worst happens. In the case of MMO's we know now that we're going to get dumped no matter what, so there's not much of a point in bothering anymore.

Precisely this, IMO.   I have not found any MMO since COH that caught my like COH did.

Tried SWTOR, Star Trek, even attempted Warcraft for a day.  Also completely bypassing any NCSoft MMO as they are MMO killers.  Surely the costs of maintaining a zombie server for fans to still play isn't that great.

There is an upcoming Vampire MMO that is picking up where the cancelled World of Darkness left off, I think its current title is Dogma:Eternal Night, apparently it is a new dev team working with the cancelled in development World of Darkness.  Might be worth checking if it ever makes it out.

Or should COH return beforehand.....

[slickriptide]

Well, Arcana, you've more or less described the TORG MMORPG that I've had rattling around in my brain for the last fifteen years. 

The problem with the multi-game universe idea is not so much that variations have never been tried. It's that the people who try it are always indie developers who attract a bunch of participating dev teams that can generally only loosely be called "developers" at all. The problem is that nobody wants to play a bunch of no-name games developed by amateurs. People expect AAA games from a MMORPG experience, and for the reasons covered previously, the genre as a whole is scaling way back these days.

I thought that Landmark might be the thing that would crack the genre barrier. The premise of a single world with every player building their own "world" within the main world, where my Space Ranger and your Super Hero and Tim's Enchanter could all adventure together in a multitude of "lands" each with its own rules, theme, and landscape was an amazing idea. It's too bad that it was too grand an idea for SOE to really crack, and their focus on EQ Next meant that Landmark took a back seat. Now that they're struggling just to pay the bills, I don't see that Landmark will ever be more than a dream of what could have been if the hype, and Storybricks, had panned out as advertised.

The Multiverse" platform as built on the idea of a common shared platform that could have made it possible for two or more games to share users between them. I'm not aware that any of the games that were developed on it were ever made complete enough to be playable, let alone cooperative, though. Granted, it's been a long time since I last checked in on them, but their website seems to be broken-down at the moment which suggests that Multiverse has fallen apart and the promise of a common platform along with it.

I recently got interested in an online fiction platform by Failbetter Games, the makers of Fallen London and Sunless Sea. Sadly their platform, Storynexus.com, is on life support as well. They idea of a shared platform of interactive fiction games that could, if they  desired, transfer achievements between each other, also failed to pan out as a commercial venture. They keep Fallen London going because it is self-supporting but they don't even bother to support Storynexus any more.

The idea is never going to take off without a big name, big budget AAA producer deliberately supporting it from day one, *AND* managing to make their first game or two in the platform a resounding success. Especially since they'd need to support each other and not cannibalize each other the way that CoH and CoV did, and the way that EQ and EQ2 frequently did.

Given how MMORPG's are going, I don't think it will ever happen, explicitly.

Implicitly, it can happen naturally as an outgrowth of a game's aging process. I read an article recently in which a Blizzard developer talked at length about the challenges of developing for a "community" that was really an aggregation of many small communities focused on one or two aspects of the game: PvP, pet battles, transmog collection, market flipping, raiding, achievment grinding, socializing, etc..., etc... His contention was that with each expansion they have to design it for twenty different versions of the "WoW audience" because the "WoW audience" doesn't actually exist as a monolithic entity.

WoW may not exactly be HyperWorld but I can certainly see where the guy was coming from just from the way I play it myself (or don't play - it might be time to cancel my sub again until Legion drops).

I've personally been waiting a long, long time for TORG World or GURPS World or Rifts World - It's just never going to happen because to make HyperWorld a success you first have to make five sub-worlds each be an individual success. even before WoW, hitting a single success was pretty much lightning in a bottle. These days, I don't see how a virtual world game is even going to get launched. Technology and changing expectations have led people to realize that you don't have to have a Second Life in order to escape online for a bit of entertainment in something that feels like a virtual world even if it's not really a persistent "world" like a MMORPG.

Look at CoV. Strictly speaking, it was a failure as a stand-alone game. The joining of the two games was just an acknowledgement that the people playing both games were the same people.

I don't know what that means for online gaming communities. I don't see the same sort of communities forming around Hearthstone or League of Legends.

Maybe I should look in on The Secret World. I haven't dropped in there in a long time and it would be useful to see what their community is like these days.

***EDIT***

Just as an addendum - I would suggest that Free Realms and Superhero Squad are both pretty much just what you described for HyperWorld. You login to the overarching "social" world and then branch off to the other "worlds" as you wish either on your own or with your friends. It's probably not too encouraging that both of those games are (or were, in the case of Free Realms) kid's games. It seems like the concept of a "world" built of many different and separate activities is treated by the game dev community as some kind of acknowledgement of developing for short attention spans rather than a way to offer a kind of variety to an adult customer.

[Tahquitz]

I think that may be part of the reason that MMO's are now in a slow decline. In the beginning, people felt they could dedicate enough of their time to it and treat it like a life-time hobby. There was no reason to suspect that MMO's couldn't be kept running for decades. We know that isn't true now, and we're very jaded by it. Like first teenage love, we enter into it expecting a happily ever after, as long as we give our hearts fully - and then the worst happens. In the case of MMO's we know now that we're going to get dumped no matter what, so there's not much of a point in bothering anymore.

Coupled with a smaller compliment of computers available that CAN run MMOs, as most laptops in the sub-$1,000 range can't play them very well.  (Most customers don't know to ask for discrete graphics in consumer laptops, and most salespersons equate gaming with casual. On board graphics are a crapshoot.)  And with desktops on the decline in most houses the cost of those are next to start rising.  Long story short: even with freemium, if someone wants to get into MMO play, the cost of entry is still a factor.

It's multiple facets that make MMOs less attractive now than last decade. I don't think they're going to die or go completely away.  But with less available money from the playerbase and less players, I think choice will be off the menu for MMO players in the next 5 years or so.  We won't be alone in losing our home for much longer.

[Felderburg]

I haven't really followed it at all: how are Eve and Dust 514 doing? That's more in line with how I think multi genres / games should be done - not different MMO worlds, but different types of game within the same world. CCP could probably make an engaging Farmville style game, and tie it in to planetary systems or something - get a third type of game, capture that demographic.

[Mistress Urd]

Dust is dead.

[slickriptide]

Eve is a resounding success story, especially considering that when it launched, they had something like 65k subscriptions. Everybody talks about a game that starts small and grows over time, but Eve is the game that actually succeeded at it.

They did that by word of mouth, by offering a unique game experience, and by putting everyone in the same big universe. Practically speaking, each star system is a "shard" but the feeling in the gameplay is that there are no "shards". Rather like CoH, Eve has enacted a lot of innovative gameplay,most of which has never managed to transfer out to the rest of the MMORPG landscape.

[Taceus Jiwede]

Agreed for the most part.

But at the same time, two different people can have the same inclination to practice and work at it the same way....and end up being very different musicians.   That may be where the mystery lies and what causes people to search for a magical "gift" which some are born with.   With Mozart...his work definitely made him a great musician....but where did the notes come from in his compositions?    If I worked just as hard, would I be able to compose like him?    I don't know...but I kinda doubt it.

And I'm sure you've noticed that two different musicians can practice the same amount of time and one of them will progress quicker than the other.   Some of that could be attributed to poor practice habits (you can practice wrong as you know), but even if they are both instructed by the same person the end result often varies.   The "slower" student can still achieve great things, but may have to work a little harder.  (i.e. more stubborn)

Would you be able to compose like Mozart?  Not likely, but I mean personally I would listen to Beethoven or Schumann over Mozart any day of the week.  And they didn't show Mozart level's of understanding towards music.  And you could probably still compose tasteful and artistic music.  In fact I would say you certainly could create a work worthy of traditional composers if you dedicated the next 5-10 years to nothing but it.

As for different musicians learn at different rates that is true beyond question.  But with a lot of hard work you can certainly close the gap.  I don't believe I was born with any natural talent.  The musician I work with the most often was born with a great ear and natural inclination towards melodies.  He can write a better melody then me.  I know more about music theory.  He can write good songs quickly, I can imrpov extremely well and compose for different instruments.  We both have strengths and weakness because not only did we start from different places we took different routes to get to where we are now.  If both of us could do the same things we wouldn't be any help to each other.  But together we are both better musicians.  Mozart wasn't the best musician in every single field.  Beethoven just as talented on the piano if not more so, he was very well known for his insanely powerful improv sessions.  Mozart had a better understanding of large harmonies and composition.  Mozart was great at doing a lot with a little.

Its funny about the "slower" student though.  As this has been a topic of many, many great musicians and just creative types in general.  Some people claim that if you stick to a creative routine it will help you get the most out of your time.  Other's say set clear goals for each practice session.  But the main thing people discuss is getting more out of your practice is just a skill a musician needs to learn, its just as important as learning an instrument.  There are a million different ways to get more out of your practice time and for each person its different.  A piano teacher I studied under and respected very much as he was not only a really good person but he was just a fantastic musician, one of the best I have ever had the pleasure of meeting and I have met hundreds of different musicians.  He once told me

"Its not the people who practice more then me and are better then me that annoy me.  Its the people that seemingly practice less.  But then again, maybe they can just get more out of an hour then me"

The thing about music though its not always about being "the best".  Was Mozart the best?  Not a chance.  He was one of the best.  In fact in most of my varying Musical History classes Beethoven is studied twice as long as Mozart is because of his role in shaping the Romantic Era.   Not to say Mozart isn't  studied or respected by those teachers, everyone respects Mozart in the music world but he is hardly the only composer worth studying.  Its just about getting as far as you can with the time you have.  Maybe some people can do more with 4 hours then me.  That's why I practice 8 hours.  But in my experience the number one thing that stops people from being a good musician is a lack of hard work and a fear of failure.

However none of this means that I can't be paces ahead of other musicians with natural inclination.  In my earlier days I worked with a lot of musicians who had this natural inclination to music that I didn't have, they wouldn't jam with me after awhile because I just wasn't at the same level.  10 years later.  I am 10x the musicians they are.  They got cocky and relied on their natural abilities meanwhile I worked my ass off to be the best musician I can be.  And that's why I am a better, and more successful, musician then them.  Stubborn goes a long way.  There is a lot of smoke and mirrors in music, its not just "Oh wow that person is so talented"  When you are neck deep in the musical world you learn the most important lesson any musician can learn.  9 times out of 10 times talent comes back to hard work.

[Aron]

I haven't really followed it at all: how are Eve and Dust 514 doing?.

I believe that the Dust servers are shutting down on May 30th.  Supposedly there is some sort of successor project in the works.

[darkgob]

I think that may be part of the reason that MMO's are now in a slow decline. In the beginning, people felt they could dedicate enough of their time to it and treat it like a life-time hobby. There was no reason to suspect that MMO's couldn't be kept running for decades. We know that isn't true now, and we're very jaded by it. Like first teenage love, we enter into it expecting a happily ever after, as long as we give our hearts fully - and then the worst happens. In the case of MMO's we know now that we're going to get dumped no matter what, so there's not much of a point in bothering anymore.

To be honest, I was somewhat hesitant getting into CoH originally (way back in 2005) for precisely this reason.  It felt like I didn't really own the game but rather was renting it.

[nicoliy]

To be honest, I was somewhat hesitant getting into CoH originally (way back in 2005) for precisely this reason.  It felt like I didn't really own the game but rather was renting it.

When I played CoH (and WoW at the time), I never thought about shut-downs. Post CoH it's all I think about. Even on console games it crosses my mind. For example, I picked up Battleborn on Xbox 1. Though it has a single player set of missions, they require you to be online. I'd assume that when they shut down servers, it will impact SP as well.

If anything I've grown less attached to long-term games (like MMOs). As much as I love the genre, I don't want to put 8+ years into something and have it disappear again. If anything the experience has taught me to invest in game projects that are more personal. For example I have 2 projects now: 1 building a raspberry pi mini portable arcade, and 2: get all Final Fantasy games out on PC (have VIII, IX, X, X-2, XIII, XIII-2 so far on steam so getting there).

At least with the projects I feel a sense of completion and feel connected to the my roots with it (god I'm getting old aren't I). New games will come and go, but unless it's CoH or a successor that I feel hits the marks I miss, I likely won't subscribe and get invested into it.

[Felderburg]

Dust is dead.

Was it a bad game, or is it because it was for console only?

[ukaserex]

DinosaurJoustingWorld

Oooh. Someone make this!