Ngruk said:
I would also tell you that Danuser is pure good people. He and I, I know for a fact, will bump heads when it comes to some design issues, because there are things I still approach with "How cool would it be if" and he knows immediately that it"s the inner gamer in me talking about something that has no technical chance in hell of being realized. This guy gets it from a community standpoint, and I say that because I was a member of that community for a long time.
Call me crazy, but you get treated just a
tadbetter than the average Joe/community member does, so I would guess you get a much bigger dose of "good people" than the rest of us do considering your affiliation with SOE. It wasn"t my imagination when entire threads would be filled with the basically "wow you"re a jerk" responses to his punch-counterpunch correspondences with the EQ2 community. Gets it from a community standpoint? Blackguard does, Gallenite does, those like Moorgard and Faarwolf never did. I will say that from what I read of his contribution to the lore, that it was very well done and he does seem like a talented writer in that regard. If there was an issue with the community, Blackguard was more the type to sit down and facilitate good discussion since we were all looking to make the game better, whereas Moorgard was armed with a giant Louisville slugger at the picket lines ready to crack the skulls of any dissenters. (Ok that"s a lame analogy, but you get the point.) Anyways, maybe he
isa great guy that you have the luxury of knowing better than the rest of us, we"re unfortunate casualities to sometimes seeing the written word out of context, and on a place like the internet perception trumps reality every time (and that perception was not flattering).
Do you know how incredibly small that spectrum of players is when compared to the size of the entire audience? I am not saying you discount that experience, but when dealing with upper end content I agree, having players (of which I am one) who"ve been there and done that is certainly attractive. But alot of times, most times, we as hard core players have tunnel vision and narrow focus about what it is we "think" would be awesome. Most times there is zero foundation for that to actually work technically, but it sounds cool as hell doesn"t it?
Content, high or low end, has to be the creation of a team. That team has to know and understand that first level content and the experience, and 60th level content, BOTH must be compelling, exciting and fun.
Sure, I understand that, and I also think think that developers are so out of touch with their games and the associated playerbase for the most part these days (/wave Vanguard), that they could use a couple of those guys who do have that kind of insight to help them out in that regard. Also, consider that those guys who were all high end raiders were part of the team that has developed the most polished and complete
low level experienceof any game to date. Maybe you never personally played WoW, but go level up a character to 10 if you haven"t, and compare it to any game out (or in beta...)and come back and tell me which one is even in the same universe that WoW is at those levels in regards to meaningful gameplay and content. I played with Pardo and Tigole for years in LoS (they were even crazy enough to trust me as their raid puller), so from a personal/design standpoint I know that as a player and developer that those guys "get it" concerning content at all levels--I think if WoW is any one thing, it is a testament to that fact.
Regardless of what people think of the more controversial points like instancing, leveling curve, and the numerous other "cans of worms" that have been opened before, there really is no denying that the game has fun gameplay, a "hook" in the first couple levels, and most importantly actual "freedom" that other games tout but fail to deliver upon. WoW has changed the stakes of gaming, and it"s going to be the killer for games like Vanguard in my opinion. Who wants to go back to a game where as a healer all you get is X healing spell at level 10, 20 and 30, and that"s all....when in a game like WoW you have the freedom (what you call the compelling part of design in the quote above) to determine how much those same heals actually heal for, talents to speed up cast time, mana cost, or the threat that those same spells produce? We want more freedom, not less, I hope you guys developing keep these things in mind for the future.
Back on track though, we talked to the devs early on in EQ2 about the direction the game was taking, and as high level players who had a long history in Norrath from EQ1, we were sure as hell right (hate to say it, but we told you so..). Nobody gave a crap about the Bloodline Chronicles or Desert of Flames. Echoes of Faydwer was what a few of us suggested eons ago, and look at how anticipated it was when it was announced (evidenced by the endless replies of "omg finally" or "bout fkn time"). Consider that most of us had years of making our home in Everquest, you blew it up, stripped the gods out, and they expected us to just forget about it with some bland as hell storyline of Qeynos vs Freeport? People didn"t care about that stuff, they wanted to know what happened to their favorite stomping grounds in Kelethin, Unrest, or Castle Mistmoore. Not about some lame completely-out-of-left-field storyline of vampires, or Aladdin played out in DoF. EQ2 would have had much more initial, up-front success if it had followed that path, it"s just mind boggling that the game took the course that it did. The high level community, and especially the loyal fans from Everquest were ignored, and although EQ2 has recovered somewhat, I doubt the damage could ever be completely undone, especially considering their competition.
I don"t think that"s an even remotely close comparison, but we can agree to disagree. There is an immense amount of insight difference between two PLAYERS that have played much less players and others. My concern is in harnessing talented, creative, passionate people looking to make THEE game and not THEIR game.
You missed the point I was making, and sure, players have different experiences and insights, I think we can all consider that a given. The point I was making was that
actually playing the game, and playing it to a high level gives unique insights into encounter design, and players tend to come up with out of the box strategies which in turn could be used to design the content in the first place (ie. high end players have seen more types of encounters than most devs have, so they know what we have seen or not seen before). I think Blizzard has proven that being connected from the very top of the design chain (Rob Pardo, Tig, Furor etc) to the playerbase in regards to having tons of experience in high end guilds can prove to be as much of, or even more of an asset than having someone who has only been on the design side of things for years. Gaming companies are coming to realize this, and it is fast becoming a growing trend. Gallenite even offered to put the guild leadership of Ardent Legion on the SOE tab for the first fanfaire out in Vegas (which I couldn"t attend but heard all about the drunken stories from the Star Trek bar =p), so I felt pretty touched that he in particular valued the opinions of our guild and our previous work with the devs enough to make that offer, and in my (albeit biased) opinion that"s a good trend for gaming.
Anyways, yes, we can agree to disagree , and regardless of differences of opinion, I think it"s a positive that at least you are engaging in open dialogue on places like this forum and would hope you make it a point to continue doing so in the future as your company grows. As crazy as people are on internet forums (and this one in particular), there are also some intelligent guys here who have some pretty damned good ideas and who have been around the block as passionate gamers for years and years. In the end, we"re all a bunch of passionate nerds who love gaming (and mmo"s in particular) probably far too much
And now for something completely different.....
Let me go ahead and pre-emptively make the responses that will invariably come up so we dont have to waste our time with them!
EQ2lover: EQ2 has come a long way since then Genjiro, it"s changed soooo much and horses don"t look all
thatbad!
WoWlover: Lawl Genjiro L2summarize amirite? Less QQ more pew pew nub. Pwnt.
Vanboi: Stop ragging on VG it"s STILL BETA for like a whole month more!
Utnayen: McQuaid you did this to us!
600 others: Ut stop shitting up this thread with the McQh8 (this term is now patented by me!)
