Monsters and Memories (Project_N) - Old School Indie MMO

forehead said:

niche

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What you are talking about? that is not niche, its alt-niche, talk about crazy ideas. You have to be completely out of it if you think that the vision for EQ was watching a movie on the side while playing it. You have to be trolling at this point.

Do you all just constantly make shit up in your heads about what you think others think? I clearly stated what I think about combat pacing, and I can quote it if you can't find it, it's about 6 or so of my posts back. Also go ahead and quote me, show me where I said that I want fast twitch combat. with dancing, dodging, and rolling, how did you all even get to these conclusions? because I said that I think a players should have to pay more attention to, be engaged in the game, while melee attacking and playing the game. The same way that a spell caster picks the right spells vs magic resist. The same way someone playing a tabletop game does. Amazing.

I only played EQ from alpha/beta up into a few months into Kunark, you know the original vision, when the sense of adventure and magic was still there. I hate that they sold the game to Sony,( I get why ) Imo it was the death of the game. EQ was a product of it's time, limited to the limitations of technology at the time, and the hardware of the players, made today it, by the same team, EQ would be incredibly different, in many ways and same in others.

Just a random thought, I remember when Jeff and Brad split off and made Sigil and Jeff wanted to make a sci-fi game, Brad didn't, but I really do wish that was the case. I wonder if he remembers that. I always wanted more sci-fi games, Anarchy online, and an EQ like sci-fi-game.

I know Shawn had Jeff on his stream, and I think I will go watch that interview again.

RPG means your characters determine the outcome of fights, and grow over time. Unless you put a J on the front In that case it means a word salad engrish title, a grand story that makes no sense, and 90% of the dev time spent on hair.

For this game I'd like to see a starter note with instructions to hail your trainer, then A bound as attack.

TJT said:

You can also adventure without needing a high APM dance dance revolution attack combos you have to do 24/7....

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And you can also have more engaging melee combat without the need for all that. It's just not one extreme or the other.

Secrets said:

but I also don't think it would be well received in an EQ spiritual successor which has preconceived notions of how combat should work.

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Maybe? Or are you trying to say, the people who are currently playing on an EQ Emu? If you want to clear that up. There is a difference between making an EQ spiritual successor and just making an EQ emulator with new assets. Vanguard was a spiritual successor to EQ, and Pantheon, will be, if it ever comes out, they are also throwbacks to old school MMOs. I believe their failures were reinventing to much of the game, too much at one time, to many new systems, or that the market for a game like this is smaller than we think it is, because we love them so much. That doesn't mean small tweaks can't be made to systems that are obviously in need of them, but redoing them from the ground up, that is a mistake and I do believe they understand that. The feature creep.

But again, and I don't know if this is what you are trying to say here, if you are just saying EQ spiritual successor, as code for, EQ emulator with new assists, that's a different story all together, and then there really is nothing to discuss about MnM.

ili said:

I know Shawn had Jeff on his stream, and I think I will go watch that interview again.

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Such a good interview and really worth the 3-hour viewing time.

Tearofsoul said:

So MnM is your new love huh, no more Pantheon I guess.

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Here's the thing. I want this to succeed too.

Other thread? People "need" it to fail to validate their predictions, dooming, whatever you wanna call it.

I explained how EQ combat can be tweaked without making it faster, making it more engaging, and actually making it slower at the same time. I'm not sure why people are so stuck on more engaging = faster. Get over it because nobody is saying that.
Jeff explained how and why Vanguard failed, they did too much at one time, too little money, to small of a team. The proof-of-concept was just big for what they had.
Jeff also explained why Sony sucked for Everquest, and why Brad and Jeff left Sony, executives with no gaming experience making demands. saying they have to add in things like mounts, (was a pretty funny story) and only caring about things like that. From the interview, it seems Jeff and Brad where constantly bumping heads with Sony executives, nobody really wants to argue, or burn bridges, with the money, and people who sign your checks.

Neranja said:

Here's the thing where you seem to have reading comprehension problems: "more engaging" means "more player interaction", which forces "more actions per minute" for the player. This is what old school MMORPG players usually mean with "faster" combat.

This is not what an RPG is about. They don't work that way. They really don't. What you are describing is an FPS with some form of gear as character progression. Which, incidentally, was developed after WoW became successful, so every game afterwards tried to copy their homework for their own game, from talent trees to character progression through gear acquisition. Which culminated into a genre we now call "looter shooter." Things like Borderlands, Destiny, Division, Anthem and Warframe.

Those are not RPG games at their core. As you said "hitting a mob's hotspot could also increase, hit, stun, stagger, and crit chance for melee" - those are called skillshots. Those are FPS mechanics, not RPG mechanics. In an RPG the chance to hit/crit is defined by your character's attributes, and not by the players skill.

Also, you can already try out the game you envisioned, at least for the melee part with swords:


Try it out and tell us afterwards how you'd enjoy playing such a game for multiple hours to grind up your character.

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I disagree completely. They do work that way and more engaging combat doesn't mean faster combat, or that you have to dance around. The game linked is completely irrelevant to anything I said beforehand.

Neranja said:

Brad's claim that Vanguard's $30 million was "just a fraction" of other titles is dubious at best.

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The Old Republic got 200+ million in funding. So, it's not dubious.

Neranja said:

Jeff can explain a lot of things, but hindsight says that the game was doomed from the start due to incompetent project management, and ramping up production too early before the underlying tech was stable.

Vanguard blew through 30 million dollars, backed by Microsoft, and they would have gotten more money ... I think the rumor of the Microsoft deal was 50 million dollars or something? But they got kicked by Microsoft because they couldn't hold the deadline on multiple deliverables. That was the core failure of Vanguard.

Estimates for WoW development are around $63 million dollars, so Brad's claim that Vanguard's $30 million was "just a fraction" of other titles is dubious at best.

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I've listened to a lot of the interviews and I think the failure was three-fold.

1) They went way too far with system requirements. Everquest was very progressive with its tech at the time, I think they even had to ship out video cards to reviewers so they could run the game. That worked in 1999 b/c PC power literally did double every 12 months, but that wasn't the case during VG's development. They pushed the limits of tech but it didn't pay off like it did with EQ.

2) As Jeff said in that interview, Vanguard didn't have enough programmers at the most crucial point in development. They had 3-4 programmers in the beginning, while Lineage 2 had 14 - both using Unreal 2.5. So the foundation of the game (source code, networking, tools, particle system, etc.) were not what they needed to be for an ambitious MMO.

3) All the game systems were created independently. The way both EQ & WoW were developed is they made a small microcosm of the game with most systems in, and once the game was fun they made the world big. EQ started with Qeynos + Qeynos Hills as the only zones, WoW with Stormwind + Elwynn Forest. It's far easier to iterate and change things when there's only 2 zones. VG was the opposite, all the systems were stitched together after the entire Thestra continent was created. That was a huge mistake.

Neranja said:

Here's the thing where you seem to have reading comprehension problems: "more engaging" means "more player interaction", which forces "more actions per minute" for the player. This is what old school MMORPG players usually mean with "faster" combat.

This is not what an RPG is about. They don't work that way. They really don't. What you are describing is an FPS with some form of gear as character progression. Which, incidentally, was developed after WoW became successful, so every game afterwards tried to copy their homework for their own game, from talent trees to character progression through gear acquisition. Which culminated into a genre we now call "looter shooter." Things like Borderlands, Destiny, Division, Anthem and Warframe.

Those are not RPG games at their core. As you said "hitting a mob's hotspot could also increase, hit, stun, stagger, and crit chance for melee" - those are called skillshots. Those are FPS mechanics, not RPG mechanics. In an RPG the chance to hit/crit is defined by your character's attributes, and not by the players skill.

Also, you can already try out the game you envisioned, at least for the melee part with swords:


Try it out and tell us afterwards how you'd enjoy playing such a game for multiple hours to grind up your character.

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I completely agree. I've argued this forever that my character's ability to be a bad ass should not rely on my ability to twitch buttons. There is no actual character development if the character's growth is based on my ability to click buttons.

The best example of this would be to strip it back to it's very core... D20. Your dungeon master doesn't put up a target on the table, and have you throw dice at it to see if you can hit the right spot and try to slap the dice away in mid air as an attempt to block your hit. That wouldn't be a Role Playing Game. That would be a sport. A really fucked up sport, but a sport none the less.

To clarify on my thought of targeting weak spots for melee, which could apply to all combat as well. Much like kicking or bashing to interrupting a spell. As a warrior, or any melee, your character has a perception of areas of weakness on mobs. You pick a target, lock in combat, traditional EQ style, your character notices that enemy's lower area is exposed, more vulnerable to attacks. You make the decision to attack the lower by clicking the lower stance button, on your UI, you don't have to change your stance, but if you do, you'll be more effective. Much like interrupting a spell with bash or kick, or whatever, you don't have to. Your character is now making lower attacks, the mob is taking more damage, you miss less, and have a higher chance to crit. A little while goes by, the mob changes it stance to protect itself, lower is no longer exposed but now the upper is, so you change stance also. This does not normally happen in rapid succession, but it could on more difficult fights, more powerful mobs, named, and raids. There is no dancing around, there is no button smashing, combat is locked. A simple click every now and then. You are now more engaged with what is going on in the fight, you have to pay attention to what going on between your character and the mob your character is currently fighting. It is not required to win a fight but if you do your chances of winning encounters increases, same as kicking/bashing to interrupt a spell cast.

ili said:

To clarify on my thought of targeting weak spots for melee, which could apply to all combat as well. Much like kicking or bashing to interrupting a spell. As a warrior, or any melee, your character has a perception of areas of weakness on mobs. You pick a target, lock in combat, traditional EQ style, your character notices that enemy's lower area is exposed, more vulnerable to attacks. You make the decision to attack the lower by clicking the lower stance button, on your UI, you don't have to change your stance, but if you do, you'll be more effective. Much like interrupting a spell with bash or kick, or whatever, you don't have to. Your character is now making lower attacks, the mob is taking more damage, you miss less, and have a higher chance to crit. A little while goes by, the mob changes it stance to protect itself, lower is no longer exposed but now the upper is, so you change stance also. This does not normally happen in rapid succession, but it could on more difficult fights, more powerful mobs, named, and raids. There is no dancing around, there is no button smashing, combat is locked. A simple click every now and then. You are now more engaged with what is going on in the fight, you have to pay attention to what going on between your character and the mob your character is currently fighting. It is not required to win a fight but if you do your chances of winning encounters increases, same as kicking/bashing to interrupt a spell cast.

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My god your ideas are bad.

I honestly don't know why people still shit up FoH with their bad MMO ideas. Curt Schilling is gone fellas, he aint coming back.

alavaz said:

My god your ideas are bad.

I honestly don't know why people still shit up FoH with their bad MMO ideas. Curt Schilling is gone fellas, he aint coming back.

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And you have a better idea? I would like to hear it, or are you just and NPC, without thoughts on anything, outside of " this is good, this is bad. " You know what shits up these boards? People like who just chime in with replies like that, which adds nothing to the conversation, much like this post. So, are you going to take part in the discussion, or just be a smart ass shitting up the board?