EQ Never

Quaid

Quaid

Trump's Staff
11,859
8,265
Kreugen_sl said:
Having a huge uninstanced world and no shortcuts to travel is great though, especially when it comes to group content. First you either spend a bunch of time putting together a group and then traveling to the content (ensuring that you don't bother to log in unless you have 5 hours or more to play), or you just head out alone in the hopes of finding a group when you finally get there. Then you arrive and the area is either overcamped and useless, or dominated by the other faction (if PVP), or there's no one around to group with so you're stuck waiting for more people to join you and every time someone leaves it takes an eternity to get a replacement. So you either wait it out or you're stuck wasting your goddamn day traveling around and accomplishing nothing. This is awesome gameplay and is the primary reason Everquest and Vanguard were such terrific games that should be copied in every way.
Click to expand...
The way I envision the system would work is if the world was designed with PVE 'hubs' similar to Blackrock Mountain but far greater in scope. After your newbie experience, you go to this hub (probably just 1 per major landmass) and there are multiple dungeons in a relatively small area, that cater to all level ranges. Intermingled with the dungeons are friendly NPC factions with all the things one needs to adventure (banks, merchants, auctioneers etc). This way, a player could feasibly level from 15-50 in a single geographic area. Want to see another continent's hub? Better get a TP consumable or run your ass there.

This keeps populations concentrated enough to encourage group play, but still makes travel meaningful and puts effective time-barriers in place for content consumption.
 
zzeris

zzeris

The Real Benny Johnson
<Gold Donor>
21,257
93,021
I think there is a somewhat happy medium between tedious and instant travel. Instant access to anywhere just increases eventual boredom just like tedious repitition does. There is no way to make everyone happy but some travel restrictions helps the developers so I'm a fan of slowing it down a bit. I like Convo's way of aiding crafters and I hope crafting is a huge emphasis. Every game needs some time sinks and rewards for involving yourself in them.

Quaid has good ideas as well. It would be nice if every city that needs to be rebuilt has a large area of content that allows you to stay there for an extended time. I think it would be cool to win the initial event which opens up a lot more area. Then you can continue forward or just work in that area if you want. Would a Barbarian care about the War Effort after Halas is liberated(rebuilt, etc)? Should they? Do they have to?
 
Kreugen

Kreugen

Vyemm Raider
6,599
793
Are you instancing or at least phasing those hubs? Because let me tell you, instancing ruins MMOs. And by ruins I mean it makes ideas like that one possible because otherwise you are forced to spread people out across miles of emptiness to alleviate overcrowding. Without instancing/zone splitting whatever the fuck you want to call it your options are incredibly limited. I'm sure people in an EQ thread think instancing is the great satan but EQ2's use of it was (mostly) great. (nevermind the fuckawful lockout system)

Remember EQN is supposed to have a relatively flat power curve, with group play that is essentially soloing in the same direction aka Diablo in 3D. Everything they've released sounds as ultra casual as it gets. I highly doubt we are going to see a game that revolves around camping, cockblocking, and leap-frogging. This is Diablo meets Minecraft, not UO meets Vanguard.
 
Quaid

Quaid

Trump's Staff
11,859
8,265
Kreugen_sl said:
Are you instancing or at least phasing those hubs? Because let me tell you, instancing ruins MMOs. And by ruins I mean it makes ideas like that one possible because otherwise you are forced to spread people out across miles of emptiness to alleviate overcrowding.

Remember EQN is supposed to have a relatively flat power curve, with group play that is essentially soloing in the same direction aka Diablo in 3D. Everything they've released sounds as ultra casual as it gets. I highly doubt we are going to see a game that revolves around camping, cockblocking, and leap-frogging. This is Diablo meets Minecraft, not UO meets Vanguard.
Click to expand...
I'd prefer a kind of dynamic-spawning system to instancing. MOB density increases as player density increases... Events trigger as players meet certain conditions... Etc etc

I'd still want certain mobs to be in instanced 'chambers' within dungeons. For example, mobs that drop pieces of armour sets, critical trinkets, or similarly desirable gear. That way, those very specific encounters could have really cool engagement scripts too.
 
Kreugen

Kreugen

Vyemm Raider
6,599
793
The annoyance with having mini-instances like that was found quickly in EQ2. It was very difficult and annoying to fill a group with people who weren't already locked out for 12 or 24 hours or whatever it was.

And dynamic spawning does not solve the problem of simply having way too many players in one area. Do we really want it to look like the first zone of a release-day WoW expansion, with shit spawning and dying so fast that nobody takes damage? Or like one of those retarded FF14 FATE zergs? Oversatured population always sucks. Dynamic instancing is the only solution that has ever worked.
 
Quaid

Quaid

Trump's Staff
11,859
8,265
Kreugen_sl said:
The annoyance with having mini-instances like that was found quickly in EQ2. It was very difficult and annoying to fill a group with people who weren't already locked out for 12 or 24 hours or whatever it was.

And dynamic spawning does not solve the problem of simply having way too many players in one area. Do we really want it to look like the first zone of a release-day WoW expansion, with shit spawning and dying so fast that nobody takes damage? Or like one of those retarded FF14 FATE zergs? Oversatured population always sucks. Dynamic instancing is the only solution that has ever worked.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't use lockout timers either. I'd use no-rent collectables from the surrounding area that allowed access to boss chambers.

Like I said previously, this all depends on the world being vast enough. If you build these dungeon hubs to house 300ish people of different levels concurrently, and have 4 of them throughout the world, plus other random single dungeons in the wilderness, I don't see it being a problem.

I'm assuming a server population of ~2000 players.
 
zzeris

zzeris

The Real Benny Johnson
<Gold Donor>
21,257
93,021
Kreugen_sl said:
The annoyance with having mini-instances like that was found quickly in EQ2. It was very difficult and annoying to fill a group with people who weren't already locked out for 12 or 24 hours or whatever it was.

And dynamic spawning does not solve the problem of simply having way too many players in one area. Do we really want it to look like the first zone of a release-day WoW expansion, with shit spawning and dying so fast that nobody takes damage? Or like one of those retarded FF14 FATE zergs? Oversatured population always sucks. Dynamic instancing is the only solution that has ever worked.
Click to expand...
The lack of levels should help with too many players in one area. The goal isn't to pack as many sardines into one can as possible but to find alternative routes to systems that work poorly at best. I also don't envision this game being as packed as a release day WoW expansion but if it is...people seemed to live through that fairly well since mass exoduses were never experienced. Dynamic instancing has just as many problems as any other solution. There is no perfect solution to the first week of a game but many people seem to love the madness of it anyways. If the area is too packed, why not move on?
 
Lenas

Lenas

Trump's Staff
7,648
2,359
Kreugen_sl said:
First you either spend a bunch of time putting together a group and then traveling to the content, or you just head out alone in the hopes of finding a group when you finally get there. Then you arrive and the area is either overcamped and useless, or dominated by the other faction (if PVP), or there's no one around to group with so you're stuck waiting for more people to join you and every time someone leaves it takes an eternity to get a replacement. So you either wait it out or you're stuck wasting your goddamn day traveling around and accomplishing nothing.
Click to expand...
Reading this paragraph makes it obvious that you don't understand the end goal of this game or what StoryBricks can do if it works as advertised. The whole point of the world and the AI system that they're making is that you wont need to travel to individual instances to find shit to do. You should just be able to explore in any direction and find something fun. You and your friends port to a designated spot, then you pick a direction to go. Come across some ruins, okay cool, wipe out the goblins that have taken it over. Then you guys discover a hidden cave system under these ruins with an extremely hard boss and some legendary items. Boss aint gonna be there respawning for other people, content is first come first served. Unique monsters are one time deals, and populations of areas will change with player interaction. You can't just camp those ruins forever, eventually the goblins are going to pack shit and go somewhere else.
 
W

Wuyley_sl

shitlord
1,443
13
MMO's have been saying the same shit for what, 10 years now? And when it is all said and done it is just roaming mobs / quests that cycle through 5 or 6 states.
 
J

Jarnin_sl

shitlord
351
0
Lenas_sl said:
Boss aint gonna be there respawning for other people, content is first come first served. Unique monsters are one time deals, and populations of areas will change with player interaction. You can't just camp those ruins forever, eventually the goblins are going to pack shit and go somewhere else.
Click to expand...
This is how I understood it as well.

Once those goblins leave and the cave is empty, that makes the cave available to other critters to move in and set up shop. Maybe you scared off the goblins, but once that cave is empty orcs discover it and decide to move in. Once they have a basic camp set up, they start venturing out to the surrounding areas and start collecting resources to reinforce their camp. They build a big door to the cave that is now guarded. They build shelters inside the cave that allows more of them to spawn there. They hunt animals for food which allows them to have higher base stats when they do spawn. After they get to a certain threshold, they start raiding nearby villages, which then prompts the villagers to ask nearby players to go back to this cave and kill orcs, or raid the cave and wipe them all out. Then it repeats with another group of NPCs; maybe goblins come back. Maybe giant spiders.

The point is, StoryBricks is supposed to allow NPCs to do this type of shit. Whether or not it works like this is up to how robust StoryBricks turns out to be and how well implemented it is in the game.
 
Siddar

Siddar

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
6,479
6,029
Jarnin_sl said:
This is how I understood it as well.

Once those goblins leave and the cave is empty, that makes the cave available to other critters to move in and set up shop. Maybe you scared off the goblins, but once that cave is empty orcs discover it and decide to move in. Once they have a basic camp set up, they start venturing out to the surrounding areas and start collecting resources to reinforce their camp. They build a big door to the cave that is now guarded. They build shelters inside the cave that allows more of them to spawn there. They hunt animals for food which allows them to have higher base stats when they do spawn. After they get to a certain threshold, they start raiding nearby villages, which then prompts the villagers to ask nearby players to go back to this cave and kill orcs, or raid the cave and wipe them all out. Then it repeats with another group of NPCs; maybe goblins come back. Maybe giant spiders.

The point is, StoryBricks is supposed to allow NPCs to do this type of shit. Whether or not it works like this is up to how robust StoryBricks turns out to be and how well implemented it is in the game.
Click to expand...
The triumphant return of the rockhopper cave of Luclin mechanic.
 
Flobee

Flobee

Vyemm Raider
2,785
3,250
Seems to me the trick is to automate these npc behavior cycles without them feeling automated. If they can pull that off, then this is going to be a pretty badass experience. If not, its really up in the air and will depend on how efficient the system is for hand crafted content to be created. Either way I imagine there will at a minimum be a certain novelty to it, just like there was for quest hubs, or later on the public questing system.
 
B

Bocephus

78
0
If you dig up the twitch eqn world debut video at around 48 minutes in Georgeson goes into emergent AI and I must say it sounds really badass if thats how it will work. He claims its a huge part of the game so for those that have not seen it its worth a watch. He basically says as an example instead of having static spawns every x minutes of his example orcs they release them into the world and they have a list of stuff they like and do not like and will roam around and set up shop in these spots. There is more to it and more examples he gives so the vid is a good watch to get a better idea of the kinda shit they are trying to do.
 
J

Jarnin_sl

shitlord
351
0
Siddar_sl said:
The triumphant return of the rockhopper cave of Luclin mechanic.
Click to expand...
No. The NPCs aren't scripted like that. They have a simple prioritized list of things they want and they go out and find/get it. They aren't statically bound to any particular area, like the Hollowshade Moor event. NPC groups will migrate to different areas and compete with players and NPCs to fulfill their needs. That's where the emergent behavior comes it. Simple rules that allow for emergent complex behavior, likeflocking behavior.
 
Lenas

Lenas

Trump's Staff
7,648
2,359
Wuyley_sl said:
MMO's have been saying the same shit for what, 10 years now? And when it is all said and done it is just roaming mobs / quests that cycle through 5 or 6 states.
Click to expand...
As far as I can remember, no MMO has ever claimed being able to do what EQN is claiming it will be able to do with StoryBricks.
 
zzeris

zzeris

The Real Benny Johnson
<Gold Donor>
21,257
93,021
Lenas_sl said:
As far as I can remember, no MMO has ever claimed being able to do what EQN is claiming it will be able to do with StoryBricks.
Click to expand...
Yep, EQN is the first game to truly attempt to move the genre forward. I can't wait to see how it ends up.
 
Dyvim

Dyvim

Bronze Knight of the Realm
1,420
195
Unless they show (not tell) us otherwise it will end up as always, dungeon x will feature goblin monday, followed by cutthroat tuesday, rat wednesday, orc thursday, giant friday, and dragon weekend, cause everyone loves dragons!
 
Quaid

Quaid

Trump's Staff
11,859
8,265
Dyvim_sl said:
Unless they show (not tell) us otherwise it will end up as always, dungeon x will feature goblin monday, followed by cutthroat tuesday, rat wednesday, orc thursday, giant friday, and dragon weekend, cause everyone loves dragons!
Click to expand...
Your sig always makes me miss tad
 
You must log in or register to reply here.