Death of a Game - Everquest franchise
- Thread starter Shmoopy
- Start date
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Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!
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Reht
Molten Core Raider
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- 317
The current live client really isn't much more resource intensive, you can run a bunch of clients on a decent PC without boxing software. Lots of people box on the live server and the TLPs were crazy with all the boxers until they implemented the true box code.
pharmakos
soʞɐɯɹɐɥd
- 16,305
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I love TAKP but have felt very little desire to play lately due to all this
wish a single box server wouldn't divide the player base so much.- 1
TAKP is still a fantastic server if you just wanna do stuff with a small group of friends and aren't concerned about wanting to relive the 2002 PC game era raid game. The boxing allows you do tackle otherwise undoable content. A minority of players highly enjoy the solo boxing experience. The accurate mechanics and atmosphere of the old client are super nice.
A single box server is a possibility in the future. Honestly what stops this the most is lack of GMs and a lack of desire to administrate. It's a large commitment to start a server and host players; then you gotta put up with their shit and replace their destroyed epics for years, for free. Not a lot of people itching to sign up to do this, and even if they do, they gotta get along and trust each other. Servers hosting large numbers of players/accounts requires some technical ability as well. A box limt of one requires constant monitoring as people will cheat the hell out of it.
When we open source, anybody can do whatever they wish with it, so I would hope to see people using it after all the work we put into it. I always wanted to see more well-done custom servers.
A single box server is a possibility in the future. Honestly what stops this the most is lack of GMs and a lack of desire to administrate. It's a large commitment to start a server and host players; then you gotta put up with their shit and replace their destroyed epics for years, for free. Not a lot of people itching to sign up to do this, and even if they do, they gotta get along and trust each other. Servers hosting large numbers of players/accounts requires some technical ability as well. A box limt of one requires constant monitoring as people will cheat the hell out of it.
When we open source, anybody can do whatever they wish with it, so I would hope to see people using it after all the work we put into it. I always wanted to see more well-done custom servers.
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I don't actually agree with the narrative about boxing and grouping. I do think if you want your MMO to be group oriented, you have to basically force players to group. But having lived through the last 18 years of EQ off and on and seen the developments in it and other MMOs, I think boxing was always more a consequence of flaws in the forced grouping design. What happened is over time such a huge percentage of the playerbase was max level with relatively good gear, that if a new player logged on there was literally no one to group with. I don't mean people were boxing instead of grouping, I mean there are almost no people. The first antisocial element was the already leveled/geared people started making their alts twinked to the nines, and thus able to solo most of the way up, those characters would not want to group because a heavily geared twink soloing generates more XP than being in a group with an ungeared new player. TLP boxing and emu boxing are done because they offer significant advantages, but I think the reason boxing "emerged" so predominantly in EQ was to address the "no one plays low level characters and the game is mostly a ghost town" problem.
A few issues EQ faced and any forced-grouping game faces:
1. Unless there's a system in place that makes lower levels vibrant and full of players forever, forced grouping tends to create scenarios in which it's very difficult for new players to get started and catch up. The solution EQ ended up having to this was mercs, hotzones, defiant gear that basically self-twinks you, and things of that nature. FWIW emu projects like p1999 still have viable grouping at low levels, but I think part of that relies on things very specific to a Velious-locked emu (lower level cap--that hasn't changed since Kunark launched on p99, people bored with their mains because they've been gearing them in Velious for 4-5 years and rerolling new twinks, and then being friendly/helpful/willing to group with new people.)
2. Forced grouping also removes what I call the "watching Netflix" style of MMO play. This is basically when you're playing an MMO but also watching some trash TV series on Netflix because all you're doing is some light solo play. I actually believe this type of "moderate-attention" play actually comprises a very high % of play time in games like WoW and many others. It basically for example fills in all the gaps when you're not say, M+ running or raiding in WoW. What you tend to have if you don't let people have an outlet like this in an MMO is people either playing your game less (because they're only logged in playing when they can devote 100% attention to the game), or they log in and just chat (which people did used to do in EQ), but I think a lot of the people who did that often slowly gravitated away from the game. Boxing lets people do this "moderate-attention" style play in EQ since EQ's opportunities for meaningful solo play are and even remain to be relatively limited.
A few issues EQ faced and any forced-grouping game faces:
1. Unless there's a system in place that makes lower levels vibrant and full of players forever, forced grouping tends to create scenarios in which it's very difficult for new players to get started and catch up. The solution EQ ended up having to this was mercs, hotzones, defiant gear that basically self-twinks you, and things of that nature. FWIW emu projects like p1999 still have viable grouping at low levels, but I think part of that relies on things very specific to a Velious-locked emu (lower level cap--that hasn't changed since Kunark launched on p99, people bored with their mains because they've been gearing them in Velious for 4-5 years and rerolling new twinks, and then being friendly/helpful/willing to group with new people.)
2. Forced grouping also removes what I call the "watching Netflix" style of MMO play. This is basically when you're playing an MMO but also watching some trash TV series on Netflix because all you're doing is some light solo play. I actually believe this type of "moderate-attention" play actually comprises a very high % of play time in games like WoW and many others. It basically for example fills in all the gaps when you're not say, M+ running or raiding in WoW. What you tend to have if you don't let people have an outlet like this in an MMO is people either playing your game less (because they're only logged in playing when they can devote 100% attention to the game), or they log in and just chat (which people did used to do in EQ), but I think a lot of the people who did that often slowly gravitated away from the game. Boxing lets people do this "moderate-attention" style play in EQ since EQ's opportunities for meaningful solo play are and even remain to be relatively limited.
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pharmakos
soʞɐɯɹɐɥd
- 16,305
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i think they're maybe afraid they'd lose more players than they gain? the server is still technically in beta, so anything that potentially would result in less players testing is going to take a lot of consideration before they do it.
but yeah, i think at this point it'd just rock the boat too much for the staff to be comfortable with. i bet Torven^ actually wants it to happen, but from what i've seen the staff is also pretty good at being democratic about decisions, and he must not be in the majority Re: boxing limits.
While there may be a majority in favor of 2 instead of 3, it's a slim majority, (not that we've polled this, so this is a 'feel') and some of those just want 2 box limits for certain zones or some form of compromise. Most of the anti-boxers left long ago and what remain are the pro-boxing crowd and the EQMac players. Basically changing the rules on the users at this point would cause a great deal of animosity and people would lose some trust in us. So a box limit change would require unanimous developer approval + user supermajority otherwise it'd be a shitstorm. Another dev is very pro 3 box and some of the others just don't care much.
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yamikazo
Trakanon Raider
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- 546
3 box trivializes dumbshit Luclin content, who woulda guessed?
2 box trivializes PoP content – the amount of Ench/Dru combos (or Ench/Clr, for those who wanted to stun charmbreaks instead of snares) on AK was insane.
The solution isn't to create a rule that punishes how horrible the moon expansion is tuned. 2-box would encourage more grouping in Luclin, sure, but it does nothing for TAKP's true end-game of PoP.
It would be like buying your kid some velcro shoes because you're sick of tying his shoes everyday and he's not old enough to learn himself, but instead you've told your 2 year old kid you're only going to buy him velcro shoes for the rest of his life.
TAKP already has enough artificial rules in place to encourage people to play nicely with each other and the fact is people largely only interact with each other when they must; 2-box wouldn't create a solution it would just move the goalposts and the players would build a better mousetrap until you demanded 1-box.
2 box trivializes PoP content – the amount of Ench/Dru combos (or Ench/Clr, for those who wanted to stun charmbreaks instead of snares) on AK was insane.
The solution isn't to create a rule that punishes how horrible the moon expansion is tuned. 2-box would encourage more grouping in Luclin, sure, but it does nothing for TAKP's true end-game of PoP.
It would be like buying your kid some velcro shoes because you're sick of tying his shoes everyday and he's not old enough to learn himself, but instead you've told your 2 year old kid you're only going to buy him velcro shoes for the rest of his life.
TAKP already has enough artificial rules in place to encourage people to play nicely with each other and the fact is people largely only interact with each other when they must; 2-box wouldn't create a solution it would just move the goalposts and the players would build a better mousetrap until you demanded 1-box.
pharmakos
soʞɐɯɹɐɥd
- 16,305
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Well, they're going to release the source code after PoP, so the hope is that someone will take it upon themselves to start a single box server with the TAKP data. 2-box might be good enough for the remainder of TAKP beta.
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I think I already know the answer, but incase its changed: after the TAKP beta is over, are they going to wipe the box and re-release a fresh/final server? Will TAKP leadership sponsor any additional servers themselves (pvp server?) because the #1!!!!!! requirement for a box to be successful is stable and mature leadership at the box. I have zero desire to invest on any shitbox thrown up by random people , no matter how good the code straight from TAKP is.
Also, a few hideous bugs that existed for most of EQmac are fixed on TAKP so charming and enchanters are a little bit nerfed. Insta-buff (runes....) and perma pac both come to mind. But oh the days of perma pacing a entire dungeon so you could just run through it all day clearing PHers while all the trash ignored you. The memories.
And still I never did find a melodious truncheon after weeks of clearing every rare in howling stones. oh well.
Also, a few hideous bugs that existed for most of EQmac are fixed on TAKP so charming and enchanters are a little bit nerfed. Insta-buff (runes....) and perma pac both come to mind. But oh the days of perma pacing a entire dungeon so you could just run through it all day clearing PHers while all the trash ignored you. The memories.
And still I never did find a melodious truncheon after weeks of clearing every rare in howling stones. oh well.
Hatorade
A nice asshole.
- 8,505
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So Planetside Arena has been pushed back til Summer. They're even refunding people's pre-orders.
Daybreak Internal Cheerleading Squad
2014: Good lord H1Z1 and EQNext are going to make us a lot of money.
2015: Hey we found a buyer. Things are looking up! Erm... pay no attention to the layoffs.
2016: We may have to pivot on EQNext.
2017: Ok we cancelled EQNext, but H1Z1 is gonna rock.
2018: Maybe we should have focused on H1Z1 instead of chasing BR money. But don't worry, Planetside Arena is our last shot to keep the company afloat and it's going to be glorious.
2019: I think it's time we update all our résumés.
Daybreak Internal Cheerleading Squad
2014: Good lord H1Z1 and EQNext are going to make us a lot of money.
2015: Hey we found a buyer. Things are looking up! Erm... pay no attention to the layoffs.
2016: We may have to pivot on EQNext.
2017: Ok we cancelled EQNext, but H1Z1 is gonna rock.
2018: Maybe we should have focused on H1Z1 instead of chasing BR money. But don't worry, Planetside Arena is our last shot to keep the company afloat and it's going to be glorious.
2019: I think it's time we update all our résumés.
