EQ Never

Laura_sl said:

No my friend. This is a very bad compromise.
If you spawn another zone of Crushbone (for instance) because the dungeon is crowded then the game will cease to be a virtual fantasy world and is more of a multiverse where there are more than one parallel universe with Emperor Crush at the same time. Not only it destroys immersion (how can you have two Naggy's at the time time?!) but it also separates the community and makes seeking an item from a named not that difficult since if your named is camped you just try the same name on the other channel/zone.

The solution is.
Make dungeons huge with different entry points (why do they have to have one entrance?).
Make plenty of dungeons of various sizes for each level range.
Stop funneling players towards specific areas (Questing, Linear Paths...etc).

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While I agree that instancing of any sort breaks immersion, if you don't have them in some way then you'll have to add a couple more things to your list.. queues and/or very long travel times.

Players will always gravitate to the zone that they perceive gives them the most benefit. It's a function of human nature. Devs try to get them to spread out but it rarely works. So the fact is that the dungeon that players perceive to be the best for their level is the one everyone will go to unless they are prevented by long travel times or queues.

Long travel times are a very hard sell. EvE has been able to make it work but it isn't a fantasy mmo and is also heavily PvP focused. Queues are hated by everyone.

Have you ever played a Sandbox mmo?

LachiusTZ_sl said:

Right, because going from Moscow to New York should really take 30 seconds.

Travel times need to be in game, go re-read the other 224 pages, and you will see story after story about people logging into EQ and being amazed by the size of the game, and the dangers of getting from A to B.

Eliminate that, and you have flight points ala WoW.

Seriously, it feels like half the posters in this thread just need to go reup that WoW sub and make a panda. You can use your dps meters, wack a mole to victory, do any instance at any time, collect pokemon or whatever the fuck it is, use flight points, etc etc.

It is painfully obvious that some of you do not want to play a sandbox styled MMO, and thats fine. So dont shit up a thread where some of us are hoping one comes out before we have fucking dementia and are shitting in diapers.

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I'm not against long travel times at all. But the reality of today's mmo market is that most players really dislike long travel times. Even in the past they weren't popular, Vanguard got a lot of grief over it (among other things). Any game that does have long travel times is going to have to do a very good job in other areas to have the players accept it.

It's not that the actual length of time that matters during travel, it's whether or not there is risk or adventure involved. Is travel interesting? Will you find a rare spawn along the way? Swing by a camp to see who's there? Are there any environmental cues to help orient you towards your destination (bridges, rivers, coastline, forests, etc.)? If the world is designed properly travel becomes another thing in the game to occupy your time through necessity and not a boring task forcefully injected on the players.

Ports should exist, for specific classes and their groups. If quick travel is something exotic it becomes a marketable skill and players who posses it are sought after in groups. It's one more thing that instead of being commonplace as a "modern mmo feature" would be left in the hands of the players and their social networking skills. Do you have a Druid or wizard friend/guildmate? Are you willing to pay or trade in exchange for a lift? These choices should be up to the player to handle, not just pushed on us for the sake of convenience.

qwerty_sl said:

Hur hur hur. It was full during beta

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Oh yes the overcrowded beta that no one except you seems to have experienced , including one of the Vanguard devs.

tad10_sl said:

So who else is going to SOE Live? I'm registered (Surface) and barring something insane at work that week/end will be going (knock on wood). I only really care about the Friday keynote reveal and aftersession panel with Jeff Butler and plan to spend the rest of the time enjoying the 114 degree heat in or by the pool, fozen margarita in hand but I'm up for a Friday after-session meetup to dissect the reveal + drink.

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Too cheap to make the trip now that I know it's not in Vegas - was planning to when it was in Vegas - now that it's apparently in San Fran, meh - maybe if someone paid for me (and likely the wife too, since she'd bitch about being left behind) to go.

Or I should check the website before believing friends that I know get stoned.... it's still in Vegas - why the hell did I believe him... think it's too close to scrounge the cash for now, he screwed up my plans.

Draegan_sl said:

I wonder what Itzena is going to do once he can't play WOW anymore. I'm going with drink himself retarded.

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I dunno, ask me again when they shut down the servers in a quarter or a century or so.

Oblio_sl said:

Who are you asking?

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I was asking LachiusTZ.

qwerty_sl said:

Then at release, they sold around 450,000 copies iirc..

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VG sold 200,000 copies at release (whatever 'release' means) - there's a couple of sources for this just google Vanguard 200,000 - presumbly it sold some amount after release and before FTP but I'd be shocked if that was 10% of the original. Anyway, 200,000 is a lot - the first week of Vanguard was horribly crowded and between the horribad lag and xp-loss bugs 50% of that 200k said fuckit and left by the end of the first month. Second month of Vanguard was still crowded with the remaining 75-100k players but then Sigil decided to nerf half the classes after which another 50k left so by April there were maybe 20-50k playing and with the bugged-as-shit reputation no-one was buying.

Anyway, as Nino posted on the fohboards way back, 200,000 was more than enough to sustain VG if they had retained that number - he actually stated that the original business plan would have been profitable with less than 200k (Nino never said the actual number just 'less than 200k' which could mean 190,000).

None of this is remotely relevant because while it seems clear EQN 1.0 and EQN 2.0 were probably some variety of EQ meets VG meets WOW, EQN 3.0 is not, so there's no really making comparisons until we see what's what.

Anyone who thinks 200,000 is not sufficient interest for a PTP MMO is a freaking idiot (which BTW includes LucasArts who screwed up SWG because it "only" had 250k or so subs).

I liked long travel on Vallon Zek, but that was because you had to travel through enemy controlled territory to get to your camp. I revel in the days on my high elf enchanter locking down Arch Magus with my wizard buddy because we were there at 3 am, on a wednesday, when no darkies were on to hold every camp in Guk.

Long travel is one of those things that give the world a real sense of scale, and is definitely something I'd like to see. The trick is that you need to make it so that long travel isn't paired with frequent travel. For most play styles, a player ought to be able to settle in to a region for a month+ at a time; even longer, if they aren't playing as an adventurer or some sort. Move away from globe trotting being the standard, and then lengthy traveling can go back to being an experience, not a chore.