EQ Never

Kreugen_sl said:

You keep saying lobby and I think you are talking about Starcraft 2. I played WOW and I never once felt that that way because I did not exit the game to queue up LFG. I was no forced to sit there waiting for other players to join. No, I just queued LFG AND THEN WENT OUT IN THE WORLD AND DID WHATEVER THE FUCK I WANT. In fact, these "lobbies" as you keep calling them, were LESS restrictive than the old way of forming groups where you literally sit at the zoneline spamming shout and sending tells. THAT is your goddamn lobby.

Every time you say "lobby" I want to reach through the monitor and choke the life out of you. LFD is thesolutionto a lobby, not the fucking cause of it.

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Just because the lobby has a fucking town and an AH doesn't mean it's not a god damn lobby. If you're going to devolve your game down to instanced, fast port, specific zones--then why not do what D&D did and simply have a town, where you form groups and go to an instance, that IS a lobby--just because it's in 3D makes no difference, you know the old adage a rose by any other name?

The fact is, once you're done with leveling content, you can exist outside the world forever. You can grind badges from town, into instanced zones. You can grind PvP from town, into instanced PvP gear. And both those things are fine--earlier in the conversation most people said that such systems like LFD/LFBG were perfectly reasonably in a game, so people could log in and get things done.

THEN the conversation turned toward how to get people into the world. Like offering rewards for non-instanced dungeons, where you have to travel to them--the rewards could be as simple as making the gear from those dungeons non-BoE/BoP. You could also augment the experience to have it be slightly superior to grind in the community version, and with the value of "no-bind loot", plus slightly better experience (With a soft cap system), you could get people into the community versions BUT still offer the instanced version for people without the time. But everyone's had this conversation, we've laid these ground rules, accepted a bunch of stuff in WoW is fine and great, but there is no reason to develop MMO's with such a linear mindset. Instancing shouldn't have killed community dungeons and the existence of community dungeons shouldn't preclude instancing.

Moorgard moved to unannounced project? SoE buying Copernicus!

On a serious note though, I really hope EQN is going to deliver on the promises. Do not want more of the same.

Convo_sl said:

Lol if you have something to add just fucking add it.. Stop talking like a fucking chic in code.

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Linda-Brasse SOE Twitter said almost 2 weeks ago that EQNEXT wont happen launch in 2013 no fucking way.

https://twitter.com/Brasse/status/299663202378207235
Khayos?@Khayotix

@Brasse @js_resetglitch With Smed implying a 2013 launch for #EQNext there should be info on the game way b4 playing it at #SOELive.


Brasse?@Brasse

@khayotix Highly unlikely that EQN will launch in 2013. Smed said we'd have "something," but that could be one of a million facets.

i think people are overstating the effect something like youtube has on the mysterious elements of mmos. i can't imagine most guilds would be quick to divulge their secrets by posting videos. players could have just easily posted strategies on their web sites during the eq era and everyone knew who the top dogs were so that info was readily available.

ThunderCougarFalconBird_sl said:

Moorgard moved to unannounced project? SoE buying Copernicus!

On a serious note though, I really hope EQN is going to deliver on the promises. Do not want more of the same.

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he moveing to eq3 next, with Brad, Jeff Butler is Creative director of it, and SOE,Smokejumper sadly is the exec producer.

Lithose_sl said:

Yes, you did. Listen, I know your shtick is some drunk angry dwarf that comes in and tears up the nerds like Itzena on a rampage, rather than being a whimpering cunt, but you did miss the point. You came in like a blind driver pulling a retarded rickshaw, barreling into a thread that he has no fucking clue about what's going on.

Here, let me explain below. Take the rest of this shitpile post you made, like a senile old man asking why these young kids are dressed with their whipper snappers hanging out.





The reason why sandbox concepts are being discussed is because Smed said the old EQ formula was being abandoned in favor of a sandbox formula, with player created content--he gave the examples of EvE and Minecraft. Which, if you haven't figured it out yet, have elements of all content being useful all the type--IE high end sandboxes. So maybe YOU should read the parameters of the thread and stick to it?



Soft caps are HARD bro. You can have wide variety zones that are useful long into a game's life, and you can even give the players the power to transform those zones so they stay relevant with the population. (Towns ect). These systems have problems just like a linear leveling system does, but the difference is the wide ranging, soft cap style system was never really developed, by any game.

It's not difficult to have a soft cap, near endless level or skills system that has plenty of RPG trappings. The original PnP RPG's, where ALL this bullshit spawned from, were pretty much "soft caps" beyond level 12--this was an element of leveling that most MMO creators abandoned in their models because without a DM and an evolving world, it's difficult to translate. But not impossible. The fact is, it hasn't even been tried--which is why a bunch of people were excited when Smed was talking sandbox, because these elements are often in Sandbox games.

But then you tumble in here like the Kool Aid man on crack and try to shit on people for being ON topic.



Yes, there is. And the concept of progression and even new content can be within a broader MMO. They don't just nullify each other.

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I think most sandboxes end up being games where there is no funnel through the game, so in any area of the sandbox you might find stuff that is worth doing to advance you, usually it doesnt mean that all content is valuable all the time. Even in EVE that isnt true. The big feature is you are never really forced to leave your area of the game to travel across the entire world to the one and only zone that contains the big bad raid boss.

Creslin_sl said:

I think most sandboxes end up being games where there is no funnel through the game, so in any area of the sandbox you might find stuff that is worth doing to advance you, usually it doesnt mean that all content is valuable all the time. Even in EVE that isnt true. The big feature is you are never really forced to leave your area of the game to travel across the entire world to the one and only zone that contains the big bad raid boss.

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Hopefully, EQN really is the sandbox game Smed is promising. The style of game Kreugan loves so much is very old, and very tired. Most mmos are just a rehash of EQ / WoW with prettier graphics. We really need new blood and a total rethink of the genre.

Creslin_sl said:

I think most sandboxes end up being games where there is no funnel through the game, so in any area of the sandbox you might find stuff that is worth doing to advance you, usually it doesnt mean that all content is valuable all the time. Even in EVE that isnt true. The big feature is you are never really forced to leave your area of the game to travel across the entire world to the one and only zone that contains the big bad raid boss.

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All content being useful doesn't mean it's always useful to everyone. It's like you said, a majority of the content can be exploited to greater, or lesser effect by both high end and low end players. But in the end, like with ALL of these elements, defining them as "set things" is silly. There are elements of this that even WoW displays. And you can have "broad", "free ranging" elements even in a heavily progression based game.

Right now, WoW is on a really far end of this spectrum. The path to the "end" is very linear, and old content is obsoleted very quickly. There is a huge breadth of "style" between that kind of game, and say a more "Minecraft" like MMO. A game that falls somewhere between those two, where there are elements of broad content use, mixing high end and low end players, would be a great game. It doesn't have to be virtua-perfect-sandbox game 3000...It just has to lean a little more in that direction than the recent batch of linear WoW clones.

Convo last question bro, did you email Brad at work his soe email?

Cause a dont know how well ya know him and B as stated he does not have the power he had before at soe, so he still working his way back up.
Therefore there is no way he would risk telling you he got moved, let alone is working on unannounced mmo,let alone made offical aka eq3next.

The main ones offically allowed to be known on the Next project are Smokejumper Exec producer, and Jeff Butler Creative director of Next,and soe.

Brad was moved FYI to Next in Sept 2012 right after the ftp launch, it why he not been in game, posting etc

SOE work emails can be watched also and even reported if someone breaks Non disclosure as well, again Brad is working his way up again.

Lithose_sl said:

All content being useful doesn't mean it's always useful to everyone. It's like you said, a majority of the content can be exploited to greater, or lesser effect by both high end and low end players. But in the end, like with ALL of these elements, defining them as "set things" is silly. There are elements of this that even WoW displays. And you can have "broad", "free ranging" elements even in a heavily progression based game.

Right now, WoW is on a really far end of this spectrum. The path to the "end" is very linear, and old content is obsoleted very quickly. There is a huge breadth of "style" between that kind of game, and say a more "Minecraft" like MMO. A game that falls somewhere between those two, where there are elements of broad content use, mixing high end and low end players, would be a great game. It doesn't have to be virtua-perfect-sandbox game 3000...It just has to lean a little more in that direction than the recent batch of linear WoW clones.

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Ya really, I think you see this shit when you ask anyone how they got to be the best at WoW, everyone answers well I did X. Cause every single person does the same shit on their path to #1. In EVE you have have guys you said I did X or Y or Z etc etc.. there aren't infinite paths to the end but there are still prolly like 5-10 ways you got top be a badass, but imo that makes it a sandbox, you dont have to have a game that lets you do whatever you want to reach endgame but you need a game that lets you do more than just one or two things. I also like how sandboxes generally do a much better job at world building. No one in EVE or darkfall cares that it takes 3 hours to travel across the world cause you dont need to do that shit constantly to play the game like you do in WoW. So the world ends up feeling huge even tho you dont really spend much more time traveling in EVE than you do in WoW.

EQ1 in its early days was way more of a sandbox tbh, you had guys who were ballers cause they grouped, and guys who were awesome cause they raided, and guys who were #1 cause they made a fortune playing the markets or crafting.

That's all great Lithose but you don't speak for the people I was responding to, and what they were saying is nothing at all like what you claim they were saying. And apparently you haven't played a MMO in years if you think you just sit in town queuing for dungeons without missing out on a whole lot of shit. You also seem to be unaware that a game that is sort of on topic called Everquest 2 already has both community dungeons and instances. (the community dungeons are neat for their size and atmosphere but, uh, quite lacking in challenge or variety compared to the scripted encounters that you can expect in an instance - which some would argue is the most important advantage instances provide, aside from not having to deal with competing groups)

And no, I did not know Smed thinks he can make EQN a sandbox game. There's 110 pages of this shit and actual information about the game is buried fuck knows where. But now you have informed me, I admit that I don't have an imagination capable of coming up with a FUN game based on the concept of being "like Eve or Minecraft." Two games that would probably drive me to suicidal boredom within an hour - much like the thought of going back to original EQ gameplay with its ridiculous downtime and tedious time consuming travel through areas I've already run through a hundred times before. And let's not forget having more people in the dungeon than monster spawn points, which in this system would mean having to hike your ass across the world to yet another dungeon in the hopes that one isn't overcrowded. So fun bro!

And thus my interest in EQN disappears until its in a playable state and when that day comes if its something New and Great that I enjoy I will admit my shocked surprise.

Kreugen_sl said:

That's all great Lithose but you don't speak for the people I was responding to, and what they were saying is nothing at all like what you claim they were saying. And apparently you haven't played a MMO in years if you think you just sit in town queuing for dungeons without missing out on a whole lot of shit.

And no, I did not know Smed thinks he can make EQN a sandbox game. And thus my interest disappears until I can see it for myself. I don't have an imagination capable of coming up with a FUN game based on the concept of being "like Eve or Minecraft." Two games that would probably drove me to suicidal boredom within an hour.

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I kinda agree and kinda disagree. EVE was a boring game cause the combat was mind numbing, I think that is kinda separable from the elements that made it a good sandbox. Minecraft is a sandbox but too much of a sandbox to actually be translated into a real mmo. Honestly I dont think we are going to get either of those games in EQ next, it wont be as much of a sandbox as either game but that doesn't mean it won't still be much less linear than a game like WoW.

i'd like to see more artisan skills in an mmo. maybe have a player visit a mine for 30 minutes to get materials. that would keep some casual players busy

supertouch_sl said:

i'd like to see more artisan skills in an mmo. maybe have a player visit a mine for 30 minutes to get materials. that would keep some casual players busy

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So like a facebook game, sweet.

yeah totally. there's no value in gathering resources in a fucking fantasy game.

As far as I know, WoW is the only game that made the Ultimate Sin in my eyes and forced crafting onto players with the goddamn stat buffs. Fuck that. I picked my last professions based on the absolute least effort required - tailoring and enchanting - and this worked out pretty well in MOP. I made steady profits without doing any actual mat gathering beyond what I got from normal play. But before that I had shit like alchemy and wanted to shoot myself for it.

I said it a while back, that unless the game world has something to see past the first play through (In other words, unless the world is NOT a static farmyard of monstrous cattle) it requires fast travel. If the world never changes don't expect me to give two shits about walking through it a second time.

So.. what keeps things variable? PvP is certainly one option. But lots of people simple loose bowel control and lock themselves in the bathroom the moment those three letters are brought up. But what about the gankers, griefers and giraffes (I needed another g word)? All three of those things can be mitigated greatly with a shallower power curve for players. A max level character should always be in danger from any attack. Getting mauled by a bear WILL probably kill you no matter what. Player development improves your chances of coming away unscathed and being able to effectively kill the threat, but getting hit should always be a major concern.

Beyond that however... the pvp needs to be focused. Simply running around slaughtering people for no reason other than, "LAWLS" should really garner no real benefit. Instead, players, should be directing large NPC forces that can occupy a territory and present a target for opposing players to attack.

Territory control would have to be a critical element in such a game. Each territory would have strategic defensive points that must be taken in order for control to be transferred. Anyways, players would be able to worm their way up through the ranks until they were a general or commander or some such thing. These players could then command NPC forces to defend or attack various points. The opposing side would have to marshal some sort of defense or attack in response.

Players could also issue bounties for high ranking members of the opposition, kings included, or set out objectives and tasks for allied players to complete.

I wont go into much more detail, but allowing players to command friendly npc forces would give the world that dynamic variability it needs, while also not relying purely on Pvp to keep things fresh.

As for monster hunting and dungeon crawling and the handful of other activities that comprise almost all of what people do in other mmos, those could still be present. However I would make creatures a challenge to track down and by no means would they have a predictable spawn mechanism. If you want to hunt dragons, you better start learning how to track them to their lair, and then know what to do when you get there. Monster hunting would be a specialization within this game, not THE game.

Last bit, I would include a full service and support wing to the game. The martial efforts of the virtual kingdoms within the game would rely heavily on supply of goods and material. Players would need to create an infrastructure capable of supporting such ventures, and then protect it with their measly virtual lives.

I wonder if something like how dark souls did it would be at all viable. It's not an MMO, but I really like how they did armor and weapons and such. Levels really weren't terribly important other than for minimum stats to equip certain items and some extra hp/endurance, and armor wasn't really that huge of a thing aside from poise. It gave you an edge, but that edge was maybe just going down in three shots instead of two. There was still a huge variety of armor, and the weapons were all pretty distinct due to different movesets, but it didn't feel like the game revolved around getting +better stats armor. Kind of a pipe dream, I know. I'm just really tired of hotbar based combat and gear-driven gameplay.