Monsters and Memories (Project_N) - Old School Indie MMO

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Arden

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Jeff explained how and why Vanguard failed, they did too much at one time, too little money, to small of a team. The proof-of-concept was just big for what they had.

Did Jeff also explain that part of the reason Vanguard failed is because he spent pretty much all day, every day in the office playing WoW?
 
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ili

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Did Jeff also explain that part of the reason Vanguard failed is because he spent pretty much all day, every day in the office playing WoW?
He did, he said he was a gamer before anything. I guess that is part of why he wasn't happy and left Sony. He must have hated not being able to game all day and have to take orders from Sony executives who were non-gamers. Brad too? Seems fair. I would not want to take orders from someone who has no idea or interest about the projects I'm working on.
 

Arden

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He did, he said he was a gamer before anything. I guess that is part of why he wasn't happy and left Sony. He must have hated not being able to game all day and have to take orders from Sony executives who were non-gamers. Brad too? Seems fair. I would not want to take orders from someone who has no idea or interest about the projects I'm working on.

Good for him for acknowledging it.
 
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alavaz

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And you have a better idea? I would like to hear it, or are you just and NPC, without thoughts on anything, outside of " this is good, this is bad. " You know what shits up these boards? People like who just chime in with replies like that, which adds nothing to the conversation, much like this post. So, are you going to take part in the discussion, or just be a smart ass shitting up the board?
I just want you to know that you have it backwards. I am very self-aware and recognize my response as shit posting. You on the other hand think this is an exchange of ideas that will have have tremendous affect on the future of MMOs. I'll ask one small favor, dig up the 38 studios thread and read all of your ideas 50x over and then leave the poor MnM thread alone.
 

Mur

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The only one shitting up this board is you fucktard.

People don't like your idea, and people have replied with better suggestions, you're just too fucking obtuse to grasp them, and too autistic to let your shit ideas go.
 
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ili

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People don't like your idea, and people have replied with better suggestions, you're just too fucking obtuse to grasp them, and too autistic to let your shit ideas go.
okay, and? just because someone talks about their ideas that you find unappealing, or they trigger you in some way or another, doesn't mean you need to reply, with a shit post. I did you see your suggestion about " I like EQ warrior, auto swing, taunt, bash, kick " but yet, I didn't get filled with SJW anger like you did to everything I had to say. But continue on with your bitterness, its mildly entertaining.
 

Lunis

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Derailing a thread with your game dev 101 combat idea is just annoying. Your idea sucks dick, I would never want to play an MMO with combat like that. And now you've come full circle calling people sjw's who don't want to see this thread derailed any further.
 
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ili

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Derailing a thread with your game dev 101 combat idea is just annoying. Your idea sucks dick, I would never want to play an MMO with combat like that. And now you've come full circle calling people sjw's who don't want to see this thread derailed any further.
Explain how sharing an idea, in a thread, on a game that is under development, years away from being finished, is derailing that thread. because you didn't like said idea. You know what derailing the thread? this bullshit, and you crying like a SJW because someone said something you didn't like hearing. Have you ever tried not angry shit posting, and just ignoring things rather than getting triggered by them?
 

Fogel

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Explain how sharing an idea, in a thread, on a game that is under development, years away from being finished, is derailing that thread. because you didn't like said idea. You know what derailing the thread? this bullshit, and you crying like a SJW because someone said something you didn't like hearing. Have you ever tried not angry shit posting, and just ignoring things rather than getting triggered by them?

Your idea in a vacuum isn't bad. Your idea in the M&M thread which is essentially a remastered EQ isn't being well received, and for good reason. The people looking forward to this game are expecting it to lean more towards the original EQ MMO experience, not next gen or future gen MMO. And people are "getting triggered" now because you've already been told this, and instead of agreeing to disagree, you keep repeating the same idea over and over as if we're the ones out of touch with this game.
 
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ili

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Your idea in a vacuum isn't bad. Your idea in the M&M thread which is essentially a remastered EQ isn't being well received, and for good reason. The people looking forward to this game are expecting it to lean more towards the original EQ MMO experience, not next gen or future gen MMO. And people are "getting triggered" now because you've already been told this, and instead of agreeing to disagree, you keep repeating the same idea over and over as if we're the ones out of touch with this game.
Seems about right. It always happens every time a dev team comes out and says that they are going to make " Classic Fantasy MMO ". I clearly remember this bullshit with Vanguard, and Pantheon. Will MnM be an EQ emulator, with new assets? might be? and if they said that somewhere, please do link it. As i see it these EQ purists will never be happy no matter what.
 

Fogel

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Seems about right. It always happens every time a dev team comes out and says that they are going to make " Classic Fantasy MMO ". I clearly remember this bullshit with Vanguard, and Pantheon. Will MnM be an EQ emulator, with new assets? might be? and if they said that somewhere, please do link it. As i see it these EQ purists will never be happy no matter what.

It's all in the first post

Project_N started as a discussion between MMO fans during a series of livestreams about what it would be like to create a niche, smaller budget / indie game, in the style of a classic MMO, but utilizing modern day tools and development practices.

Then you marry that up with the current gameplay and footage which is all very EQ'esque, you can see where they want to take the project.
 

ili

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It's all in the first post
4th post in this thread, been following since the beginning, been following Shawn, on twitch, before he thought about making the game and have watched their recent proof-of-concept game play, play testing. Still not convicted that they just want an EQ clone. A classic style mmo, sure. It always goes like this, game devs say they are going to be making a classic mmo, EQ purist come out and attack everything that is not EQ pure, years go by, game is not an exact copy of EQ, EQ purists no longer care and go back to p99 or whatever. Many such cases. Pretty sad.
 

forehead

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4th post in this thread, been following since the beginning, been following Shawn, on twitch, before he thought about making the game and have watched their recent proof-of-concept game play, play testing. Still not convicted that they just want an EQ clone. A classic style mmo, sure. It always goes like this, game devs say they are going to be making a classic mmo, EQ purist come out and attack everything that is not EQ pure, years go by, game is not an exact copy of EQ, EQ purists no longer care and go back to p99 or whatever. Many such cases. Pretty sad.
There is simply no way you could watch MNM gameplay and come to the conclusion that their combat will be a significant departure from EQ. The most radical change they'll probably make is a defensive target a la Vanguard.
 

ili

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There is simply no way you could watch MNM gameplay and come to the conclusion that their combat will be a significant departure from EQ. The most radical change they'll probably make is a defensive target a la Vanguard.
People want to see what they want to see. For me It currently looks like your generic unfinished classic RPG that's years away from being anything. my biggest observation? Way too much brown. I want to say it looks ugly as shit even compared to 99 EQ, but I'll hold off till later to make that judgement after all they are so early into development, and everything is place holder, so it's not really fair to say.
 

Neranja

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The Old Republic got 200+ million in funding. So, it's not dubious.
But that game basically failed. From that game alone we can infer that success in the MMORPG space is not guaranteed with:
  • amount of funding ($200 million)
  • being part of a major franchise (Star Wars)
  • being made by a respected developer (at the time: Bioware)
Counter-example: Albion, who has a niche focus (sandbox + PvP) and seems to be well received by its target audience. So there is hope to make a somewhat successful MMORPG with limited budget.
 

Neranja

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1) They went way too far with system requirements. Everquest was very progressive with its tech at the time, I think they even had to ship out video cards to reviewers so they could run the game. That worked in 1999 b/c PC power literally did double every 12 months, but that wasn't the case during VG's development. They pushed the limits of tech but it didn't pay off like it did with EQ.

2) As Jeff said in that interview, Vanguard didn't have enough programmers at the most crucial point in development. They had 3-4 programmers in the beginning, while Lineage 2 had 14 - both using Unreal 2.5. So the foundation of the game (source code, networking, tools, particle system, etc.) were not what they needed to be for an ambitious MMO.
I think both points correlate to each other. They wanted to build this big, seamless world, but couldn't get the tech mature enough quickly enough. Even modern computers at the time had hitching problems.

Also, I have a slight suspicion that Brad was too concerned with what you could call "empire building" at the time. Probably because he wanted to attract talent to the company, especially after his divorce with SOE. Maybe not only to build his own empire, but also to "rescue his talented friends from the evil beancounters with no vision like him", or something like that.
 

Neranja

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To clarify on my thought of targeting weak spots for melee, which could apply to all combat as well. [...] It is not required to win a fight but if you do your chances of winning encounters increases, same as kicking/bashing to interrupt a spell cast.
If I remember correctly Horizons had a similar feature. They didn't call it low/mid/high, or rock/paper/scissors, but if I remember correctly it hat blue/red/green stances that worked like rock/paper/scissors. Let me google that:

The game also incorporates a system of combat stances that seems really tacked-on. Three optional combat stances can be acquired, which are simply called "red," "blue," and "green" (and the default stance is "neutral). Rock-paper-scissors-style, each is stronger than one but weaker than another. So, for example, if your enemy's gone into green stance, then you should switch to red stance so that you'll do some extra damage. Assuming you have access to the stances, you can switch between them and use your other special abilities at will, but otherwise, combat is just a matter of waiting until either you or the enemy dies.
 

ili

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If I remember correctly Horizons had a similar feature. They didn't call it low/mid/high, or rock/paper/scissors, but if I remember correctly it hat blue/red/green stances that worked like rock/paper/scissors. Let me google that:

Huh, Not, sure why I didn't/don't remember that. Maybe because I spent 90% of my time mining (was one of the highest level miners, on the server) and crafting than I did in combat. Don't remember doing much combat at all. Not really sure what the point of combat was in Horizons. Since, i believe, everything was crafted. I do remember clearing mobs from the mining areas.

It still amazes me all the neat MMOs that came out in that era. Creatively seems to be long dead, or I guess it doesn't pay to be creative today. Such a shame. Can we just go back 20 years and freeze time.

Jeff talked about making a Terraria MMO, which I would play the crap out of if done right, but I think he said with a billion dollar budget. Okay Dude. Haha. Maybe some day.
 
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ili

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But that game basically failed.
That doesn't make him wrong. How many games, in that time period, got more funding than Vanguard, it wasn't just SWTOR. His biggest complaint was not having the money to hire enough talented programmers. No money, no talent. Followed by the scope of the game. What would Vanguard have been like with 30 more million, and a bunch of more programmers, who knows. 100 million didn't seem like a big deal at that time. It's not like Microsoft didn't have the money.
 
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