Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

Archeiron said:

From Kotaku:

The Jace Hall Show: Glimpse of Curt Schilling"s MMO Copernicus Coming Via Jace

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I wonder what they mean by "glimpse" exactly? Will we really see something, finally?

It"s a developmental code name. Like how SC2 was Medusa and I"m assuming that D3 was Hydra.

Soygen said:

Copernicus? Is that the game"s name? Has that been already revealed or is that news?

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That is the codename they"ve been using, not the real title.

No really, it"s the real name. Havn"t you been reading this thread?

Genjiro said:

Is this directed to me?

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Nope, just commentary.

As sad as it is, I do practice "raid snobbery" (i guess?). I would rather recruit a raider who"s had EQ raiding experience, though now days that rarely comes up anymore. Either we"re far enough into MMO generations that referencing first gen content isn"t picked up, or that WoW has created enough raid content to invalidate every previous generation.

Even in WoW-era, there"s a clear separation between Classic and TBC raiders, where before it used to be EQ vs WoW raiding (in terms of experience). Now a generational gap between MC-Naxx and Kara-Sunwell. I know when we first started WoW we were picking up people with PoP+ raid experience.

And realistically, how many people do you think actually exist that have played EQ and WoW and could make it in the gaming industry? As time goes on, it will be nearly impossible to find someone who"s had "significant" MMO raiding experience (that is, knowing the big titles). Not only that but we"re not getting any younger. When the next generation of MMO comes out, the "in" devs will be the WoW players instead of the EQ players. What sort of monsters will be published by devs who grew up with WoW?

Maleficence said:

Anyways, that"s a non-issue in most current MMO"s as no one"s going to be pestering the clerics to go and rezz them half-way across the world, because they want a 96% rezz.

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I recall that happening in FFXI, and people also went anon for similar reasons. Of course that game doesn"t exist anymore, and no one plays it if it does. Ranks no where near the top in subs these days or anything, which is proof positive that anything approaching EQ mechanics is totally unprofitable and worthless to try and make.

/sarcasm, but for all I know everything "EQish" about FFXI could have been nerfed away by now. The game started well before WoW and closer to the older days of EQ as well. This post would make more sense in the instancing thread, but I just came from reading that so my brain was predisposed to such thoughts.

As time goes on, it will be nearly impossible to find someone who"s had "significant" MMO raiding experience

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I really don"t believe that significant raid experience should mean you"ve been doing it for 8-10 years. I think if you did it for multiple years, and did it successfully:

A) You know what it"s like to keep a serious raiding schedule for more than a small blip in your life
B) You know how content feels to actually work on night after night
C) You know what it means to be prepared for raids

If you were bleeding edge:

A) You know what it"s like to work on untested/lightly tested content
B) You know what it"s like to hit encounters blind, before you know the "tricks"
C) You know the tricks

If you were leadership:

A) You have a good picture of what it"s like to keep a raid roster together
B) You know what raid organization and guild management tools feel like to use consistently
C) You know what it takes to keep a raid focused through various content types

I"m sure people could add to that.

You don"t even need to be bleeding edge, just have experience the content enough to have beaten it. If you"re developing raid content you just need to know what works and what doesn"t. What"s failed in the past, what sounds like a good idea in theory but sucks for gameplay. You just have to be aware of whats been done. That"s all. Then take the ideas of other, and then yours and tie them in to how your game mechanics work.

Hopefully the people in every MMO now being created can say the same thing. Hopefully the people making raid content now know how to actually act in a raid and not a dumbass PUG like someone mentioned they were dealing with in EQ2.

Draegan said:

You don"t even need to be bleeding edge, just have experience the content enough to have beaten it. If you"re developing raid content you just need to know what works and what doesn"t. What"s failed in the past, what sounds like a good idea in theory but sucks for gameplay. You just have to be aware of whats been done. That"s all. Then take the ideas of other, and then yours and tie them in to how your game mechanics work.

Hopefully the people in every MMO now being created can say the same thing. Hopefully the people making raid content now know how to actually act in a raid and not a dumbass PUG like someone mentioned they were dealing with in EQ2.

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You don"t have to be/have been bleeding edge for many things, but there are aspects.......as I pointed out......of experience that you will get from that.

What my post omitted was my original point on the subject, which was all about how game design choices and mechanics all tie in at the most heightened end of the PVE game, where scripts get more elaborate and class interaction becomes more extreme. That, to me, is the most important, and what it requires is certainly not bleeding-edgeness, but I would say persistent and at least moderately successful raiding. Like, say, if you"re below my average level of progression you"re probably a bit too far back to say you really know

FoghornDeadhorn said:

...game design choices and mechanics all tie in at the most heightened end of the PVE game, where scripts get more elaborate and class interaction becomes more extreme...

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This is important. Hardcore players experience everything to its most extreme degree. Every problem and every solution is more visible at the raid level. It"s a great teaching tool.

For example the consumable reliance in WoW was something raiders felt intensely. Obviously its solution helped spare their sanity most of all, but the decision of balancing raids against players all potted up is anti-casual. Only people with a lot of time on their hands can commit to that.

It"s not a great example as the lesson is easily observed without participating, but it"s all I"ve got at the moment. Hardcore players exert a force on the game that puts flaws on display and being hardcore enables you to see them more clearly.

First off "Hard Core" is as abused a word in the MMO industry as "Potential" is in Baseball.
I define hard core two ways. Hard Core from a time standpoint, which I am, and Hard Core in pushing the limits of end game, which I am not, yet.

I have not set foot in Hyjal or BT, so I can"t even CONSIDER calling myself hard core.

However, after spending the last week doing something I NEVER thought I would do, I can see myself getting setup to be "Harder Core" than I am.

I have about 100-125 pages of compilation from EJ, Theorycraft and my own notes I compile (every bit the same as notes I compile while pitching) on Prot Warrior tanking and WoW raid/combat mechanics.

At first it was mind numbing, but after a few vicodin and some sleep, and a VERY long talk with one of the smartest game mechanics people on the planet, I feel better about my chances.

First step was to get "Un-crittable", a term I had never heard two weeks ago. Now armed with the "Suneater" and sporting a defense of 533, I can resocket for Stamina, focus on block and dodge and crank the stamina up through badge, honor and heroic loot.

I have a listing of gear, top 10, for each slot, for a TPS and MA set. I"ve got some purples that are actually ON these lists, which is nice. I"ll shield up once I hit exalted with SSO (which I screwed up by trying to get my 2nd Drake at the same time as) and I now know where the items I want are.

Been into Kara as DPS Hunter, Healer, and a MA/MT Prot Warrior and finished. I have at least 20 pages of notes now on bosses and tactics (damn that sounds as geeky as I thought it would) but that"s kind of how I work.

If I don"t have a shot to be REAL good at something, it"s not worth my time. So no, I am not Hard Core in an end game content sense, but I have a shot at getting there. In our office I"m FAR from the decked out gear wise compared to the guys on the design team who are ALWAYS pushing the end game stuff, but I think I could roll with them soon.

I swore I"d never be this guy, but I think the game really left me with no other choice. It was go this route or quit for me I think. I have a 4th 70 waiting to level up (30 Mage, though I think I am going to make this one a BE and re-level).

I know the math behind a 73 Boss and what the die looks like based on my stats, that"s a hell of a lot more than I could have said a month ago.

That being said I can assure you I am in no position to design and end game raid......


Yet!

Draegan said:

You don"t even need to be bleeding edge, just have experience the content enough to have beaten it. If you"re developing raid content you just need to know what works and what doesn"t. What"s failed in the past, what sounds like a good idea in theory but sucks for gameplay. You just have to be aware of whats been done. That"s all. Then take the ideas of other, and then yours and tie them in to how your game mechanics work.

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That"s what I meant by "significant", I guess I should have said "meaningful" or something like "Grade A" experience.

As it is now, it"s difficult even for me, a previous EQ raider, to contemplate going back to EQ and getting back into the raid scene. Imagine what it would be like for Joe Schmoe 16 year old bright eyed developer wannabe. It"s pretty much impossible for them to obtain that type of experience. So where do they get it from? WoW obviously. But even as we"ve seen with WoW, a large number of players have never done any of the old world dungeons like Scholomance, Stratholme or Upper Blackrock Spire, have never stepped foot into BWL or Ahn"Qiraj, or even Onyxia, which some would argue is one of the better examples of what a raid encounter should be. As we approach WotLK we"ll start seeing players who will have never done a heroic TBC instance or Karazhan, and as the years go on, we"ll have people who have never played WoW (lets say in 15 years).

Maybe, just maybe, MMO companies might want to consider offering some sort of Industry program (like a test realm but everyone has god powers, more or less an EMU thats legal), where other professionals (and even amateurs) can get right into the meat and potatoes of their game and experience it (obviously they won"t get the full level 1-60 experience), but it would be an advantage to those of us that have already done a lot of that (multiple MMO titles played). There are a lot of MMOs out there and I sure don"t have enough time to play them all and get to the raid scene. But I know a lot of us here are at the point where we can see a raid boss, see a room layout or see a spell effect and immediately begin to theorycraft possible tactics (it"s an earth elemental so maybe it"s immune to nature spells, maybe it has a knockback or area effect stun, etc).

What I"m getting at, is that if you say that MMOs of this era are the results of WoW, what will happen when we go down the line, and even the lessons learned from WoW are forgotten. We saw a number of mistakes in WoW that should have been learned from EQ.

First step was to get "Un-crittable", a term I had never heard two weeks ago. Now armed with the "Suneater" and sporting a defense of 533, I can resocket for Stamina, focus on block and dodge and crank the stamina up through badge, honor and heroic loot.

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Don"t forget about Hit and Expertise!

Ngruk said:

Been into Kara as DPS Hunter, Healer, and a MA/MT Prot Warrior and finished. I have at least 20 pages of notes now on bosses and tactics (damn that sounds as geeky as I thought it would) but that"s kind of how I work.

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Curt"s that guy in the Leroy video that spouts off the survival percentage. You know it.

EDIT: Just a few quick pointers...

I"d drop 5/5 Imp Demo shout and spend the points elsewhere in the Protection tree (say, One Handed Specialization). You only need 5/5 imp demo if you"re the only warrior on a particular mob, and the warlocks are keeping Curse of Recklessness up on it as well. Otherwise, the attack power debuff caps out at 2/5 imp demo. I can count on one hand the places where I could see a use for speccing it.

I"d also socket Stamina until you"re pretty much decked out in t6 gear. Avoidance really doesn"t start to show itself until you can stack it by the truckload. FromThe Protection Warrior Guide - Elitist Jerks,

VI e. The Exponential Returns of Avoidance
Avoidance gains net exponential returns as your avoidance improves. A 1% improvement in avoidance at 50% avoidance will net you a relative mitigation of 2%.
Taken to an extreme, a 1% increase in avoidance at 99% will yield a relative mitigation improvement of infinity, as you will become invulnerable.

This happens because avoidance rolls are performed on one dice, and are not multiplicative.

The equation which dictates this pace is the same as that for armor's relative damage reduction. The difference here is that unlike armor, additional percentages of avoidance do not take an ever-increasing number of points of dodge rating, parry rating, or defense to obtain. Do not let this fool you into thinking avoidance is a substitute for armor. You must assume that boss will always get lucky and perform its worst-case-scenario.

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And, finally, I know it"s probably already on The List, but you have got to ditch that Alchemist"s stone. In a bad, bad way. I"d probably take Dabiri"s Enigma over it.

James said:

And, finally, I know it"s probably already on The List, but you have got to ditch that Alchemist"s stone. In a bad, bad way. I"d probably take Dabiri"s Enigma over it.

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Seconded. The only classes that really has a use for Alchemist stones are the mana-chugging classes (read: healers).

Ukerric said:

Seconded. The only classes that really has a use for Alchemist stones are the mana-chugging classes (read: healers).

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The Sunwell ones are tight but right now better off with another high stam trink.

One amusing thing I"ve always wanted to hear more about is how incestuous the high end raiding community is. People go to other guilds, transfer, and end up in a guild with someone I played EQ/Pre TBC with, etc and its just funny how people just get shuffled around like that. I guess alot of it comes from sitting on IRC with the same damn people for 9 years, but its still humorous. I"d love to see one of those "sex" trees with High end guilds and people instead of sex partners.

Have you guys given much though to expansions and how you want to produce them? Would you prefer EQ"s expansion every 6 months model, or Wow"s every 2 years? something in between?

Blizzard has got to ramp up their expansions man. I don"t want to be 28 when I"m playing the expansion after WotLK.

A bit faster would be nice, but if I had to choose, I"d rather each expansion was a masterpiece rather than having expansions like ldon or legacy of ykesha.

EQ did have some incredible expansions like Kunark, Velious, PoP. Even DoDH was really good. Some expansions like GoD, Ykesha, LDoN were just extraordinarily bad, LDoN was literally done using a cut and paste toolbox.