But in prior years, FFXI was unapproachable as a short term game. The scope of involvement required to advance was massive. As a career Dark Knight, it took me almost a full year of play to reach level 75, which was the old level cap. I had the freedom to dedicate lots of time to do this, so I stayed playing. Numerous friends of mine left the game at around 50 or so due to the sheer grind of getting to the fun stuff end game content. It defeats the the player before they even have a chance to try something hard. Granted, since XI changed its entire everything to easy mode, its more approachable, but players still need to do ridiculous amounts of grinding for the better weaponry and armor. Long story short, this either scares fresh blood away, or infuriates current players who are singled out due to being inferior in terms of gear and level. In this case, I feel that allowing a player controlled boosting system using real money isn't a harmful thing at all. It may not be the case for some mmos, but that's just my opinion here.

Personally, I feel squeenix would do well simply taking a cut of the rmt profits. Can't hurt them, that's for sure.

That's exactly what I was thinking regarding it. Spoiled corporations just want more money, no matter how they get it. I find it hypocritical that we work for their gain only. If I offer 10 bucks to a player for me to tag along and leech experience from their work, and claim any valuable stuff, who is Square Enix to tell me I am breaking their terms of service? Square Enix, Blizzard, SCEA...they don't own my time, and are entitled to no say how I spend it.

Corporate greed is balls.

Ok, so I've been playing FFXI for about 2 years now, with 2 years of PSU and a year of random free to play MMOs, and all this time, real money trading haa been a dominate force behind these games. You get people who don't wanna work who are willing to spend money to make progress in games that usually demand effort for rewards, it's no different from real life. Now personally, I've got a sense of honor (???) when I play games. I earn it, I own it, I keep it as a souvenier, but there are others who don't feel this way as strongly, and as a gamer, I feel this has isn't as huge an issue as companies make it to be. On the contrary, I feel that selling an item or service for a real monetary value is ingenious. So why do so many people frown upon it? Even worse, why do companies like Square Enix and Blizzard go so far to stop it? I can understand that as I don't own the game, selling materials amd items I have found in it are not legal, but in that respect, it's my time I am selling, and no company owns it. If I waste 2 years of my life farming a super rare item and then sell that item to a person, I am not selling him the item, but the extended amount of time I used in my life to obtain it. If I spend 6 hours a day farming cheap crap to sell for money that I intend to sell to someone else, why is this so heavily frowned upon? How does it destroy economies in these games? It's no different from a group of players exploiting high prices in a game by camping any and all places to obtain these items and control the price influx, just one merits a person doing this in a financial way. And as insult to injury, some of these companies offer their own variation, selling items or specialized currency in game for real value to obtain certain items or equipment otherwise inaccessible to players (casual players anyway).

Basically, why does it seem to be okay to condemn players who take advantage of lame people who rather pay to win? Even worse, why is it okay for the companies to take advantage of it?

I enjoyed star ocean 4 as well, outside of terrible.characters. I'd like to see a new star ocean entry that doesn't have such a bleh story and lame characters, because the gameplay is always solid.

Aren't you supposed to be studying right now?

But yeah, I don't see that too much here. 

They did already, and as I recall, Sega flipped the fucked out and filed lawsuits, which is why I assumed a similar reaction here.

I think my first couple of posts here may have lead you all to think I dislike megaman....it's not the case. I would love to play this if my pc wasn't sitting in my room gathering dust because it's shot.

Alright, I figured anything with the word "free" in it wouldn't be supported by capcom, so I'll eat that. But to say it looks amazing.....what? It looks exactly the same as every other megaman nes title. Sure, I sort of wish to play it, but not because it's pretty, but because it's Megaman.

I give it a month before capcom files a complaint.

Based on the video, kiting seemed pointless for those mobs though. Considering as a mage, the player was fighting 2 enemies at once, and standing her ground.

I don't know about anyone else here, but that "typical mmo fare" seems better than anything else I'm playing right now. Quests offering actual rewards, who would have thought it.

I had barely beat the guardian, myself. After the pixie thing said I should defend the major attack, I ended up getting hit by his bellow attack which paralyzed me. So I started spamming the heal spell til he used that special attack again, which I defended against this time. Then I noticed the little orbs everywhere and started picking them up, which made everything easier.

I still look forward to this game's release, but the demo was just balls.

It also sucked that the instructional menu item you get after beating that semi boss takes almost 15 minutes to read through, coupled with the 5-6 minutes of boss fight if you're unfamiliar with the game ( everyone probably was), leaving you with 4-5 minutes to actually go through the demo. Most people don't like to replay demos, so if you're not into it yet, 5 minutes of actual play in the demo sours the experience quickly.

Well, if the exploration and story, as well as character development, work out as well as the demo showed it should, the battle system will be only a small kick in the pants. It's not terribly implemented, just seems very elaborate for what basically equates to FFXII battle gameplay with random running and nabbing power ups. Game does reward you for actually defending, though, which is a rarity.

Yeah, way too much going on for what seems to be ffxii's basic fighting system, minus the gambits. Still, once I started running around it felt nicer. Reminded me of when I started DQVIII way back when. I look forward to the launch, just because I want a nice, linear, console jrpg. Swords, magic, olden times....enough sci fi for the current time being.

I agree with pretty much everything you said. I will forever desire Kevin Conroy as the voice of Batman....it just works, though the other guy who voices him in the red hood film and young justice does a decent job too. 2 definitely gets waaaaayyyyy to much kudos, especially considering how downplayed two face was. Yes, ledger was a terrific joker, but you can't help but think that if he hadn't died at the launch of the movie, his role would have been significantly less praised. But to be fair to the late Heath Ledger, I've never disliked anything he was in. He always gave a solid performance.

9 days til twilight's nerdy love sick fanbase gets dusted by....nerdy swords and sorcery fans.