The Elder Scrolls Online

Draegan_sl

2 Minutes Hate
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3
WoW's approach to Quests is what killed the group-experience.

I'm still looking forward for a triple A game where I'm set free from the very first minute with plenty of content (dungeons, solo and group content to do). Problem with all the new MMORPGs is that every player is busy with their predefined path and all these infinite "quests" he must keep up with. No one is free to look around and make friends to overcome a challenge of a dungeon anymore.

They are just too afraid to let go of you... God forbid you have to just think for a second and do what you actually prefer to do. They just need to hand-hold you ALL THE TIME.
Actually, when I tried out MoP I leveled a Monk to level 25 or something. After the newbie area that Pandas go through, I spent my whole time leveling doing dungeons in a group. I used the random group finder, but often enough I ended up grouping with the same people over the same play session across multiple dungeon runs.

I ignored all the quests.

edit:
BRD is the best dungeon to be built in the last decade or more. Just form a design perspective and what you could do in there, it was amazing. Shame we don't see that anymore.
 

Mr Creed

Too old for this shit
2,394
287
Actually, when I tried out MoP I leveled a Monk to level 25 or something. After the newbie area that Pandas go through, I spent my whole time leveling doing dungeons in a group. I used the random group finder, but often enough I ended up grouping with the same people over the same play session across multiple dungeon runs.

I ignored all the quests.

edit:
BRD is the best dungeon to be built in the last decade or more. Just form a design perspective and what you could do in there, it was amazing.Shame we don't see that anymore.
Odd that you say that, because the reason we dont see that any more is that McDungeons with 2 corridors and 3 bosses are more accessible for a greater portion of the playerbase, which seems to be something you value highly.

@Laura: Did you play GW2? Imo it has a nice mix of handholding and freeform play, especially with rewarding said exploration. The dungeons are instanced though.
 

Draegan_sl

2 Minutes Hate
10,034
3
I am all about creating accessible base content. That doesn't translate into making hallway dungeons. Look at what GW2 did with it's dungeons. You rune story mode, then when you jump in again, you have optional paths. This system can be used perfectly with dungeons like BRD easily enough.

edit:
You can create dungeons that are large. You can create dungeons with interesting bosses and events (random or otherwise). These aren't necessarily hard. You can make "solo dungeons" that scale to the number of people who enter them up to a set number. Let's say 20. It becomes a special area where you have up to 20 people participating in dynamic/public quest area.
 

Itzena_sl

shitlord
4,609
6
A fine counterpoint to the "We want Guk/Sebilis/etc." crowd is to mention Legacy of Ykesha. It was an expansion ofexactlywhat they wanted (middle of nowhere with no fast travel so going there was 'significant', everything was uninstanced, rare spawns in camps with rare loot*, etc) and everyonehatedit.

*Hell, they had Innoruuk as a rare spawn there and nobody found out for weeks.
 

Big_w_powah

Trakanon Raider
1,887
750
Only thing I hated about LoY was the first zone. Fuck being dropped off in the middle of an ocean basically and saying "haha, find land bitch".

That aside, I loved the instanced LDoN more. It was cool, having these basic dungeon layouts, but having various objectives to complete within them.

The idea could be expanded upon a LOT.
 

Utnayan

F16 patrolling Rajaah until he plays DS3
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A fine counterpoint to the "We want Guk/Sebilis/etc." crowd is to mention Legacy of Ykesha. It was an expansion ofexactlywhat they wanted (middle of nowhere with no fast travel so going there was 'significant', everything was uninstanced, rare spawns in camps with rare loot*, etc) and everyonehatedit.

*Hell, they had Innoruuk as a rare spawn there and nobody found out for weeks.
It launched 4 months after Planes of Power where everyone was progressing at the time and had much higher end loot/XP reward/progression. There was only really one high level dungeon in the Crypt of Nadox and everything else was mid level, and at the time, there were many better leveling alternatives. Not to mention a lot of folks saw it as a pure cash grab. $17.99 for 6 zones and a new playable race and the design of the zones themselves were of little thought. I think you chose a bad example.
 

Itzena_sl

shitlord
4,609
6
Ssh.
smile.png
 

Dandai

<WoW Guild Officer>
<Gold Donor>
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Personally I enjoyed leveling in LoY, but iirc the mobs hit pretty hard so it was extremely difficult to solo and groups were pretty much impossible to find, at least on Tribunal. I think I grinded the dock area the most for gems or raw cash drops or something.
 

Erronius

<WoW Guild Officer>
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I actually had to Google LoY because fuck if I could remember single zone from there off the top of my head. Even looking at the list of zones I couldn't say if I ever went to any of them, though it's possible as it's been so long.
 

Laura

Lord Nagafen Raider
582
109
Odd that you say that, because the reason we dont see that any more is that McDungeons with 2 corridors and 3 bosses are more accessible for a greater portion of the playerbase, which seems to be something you value highly.

@Laura: Did you play GW2? Imo it has a nice mix of handholding and freeform play, especially with rewarding said exploration. The dungeons are instanced though.
I really should give GW 2 another chance but there's something about it that turns me off... ughh... feeding cows, pouring water on fire, killing worms on the ground to move a meter-up sounds too stupid and BORING to me. Why do I want to do that? Why should I care? The game feels like a game-show for kids, hey squish these Spider Eggs to trigger Spider00293 so you can kill it and push that meter up. WHY?!

I HATED this "no hand-holding" approach of GW 2.................. maybe there's less hand-holding going on but they turned the world into a Carnival of plenty of mini-games in the map which you can "play" in conveniently and every "booth" in this map has its own game. Win and get your prizes! You want more challenge? Go to this place marked in the map with $$ for even harder games!

Seriously???

Forgive my rant but I'm really sick and tired of this... I'd rather just be set free without these "Dynamic" events and "quests".... what happened to having the world filled with Lore and places to investigate without adding gimmicks to it like the mentioned above (collecting water buckets to throw into water.... WHY?!). I know I didn't give the game a chance, I just tried the human newbie zone and it just makes me so bored I'd rather look at the wall pondering (not exaggerating here).


Static content is what I want, plenty of dungeons to discover of various difficulties for every level. Save your resources creating scripted events and quests and just give us excellent lore and dungeons (Mansions, Caves, Crypts, Underdepth, Dungeons, Castles...etc).

/rant off
 

Laura

Lord Nagafen Raider
582
109
A fine counterpoint to the "We want Guk/Sebilis/etc." crowd is to mention Legacy of Ykesha. It was an expansion ofexactlywhat they wanted (middle of nowhere with no fast travel so going there was 'significant', everything was uninstanced, rare spawns in camps with rare loot*, etc) and everyonehatedit.

*Hell, they had Innoruuk as a rare spawn there and nobody found out for weeks.
I actually enjoyed LoY and grouped quite a lot there.

But it came at the start of EQ decline anyway (was it released before GoD?) because I remember GoD was the expansion made me quit since I wasn't a Raider and releasing a Raid-Centered expansion just killed the whole thing for me.
 

Azrayne

Irenicus did nothing wrong
2,161
787
I really should give GW 2 another chance but there's something about it that turns me off... ughh... feeding cows, pouring water on fire, killing worms on the ground to move a meter-up sounds too stupid and BORING to me. Why do I want to do that? Why should I care? The game feels like a game-show for kids, hey squish these Spider Eggs to trigger Spider00293 so you can kill it and push that meter up. WHY?!

I HATED this "no hand-holding" approach of GW 2.................. maybe there's less hand-holding going on but they turned the world into a Carnival of plenty of mini-games in the map which you can "play" in conveniently and every "booth" in this map has its own game. Win and get your prizes! You want more challenge? Go to this place marked in the map with $$ for even harder games!

Seriously???

Forgive my rant but I'm really sick and tired of this... I'd rather just be set free without these "Dynamic" events and "quests".... what happened to having the world filled with Lore and places to investigate without adding gimmicks to it like the mentioned above (collecting water buckets to throw into water.... WHY?!). I know I didn't give the game a chance, I just tried the human newbie zone and it just makes me so bored I'd rather look at the wall pondering (not exaggerating here).


Static content is what I want, plenty of dungeons to discover of various difficulties for every level. Save your resources creating scripted events and quests and just give us excellent lore and dungeons (Mansions, Caves, Crypts, Underdepth, Dungeons, Castles...etc).

/rant off
I can see where you're coming from, but 90% of the objectives could just be filled by killing mobs in the vicinity instead, so it wasn't too bad overall. No worse than collecting 10 goblin testicles ad nauseum.
 

Itzena_sl

shitlord
4,609
6
Personally I enjoyed leveling in LoY, but iirc the mobs hit pretty hard so it was extremely difficult to solo and groups were pretty much impossible to find, at least on Tribunal. I think I grinded the dock area the most for gems or raw cash drops or something.
I'd imagine that it's pretty good with a merc (or bot) nowadays - there's a PoK book added and I doubt it's going to be camped solid like The Hole or wherever the favoured semi-AFK spot is these days.



....wait, this isn't the EQ thread.
biggrin.png
 

etchazz

Trakanon Raider
2,707
1,056
WoW's approach to Quests is what killed the group-experience.

I'm still looking forward for a triple A game where I'm set free from the very first minute with plenty of content (dungeons, solo and group content to do). Problem with all the new MMORPGs is that every player is busy with their predefined path and all these infinite "quests" he must keep up with. No one is free to look around and make friends to overcome a challenge of a dungeon anymore.

They are just too afraid to let go of you... God forbid you have to just think for a second and do what you actually prefer to do. They just need to hand-hold you ALL THE TIME.
i agree with you completely. the thing i loved about EQ right from the start was the fact that they just dropped you into the game and let you go. i started as a high elf in felwithe and just started running around, exploring the game. even from the very beginning, when i was just going a few paces away from the city entrance, fighting bats and wolves, the game felt scary and exciting. then, i gradually got braver and followed the path to kelethin and started doing orc hill and crushbone, to eventually finding lesser fay, and then butcherblock and going to the chessboard, the boat to antonica, unrest, etc...the point is, you weren't ever told where to go, ever. you just explored and gradually experienced the game for yourself. perhaps you ran into a higher level who told you about some place that they had been, and you wanted to go, but that was all part of the experience. nowadays, it's just quest hub to quest hub with some guy with a ! above his head telling you "hey, now that you've finished up at this village, perhaps you should check out this area to the north where you'll meet another guy with a ! over his head!" it sucks, and it doesn't immerse you in the game at all. it just feels like you're at a grocery store, checking everything off of a list.
 

Utnayan

F16 patrolling Rajaah until he plays DS3
<Gold Donor>
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Sorry to de-rail here...

What's the latest on the beta? Is everyone still waiting?
Not a lot of people care anymore after the last "Beta" was logging into the character creation screen and one newbie area for 3 hours and... the beta was over.
 
i agree with you completely. the thing i loved about EQ right from the start was the fact that they just dropped you into the game and let you go. i started as a high elf in felwithe and just started running around, exploring the game. even from the very beginning, when i was just going a few paces away from the city entrance, fighting bats and wolves, the game felt scary and exciting. then, i gradually got braver and followed the path to kelethin and started doing orc hill and crushbone, to eventually finding lesser fay, and then butcherblock and going to the chessboard, the boat to antonica, unrest, etc...the point is, you weren't ever told where to go, ever. you just explored and gradually experienced the game for yourself. perhaps you ran into a higher level who told you about some place that they had been, and you wanted to go, but that was all part of the experience. nowadays, it's just quest hub to quest hub with some guy with a ! above his head telling you "hey, now that you've finished up at this village, perhaps you should check out this area to the north where you'll meet another guy with a ! over his head!" it sucks, and it doesn't immerse you in the game at all. it just feels like you're at a grocery store, checking everything off of a list.
You describe my first EQ experience almost exactly - even down to starting in Felwithe.
smile.png
I haven't been back to EQ in a LONG time and never started another character, so I don't know the answer to this, but have they since added any kind of tutorial that walks you though the mechanics? I pretty much hope they never did and allowed other people to continue experiencing the thrill of exploration and figuring shit out themselves BUT I suspect they have caved to the hand-holding theory of game design.
 

Cinge

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
7,371
2,440
i agree with you completely. the thing i loved about EQ right from the start was the fact that they just dropped you into the game and let you go. i started as a high elf in felwithe and just started running around, exploring the game. even from the very beginning, when i was just going a few paces away from the city entrance, fighting bats and wolves, the game felt scary and exciting. then, i gradually got braver and followed the path to kelethin and started doing orc hill and crushbone, to eventually finding lesser fay, and then butcherblock and going to the chessboard, the boat to antonica, unrest, etc...the point is, you weren't ever told where to go, ever. you just explored and gradually experienced the game for yourself. perhaps you ran into a higher level who told you about some place that they had been, and you wanted to go, but that was all part of the experience. nowadays, it's just quest hub to quest hub with some guy with a ! above his head telling you "hey, now that you've finished up at this village, perhaps you should check out this area to the north where you'll meet another guy with a ! over his head!" it sucks, and it doesn't immerse you in the game at all. it just feels like you're at a grocery store, checking everything off of a list.
Some people really need to let go of the past.

Even if a game didn't use quest driven progression, but still used level progression, it would still be very different then EQ. Progression, zones, mob levels, drops would all be mapped out before release. No game is not going to have maps anymore, so those are in.Gamers(even those who cry for "Freedom") flock to information sites to get as much info about the game as they can. Not sure where to level after zone A, its either "/1 where is the best place after xx" or google, instead of a ! showing the way.

Game doesn't have a tutorial, the masses cry about "Why doesn't the game explain this better".

WoW's approach to Quests is what killed the group-experience.

I'm still looking forward for a triple A game where I'm set free from the very first minute with plenty of content (dungeons, solo and group content to do). Problem with all the new MMORPGs is that every player is busy with their predefined path and all these infinite "quests" he must keep up with. No one is free to look around and make friends to overcome a challenge of a dungeon anymore.

They are just too afraid to let go of you... God forbid you have to just think for a second and do what you actually prefer to do. They just need to hand-hold you ALL THE TIME.
These comments make me chuckle. I came to WoW from EQ with probably 10-15 people(guild) at first. Most of us played via quest progression. But there were a few that played it as much as EQ as they could. They grinded mobs, explored the world to find different areas to grind and did dungeons when/if they could(even if they didn't have the quest), they grouped for elite mobs etc. Yes the game was designed with questing in mind, but if a player preferred to play it a different way he/she could. You had a choice. The only thing really missing for them was non-instanced dungeons full of large groups of players. But I will let you continue with your scapegoat, WoW the devil.