Search results

Spot on. And going back to the Baal analogy, it could be the Sorc, the Amazon, the Druid or the Necro that uses any one of a series of abilities that dictates the encounter, rather than it being the tank taunting the mob into the best position every single encounter. I remember quoting you...

The one thing that needs to come out of this debate is that having dedicated healing classes is nothing more than a design decision. Everquest created the main tank / healer concept in 3D MMOs; the fact it is used in nearly all fantasy MMOs since is purely a decision to follow that model...

Curt has said in a number of interviews that he is a "convert" to having fun rather than being EQ type hardcore nowadays. I wonder in Salvatore"s first book how long the hero will spend putting the raid together to kill the final boss, due to not being able to find enough healers....

Good call, and once we have that there is no reason we can"t have some of both in the same game ? I believe so and again, I think its a design decision, mate. To take the Diablo example again (and why not, some boss fights can take minutes, depending on lvl etc) the use of pots is factored...

Every single encounter = tank + healer controlling the entire encounter, with various DPS; or, a system where every time you face a boss there are dozens of different tactics just as successful as tank and spank, each based around one skill from any one of the classes defining the...

First of all, let me say I"m not advocating anything - just trying to get us all to engage in a discussion and throw ideas around 1. When you say that healers extend an encounter, is that not purely defined by the damage output of the mob and its ability to do "x" amount of damage ? In short...

Yeah, I"d agree with that. Many alternate class mechanics for that are in place already, going back as far as Diablo. Life leech, pets, debuffs, "obstruction" (Necro Bone wall) are four off the top of my head. And, of course, classes get "healing" abilities" even though there is not a...

I"ll be surprised if Jumpgate doesn"t sell well; two months to go and I"m certainly looking forward to it. As for repeating past discussions, I"ll break the trend and say I"m all for it. If people have discussed it and don"t want to take part they don"t need to post. I"m all about...

Going on from the last post, I also don"t like DKP. For one thing, whatever system you use, there will always be one or two folks who understand the math behind the system and can exploit it to have an advantage over others. The other thing is it takes away from the fun.I wantto kill...

Good post. I agree something radical needs doing, I just don"t know what it is. Couldn"t agree more with the folk who don"t like loot being assigned by guild leaders. I"ve spent years in guilds doing server and world first and I"ve been involved in assigning loot. The inherent problems have...

I agree with all that is being said here, so I"m not saying any of this is wrong - I"m just raising a point for consideration. Does the game not need some loot that is far less desired than other loot, just to make the "good stuff" be as valued as it is ? Once we start eliminating the loot...

D&DO has an interesting loot system. Chests in instances, whether randomly placed or from mob or boss kills, generate loot individually. Everyone can open the chests but each person can only see and loot the items that have been specifically generated for them.

Actually, I"d go further than that. I"d say a lot of the player base dislike or even subconsciously despise the existence of hard core players. For a start, if we are playing in a universe where we are the hero, how can we be the hero if we have these "uber" characetrs to look up to, knowing...

Lets be clear here, I wasn"t stating personal preference. Once again, we are considering 38S and they are aiming for massive commercial success. Actually at the moment I am massively critical of Blizz; I don"t for a second think they are doing everything right. I"ve repeatedly said, Blizz...

The game was always going to go this way. Their aim is to grow their sub numbers. Having content that holds up a small percentage of the players as "better than the rest" does not achieve that. Any MMO that wants massive commercial success will need to accept the lessons Blizzard had learned...

Planescape : Torment - the MMO /swoon I"d sell a kidney to play that one.

The mana system has become so staid, it would be refreshing to see a workable alternative. An interesting alternative to mana would be a "Concentration" system. Simplest example : when running your conc is "0", immediately you stand still your conc is made to "1" and you stand still or...

Is it worth exploring randomly generated content as a potential solution ? Random tile sets, a pool of potential bosses, a pool of potential abilities, a pool of potential mobs, storylines and settings .... It"s as rich an environment as the development resource that could be applied to it; now...

I agree with that, mate. Spot on. As you say, challenging is the "complex" part of this equation. Its not as simple as 3 bullet points - 1,2,3 fun, challenging, replayability. The real question is how far you take challenging to satiate our obsessive compulsive, primal hunter, l33t gamer...

Agree with this big time, even on raids. They"ve taken the scripting too far (they always have, partly - only partly - because of how powerful the user app development tools are - they"ve had to compensate for various "auto" apps users have designed). A symptom of this is the dumbing down...

To contribute to the debate on solo content, in the context of these instances, one of the main lessons WoW has taught us is that any MMO that wants mass success has to cater extensively to solo players. One of their failures in the expansions has been to fail to build on that, so that...

Disappointed not to get some feedback from anyone on how well, or not, these work in FFXI. A big part of the success of these systems, apart from offering scalable content depending on how many players participate (solo option is important as shown by AO) is that they scratch that dungeon...

Further to this, I just today received an email from Square Enix, discussing their new dynamic, player generated instances. Moblin Maze Generated by a single player and scaling for between 1-6 people. Anyone done any of these ? I"d love to see a system like this in Copernicus. The...

Curt, I just spottedthis pictureon your blog. Is that at 38S offices or EA ? I"m Liverpool born and bred and a life long fan - I now live just around the corner from Fernando Torres and Stevie Gerrard. No comment on the Go Manchester statement btw .....

Many, many times. Always, if inventory is full. The answer to this is going to differ from person to person, according to play style. And there are many pack rats out there.

I"m with Zehn, in the belief that any successful MMO - at this moment in time - needs to have a strong solo experience from 1-max. But it can have a lot more than that. Small group levelling should be more than an option. XP penalties are traditionally too hard on small groups who level...

Having auto-loot is a good option to have - one I"d certainly welcome - but its not a complete solution. You have to be able to actively choose what you loot, much of the time, with no amount of filtering solving the issue. Another option I"d like to see is for the leader to be able to...

Freaky - I spend all last night (while trying to get to sleep in bed, of all times) thinking about how much it sucks having to right click and loot mobs all the time, trying to think of possible solutions, go to the SoE thread this morning to find Zehn saying exactly the things I have been...

Good post with points that need considering. But there are answers to this, some of which Zehn and others have discussed. Another is the Anarchy Online system, which I am a MASSIVE fan of. I"ve never pushed it hard because I"m not sure how much of it is my personal taste and how much it...

Yeah, I agree with this; which is the way it should be. Its not hard to box up to one party content, but boxing should play no part in raiding, ever. Depends what you mean by trivial content. If we are discussing 5 man content most Heroic content was comfortably 5 boxed in TBC. Don"t know...

I"m sorry this wasn"t picked up on for further debate - it"s a really great point.

WoW is actually easy to box - probably the easiest of all MMOs. Most folk use something like Octopus with multiple PCs - broadcasts keyboard strokes with a white list or a black list and allows you to move the mouse between all of the PCs and operate the keyboard and mouse on individual screens...

There are a few points I"d like to pick up from various posts, but this is foundational and the most significant. One of the first lessons we were taught on joining the army was that you can be one of two types of leader : i) objective focused; ii) "man" focused (taking care of your...

What I said was : Multiple accountsANDboxing. Lets look at that. In a group of eight people six people are only responsible for one account. The other two people have their own account and their partners account registered with their details. That is 40% in the hands of multiple account...

I"m trying to treat this thread as an arena to discuss with 38S how to achieve the best they can with their MMO. In many ways, this isn"t the best community to do that. There are some issues that cause some of us l33t, "I"ve played every MMO since Meridian/UO", we were doing world first, never...

I didn"t say anything of the sort, mate. Nobody else has, either. For a start, again, I didn"t say this either. I just said multi-boxing has never been considered by game designers, before. I suggested it would be a good idea for designers to decide early whether their game would facilitate it...

This exemplifies just how anti-boxing this forum and community has always been; the worst possible place to have a discussion about it. Its not many months since people who box were catalogued with lepers and rapists on here. However, it is a significant issue, with a significant potential...

Presume you meanKeyclone, I"ve never heard of clonekey? Unless you mean Clonekeys, which is Mac software. Synergy, Keyclone, Octopus, Hotkeynet and the other similar packages only broadcast keyboard strokes to multiple PCs or clients. Using them doesn"t negate relying on /target, /follow and...

Cross posting this from the SoE thread. In short, designers need to decide as early as possible if their game is going to cater to holders of multiple accounts/boxers. I"ve touched on this numerous times. MMO designers need to decide early on if they are going to support multiple accounts...

DaoC later introduced a system of mission instances for both groups and solo play. Amazing to think it was only itemized up to lvl 20 or so, certainly dungeon wise, at launch. Imagine the outcry if an MMO launched in that state today.