Yeah and you can"t hold it against someone for not playing. It"s not the same kind of "negative behavior" and irrelevant.
Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling
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Let"s be clear here: If we know one thing about this game, it"s that it will be solo-friendly. Curt has already stated that he"s going for the mass market with the pie-in-the-sky dream of dethroning WoW as the heavyweight champion.
OK, I stand corrected. As a programmer and a powergamer I appreciate the entertainment that can be had from clever scripting and coordination. I just meant that your game is too slow ifyou yourselfcan manage multiple characters at once in combat. If you"re writing a script or using broadcasted commands with special keybinds to follow some pre-conceived plan of action, that"s another thing. Not that I think it"s great for a game, but it"s impossible to prevent anyway.Flight said:
No, you can"t blame people who don"t want to play but someone not playing with others when the game is designed that way means the result is just the same. Low pops, or a bunch of soloing twinks has the same result to those who are trying to experience the game as the devs envision.Sean said:
It"s not about "negative behaviour" by an individual, it"s about behaviour having a negative impact on the game.
See what I did there? DOWN WITH NECROS!Twobit Whore said:
The system can take it, it has to be(and always is) inherent to it"s design.
Heh, I was a necro in EQ. I knew what I did shouldn"t be allowed in the context of the game but hey, it worked. Screw grouping when I didn"t have to. Of course that was tempered with necros being a weak group class for the longest time.
As the devs "envision" is pretty irrelevant. People will play in a manner that they personally find entertaining and attempting to force too much upon them results in a lack of enjoyment and in turn people not logging on period. Really, I imagine that the number of people who really want to experience a game exactly as someone else envisioned is an incredible minority. Normally people want to experience a game to have fun in their own way.
Thankfully, forced grouping is entirely a thing in the past to anyone who wants to make money - most people simply don"t want anything to do with anyone except their own circles and that has shaped how games are made and played.
Thankfully, forced grouping is entirely a thing in the past to anyone who wants to make money - most people simply don"t want anything to do with anyone except their own circles and that has shaped how games are made and played.
My point is that it didn"t ruin the game, and class imbalances exist in every game(ESPECIALLY in solo-play) and are 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000x more prevelant than the odd twink killing above the curve.
It"s part of every MMO already and will continue to be, you just get irked the 1 time it"s a warrior killing 10x as fast as your warrior for the 500 times it"s a necro killing 10x as fast as your warrior. Which brings us back to my original "all in your head" thing.
It"s part of every MMO already and will continue to be, you just get irked the 1 time it"s a warrior killing 10x as fast as your warrior for the 500 times it"s a necro killing 10x as fast as your warrior. Which brings us back to my original "all in your head" thing.
No, thats not why it has nothing to do with difficulty, it gets called McWow when people make theclaim it is the best because it has the most players. Where in almost every industry this is never true (except with wow right now, it is the best around currently)Twobit Whore said:
Yes, I reckon it is a moot point because Curt"s game isn"t likely to be group-centric, but that doesn"t change the fact that twinking is not a side-effect free act. It can and will have repricussions. The key is for the devs to acknowledge and address those before it"s too late. EQ didn"t have the luxury of hindsight to see how it could potentially affect the game, others do. Hence the introduction of things like BoP/BoE and level requirements.Sean said:
You can"t really live in acompletebubble when it comes to MMOs. People"s actions in a game are going to have effects on you in some way or another and twinking"s side-effects were never severe enough to warrant eliminating it in EQ. And in the future of solo content and instances for everyone twinking"s effects are as unimportant as they can be. There"s no need to take action against it. WoW"s a pretty good example of twinking not hurting you in any way, shape, or form.
I"d wager that twinking in EQ practically saved it. If people didn"t have ways to eliminate the tedium of levelling up as designed they wouldn"t have suffered through it nearly as often as they did.
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In WoW, it"s more likely for a non-twink/non-PL to bother me. I"d rather superdude come through and assrape the mobs and leave than sit there sharing with someone else at the same time. I like using the space myself and dislike being trained on, which can still happen occasionally in WoW. I"ve got alts in WoW anywhere from levels 14 to 55 at the moment, and I burn their rested experience regularly. Twinks have never, and likely will never, bother me in this game.
Chinese gold farmers and power levellers are by far the most frustrating players to co-exist with, as, in general, they won"t group up when we"re performing the same task. Normal folks often will, since you bring added dps to the task at hand. I"ve casually partnered with english and french players on my server for literally hundreds of quests, and some of them were undoubtedly twinks. I"ve grouped with all of one chinese farmer and been disrupted by dozens of others, primarily hunters and rogues.
As far as theorycrafting goes, I"m not against twinking except where it comes to PvP. The most common twink is the low level PvP twink. This was true in EQ, and true in WoW. Twinking in WoW generally involves enchants and being that rare fellow who actually has majority "rare" quality gear.
Chinese gold farmers and power levellers are by far the most frustrating players to co-exist with, as, in general, they won"t group up when we"re performing the same task. Normal folks often will, since you bring added dps to the task at hand. I"ve casually partnered with english and french players on my server for literally hundreds of quests, and some of them were undoubtedly twinks. I"ve grouped with all of one chinese farmer and been disrupted by dozens of others, primarily hunters and rogues.
As far as theorycrafting goes, I"m not against twinking except where it comes to PvP. The most common twink is the low level PvP twink. This was true in EQ, and true in WoW. Twinking in WoW generally involves enchants and being that rare fellow who actually has majority "rare" quality gear.
And that has always been the problem. Wasting time looking for those groups, or probably more importantly, finding those NEEDED classes. Original EQ, pre Kunark you really could do any of the content with ANY group combination, well aside from the 2 dragon zones. But now we pretty much see the games built around tank/healer/all the rest. And that imo is what causes the desire to be able to solo more than anything. People just don"t want to sit around waiting for that dam tank/healer, and then even having to endure some of the "pricks" who know that if they leave the group it dies.Ngruk said:
In a PVE game perhaps. In a pvp game ain"t alot of fun for the "normal" recipient getting bashed on by supertwink.Bongk said:
Hey, we moved on to grouping. Here"s the thing, and if you come up with the magical solution, grats on your boomingly successful MMO:
WoW grouping sucks because of the way experience and rewards are largely quest-oriented. Most of the time grouping with someone isdetrimentalbecause you"ll be at different points of these long quest chains. Therefore soloing becomes more efficient unless you"re permagrouping simply because you can work on your important objectivesnow.
I called out in beta for dungeon experience to be boosted. They"ve done that somewhat. However, solo-questing with the occasional "I have nothing left in this zone but elite quests" group-up, is typically the way to go by a fair margin. When you factor in items that you must get and rep that you must get which will be easier from questing, going the dungeon-grind route is less appealing even if you are getting the same XP from it because you will miss out on items that you really need to get from questing. And there are a lot of these. Plus, the rep tapers off.
The way zone faction grinds went in TBC, the best way to go was to run the local dungeons until trash stopped giving rep and then start doing the quests (most likely solo). In this way you would be revered with the local faction by the time you leave the zone, almost without fail.
I asked for dungeon XP to be boosted to the point that it was at least equivalent to solo questing. It has not been. Meanwhile a player is missing out, not just on good questing in many cases, but on items that will be hard to find alternatives for. Fixing this ismysolution in the context of WoW. Make both paths feasible. I don"t know how to make the upper-world questing scenario work with more grouping while still having prereq quest chains.
PS: Time spent LFG and shitty pickups are what make people quit games that do not have a good solo game. You can"t get rid of this. Make both paths viable.
WoW grouping sucks because of the way experience and rewards are largely quest-oriented. Most of the time grouping with someone isdetrimentalbecause you"ll be at different points of these long quest chains. Therefore soloing becomes more efficient unless you"re permagrouping simply because you can work on your important objectivesnow.
I called out in beta for dungeon experience to be boosted. They"ve done that somewhat. However, solo-questing with the occasional "I have nothing left in this zone but elite quests" group-up, is typically the way to go by a fair margin. When you factor in items that you must get and rep that you must get which will be easier from questing, going the dungeon-grind route is less appealing even if you are getting the same XP from it because you will miss out on items that you really need to get from questing. And there are a lot of these. Plus, the rep tapers off.
The way zone faction grinds went in TBC, the best way to go was to run the local dungeons until trash stopped giving rep and then start doing the quests (most likely solo). In this way you would be revered with the local faction by the time you leave the zone, almost without fail.
I asked for dungeon XP to be boosted to the point that it was at least equivalent to solo questing. It has not been. Meanwhile a player is missing out, not just on good questing in many cases, but on items that will be hard to find alternatives for. Fixing this ismysolution in the context of WoW. Make both paths feasible. I don"t know how to make the upper-world questing scenario work with more grouping while still having prereq quest chains.
PS: Time spent LFG and shitty pickups are what make people quit games that do not have a good solo game. You can"t get rid of this. Make both paths viable.
I agree that grouping in WoW isn"t nearly as rewarding as it should be, especially in the xp department. Honestly, grouping should be the supreme form of xp imo, with soloing a definite second place. Reason? It takes more coordination and effort and in many cases "time" to group up and take on group challenges. I can"t remember which random mmo it was that had a quickly scaling xp curve, but by the time you filled the group, the bonus xp per mob for being grouped completely made up for the fact you were getting it split, then you add in that the many more mobs were killed in a smaller time frame, you basically grouped to do xp faster as opposed to it simply being required. The xp bonus in wow is negligable, when it should start appearing at a reasonably noticeable amount as soon as two soloers form one party. 25% xp increase or something. When you get to max group size (whatever size that may be) you end up with each mob being killed giving the group 125%-150% per mob that the single player would be receiving killing the same number of mobs.
There"s absolutely nothing wrong with solo play in the slightest, but it shouldn"t be the fastest way to progress. Come on Curt, cater to the hardcore with preset cliques in their desire to hit the endgame hasta pronto style. Just sayin!
On the topic of twinks, I don"t do it on the average. WoW being the slight exception because of certain characters I played being entirely too pigeonholed from what I was fooled into believing they were at the early game once I hit max level. Shaman and paladin, for example. In EQ my highest alt after 3 years was 35, and he was legendarily twinked. Nothing like having a newb dwarf paladin with soulfire and full Deepwater sans BP doin the Fungi Tunic dance on Orcs at level 6. Yay for multiquesting. My SK had 350ish days played on him compared to my paladin"s 1.
That said, I think it should be relatively impossible to epically twink a "new" player. A new character on an experienced player"s account? Twink away, I have no issues with that. Level 70 gear on a level 9 character is peachy. But each player should go through the same experience as everyone else as much as possible. Granted, this is assuming that the game doesn"t have a gameplay plateau like WoW did, where the 1-59 game was night and day with the level 60 game. Awesomesauce shaman dps/tank/healing machine? No, you"re a healer with light dps, better be spec"d for it! Awesome ret paladin who rained hammery justice on the skulls of undead? No, you"re a healer with negative dps, better spec for it! In the class design phase, classes should perform the same way at level 20 that they do at max level. 20 being some random arbitrary window where the majority of class abilities are either known or at least hinted at. Don"t pull the ridiculous Refresh silliness that FFXI did with Red Mages and how your job went from great utility healer/dps/debuffer to refresh bitch with one level.
As to actual implementation of the "no new player twinking" concept, simply have accounts flagged as they progress, with each progressive level reached opening up dropable gear of that level being able to be worn by characters on that account. Yes, some new people will start characters on existing accounts of friends and what not, but it"ll curb the majority of it.
To be honest, the concept of "twinks" is largely dependant on the type of gameworld, the itemization parameters, leveling speed/skillgain accrual speed, endgame goals, travel and a whole shitload of other factors. If your game is an exact wow clone, then twinking in and of itself isn"t that major of an issue, though BG twinking shouldn"t work. Everything is easily accessable, leveling speed is as minimal as it gets without simply handing you max level on a silver platter, even for new characters. There is little challenge in solo quests of the same level unless you are horribly undergeared and too poor to afford skill upgrades and are spec"d wrong as well as being mildly retarded or just plain terrible at video games in general. Travel is minimal (minus flying from anywhere to tanaris. Fuck) and gear upgrades are almost always level controlled anyway. Other types of games will have different mileage depending on how easily attainable gear is, how far travel is and the aforementioned slew of factors. Plainly put, need to know more about your game Curt!
There"s absolutely nothing wrong with solo play in the slightest, but it shouldn"t be the fastest way to progress. Come on Curt, cater to the hardcore with preset cliques in their desire to hit the endgame hasta pronto style. Just sayin!
On the topic of twinks, I don"t do it on the average. WoW being the slight exception because of certain characters I played being entirely too pigeonholed from what I was fooled into believing they were at the early game once I hit max level. Shaman and paladin, for example. In EQ my highest alt after 3 years was 35, and he was legendarily twinked. Nothing like having a newb dwarf paladin with soulfire and full Deepwater sans BP doin the Fungi Tunic dance on Orcs at level 6. Yay for multiquesting. My SK had 350ish days played on him compared to my paladin"s 1.
That said, I think it should be relatively impossible to epically twink a "new" player. A new character on an experienced player"s account? Twink away, I have no issues with that. Level 70 gear on a level 9 character is peachy. But each player should go through the same experience as everyone else as much as possible. Granted, this is assuming that the game doesn"t have a gameplay plateau like WoW did, where the 1-59 game was night and day with the level 60 game. Awesomesauce shaman dps/tank/healing machine? No, you"re a healer with light dps, better be spec"d for it! Awesome ret paladin who rained hammery justice on the skulls of undead? No, you"re a healer with negative dps, better spec for it! In the class design phase, classes should perform the same way at level 20 that they do at max level. 20 being some random arbitrary window where the majority of class abilities are either known or at least hinted at. Don"t pull the ridiculous Refresh silliness that FFXI did with Red Mages and how your job went from great utility healer/dps/debuffer to refresh bitch with one level.
As to actual implementation of the "no new player twinking" concept, simply have accounts flagged as they progress, with each progressive level reached opening up dropable gear of that level being able to be worn by characters on that account. Yes, some new people will start characters on existing accounts of friends and what not, but it"ll curb the majority of it.
To be honest, the concept of "twinks" is largely dependant on the type of gameworld, the itemization parameters, leveling speed/skillgain accrual speed, endgame goals, travel and a whole shitload of other factors. If your game is an exact wow clone, then twinking in and of itself isn"t that major of an issue, though BG twinking shouldn"t work. Everything is easily accessable, leveling speed is as minimal as it gets without simply handing you max level on a silver platter, even for new characters. There is little challenge in solo quests of the same level unless you are horribly undergeared and too poor to afford skill upgrades and are spec"d wrong as well as being mildly retarded or just plain terrible at video games in general. Travel is minimal (minus flying from anywhere to tanaris. Fuck) and gear upgrades are almost always level controlled anyway. Other types of games will have different mileage depending on how easily attainable gear is, how far travel is and the aforementioned slew of factors. Plainly put, need to know more about your game Curt!