EQ Never

zzeris_sl said:

Ugh. As much as I loved my time with EQ, the only thing heard now is old epeen arguments back and forth as we rehash the same old tired arguments about why the industry sucks. I don't think epeen has as much vitriol since it's been over a decade since anyone really cared about EQ achievements. Might as well join in lol.

EQ couldn't last because WoW was superior to the consumer. WoW wanted to keep and increase it's unbelievable sub levels so they watered down the game for anyone to meet basic competency. Hopefully kickstarter will give small studios the chance to make games like an updated EQ just the way a nostalgic crowd wants because no publisher seems likely to do it otherwise. A big problem is the same talent making MMOs over and over while another is the lack of talent of idea guys. You just can't have an idea. You need to find talent to help you realize the dream. Just like every other game based genre, the talent is in the indie area. We need to support even the bad ones.

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well, the fact that they completely scrapped this game at least once because they realized it was just another WoW clone is a start in the right direction. they are claiming that this game is going to be like nothing we've ever played before (although i doubt that), but i'm hoping (and i think a couple other people are as well) that at the very least it could be something totally different than what is currently being offered. people keep saying that if it isn't like WoW it won't succeed, which makes no sense since everything that has been made in the WoW mold has been a colossal failure. so logic would dictate that doing the opposite would probably work. i think if this game is going to succeed, they need to move away from ez mode and back toward a more punishing game that is a lot more sandbox than theme park. this seems to be what they are alluding to, but we'll have to wait a while longer before we find out if this is in fact true or just more lip service.

59 more days...

Games are niche mostly because the gameplay and activities available in the game are limited, so if that style doesn't appeal to a wider audience they simply won't play it. One response to that is removing restrictions which includes going sandbox, but fundamentally none of the built-in game mechanics should create barriers of entry. For example, strict required levels and bind on pickup on every decent item needs to go. Crafting materials and products need to have use at every grade. Artificial limits on faction/token/currency gains need to be dropped entirely. Skills and abilities can't be pidgeon-holed into a talent tree with singular "X is best" builds with no stat diversity. There needs to be more fuzzy choices, less dictated math.

If a game is only relevant at max level, if crafting and items are only relevant at the highest grade, and every patch requires changes and rebalancing that cause the playerbase to immediately reroll/respec/etc on server up then the game is built on the wrong foundation. It will be relegated to 'niche' markets and have a reset button every revision, which means players can and will abruptly lose interest.

EQ1 touched on that a little, by not telling anyone how game mechanics worked. Also no proper logging and scripting tools available.

Anyone remember buying AGI/DEX rings only to find out later they did almost NOTHING.

Crafting items: I think the challenge for most MMOs is to make the right balance for crafting. So that players even use it, or its not completely necessary, like in Final fantasy MMO you had to craft food and items just to function properly in a group.

In WOW you were able to see how every change effected your performance, almost instantly. DPS logging tools, agro tools, everything you needed was created with UI mods.

EQ you got some hacking tools, and tried to parse logs

The game better not let you log your DPS and run aggro meters, otherwise it might as well just be the same garbage we have out now.

I thought the point was to move toward something new, not repeat the same whack-a-mole bullshit.

Nobody_sl said:

The game better not let you log your DPS and run aggro meters, otherwise it might as well just be the same garbage we have out now.

I thought the point was to move toward something new, not repeat the same whack-a-mole bullshit.

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Could not have said it any better myself!

Nobody_sl said:

The game better not let you log your DPS and run aggro meters, otherwise it might as well just be the same garbage we have out now.

I thought the point was to move toward something new, not repeat the same whack-a-mole bullshit.

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Something new, like...?

If WoW is superior why did I play P99 red in its broken form over Cataclysm/Pandaria? I even tried Pandaria and went back to playing on red with 100% more interest in the game.

Inb4 something about addicted to EverQuest. Certainly not addicted to WoW.

Perhaps not new, but a resurgence of old concepts. Not the least of which being emergent gameplay. Give the players powerful tools (real stuns/snares/slows/FD/etc..), being careful not to put too many on one class, and let them come up with tactics to deal with mobs. Make things less tangible.

Basically, make measurable metrics matter less. Things like DPS/HPS/Aggro. Make the key measure of DPS be "Are things dying reasonably fast?" and not "well, you aren't doing 5k DPS, so fuck off"...Make people bring classes for the less measureable things, like "we need a snarer" "we need a defensive debuffer!"..Not so much their damage.

Nobody_sl said:

The game better not let you log your DPS and run aggro meters, otherwise it might as well just be the same garbage we have out now.

I thought the point was to move toward something new, not repeat the same whack-a-mole bullshit.

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I pretty clearly remember people posting DPS parses of raids pre wow. It was mostly e-peenery back then since nothing was tuned with tight dps requirements back then.

Unique class specific tools only make sense in a world that isn't hardcoded for X tanks, Y healers, rest DPS going up against a hard enrage timer. When there was 72 or 40 man raids it provided flexibility in what groups could bring and didn't make people sit out because 28 were on and the raid cap is 25. Mitigation and Enhancement need to be part of the equation, which means there should be more than 3 simplified roles in the game.

Since everything tends to revolve around a global cooldown or recast delay, giving access to multiple roles in one class (with varying degrees of proficiency) still doesn't bypass the natural limit of how many skills are usable in a given amount of time. Being average at a secondary role and poor at a third doesn't mean a single player can use all 3 to maximum effect.The goal to balancing fuzzy PVE is by unbalancing 1v1 PVP. It's ironic that Blizzard didn't learn some lessons by simply comparing their two primary intellectual properties: WoW and Starcraft. It's sad that other games haven't either. Group makeup and coordination should matter far more than making sure individual units don't have hard counters.

Imagine the world of Chronotrigger without Dual and Triple Techs. That's the current state of MMOs.

Nobody_sl said:

The game better not let you log your DPS

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Actually EQ's simple log file allowed for some interesting third party applications. EQ's logging is a good example of something simple that enriched EQ yet is missing from later games, really. Being my guild's MT, I used to parse my guild's damage and type the top damage dealers in guild chat after kills. There was a real time log parsing program that had a map and displayed the last /loc found in the log file so you could just spam a /loc macro and see your position, direction, and even movement speed on that map. (you could accurately measure movement speed this way)

On p99, I kept my log on at all times, and used a grep tool to quickly find useful information such as prices of items, how long it took me to level, how many of an item I have looted, how many mobs I've killed, etc.

Dandai_sl said:

I don't know that people are suggesting that if it isn't WoW then it won't succeed. Many people have been highlighting the fact that EQ, for all intents and purposes, was a niche game that had a niche audience (temporarily inflated by lack of market competition). If EQN isn't trying to reach a huge swathe of customers by only appealing to the kind of players that EQ1 predominantly appealed to then it will never be as successful as WoW. That is the reality of the situation and suggests neither success nor failure; those terms are only applicable within the constraints of the user's definition.

Will it be a financial success? That largely depends on how much they spent developing the game and how large the live team is post-launch. Will it be a critical success? That depends on which audience is doing the critiquing. You see where I'm going with this?

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i have no idea where you're going with this, and quite frankly, neither do you. EQ was a niche game because the entire MMO industry was niche when it came out. 95% of the people walking the face of the earth had no idea what a MMO was 10+ years ago, so the argument that a game made like EQ will not have huge success is completely without merit. if you make a good game, people will play it. the problem came about when WoW had its success and everyone thought (wrongly i may add) that if you just copied their formula for making a MMO, then your MMO would also be successful. that of course is not the case. i don't buy in to the belief that if you make a game more punishing, and less restrictive that you will only find mild success. i actually believe the opposite is true. i think there are a lot of players out there who are looking for something that is more of a challenge, and hopefully EQN will be that game.

How about just a damn MMO with some fucking immersion so I can forget about my shitty day at work ? Something that sucks you in for more than a damn month maybe ?

WoW killed that and that is why it blew up to the degree it did. They really minimized immersion breaking things better than anyone.

etchazz_sl said:

EQ was a niche game because the entire MMO industry was niche when it came out. 95% of the people walking the face of the earth had no idea what a MMO was 10+ years ago, so the argument that a game made like EQ will not have huge success is completely without merit. if you make a good game, people will play it. the problem came about when WoW had its success and everyone thought (wrongly i may add) that if you just copied their formula for making a MMO, then your MMO would also be successful.

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I think the problem is that WoW is a superset of EQ. Basically, most of what you could do in EQ you can do in WoW as well. And since everyone and their dog has played WoW bunch of years I'm not sure if it would be different enough. Personally I think something sandboxy like UO, but with some smart PvP solution to avoid all the crafters/socializers from getting repeatedly ganked until they quit would have more potential.

Itzena_sl said:

Something new, like...?

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No clue. I'm not designing the next generation of MMO. They are.

This board is filled to the brim with armchair game developers, so I'd rather not add to that heap.

Nobody_sl said:

No clue. I'm not designing the next generation of MMO. They are.

This board is filled to the brim with armchair game developers, so I'd rather not add to that heap.

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Obvious answer is Tribes MMO. With lessy shitty f2p aspects (motha, fuckin, plasma rifle).

Nobody_sl said:

The game better not let you log your DPS and run aggro meters, otherwise it might as well just be the same garbage we have out now.

I thought the point was to move toward something new, not repeat the same whack-a-mole bullshit.

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Knowing who is pulling their weight on a DPS heavy fight is pretty important info. Why on earth would you not want to know if your build or rotation was not optimised? What you're saying sounds a lot like "if I suck I don't want anyone to know I suck, including myself".