dude, asheron's call had this shit almost 15 years ago. again, nothing new. this is no different than the coca cola company brining out "coke classic" and everyone spooging all over themselves at this brand new gimmick, when all it was was their original recipe redone. from every single thing i've read, there is absolutely nothing new or groundbreaking about this game. people are getting excited about shit that sony has been mentioning that has been done since the early 80's. digging in a game? try dig dug. i just don't see anything groundbreaking here unless this storybricks shit is actually next gen AI, which i believe will be more disappointing than most people are letting on. NPC's that actually act/react to every situation differently? i'll believe that when i see it implemented. i believe it'll be more along the lines of them choosing 1 of 2 or 3 different scenarios depending on what text you click on, kind of like a choose your own adventure book. i can't see it being more in depth than that unless they've truly managed to create AI, which i highly doubt.
EQ Never
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Mr Creed
Too old for this shit
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I'm on board with different newbie zone experiences being important. With horizontal progression your concerns against them are less of an issue I hope. The "newbie areas" are still going to have npcs you can interact with to advance into new classes, and at least I hope that without levels the content itself will still be interesting if not challenging and instead of total faceroll. Dont see them as strictly lvl1-10 areas that nobody returns to after the first day, if they are designed like that then SOE is falling back to the DIKU methods and will likely flop.
For this to work both SOE and the players need to abandon the DIKU leveling scheme expectations. Butcherblock is just more content that happens to hava dwarf city nearby. It opens up different ways to experience the game depending on wether you started there and see it as home or arrive as an experienced adventurer, or have to hide from the guards you cant take while killing and roasting the ones that are weak enough.
AC had scripted events that went the way the developers wanted them to go. If that counts, so does the 'real' Horde rebellion in Razor Hill/The Barrens in WoW.
Mr Creed
Too old for this shit
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I still think it's a decision created to reduce their own workload, but IF we have to go with one city fits all, it better be a sprawling one with several parts of the city where you get thrown out if you are the wrong race. If I hear an elf npc child ask their parents if its true that there are trolls in the sewers and the parents tell the child that's just a myth and not to worry, that would work for me. If troll and gnome children play tag in the streets, not so much.
Sylverlokk
Golden Knight of the Realm
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More starting cities does mean more content, unless you assume those cities are taking the place of wilderness content. They didn't in original EQ, why should they in EQN, and why should we accept a lesser product. One of the reasons i fell in love with EQ originally was Ak'Anon, the little lake in the cave, the fact you could swim the entire length of the city, and even up into waterfalls, the tick of the clockworks. It had character, different then other cities and helped spawn a sense of "this is my virtual home".
Mr Creed
Too old for this shit
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I think (constructive) criticism is much better then praise. It's the developer job to take that criticism and see if it's valid enough to change the game they are making into a better direction. One VERY important aspect that gets lost entirely here is that all the newbie experiences that everyone describes as never coming back will be happening every day in EQN if the game is build to allow them. Sure we here are jaded enough to not give a fuck about seeing our first elf but the four 12 yo friends that just picked the game up, played with just hobbits and the odd human here or there for a week and then venture out might have a different experience.
That said, I now read the georgeson quote and still think they need to give several starting areas, just like EQ did (maybe not THAT many if its a time/money issue). "we are starting the guys at the current RC because qeynos is a dragon hoard now" ... kinda invalidates the whole argument of newbie areas being useless. Instead, depending on how SB moves the npc population the'll be raid zones if nobody cares for them, and they'll be thriving newbie experiences if enough players populate that area. The only change to his statement that is needed is that players can choose between the RC starting area and race/class appropriate starting towns that are 'valid' depending on who owns them at the time.
For example, at release trolls can start at the qeynos RC or in grobb (slightly different initial faction depending on choice). If they are leave the grobb area and too few people make trolls because they arent fat enough then the frogloks eventually take over the town and troll players can no longer start there. Since it's been a few months they then have the choice of starting at the oggok RC, the slums of qeynos because they are tolerated but not welcome, or neriak if that town is not overcome by halflings or other npcs at the time. If then again later players push the frogs out of grobb they can start there again.
I am on board with that example. Where you can start depends on the state of the world. You can always start at the RC so all races are available (and all races are forever holding hands as friends apparently), but you arent limited to that one starting place unless players essentially let the world fall into decay. What choices you have to start out matters to me but more important is that you have choices at all. Removal of choice and options is the bane of modern MMOs.
So you're assuming that a game with one starting city and a game with a dozen starting cities is going to have identical volume of content in each city? Interesting.
Dumb as a rock, butinteresting.
Ukerric
Bearded Ape
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Convo
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Lol..I think you might be the dumb one here.. He never said identical amount of content. You added that. He is just assuming more starting areas= more unique content so adding more content overall. Damn you're a bad troll.
Ukerric
Bearded Ape
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It is going to be only semi-dynamic. It's mainly static because Rallying Cry have only one end. Halas IS founded. Qeynos FALLS to the dragons. You can speed it up or slow it down, but you won't be able to alter the final result.
What is going to be different here is that, unlike Asheron's call who had to have every event occurring at the same time, altering the servers in synchronous manner, is that the timing and order is going to be different from one server to the next.
What I think they're using is, basically, having a number of pre-canned Rallying Cry coded, adding some regularly. Those are "potential" Rallying Cry, meaning they can occur, but not now. Each Cry will have an amount of "trigger points" and dependencies. Dependencies are other Rallying Cry, meaning this or that event can't occur before that other, while trigger points are accumulated by player actions.
Let's say, people playing barbarians count as trigger points. Every 1 hour of /played by a barb character = 1 trigger point for The Founding of Halas. People playing in Everfrost? More trigger points. People building guild halls and player housing in Everfrost? More points.
Meanwhile, The Fall of Qeynos adds regularly points, but instead, people shopping and passing thru Qeynos reduce trigger points.
The current Rallying Cry concludes, and the system then checks every Rallying Cry that hasn't occurred yet. If it has pre-req pending, it's not going to (The Founding of Neriak requires both The Rise of Innoruuk and The Return of the Teir'Dal, only one of which has occurred). For all those that can, it picks the one with most trigger points, and wham: The Founding of Halas begins. Sorry Ogres, but Oggok needs to wait a bit.
Miele
Lord Nagafen Raider
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- 48
My biggest worry, grown after reading 300 and change pages in this thread and watching every video from SoE live is that even developers don't really know what they are doing, they are winging it and hoping Landmark gives them enough content to work with, while they make eveyone overpowered without being obnoxiously so. Either that or Storybricks is so freaking amazing that Skynet will be considered obsolete.
Sometime ago there was a discussion on FoH about the complexity of the AI, the result was that in general, except for hardcore gamers, people don't want complex, they like easy and grindable. If SB is THAT good that we won't miss the trinity (I'm trying to picture how to be honest, since a few days), the end result will still be that every mob will be nerfed to be dead meat walking before beta ends (Like having 30 hp instead of 300, so the AI doesn't have a chance to kick in and Timmytard can still save the world, spamming 1111111 till his finger bleeds.).
Oh well, wait and see. I'm going to play this from day-1, but I hope it lasts longer than a couple months.
The thing that blows my mind is how pumped up everyone is already getting for this.. It looks SO early in development that it still has the chance of being vaporware. They could literally scrap the whole thing and start again....again. This game won't release until early 2015 and I guarantee it will be nearly a completely new game by then except for maybe the engine. There are games that haven't even been announced yet that will release months before this even gets a beta.
I'm not pumped at all, I am not anticipating this to be a good game on any level based on the things said and not said.
All I'm saying is I don't know why people are getting so hyped up about this game already when if it was any other game this far from release they wouldn't even bother talking about it. Throw an EQ in the title of your game and everyone loses their shit. The only thing that this game will have similar to original EQ is shitty lore and the fact that it's an MMO.
I preface this with the statement that I also think people should try to control their hype. Keep your expectations low and you have less of a chance to be dissapointed. A game will never have everything that you want in it, and will always include aspects that you dislike. Its the penalty for catering to the masses.
Yes, branding something and people lose their shit, the same thing happens to any top of the line brand name. Deserved or not, EQ is a top of the line brand name in the MMO world. My mind is blown by your last sentence. They are butchering this "shitty lore" you speak of. From what it looks like, it may be even more shitty in the end.
Big Flex
Fitness Fascist
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I agree 100%, If newbs are jumping out of an AC130 onto the back of a dragon rather than running away from two bats, no bueno.
Big Flex
Fitness Fascist
- 4,314
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Maybe I won't feel that way, but Timmy and Tommy who picked up EQN as their first MMO, or the Minecraft enthusiast, or the DOTA player who are all trying their first MMO will.