Pan'Theon: Rise' of th'e Fal'Len - #1 Thread in MMO
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Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Siddar
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Computer programmers at core hate the concept of Emergent Game Play.
Using a example from EQ in SoF they added double invisible mobs. Mobs that could agro but were invisible to players with normal see invis.
Players however found a way around this problem. It turned out if you did some LDoN missions you could then buy a augment that gave see invis. Placing this augment into a helm that comes with see invis as a standard feature gave double see invis and let you see the new double invisible mobs. Players now had choice of giving up some stats from a aug to be able to see these mobs all the time are just carrying a second helm for sole purpose of seeing them. It was actually a brilliant case of emergent game play. Double invis mobs created a small problem for players but there was a solution that only required a minor amount of effort by players to fix the problem. But what did the Dev's do they? Well they first nerfed that ability of adding that augment to enable seeing double invisible mobs and then discontinued using concept of double invisible mobs all together.
tad10
Elisha Dushku
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Yes. Look at Blizzard. To SOE's credit - and what UT keeps forgetting - is that early EQ rolled with the emergent gameplay. Compare that to Blizz which shut down split pulling ASAP in Vanilla WoW.
@Quaid - okay I'll agree, Copernicus Art Assets are "stunning" when compared to whatever Brad is likely to come up with. Two points to you.
Khane
Got something right about marriage
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Sounds like an absolutely stupid, unimaginative mechanic. "Double invis"? Seriously? Why couldn't they just call it Infravis and require a new type of spell or item to see them?
Quaid
Trump's Staff
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Even without that though... Don't you thnk project Copernicus looked great? That huge statue over the city? The colour palate? Everything just looks so grand and impressive. Easily GW2 levels of quality, and I think that's the best looking MMORPG ever released.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder though.
Rhuobhe
N00b
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I'm happy to see that Aradune will get another shot.... possibly. He basically needs to remake EQ into something that is not EQ. I really hope they do not elaborate the graphics and performance requirements of the game. One of the commonalities between the success of EQ1 and WoW was that, during their era, these games did not require a lot of computing power to enjoy.
Quaid
Trump's Staff
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Modern MMOs don't require much computing power either. Hell, I was running TESO beta on ultra on a rig I built in 2008.
Siddar
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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They made a system with five levels of invis in TSS rogue Shroud of Stealth being original second level invis. They had planned to give players new invis spells but then realised the implication of handing everyone in game rogue Shroud of Stealth. Impact on older content designed around see invis mobs being used to block player from skipping content was to great so they dropped the plan to give players new invis. Then they decided to give ability to mobs instead of players. Then they gave very limited ability to see said mobs to druids and mages maybe it was wizards not mages. Note the above classes are not your typical pullers and that majority of these new mobs were placed in highest level tier of SoF expansion basically a attempt by Dev's to remake TOV Halls of testing from Velious. Borderline two group content even for the non named and named being somewhat harder then that but not as hard as ToV raid mobs. So SK, Monks, Bards would go and try and pull these overpowered mobs but then get randomly raped by invisible Wyverns mobs that would use a backstab for 75% of pullers health as there opening move. So Dev's made a annoying crap mechanic and then gave tools to counter it to the wrong classes. Then players went out and found a better answer to the problem. Dev response to that was nerf players response and then stop the double invisible mobs ever being used again.
Players engaged in emergent game play and Dev's threw a hissy fit as a response.
Rhuobhe
N00b
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EQ2 is one example. SWTOR doesn't run well on just any computer either. Same goes for Planetside2... Vanguard '07
Quaid
Trump's Staff
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It is not actually that far from EQ he needs to remake.
Everyone and their dog knows what things were broken in EQ, and many people understand the principles of what made EQ so addictive in it's gameplay and caught people's attention and lives for years.
To do list from EQ
1) Re-create the sense of "gamble" to the game. Rare named mobs with rare highly sought after drops that either create A) higher utility (fishbone earring, levi cloak, dark elf mask, circlet of shadow, Holgresh beads, ect...) B) higher then normal power such as the top end weapons and straight stats armor provide and C) Power increasing items that affect downtime/regen/haste (FBSS, Regen BP's, Mana regen increasers, ect...). These types of items that people have to try and try again to get can be put into community dungeons but they can also easily be added to rare mobs in instanced dungeons such as the flute and mount drops in Undead Strat.
2) A death penalty. You need a sense of danger and the chance of loss to create the above gamble and stop people from just mindlessly blundering into dungeons and ramming their heads against the content with no chance of loss but with the chance of gain.
3) Higher end loot in social (group and raid) content. The better items should be in the dungeons and off of the raid mobs. There should not be getting near/at raid level loot from using badges or some other such crap.
4) Maintain travel requirements. No insta-travel all across the world. Have special classes and occasional warp points such as EQ provided but work to maintain challenge in travel and create a sense of scale to the world.
5) Isolated racial starting areas. Maintain racial starting areas and do not allow warping your Gnome to the Dark Elf city to group with your friend with ease. If that friend wants to travel the world to get to the Dark Elf city it should be a challenging journey as it was in EQ and seeing a gnome at the Dark Elf city early in the game should create a sense of wonder knowing what that person went through to get there.
6) Significant level curve/exp requirements. These are needed to prolong the life of a game and ensure that the bulk of the playerbase does not eat through content inside of 2 weeks of play and thus quit the game.
7) Community dungeon and raid content. Not exclusively community, there should be instanced content as well, but much like original WOW there should be things like the world dragons that guilds can compete for and some very large community dungeons where you can run into other adventurers not in your own party.
Things EQ did that should be avoided.
1) Significant out of combat downtime. There is no way a person should be meditating for 5 minutes to get to full mana or waiting 10 minutes for their 600 hitpoints to go up 2 points per a tick every 6 seconds until they are back to full health. There should be mana drinks that recharge mana quickly and bandages that heal quickly when out of combat.
2) Hidden quests. While the "talking to a NPC" way of stumbling into quests worked in EQ it is outdated and should never be repeated. There should be some visual sign that a NPC has a quest. Perhaps not a big goofy question mark above their head and instead a slight pulsing glow that lets you know they are a NPC of interest and not just scenery.
3) Quest rewards being loot only. Experience should be rewarded for a complete quest. Furthermore things like AA point type advances can also be added to quests.
4) Zoned outdoor world. The world in a new EQ-like game should most definitely not be zoned or instanced and should instead be un-zoned and un-instanced.
5) Merchant bought spells and skill advances. After the very early levels the power increases should be obtained from the adventuring and questing in the world, spells should be found in dungeons in libraries, skills should be learned via fighting a certain mob-type or finding some hermit at the top of a mountain and doing a quest for him.
6) Soloability for all classes. While grouping should be encouraged through better loot, higher exp rates, and other such boosts all classes should be able to solo much of the content in the game to gain experience with minimal downtime to make the game more accessible to newer players and allow shorter play periods to be productive without the need to find a group and get to a dungeon.
************************************************** *****
By in large keeping the things that were good about EQ and made it so addicting while getting rid of the few obviously broken things such as the regen rates/downtime, lack of ability to solo as many of the classes, ect... and maintaining many of the things that made EQ such a draw that now lack in newer MMORPG's (WOW initially actually had far more of the things that made EQ great such as un-instanced raid mobs, rare loot in some dungeons, a relatively reasonable length exp curve, ect... and those things helped it in it's initial success).
Obligatory "SOEmote will solve everything" comment.
But seriously, I think having NPCs that stand out because of "out of the ordinary" actions and emotions is much better than a giant exclamation mark, even if it's just a more world-consistent way of going about it.
Edit: Of course, I'm referencing what EQN plans to do with it but if McQuaid gets the technology that EQN does, then he would be definitely able to do better than an just a glowing outline (although they would/will probably add some subtle quest notifier).
I'd like to add to the above list that group xp should be better than solo. Now almost every game offers some sort of experience bonus for groups, but it never takes into account the overhead of grouping. The logistics, unpredictability of away time, weak link members, it all adds up so that even generous bonuses will still lag behind solo for the skilled player.
Go very generous. Make it so that grouping is not just a huge gain for the low end of the totem pole.
Go very generous. Make it so that grouping is not just a huge gain for the low end of the totem pole.
tad10
Elisha Dushku
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I honestly don't fucking care about question marks or exclamation points as long as the quests are actually interesting. The problem isn't a large yellow "?" it's that quest hub quests are boring. Where 30% are take this message to some guy (FedEx), 40% are kill 10 rats but don't bring anything back (straight kill quests), 29% are kill rat mobs until you have collected 10 rat asses (rat ass quests) and 1% are actually interesting story based quests.
The solution isn't getting rid of "?" though that's fine if you want to do it - it's getting rid of the majority of stupid quests and just making it a straight faction grind for the chance of some item associated with that village/hub and leave it up to the player to decide if the grind is worth it or if he'd rather grind for some other possible reward somewhere else. Additionally, what quests there are shouldn't give XP. Just faction, occasionally gold and very rarely an item after a series of quests.
tad10
Elisha Dushku
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Barring an infusion of 100,000,000 into Brad's new company by some former-eq playing Billionaire, I couldn't agree less. There's just can't possibly be enough Money via kickstart, SOE backend, or random investor to do a good seemless world.
So no to seemless, yes to bringing back zones.
tad10
Elisha Dushku
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Lol. I like seemless as much as the next guy it's more "immersive" and flying mounts are cool. But it takes a lot of money to do seemless well, and again running out of money is what left VG stillborn.
You can still kite or train mobs even if the world is seamless. See: Hunters in WoW.