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Speaking of hooking the player from the start, there"s all this buzz going around right now about the Death Knight starting quests being so involved and amazing, some even saying it contains the best quests Blizzard has ever implemented. To that I say, why can"t that be the case for every...

Interesting. What few quests I did in AoC seemed the same as WoW, but I admit I didn"t do a lot. If that is how it is though, here"s hoping future games will take a look at it. I also think players would be more inclined to read the text and get the story if it just appeared on their screen...

It"d actually be pretty easy to do by simply making the player feel like a hero early on, which we discussed earlier in the thread. Stuff like cool looking armor sets, major storylines that culminate in an epic battle with some powerful being, meaningful rewards that stick with the player...

I agree with this in some cases, but it depends on what kind of story needs to be told. But, yeah, there"s no reason you couldn"t loot his head even if you weren"t on the quest and get some small dialogue saying "Someone in town may be interested in seeing this." You take it to the Captain of...

I definitely agree. I"ve been leveling a new character on WoW lately and, since it"s something that interests me, I"ve been paying a little more attention to the design of certain areas, quests, and compensation. In particular, the items awarded for nearly all low- to mid-level quests are...

Well done, fellas. Now we need more pictures, Curt! Post "em up!

Looks like Allakhazam has them up, higher resolution versions available also.

I"m curious about the banner there. It"s hard to read but I can at least make out "vigne" which combined with the depiction of the grapes is obviously referring to the french word for vine or vineyard. Strange that they would choose to use a real world language if this is home to a fantasy race...

Does that mean the contest will be WoW related? Seems odd.

I was actually working on a system that would make spellcasting duels more exciting, but I"m not sure it would work in practice. Basically, you would still have a normal mana pool we"re all used to that you deplete as you cast. However, you have certain spells that are sort of like a Rogue"s...

Yeah, you could move it towards a more Magic: The Gathering style mana system. You may be able to throw 5 or 6 spells in succession but then you"re "tapped out" for a short amount of time while you recover from the strain. Strategy would be similar to playing a Rogue properly in WoW, managing...

Right, it is similar to WoW"s talents, which I think is fine because they"re on to something very appealing. The main point is that the character would have all of his abilities and simply enhance them, rather than getting key abilities through the talents only and never being able to use them...

I completely agree, and yes it does make sense. I actually talked about exactly that on a recent blog post and in a thread here at FoH a year or so ago. Here"s an example of one of the classes: So you"ve got 3 trees that enhance and sometimes completely alter the Paladin"s base abilities, such...

Exactly, Famm. I can tell you played FFXI long enough to see the same things as I did. I was wondering about this too. However, from what I understand it is mostly just a piece of software designed to make animating quicker and easier for the artists. It doesn"t necessarily have to be used for...

Good, we need another topic anyway. This one has become pointless, as it"s clear that there is simply a difference of opinion going on (and I do respect your opinions Zehn/Foghorn, even if we"re disagreeing) and there"s no reason for everyone to get pissed at each other over it. As I said...

Simpler, eh? How does what we"re talking about have anything to do with difficulty? If anything, the job system is easier. So, grats on making zero sense. And no, I"m not the one that has an issue with not having multiple classes leveled. I rolled an alt on FFXI just to be another race, I...

I"m not talking about alt rolling as the foundation. I"m talking about the fact that the game has to be designed from the ground up to take into account that players will be redoing content over and over again on the same character. The same issues that were brought up before with questing...

The point still remains that it"s an absolutely terrible way to address the simple issue of loot rotting and raids becoming boring for the bleeding edge raiders. You can"t change the very foundation of a game just to solve two small problems that only effect a small portion of the playerbase in...

Whoa, whoa. I"m only talking about the job system here, and WoW"s lack of immersion has nothing to do with Hearthstone even if it was on Foghorn"s list. It"s easy to explain that skilled mages or even dwarven runecrafters could make a stone such as that. I also disagree that first person is...

Yes, that is mostly the point I"m making here. WoW is not immersive at all. I would prefer that 38 Studios" gameis. I would have less of an issue with a more restricted system like you mentioned, but at that point you would be much better off designing classes to have the versatility to do...

Ok, we can set aside realism, but do we still care about the lore and history of the world we"re playing in? The job system also means that every race must be able to be every class. Ogre druids, halfling shadow knights, troll paladins, the works. I"m all for player choice and customization...

Okay, wanna tell us how? Ultimately it requires the game to have repetitive content because you"re expecting players to go through it multiple times on different classes. This detracts from your ability to tell a good story because every quest has to be a scenario where you might be helping the...

I"d like to see something different than the normal trash, too. One thing I was thinking about is a creature type D&D 4th ed. called Minions. Minions are basically the underlings of whatever larger or more powerful creature is above them (doesn"t necessarily have to be a boss) that the...

Except that when Curt is doing his job at 38, it doesn"t mean he has lost all of his skill as a pitcher. He is both at once now, as far as skill and ability is concerned. In a game, your warrior switches his class to a priest and suddenly forgets all of his martial training, he can"t wear...

Valid points, Zehn. There are plenty of plus sides to the job system from a gameplay point of view, we don"t necessarily disagree there. Still, my year or so time in FFXI left me feeling somewhat wary towards it. It"s a decision that absolutely changes the rest of your game. Players...

But you also end up feeling less unique as your own class, because everybody is everything. Especially among the hardcores, you would have people who literally level every class and can be called upon at any time. This seems nice if you only think about those times when soandso didn"t log on for...

Alternatively, you could just implement a system where normally soulbound items could be traded between characters on the same account, an "heirloom" so to speak. Maybe only tag certain items as able to be transferred so that it"s not too over the top. I"d rather see something like that instead...

I agree on everything except Decursive (if you can have a defensive target it"s not asking much for people to switch defensive targets and decurse) and the dmg/threat meters. I"ve never liked damage meters in WoW, they make people act retarded. Let people parse if they want, and maybe even...

Haha. The Vanguard font is terrible, indeed. I also agree about listing the stats plainly and having a system in place that players can easily understand. I didn"t like all the random percentages on items in Age of Conan, and EQ2 had a fairly convoluted way of displaying things as well. WoW...

Interview on the Jace Hall showis now up for those interested.

That is the codename they"ve been using, not the real title.

I wonder what they mean by "glimpse" exactly? Will we really see something, finally?

Well, just to be clear, I have never liked tradeskills in any MMO I"ve played. I"m actually a diehard adventurer type and almost always a hardcore raider. The only game I did tradeskills in was WoW, and that was to support my raiding habit. Even took up leatherworking for drums in TBC despite...

You may not, but don"t project your own opinion onto others and assume that the "majority" feels the same way you do. It"s quite possible that people don"t seem to care much for tradeskilling in a game like WoW or EQ2 because it"sdreadfully boringand oftentimes the rewards are not even worth...

I don"t think any solid information on this has been released. Personally, I"m hoping the style falls somewhere in-between WoW stylistic graphics and more realistic. I don"t want them to push system specs like AoC and Vanguard, but I also don"t want the game to be overly cartoony. Luckily...

Aychamo is a god among men.

How does it work exactly? I didn"t even know about it.

Just make a really awesome trial server. Free unlimited access and level cap of 15. Trial server would only consist of a few zones, one of which is an awesome solo instance that shows off their scripted encounters. Give em a taste of how the game plays, let them play there as long as they...

Eh, I have no problem with the fee if it"s justified by timely patches (WoW is too slow) and good content updates. I say just make it enticing enough to make people only play your game. Hit that casual market hard with tons of fun solo and small group content, lots of side things to do, etc...

I like a lot of your ideas, although I think there is room for personal housing in addition to trade buildings. Going back to what I was saying earlier about the different instances you could choose to move in to, it would be interesting to see how player choices differed when it came to a...