popsicledeath
Potato del Grande
- 7,537
- 11,789
Maaaan, you don't know jazz. Do you even Miles Davis?!
I think you just accidentally Miles Davis and a coke bottle.
EQ Never
- Thread starter Convo
- Start date
I think you just accidentally Miles Davis and a coke bottle.
popsicledeath
Potato del Grande
- 7,537
- 11,789
Burren
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
- 4,110
- 5,422
Shiiiiiit. Talk about angry, basement-dwelling neck-bearding Nerd rage machine because-virgin/nothing to live for. Talk some deep breaths Bro.
Zehnpai
Molten Core Raider
- 399
- 1,245
Current? That was their core demographic in 1999 too. I guess toss in stoned college kids as well. Shit, there was a guild on our server that was nothing -but- housewives. I think their guild application required you to write a lusty romance novel.
WoW post TBC was designed just for fucking housewives. Somewhere they forgot the aspies.
What? It's so funny that just because they let the lowest common denominator devolve to that point that somehow the hardest content MMOs have ever really had is equated to housewives.
Nobody gives a shit about different 'modes' for different shades of the same armor. You've seen the content already.
Kreugen
Vyemm Raider
- 6,599
- 793
In Dumar's world, because he doesn't care about something, it means nobody does.
Meanwhile top WoW guilds get paid to play WoW. Most of which wiped between 350 and 500 times on the final bosses of each tier.
Not that I'm a fan of putting difficulty switches into MMOs.
Meanwhile top WoW guilds get paid to play WoW. Most of which wiped between 350 and 500 times on the final bosses of each tier.
Not that I'm a fan of putting difficulty switches into MMOs.
Games were more fun when there was one difficulty. I am not really even sure why WoW added heroic modes to raids.
Abefroman
Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
- 12,588
- 11,904
They did something to challenge the most skilled gamers and guilds. Did they go too far with 500 different versions? IMO yes. That doesn't change the fact that WoW has the hardest raids of any game period. The already seen the content argument is for those who really can't hack the harder raids. They still think EQ was hard.
Apostolos
Golden Knight of the Realm
- 433
- 220
I dunno.. I think EQ had at least one difficult raid, and that was Uqua. Granted, that was before the level increase that was intended it for was implemented but at the time it was pretty harsh (for however long it lasted). That was a killer for a lot of guilds. As far as Next goes though, it looks to me like they are going way too far along the 'kid gloves' route. I hope I am wrong, but I doubt it. It is going to be 8+ months before we see anything even remotely like the information we want though, so there is not a lot of reason to theorycraft or get our panties in a twist really.
Was it not the other way around, they made normal more accessible to casual players (so they could see the designed content/storyline) and added heroic to migrate the old "normal" mode for those that wanted a challenge?
EQ raiding "difficulty" was not the content itself, it was what was required to get to see it. How many guilds oneshotted encounters once they actually got to try it? Managing a 30-70 (depending of era) guild and getting to the available raid target first (in force) was the challenge (sometimes the pull was tricky, or the fight was dangerous enough so that you could still fail it).
The major difference is EQ raids were hard because your raid/guild leader had to recruit the correct mix of classes so you didnt have too many of the shit classes and then make sure you geared everyone up from content that could have very low drop rates. The actual killing of mobs for most of the raid was standing there and clicking a few buttons every 5-10 seconds, not exactly hard in the sense that a modern wow raid is hard.
WoW heroic mode now is definitely harder than normal mode ever was I think, normal mode now may be slightly easier than most of the old normals were but most of those old raids were pretty easy as long as you had the gear for them. The mechanics of the raids from like bwl, aq40, and even some of the TBC raids, were really easy. Couple that with the fact that the rotations on most classes back then were far simpler and harder to mess up.
WoW heroic mode now is definitely harder than normal mode ever was I think, normal mode now may be slightly easier than most of the old normals were but most of those old raids were pretty easy as long as you had the gear for them. The mechanics of the raids from like bwl, aq40, and even some of the TBC raids, were really easy. Couple that with the fact that the rotations on most classes back then were far simpler and harder to mess up.
Raiding. Raiding never changes.
One of the Siege of Orgrimmar hotfixes for LFR basically read as "Took jolly, candy-like button away from mouthbreathers"
The only reason to put difficulty switches into a MMO is to expand content beyond it's design limits. It's a theme-park game cop-out, but there are so many of these built into MMOs that most people don't even realize it. You have normal and elite modes, but you also have bosses that drop a variety of loot, but only some of the time. Rare drops, very rare drops and so on. That too is a cop out, but it's one that MMO players have accepted from the beginning. Some MMOs have scaling group sizes now, so you can run a quest/mission solo, grouped or multi-group, on normal, advanced or elite mode. Devs can't put out unique content fast enough, so everything becomes repeatable by design. Instancing allows everybody to get it their way, and I'm fine with that, for theme-park mmos. There's really no choice, unless the devs put out loads of generic content with tons of reused assets, which is basically what EQ has turned into over the years. They add new systems to the game with each expansion, but the content and story is pretty bland.
To extend content for non-casual players. WoW put out an expansion like every 2 years? And yeah, those expansions were broken up into separate releases just to slow players down. When you only release a small amount of new [Group, Raid] content every 3-4 months, you gotta keep players playing that shit until the next release date. Think about how long the average non-casual player would play a theme-park MMO if the content was allsingle-use, as in you play it once, getting all the unique loot the first time you complete it. You'd hit a wall days/weeks after a release instead of months later. That's what dynamic questing (aka StoryBricks) issupposedto fix.
StoryBricks uses the whole needs/wants system for NPCs so that their behaviors create content for players. It'll probably be fairly generic story-wise, but it has the potential for some really interesting behaviors. Things like the whole grimling/owlbear/sonic wolf war going on in Hollowshade Moor could happen all over the world.
The thing I'm interested in is whether or not the EQNext devs are going to release really powerful npcs into the world and let them decide where they want to set up camp. Like Mayong Mistmoore. In EQ he had a castle, but wasn't there. He had goings on in Kunark and Velious, but we only saw his agents. With StoryBricks, if it's powerful enough, they could create Mayong Mistmoore and let him hang out where his interests are, very rarely wandering from place to place taking out anybody who stumbles onto him. That gives "wandering mob" a whole new definition. And if NPCs have the ability to create items from resources found in the world, that could be really interesting. Mayong needs some dragon blood for a temper to make new armor, so he heads to Velious to slay a couple dragons. If a group of powerful players are able to defeat him, he retreats to the Tower of Frozen Shadow to recuperate, and the tower requires a raid force. If he gets the dragon blood and is able to return to his castle, he'll now have the temper & armor recipe in his loot table (if he's defeated by a raid force there). Maybe each time Mayong gets defeated and loses his loot he has to replace it himself, prompting his travels to collect shit to make new items for him to lose to players in raids. Lesser items, like metal and leather and whatnot might be collected by his minions, so tracking down dracnids and vampires might yield clues as to where to find Mayong at any particular time.
Fuck, they need to release some info on StoryBricks, because that is what is going to make or break this game.
Big_w_powah
Trakanon Raider
- 1,887
- 750
Okay, I didn't see the first drafts of the storybricks interview I put out on EQNext Junkies. However, I can say it went through at least 1 pass from Georgeson and 1 pass from the marketing team. Both of whom I can only assume removed tons of info....
Take that how you will.
Dr Neir
Trakanon Raider
- 832
- 1,505
WoW made me start to hate raiding in games. It was just never fun to me. Specially when the whole token collection hit, running dungeons at warp speed! I will admit that the EQ 4 hour corpse collections wasnt very fun either but there seems to be some sense of wanting to help other members in the guilds I ran with. As a collective with a ton of players, I felt more connected to more members than just looking at them as a ladder to my next token collection item!
I am not saying that EQ was all that and a bag of Happiness but it was more preferred than the DDR of WoW raiding!
What it felt out for everyone on a WoW raid but the Healers!
WoW raiding for the Healers!
EQ raiding at times!
I am not saying that EQ was all that and a bag of Happiness but it was more preferred than the DDR of WoW raiding!
What it felt out for everyone on a WoW raid but the Healers!
WoW raiding for the Healers!
EQ raiding at times!