How will mechscape fair against mmo's such as the new Star Wars one with a Mass-Effect-style story and dialogue system, backed by the horrendous amount of voice acting (hundreds of hours of dialogue was mentioned at one of the interviews) which will clearly be of exceptional quality. Not just that but the storyline too. Bioware is amazing when it comes to storytelling. And as we know, both that and Mechscape are sci-fi futuristic story-driven MMO's.

Not just starwars, but others too. There are so many quality MMO's in the works right now, and we know next to nothing about Mechscape. Will it have any appeal beyond being the poor-mans starwars? With it's only strong-point being accessibility and what can be done in that realm?

I hope not.

No matter what it already has me guaranteed as a player (unless it just completely sucks). I can't even run the first Mass Effect.

Jagex said they want to surprise people..

Lets have faith in Jagex.

Because Jagex has completely done things right over the years? Having faith in Jagex worries me.

they do that with all of their "future updates"

its not going to be too great.. just like 95% of RS updates. but il still play it unless it totally sucks.

I think it will be good, they have learnt from a lot of mistakes and are improving now under new leadership.

Keep in mind Bladepaul that most recent MMO's that have been seen as "quality" games have flopped. (aka get millions of players at release, then people see they're paying for a beta and leave)

EX: Age of Conan, Warhammer Online

I think it will be great. It will be like a Runescape but in the space. Jagex dont say this, and its obious that it wont be like a Runescape, but the ideology will be the same.

Thats true, they learned a lot from mistakes and they are improving a lot in this past years, particullary this year.

The real thing you've got to take in is that Stellar Dawn will be completely free right from it's release. All these others games require you to not only invest a good chunk of cash on membership, but also a good amount on the actual disk.

Stellar Dawn will most likely succeed where most games do not. It will have a completely free game, and a much better accessibility.

There's also the power of people not wanting to buy a $50 game. I mean look at the free to play population in Runescape and in cash shop games. I'd at least try it out and I'm most certainly getting FF XIV (Online) and Guild Wars 2 when it comes out. And it's free to play and pay monthly I mean assuming it's $6~ that's not too much to ask if it's a ok game. I'd probably put off playing it if I had other MMO's out already though until I got bored. I'm not sure about playing the Star Wars MMO though. I'd wait on that one's after release.

Well yeah, about the Age of Conan and Warhammer online not being "finished." But the new Starwars MMO is being made by Bioware. It's friggen bioware, guys. They don't release crap, they polish their games. And from the looks of it, Star wars is going to rock everyone's socks off.


But, we shall see. This seems like a game that will either be awesome, or fail.

Yeah, I just signed up for it, but you have to be 18 to test and they want your home phone number and address. Bastards.

I don't think it's fair to compare it to Star Wars. Seeing as Mechscape is browser-based and Star Wars is not.

That's a lot to ask for for a Beta, Especially considering that most betas only ask for your email address. Anyway, I think that Stellar Dawn would have an advantage over other games or MMO's merely because it is free and has a lot of interest. This game is being polished and tested so consistently by Jagex that I am sure it is going to be an awesome game, though I suppose we will have to wait.

Jagex had better get MS right, I bet MS will be the poor man's star wars, but there are lots and lots of poor men out there.

if they can get this game as addictive and fun as rs then they got themselves a moneybag


lets all just hope for co-op missions

There's a few things that make MechScape and The Old Republic two VERY different games.

1. subscription. Most MMOs, including Star Wars, only let you download a demo that you can play free for a week or two. Jagex games are free but with a large expansion to them for a small monthly fee. Some players might not play the old republic because of the subscription system they use, and play mechscape instead.

2. MechScape is made by jagex :P

3. The game features may be very different. With star wars it's "pew pew" laser guns and special glowing swords. Not much realism in star wars. If MechScape ends up having realistic features such as carbon rearranging (not yet possible) and "killed-them-before-you-pull-the-trigger" laser guns then it will make both games more different than a rat and a lion, therefore no competition between them.

Why would people choose a just because it's made by Jagex?

My biggest hope for MechScape is more team stuff and features for guilds/clans like in WOW (World Of Warcraft)

the same way as runescape is one of the most popular mmo's ever. and beats alot of bigger games

Those who think RuneScape is pretty good (or even FunOrb) are likely to try out MechScape when Jagex announces it.

Ehh... to be honest, I've always thought we're expecting too much from this game. I can see why, given what they've told us. Ever though, everything they've said is better is based on RuneScape-level better?

This probably wont be "poor-mans starwars", but close enough to get a bad feeling about the whole thing...


Thank you
Iceman

Well, Jagex have their own kind of style... its kind of hard to explain. Runescape is different from a lot of MMOs. Generally, Fantasy MMOs I have seen look almost identical and have the same kind of content and feel. But Jagex stray from that. They try new things. I have an idea of what MechScape will look like because of their style, and it probably wont live up to all of our expectations. We suggest things, and hope things will be implemented. Then we decide that they will be. I think there is a misunderstanding at the moment. I'm probably wrong too.
If only we had ONE screenshot, it'd clear so much up.

But anyway, Star Wars sound similar to MS in a number of ways. For instance, the whole 'Whatever decisions you make affect gameplay', the fact there will be a lot of the same Sci-Fi stereotypes, and the fact that they are taking AGES to both come out. I think a lot of people will play The Old Republic instead of MS, but that they will have similar new content. I for one will probably play both.

Well I checked out the old republic and its bitchin, But I want to play a casual and cheap game.

Yeh, thats where Jagex will get a lot of their customers from. But if the game is so good, its as good as The Old Replublic, I think we'll be seeing some price drops in memberships like in the recent Playstation/Xbox/Wii pricedrops.
Which is a good thing >:D

Hopefully being completely different than other MMO's will make it popular. Honestly, all of these "revolutionary" MMORPG's like Age of Conan and AION all have the exact same character creation/combat/base storyline.

ive noticed that some of the ideas in mechscape r similar 2 those in Starcraft;som of the concept art even looks like starcraft units;mainly "protoss"
hopefully Blizzard cant do anything over copyrite 2 mechscape cuz i wana play this!!

Yeah, it's not fair to compare a free browser based game to anything else except another browser based game. And there's just not too many of those outside of the casual-gaming flash realm. MechScape will likely do fairly well for the same reason RuneScape has - accessibility, free play, and solo play. Those are the big things that Jagex gets mostly right, despite having a very spotty track record in other areas.

It's more similar to the aliens in District 9 and Jagex had those concepts probably because they knew about District 9. Similarities are no doubt from everyone's similar ideas on what an alien might look like.

Also, images of Protoss are surrounded by technology that they cannot fully understand themselves while the Pligii appear to be organic growers and properties similar to at of the Zerg. Zerg no doubt is not going to be the personality of Pliigi as they don't appear to be militaristic from what concept arts we even have on them.

I don't see Blizzard suing Jagex for anything because something is similar. It's like the car theory again where you can still build different types of cars while not breaking any licenses or copying the other competitors.

so the piglii r gonna b zerg that look like protoss?