EQ Never

  • Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!



    Go here and give us your nominations!
    Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
Nirgon

Nirgon

Log Wizard
13,779
21,701
Big Flex_sl said:
rrr_img_38941.png
13
Click to expand...
+1
 
E

etchazz

Trakanon Raider
2,707
1,056
tad10_sl said:
they are making lol the mmo. The game is designed for pvp. Thus emphasis on player class identification
Click to expand...
well, LoL the MMO isn't something i'd be willing to play. so i guess the only game i'll continue to play is etchazz: the forum lurker, which is fine; that game is more fun than anything that's currently out (or any that are going to come out). i guess all the private messages that i've been getting telling me to be patient and wait for the reveal were all for naught. it's pretty much exactly what i thought it was going to be: guild rift wars ultima online tera warcraft next....
 
D

Dumar_sl

shitlord
3,712
4
Zuuljin_sl said:
I completely agree but I think there can be a middle ground. Maybe the shops that are open during the day give the best deals, but if you must sell now, you can go to the local bar that's open all night, or the shady 24 hour pawn shop, but you will get a much reduced return on your goods. Maybe being a good customer at the bar or pawn shop though will open up other opportunities not available to those normal people who shop during the day. I don't think it has to be an either/or thing.
Click to expand...
Lithose's point of abstractions is a little extreme, but at a very general, bird's-eye high level view, it's correct.

The whole history of human thought is basically a history of abstractions. Every day of our lives we create and use them. A statement like 'The general captured the enemy base.' is an abstraction because the general didn't actuallydoanything. Sure, he possibly planned and strategized, but none of the activity was done by him. The statement is an abstraction, and we give credit to this person for the accomplishment of 1000 or 10000 men because it helps us deal with and make sense of complexity.

The problem is here, in terms of fun or excitement, abstraction sucks. The further some medium or industry changes (not necessarily progress) you go, the higher and higher level go the abstractions. Take EverQuest and compared it to World of Warcraft in a slightly different way than we've done. Only at the very high level of EverQuest were you worried about being hyper efficient: a small variance in DPS or mitigation didn't matter. The reason for this though, is not only because we were naive, but it's because the game itself wasn't designed at this level of abstraction - it wasn't designed with Recount and cooldown juggling in mind. Its design hid all of this from the player because Brad and company were concerned with building a world for the player and keeping most of the mathematics hidden. It's more exciting to think of epic dragons and wondrous magic, not whether the dragon does 1k dps in phase 2.5 and whether you can keep your scorch rotation going.

Fast forward to World of Warcraft, and thedesign itselfis no longer about the world, the dragon, or the magic, but it's about the abstraction behind them, the numbers. It's designed for you to monitor cooldowns and maximize efficiency with addons. It's not about being a rogue, but being a rogue with the highest DPS gear and spec of the month.That'swhy World of Warcraft is not fun from a real, objective viewpoint: they've took mmo design even further and abstractified the world itself down to the numbers behind it. You don't necessarily need to even see the dragon in WoW anymore; all you really need is a Matlab front end.

That's the problem with abstractions and this genre from a psychological, almost scientific perspective. Abstractions aren't exciting. We need them for sure, but not in videogames.
 
Rombo

Rombo

Lord Nagafen Raider
763
199
tad10_sl said:
they are making lol the mmo. The game is designed for pvp. Thus emphasis on player class identification
Click to expand...
Am all for pvp, and Eve in a fantasy setting, but how can they claim they want abilities to be fun before being balanced and expect an interesting pvp world.
 
Quaid

Quaid

Trump's Staff
11,782
8,267
Oh and there will probably be at least 2 starting cities. I don't think Dark Elves and High Elves are gonna start in the same place... Unless they have pulled some crazy shit with the lore.
 
Big Flex

Big Flex

Fitness Fascist
4,314
3,166
Quaid_sl said:
Oh and there will probably be at least 2 starting cities. I don't think Dark Elves and High Elves are gonna start in the same place... Unless they have pulled some crazy shit with the lore.
Click to expand...
They have "Omg dragons destoryed everything therefore Qeynos lol"
 
Malakriss

Malakriss

Golden Baronet of the Realm
12,659
11,973
Let's start them out on opposite edges of the continent with roughly equal but not really mirrored zones and resources on each half and let Darwin sort things out.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.