Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

I"ve thought of it myself, Grave, and I think it"s the next step.

I had assumed that the Phasing Quest MOBs idea was what the "Golden" npcs in Vanguard were supposed to be all along. Only phasing in once someone who had picked up that Named"s quest showed up.

Grave said:

I want to see a game where the level of a creature is actually meaningful, as it is in Dungeons and Dragons.
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To me, your average human NPC who sells flowers in the city should be level 0, the baseline. Animals, no higher than level 10 for the most badass bear or lion or whatever. It should follow some kind of logic. At level 80, a player should be considered the type of mortal who could ascend to godhood or something.

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And then, the next expansion raises you to 90, so you"re a bigger god. And the 4th expansion to 100, so you"re an ?ber god.

The problem here is AD&D thinking. Levels as an absolute scale. Whereas WoW has repeatedly said that levels were an indication of "when" your character is, and mobs display a level relative to your chronological progression.

You definitely do not want to start on the D&D Immortals progression slope. No sir.

Ukerric said:

And then, the next expansion raises you to 90, so you"re a bigger god. And the 4th expansion to 100, so you"re an ?ber god.

The problem here is AD&D thinking. Levels as an absolute scale. Whereas WoW has repeatedly said that levels were an indication of "when" your character is, and mobs display a level relative to your chronological progression.

You definitely do not want to start on the D&D Immortals progression slope. No sir.

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As stated in my WoW thread, I"m not necessarily a fan of raising the level cap every expansion, so in this theoretical game it wouldn"t be such a problem.

EQ1 cap is what, 85 after 10 years? I think that"s acceptable. Start low, level 40 or 50 cap at release, and slowly raise it as the years pass. Expansions don"t have to raise the cap every time. This way it"s a long time before players are at that near-god level of strength, and even once they are it"s still possible to create compelling scenarios for them to play through, they"d just become grander and more epic in scope.

Also, I realize WoW never intended for levels to mean anything specifically. That"s fine. However, as a personal preference, I think it"s a little silly that so many quests even in WotLK involve killing bears, wolves, and so on.

In fact, I would be willing to bet that if there were some way to calculate each creature type in the game and run a sort of census on the population of each, that some animal type would probably be the most used creature in the entire game. I mean think about how many zones are full of bears, boars, wolves or spiders. It"s a fantasy world, be a little more creative!

What I want to see for phasing is the Instance "Zone-ins" as we know them in WoW to disappear and just provide a seamless entrance into a dungeon for a group.

Believe said:

What I want to see for phasing is the Instance "Zone-ins" as we know them in WoW to disappear and just provide a seamless entrance into a dungeon for a group.

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That would be really cool too. As subtle as it is, I think it would add a lot to the feel of the game.

Makes me think of that hole beneath Icecrown Citadel you can go down into that eventually leads to a part of the Old Kingdom. How sweet would it be if that was just a seamless entry into another wing of the dungeon?

Lawls at the no animals thing--Animals should be an important part of the game IMHO. No, they shouldn"t be quest objects at 80+, but bears/wolves should be part of the game.

Shit, there should be classes based around animals, motherfucker. Beastlords/Shape Shifter Classes/Hunters=the fucking pwn


Then again, I"m a sucker for the ability to have a companion animal..

Grave said:

What do you guys think about the potential of Blizzard"s "Phasing" mechanic as a way to answer some of the issues with non-instanced content?

I"m always arguing in favor of a game that has both instanced and non-instanced dungeons, and I was thinking phasing could be an interesting mechanic in regards to making non-instanced stuff work.

Quest-specific mobs could be phased out to people not on that quest. If you"re running around the dungeon and see someone fighting them, you"ll know they"re on your quest and you might form a group. Other players wouldn"t be in your way because they don"t even see those mobs.

Nameds could spawn and only be visible to certain groups within the zone, then when they are killed the group receives a hidden flag that ensures the same named wont be phased in to them for a certain amount of time, giving other groups a shot at it. This would keep people from just camping a spot and encourage them to move around and find other named or get into other adventures.

It would give you something similar to that old school dungeon competition but would inspire less animosity towards fellow players because the opportunity for griefing is much lower.

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Excellent example, and something McQuaid and Co. worked toward in Vanguard by having links to quest mobs that would spawn but only be attackable by the groups that spawned them. Phasing also adds a sense of change and progression in the game world without disrupting that experience for other players.

Secondly, to respond to the "animals, lawl" comments, in a level-based system, it"s hard to translate the challenges of a dangerous wilderness like Northrend into anything other than levels when you"re using a linear leveling system. While it seems absurd that some of the wildlife has a higher level than many of the old raid bosses, it"s the only way to make them a challenge to use them as a means of expressing the inherent danger of the wilds in the new continent.

This is the type of problem those touting a skill-based system make that has a hell of a lot of validity. Animals might be somewhat tougher in certain regions, but in terms of comparison to bosses, nameds and the like remain lower. However, in that system, not everyone is an adventurer, or a similar type of combatant/adventurer, etc.

progressive combat + levels = inconsistencies.

Need a mechanic where a pack of mobs has shared hit points and aggro but are not AE-able.

Believe said:

What I want to see for phasing is the Instance "Zone-ins" as we know them in WoW to disappear and just provide a seamless entrance into a dungeon for a group.

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Does work. You do have to resurrect the old "twisty passage" of EQ lore to make those look realistic. If people start to vanish mid-tunnel, you do get a reality dissonance that"s about as annoying as a loading screen.

But, if you can have people still appear on your view for a couple yards, even though they are "already" in their instance, then you have a far better immersion. It"s still fluff, though. But good fluff.

Ukerric said:

Does work. You do have to resurrect the old "twisty passage" of EQ lore to make those look realistic. If people start to vanish mid-tunnel, you do get a reality dissonance that"s about as annoying as a loading screen.

But, if you can have people still appear on your view for a couple yards, even though they are "already" in their instance, then you have a far better immersion. It"s still fluff, though. But good fluff.

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My memory is very fuzzy on this, but didn"t dark age of camelot have a dungeon system similar to this?

Flight said:

Actually (base damage numbers) :

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Ice Comet was 1110~1120 originally. The nerf came ~3 years later or so. Again, the previous ice based nuke prior to the spell changes did 300 damage and rend was only doing about ~750 if I recall. Conflag was in the low 600"s.

Of course that all meant dick when Kunark came out and all we ever casted from then on was Lure.

Anyways...

But yeah, the big thing about ice comet, not including it"s ridiculous damage amount, was how you got it. The Staff of the Wheel quest was ridiculous fun, you didn"t mind that you got dick all for EXP for doing it because it resulted in fun, wanted rewards.

Nobody gave a shit about the name. I mean, yeah, spells should have cool names to begin with I feel. And if you want to attach lore and roleplay value to them, fine. But you don"t need to keep coming up with new ""Somebody on staff"s characters name" "synonym for fireball" of "synonym for ownage"" every time the spell ranks up.

Let"s make it look really silly. Let"s take "Hamstring" in WoW. The name gets the job done. Would you -really- feel more like a ferocious orc because instead of hamstringing your opponant you were executing, "Bitties Dastardly Strike at the Semitendinosus"?

Again, if you"re going to add roleplay value to your spells/abilities, make it in how you introduce them to your players by attaching quests to acquiring the spell.

Not by calling it, "Zehn"s Miraculous Melody of Monotonous Meandering" and saying, "SEE! IMMERSION! DON"T YOU FEEL IMMERSED?!"

All Spell Names in EQ did was make me want to kill Al"kabor.

One thing that was really refreshing about WAR was the spell/ability names. Really creative and humorous stuff that fit in with the feel of the world/classes/races. And they were still reasonably descriptive of what the spell did. It doesn"t have to be just like EQ to give them a bit more flavor. EQ was ok for the time, and very tied in to lore and RPG fantasy, but they did get a bit ridiculous at times.

Zeste said:

My memory is very fuzzy on this, but didn"t dark age of camelot have a dungeon system similar to this?

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DAoC had normal zoning. Just like EQ (and yes, they usually disguised their zone-in with a twisting tunnel or passage, so you"d vanish into the dungeon as soon as you turned the corner). And, since they didn"t had instancing, you found yourself with everybody else inside anyway.

Ukerric said:

DAoC had normal zoning. Just like EQ (and yes, they usually disguised their zone-in with a twisting tunnel or passage, so you"d vanish into the dungeon as soon as you turned the corner). And, since they didn"t had instancing, you found yourself with everybody else inside anyway.

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DaoC later introduced a system of mission instances for both groups and solo play.


Amazing to think it was only itemized up to lvl 20 or so, certainly dungeon wise, at launch. Imagine the outcry if an MMO launched in that state today.

The problem with levels today is that they mean nothing. In EQ when you got a level, it took a long time and it because of that, it really had a feeling of satisfaction tied to it. I think a game that only had 20 levels to the cap would be easier for a developer to build. It is enough levels to allow for a learning curve, and it would make the content/lore more viable because it can be condensed to focus on a smaller spectrum then a larger clusterfuck of crap.

One of the great factors of early EQ dungeons and zones is they catered to a broad array of levels. They were used for multiple levels of progression and not just for a 2 levels. People could spend 10 levels in there, learning the zones, the encounters, AND the lore. People that are in an area for 1-2 levels are not going to take the time to enjoy the lore and immerse themselves into the game beyond the hack and slash. No reason to.

Lourdin said:

The problem with levels today is that they mean nothing. In EQ when you got a level, it took a long time and it because of that, it really had a feeling of satisfaction tied to it. I think a game that only had 20 levels to the cap would be easier for a developer to build. It is enough levels to allow for a learning curve, and it would make the content/lore more viable because it can be condensed to focus on a smaller spectrum then a larger clusterfuck of crap.

One of the great factors of early EQ dungeons and zones is they catered to a broad array of levels. They were used for multiple levels of progression and not just for a 2 levels. People could spend 10 levels in there, learning the zones, the encounters, AND the lore. People that are in an area for 1-2 levels are not going to take the time to enjoy the lore and immerse themselves into the game beyond the hack and slash. No reason to.

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I was thinking of a reply along these lines but he said it far better than I would have. If you still wanted a massive game world you could make people actually have to adventure and not just sit in one zone at a time. Pretty much everybody on these boards will talk about their fond memories of traveling from Greater Faydark to the Commandlands and how epic it was the first time...so reward people for doing it. Sure, the actual awe inspired feeling of your first MMO might not be recaptured but if there"s a system in place that keeps exp ticking as you make your grand trek across the world in enough quantities to make it worth the player"s time...it"s a hell of a lot better than the route WoW has taken for leveling. Steal phasing from WoW and make random generated phase encounters/non-random story progression while you make the trip and you have content to keep action along way.

I"ve been thinking a lot about fun vs. enjoyment. Some would say they are the same, but I would differ. I know that Fun is the big buzzword nowadays, and that it"s the big design motivation for most companies. However, thinking back to all the games I have had "fun" playing, I can honestly say that I didn"t get much enjoyment out of a lot of them. Fun is shallow, cheap, and quick. Enjoyment is deep, invested, and long-term.

Looking back at Everquest (and not through the rose-colored glasses), I know that I did not have "fun" most of the time I played it. There were definitely moments of fun, but mostly it felt like work. However, I must say that I enjoyed playing EQ. The investment that I put into it, of time, of energy, of emotions, made it more rewarding than fun to me. There was a deep feeling of satisfaction that I would get gaining a single level in EQ, that was not even matched by dinging 60 my first time in WOW. However, I most definitely had more fun on a day to day basis in WOW (until it got boring).

Maybe the difference between fun and enjoyment can be analogized in TV shows. I watch ATHF for fun. I watch LOST for enjoyment.

I know everyone nowadays wants to have "fun," but what I want more than anything right now is a game that I enjoy.

Design for reusability. Content during leveling doesn"t matter because designers don"t make it matter.

How do you re-use old content? Difficultly settings AKA heroics. Also, level specific achievements.

All of WoW"s old world instances/raids is obsolete. All of those man-hours spent designing the zone, creating the art, putting in sound, scripting encounters, it"s all wasted now. But what if you could do BWL on heroic? epic? fabled? Give a special title for doing it at 80? Give an even more special title for doing it at 60? If there were a set of achievements that required you to be level 60 and would award you a legacy items, people would level up 60"s and clear all of the old content.

You heard it here first. Heroic MC/BWL/AQ that rewards you with Tier Legacy armor. People would do it and they would fucking love it.