EQ Never

Deisun_sl said:

Obviously there's the whole zerg problem but I too think that can be extinguished through means other than raid size limits.

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Meh, I never saw zergs as a problem. If a guild zergs, they cut down on the amount of loot they get per person, it's a trade off for making content easier. It's a very organic system of difficulty, no idea why they felt they had to nix it. It's like they caved to the world first crowd. If world firsts are really that important, than one zone should be locked--the rest should be open. Let them compete in that higher tier zone. When a new zone in released, that becomes the progression zone, and unlock the pop limit on the previous old zone.

cinge_sl said:

I don't mind it, as long as the PC version is built for a PC. Hamstringing the PC version so it works for consoles is a no no(mainly controls/UI, not sure how graphics will compares with a decent PC and the new consoles).

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Psst. The PS4isa PC.

Itzena_sl said:

Psst. The PS4isa PC.

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And its still hampered by controls/UI that are built around a gamepad. Thus why I said graphically I wasn't sure how it will compare and will probably finally be able to keep things equal(still cant beat a PC), but controls/UI are still built around finite amount of buttons and the controller limitations.

Look at the last FF MMO.

If you built a MMO for console, you limit abilities, control schemes, menus and such. Not to mention any other designs done around the console mindset.

The issue with consoles is not so much the hardware power, its the control scheme. Console players wont all slip into keyboard mouse willingly, and game companies often dont bother with a unique UI for PC and console. Instead, you get the console UI on the PC as well and it blows. I quit some good games within the first hour because I was pissed about a bad UI. There was a console UI screenshot of D3 somewhere today, just the thought of playing under those conditions is scary. Might be different for people that use both gaming systems regularly but I'm only playing on the PC mainly because I dislike controller UIs. About the only console games I had fun with were fighting games like soul calibur.

Yea, I gotta say, I did enjoy the fact that old dungeons/bosses didn't become obsolete. If you were a top teir played, you had your pick of shit, and if you weren't top teir, you felt like there was this endless cornucopia of baddies to beat down that would increase your power.

The only problem with THAT, as we started seeing later in EQ, is that a fresh player in the game found it very, very difficult to catch up. If you were the friend of someone, you were probably fine, or at least better off, as they would be willing to host you in raids or some other such, but if what got you into the game was GOD (Why the fuck would it, though?) you still had to slog through all the other stuff that came before it.

Also, I want to reiterate on the travel thing, because I feel like people in the last few pages forgot a key point: Travel was fun, it was social, it was exciting, and it was dangerous. But it didn't stay that way. Not in EQ, not in WoW, not in any MMO I've really played. It just got boring and tiresome. As someone pointed out, the Vox raid? The only thing dangerous about that run happened after you were inside, and maybe accidentally fell into the bear pit. (Always a good time.) Until then, your shoulders probably slumped going, ffs, ALL THE WAY OUT THERE?!

I remember doing the run to Karnor's and some stupid spider would root me after I aggroed it and it was like ugh, I'm going to kill you so fast, but you had to fucking root me, so now I have to stop...that's sort of what travel amounted to once you reached a certain power level.

I don't want instant travel, and I'm pretty happy if there's always a certain level of danger involved in traveling, Dark Soulish. (Though obviously not quite as harsh, just giving a reason that you might wander around with an invis on.)

If our issue is that we don't mind travel because it can be social, and fun, and dangerous, it needs to stay that way. Otherwise, it's nothing more than an arbitrary slow down.

If I catch hell, so be it!

PC
Can be silly crazy expensive with most of the extras not worth the price but total custom build.


Console
Deal with what you get while putting up with others.


OR
The Dev kit game makers are given to work with given time, money and drive.

Oh come now, it's being completely overhyped.

That's an understatement.

overhyped. it will be copernicus 2.0 what they as a gaming company think is revolutionary and what we as consumers think is revolutionary aren't even in the same galaxy.

etchazz_sl said:

overhyped. it will be copernicus 2.0 what they as a gaming company think is revolutionary and what we as consumers think is revolutionary aren't even in the same galaxy.

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Definitely overhyped, but unlike copernicus it is almost 100% guaranteed to actually get released. Dogshit or not, it will at least see the light of day. Still don't see why all the sandbox folks have any faith at all in Sony creating the game they want when Sony has pretty much nil in the sandbox department as actual design decisions instead of unintended results.

Considering how much nothing shrouded in vaugeries they've said about EQN, any amount of hype is overhype.

It will exist. It will be a f2p model. It will probably not be completely terrible, at least not at first.

The sandbox folks have faith in this because what else are they gonna have faith in? EQN is the only thing that's even pretending to fart in their general direction.

I fully expect EQ:N to ship as a current gen MMO (instances, phasing) with callbacks to previous generations (soft factions, no arbitrary alliance/horde bullshit) and some -minor- sandbox elements that probably include skill point allocations within class archetypes as well as destructible environments within instances and some overland moddable territories that fit in a type of gridwork style layout that produce shit similar to Civ. style resource allocation. Frank the Asshole makes his plot of land terrible, thus it looks like a single coin on the overall map. Bob the builder min/maxes the shit out of it, so to the city he is connected to, mofaka is 6 wheat 6 gold 6 industrial.

Incoming guides to always having maxed layout ratings.

I mean seriously... they aren't going to let players make giant dick castles as a default, are they? Sony may have made some dumb decisions for their online services, but cockstles is another realm entirely.

I think games have barely scratched the potential of what they can do running on a database. My guess is they are exploring that, not just treating the data as read only (which it is for most mmos). Think of all the stuff you could do with generative stuff + players capable of modifying bits of the world.

The past problem with it is you reach an unstable state, like early UO's ecology stuff. Will be interesting to see what they are doing.

Has any game after UO picked up on the house building? I do not mean having specific instances where everyone has their house, but finding that nice spot overlooking a waterfall and building your castle there? Although that's a repeat, compared to the last decade of MMOs I played it would be a huge change. You can actually make a really huge world with sucky travel and give players the ability to build druid rings and spires, that'd fix the whole travel debate: "you want to go there faster, son? Go ahead and finance building a spire"

cinge_sl said:

And its still hampered by controls/UI that are built around a gamepad. Thus why I said graphically I wasn't sure how it will compare and will probably finally be able to keep things equal(still cant beat a PC), but controls/UI are still built around finite amount of buttons and the controller limitations.

Look at the last FF MMO.

If you built a MMO for console, you limit abilities, control schemes, menus and such. Not to mention any other designs done around the console mindset.

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The biggest drawback historically for consoles was in communications, and that's easily overcome via voice. Controls and abilities can be tailored around a gamepad easily. Skyrim managed it decently, although magic wasn't great.

I'll have to read up more on this guy, but if it has a Playstation Move equivalent built in, then there are a ton of new options available for front end design.

How does DC Online play on the PS3?

Kharza-kzad_sl said:

I think games have barely scratched the potential of what they can do running on a database. My guess is they are exploring that, not just treating the data as read only (which it is for most mmos). Think of all the stuff you could do with generative stuff + players capable of modifying bits of the world.

The past problem with it is you reach an unstable state, like early UO's ecology stuff. Will be interesting to see what they are doing.

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I'm not quite sure what you mean here. The database portions are easy, even in highly dynamic interactive worlds. The harder piece of the puzzle is tying it to the front end of the code and configuring it from the client side so your game is smooth with object destruction, ensuring your different objects are rendered in real time for those around you, and that your network traffic is not ridiculous. There shouldn't be a huge difference in dynamic and static MMO designs for DBs since those before and after client assets are not stored in a table, but locally on ones own game install. That is, unless you are talking about binary large objects being updated on the fly which is in no way feasible. If you are keeping 'changed' objects client side then the DB stuff is fairly easy and not really dynamic or a big deal, but just a pointer and the amount of data retrieved should be minimal.

No I mean like overmining in an area causing troglodytes to come spewing in through a dynamic cave entrance, or a player construction being seen as a "threat" by local gobbos who ring their big bosses for help causing a large attack. Or ecological stuff causing monster migrations. Real on the fly stuff instead of setting a trigger and scripting something.

If you can set up a big reactive world with lots of strange consequences, content just sort of happens. If you can keep it all from crashing down around you.

Kharza-kzad_sl said:

No I mean like overmining in an area causing troglodytes to come spewing in through a dynamic cave entrance, or a player construction being seen as a "threat" by local gobbos who ring their big bosses for help causing a large attack. Or ecological stuff causing monster migrations. Real on the fly stuff instead of setting a trigger and scripting something.

If you can set up a big reactive world with lots of strange consequences, content just sort of happens. If you can keep it all from crashing down around you.

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Events like what you described are more scripting than database design. The original SWG is probably the best example of a database driven MMORPG. That is generally what one would look like.

You are describing more of a trigger/script system or an extremely robust AI system with complex rules. AI like that would also be heavily scripted.