EQ Never

Dr Neir

Dr Neir

Trakanon Raider
832
1,505
How many here played Darkfall?
Was a good game but hated the PVP and thus was a matter of time before I couldn't stand the nervous twitching I was starting to develop when going anywhere and hearing anything. No lvls and just exploring to find new things was a joy and refreshing. It felt open and the AI from the mobs was something I didn't expect. Crafting was a bit interesting and fun to some degree as was the sieging from Boats.

Other MMO fantasy games, I walk up to X NPC, yawn while getting a quest I wont read until I am unable to find the Item/Guy/Cave and then head back to the quest giver just to sell off the item and hope it lvls me in a long drawn out way like its a sadistic torture welcome by all and seems the norm without any form of recourse to do anything else within the game because all other items like crafting, exploring, adventuring was long since thrown out the window or added to be filler for the gaping empty void missing in the .25 cent bubble gum machine next to the horsey ride with the drooling kid. sigh....

I couldn't tell you 1 item I got from most all other games but the ones I seriously worked for. All other stuff is 5th grade graduation diploma gold-star fluff every 5 feet just so johnny 70-IQ doesn't get bored for 5 min. Couldnt tell you how many games I have played that I start grinding faction or story just to find out that the game has no intentions of updating those stories or factions to include new items and gear. Its a slap in the face to grind out something for a reward you get replaced in 10 lvls and then later never return and having to grind out more just to repeat the same thing over and over. Thats the game play, I dont want to get into the crafting side of things. No point, its just rehash repeated crap.

Bab5 ref:http://babylon5.wikia.com/wiki/Centauri_Republic
"In 2029 a young princess ordered that a Guard is to stand over and protect the spot where she had noticed the first flower of spring poking up through the snow in the Royal Gardens. The Princess soon forgets about it and since the order is never countermanded a guard was assigned to that post every day for 200 years."
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Related:
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D

Draegan_sl

2 Minutes Hate
10,034
3
Utnayan_sl said:
Yep. 100% guaranteed.

Featuring heavy world "Wake State" of War. PvP for all resources, no raiding, persistent battlefields, nothing instanced. PvE will be in a dream state of "Peace". No one is a hero. Everyone is a participant. You can only sleep for a total of 8 in game hours (1 hour of every 3 in real time) which ticks off whether you are logged in or not. Here you can do quest content which has a translucent dimensional impact on the real world's battles in the waking player's game. Phase shifted dynamically based on questing system impact per faction. (2 factions) Once you wake, you are thrown back into the real world, which is a centuries long battle between two factions which never seems to end. Here, PvP and resource harvesting takes effect to make items. To avoid 200 people knocking on the wall to "Keep on knockin' but you can't come in" syndrome, PvP will be handled much differently. (More later on that)

These resources dynamically shift across areas similar to SWG's resource harvesting system, except there is actual PvP content around every single area which you * must * hold to gain access to the nodes. All items are hand crafted/balanced by developers. All Art is hand crafted by artists. The entire game is 1st person to recognize efforts by looking at them. When battles in PvP (Victory conditions met) is won by the evils, the dream realm associated with that zone in PvE becomes corrupted and invaded, causing disruptions and more quests in that given area to battle it back. (Obviously only able to be done by those asleep in the game) When Battles are won by the goods in the Wake State, the Dream world becomes uncorrupted and for a brief time, PvE advancement is done by a plethora of mini games, carnivals, contests, duels, etc.

Complete with a non instanced sandbox environment with in game housing, crafting, high end house crafting based on resources fought upon, and items really sought after not only from a weapon/armor/fun/trinket perspective, but from a housing perspective. Including true interactive items inside a house to make a player * Want * to visit other homes for something cool to do for PvE EXP in their dream state. Or... just a house in of itself. Obviously, this can be invaded as well. You will want to protect your house/belongings with hired mercenaries, or players.

Just a 50,000 foot overview.
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You're high.
 
Pancreas

Pancreas

Vyemm Raider
1,131
3,818
Mr Creed_sl said:
... Travel can be longer if you can design your game and world to account for it AND untrain the player expectation of having the whole game world available at any time. I fear the latter part is actually the hard part. It would probably take a studio to draw a line in the sand and clearly state "no free teleports everywhere" and at the same time making a game good enough that doesnt have players say "screw this, I'm going home". The last round of MMOs already failed at the making a "good enough game" without such additional hurdles, so its gonna take a while I guess.
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This really is the heart of the travel issue. Long travel times are not the issue if content is found while traveling. Look at DayZ. Travelling across a large map can take you a while, so you try to find a vehicle. But going from one place to the next is never quite the same, because you aren't sure who you might run into. You might have a destination in mind when you log on, but getting there without getting killed or robbed IS the game essentially.

MMO's have problems due to certain systems like levels that can turn players into gods. Travelling becomes very pointless if there is no fear or danger associated with it. It would be like playing all of the doom games back to back with god mode and infinite ammo... just why?

I think players should become better at surviving encounters, better at handling themselves in combat, and better at avoiding damage... but they should have essentially the same hp, or health mechanic as the day they started. This will keep things dangerous in the wilds. Those lions and bears that could eat you at level 6, are still scary as hell if they sneak up on you at level 60. Otherwise, the world becomes a multiverse... you have the level 1 world, the level 10 world and the level 100 world. The areas a player interacts with is constantly being limited by levels.

The other big issue with mmo's is their static nature. Ok so having low level creatures still posing a danger is one thing, but if nothing changes in a region, it's still rather boring to have to run through it again. This is why things need to be able to roam around. Big threats roaming into new regions on occasion is a good thing. Also, you can allow creatures to set up shop in a region. Allow some creatures to just migrate wherever but have others create bases that they operate from. Or have a number of points of interest that go through active and dormant cycles with new residents each time. Like a mine or cave or abandoned castle. Creatures will inhabit these locations until they are removed, then the place might stay vacant for a random amount of time, then something else sets up shop. The longer an infestation is allowed to persist, the more powerful it can become. There would need to be a lot of locations for things to inhabit, and many of them would need to be very hard to find.

Those two things suddenly make hoofing it a bit more interesting.
 
mkopec

mkopec

<Gold Donor>
25,917
38,693
I think what the last 20 or so pages has shown is that we need to move away from levels, gear levels and anything of that sort and institute a skill based progression system with soft caps. So that first starter zone would be just as dangerous to a seasoned, skilled player just like the new player starting out. Except the seasoned player has more tools at his disposal.

Also the system of the rifts and invasions needs to be revisited, modified, fixed and added to the game to add true dynamic events which truly change the zones around you.
 
C

Creslin

Trakanon Raider
2,497
1,146
Pancreas_sl said:
This really is the heart of the travel issue. Long travel times are not the issue if content is found while traveling. Look at DayZ. Travelling across a large map can take you a while, so you try to find a vehicle. But going from one place to the next is never quite the same, because you aren't sure who you might run into. You might have a destination in mind when you log on, but getting there without getting killed or robbed IS the game essentially.

MMO's have problems due to certain systems like levels that can turn players into gods. Travelling becomes very pointless if there is no fear or danger associated with it. It would be like playing all of the doom games back to back with god mode and infinite ammo... just why?

I think players should become better at surviving encounters, better at handling themselves in combat, and better at avoiding damage... but they should have essentially the same hp, or health mechanic as the day they started. This will keep things dangerous in the wilds. Those lions and bears that could eat you at level 6, are still scary as hell if they sneak up on you at level 60. Otherwise, the world becomes a multiverse... you have the level 1 world, the level 10 world and the level 100 world. The areas a player interacts with is constantly being limited by levels.

The other big issue with mmo's is their static nature. Ok so having low level creatures still posing a danger is one thing, but if nothing changes in a region, it's still rather boring to have to run through it again. This is why things need to be able to roam around. Big threats roaming into new regions on occasion is a good thing. Also, you can allow creatures to set up shop in a region. Allow some creatures to just migrate wherever but have others create bases that they operate from. Or have a number of points of interest that go through active and dormant cycles with new residents each time. Like a mine or cave or abandoned castle. Creatures will inhabit these locations until they are removed, then the place might stay vacant for a random amount of time, then something else sets up shop. The longer an infestation is allowed to persist, the more powerful it can become. There would need to be a lot of locations for things to inhabit, and many of them would need to be very hard to find.

Those two things suddenly make hoofing it a bit more interesting.
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The Heart of the issue is that long travel times will suck in any game that requires you to travel often. EQ by Kunark was starting to require that you hop around the map quite a bit to get to whatever zone the raid was in or whatever zone you could find a group in and so travel started to really suck and continued to really suck until Luclin made it suck slightly less and then PoP gave everyone fast travel.

EVE has had slow travel since day 1, travel that is slower and more dangerous than EQ ever was, and yet no one really hates it as much as EQ because you almost never log in in Jita and have to travel to delve, because that's where the dungeon you wanna do is and that dungeon is unique in the game. The game is just not set up that way, its set up so travel is slow but you don't often have a reason to travel a long distance, that's why it works, and that's why it doesn't and wont work in EQesque games and no amount of random bullshit attacking you to make it scary is gonna make it fun. Rift had tons of random crap on the roads attacking you and making life 'interesting' but at the end of the day when you just wanted to get to the dungeon it only served to be annoying.
 
Laura

Laura

Lord Nagafen Raider
582
109
LadyVex_sl said:
Liking EQ/games that appeal like EQ did doesn't make you sophisticated. You're not delving the depths of some plunder that the rest of us are just too stupid to appreciate.
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What we want is very specific. It can be defined as a completely different genre than what MMORPGs actually became. Cut the crap with the sophistication bullshit, it's a game not literature.

There are game mechanics that were in older game including EverQuest that I SIMPLY want to experience again. Is this too hard to believe? Why would I lie? If you bring me the combination of these mechanics and game design philosophy over in one game you wouldn't find me here complaining.

Bring me a First Person View, Slow Paced where combat is based on Managing Resourcing than playing a Whak-A-Mole hotbar mini game. The new "action" combat approach doesn't impress me either, I don't play MMORPG for that kind of enjoyment. I am looking for a more strategic approach than having to be on my toes in combat. These two things are COMPLETELY different. It's like comparing Chess to Karate, I don't want to do Karate....

Bring me a game with all these above and add the faction system of EverQuest (expand on it too). Set me free and remove the GPS map. No hand holding. Bring back non-instanced dungeon (dungeons like EverQuest). Bring back death penalty, trains and all this "unexpectedness" EQ provided like your spell fizzling or lull being resisted pulling the whole camp or your invisibility failing on you.

Get me a game that have a huge variety of races with their different stats and starting areas. Bring a game that focus on skill-interdependency like Teleportation, Rez and Corpse summoning (and expands on it). Bring back buffs, I want to buff other players that part of EQ I miss a lot.

These above are but a few of so many that were all combined in one game. Bring me a game with these mechanics and I will play it and before you lie and say "you won't play it" I tell you that I played P99 for a long while and I had a blast DESPITE doing the same content over and over and over and over and over again. When I tried RIFT I couldn't even take two steps and that's a new game, I am bored to tears with this WoWification retarded game design with all these "stories" and "quests" and "whackamole" stupid combat with all this boring soloing.

I just simply know exactly what I want especially after 30 years of gaming experience.
 
Laura

Laura

Lord Nagafen Raider
582
109
supertouch_sl said:
things like longer travel times are more conducive to that feeling of being in a fantasy world. if your goal is to simply create a multiplayer game that doesn't have longevity, then instant travel is fine.
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I've reached a conclusion that you and I want a different game than what the other team wants. Seriously arguing with someone who wants something different explaining them why you think this and that is essential is just useless and a waste of time. We would save a lot of wasted forum discussion by simply coming up with two MMORPG sub genres.

What we do is like putting together two groups of people who like two completely different music genres in one room just because both like Music. They will never agree and they SHOULD NOT agree it's as simple as that.

The sad thing though is that this is EverQuest Next thread, so go figure lol.
 
Laura

Laura

Lord Nagafen Raider
582
109
supertouch_sl said:
travel is about pacing. people seem to be suggesting that eq forced players to traverse vast landscapes in order to get anywhere when in reality people would find a port and run through a couple of zones to reach their destination. furthermore,the design of the game didn't demand frequent travel.
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Bingo.

Most people who think traveling is boring, they picture World of Warcraft with FedEx/Fetch quests.

When you design a game where Traveling is not part of the "Game" (World of Runcraft) where you're hand held to go from quest hub to another then it should work.

Throw several classes that can speed that process up to increase player-to-player interdependency and you get a community too.
 
L

LadyVex_sl

shitlord
868
0
Laura_sl said:
What we want is very specific. It can be defined as a completely different genre than what MMORPGs actually became. Cut the crap with the sophistication bullshit, it's a game not literature.
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Laura_sl said:
Fact is the majority of people want to be served something that some of us find "lacking". Most people prefer simple things because generally people lack any sort of sophistication. How many people would enjoy the poetry of Baudelaire? or Beethoven sonatas? very few. But I bet you those who enjoy such a thing are having a hell of a time. It's a hell of an experience enjoying such things which again the majority of people find too "boring" or too "scary" like you said.

Which is why we always call it a "niche" market.


Planning something to be compatible with the lowest common denominator is a genius "business" call. No one would disagree with this. But I, in the other hand, prefer something designed and planned for ME.
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I think that's fair.
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So you don't read what you write, you just talk out of your ass then?

I don't really care if you like one thing over another. I don't necessarily agree with it or understand it, but I did take exception to comments like these.

Trying to pretend it's not what you meant when it was word for word what you said is sort of backtracking.

Back to your regularly scheduled program of bashing anyone not interested in "The Vision" tm. I mean, you're considering it a waste of time to talk to us now, why? Because you tried to talk about what you wanted in EQN, but instead of specific things, just talked about how what you wanted was too "scary" for the mainstream audience, and it took a true connoisseur like you and a few others to truly appreciate what EQN could offer, and should. (I'm paraphrasing here, but I don't think I took many liberties.)

There are a lot of people hoping for something truly amazing with EQN, not just the "few" who seem to think they have exclusive rights to what it should be because they want "old school concepts".

Also, you know you can edit right?

Whatever anyone wants, I think just about everyone is going to be disappointed for one reason or another. I don't really see them trying to create a "niche" MMO, not after Vanguard. As I said before, it seems these games are intended to literally be massively played, and therefore appeal to a great number of people. Vanguard fell so flat that I don't see anyone with half a fucking brain figuring out how to incorporate the old concepts of yore in a way that will massively appeal, and by that token, most people probably don't want that.

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Cinge

Cinge

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
7,252
2,277
Hehe you learn to ignore Laura's daily posting sprees.

God forbid he/she learn to multi-quote.
 
L

LadyVex_sl

shitlord
868
0
More relevant, are these quotes from Smedley, that I cannot interpret:

"In my opinion, the days when companies can make content [generation] the number one strategy, in the kinds of games we make, are over, because we can't win the war. Star Wars [The Old Republic] proved that. Players bought it, loved it and they played the game. Then they left."

"We're betting the company's future on this game. . The last EverQuest game launched in 2005. We've blown up two design ideas over the last four years because they were too 'me too.' It wasn't enough of a change. We settled on a design that, when we looked at it, everyone in the room thought we were crazy. We gave it a week and came back, and we all said 'yeah, we're still crazy, but we can't get the idea out of our heads. . It's going to be the world's largest sandbox game."

Not really sure how I feel about his comment about swtor; there was a distinct lack of content and that was a huge issue, so I'm confused what he meant by that. I could also be reading it wrong.

Betting the future of the company is a bit demoralizing for what direction the game will take: most likely the one of least resistance.
 
Ukerric

Ukerric

Bearded Ape
<Silver Donator>
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Deisun_sl said:
IF you did have long travel; do you make travel AUTOMATED or do you force the player to have to control his character?
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The EVE solution is simple: you can do automated, but it takes slightly longer than manual, and leave you open to more risk. The automated pilot leaves you 5km from the gate, and you put-put to the gate before jumping, leaving you wide open to scan and gatecampers.
 
Rezz

Rezz

Mr. Poopybutthole
4,486
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Laura_sl said:
I've reached a conclusion that you and I want a different game than what the other team wants. Seriously arguing with someone who wants something different explaining them why you think this and that is essential is just useless and a waste of time. We would save a lot of wasted forum discussion by simply coming up with two MMORPG sub genres.

What we do is like putting together two groups of people who like two completely different music genres in one room just because both like Music. They will never agree and they SHOULD NOT agree it's as simple as that.

The sad thing though is that this is EverQuest Next thread, so go figure lol.
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Realize that EQ was a game that most of us played, and if people are getting vastly different viewpoints from their experiences in the game, then maybe there isn't a clear definition for each of the different mmo types you think exist. EQ was not the game you think it was for a pretty hefty chunk of the playerbase. I know that might be a little hard to understand, but depending on what classes you played and how long you were physically at your PC playing the game, the experience might be substantially different between people playing the same game.

So when you guys jump and say that everyone who doesn't agree with you wants another game, maybe they actually want the same game, they just view it differently. Or you guys can carry the qwerty tard-torch for eternity. Either or. Posting about how useless it is to post, however, is just sort of dumb =|

To expand on the different viewpoints, I'll use an example since I love examples. I played an SK for 300+ days in EQ. I had two alts that I got to level 30ish and then got bored because they were not SKs. I raided endgame for the majority of those days and I was a tank/puller in almost all group experiences and most raid experiences. Odds are, if you look at combat and were not a raid/group tank/puller, you might see it pretty differently. If you look at the death penalty when your primary roles involve doing the riskiest shit in the game from all perspectives (pretty much fact that tanks and pullers died more in EQ than any other class, all other factors being equal) constantly and you were not a tank/puller, you will most likely view the death penalty differently. If you played a class that could teleport itself or gate, you probably have a different viewpoint on travel and travel times than people who played classes who could not teleport or gate.

If you regularly multiboxed (increasingly more common from mid-Kunark onward) your experiences in the game might be a bit different than someone who did not.

SO! Just because you guys are claiming memories and design theory from your perspective in a game where there are quite a few fairly differentiating factors, understand that your version of what EQ was is most likely not what EQ really was. It is your perception of what EQ was given your experiences in the game.
 
Ukerric

Ukerric

Bearded Ape
<Silver Donator>
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LadyVex_sl said:
Not really sure how I feel about his comment about swtor; there was a distinct lack of content and that was a huge issue, so I'm confused what he meant by that. I could also be reading it wrong.
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What he meant is that the only real draw of the Star Wars game was the storied content (otherwise, it was essentially WoW redux). And once the story was exhausted, there was nothing left for the players to do (which is what you notice) and they left.

If you all bank your game on designers-crafted content, you are setting yourself to fail. Your designers will never provide enough content even for the average player's playtime. You need to provide something else. The WoW solution is to provide content, then try to hook you on gear grind quickly before you've exhausted the storied content. The SW team tried the same thing, but failed. Smed's banking on hooking you on a different tack quickly, instead of providing storied content.

In other words, in EQnext, Norrath is a background, not a story. No storied questlines, no quest hubs, no sir.
 
Mr Creed

Mr Creed

Too old for this shit
2,383
276
LadyVex_sl said:
More relevant, are these quotes from Smedley, that I cannot interpret:

"In my opinion, the days when companies can make content [generation] the number one strategy, in the kinds of games we make, are over, because we can't win the war. Star Wars [The Old Republic] proved that. Players bought it, loved it and they played the game. Then they left."

"We're betting the company's future on this game. . The last EverQuest game launched in 2005. We've blown up two design ideas over the last four years because they were too 'me too.' It wasn't enough of a change. We settled on a design that, when we looked at it, everyone in the room thought we were crazy. We gave it a week and came back, and we all said 'yeah, we're still crazy, but we can't get the idea out of our heads. . It's going to be the world's largest sandbox game."

Not really sure how I feel about his comment about swtor; there was a distinct lack of content and that was a huge issue, so I'm confused what he meant by that. I could also be reading it wrong.

Betting the future of the company is a bit demoralizing for what direction the game will take: most likely the one of least resistance.
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I take that as meaning they dont make a new EQ1. EQ1 and all if its copies (including WoW) were build on providing locations you go to with monsters to kill (for loot and xp). The developers always had to deliver new areas fast enough to retain players. They could buy time with key quests, gated content, level increases, required factions, spawn timers, drop rates etc but the botton line is they needed new content before too many players consumed what was available and left the game. I think he is saying that at the modern rate of consumption, no company can keep up with making new content. Blizzard of all things should have the ability, but they prefer making money hats, everyone else fell flat within a quarter. Thats why players these days treat MMOs as "play a month after the patch then quit for 6 months" thing. He wants to provide a model that keeps the player on one game like many did with EQ1 or early WoW, and he thinks they found a way to do that. Gonna be interesting if thats true.
 
L

LadyVex_sl

shitlord
868
0
Yea, there was a write up I think late last year about how they had this way of doing things, then scraped the whole damn thing. What he said he wanted to do was take it back to EQ's playstyle with more advancements, that most of us are used to. (IE new tech)

EQ is such an anomaly. It's still my golden era of MMOs - when I think of all the stuff I did in that game, everything I was able to see and do, I mean wow. But is it possible to gain the wonderment of an MMO like that again, but remove the shit that became cumbersome over time? I would definitely be interested if they think they've hit the gold mine to combine the things that made EQ great and the things that keep people playing current MMOs. (Which at this juncture is really just lack of choices.)
 
Convo

Convo

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
8,765
617
LadyVex_sl said:
So you don't read what you write, you just talk out of your ass then?

I don't really care if you like one thing over another. I don't necessarily agree with it or understand it, but I did take exception to comments like these.

Trying to pretend it's not what you meant when it was word for word what you said is sort of backtracking.

Back to your regularly scheduled program of bashing anyone not interested in "The Vision" tm. I mean, you're considering it a waste of time to talk to us now, why? Because you tried to talk about what you wanted in EQN, but instead of specific things, just talked about how what you wanted was too "scary" for the mainstream audience, and it took a true connoisseur like you and a few others to truly appreciate what EQN could offer, and should. (I'm paraphrasing here, but I don't think I took many liberties.)

There are a lot of people hoping for something truly amazing with EQN, not just the "few" who seem to think they have exclusive rights to what it should be because they want "old school concepts".

Also, you know you can edit right?

Whatever anyone wants, I think just about everyone is going to be disappointed for one reason or another. I don't really see them trying to create a "niche" MMO, not after Vanguard. As I said before, it seems these games are intended to literally be massively played, and therefore appeal to a great number of people. Vanguard fell so flat that I don't see anyone with half a fucking brain figuring out how to incorporate the old concepts of yore in a way that will massively appeal, and by that token, most people probably don't want that.
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Lol the Vangaurd argument? Come on..if you're going to make a case for a game that caters to the mass market don't use VG as part of your argument. Unless you forget how incredibly hyped people were for that game? The vision of vanguard was not at fault it was the delivery and the fact that the wheels fell off in front of everyone's eyes. I had a whole guild ready to play that game. 50+ people that decided not to because of the terrible beta and drama. i doubt my guild was the only one to abort those plans...A polished and complete vanguard would of done well. Not WoW well but nothing has done Wow well.
 
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