Stein and his team have uploaded one of their voice actors reading some text to introduce you to the sounds of Divinity’s Reach. It’s impressive and sounds like someone walking next to you while the sounds of the city come and go as you stroll the streets.

In probably the most astonishing sentence in the entire article Stein says, “We’re voicing the equivalent of more than 60 feature-length films.”

Granted, you won’t be absorbing most of this dialogue through traditional cinematics. Instead, we’re evenly distributing story bits, lore, gameplay information, and ambience over hundreds of hours of play. Yes, we’ve got gorgeous, stylized cinematics that will make your jaw drop, but much of what you hear simply happens all around you, or at specific dramatic points in your personal story.

We’re also aware that there can be too much of a good thing, which is why we’ve developed a sound throttling system so you won’t hear the same combat chatter repeated over and over again during fights. Those concerned about the game being diluted with “snappy one-liners” can breathe a sigh of relief. You won’t hear quips every five seconds, and most of them aren’t smarmy in nature. That annoys us just as much as it does you.

Then Stein moves on to a subject that has baffled MMO players for years: WHY does every NPC in an MMO speak in Ye Olde English and in highly formal ways? In Guild Wars 2, NPCs will be less likely to ‘forsooth’ and ‘come hither’ to players. There will be some characters who speak more formally, but not all will. There’s another sound bite worth listening to that illustrates the point from one NPC snarkily talking to another. It’s a hoot!

source: mmorpg

Even though most of gamers are MMORPG players, shooter and strategy players still are a major cut of the gaming world. It just so happens that most die hard gamers (the players missing work or class to play past 5am everyday) are captivated to MMORPGs; namely World of Warcraft. One may claim that playing RPGs are most worthwhile, since high levels and rare items are easier to acknowledge than FPS shooting and RTS talent. With that being said, there are still loads of first person shooter and strategy online game hardcore gamers out and about. For example, the devout Starcraft and old school Counter-Strike gamers. Both sets of gamers play a game that very likely older than their youngest cousin.

Why it is important to acknowledge these facts of PC gamers, is that this new period of computer games has quite a selection targeted at these hardcore gamers. Starcraft II will undeniably form the biggest impact, thanks to the privilege of being the sequel of the most successful real time strategy game made. Hell, a nation is eargerly awaiting Starcraft 2, as SC: Brood War is virtually the largest sport of Korea, which own the astonishingly big video game league, KeSPA. Diablo 3 is an additional upcoming hyped up Blizzard title, and is also the sequel to a widely successful game, Diablo 2. Diablo I was the initial game of the Diablo franchise, and paved the way for dungeon crawling games following. Copying Diablo’s innovative formula is a hard goal that the majority of replicas have failed to reproduce. Luckily, maybe regrettably for playeres, RPGs have changed their time away from perfecting the dungeon crawling and towards the much slower paced MMORPG style of WoW.

If someone was to devise a time spreadsheet (yes, time plays a major part in this analysis) of the most successful online games ever created, it would seem Blizzard has been the leading figure of the gaming industry, to the sense of almost being a monopoly. Within the first period of PC games, Starcraft I set the standard for real time strategy games, and basically all PC games in general. Then arrived Diablo 2, which mesmerized a completely different collection of gamers, making previous MMORPGs look severly outdated. Currently, no video game comes close the amount of income WoW’s over 3 million gamers generate. Up and coming online RPGs perceive WoW as the game to surpass. It is almost expected that every new online RPG director met is asked, “Tell us, in what way this online RPG improve over WoW?” Regardless, I think it is pretty much agreed that World of Warcraft needs to fall down soon, and leave some room for the next era of online RPGs. But if the tenacity of prior Blizzard games serve as any indicator, I wouldn’t hold your breath for the fall of WoW.

Yes, though D3 and SC 2 have a huge advantage over lesser recognized titles, there are still a number of new games that serve a visible threat. Hype and development by a absurdly strong company doesn’t always equal the guidelines for triumph, as shown by Age of Conan. Guild Wars II is the sequel to the MMORPG which was formerly hyped to be the WoW destroyer, which for a time actually seemed quite realistic. SWTOR (Star Wars: the Old Republic) is another anticipated game supported by an immense number of fans, but of different types. Earth Rise is yet another title that is hardly recognized but might become a winner. May we spectate another epic clash of gaming companies? May we observe a World of Warcraft-esque uprising in MMORG gaming? Only time will tell; but I have my money on SC 2.

Source: http://mediachannel.org