True Fantasy Online May Be On Track for Xbox 2

German site GameZone is running a piece discussing the late, lamented True Fantasy Online. In it they mention that the Xbox MMOG may be released on the Xbox 2, based on commentary from the president of Level-5. From the article: "Now these hopes are affirmed by the level 5-Praesidenten Akihiro Hino, because in the Japanese Dorimaga said it that according to its estimates True Fantasy Live one on-line one could nevertheless still appear."

Bravo

[jabber-admin]

Congrats to the submitter for comprehending the article. I would have given up after 1 or 2 lines.

Re:Bravo

[LordPhantom]

No kidding - I think they hired Yoda over at altavista........

Re:Bravo

[_xeno_]

It's a German translation through Babblefish, which is why none of the page makes any sense. The original is here [gamezone.de] in case anyone wants to try a human translation of the article.

Anyway, since I'd never heard of True Fantasy Online before, I figured some people might find the GameSpot page on it [gamespot.com] useful.

Sounds... meh. Apparently it was aimed at the Japanese XBox market, which probably wasn't the best of ideas... Seems like it's another attempt to somehow "revolutionize" MMORPGs, but it sounds like it ul

Word.

[Momoru]

Times it looks whether True Fantasy Live one on-line one will appear. Akihiro Hino will not say sowas, in order to then take the fans nevertheless on the arm. Perhaps we become with the official Xbox 2-Vorstellung in the next year more erfahen also here.

Yes, this is so true....i can't wait to by taken on the arm!

Huh.

[Golias]

As appealing as it may sound at first to play any sort of MMOG from the living room sofa, I'm not sure if this will ever really fly.

The thing about these games is that they are really just simplified MUDs with graphics, which is to say that they are pretty much an first-person (or nearly first-person) RPG with a text-based chat room attached to them.

The whole point of Playing EQ, AC, DAOC, CoH, WoW, etc., is the social aspect of the gameplay.

I think most of you already see where I'm going with this.

The X-Box has no keyboard, so unless you want to roleplay via voice chatter (in which case, "broadcast" and "shout" type messages will be more annoying than ever), this large part of the game is missing.

In the early development phase of EverQuest, it was pretty clear that Sony intended it to be a big hit for the PS2. As it turns out, they could only deliver a stripped-down version of it to the console, and almost everybody who played EQ did so on the PC.

Re:Huh.

[_xeno_]

Nah, you can get it to work on a console. Final Fantasy XI proved that it can work. I have no idea about the actual PC vs. PS2 player breakdown, because Square-Enix doesn't list statistics like that (grumble), but apparently it does work.

If you don't have a keyboard for the PS2, you can enter text like you would on those "Enter Your Name" screens I'm sure everyone knows about. Obviously it would be a very slow process.

The end result is that almost all PS2 players wound up getting keyboards to chat.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Huh.

[Anonymous Coward]

The X-Box has no keyboard, so unless you want to roleplay via voice chatter (in which case, "broadcast" and "shout" type messages will be more annoying than ever), this large part of the game is missing.

The Xbox does have a keyboard adapter [xbox.com] and they're giving it away for free (minus S/H charges).

Lineage 2

[Dark Lord Seth]

I don't know what it's like for other MMORPGs, but Lineage 2 makes me feel.... icky. First of all, there's client stability and overall design that just seem poor. Sure, it looks good but there are several weird in-game glitches that make me wonder just how qualified the people at NCSoft are. These issues range from playability issues to client stability. Playability is not so bad, just a few minor glitches like monsters getting stuck and all that.

Client issues are a bit worse really, with the client regulary crashing on me for no good reason at all. The game often freezes as well, has weird graphic glitches that can lock up my entire PC and I get sudden disconnects for no real reason. All very annoying. While L2 boasts about having hundreds of thousands of paying subscribers, it's pretty evident that none of the monthly money they get go into development of the game, except perhaps a sequeal which would only serve to bring in more money.

I've heard stories about most MMORPGs being like this; the game appears to be nothing more then a poor release based on a proven addictive concept along with pre-existent competitive ( sometimes hostile ) player behaviour. The actual client or storyline doesn't really matter just as long as these two elements are in there. The question is, though, why the hell would anyone want to pay for such lousy services? I mean, I play L2, sure. But I do so on a free server at no cost at all. I don't pay a single cent for this worthless client I'm stuck with and the actual server runs on donations from the users.

But despite this and the fact that at least some people agree with me on this, MMORPGs keep popping up like bad weeds. Is it just a fad like all the "* Tycoon" games we had?

( On a different note, heard Slashdot solved the issues about the 503s and generally atrocious performance lately. Maybe they even decided to stop banning my subnet the whole damn day! Anyways, giving this a try again, so here goes... )

Re:Lineage 2

[Golias]

Come up with another type of massively-multiplayer game in which downtime is built in to the game concept (so players will be foreced to slow down and get to know each other), and some people will play it.

Anybody who learned about Pavlovian conditioning in Psych 101 understands why the system of nearly-random rewards makes these games so addictive, and why you eventually realize that you are not really having fun, but playing out of compusion. When people reach that point, they either quit, or decide that

Level-5 President? HA!

[Samrobb]

I've got a 14th level Prime Minister that'll mop up the floor with that looser!

(Oh, c'mon. You know that your first thought was a lame joke like this, too...)

Re:Level-5 President? HA!

[Creepy Crawler]

And Ive a 22 level President that has 3 lvl 12 secretary minons that suck dick to increase constitution ;P

And the president can smoke cigars with no ill effects!

No keyboard

[theREALMcCoy]

is a real issue for me. It's nerdy enough to run around in an RPG in the role of your avatar, but having to do so with real voice chat is a bit uncomfortable for me.

Re:No keyboard

[drinkypoo]

If it has vocoder support, at least no one will be able to recognize your voice - plus it will be neccessary for all the teenage boys and hairy old men who want to play female characters, and the females who don't want anyone to know they're a chick so they don't have people following them around making lewd and often downright repugnant suggestions...

Fishing Live Online?

[ZombieFrog]

The same company that was making True Fantasy Live Online was also making an online Xbox fishing game. I was really looking forward to that one, what happened?

Re:Fishing Live Online?

[Mike Hawk]

Fishing online? That would be sick. I'd buy it just so I could paddle up to other boats and yell into the mic to scare fish away. Good times.

Nice To Salvage Something...

[blueZhift]

It would be nice to salvage something from all of the work that went into the title, but I won't be holding my breath. If it is true that Level 5 and MS had a falling out over TFLO, then it is unlikely it will be a poster child when Xbox 2 promotions begin. Why would Microsoft want to smear more egg on its face with this failed title, though even Malice [proliphus.com] eventually came out...

If Level 5 is serious about getting some return on investment, I think their best bet is to convert whatever they have into a single

Re:Nice To Salvage Something...

[Loonacy]

Speaking of Square/Enix... How long did it take Level 5 to come up with the name "True Fantasy"?