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Xexx

Vyemm Raider
7,742
1,810
I know its been said before, but i really could see them doing this a bit like how LoL does its champions. Well not exactly the same but you could purchase some classes early or at set periods of time. It wouldnt be at all P2W because everyone can get them via quest or some other method, and you would still need to level its skills.

Ofcourse it could totally not happen either, but aside from xp pots, vitality pots im sure their will be some other nonsense on the market place. Likewise they may include some pay only classes, but thats a bit less likely to occur imo.
 

Soygen

The Dirty Dozen For the Price of One
<Nazi Janitors>
28,431
44,761
Yet the only periods of rapid growth in the industry had those things in common. Odd.
C'mon, Lithose. Correlation is not causation. The rapid growth had everything to do with the birth of the genre and less with the features. I don't disagree that some of those features made EQ and WoW great.
 

Lithose

Buzzfeed Editor
25,946
113,036
C'mon, Lithose. Correlation is not causation. The rapid growth had everything to do with the birth of the genre and less with the features. I don't disagree that some of those features made EQ and WoW great.
Hmm? Did I say causation at all? I said it's odd how people take it as gospel that things are one way, when there is absolutely no evidence of that. In fact, even the smallest of correlative evidence we have, points to the other way. So why does the "hardcore" seem more absurd then the completely accessible? If correlative evidence is not enough, then is the completely absence of evidencebetter? You see how pointing to causation destroys the other side of the argument even more, as they don't even have anycorrelativeevidence?

Which was the point of the post. No one here should be confident enough to dismiss anything out of hand, when the market had periods of growth and shrinkage that don't correlate with anyone's agenda.

Here.

It's pretty obvious that these "old school" methods might havesomekind of component,even if diminished, in what makes a "good" online RPG.

Dismissing them out of hand, when this market is contracting rapidly as these concepts have been taken out? Seems a little odd. I think, it's safer to say, there needs to be a mix. Maybe only a small pinch of those more frustrating components, but some kind of mix.
Note there was no advocating that hardcore was the right way. Just the fact that there are too many variables for anyone to confidently say X or Y, and most likely some kind of mix is probably the best bet.
 

Soygen

The Dirty Dozen For the Price of One
<Nazi Janitors>
28,431
44,761
Which was the point of the post. No one here should be confident enough to dismiss anything out of hand, when the market had periods of growth and shrinkage that don't correlate with anyone's agenda.
Sorry, I quoted before you edited in the shrinkage comment, which helped clarify your point.
 

tad10

Elisha Dushku
5,533
595
I can't believe this was glossed over, but there's like 20 pages bitching about Ogre models..
Earthquakes aren't happening every 5 minutes. They gave an example of just one happening during a 24 hour example. They also said all regeneration (Earthquakes and Voxel mesh healing) is population dependent (more people faster healing) and they would tune it during beta.

Long post, sorry..
Excellent post that I wish I could +1 you on again. I hope the EQN devs who lurk read it. This is my main concern with the modern combat system and why I like EQ/VG combat. They have already stated that at the end of the day you are going to want skilled players to group with - that is they are sticking with "skilled" not "efficiency" difficulty. I would say 98%-99% of the people on this forum will be able to transition just fine (as most of us did from EQ -> WoW/other games) but the Mom who always has to play with the kid on her lap or the 55-year old Gary Gygax wannabe will not (i.e. the people they made easy raids for in WoW). These are the people the Dave Mark & the StoryBricks (and Jeff Butler for that matter) are forgetting - at the end of the day they will either have to nerf the combat AI globally (if it is as good as they're saying) or release "Flex" servers with weaker combat AI.

What do you guys think the first 8 Classes will be?
There will be 2 defensive fighters, 2 melee dps, 2 magic dps and 2 healing classes. This is from the VG devs.

I'll guess

Warrior
Blademaster
Rogue
Ranger
Wizard
Enchanter
Cleric
Shaman

Though with the way their splitting the classes - possibility for same characters but different names (i.e. there may be no class named "cleric" in the game.
 

Bellringer_sl

shitlord
387
0
The median age of the EQ population at SOE Live seemed in the 40s. If they think those players can play a game with combat as fast paced as league (EQN looks like Smite tbh) then they are completely ignoring those right in their face.
 

Lithose

Buzzfeed Editor
25,946
113,036
btw, my opinion on "hardcore" vs "casual" (Since the discussion is going that way.)

I think a lot of design has been pushed through people who were in unique positions in EQ, and then in WoW. If you look, a lot of the decreases in "difficulty" in WoW, came from time and people required (The two biggest difficulty factors in EQ). Raids became smaller, and less time intensive--because the entire view on accessibility had encompassed just those two variables (And lets face, we all thought the same thing--how many raid leaders here breathed a sigh of relief when raids went to 25 man, we thought we could "cut the fat"). But that's not really a complete picture of accessibility, is it? Does anyone here think it's rarer for a player to 1.) Invest more time 2.) Get more friends 3.) Grow more skilled?

I'd say number 3 is,by far, the rarer scenario. So by infusing every difficulty aspect into the need for more skill, and supposedly increasing "accessibility" by decreasing time/people required, is it not possible that there was an inadvertentdecreasein accessibility? (Therefor requiring a "skill switch", which you can artificial decrease difficulty--which is what WoW had to do.)

The above is a variable, one of many, that make it really difficult to talk about those "old school" methods, or "new accessibility" with any kind of certainty. There are hundreds of reasons for why things became broken, and even some that run completely contrary to design intent and purpose (Like the above). So they are hard to flesh out. Even things like engineering, can have a huge influence on game numbers. The fact is we DO NOT know if a hardcore game would have 150k subs, because there are a million other variables that can subvert even a simple intention in an operation this complex.

In my opinion--here is what happened in this Genre. WoW decreased Time/People required, and streamlined access, and made engineering far superior (Less lag, easier on systems (ect)). All those things lead to a huge increase in sub numbers. So WoW continued to add them. But certain elements of this, became like adding too much sugar to a cake, or icing. Something that WAS essential, now becomes overbearing and destructive, because it completely destroys any context of flavor or texture (Or other elments of this bad metaphor). n.

Unfortunately, MMO's cost millions to experiment with. And as stated above, even clear design intentions don't always work how you expect. Social aspects of games ar hard to measure. Writing off any component that was in at the apex of this market, is maybe a bit silly, when we know so little about what, exactly, got us to the top of the mountain. Even WoW developers have said interpreting their mountains of metrics is difficult, and they've FUBARed it multiple times.

Anyway, long and short, those old school elements were part of the perfect cake. Maybe we should examine that, too.
 

tad10

Elisha Dushku
5,533
595
I know its been said before, but i really could see them doing this a bit like how LoL does its champions.
I think 99% unlikely that you can buy classes - a lot of other things - but not classes:

They will sell:
-Housing (including Guild) templates.
-Cosmetics (different weapon & mount graphics)

They might sell:
-Mounts
-"XP" pots (remember you do get XP from doing RC/Quests - it's just more AA-like XP than regular XP and you need other things to advance).
-Healing pots

Probably other stuff I can't think of right now - just not classes, one of the pillars of the game is finding classes, it would be stupid to hand them out for cash, when they can get more cash from you as you keep looking for them. Too early in the freaking morning and you guys have already done 3 pages.
 

Hatorade

A nice asshole.
8,455
7,202
If you die you go to a version of hell you have to literally climb and fight your way out of, maybe with other dead people. More times you die in a 24 hour period the deeper you start, die too often and the devil himself claims your body for permadeath! This would keep zergs down and promote community.

You sacrifice something important on a alt to get some gear back etc. Or if you "allow" a group to fight the devil and they win you can reclaim your soul/equipment or something, but choose wisely because if they fail it is gone forever.
 

tad10

Elisha Dushku
5,533
595
Anyway, long and short, those oldschool elements were part of the perfect cake. Maybe we should examine that, too.
With respect to EQN. If they're doing the skilled combat they're going to have to allow zergs. Bellringer is absolutely spot on. The PS2 crowd was younger, but the EQ crowd: I'll just say I didn't see a line-up of carts for any of the PS2 panels. I so wish I'd taken that picture of the people on carts for the EQN reveal.
 

kaid

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,647
1,187
I think 99% unlikely that you can buy classes - a lot of other things - but not classes:

They will sell:
-Housing (including Guild) templates.
-Cosmetics (different weapon & mount graphics)

They might sell:
-Mounts
-"XP" pots (remember you do get XP from doing RC/Quests - it's just more AA-like XP than regular XP and you need other things to advance).
-Healing pots

Probably other stuff I can't think of right now - just not classes, one of the pillars of the game is finding classes, it would be stupid to hand them out for cash, when they can get more cash from you as you keep looking for them. Too early in the freaking morning and you guys have already done 3 pages.
I think one of their likely key sources of funds going forward is going to be the skim from the player studio stuff. Given the creation tools they appear to be giving to people there should be a gigantic market for people selling plans/designs of nifty things/buildings to people who have the cash but not the talent but still want such things. Even at low prices a high volume of such transfers would still add up to a huge chunk of cash for very little work/effort on SOE's part.
 

Rezz

Mr. Poopybutthole
4,486
3,531
Honestly.. they really shouldn't be aiming for Rascal-riding mmo players. Nothing in life, actually, should cater to the Rascal riders. Different topic though!

Depending on implementation, the lack of auto-attack and the mobility of combat could be really fun. As long as they steer clear of just replacing auto-attack with an ability you have to chain spam while waiting for longer cooldown abilities to repop (Thanks TOR!) or going full on DDR with combat mobility. In moderation, you can do lots with stuff, but I suppose that will have to wait til we get our hands on it.
 

tad10

Elisha Dushku
5,533
595
Honestly.. they really shouldn't be aiming for Rascal-riding mmo players. Nothing in life, actually, should cater to the Rascal riders. Different topic though!

Depending on implementation, the lack of auto-attack and the mobility of combat could be really fun. As long as they steer clear of just replacing auto-attack with an ability you have to chain spam while waiting for longer cooldown abilities to repop (Thanks TOR!) or going full on DDR with combat mobility. In moderation, you can do lots with stuff, but I suppose that will have to wait til we get our hands on it.
@kaid - absolutely. Fuck me for forgetting Player Studio.
@Ayeshala - Rezz said it better. "Rascal-riding mmo players"
@Rezz

I honestly think combat will initially be a blast. Who doesn't want to kill a mob by blasting a hole in the ground as he's running to you and forcing him to die by falling damage as he drops 50 ft into Tier 1b? Or have four wizards pop up four ice walls around the guy as he's fighting the tank? Etc. Etc.

I just don't know how it'll be long term. I enjoyed DCUO, but I don't think I could play it for as long, or as often, as the slower EQ/VG combat. Maybe I'm wrong, which I why I have to give it a chance, and why I think even etchazz should play the beta.

I forget who said it, but sure SOE is going for EQN$$$, but they're also taking a risk on the MMO model, so if we're eve going to get any advances in the genre, we should as gamers support this effort at least a little (none of which means I still won't advocate for EQ3 eventually... ;-) ).
 

Grumpus

Molten Core Raider
1,927
223
If you die you go to a version of hell you have to literally climb and fight your way out of, maybe with other dead people. More times you die in a 24 hour period the deeper you start, die too often and the devil himself claims your body for permadeath! This would keep zergs down and promote community.

You sacrifice something important on a alt to get some gear back etc. Or if you "allow" a group to fight the devil and they win you can reclaim your soul/equipment or something, but choose wisely because if they fail it is gone forever.
That sounds awesome lol
 

Nadili_sl

shitlord
11
0
There will be 2 defensive fighters, 2 melee dps, 2 magic dps and 2 healing classes. This is from the VG devs.

I'll guess

Warrior
Blademaster
Rogue
Ranger
Wizard
Enchanter
Cleric
Shaman

Though with the way their splitting the classes - possibility for same characters but different names (i.e. there may be no class named "cleric" in the game.
I remember them mentioning Tempest which was a lighting mage of sorts so that is throwing me if wizard is a starting class as well.
 

Big Flex

Fitness Fascist
4,314
3,166
I was mowing my lawn and thinking.. EQN doesn't require healers.

EQN has hinted at permadeath several times, while most likely a joke, if you look at my previous references to a permadeath system, where characters get rendered unconscience then.. perhaps the new healer role is focused entirely on resing/resuscitating?

This gives priests a reason to exist, while not making them an absolute requirement while giving clerics a traditional role while opening up the majority of their combat operations to doing damage and buffing?