Monsters and Memories (Project_N) - Old School Indie MMO

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Torrid

Molten Core Raider
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Instancing is a bad solution to the problem of content monopolization. It works, but at great cost. Unfortunately because it does work it's the lazy go-to solution and developers don't even try to come up with better ideas. I give Vanguard credit for trying.
 
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Neranja

Neranja

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Torrid said:
Instancing is a bad solution to the problem of content monopolization. It works, but at great cost.
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Sadly, all other proposed solutions to this problem also have their downsides and "great cost." I still remember all the rage in EverQuest the US guilds had, just because the "fucen eurotrash" could mobilize earlier on spawns, for example after server resets and maintenance.

Dynamic spawn systems also have certain problems, and can be abused.
 
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ili

ili

Blackwing Lair Raider
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Just have similar items drop off of different named mobs and bosses. Drelzna drops Jboots, and some Named female Centaur, let's call her Kate, drops Kate's Hoof Boots, Hboots, etc.
Instancing is just a combination of laziness, being in a rush, and poor game design. Not sure why a game like this, which won't have that many players to begin with, would need any type of instancing at all.
 
Nirgon

Nirgon

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The solution is, if you don't have 24-7 to play you can't get every BIS pixel and have to be okay with that
 
DickTrickle

DickTrickle

Definitely NOT Furor Planedefiler
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Any modern game has to be able to deal with the population rush of release and then the likely large population drops that will follow even if it's a good game.

If you go into lower Guk and there's nothing to kill, it's not a great experience for most people. Even if you compete and win it's still not the best experience for most people. If you go there and hardly anyone's there because you made a shit ton of servers at launch then that is also not a great experience, nor are server merges.

You can't look at something like p99 and say that's the way to do it when that type of population is so much different than what a new game will have and experience.

I don't think there's any system that doesn't have downsides but something like the pick zones in EQ seem like an okay compromise to me as long as they're tuned right and zones have viable reasons to go there. You still get interaction with other players but have more options and it flexes with the level of population.
 
Nirgon

Nirgon

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Servers ready to spin up then merge as pop dwindles some after the rush.

However, if Amazon struggled with this, yeegh.
 
Neranja

Neranja

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Nirgon said:
Without the layering issues or layering yeah
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And instead having to deal with merging server economies and names, plus the stigma of being a "failing game", because you already have to merge servers.

Or you could do it the Blizzard way, by merging servers without actually merging servers. Now you have "Legolas-ServerOne" and "Legolas-ServerTwo" running around.
 
Nirgon

Nirgon

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Layering has all kinds of its own problems and complexities introduced. I think character transfer is easier. But I'm not exactly under the hood looking at that whole layering process, I just know it felt unimmersive and created a bunch of other problems. Stupid chasing a player who "zones into" another layer and vanishes into thin air, or comes up on a /who in zone but they aren't anywhere in it to be found.
 
V

Vinjin

Lord Nagafen Raider
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DickTrickle said:
I don't think there's any system that doesn't have downsides but something like the pick zones in EQ seem like an okay compromise to me as long as they're tuned right and zones have viable reasons to go there. You still get interaction with other players but have more options and it flexes with the level of population.
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This. One thing that was great about EQ was that by the time Velious was released, there were multiple zone options available for every level range. Unfortunately, the devs did such a poor job of spreading out the itemization that many went largely underutilized.

I didn't start EQ until midway through Kunark but when I did, it was on a new server (Xev). There were some players/guilds who had transferred there after it launched but there were also a healthy percentage of new folks like myself too. By the time I had reached my mid 40s, I was busting with anticipation about all the high-level zones I had heard so much about and would finally get to see - Karnor's Castle, Chardok, Sebilis, Velk's Lab. And of course, back then, one had to actually travel to each one of those zones when LFG. Not a trivial task and certainly not a quick one but goddamn did it make every night I logged in feel like an epic fucking journey.

Meanwhile, two expansions later and LGuk continued to basically be perma-camped 24x7 while other zones like Dalnir, Temple of Droga and Howling Stones were pretty much empty because many players had never even heard of them yet, myself included.

I get it, or at least part of it. Brad always said they had no idea the game would flourish like it did so when they made places like LGuk, they probably thought that was as end-game as it would ever be and itemized it accordingly. Today's designers don't have that excuse though.
 
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ili

ili

Blackwing Lair Raider
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Vinjin said:
Meanwhile, two expansions later and LGuk continued to basically be perma-camped 24x7 while other zones like Dalnir, Temple of Droga and Howling Stones were pretty much empty because many players had never even heard of them yet, myself included.
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And who knows what would have happened if all those zones came out together, at the same time. I'm sure people wouldn't be as brainwashed as they are today with " MUH Guk ". Guk was the place to be because it was what we had at the time, the gear was some of the best, it was easy to access, and people spent a long time in just that one place forming memories. But what if there were 4 other similar zones, with similar gear, and similar ease of access, all launched at the same time. Those bounds that people formed with that single zone wouldn't be as strong.
 
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T

Torrid

Molten Core Raider
926
611
Neranja said:
Sadly, all other proposed solutions to this problem also have their downsides and "great cost." I still remember all the rage in EverQuest the US guilds had, just because the "fucen eurotrash" could mobilize earlier on spawns, for example after server resets and maintenance.

Dynamic spawn systems also have certain problems, and can be abused.
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Well firstly, in a true MMOG, there is going to be some amount of waiting on other players before it's your turn. This is unavoidable without turning the game into Diablo.

EQ at some point started putting random respawn delays on raid bosses on resets so they would not be up immediately after reboots. I would argue that it's a mistake to not have dedicated servers for different time zones and actively enforce this somehow. EQ added Euro servers late; a year after launch or whatever. I started on the server the Germans congregated on and promptly moved to Druzzil Ro when the option became available and was much happier afterward. I'd probably also be in favor of denying any kind of character moves and require people to level from scratch if they want to move to any already established server, as guild moves are highly disruptive and particularly guilds in an earlier time zone. (Druzzil was a new server intended to siphon players off crowded servers, not an established one)

The Al'Kabor Project has a solution to the content monopolization issue that works fairly well: the users simply voted to rotate content instead of poopsock, and staff basically told them to handle it themselves and would only punish people who did not abide by the community consensus and otherwise don't get involved. It's worked for 7 years and they're happy. No fancy mechanical systems required and no bickering. In EQ's early days, GMs were much more involved with server affairs, so this is certainly feasible for commercial servers.

One thing I would like to point out however is that classic EQ was much more about the leveling game and basically had no end game to speak of other than two dragons at launch. The two planes were added half way into the first year. Even on p99, a lot of users resign to the fact that they will not be raiding and yet they still play because in EQ the leveling game is highly enjoyable and not merely a time sink before the 'real content'. Create a highly immersive world that's fun to explore in and you'll have a good game regardless of the end game content.
 
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Neranja

Neranja

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Torrid said:
Well firstly, in a true MMOG, there is going to be some amount of waiting on other players before it's your turn. This is unavoidable without turning the game into Diablo.
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Let's stop right there. You are talking about "a true MMOG", like there's some sort of coveted purity or "virginity" to be had in that genre.

This is not what the majority of players want, especially in this current day and age. They want to play a game to distract themselves from their real life, and not have some sort of second job they have to schedule their lives around.

Unless a game comes up with some form of a solution to this challenge, the target audience will always be relegated to niche status. This can be okay, if you are communicating this in advance to the players. Which brings us to the next point:

Torrid said:
One thing I would like to point out however is that classic EQ was much more about the leveling game and basically had no end game to speak of other than two dragons at launch.
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To be more precise: the original design of EQ was more like a "go through a dungeon with a party and look how far we can get. If we fail we'll just come back later when we are stronger." -- But in true min/max fashion players optimized their EQ time around static camps and pulling, which then became something of an art form in itself. Today we call things like that "emergent gameplay."

The biggest mistake however here is to claim that there was initially something of a "purity" in the game design, with the developers only later leaning into this by designing whole expansions catered to the raiding play style. For EverQuest, the design goal for players was always character progression. Leveling was only a part of it, but gear progression was always another goal. This is straight up copied from the original DikuMUD design EverQuest was "inspired" from. I don't know if Brad realized this, or if he just copied the homework without thinking.
 
F

forehead

Trakanon Raider
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Neranja said:
Unless a game comes up with some form of a solution to this challenge, the target audience will always be relegated to niche status. This can be okay, if you are communicating this in advance to the players.
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Their company name is literally Niche World Cult.
 
Woefully Inept

Woefully Inept

Ssraeszha Raider
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They have communicated exactly that. They aren't going for mass appeal at all. They are targetting the retro mmo/EQ crowd with this game. They aren't going for mega millions but for profitability. Shawn has discussed this many times on stream.
 
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Guurn

Guurn

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It's really not that niche though unless you think WoW was niche or any MMO really that tried to 'fix' the formula. Facts are facts. Graphics barely matter at all, instancing sucks because it's an MMO, gameplay is king and always will be.

Even early on people were cooperating on a ton of things other than exploration in EQ. There were corpse runs, random groups just exploring and markets. Even a few expansions in I had buddies that spent all day, regularly, just helping new players. They raided sure, but the rest of the day was spent helping. That's the essence of sandbox.
Neranja said:
To be more precise: the original design of EQ was more like a "go through a dungeon with a party and look how far we can get. If we fail we'll just come back later when we are stronger." -- But in true min/max fashion players optimized their EQ time around static camps and pulling, which then became something of an art form in itself. Today we call things like that "emergent gameplay."

The biggest mistake however here is to claim that there was initially something of a "purity" in the game design, with the developers only later leaning into this by designing whole expansions catered to the raiding play style. For EverQuest, the design goal for players was always character progression. Leveling was only a part of it, but gear progression was always another goal. This is straight up copied from the original DikuMUD design EverQuest was "inspired" from. I don't know if Brad realized this, or if he just copied the homework without thinking.
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Frustration is part of motivation. Second and third tier guilds thrived on competitive servers because they catered to more casual players. You are saying that everyone wants everything now and they want to get it easily because reasons. That isn't true. There is a huge range of types of players.

The game doesn't really have to be anything more than a fun way to get your exploration on with a solid chat function. I'm sure there will be more to it than that, but even if that's all it is a lot of people will be happy.

Now about those raids...
 
V

vegetoeeVegetoee

Trakanon Raider
41
46
Modern MMO's suffer from the Modernized LCD effect. Basically, cater to the LCD to bring more money in then try to salvage the gameplay for the MCD folk that want something more enjoyable. It's garbage as MMOs were meant to be worlds explored with friends you make along the way. EQ got that right, even with lackluster questing and leveling, you still got to explore and be part of the world while making friends. That's what it is all about. Raiding always came second for most people, even in top guilds. It was the friends/guildies, then the content.
 
Neranja

Neranja

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Guurn said:
It's really not that niche though unless you think WoW was niche or any MMO really that tried to 'fix' the formula. Facts are facts.
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How is it that the two people said it's ok to be niche, but you have to jump up and say "it's not niche though!"

Here's some facts, facts that were repeated on this board again and again: Most players of the original EQ are old now, with kids, a job and a lawn to mow on the weekend. Sure there is a certain target audience, or else there literally wouldn't be any of the TLP EQ servers again and again, however that audience fills two to three servers at max, and recycles people between each iteration.

There are certain people that claim that "once the players see the appeal of old school MMO design, people will reconsider and denounce modern McMMO's with instancing like WoW!"--to which the correct answer is always: "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Because right now market data seems to indicate that younger gamers have shorter attention spans and want more instant gratification, and don't want to sit around and meditate until they have enough mana to cast buffs on the group. They play LoL, Fortnite or Apex Legends instead. On their smartphone. So it remains to be seen if you can mobilize either an older audience, or the current young audience.

Guurn said:
Frustration is part of motivation. Second and third tier guilds thrived on competitive servers because they catered to more casual players. You are saying that everyone wants everything now and they want to get it easily because reasons. That isn't true. There is a huge range of types of players.
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You jumped a bit to conclusions there: I said that EQ embraced raids as a form of content, and that the initial design goal was character progression. But character progression through loot doesn't necessarily involve raids. In fact, most of the truly iconic items out of EQ came from group content, even in later expansions.

This of course circles back to the original claim that you don't need instancing, because ... yeah, why exactly? It looks like people claiming that always assume they can camp a spot 16 hours straight, because fuck the other players. It looks like most of them have forgot how the GM staff back in the day handled the "play nice policy" with "you have to share, or else!".

Guurn said:
The game doesn't really have to be anything more than a fun way to get your exploration on with a solid chat function. I'm sure there will be more to it than that, but even if that's all it is a lot of people will be happy.
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Do we want to discuss Bartle's taxonomy of player types again?
 
Neranja

Neranja

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vegetoeeVegetoee said:
Modern MMO's suffer from the Modernized LCD effect. Basically, cater to the LCD to bring more money in then try to salvage the gameplay for the MCD folk that want something more enjoyable.
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Counterclaim: MMORPG games at their core are time investment games. The more time someone invests, the further he can progress his character. There are basically two types of challenges for players in such games: "high risk, high reward" and "low risk, but repeatable", of which the latter is optimized for people with a lot of free time and access to bottles and socks within reach.

Exploration and wonder are only possible for launches, because after everything is said and done it will be datamined and put on a database/Wiki somewhere. Such is the nature of today's internet culture.
 
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