EQ Never

As long as the absolute best items and content are locked behind "you must be 50," the leveling curve will be bitched about. Make items scale slower and have compelling, powerful gear at level 20 or 30 that absolutely will be used in end game would be a start.

But yeah, frankly, if I give you $60 (not a given for EQN I know) and pay you a sub (def not happening) and essentially have the game locked away because its tuned for 3-4 hours a night and 8 hours or more per day to progress even with the median, I'm out. I don't say don't make the game but I don't have that time and there's plenty of compelling gameplay in the world that will allow me to feel a sense of progress too in my time. That is not a casual schedule. Not with anyone and I certainly couldn't see myself doing that at 34. 20? Sure. Not now.

Again, not saying that isn't the right game. I just wouldn't make it that steep and expect more than maybe 300k profitable players. Who the fuck knows what to say if its F2P about what a profitable population will be.

You could also say a big issue is that MMOs are overextending themselves by trying to cater to every potential audience, or just the biggest audience. Which is great as a business model, but alienates significant segments of the gaming population.

Convo_sl said:

That's actually the biggest issue. Just none of us think these big companies will go niche

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It'll come. Eventually. Maybe EQN, maybe not. But from what I know, EQN has great potential. August 2nd wru.

Flipmode_sl said:

I'm not claiming to have all the details on every aspect of the game. There is still stuff I want to know more of. It's just funny reading these broad statements and time tables from various posters theorycrafting on what is and isn't possible. Either they are full of shit, or my friends working on the game are. Guess who I believe?

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See my comment about March 16th, 2014 release. It is quite possible that SOE releases the game then (or earlier) but if they do so, the game releases without some key stuff (e.g. raids/types of housing) - similar to how PS2 was released early and feature incomplete. I don't care if you're buddies with Smed or Georgeson or Butler. Shit takes time to build. So they either release early, feature incomplete, or later feature complete. I'm happy to take an Avatar bet on this.

Flipmode_sl said:

I think even vanilla wow was too fast. IMO, the hardcore people that play 12-18 hours a day should hit max in about 2-3months. The average joe 4-6 months. I'd like to have a lot of interesting content at all levels so ideally you don't get bored or you can see new areas on an alt.

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You need to do your maths better.
Your hardcore player is playing an average of 15 hours a day for 2-3 months according to you. That's 900 to 1350 hours of play time.
Your casual player is playing an average of 5 hours a day for 4-6 months according to you. That's 600 to 900 hours of play time.

So let's go with 900 hours. It's impossible to create a fun game for anyone outside those who enjoy just grinding all day long. If you stick 50 levels into it that's an average of 18 hours per level. Do you have enough character progression to keep people interested? I mean, for that average joe, you have him playing 4 to 6 hours a day 7 days a week. (Hint: That's not casual at all).

In order to create enough interesting content to keep people engaged and having fun, you would need to create nearly 50+ single player games worth of content. Else you're just telling people to repeat the same content at whatever level range 100 times before they can move on to something different.

Some people like Lineage II, it's not me though.

Draegan_sl said:

You need to do your maths better.
Your hardcore player is playing an average of 15 hours a day for 2-3 months according to you. That's 900 to 1350 hours of play time.
Your casual player is playing an average of 5 hours a day for 4-6 months according to you. That's 600 to 900 hours of play time.

So let's go with 900 hours. It's impossible to create a fun game for anyone outside those who enjoy just grinding all day long. If you stick 50 levels into it that's an average of 18 hours per level. Do you have enough character progression to keep people interested? I mean, for that average joe, you have him playing 4 to 6 hours a day 7 days a week. (Hint: That's not casual at all).

In order to create enough interesting content to keep people engaged and having fun, you would need to create nearly 50+ single player games worth of content. Else you're just telling people to repeat the same content at whatever level range 100 times before they can move on to something different.

Some people like Lineage II, it's not me though.

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So EQ was made wildly successful by hardcore players. To reward that, games should cater to casuals and alienate the hardore? Awesome.


I'm curious because I am too lazy to look at all 2200 of your posts. Did you play EQ? Were you successful? What did you play? When did you quit? What made the game awesome for you?

Randin_sl said:

I still think the idea of a trinity-less mmo has merit, it's just that GW2's solution to it was flawed. GW2's take on it was to make it so all classes performed all roles of the trinity, typically all at the same time. This made it so that coordination was less necessary in groups, and everyone would just sorta do their own thing; it also made the classes less distinct from one another, and so they all felt more generic.

If I were to make a trinity-less mmo, I would try to do the exact opposite of GW2; where GW2 went with less specialized classes, I would try to make them even more specialized. Each class has its own very specific playstyle, which doesn't easily fall into one of the trinity roles, and which no other class can really mimic. Like GW2, any combination of classes can make a viable group, but an effective group depends on the players figuring out how to mesh together the playstyles of the component classes, and knowing how the group dynamic is changed by the presence or absence of a particular class.

No idea how the specific class mechanics would work out for a game like that, but I think the general idea has merit.

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All you're doing is creating a new trinity. What would happen is you would find the best synergy, and people would ape that over and over. Because with your idea, you're now create classes that do specific special jobs instead of creating special jobs and having classes fit in them. The latter is easier to balance than the former.

Draegan_sl said:

All you're doing is creating a new trinity. What would happen is you would find the best synergy, and people would ape that over and over. Because with your idea, you're now create classes that do specific special jobs instead of creating special jobs and having classes fit in them. The latter is easier to balance than the former.

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I don't understand why people are so angry at the healer/tank/control trinity. I have yet to figure out how to have a fantasy mmo without it. you can make it more complex, you can make it more simple, it will still be there. I have no problem with people trying to figure out a different way to do it, but it is not a defining negative aspect to any game tmk.

mkopec_sl said:

Caeden^^
See thats the retarded mindset that mmos need to go away from. Whats the fucking difference between you leveling and gathering gear at cap? Its all the same shit if done properly. Who the fuck cares if the leveling takes you a year if you and your buds are having fun? Maybe mmorpgs are not for you?

edit: I dont want a glorified dungeon lobby game which mmorpgs these days are heading to. Hang out in some city and queue up for instances.

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It's not the same really. You enjoy progressing your character no matter what. I enjoy the same, but I enjoy it many times over once my character has all of his abilities and talent (or whatever) points. I like creating specs and then using them in content. While I am in the leveling process, I think of different specs, but I'm frustrated because I can't test them yet because I need 5 more points for my build. This makes me rush content to get those points to create the build I want.

In the end it's the same thing, but it's personal preference. I enjoy all the same content you do, but I want to have a full character build while doing it.

Flipmode_sl said:

Well this is EQ Next. EQ2 didn't contain most of what you stated and its an EQ game too. This isn't EQ. Take your own advice and go shit up that thread.

Edited to add: do we really need to list all the logistical nightmares back flagging and keying new members creates again for the 1000th time? That shit isn't fun. It's tedious.

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And EQ2 was a horrible failure. The reality is that you need downtime, tediousness and boring shit in a game because those lows make the highs higher. When the guy finally pops holding the item you've been waiting for for the past 4 hours it's a great fucking feeling.

@Draegen I don't know what you mean by GW2/Wildstar soft-targeting but it sounds horribly twitchy. VG OT/DT targeting all the way.

Bellringer_sl said:

So EQ was made wildly successful by hardcore players. To reward that, games should cater to casuals and alienate the hardore? Awesome.


I'm curious because I am too lazy to look at all 2200 of your posts. Did you play EQ? Were you successful? What did you play? When did you quit? What made the game awesome for you?

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I have no idea what angle you're getting at. I'm not trying to piss in your cheerios by saying your preferred form of an MMORPG is bad. I mean if you like a super long leveling curve where it takes you 18 hours to get a level, more power to you. But no company that is putting in millions of dollars to create a AAA game is going to shoot for that.

However, just to play devils advocate, let's say EQN is aiming to have a leveling curve that takes 1000 hours of playtime. In order to be a successful game, you're going to have to fill that time with challenging, unique and engaging content throughout the leveling curve. That is a lot, and I mean a lot, of content to create. The only way a company can feasibly do that is if they have successfully created software that can automatically generate content that is both engaging, balanced and entertaining so that players are happily occupied with new things to do throughout their game play.

OR you just create a whole new game system that isn't really about warriors and wizards gaining levels and getting loot, but create a whole new type of game where it's more than getting the best dice roll and killing bad guys. You'd have to create some sort of environmental ecosystem that harbors player interaction where the need to level is not the carrot and power is based on skill and experience and not on levels and spells.

As for your other question, I played EQ at release and quit because it was a buggy shitty game then. I went back to play SojournMUD where Brad McQuaid copied everything from anyway. When the game eventually got better I was working full time and going to school so I never had time to play MMOs.

Bellringer_sl said:

I don't understand why people are so angry at the healer/tank/control trinity. I have yet to figure out how to have a fantasy mmo without it. you can make it more complex, you can make it more simple, it will still be there. I have no problem with people trying to figure out a different way to do it, but it is not a defining negative aspect to any game tmk.

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I don't have a problem with it, but a lot of people just want to play with a new dynamic. Some people have been doing the whole tank/heal/dps(cc) thing for 15 years. It's understandable to want something different.

Bellringer_sl said:

I don't understand why people are so angry at the healer/tank/control trinity. I have yet to figure out how to have a fantasy mmo without it. you can make it more complex, you can make it more simple, it will still be there. I have no problem with people trying to figure out a different way to do it, but it is not a defining negative aspect to any game tmk.

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Trinity works for PvE. PvPers get pissed off because it doesn't work for PvP so they bitch and companies spend generations of man-time trying to balance it. Which is full retard. You should never balance an MMORPG for PvP. MOBAs are balanced for PvP, not MMORPGS, a properly PvP balanced MMORPG requires you take out the "Role" part because you have to do what GW2 apparently did and make all classes capable of filling all roles.

tad10_sl said:

And EQ2 was a horrible failure. The reality is that you need downtime, tediousness and boring shit in a game because those lows make the highs higher. When the guy finally pops holding the item you've been waiting for for the past 4 hours it's a great fucking feeling.

@Draegen I don't know what you mean by GW2/Wildstar soft-targeting but it sounds horribly twitchy. VG OT/DT targeting all the way.

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Soft targeting is that you don't need an actual target to have your abilities land. If I cast a fireball as a mage, it goes in a straight line and hits whatever gets in it's way. So this means I can have no target and just cast a fireball straight ahead of my character and it hits my target (no aiming like an fps), or if I'm targeting something and cast; it'll hit another target if something jumps in front of me or my target.

edit:
To your first post, the reason why you feel so good when something pops after four hours is because you're a crack addict. You punish yourself with 4 hours of boredom, of course you're going to feel euphoric when you win. It's a natural reaction.

Draegan_sl said:

Soft targeting is that you don't need an actual target to have your abilities land. If I cast a fireball as a mage, it goes in a straight line and hits whatever gets in it's way. So this means I can have no target and just cast a fireball straight ahead of my character and it hits my target (no aiming like an fps), or if I'm targeting something and cast; it'll hit another target if something jumps in front of me or my target.

edit:
To your first post, the reason why you feel so good when something pops after four hours is because you're a crack addict. You punish yourself with 4 hours of boredom, of course you're going to feel euphoric when you win. It's a natural reaction.

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@Edit - abso-fucking-correct. That's the point. You get the dopamine high by doing it the old-fashioned EQ way. You don't get it from the new-hotness.

@SoftTargeting - Bah, I'd try it in a some game where the fireball also damages everything (including members of your party) if they're in front of you - ala old-school DnD, but for the most part, this is where I'm going to argue GAME >>> REALISM.

I want to tab to offensive target and hit the mob I'm targeting (while still holding my defensive target).