Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

Grave said:

WoW has done it best so far, I would say.

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Depends on what you"re talking about. For simplicity purposes, EQ"s original and WoW"s original item systems have been the easiest to understand so far. Both of them have failed the Weapon Speed portion of itemization fairly horribly, but otherwise were fairly easy to understand as far as item power went (30 sta versus 20 sta, WHICH ONE IS BETTER). WoW"s system has the added bonus of having actual thought put into it via item level formulas, even if the actual item designers have been mostly incompetent retards (save for tier 3 and post-BC-ilvl revamp (mostly)).

WoW"s current ratings system is pretty ass fuckin backwards in every way you can possibly imagine, and EQ"s heroic stats and effects are so fucked up it takes twenty damn minutes to figure out what"s an upgrade and what isn"t. I"m not sure I"d throw my vote in for either as far as "easy to understand" goes. If given a choice to be punched or kicked in the balls, I"d rather take neither. I think game designers should remember that. Don"t punch us in the goddamn balls just because it"s softer than a kick.

Zehn - Vhex said:

No it isn"t, but it"s a massive appeal to a lot of players. Hiding the numbers should be a personal choice. All not knowing the amount of mana I had in EQ meant was that I spent a few hours running tests to determine how much mana I had.

Eventually players are going to crunch the numbers and know the theory better then even your own designers might. Immersion is great and all, but if I don"t know if an item is an upgrade or not because some dev somewhere got this hippy vibe about how everybody should hold hands and love one another...well...fuck immersion then.

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Just use the fabulous Sense Magic spell on that item!! .... oh wait, that spell never worked anyway...

Lalala said:

Just use the fabulous Sense Magic spell on that item!! .... oh wait, that spell never worked anyway...

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The correct spell was Identify! Used to love my clicky identify mask from Kael trying to keep the damn VT key parts straight.

Ngruk said:

Right. Numbers need to be available if you want them, to some degree, but not in the face of the players that don"t.

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Precisely, and WoW does this perfectly. The default UI has everything the average player needs. However if you want to go seriously in depth, there are a ridiculous number of mods out there for number crunching. SWStats, Recount, Grim Reaper, Omen, and I"m sure there"s a bunch of others that I don"t (currently) use.

Fadaar said:

Precisely, andWoW does this perfectly. The default UI has everything the average player needs. However if you want to go seriously in depth, there are a ridiculous number of mods out there for number crunching. SWStats, Recount, Grim Reaper, Omen, and I"m sure there"s a bunch of others that I don"t (currently) use.

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Thats not WoW making those mods you are giving them credit for, that is the players.

You"re missing my point. WoW has all this information available in the background already, it"s the players who dictate what they do and do not see via the use of mods.

Fadaar said:

You"re missing my point. WoW has all this information available in the background already, it"s the players who dictate what they do and do not see via the use of mods.

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I don"t see having to download player made mods to get good information as optimal at all.

I remember reading so damn many damn posts of poeple who got their account stolen because of addons. I really don"t want to have to rely on the programming of your average joe who can include anything he wants in there for mods.

Most of the stuff the mods do, should be in game already, just turned off by default. Making people risk viruses and key loggers and such to get accurate information is not my opinion of done perfectly.

This has led to another incredibly interesting topic, the mod community. It is now an undeniable presence and very significant part to the high end raiding guilds successes and failures.

A year ago I"d never had even ONE mod on any game, I think I am around 100 or so in WoW now. I can"t fathom some of the mechanics of the raids that mods decipher, being beatable without some of the mods out there like BigWigs and Bosswhisperer.

I will offer up one gem, Wowmatrix if you for some reason don"t have it, get it. It"s by far the best thing I"ve ever done to reduce Mod headaches and manage my WoW mods.

I"d be curious to see a list of something around the top 25 features that players want in an MMORPG compared to the top 25 features 38S (or any company for that matter) feels is important to MMO players. Though for some reason I don"t think we could even come up with a top 25 list that ten people would agree on the playerbase side of things.

Hm new thread idea maybe...

I honestly prefered EQ1 UI modification. Minor tweaks to art and organization make me much less leery than mods that scream BALOGNA SANDWICH whenever your character is supposed to scootch one quarter of an inch to the right.

Games should release with a flexible GUI, so that it can be arranged to the players" liking, but I don"t know how good I feel about the extent it"s been taken to in the past in WoW (DeCursive wru~?).

Ngruk said:

This has led to another incredibly interesting topic, the mod community. It is now an undeniable presence and very significant part to the high end raiding guilds successes and failures.

A year ago I"d never had even ONE mod on any game, I think I am around 100 or so in WoW now. I can"t fathom some of the mechanics of the raids that mods decipher, being beatable without some of the mods out there like BigWigs and Bosswhisperer.

I will offer up one gem, Wowmatrix if you for some reason don"t have it, get it. It"s by far the best thing I"ve ever done to reduce Mod headaches and manage my WoW mods.

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This is something that I hope is... solved? That"s not the right word, but as someone who has jumped into WoW a few times but never played to any major extent, the mods are overwhelming. I think it"s detrimental to a game when a newer player hears that they need mods X, Y, Z to do this encounter and that mods A, B and C are practically necessary for leveling quickly, and so on. In addition to that, like someone mentioned above, having to rely on the honesty and altruism of random people across the net to make sure that the mod you"re using isn"t also stealing your username and PW makes it a bit like a mine field.

I"m not really sure what the solution to this is. I guess part of it would be to include a lot of the basic functionality and usability stuff in the game from the get go, obviating the need for many mods. Of course, there will always be stuff you either didn"t think of, or that players want and you don"t want to officially include in the game. In those cases, maybe something like an iTunes app store or the Firefox add-on manager would work? Allow people to submit mods to 38S which are then checked out to make sure they are clean and work as intended/advertised. This would give people a centralized, official, easy and trustworthy place to download the mods they want and not have to deal with all the downsides of modding.

Frax said:

I"d be curious to see a list of something around the top 25 features that players want in an MMORPG compared to the top 25 features 38S (or any company for that matter) feels is important to MMO players. Though for some reason I don"t think we could even come up with a top 25 list that ten people would agree on the playerbase side of things.

Hm new thread idea maybe...

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Can you limit a poll to a specific amount of choices when it"s multiple choice? Of course a poll would need several iterations just to agree on the categorization and terminology. I guess with enough participation a single choice poll would reflect the 25 most desired features.

Classes (a.k.a. Templates)
Levels
Quests
Visible Equipment
Solo Content
Vehicles (a.k.a. Mounts)
Fast Independent Travel System (griffons/boats/recall)
Group Content
Seamless Overworld
PvP Content
Crafting
Faster Dependent Travel System (summon/port)
Multi-Group Content
Housing
UI Modding
Cross-Server Chat

I"m having a hard time just coming up with features, but I"d like all that stuff in the order presented. I imagine there are better or more marketable terms for some of these features. Visible equipment seems like a no-brainer, and I don"t know that it has ever been excluded, but it"s important. Anyway, I"m being realistic. What I really want, EVE+WoW, seems a rough sell.

Mods I think are ultimately viable and a definite plus to the game. A lot of the WoW UI was fleshed out thanks very much in part to players creating mods to compensate for the worst parts of the game.

Adding extra functionality is very much important. Remember that big board of things that have dollar costs associated with it? Think of how much time and effort Blizzard has -not- had to put into WoW thanks to players being willing to do it for them.

Not only do it for them, but more often then not, do it -better-. The default WoW raid and general interface is terrible when you see what modders have to offer.

And it"s not just limited to cosmetic changes. It took Blizzard almost what, 3 years to implement being able to send more then one item at a time? I have a mod that automatically destroys all trash drops in my inventory based on various criteria (thanks Torrid!). Tomtom/Litestep and whatnot some people feel spoils WoW because now with a click of a button you can get detailed information on strats and locations for all quests. Personally I"ve found it invaluable as it saves me from having to alt-tab out of the game to get this information. Pally-power has made the absolutely terrible Blizzard buffing system almost bearable.

Modding is -crucial- to game design now. You can"t create a shitty UI and expect players to fix it up for you but you have to have to have the tools in place to let players should you how it should be done because I guarantee you"ll fuck something up.

Lonin said:

This is something that I hope is... solved? That"s not the right word, but as someone who has jumped into WoW a few times but never played to any major extent, the mods are overwhelming. I think it"s detrimental to a game when a newer player hears that they need mods X, Y, Z to do this encounter and that mods A, B and C are practically necessary for leveling quickly, and so on.

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This. I love what various WoW mods do, but I hate having to manage and administrate them. At first it was overwhelming, and I avoided mods like the plague. Later on I started adding some leveling mods. Still, I hate having to research mods and keep up to date on what the best/newest mods are. And come patch time, it"s always fun seeing which mods fail gracefully.

The difference between playing with mods and playing without mods is too drastic. A lot of the mod functionality should just be slipstreamed into the regular client, especially if they"re going to be tuning encounters assuming the presence of mods.

Zehn - Vhex said:

I have a mod that automatically destroys all trash drops in my inventory based on various criteria (thanks Torrid!).

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This one,Auto Destroy?

Stuff that imho should be mandatory in a next gen fantasy MMOG UI:

- Mana Conserve and Decursive functionality

- Synced Meters for Damage/Healing/Tanking/etc. I never understood why these aren"t included in MMOG UI"s. I"m sure developers have their own to do parsing for balance? Why can"t they just include these meters with the client?

- Threat meter. If you don"t build it someone else will. Is there any guild doesn"t use these now?

- Defensive and Offensive target. Your damage/debuff spells automatically hit the Offensive Target and healing/buff spells automatically hit the Defensive Target (no need to click back and forth between them).

- Maybe even a third designated "Watch Target" that some WoW UI mods give. So for example, while you are DPS-ing 1 target you can keep an eye on the watch target and do a quick interrupt like counter-spell.

- Target marking the entire raid or group can see

- Target of target

- Tank/Assist windows - basically just a way to designate special people in the raid for assists, CC, etc..

- Also, as for buffs, 1 click should buff your party/raid. There should be no buff timers. Buffs should last until the person buffed dies, or the buffer leaves the group/raid. And to head off the "omg buffbots ruined DAOC" argument it doesn"t apply if the game has offensive dispelling. How long do your buffs last in WoW Arena/BGs?

- While we are at it, not really a UI issue, but DAOC spread heals please.

double post.

I agree on everything except Decursive (if you can have a defensive target it"s not asking much for people to switch defensive targets and decurse) and the dmg/threat meters.

I"ve never liked damage meters in WoW, they make people act retarded. Let people parse if they want, and maybe even have a graphical UI people can pull up to see their OWN dps, but the meters are just ridiculous. People should be focused on the raid and getting things done as a group, not trying to be mr. number one epeen.

Threat meter I"m less annoyed by, but I do feel it removes some challenge.

Mods are the steroids of the MMO world. They are a crutch and amount literally to cheating. What if batters had computers that analyzed how fast a ball was coming at them? Would that be fair? Of course not. The sad thing is that the Blizzard testers all use mods and expect *you* to the player to use them too.

Boss encounters should be designed and scripted with the intention that no mods will be used.Period. Allowing them to be used to make content easier and more intelligible to the average player is an admission that your encounters are flawed and too complex in the first place.

Back in the original EQ we didn"t need mods to defeat Vox and Naggy. Mods are just a way to mitigate poor encounter design and flawed testing methodology. This is one area that Blizzard gets an F minus.

Blizzard should ban all mods that give players an advantage in combat. It"s called having a level playing field. The role of a gaming company is to provide a level playing field for their players/customers. Allowing the use of mods to deconstruct their encounters goes against the notion of fair play despite how widespread they are used and the resulting addiction to them by the current raiding demographic in WoW.

Hopefully the brain trust at38 Studioswill show some character and not allow "peformance enchancing" mods to destroy the integrity of their MMO.

Old Man Potter said:

Back in the original EQ we didn"t need mods to defeat Vox and Naggy.

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Aaaaaaaaandddd we LIKED IT! We LOVED IT!!!!