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It would be so easy to make a good dynamic world with PVE. The issue is that games so far have been too interested in taking the tried and true method of quest grinds, they never tried other options.
But there is an indie MMO I played year ago which was made by about 3 people. There was a zone which had a kind of war going on between a legion of undead and a legion of something else (goblins I think). It was literally 100 mobs vs another 100 mobs, just fighting like something out of that 300 movie. The player could get involved and pick a side and had to join the fight and be careful not to get steamrolled by stuff. Besides winning the fight there wasn't much else to it. But in a bigger game with bigger budget, they could have dozens of these battles happening all over the land. And when one side wins, they capture a location - like the invasions in Rift often do when they aren't stopped. But don't stop at them capturing some crappy little altar, they capture entire cities.
Give these factions and it could mean that players end up with very random experiences. Say an evil legion captures Highkeep, and you happen to be an evil Necro who has killed enemies of their allies in the past, you might be let in to the zone and might get to kill the human soldiers who keep attacking and trying to take back the keep (and occasional orc attack squads). You also get to go in the keep and buy things from in there, perhaps some spells that aren't available anywhere else in the world. You also would get to hunt in the dungeon under the keep, and maybe there are rare crafting resources in there.
Another player who is a aligned with a different faction, gets attacked by the evil legion as soon as they enter highpass. But if that player is clever, and attacks WITH the next wave of human soldiers, they might have a chance of breaking through and recapturing the keep. At which point, they have access to the highpass merchants and the dungeon beneath it.
Players could compete not by attacking each other directly, but by aiding the legions of mobs that fight each other. Personally I think they will have PVP in some way, but even without it you could have a system like this.
Then imagine that it works like this at almost every city, town, village, outpost, hub and dungeon in the game. To reach Cazic Thule you might have to fight through swarms of religious lizard zealots who are protecting the sacred Cazic. It could take a while just to reach the entrance. But people who are friendly with the lizzies are allowed inside and allowed to hunt in there, as long as they only attack a certain faction of lizardman in there.
In other words, all towns and hunting grounds could be based on factions and players constantly have to battle to get a favorable situation for themselves. Having Freeport as your home base once start adventuring in North Ro, Oasis and the Commons, is not a given. It might have been captured by a rebel Dark Elf faction from Neriak who will kill you on sight. If you want to be able to buy and sell there, use the bank, and maybe pick up a few quests, players are going to have to get together and raid Freeport. Lower level ones might hit the docks and the city wall and fight with the guard recruits. High level players might have to get all the way in to North Freeport and take on the leadership who are hunkered down in the keep. There could be siege tools both automated and player used, and the swarms of besieging mobs could have good AI where they split in to squads and head to different locations and follow the orders of their leaders. There could be all kinds of fun stuff, and it could be made with the time they saved not making a dumb hand holding 1 billion fedex quests.
Rift could have worked like this, it did to a tiny extent. But they were more interested in providing 10,000 chore quests to lead the idiot players by the nose through the game. All we need is bunch of devs who are confident enough to try going at this full hog and making a different type of game. It could also be made to appeal to any type of gamer. It could be totally neckbeardy where one wrong move and you get insta ganked while trying to attack or defend a town. Or it could be made to steal all the WoW players by having it involve zero skill or organization and just have it look visually appealing so people tell their buddies, DOOD IT HAZ SEEGES AND EVERYTHING! Or maybe, somewhere in between.
But there is an indie MMO I played year ago which was made by about 3 people. There was a zone which had a kind of war going on between a legion of undead and a legion of something else (goblins I think). It was literally 100 mobs vs another 100 mobs, just fighting like something out of that 300 movie. The player could get involved and pick a side and had to join the fight and be careful not to get steamrolled by stuff. Besides winning the fight there wasn't much else to it. But in a bigger game with bigger budget, they could have dozens of these battles happening all over the land. And when one side wins, they capture a location - like the invasions in Rift often do when they aren't stopped. But don't stop at them capturing some crappy little altar, they capture entire cities.
Give these factions and it could mean that players end up with very random experiences. Say an evil legion captures Highkeep, and you happen to be an evil Necro who has killed enemies of their allies in the past, you might be let in to the zone and might get to kill the human soldiers who keep attacking and trying to take back the keep (and occasional orc attack squads). You also get to go in the keep and buy things from in there, perhaps some spells that aren't available anywhere else in the world. You also would get to hunt in the dungeon under the keep, and maybe there are rare crafting resources in there.
Another player who is a aligned with a different faction, gets attacked by the evil legion as soon as they enter highpass. But if that player is clever, and attacks WITH the next wave of human soldiers, they might have a chance of breaking through and recapturing the keep. At which point, they have access to the highpass merchants and the dungeon beneath it.
Players could compete not by attacking each other directly, but by aiding the legions of mobs that fight each other. Personally I think they will have PVP in some way, but even without it you could have a system like this.
Then imagine that it works like this at almost every city, town, village, outpost, hub and dungeon in the game. To reach Cazic Thule you might have to fight through swarms of religious lizard zealots who are protecting the sacred Cazic. It could take a while just to reach the entrance. But people who are friendly with the lizzies are allowed inside and allowed to hunt in there, as long as they only attack a certain faction of lizardman in there.
In other words, all towns and hunting grounds could be based on factions and players constantly have to battle to get a favorable situation for themselves. Having Freeport as your home base once start adventuring in North Ro, Oasis and the Commons, is not a given. It might have been captured by a rebel Dark Elf faction from Neriak who will kill you on sight. If you want to be able to buy and sell there, use the bank, and maybe pick up a few quests, players are going to have to get together and raid Freeport. Lower level ones might hit the docks and the city wall and fight with the guard recruits. High level players might have to get all the way in to North Freeport and take on the leadership who are hunkered down in the keep. There could be siege tools both automated and player used, and the swarms of besieging mobs could have good AI where they split in to squads and head to different locations and follow the orders of their leaders. There could be all kinds of fun stuff, and it could be made with the time they saved not making a dumb hand holding 1 billion fedex quests.
Rift could have worked like this, it did to a tiny extent. But they were more interested in providing 10,000 chore quests to lead the idiot players by the nose through the game. All we need is bunch of devs who are confident enough to try going at this full hog and making a different type of game. It could also be made to appeal to any type of gamer. It could be totally neckbeardy where one wrong move and you get insta ganked while trying to attack or defend a town. Or it could be made to steal all the WoW players by having it involve zero skill or organization and just have it look visually appealing so people tell their buddies, DOOD IT HAZ SEEGES AND EVERYTHING! Or maybe, somewhere in between.
I hope you're wrong about this. The only thing worse than having instances in the game would be having player-made instances in the game. Barf.
I don't think they will do that. Player made towns, yes. Player made items, almost definitely. Dungeons, not likely, and I pray it wont happen.
Wouldn't that require a webcam or something? Seems maybe a bit strange unless it's just an optional thing. Or am I just old and nowadays everyone has a webcam?
The cameras don't need Kinect technology. Look at how SoEmote works right now; you can use it with a regular webcam.
Of course there's going to be player made dungeons. EQ2 was only the beta test for this. It's a safe bet that Next will go MUCH farther and allow players to script entire events.
The question is how are they going to deliver that content. I bet it ain't "free" and SOE will collect as a middle-man between the content creators and the content consumers.
The question is how are they going to deliver that content. I bet it ain't "free" and SOE will collect as a middle-man between the content creators and the content consumers.
BubbySoup
Golden Knight of the Realm
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You've basically described what was first done in Wintergrasp minus the pvp. Whilst it sounds like a great idea (I would like to play something like it), it would be nerfed into oblivion within weeks/months of release, especially if you introduced it for every city. Mainly because whilst pvp players are used to resources swinging one way then the other, pve players are not. If Johnny has spent 10 minutes travelling somewhere just to find he can't buy his latest spell immediately because another faction is in town, and then he has to wait about until an invasion kicks in which may or may not succeed, he's just going to whine on the official forums about how retarded it is he can't buy what he wants when he wants. He'll soon be joined by others with similar experiences and the devs will nerf it so he can buy his spells from a dubious character at the city walls should his faction not be in town at the time, essentially consigning the entire mechanic to Fluffville. We've seen it so many times before, and it makes me sad.
Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. I've never played or followed EQ2, so I just learned about the dungeon creator tonight. This is going to be a mashup of The Sims, Second Life, Kinectimals, and the Aurora toolset from Neverwinter Nights. I'm suddenly not excited about EQN.
Edit
Leaked video of the EQN team beta testing the "spellweaving" Georgeson was talking about:
Yeah but at some point little johnny needs to realize that he can go fuck himself back to one of the other 5000 hand holdy kids games that provide exactly that type of game. And SOE need to realize that to cater to that type of person, they need to compete with WoW and ArcheAge. But if they want to cater to grown ups and kids with decent brains, then they really need to make something that isn't instant gratification and stick to their guns. They did it with the original EQ, more or less, they could do it again.
It's all down to Smedley. If he really has been playing the likes of Eve and decided that a grown up MMO is the way to go, then we have a good chance.
Can you please explain to me how enjoying a certain type of game is a measure of your age and/or intelligence?
They only did it with the original EQ because they were dealing with a smaller more devoted demographic and less competition. EQ was a great game but if you released it at the same time WoW was released with updated graphics but still the same time sinks. WoW would have crushed it. I'm not really sure why people, or maybe it's just you, think that releasing an updated EQ is the answer because it isn't.
Clearly it's not the same technology and only works for facial expressions otherwise every PS4 would release with a shitty webcam and SOEmote installed on it. They wouldn't even bother making the PSeye which was originally going to ship with every PS4. And is also the reason why the PS 4 is 100 dollars cheaper.
Hell, WoW's got notHarvest Moon set in notChina, why shouldn't SOE do notFarmville in Norrath?
I could try but you probably wouldn't understand. You don't seem to understand anything. Enjoy your blissful ignorance, thinking grown ups play finding nemo and kids play arma 3.
Did you actually read anything people say? What about waves of mobs capturing towns sounds anything like EQ? Again, you have the mind of a 9 year old and are the worst poster on this whole site. Stop being so terrible.
Of course it's not as sophisticated, but it doesn't have to be. A year ago it could read movements 10 feet away from the camera, and they were continuing to improve it. As was pointed out earlier, I'm sure they were using these things in EQ2 as a beta for EQN. It doesn't actually need to be a Kinect for them to try and implement motion capture into a substantive part of the game.
BubbySoup
Golden Knight of the Realm
- 134
- 60
You make it sound like they purposely created EQ like it was - they did it because they didn't know any different or were clueless about how players would use/exploit a certain mechanic. What makes EQ different was that the bulk of the mechanics were left as they were regardless. In today's world, if a mechanic is found to be working in any way other than 100% originally intended, it's changed.
And yes, I am sure WoW would have crushed EQ in your scenario - instant gratification with the least amount of effort will always win out, but that wouldn't have made EQ a financial failure either, just not as popular.
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Really going to be hilarious when EQ Next launches as a facebook app rendering the 360+ pages of debate here moot.
Didn't expect that, did you?
But nah for real, it'll be an Eve clone with more PVE focus. As in, there will actually be PVE beyond just tedious shit (mining, mission running) new players do in Eve to make money to pvp.
Passive resources from moons er i mean mines (mithril, iron, etc) give resources for T1 crafting (banded, plate, etc) as well as combined with dungeons for reagents used in T2 crafting will be the reasons people fight for control of territory. Holding butcher/feydark area means you hold Mistmoore allowing you to farm vampire dust/fangs/blood from that dungeon which along with the t1 passive resources are needed for T2 crafting. Basically a reversal of how Eve does resource gathering. "holding" means actually controlling the territory, no realm v realm bs with "darkness Falls" type unlocks, pvpers have to actually hold that shit and kill enemy raiders to prevent them from entering the dungeon.
Didn't expect that, did you?
But nah for real, it'll be an Eve clone with more PVE focus. As in, there will actually be PVE beyond just tedious shit (mining, mission running) new players do in Eve to make money to pvp.
Passive resources from moons er i mean mines (mithril, iron, etc) give resources for T1 crafting (banded, plate, etc) as well as combined with dungeons for reagents used in T2 crafting will be the reasons people fight for control of territory. Holding butcher/feydark area means you hold Mistmoore allowing you to farm vampire dust/fangs/blood from that dungeon which along with the t1 passive resources are needed for T2 crafting. Basically a reversal of how Eve does resource gathering. "holding" means actually controlling the territory, no realm v realm bs with "darkness Falls" type unlocks, pvpers have to actually hold that shit and kill enemy raiders to prevent them from entering the dungeon.