I am more excited about this thread name than the entire project of EQN (up to this point). Is that bad?
Pan'Theon: Rise' of th'e Fal'Len - #1 Thread in MMO
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Arden
Blackwing Lair Raider
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That's what I was thinking too, but before I jumped on him I wanted to make sure.
Precisely etchazz. "Modern day conveniences?" That makes it seem now we have indoor plumbing when we used to have to shit in the outhouse. Don't think for a second that most of the "modern day conveniences" are things they couldn't have equipped us with back in the day- they just wisely chose not to. The things you are talking about aren't a result of better technology, they are the result of an industry that lost its soul somewhere along the way.
What modern day mmo apologists never understand is that when people pine for things like corpse runs, death penalties, and difficult travel, they aren't actually longing for those mechanics themselves,they are longing for the environment that those mechanics created.
and you would produce the worst game to date. what is the purpose of positive feedback unless you've done something truly outstanding?
As far as the conveniences thing goes Ill use this as my example ( and I think VG might have been this way at launch not sure so not claiming its an original idea).
EQ had naked corpse run and experience loss for a death penalty. While I have no problem with a new game having this as I prefer death to be something you want to avoid at all costs , I get I'm in the extreme minority.
So why go full retard easy either where you use death for a literal travel mechanism ? Why can't Brads mythical EQ3 shoot in between ? Make it a harsh penalty but still a choice , where you die and you lose experience ( and a meaningful amount at that )but if you go make the naked corpse run you get 95% of it back and no repair bill. Or you can summon your corpse back at the raise stone , get zero xps back and a hell of a repair bill.
This makes death still suck , royally , but gives you a choice of spending time to do a corpse run and lose little xps and no money , or spend money and then time later to gain your xps back.
I think this would satisfy many of us who are sick of the lobby-death means nothing games while being a slight improvement over the old EQ system.
I just use death as an example mechanic because I think corpse runs were something that helped a group actually think about things and also a social thing because you fought or snuck your way back down together. The option to take the hefty xps loss and repair bill would cover those who just truly couldn't do the corpse run that night and so on.
Again , keeping in mind , this is for a game not meant for the ADD I don't even want to have to level crowd. I just don't see why it's got to be GW2 level of easy or full loot permadeath either. There's a way to do the middle road that I think would do well for a niche game.
EQ had naked corpse run and experience loss for a death penalty. While I have no problem with a new game having this as I prefer death to be something you want to avoid at all costs , I get I'm in the extreme minority.
So why go full retard easy either where you use death for a literal travel mechanism ? Why can't Brads mythical EQ3 shoot in between ? Make it a harsh penalty but still a choice , where you die and you lose experience ( and a meaningful amount at that )but if you go make the naked corpse run you get 95% of it back and no repair bill. Or you can summon your corpse back at the raise stone , get zero xps back and a hell of a repair bill.
This makes death still suck , royally , but gives you a choice of spending time to do a corpse run and lose little xps and no money , or spend money and then time later to gain your xps back.
I think this would satisfy many of us who are sick of the lobby-death means nothing games while being a slight improvement over the old EQ system.
I just use death as an example mechanic because I think corpse runs were something that helped a group actually think about things and also a social thing because you fought or snuck your way back down together. The option to take the hefty xps loss and repair bill would cover those who just truly couldn't do the corpse run that night and so on.
Again , keeping in mind , this is for a game not meant for the ADD I don't even want to have to level crowd. I just don't see why it's got to be GW2 level of easy or full loot permadeath either. There's a way to do the middle road that I think would do well for a niche game.
Quaid
Trump's Staff
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It's really not so difficult IMO...
1. Big world. Vanilla WoW travel system, very restrictive and fewer flight paths. Land mounts. Classes with teleports & run speed buffs.
2. The VG death system (detailed above)
3. No mini map. Instead your character 'draws' a map in game after you have been somewhere (ex. WoW) and there is a compass in UI.
4. No instances, period. Have triggered events in their place.
5. Localized economies linked to local and scarce resources - size of world - long/expensive travel.
6. Loot (upgrades) should be rare, unless it is crafted. Even then, the best crafted stuff should be highly prized. There should be few enough items in the world that you could know/name them all (pretty much)
7. No hard factions that can't be changed.
1. Big world. Vanilla WoW travel system, very restrictive and fewer flight paths. Land mounts. Classes with teleports & run speed buffs.
2. The VG death system (detailed above)
3. No mini map. Instead your character 'draws' a map in game after you have been somewhere (ex. WoW) and there is a compass in UI.
4. No instances, period. Have triggered events in their place.
5. Localized economies linked to local and scarce resources - size of world - long/expensive travel.
6. Loot (upgrades) should be rare, unless it is crafted. Even then, the best crafted stuff should be highly prized. There should be few enough items in the world that you could know/name them all (pretty much)
7. No hard factions that can't be changed.
tad10
Elisha Dushku
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No. That's what killed VG. It was too big, they couldn't fill it with enough content.
Quaid
Trump's Staff
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So fill it with enough content?
Btw I would consider vanilla WoW to be a big world, Vanguard was just absurd.
tad10
Elisha Dushku
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Never going to happen - that just leads to 38 Studios half-finished MMO.
The only way McQuaid succeeds at this project if he starts small and releases steady expansions. That's why he's less important than whatever producer he finally picks as to whether this ever sees the light of day.
vanguard was insanely big, but the world truly did make the game feel epic. i don't have a problem with a game being as big as VG, as i believe you could easily just add content into the game as time progresses. just traveling around in VG was a lot of fun. you would always just randomly run into some out of the way dungeon or area and knew you were probably the first one to go in there. i really enjoyed that about the game (and the dwarf city with the bridge and huge waterfall in front of it in the side of the mountain. that was fucking awesome. can't remember the name of it off hand).
Quaid
Trump's Staff
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If a game world is going to be as big as Vanguard's there needs to be a gameplay reason. Otherwise, all it accomplishes is segregating players. Now if intentionally segregating players is factored into your resource/economy/territory control metagame (EVE), well then that could be awesome.
the thing i liked most about the size of VG, is that it reminded me a lot of EQ in the early days, so far as it took so long to get somewhere, that when you got there you wound up staying in that particular area for several days, exp'ing and exploring the entire area. it was in some way a way of segregating the population of the server without having to add instances or any other convenience. the sheer size of the game spread out the population enough that it never felt over crowded in any particular area.
tad10
Elisha Dushku
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You guys are crazy. Sure it was great to see Dargun's Tomb, but if you weren't with a group you were never going to delve that dungeon. It was so far away from any major population center it could take hours for someone to reach it pre-portals.
That big only works if the game has a larger player base than it'll have longterm.
Even if VG 2.0 gets 100,000 box sales, within a month 50,000 will be gone - because they'll remember exactly how hard old school grinding was. So the game needs to be able to live with a medium-to-small population. Sure it might be a hit, in which case they can add a server or two - but I think that's unlikely. I think it's a niche game and that niche is 50k hardcore fans plus another 100k casual fans (of which I include myself fwiw) who can't be on all that much so will spend most of their (our) time near the larger cities not running 5 hours away to a nuevo-Dargun's.
Numbers are pulled out of my ass - but whatever, you get the idea.
That big only works if the game has a larger player base than it'll have longterm.
Even if VG 2.0 gets 100,000 box sales, within a month 50,000 will be gone - because they'll remember exactly how hard old school grinding was. So the game needs to be able to live with a medium-to-small population. Sure it might be a hit, in which case they can add a server or two - but I think that's unlikely. I think it's a niche game and that niche is 50k hardcore fans plus another 100k casual fans (of which I include myself fwiw) who can't be on all that much so will spend most of their (our) time near the larger cities not running 5 hours away to a nuevo-Dargun's.
Numbers are pulled out of my ass - but whatever, you get the idea.
Quaid
Trump's Staff
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Vanuard sold 250,000 copies in its first month.
Aside from that, each system doesn't exist in a vacuum. Just because a world is immense doesn't mean you can't create ways to traverse it. Ways that help distinguish classes and promote social interaction and interdependence.
tad10
Elisha Dushku
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Yes and was down to 50,000 by the second - that's my whole point. Vanguard would have released nearly bug free if it had been smaller and they'd cut out Thestra. Qalia and Kojan were enough.