EQ Never

supertouch_sl said:

wow reached its peak several years before blizzard implemented those systems. these are tired arguments. then again, i'm not surprised when people on this board claim swtor saw a mass exodus because of its lack of "qol" features. yeah, people hate these games because they can't form a group in 30 seconds and not because of their sterile environments and lack of endgame content.

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Actually WOW's dungeon finder allowed the game to come to it's peak during WOTLK. SWTOR saw a mass exodus because it was a shitty game, but the game might of staved off the exodus with a better LFG tool. SWTOR's problems were many.

Draegan_sl said:

See this is a different conversation to have. If you build a game with zero instancing, LFG tools can't really be automated. But with open world dungeons, you can begin creating completely different game systems that begin with Public Grouping in WAR and evolve into what GW2 does.

For example, you can show up at an open dungeon and find groups of people and join up with them. You don't need to ask to join a group, you can do what Rift does and allow you do join the Open Group. You can flag your own personal group and Public allowing people to right click on you and simply Join like you can in GW2's WVW. You can also flag it private if you have set group.

So now the solo player shows up and just begins adventuring with others. You will have to design the game like GW2 where you have personal loot and xp tables so you're not chasing to tag mobs.

There are a lot of different variations you can create depending on how cooperative you want public groups to be. In GW2 all buffs and heals hit everyone in a radius regardless of group or not.

This is the direction I would build a game if it were up to me. I'd probably get rid of instancing and move towards dynamic and scaling encounters and hotspots with the freedom of public and private groups.

Then I would add GW2's level scaling system on top of it.

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Pretty much. And if you add a mega-server to the mix then the need for cross server tools becomes moot.

Imo it isn't lfg tools that killed community, it was the instanced dungeons that isolates everyone from the open world. Instancing then forced the creation of WoW type lfg tools to be invented.

Convo_sl said:

I think open world dungeons should develop public type quests as the game ages. Typically grouping isn't an issue early on but as time goes on there needs to be ways to being players back to the lower dungeons. I think little twists like that will make the big open world dungeons worth the dev time. I guess sort of like the fabled stuff.

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Open World dungeons with static respawns limit the MMO environment and really do not hold much interest for me. They're great for single player games, but I really hope the days of running dungeons more than once or twice and killing the same mobs over and over are done.

This is where I think dynamic, player driven content will really shine someday. The games content will be based around their average player level, which should be applicable to most of your population and scalable.

If I were you, I'd pay very close attention to what GW2 will be doing in the next 6 months. I know they didn't develop open world dungeons, but they did develop a pretty good open world PVE experience. The have all the public grouping systems in place as well as the de-leveling system that doesn't allow high end players to trivialize old content and still make it fun to play. However they never put in a good hook for high level players to do old content.

They have stated that they will be attempting to build that hook. If it's successful, it may be a model for future game development.

Draegan_sl said:

LFG are hardly used? Really? They are some of the most heralded and popular tools ever introduced into the modern MMO market.

You're also ignoring reality when it comes to leveling dungeons. Assume they are the best things since sliced bread and you love doing them. You put together a group minus a healer or a tank or whatever key role you need. What do you do? There is no InsertRoleHere in game in your level range. What do you do? Keep soloing? Sit in a town and shout? What happens when the other players you found get bored and log off or wander off?

Shit happens all the time. Do you shrug and say, "Maybe not tonight!". I guess that's fine if you don't mind sacrificing not doing content for the sake of your love of searching out people from a who-list.

I'd much rather cross server LFG, do a cool dungeon, and then log off to go to bed.

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Probably a poor choice of words on my part. They may be touted in terms of concept but I don't think any of them have been above reproach. While I agree with the other post regarding the expectation, that may be so, though, again I still believe that players would consider it a make or break feature. I think that it can be distracting to a game as well. I don't know how many people I have heard and discussed this feature in both WoW and EQII (if you include the other LFwhatever in the argument) negatively. Why let another frivolous feature take away from the game? This is really a pointless debate though... Features are only as beneficial to the game as they are quality. If a LFG tool is implemented well, then people will use it and avoid garnering any negative viewpoints. If done poorly, it will impact the game in a negative way. Grouping is part of progressing and damaging that aspect of the game can become detrimental.

I think its counter intuitive to the genre though. I can log in, standing the middle of the city I camped it, click a button/menu, and be instantly transported to a dungeons miles and miles away and group people like a blind date and one night stand. Tell me how, in anyway, that supports the ideas of a MMO/Adventure/Roleplaying game? You might as well take us back in time to Diablo 1 where we all hung out in chat and jumped in random games.

I know this is a forum, but no one fucking agrees on a Dungeon Finder Tool. Its not an LFG tool, because the two are different things. Everyone has their own opinion on a Dungeon Finder Tool and both sides have valid arguments on why the next big mmo should or should not have one. Drop it, already.

You are a little late to the party, since the discussion has pretty much played itself out.

I didn't expect my offhand comment about them to derail into such an long winded discussion. But it has been a worthwhile debate. LFG tools and their existence go to the heart of what people expect and want from their mmo experience. Open world, instancing, community, group vs solo content, etc, are all part of the design decision process that determine how important LFG tools are to the game. And what form (if any) they take.

So in hindsight it isn't surprising the debate went on as long as it did.

As a wizard in my early days in EQ I couldn't find a group to save my life. I solo'd most of my first 50 levels(obviously an exaggeration, but you get the point) until I got into KC. Once I joined a raiding guild, it was never a problem again. I couldn't even log in before getting multiple invites. Creating a huge friends list is key to finding a group, however even as a purist ol' school EQ'er, I am definitely in agreement that a LFG tool is key to the game. All it does it make a tedious process simplified.

That might of been your first post on Rerolled where you don't try to shit on someone. Grats.

Draegan_sl said:

Actually WOW's dungeon finder allowed the game to come to it's peak during WOTLK.

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I'm not sure that the LFG tool allowed the game to come into it's peak during WoTLK. I think the raiding game becoming even more widely accessible than it had been previously combined with some really good raid content in early Wrath probably drove that more than anything. The introduction of the game's first new class helped that as well, although it really worked to help increase the number of tanks available for pick up groups, which was one of the motivations for finally adding a legitimate LFG tool in the first place and bidding sayonara to the retard rocks (we so easily forget about that first, feeble attempt at an LFG tool). The LFG tool helped sustain what Wrath had already accomplished, more than actually building that success itself.

I've been wondering what Smed meant when he said EQNext will be "the largest sandbox-style MMO ever designed". I just can't wrap my head around that.

In many ways EQ1 was a sandbox if you ignored the quests (like most players did). You went out and explored, found places to level, found groups, friends and eventually a guild. Raided boss mobs for loot, and pretty much determined your own path in the world within significant restraints. But I don't think Smed meant a copy of what we had before.

So what makes a PvE mmo a sandbox? Will EQNext be a sandbox, or is Smed just blowing smoke up our bums.

Eh, I wouldn't call EQ1 a sandbox in most respects. It had defined classes (no maleability, no "you can do whatever you want aspect) as well as skills/spells that were specific to those classes. There was 100% a real progression of content and dungeons from first level onward, with major bottleneck congestion appearing at certain intervals. Yeah you could theoretically go anywhere shit was able to be killed and kill it for xp, but if you wanted good xp/loot (the point of the game regarding progression) then you went to specific places. In WoW, for example, you could do precisely the same thing minus killing guards. It really was the same experience as early WoW except it was less sandboxy in the class design area. You couldn't "respec" in EQ, you were stuck with whatever class you chose. In WoW, a warrior could be a tank or usele...er, dps, while warriors in EQ up through Luclin at least weren't exactly DPS machines.

My assumption with the term sandbox is that you are capable of doing whatever even if it doesn't work or is inefficient. Ie, you make the game, the game doesn't force you to do anything. Technically, no game forces you to do quests/go to hubs/go to KC/whatever. It's usually an extremely lopsided choice in efficiency and reward vs. substantially less in most cases. Thus, the logical choice is to follow the path of best results, which typically was Befallen/Paw/Lguk/SolB/KC/Sebilis etc etc. The progression really was almost identical to WoW, you just didn't have the path so clearly laid out. And their typically wasn't options for the most part between areas when it came to quality of drops and rate of xp for progression unless you -really- consider Sol B's drops on par with Lguk's.

I'm all for removing question marks above npc heads and making maps more like a map (which didn't matter that much in EQ anyway because there were well done map packs within days of it being implemented if I remember correctly and most players DL'd those at the first chance) where you can draw your own but the game doesn't do it explicitly for you. I'm also for more class diversity but with the ability to mix and match a bit more instead of just being "You are an SK, you get these abilities at these levels and these spells at these other levels. Revel in your uniqueness."

Less directions could be good, but areas should still flow into one another sensibly when it comes to content difficulty and flavor. But yeah, as to what precisely a "sandbox" is will depend on the person telling you the definition. To some people, sandbox means they can grief freely and some mythical societal pariah status is all that keeps them from going postal at a moment's notice. The ability to deny people content or destroy other people's things or kill them at the click of a button makes the game a sandbox to some. Some people assume it means Minecraft with classes. Others (myself) equate that, in PVE terms, to being able to enjoy content at your own pace and without restriction in most cases with ingame systems to support progression in a variety of areas so that being a farmer is just as possible as being a dragon slaying knight of evil. Having quests doesn't negate a sandbox.

Of course, the one thing I believe most people agree on is that a sandbox game doesn't have multiple hard factions. Everything is soft. And by hard, I mean you cannot change it no matter what you do short of out of game services such as faction transfers et al.

Game is looking pretty good ... hope it doesn't take too long to make.

I agree sandbox is a weird term, it's certainly been used both legitimately on some completely non-mmo type games, and illegitimately on mmos that didn't deserve it. I think eq1 was almost an accidental sandbox, because the focus was on player-mob interaction, such as combat and spell mechanics, agro ranges, factions, other classic MUD style strict rules, and the rest was up to the players. The dev's dicks didn't shrivel up over people complaining about balance or fairness or whatever (albeit because there was no mainstream population and the finantial gamble was tiny), but guess what? It fucking worked.

The virtual world setting that started with the classics were by nerds for nerds has been slowly eroded with things like non attackable npcs, safe zones, instances, LFD etc all strayed from the sandbox idea of "here's a world and tools we made, go do shit" to "here's an easy to jump-into version of those cool worlds" (cause we want more players/money). This has all been said before.

What I'm hoping smed means is that the old school "idea" of a dangerous world (if you will) has been combined with current graphics and tech that makes it feel bone crunching and beautiful in a way that hasn't bonded nerds together since the early 2000s.

What I'm expecting is a big pile of shit that lives up to none of the hype because the genre's been assfucked by profit ratios. The "next big thing" may never happen again.. but if it does im betting on an indie dev that has some super brilliant coder and somehow manages to get enough kickstart money or whatever to get his dream going.

Zeus_sl said:

As a wizard in my early days in EQ I couldn't find a group to save my life. I solo'd most of my first 50 levels(obviously an exaggeration, but you get the point) until I got into KC. Once I joined a raiding guild, it was never a problem again. I couldn't even log in before getting multiple invites. Creating a huge friends list is key to finding a group, however even as a purist ol' school EQ'er, I am definitely in agreement that a LFG tool is key to the game. All it does it make a tedious process simplified.

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i played a wiz from day 1 as well. it was hard for wizards to get groups initially because our spell damage was weak compared to our med time (if you unleashed on 1 or 2 mobs, you spent the next 5+ minutes medding in a corner). a spell like ice comet took forever to cast, was resisted too many times and took way too much mana to cast. things got much better for us when ROK was released and we got spells that had faster cast times, did better damage, and we also got evac (at level 56 i think? can't remember) which made us more desirable for groups. other classes also received upgrades with the first expansion which helped with getting groups. i think if they go with the classes like in original EQ (which i hope they do) i just hope we get better spells/abilities in the earlier levels so the supporting classes aren't as gimped early on.

Smed mentioned in passing PVP being a part of EQN in one of the previous fan fairs, I think it was the one before last. I am sure there will be at least PvP servers, it would beveryinteresting if there were not strict PvE servers, the potential weeping from the fanbase I think is enough to deter them from making it a PvP based game.