Kithani
Blackwing Lair Raider
- 1,710
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Yeah man
That’s definitely the “magic” of EQ that 10 year old me fell in love with for sure
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Monsters and Memories (Project_N) - Old School Indie MMO
- Thread starter Flobee
- Start date
That’s definitely the “magic” of EQ that 10 year old me fell in love with for sure
Quaid
Trump's Staff
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See, this is the problem here.
You can build this beautiful, engaging, wonderful world. You can perfectly place every rock and tree with love and intent. You can make sure every spell, line of dialogue, and every quest are true to the spirit of the thing you're created. But at some point you've gotta let people in, and people bring with them every flaw that exists in the real world. Greed, narcissism, violence, cruelty, etc etc etc forever.
Nirgon didn't have fun doing whatever the fuck he described above. It wasn't about fun, it was in his own words, hard work. It was about being top-ape. Part of that is carving out boundaries, defending them, and denying resources to bottom-ape. Even the smallest men on some level need kingdoms and by building a world like this you give people another way to have one. You've created a world where some men will use whatever means necessary to deny resources from others, even if it doesn't actually bring them any joy. The enjoyment is the denial itself, and it's primal and unavoidable. His post is dripping with it.
Instances are just a way to limit the impacts of this behaviour. If they aren't utilized the outcome is inevitable. Nirgons will always exist.
Shaun talks about Eth'Ur as being a 'third place', which I think is commendable and I so hope the team succeeds. I own restaurants and think about this concept a lot. The days of the pub and the church are fading, and men need some version of those things. I just hope the people who are circumstantially able to make it their second place cannot rob people from making it their third place.
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Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
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Yeah, this is actually a really sharp observation and honestly, one of the few takes that cuts through all the "old-school purity" noise. You can handcraft the most immersive, soulful world imaginable, but the second you open the doors, it's the players who will set the tone. The fantasy always collides with human nature. All the ugly, predictable stuff that MMOs have been dealing with since Ultima Online.
And you're absolutely right about that "top-ape" behavior. That instinct to hoard, control, and deny is not always just a byproduct of bad design, it's the core loop of human interaction once scarcity is introduced. A lot of what people call "emergent gameplay" is just digital power-tripping with a chat box attached.
The part that makes me laugh though is when designers act like they can somehow code around it. Like, no - you're not going to out-design primate psychology with a few clever systems and a campfire XP buff.
And that's fine, honestly. Just be honest about it. Don't romanticize human nature as "community-building." Sometimes it's just digital Darwinism wearing an elf costume.
Shawn was lead designer for EQ when LDoN came out and brought instancing to EQ. So, there is precedent for wanting to go into that direction.
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Picks and raid instances were some of the best things that happened to EQ and I wouldn't have played as long as I had without it. I don't know what these guys really have planned for end game but if I gotta poopsock with 200 other people I'm prob out.
Quaid
Trump's Staff
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Nirgon
Log Wizard
- 18,448
- 29,595
Or make sure there's a good enough number of memorable monsters on sufficiently randomized timers for the people like this to have a shot at a few per week (aka not just 2 dragons 2 gods to hold down), twinking is fun for the less dedicated, and hard group content exists for the in between.
Sometimes I think the that's where the worry is, the "in between" player who is try hard but also doesn't quite have the time. The solution for that is very hard group content (quest chains even) with appropriate rewards.
It's either that or the entire endgame is doing your weekly lockout raid, and we are right on track to making a "less good WoW" again.
PS: Guild efforts are fun, I wouldn't reduce them to work like a desk job
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Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
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Something I'd really like to see an MMO try is a system that blends open-world and instanced raid bosses. Think Nagafen, Venril Sathir, Trakanon, etc. - classic FFA overworld mobs on seven-day timers. If you'e part of the raid group that kills one, you get a lockout.
To make these overworld versions meaningful, they could have increased drop rates. Maybe 10x the normal chance for their rare loot tables (exact numbers could be tuned, obviously). Alongside those, add instanced versions of the same bosses (similar to Agents of Change on TLPs) with normal drop rates, but sharing the same seven-day lockout.
You could even experiment with loot quantity instead of just rarity, or a mix of both. The goal isn't to eliminate competition, but to make it purposeful. No-life guilds still get that open-world adrenaline rush and prestige, while everyone else gets a consistent way to engage with content without sacrificing their entire weekend to a spawn timer.
I think that approach would strengthen the game's long-term health. It keeps the thrill of world-first races and server rivalries alive, but it also ensures the broader playerbase doesn't burn out or disengage. It would encourage both aspiration and accessibility, the two things MMOs constantly struggle to balance.
To make these overworld versions meaningful, they could have increased drop rates. Maybe 10x the normal chance for their rare loot tables (exact numbers could be tuned, obviously). Alongside those, add instanced versions of the same bosses (similar to Agents of Change on TLPs) with normal drop rates, but sharing the same seven-day lockout.
You could even experiment with loot quantity instead of just rarity, or a mix of both. The goal isn't to eliminate competition, but to make it purposeful. No-life guilds still get that open-world adrenaline rush and prestige, while everyone else gets a consistent way to engage with content without sacrificing their entire weekend to a spawn timer.
I think that approach would strengthen the game's long-term health. It keeps the thrill of world-first races and server rivalries alive, but it also ensures the broader playerbase doesn't burn out or disengage. It would encourage both aspiration and accessibility, the two things MMOs constantly struggle to balance.
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Nirgon
Log Wizard
- 18,448
- 29,595
Without instances, there will be top aping.. so what can you do?
One sign your content isn't done well is a huge number of people dog piling the spawn point of some fairly trivial mob that drops some extremely good item
Adjust difficulty to ward off face rollers, encourage player skill development and make the reward appropriate for success
I think the bone construct they had was in the right direction
Algolon was also good like this in WoW, so was reducing raid sizes to 25
It makes for good user created content and attention to the game too, people like watching videos of others doing bad ass things -- free advertising for the game tbh
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Goonsquad Officer
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Dalaya and shards of dalaya (emulated eq server with wacky amounts of custom content) had treasure maps you could have drop. You take them to the zone they map, click it to get tracking like indicators of where to go. Get to the spot and dig, spawn critters, dig, spawn till boss wave. Boss wave has a chest with raid tier quality loot.
It was a means of gear nobody could cock block and you could do on off nights. It was pretty great.
And the newer iteration, dalaya (not shards of dalaya) in the last six months or so they made some changes to some raid zones. I quit before this so my details may be off, but I think some zones now have a 24 hour respawn, but individuals are locked out of fighting them more than once every week or so. I don't know the results of this... but it's another example of hybrid open world/ spawnable content. Not quite instance, but harder to cockblock.
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Pasteton
Vyemm Raider
- 3,024
- 2,214
I can attest to this. Literally spent years killing things we didn’t need just so other guilds couldn’t get them. Enjoyed it immensely though, so can’t say it didn’t bring me joy. You can’t act like this irl because it’s cruel but don’t take away my ability to make other nerds who care about pixels feel bad
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Goonsquad Officer
- 7,659
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I do really really like spawnable content.
another thing dalaya had that was really good was this bounty system. its kind of a 'daily' quest style system in a way, which will illicit frowns, but the way it worked was that you'd go to the bounty office and it would offer you quests to kil 2 'bounties'. they were the same two bounties for every player on that day. Generally close to level cap zones. So the quest guy would say "go sebalis, kill billybob the frog". you'd basically kill frogs till a 'mysterious presence' spawns immediately after a kill. hail that. it spawns a named frog that you fight. get your bounty done. can buy s tuff from the shop.
it didn't really have a cap on how many players could participate in killing the bounties, so in some places a raid would form to get it done. it used olde content areas to give players a thing to do, which couldn't really be cockblocked effectively. the bounty items were socket gear you could custom make items that were...okay for raid entry. or for plugging in gear gaps with focuses and stuff like that.
another thing dalaya had that was really good was this bounty system. its kind of a 'daily' quest style system in a way, which will illicit frowns, but the way it worked was that you'd go to the bounty office and it would offer you quests to kil 2 'bounties'. they were the same two bounties for every player on that day. Generally close to level cap zones. So the quest guy would say "go sebalis, kill billybob the frog". you'd basically kill frogs till a 'mysterious presence' spawns immediately after a kill. hail that. it spawns a named frog that you fight. get your bounty done. can buy s tuff from the shop.
it didn't really have a cap on how many players could participate in killing the bounties, so in some places a raid would form to get it done. it used olde content areas to give players a thing to do, which couldn't really be cockblocked effectively. the bounty items were socket gear you could custom make items that were...okay for raid entry. or for plugging in gear gaps with focuses and stuff like that.
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Goonsquad Officer
- 7,659
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that's why i end up not wanting to play games with open world pvp long. the currency in those games isn't fun combat, engaging encounters etc, it's how much misery people can cause other people.
the devs love it too, but i don't know how those games stay running chasing off most of their players hehe
Quaid
Trump's Staff
- 12,149
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Spawned (and then guild locked) content is a great way to get around instancing, but would be really lame if it was for every single encounter.
I don’t really understand the problem with guild/raid instances in a game with hard zone walls everywhere. Every zone line breaks ‘immersion’ already, and for whatever reason this break good, other break bad. Sure, have a couple contested overworld targets like the Emerald Dragons & Kazaak in vanilla WOW… but most shit should be guild/raid locked in some manner.
World first races in early WOW were just as fierce as they ever were in EQ… maybe more. In WoW success was based equally on time investment and execution, whereas in EQ it heavily favoured the former.
I don’t really understand the problem with guild/raid instances in a game with hard zone walls everywhere. Every zone line breaks ‘immersion’ already, and for whatever reason this break good, other break bad. Sure, have a couple contested overworld targets like the Emerald Dragons & Kazaak in vanilla WOW… but most shit should be guild/raid locked in some manner.
World first races in early WOW were just as fierce as they ever were in EQ… maybe more. In WoW success was based equally on time investment and execution, whereas in EQ it heavily favoured the former.
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Goonsquad Officer
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unless it's the staff doing the cheating with their buddies. (which is what appears to have happened where i've seen haha).
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Goonsquad Officer
- 7,659
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haha yea. on (emulated servers) i've seen a lot of like...the devs are in a guild, that guild manages to win and get all the good loot, and when another guild gets to that point, the good loot seems to literally never drop.
instance vs non won't change this for sure. it is kind of nice 'watching' some one exploit so everyone can gawk at it.
instance vs non won't change this for sure. it is kind of nice 'watching' some one exploit so everyone can gawk at it.