Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

James said:

Job systems are fucking retarded how are you people still talking about this shit.

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Because it"s better then listening to Flight talk about management structure and the impact of 15th century gothic art on modern day break room design?

I agree with you about streamlining alts as much as possible (sons of hodir can fuck themselves), but I think a job system is completely overkill in fixing the problem and causes more issues than it solves.

I seems a bit unwieldy, but I think something like

allow you to "family" your own characters to link factions and other such nonsense and viola.

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Would be a much better solution.

I just don"t see how you make the jump straight from "doing faction grinds on alts sucks" to "so lets make it so you only ever need 1 character!"

There"s a point where streamlining just starts to cheapen your game. I can"t tell you where it is, but there is one.

Zehn - Vhex said:

Because it"s better then listening to Flight talk about management structure and the impact of 15th century gothic art on modern day break room design?

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It had largely developed into International Gothic by the 15th century bud


The problem we have whenever we discuss this is that the phrase "job system" conjures up all sorts of misconceptions, which is to be expected as it hasn"t been implemented in a


We"ve already said it isn"t a replacement for using alts; that option is still available.

Misconceptions? I thought we"re talking about the job system introduced in FFXI.

I agree entirely, but I think it is to a certain extent necessary. I think you need to approach it from both ends though, on the one hand make the content more fun and more varied and just plain more of it to make doing it X times around suck, but on the other hand I think there needs to be in infrastructure in place from the word go to adapt to people doing their 2nd and 3rd and 4th character.

Much like server population controls, it"s something companies always seem to choose to just ignore until it becomes a significant issue. Why they don"t pre-empt this shit when it"s still relatively easy is beyond me.

I"ve always been a proponant of scaling XP bonuses (for every character on your arround above the level of the one you"re currently logged into, you receive an X% experience bonus), there"s no reason a system like that can"t be similarly designed to work for factions, or item tokens, or what not. It"s very simple at it"s core as well, I can"t imagine it would require more than a neglible amount of man hours to implement.

We"ve already said it isn"t a replacement for using alts; that option is still available.

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It is a replacement though, it"s obviously intended as such and you"re basically penalizing people for choosing to create alts. Instead of using some other system to allow them to transfer XP/faction/whatever to their alts, you"re forcing them to either stick with their current character or repeat that content over, again effectively penalizing those who don"t want to play the same character for years on end. That"s not healthy game design.

Zehn - Vhex said:

Other things would do wonders as well. I -really- wish they"d make all the low level dungeons in WoW 2~3 mannable. Back when I was leveling my alt army there was -always- 1 or 2 other people in the same zone. The chances of a tank, healer and 3 to go though? Slim to fucking none.

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I suspect that the most successful of the Next Generation we are discussing will cater in a foundational manner to solo and small groups at all levels, not just as an after thought or as a change down the line.

Where First Gen generally assumed most things should be done in groups and Second Gen assumed people just wanted to level solo and then group up en masse, Next Gen needs to see that large sections of the wider customer base (ie not on hard core forums like this) only group up en masse when they are forced to.

Whether that be through scaling, mission/quest systems or individually generated content (doubtful given the cost) remains to be seen.


, nearly two years ago, which expanded on this :

It seems like the whole industry is subconciously deciding that EQ1 is THE model and nothing else will work.

Can you imagine Conan : "Rogue and Barbarian looking for more for Tower of the Elephant, healer needed."

Drizzt : "Dark Elf fighter looking for more to kill Pinochet. Have fighter (TWF but I tank ok, honest), archer, barbarian, a dorf and a halfing with a ruby pendant - last space for a healer."

Frodo : "Fed up waiting for a healer to come online Sam, but we need more if we are going to beat Shelob".

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You can"t just decide to make content "more fun" .

Varied content and more of it just costs more money. Spend more money on content that is seen by every character but only for an average of X amount of hours vs. higher end content seen by most characters for an average of X+Y hours.

Flight said:

I suspect that the most successful of the Next Generation we are discussing will cater in a foundational manner to solo and small groups at all levels, not just as an after thought or as a change down the line. Whether that be through scaling, mission/quest systems or individually generated content (doubtful given the cost) remains to be seen.

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Didn"t LOTRO scale back some of the lower level dungeons for 2-3 manning?

Azrayne said:

It is a replacement though, it"s obviously intended as such and you"re basically penalizing people for choosing to create alts. Instead of using some other system to allow them to transfer XP/faction/whatever to their alts, you"re forcing them to either stick with their current character or repeat that content over, again effectively penalizing those who don"t want to play the same character for years on end. That"s not healthy game design.

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You realize that you are suggesting that making us endlessly grind faction mutiple times on various alts IS healthy game design.


Genuine question - can you think of any ways of enhancing the alt system that doesn"t involve this ?

Draegan said:

You can"t just decide to make content "more fun" .

Varied content and more of it just costs more money. Spend more money on content that is seen by every character but only for an average of X amount of hours vs. higher end content seen by most characters for an average of X+Y hours.

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I don"t see what you"re getting at.

Draegan said:

Misconceptions? I thought we"re talking about the job system introduced in FFXI.

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Couple of pages back and linked in the post above yours :

Let"s make sure everyone is on the same page here. It seems we are, but you never know. There are two elements to the job system. Job simply == class.

i) All characters can level all jobs. They can only level one at a time. They have to level each legitimately and their level in each job is saved when they change jobs.

ii) From level 15 the sub-job system is in effect. Characters can choose a second, sub job which is static, doesn"t gain XP and is capped at half the level of the main job and gives the benefits thereof.

We are discussing i) WITHOUT ii)

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Flight said:

You realize that you are suggesting that making us endlessly grind faction mutiple times on various alts IS healthy game design.


Genuine question - can you think of any ways of enhancing the alt system that doesn"t involve this ?

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No I"m not at all, and plenty of other, far superior options have been suggested.

Have characters in "families" which share factions, or whichever terminology you want to use. Or have BOA items that you can purchase at a certain faction level and send to alts which when used will boost you up to the same faction level.

Apply scaling bonuses for factions. Have a character with exalted with sons of hodir? Your next character gets a 30% bonus to all factions he gains with them. (I think a similar system for XP is a must have, it would be very easy to code in and would go a huge way towards automatically addressing the issues people have with levelling alts, although you"d want to tweak the numbers obviously)

Equivelants can be worked in for pvp progression, or item tokens, etc etc.

it amounts to the same thing, but without the damages that a job system does to immersion, lore, internal consistancy, character and player identity, etc etc.

I think it"s one of those things that initially sounds awesome on paper, but after further consideration actually does far more harm than good.

Azrayne said:

I don"t see what you"re getting at.

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Whats not to get. You said make content "more fun" how do you do that? I would think the designer is going that already.

As for the rest, making more always involves more time which is money.

Flight said:

Genuine question - can you think of any ways of enhancing the alt system that doesn"t involve this ?

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Don"t use faction systems. Or if you do, don"t have them require grinding shit. Have it be the result of a culmination of quests completed, enemy bosses destroyed and other achievements. Did you do the quest chain? Did you kill the boss in the instance? Did you complete hardmode A, B and C? Yes? Bang exalted.

Azrayne said:

it amounts to the same thing, but without the damages that a job system does to immersion, lore, internal consistancy, character and player identity, etc etc.

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The method doesn"t exactly matter to me, so much as the results. But I"m going to contend with this statement just for the fuck of it and because I need to take my mind off the pug I was just in.

All these things have already been irrevocably "damaged" or are simply non-issues.

If a player wants to be just "Dora the explorer" and nothing else, so be it. Job system isn"t going to do dick and squat to stop it. I already debunked the "but nobody would roll alts then..." myth. Immersion is still in tact for those who get immersion from having a single role in life. Me, I like a nice spread so my immersive experience is saved as well.

Lore....lore lore lore. Let me tell you a little story about lore. One day lore went to the prom. She met a nice guy there and had a great time dancing. They started fooling around in the car on the way home. A little touching, some kissing. However, before she knew it lore found herself crying for help and being fucked in the ass and now we have space goats.

Internal consistency went out the door the day I killed Fippy Darkpaw nearly 10 years ago and not more then 30 minutes later the fucker was back.

Character and player identity? Really? It"s up to you to define that. I"ve given billions of examples of how this is a bullshit point to try to push. Ties back into point #1.

Anyways...

Thanks for that. Was very therapeutic.

You"re only going by your own experience and your power gaming friends. However there are millions of people out there that will enjoy a good story, good lore, and an immersive atmosphere.

Don"t bring up quest test dialogue either. But the first MMOG that has a good story, world immersion through that story, and a delivery system that uses action, audio and visuals will be pretty successful (assuming the rest of the game is solid).

You know what? Games like that are being made right now. SWTOR, The Secret World and supposedly Copernicus. I wouldn"t be surprised if Blizzard"s sekret MMOG will have this aspect to it as well.

Draegan said:

Don"t bring up quest test dialogue either. But the first MMOG that has a good story, world immersion through that story, and a delivery system that uses action, audio and visuals will be pretty successful (assuming the rest of the game is solid).

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Personally, story doesn"t mean shit to me when it comes down to immersion. A good world, and good lore isn"t even what makes immersion in my eyes. Providing the player base with the tools to create community, and a world, that"s immersion.

All this single player style story arcs, phasing of zones, and instancing has done nothing but kill immersion in MMO"s for me. On the same token, those things have done wonders for gameplay in an MMO.

If I wanted good story, good lore, and KOTOR style dialogue.. I would play single player games. I play MMO"s because I want community, I want to use teamwork, and the general "feel" that this is a world, not just another boxed in area filled with art. What I mean is, day-to-day shit goes on in this world. Civilians go about there business, the local blacksmith gives out jobs and errands for people. Instead of in every town there is some HUGE problem, and every corner you turn someone wants you to kill a dragon, ogre, big fucking monster scary guy. Those quests are great, but when you make every quest that type.. and every story, you"re just watering it down. Now when I get a quest to kill something that would normally make you go "Neato".. you just kinda take the quest and go without even giving it a second thought about what you"re doing and why.

I can"t think of a way of getting my point across without saying it so...

EQ1 was the last MMO that I feel had good immersion. You had the penalties that struck fear into you, crawling through dungeons not really knowing what or who is gonna be around the next corner. Being forced to deal with people (not just zone into an instance and faceroll) ended up creating community.

It had alot of gameplay flaws, yes, but at the time they weren"t flaws. Now.. of course they are. But immersion, is something it didn"t lack.

Can"t say I"ve felt fear, or a strong sense of community in any recent MMO.

I originally got turned onto these games with Ultima Online, and the big draw for me was that it was a world, where you play with thousands of other people.. and you are just people. You"re not some well known hero, or savior of the world. You"re just another dude trying to get by.

Dorfeater, a lot of what you said is interesting, especially about community (which I agree with and its crucial) but I can"t agree with this :

dorfeater said:

If I wanted good story, good lore, and KOTOR style dialogue.. I would play single player games.

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To be clear, I"m not thinking about what I or we on this forum want, but what will achieve massive commercial success. Different people want different things and the phrase, "If you don"t want to group go play a solo game and not an MMO", needs consigning to the history books.

Draegan said:

You"re only going by your own experience and your power gaming friends. However there are millions of people out there that will enjoy a good story, good lore, and an immersive atmosphere.

Don"t bring up quest test dialogue either. But the first MMOG that has a good story, world immersion through that story, and a delivery system that uses action, audio and visuals will be pretty successful (assuming the rest of the game is solid).

You know what? Games like that are being made right now. SWTOR, The Secret World and supposedly Copernicus. I wouldn"t be surprised if Blizzard"s sekret MMOG will have this aspect to it as well.

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Could you please go be vague elsewhere? Trying to discuss anything with you is like playing catch with wet soap. Idea, example, pro, con, etc. not "maybe that"s not good, it could potentially be bad, +story, +immersion, +casuals, -elitist power gamer". We get it. You want to suck on bioware"s singing, dancing dick.

I"m not even slamming your message. I can see plenty of sense in it. Your delivery is a pile of shit-eating maggots. What, specifically, are you on about? Story? Aside from some frat boys still playing Quake III via LAN, I think most people are on the boat that story is GOOD. Immersion is GOOD. I"m personally more immersed in a world that doesn"t preclude me from wearing plate maille as a priest or grabbing hold of a pike as a rogue. Perhaps I have no training to back up the deft use of this equipment, but that"s not the point.

The point is arbitrary game mechanics that shit on my options are not immersive. Classes are akin to invisible walls that prevent you from walking up a hill. Accepting the lesser of two evils in the immediate future I"m not anti-class structure. They help reinforce archetypes that create co-dependent groups so players interact. I am against being unable to branch out to other classes with the character I"ve been developing forever. What immersive reason states that I cannot grasp how to learn the guitar if all my life I have played the drums? None. That"s why, in this thing we call the real world, musicians play many instruments and fulfill many roles within the same environment. They also didn"t have to pray to their maker to be reborn as a child in order to do it.

And yes, I agree it"s a big FUCK YOU to immersion if you have to start all over at level 1 and proceed to grind back up to level 1000 again in each role. Why that particular argument is persisting as some accepted necessity I don"t comprehend. It isn"t necessary. It"s one thin line away from rolling an alt if you have to go through all the same crap anyway.

See? I provide these things called paragraphs that reinforce my argument. I provide specifics for you to come along and give vague unreasoning responses to that piss me off.

tl;dr job system can be + or - immersion depending on implementation.

dorfeater said:

Everquest popped my 3D cherry. The nostalgia is strong with me. I am channeling, Dumar, the dark lord of what was.

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Fixed.

You knew it was coming.

dorfeater said:

Personally

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Can we not keep bringing up EQ community being the be-all end-all goal? That was debunked back on like, page 3. In another thread. 5 years ago. And let"s seriously not bring up the "if I wanted to solo I"d play a single player game" argument as well.

Draegan said:

You"re only going.

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I think you missed the point. Like, if I said I enjoy the taste of apples and you inferred that I enjoy killing jews level of missed the point.

Agraza said:

Fixed.

You knew it was coming.

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I lol"d. +1 good sir. +1.