I think that was answered when Vanguard was released Andy.
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I think that was answered when Vanguard was released Andy.
I have been playing for the last 6 months or so on FV still love the game =) Sadly someone has Lasgo so im Rasgo there and i ran into some people from druzzil that for some weird reason all there characters are named after Hoss people i have seen a Kattoo,Thuggo and Rika
Maybe ill have to hop on and say hi.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lasgo
Sounds good im 76 atm only 790 aa,s sadly this is a newly rolled character shaman though >< i box sleepey all the time her regular account shes 75 with 2k aa,s a beast she tanks AoW when i find him up lol =)
Are you sure those aren't the originals, when we were selling for big bucks?
Obviously the players behind the toons are different.
No they arent the guy i spoke to was a shaman on druzzil i forget his name and its his rl friends he told me they all rolled the names cause they always liked them
People really overestimate the amount of time it takes to level in EQ classic. I leveled a druid from scratch to 50 in like 12 days /played on p99. (and their exp tables are accurate) 51-60 took about as long. Granted the rate of advancement gap between a skilled and unskilled player is much larger in EQ.Quote:
Originally Posted by Andaas
If I remember right Andy, you work in the games industry. No offense, but you guys all suffer from a serious case of group-think. I hear the same crap from every developer I listen to. Maclir/Coral included. And yet when I read forums, I keep hearing from players that MMOGs are very stale right now. (and that's putting it nicely) Every single MMOG that isn't EVE online is hemorrhaging subs. Every single MMORPG developed since WoW's launch (which is nearly EIGHT YEARS AGO now) has had serious retention issues. Our SWTOR server lost like 20-25% population after the first subscription month. Even the highly polished and bug free Rift lost like 60% of their subs. Ask yourself why EVE is the only game in a decade, aside from WoW, that has seen an increase in subs over time, instead of a peak of subscribers at launch with a slow (or not-so-slow) decline. EVE's design is in many ways anti-WoW. I wish other devs would read articles like this one.
The only reason I don't still play an EQ1 emulator anymore is because I've practically memorized the entire game and nothing is really a surprise anymore as I've done pretty much everything there is to do. If some company made a modern game with EQ1 classic mechanics, I'd be all over it. Granted were I to design a MMORPG, I would do all sorts of things not yet seen in any game instead of merely clone EQ1 classic, so I'm not suggesting that classic Everquest is some definitive example of game design. I just think WoW (and every game made after it) went in the wrong direction.
What I'm really waiting for is some niche MMORPG to come out and give the finger to WoW and its single player quest grind bullshit now that middleware like Bigworld and Hero Engine is proven and cheap. It does not take $100 million to make a MMOG. EQ1 was created by like what, 2 dozen people? What I am absolutely DYING for is somebody to release a full high fantasy asset library under a commercial allowable CC license or some sort of profit share license, which would shatter the last remaining barrier facing very small teams (or even a single person) from creating their own MMORPG like the old MUD days when any coder could just download the diku mud source and make his own game.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think WoW, Rift, and SWtoR have gone in the right direction - I'm just saying that to appeal to the mass market, that games will need to either reinvent or bridge the gap between what EQ was and what WoW has become.Quote:
Originally Posted by Torrid
From a business and financial standpoint, I fully understand the route that Blizzard has taken with WoW - the previous (EQ) model, had developers creating far too much content that was only ever consumed by the top 5% (if that) of their subscribers. Even that I was among that limited target demographic - I can't imagine that it was valuable from a design standpoint to spend as much time as they did creating content that would not be experienced by the majority of their subscriber base.
And while I agree that the original EQ leveling curve is likely not as long as my recollection may make me recall - I also feel that any player entering the EQ world with no previous exposure to EQ or other MMO's, would require two to three times as much playtime to reach level 50.
I'm not currently working in the gaming industry, most of my observations are from an external view of where I see/feel things have gone (the last job I had in the core gaming industry was more than 8 years ago). Though I certainly agree that my history in gaming leaves me with a different perspective and understanding of things (I still think Blizzard, while not meeting what I truly want in an MMO, has delivered an excellent mass-market product that appeals to a broader user base than any other MMO).
I agree that the potential for an indie MMO based on available technology can easily become a huge (though probably not WoW-huge) game, and make a small team a huge profit. It just needs to be the right game at the right time (which I always felt EQ was.. it was the "Quake RPG" that landed at just the right time and led to breaking out the current MMO industry we know today).
I would agree with some of what you said about EVE's success, for lack of a better term, but EVE's biggest issue, unless it's been fixed in the last year or two, is the learning curve to figure everything out and that it has one of the most cumbersome horrid UIs I have ever seen in a game ever.
The learning curve made the game somewhat engaging as you had to spend time trying to figure things out.
The UI literally argued with me at every turn and was literally the only reason I stopped playing the game after 50 days or so. 50 RL days not in game days.
This I very much disagree with. If you design all of your content to be consumed by the majority of the player base, then you will have to make your game an unchallenging faceroll snozefest. Players will have nothing to look forward to and nothing to do after they quickly consume all of your content. The awe people feel when seeing a high level player in town is gone. The drive to be like him one day is gone. The sense of accomplishment of defeating the high end content is gone, because it becomes meaningless when everybody else does it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Andaas
I consider it a minor miracle that Blizzard maintains the subs that they do, when a large chunk of their player base plays the game in spurts and then quits after consuming all of the content there is to do. They just quit playing and not cancel. Or they play a mere one night a week due to lockouts, and faceroll instanced content to pick up algorithmically generated loot that gives them +10 more gooder that will be replaced in 6 months with another meaningless +10 gooder drop.
The better design is to not waste all of your previous raid content from past expansions, and let the less skilled players raid that when new expansions make them more powerful by not obsoleting all previous gear in one night. Or let them simply zerg content all they wish. In social games, player organization is half the challenge.
Also, just because you make a plane of time, doesn't mean you can't also make some new zones for the more casual players.
Taken to its logical extreme, an MMORPG should have one race with one city zone because, after all, not every player is going to roll an erudite and experience Erudin. Why waste your dev time creating a dozen cities?
I want a world where I can hit the level cap while only visiting a faction of the available zones. A world where people have many places to visit, explore, and advance their characters in. A world where you can sell common drops in barbarian land for a nice profit after making a long trek to elf land. An Erudite in Faydwer should be a 'wow, an Erudite' event for the locals. Any dev that considers this a 'waste' of dev time, should be making is a single player game. (and probably is, but for some reason still calls it a MMOG)
Google is failing me, but I seem to recall some stats posted by blizzard that indicated that a very large percent of the player base (or the majority) do not reach the level cap in WoW. My response is pretty much, 'so what?' Why does it matter that it takes a long time to reach the level cap? The game should be as fun or funner pre-level cap than post-level cap. A level is just a carrot to feed players with. Blizzard just likes to feed players carrots by the cart load, with more, faster levels and a loot drop every 10 minutes. The problem is Blizzard carrots taste like vegetables while EQ's carrots taste like a five star restaurant.Quote:
Originally Posted by Andaas
Blizzard more or less sold out. Blizzard is the Zynga of MMOGs. You're playing a game with far less depth than games from a previous millennium.Quote:
Originally Posted by Andaas
Blizzard also didn't realize what gameplay was lost when they 'fixed' EQ's problems. Reading a book while meditating is bad? Make mana regen nearly instant out of combat! Oh wait, now you've just removed any decisions players make as to when to use their abilities and turned them into a resourceless fireball button mashing drone.
They even took the easy way out in SC2 by changing so little from SC1. You see virtually zero strategy in SC2 until you reach the APM cap, as the game requires players to micro way too much shit that should be automated. (spawn larva anyone? I quit zerg just because of that)
D3 will not even reach parity (in terms of gameplay quality) with previous Diablo titles. Sure, it'll be well worth buying and playing, but Blizzard is so concerned with saving players from their own mistakes that they watered down the game, just like WoW.
Torrid, you represent a rather small minority of the MMO player I think. Back in EQ's prime, we were all the baseline player. Nowadays people don't want to really have to invest as much time as we did to make progress in a game. Of course, this has the side effect of making games short-lived, because once everyone can consume everything, they do, and then quit. That said, EQ is not the horrible grind-fest it once was. I've been playing a new Monk lately, and I'm level 28 now in roughly 2 days played. Mind you, I AM using experience bonus potions, and grouping pretty consistently, and I'm going through a lot of the Hero's Journey (content path we made for new players), but you can still play any way you want.
Crescent Reach was introduced nearly 8 years ago, and the reason we're starting newbies there by default now is an MMO dies hard without the community. Nobody wants to play in an empty world, and if players all started in their home city, the world would feel empty, due to the overall server population being so much lower than it was when EQ had 450k subs. There's nothing stopping brand new players from coming in and starting in the racial home city however.
So far, moving to Free to Play has been a huge success for EQ. Yeah we made a couple really dumb mistakes, that somehow got overlooked (the augments causing your gear to be worthless was the big one for me), but those are now fixed. Yes, the game is very different than what we all obsessed over, but to almost ALL of the players, the game is much improved as far as accessibility. Just because players are able to complete quests, and explore and adventure in the world doesn't mean the game is dumbed down, or easier. The end-game content is harder than it ever has been in the past. We've just made getting to that content less painful and tedious. The depth is still there for those that want it. Considering the size of our team right now, I'm frankly AMAZED at the quality and quantity of content we can publish. Working on this game is no picnic. We have no tools to speak of. Everything is done through Access, and basic scripting.
You can call it selling out, but the fact remains that companies that produce these games do so to make a profit. Consistently kicking your customers in the balls so you can feel 'hardcore' is NOT how you keep them playing. We played EQ like we did because it was the only option. Had other games come out at the same time as EQ that offered up a persistant world, I doubt EQ would have been as successful as it was.
Torrid while I agree about the idea of scope for an MMO, (the idea of a to scale Warhammer or Warhammer 40k universe is one of my fondest dreams in fact) in your Elf/Barbarian concepts the main reason it isn't done is one relating to space. WoW is a fairly large land mass (especially if you remove Griffon taxis, flight and mage portals) but even then I could easily get from one place to another in a span of a few hours. Like Vanilla back when Nelfs would travel to IF or SW. But to get that sense of awe or reward you would need to make that traveling take at minimum half a day of travel, not to mention the scripting to make reactions happen the way you're talking is a whole different ball of yarn. But if WoW is going to be 20+GB now how large would a game like you're talking about be? 50GB? 100GB maybe even 1TB? You get into a world that is impractical to build with the current PC constraints in place, you would need something more like Star Ocean 3's VR worlds.
Second about the level cap comment, the reason it's a big deal if people never hit the level cap in WoW is obvious. There is no content worth doing in WoW until you level cap unless your with a group of 40 other people wanting to organically feel the whole game. Now if you look at a game like Secret World that should hopefully be less of an issue, but that's how WoW is and thus they have to care because every failed account to hit level cap is basically a lost subscriber. (On a completely unrelated note your analogy about Blizzard carrots and EQ carrots makes no damn sense cause even EQ "5-star" carrots will taste like vegetables...)
To your last point you can call it selling out if you want but what they did was make the most profitable game in history. While they made plenty of mistakes in WoW, they made no more or less mistakes than EQ. You just overlook any mistakes EQ made as you enjoyed the game more. But frankly Elidroth is right if a more welcoming user friendly game had ever come out EQ would basically have died. Actually that is more or less what happened isn't it?
While I appreciate your desire for a super hardcore tedious game, played Dark Souls/Demons Souls? (and boy could they have not done a better job of localizing that name????), there isn't really a market for that as an MMO of any kind. MMOs are expensive as hell which means you need enough subs to make it worth while, whether that's from F2P mini-transactions or from WoW/SWTOR full subscriptions, or the game dies. While it would be nice if we lived in the land of Star Trek where money was useless because I can just use a Holodeck or an in house unit to make anything my mind can think of, we live in the real world where a game needs to be profitable or everyone loses their job and the game dies anyway.
Something you said about MMOs costing so much money is something I've been trying to fight with SOE management for awhile now. I keep pushing on Smed to let me take a small team and make a niche game. We have an engine in-house now that is really capable, easy to use, and scalable, and I think a smaller, less expensive game that grabs 50-100k subs would be a great thing. We could afford to throw 3-5 mil on a small project, and if it tanks, OK, we try again with something else for low investment. It's better than sinking 70+ million into a game and having it be a flop. You might even catch lightning in a bottle and have a HUGE hit. Sort of a shotgun approach.
I think any company that purposely tries to go head to head with Blizzard is foolish.
Yea it can work but you need a solid battle plan to get people to go along with a $3-5M project. I mean that is still a very expensive project most indie projects seem to cost $50-250k from what I've seen. I would offer a smaller demo/beta concept where you build the equivalent of a small zone with a lot of good stuff and you offer to do it using a kickstarter project. Then you can get independent funding for a specific project if it works and you catch that bolt then maybe you can get your $3-5M that way all SOE loses is a bit of dev time from you guys working on a small project.
No way to do Kickstarter projects within SOE unfortunately. I asked if we could try something like that and our legal dept. balked at it bigtime!
This over and over and over again. Though I disagree about so many of EQ players would of jumped ship just for a easier game had they been out on equal footing with EQs release time. As I think the social aspect EQ had kept people far longer then other games keep subs. I think a large part of the players saying they wouldn't of or couldn't of played EQ are those whose only or first MMO was/is World of Warcraft. In my opinion Blizzards accomplishment was not making a better game, but increasing the appeal of MMO's to a broader market especially those players who were mainly gaming on consoles. Their Marketing should be attributed to the success compared to other companies.Quote:
Originally Posted by Elidroth
I will say at some point though, how much of the tedium can you remove before you have no decisions to make in a mmo? Perhaps some would prefer that who knows. But really we are getting to the point of just one starting area etc. How long before there is only the one race the one class or maybe even 3 classes just called tank, dps, heal.
It's definitely a delicate balance. When EQ2 was made, they went WAY overboard on the classes. You want diversity, but you can go too far. When you have SO MANY classes (EQ2 has 32 I think), it's hard to make them unique. In playing FFXI some more, I really have come to like their job system. I like the idea of people playing one toon, and being able to make it whatever they want. but I want to take it further into a skill point based character development system and not a class based. So you could, if so desired, become a plate wearing, spell casting battlemage, who can tank via spells and armor.
The biggest thing I DON'T like about WoW (and a LOT of games since WoW) is they've segregated their player base. If you don't like any of the evil races, but all your friends do, you can't play with them. I'm all for lore based racial bias in the game, but I think there should be a way for a 'good' player to gain respect and faction with 'evil' races allowing them to interact.
Waiting for Fir to come in and begin his "rant" about the stupidity of enforced factions. Which to some extent I agree with.
I think I've made that rant enough times to warrant not having to restate my stance.Quote:
Originally Posted by Valdis
When they put in Arena and gave Horde Pallys and Alliane Shaman, they had a perfect opportunity to just let both sides play nice with each other. I mean really, every fucking expack it has the horde and alliance working toward the same goal of killing "bag of loot" so why keep them separated? PVP? Arena you fight your own people as well as Horde. Why the separation still?