Blizzard dies and Bobby rides

Begs the question of what people are really after? Is it nostalgia about the graphics? Nostalgia about the gameplay? Both of which flat out shit the bed when compared to later variations. People love TLP's - which is a far cry from how punishing EQ was originally. You would have a shit load more people playing P99 variants if that were the case. Graphically? People go the extra mile of editing the INI just to have velious textures. So its not like they dont crave updated textures, at least in some capacity. Especially the people the pay extra for the Shop armors - which are arguably worse than base models to most people.

Until you can place a finger on all the different aspects that appealed to so many different kinds of people - there is no point in "recreating the experience". People will just go play EverQuest with an established crowd if its too similar, and people will just go play FXIV/similar if it goes too far in the other direction.

People really just dont know what they want. Its going to take someone experimenting to find the recipe, research, hard work. I personally think it revolves around the pace of combat and how different classes play completely different. But I know it's far more than that, so I dont even try to imagine creating an MMO in EQ's image.

Don't think a reskinned 1999 EQ would do well but the genre is obviously ready for some innovation from the current WoW model. Sometimes innovation is just taking ideas that worked in the past and revisiting them. You see this in design all the time, cars and phones have gone from angular styling to more rounded designs several times over now, and it's usually the extremes that age badly.

Velious-PoP era EQ and TBC-WotLK era WoW seem to have held people's attention over the years so mimicking one of those probably isn't a bad start.

Lendarios said:

what? Blizzard's downfall has nothing to do with the product they are providing. They are still the leader on the MMO field a ton of people will buy their product as soon as it comes out.
Their are still making money of their products and if they even need more money, all they have to do is reskin some of their old stuff, make it 4k, call it remastered edition and boom, money printer goes brrrrrrrrr.

This lawsuit will cost them a lot of money, because once the state finishes settling with them, every single ambulance chaser in America is going to get involved trying to get a class action lawsuit going against them, and when they lose they will have to declare

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I know I’m just getting caught up and everyone’s already talked about how if you live on the west or east coast in any major tech / software city, they are drinking friendly environments. But..

This is not a drinking issue. It’s a culture and values issue that Blizzard is going through, starting with leadership.

Ive worked in software companies for 10+ years in SF and NY; drinking has been a part of every company’s culture, but so has diversity, inclusion, trust, respect, etc. Encouraging people to build relationships is a great way to retain talent, facilitate collaboration and ultimately get more productivity out of them. A lot of progressive companies use events and alcohol to do that.

Only one unicorn startup I was part of which was lead by a 26 year old engineer became a fuckfest. They sent the company to an annual Tahoe trip. My boss at the time ended up getting fired because he made a few unwanted advancements to a girl on our team. Got home Sunday night and he was fired Monday morning. But that was the right call. Zero tolerance for that kind of stuff. And it should be at every company.

Work hard, don’t be a fucking creep, and be nice to people. They need new leadership, new core values, new mission statement, a reset internally and they will be fine in 18 months.

Daidraco said:

Begs the question of what people are really after? Is it nostalgia about the graphics? Nostalgia about the gameplay? Both of which flat out shit the bed when compared to later variations. People love TLP's - which is a far cry from how punishing EQ was originally. You would have a shit load more people playing P99 variants if that were the case. Graphically? People go the extra mile of editing the INI just to have velious textures. So its not like they dont crave updated textures, at least in some capacity. Especially the people the pay extra for the Shop armors - which are arguably worse than base models to most people.

Until you can place a finger on all the different aspects that appealed to so many different kinds of people - there is no point in "recreating the experience". People will just go play EverQuest with an established crowd if its too similar, and people will just go play FXIV/similar if it goes too far in the other direction.

People really just dont know what they want. Its going to take someone experimenting to find the recipe, research, hard work. I personally think it revolves around the pace of combat and how different classes play completely different. But I know it's far more than that, so I dont even try to imagine creating an MMO in EQ's image.

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Memories to me.

When I played on p99 and somewhat on the Combine server, it took me back to a time where life was so mich different.

Each time I would hit a zone again, so many memories of friends and good times would come flooding back. Those are memories that would never be remembered or recollected had a certain zone / music / drop / mob not been seen again. For me anyways..

Now a days the entire mindset of most mmos is to blast to lvl cap as fast as possible, so that you can raid a single zone once a week and try to get +1 to your stats, then bitch about there being no content.

Lambourne said:

Don't think a reskinned 1999 EQ would do well but the genre is obviously ready for some innovation from the current WoW model. Sometimes innovation is just taking ideas that worked in the past and revisiting them. You see this in design all the time, cars and phones have gone from angular styling to more rounded designs several times over now, and it's usually the extremes that age badly.

Velious-PoP era EQ and TBC-WotLK era WoW seem to have held people's attention over the years so mimicking one of those probably isn't a bad start.

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I think you could take old school EQ ideas and do well with an MMO. A steep but fun leveling curve with lots to do in the world (not shitty tasks) would be quite fun. Offer up some fun and challenging quests, new type of trade skills, and a bit more class depth and the game could be a hit. I think people would be surprised to find that if a game is hard and takes time, it can still be fun if playing it is meaningful.

vegetoeeVegetoee said:

I think you could take old school EQ ideas and do well with an MMO. A steep but fun leveling curve with lots to do in the world (not shitty tasks) would be quite fun. Offer up some fun and challenging quests, new type of trade skills, and a bit more class depth and the game could be a hit. I think people would be surprised to find that if a game is hard and takes time, it can still be fun if playing it is meaningful.

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But then that isn't EQ. I mean, you're basically describing Vanilla WoW when you get down to it. Leveling in EQ wasn't really fun - I think a lot of people confuse sitting around shooting the shit while the puller is out looking for something to bring back to the group with the actual leveling mechanics. The "fun" for some was using the game as a chatroom, not the actual gameplay piece. That isn't engaging gameplay - that is mIRC with wizards and ogres.

Also, it is important to remember that when a game has limited content, they usually hide it behind a longer grind to limit the player's ability to discover that lack of content. It's an artificial way to extend content life and it is very low effort - it takes far more resources to create a meaningful quest chain that it does to toss 40 gnolls into a cave, fuck with the XP modifier and mob respawn numbers, then let the players spend 15 hours there trying to level.

xmod2 said:

facilitate social interaction in a world with persistent RPG characters.

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Social interaction is great and all, but it works best when it is something the player WANTS to engage in. If you try to force it too much, then it becomes artificial and breeds toxicity (towards others) or resentment (towards the game). You're putting up with other assholes not because you want to, but because you are being mandated to in order to progress or participate in anything meaningful in the game.

If the social interaction in a MMO is coming from a place of boredom because what you are currently doing sucks, that isn't a feature - that is a coping mechanism.

xmod2 said:

Who would play offline single player WoW, EQ, etc.

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Daidraco said:

Begs the question of what people are really after?

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The concept of showing off hard earned items socially.

Too hard/punishing and people won't enjoy the game, too easy/rewarding and people won't care about the game

Not enough social activities and the game will feel pointless, too many social activities and the game will feel fragmented/dead.

It's a careful balance and no specific mechanic is required to get it right.

Neranja said:

I think you need to make a way to do both. As in: The major factor WoW had over EQ was for players to be able to make character progress without relying on player groups.

In WoW the pendulum swung way to to much into "the best way to progress is by soloing until you are max level, and the only social interaction is by raid/M+ for character progression." Blizzard basically cut out a large portion of the leveling process out, which they specifically designed for the solo part.

What they should've done:

• make single player quests reward less XP (there's tons of them by now, so players won't run out of quests any time soon)
• make group quests and instances reward more XP
• give an XP buff for instances with parties formed outside the automated matchmaking LFD

People would still be able to progress, but on top they have an incentive to look for players on your server to play with.

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In a way they had a better formula back in vanilla where some of the outside world had elite areas that required groups to be able to quest there. It made some of the world feel more dangerous and that was pretty cool I thought.

Neranja said:

Yeah, but that fizzled out with one of the TBC patches if I remember. That strict separation between "questing is for single player" and "instanced content is for groups". I get the pro's and con's of both, but having some group content out in the world people can flock to would be great.

Meanwhile in FFXIV you get single player instances (which Blizzard copied for storytelling) and elite hunts and group world quests (FATEs) in the non-instanced world.

I liked the idea of timed events in GW2, where even high level players come to lower level events, and to prevent them from oneshotting it they get scaled down.

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As much as I despise Shadowlands for some of its terribly flawed ideas, they did bring back some elite areas in every zone, and the World Quests there require groups, but the problem is that it's all done through the faceless LFG tool and it's quick and done in 2 minutes without anyone speaking a word.

Neranja said:

You already get a bonus if you are doing it in warmode, so why not give a bonus if you form a server-only group? Improve the LFG tool for it. People could make channels/communities for this stuff.

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That wouldn't work, because server populations are scuffed and they are really just servers in name only. The server groupings are the "real" servers now. Most MMOs are like that now - it creates the illusion of a traditional server, but it allows the developers to manage population swings much easier and avoiding the more noticeable "server merges", which has a negative psychological effect and can hurt viability of the game.