popsicledeath
Potato del Grande
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Pan'Theon: Rise' of th'e Fal'Len - #1 Thread in MMO
- Thread starter gogojira_sl
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Who were you on FoH? Going to be someone else who claims to of just been a lurker and only registered in 2014 because of Pantheon?
popsicledeath
Potato del Grande
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Your asshole also apparently burns from eating Taco Bell. I'm gonna go ahead and say people have isolated experiences in life.........................
I've enjoyed some of their games, thought others were shit. I've seen some pretty shady behaviors (want an example? There were several times they flat out promised development in Vanguard only to go radio silent and not deliver). Even in games I loved, like EQ, there were times it sure seemed like 'lies' as expansions were released, said to be done, and we paid for shit that wasn't finished.
I think the reasonable responses is that, like any company, they have ups and downs, sometimes seem honest and great, other times seem like shady swindlers. But I never thought I'd see the day a general forum audience, much less one that originated from FoH, would all be sucking SOE's cock like this. You guys must really feel special getting to buy into Landmark "alpha" eh?
And on that note, I don't think what they're doing is some shady conspiracy. I just think it's smart. They got the game so it's polished past what most people expect for an alpha, call it alpha so people will pay to get a super leet sneak preview, and then it also drums up interest from all the people saying it's just so darned polished for an alpha!
No. I wasn't "bitching" about it either, simply stating an observation.
It is actually a good thing considering the charge and amount of alpha access opportunities provided.
I think you're mixing tones between two topics going back and forth.
Honestly now. Have you ever been in an alpha as "polished" as EQNL?
I'm not saying it is a bad thing. If anyone has previous alpha-phase testing experience, I doubt they've seen even close to a handful of products at this level of developmental completion for alpha. (Specifically one so involved/large)
Is it misleading? Maybe a little, but there is no concrete "alpha" definition. EQNL is definitely not beta-stage though, as it still has core elements missing and major design flaws.
I've been much "happier" with Landmark's alpha than the cespool that was Warhammer.
Jimbolini
Semi-pro Monopoly player
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Skanda
I'm Amod too!
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Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
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First you say this...
Then you say this...
Do you know what the word subjective means?Arden_sl said:
So, difficulty isn't really subjective then. By your own admission, if something takes a long time, it automatically makes it difficult. In that case, Anarchy Online is probably the most difficult MMORPG to have ever existed in the West.Arden_sl said:
So, let's say I zone into Unrest, not knowing that there's a massive train on the other side. I zone in, die while loading, and now I have a corpse run back to the zone. Through no fault of my own, I've now lost a ton of time. If I'm a non spellcaster, I have to run back from GFay/Kaladim, I have to find a cleric to hopefully procure a res(assuming this is release, 96% resses don't even exist yet, but for devil's advocate sake, let's say it does)from a level 56 or higher cleric(likely going to take a while), and likely pay/tip that cleric, setting me back even more. Now, that's all assuming I can even get a res. I'm set back evenfurtherif I can't. Now, are you seriously going to try and warp that into poor "strategic planning" on my part? That's the game actively punishing you for something you have almost no control over. In fact, if you didn't have any friends/guildmates in Unrest, you hadnocontrol over it, because /ooc chat didn't go through zonelines. If that isn't tedium for tedium's sake, I don't know what is..Lithose_sl said:
Lets not overestimate ponytail here. Its a twitter account. Anyone can be sending out messages. It still sends a great impression to gamers that 24 hours a day the guy is"on it", but it could be any number of people using ponytails twitter to keep people informed.
Cinge
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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So what you are saying is all these e-mail updates I get for this KS are really just some 13 year old writing for his D&D campaign.
Soygen
The Dirty Dozen For the Price of One
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My bad. I went back and reread your post about "SOE backstabbing, etc..." and didn't realize that was sarcasm in your comparison with the current McQuaid situation.
Big Flex
Fitness Fascist
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if i was the public face of a multimillion dollar project id be swiping tweets on my smart phone round the clock too. it gives the impression of being on it without actually doing anything.
when i was about to get out of the Marine Corps, like a month left in, the short timers were always tasked with doing bullshit work, so if i had to go in or around the company office, because i wanted to go to the gym or go to my car or something id carry a clip board with literally blank papers on it. if someone tried to flag me down to go sort tents or something id raise aloft said clipboard and shrug as if to say im already busting my ass, can't abandon this pressing task for a working party. our first sergent was like omg sgt. flex is really putting out, what a great marine.
when i was about to get out of the Marine Corps, like a month left in, the short timers were always tasked with doing bullshit work, so if i had to go in or around the company office, because i wanted to go to the gym or go to my car or something id carry a clip board with literally blank papers on it. if someone tried to flag me down to go sort tents or something id raise aloft said clipboard and shrug as if to say im already busting my ass, can't abandon this pressing task for a working party. our first sergent was like omg sgt. flex is really putting out, what a great marine.
Then your an idiot? Seriously. Who EVER zoned into KC and was shocked to see a train to zone?
So you want to remove death from the game because its inconvenient?
Who looks for a 96 rez when your playing in a low level zone like Unrest?
Are you seriously constructing an entire argument over the fact you got killed zoning in to Unrest and that proves the game is tedious? If your not prepared to die hundreds of times over the course of a year then maybe MMO's in general are not for you. Neither are FPS's. If dying is that inconvenient to you stick to fucking Monopoly or Chutes and ladders dude.
Do you really think Obama carries around his cell phone and whips it out during lunch to toss out tweets? I'm just saying, its business. And most of the time a guy in ponytails position doesn't have time to sit down and start tweeting out updates. Like Obama, he has people to do that for him.
Ok, I'll concede that there was an awesomeness to a "layered" feel of difficulty. (Your xcom example was what got me, I am a huge fan.)
That said however, I don't particularly think of them as a difficulty because they were by and large avoided with things like invis lanterns and corpse hopping, or SOS rogues.
Someone else mentioned it and I'll touch on it, and that's the idea that doing everything right yourself could still lead to an abysmal showing - trains, actual organized attempts to dismantle etc. Corpse running because of that? Fucking annoying.
There's also other things, like running to dungeons and areas and camping that had little difficulty to them, because they were very much what you mentioned, that being a way of winning by execution.
It wasn't long before people understood things like hugging walls, and invising at specific points etc. I remember some fairly annoying ways to get places because without circumventing you were fucked. Invis wear off in sirens grotto while running to western wastes? Suck it. Also, all your fish scales are on your corpse. Suck it twice.
Now you're right about planning; few people did those runs without a backup, like someone to Rez them, or pull their corpse or an evac spell, etcetera.
But this was beyond the encounter and really, it never got better. I mean eventually you wouldn't outright die by some crazed otter, but you still ran with invis because it was less annoying.
I'm all for layered difficulty, but eq didn't necessarily require some crazy strategic planning, and as expansions came out the same way of circumventing was used. That became extremely tedious. Felt awesome getting there though.
Eq had a sharp learning curve but once you got it, you kept it. And from that point on what took you out was mostly fucking random shit, like invis fading even though you buffed it with aa's, or scaling a wall and having someone else aggro an asshole with summon. (That fucking matriarch thing in nadeira's landing or whatever, how the fuck.)
Most of wow and eq comes down to muscle memory but I'd argue that winning in eq required all the same memories and wow requires you to learn ones.
Also I didn't mean to suggest that eq was only better than other mmos because of lack of choice. It was a better game and THATs where the lack of choice comes from. Why play a game when you could wreck shit in eq's world?
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I understand certain people like different things, but IMO those sucky moments in EQ is what made the winning that much sweeter. I never felt victory like that in any other game. Because you were dragged through the mud if you fucked up or were not careful, it made you respect the shit more. It made you have those moments where your heart was in your throat. This also s no longer in current games.
Forget difficulty for a minute. We all get that WoWs encounters were difficult, at least I do. But that general feeling of accomplishment/fear/oh shit moments were just not there. Because you never lost anything (time).
You mention that sirens grotto run. I bet you actually paid attention, and was under a bit of stress while ruining through there, werent you? Especially the first few times, and you didnt even know your way.
THATS whats missing from these games.
Big Flex
Fitness Fascist
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"The first place I thought to check was the toliets.. brad? Brad? BRAD?!"
Mr Creed
Too old for this shit
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Maybe the lesson just took some time to sink in... anyway, EQ had some a good run pre-WoW and is still around a decade after it (not that I touched it since 2004 but it wasnt shut down either). You make it sound like SOE/EQ is in the same league as Horizons. With hindsight, one of the things SOE did well was fast expansions - even if the raid content was bugged as hell and generally half-finished (and I dont remember a finished endgame for any EQ expansion), the other 5-10 zones generally worked and came out at nearly the same pace that WoW did mere content patches which had like one dungeon/raid and that's it.
Valderen
Space Pirate
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Whenever I hear about how difficult EQ was, I kinda roll my eyes a bit.
I mean, it was a challenge...but a very large part of that challenge was due to bugs and poor coding(or limits of the times).
What was really hard about doing dungeons, or Fear/Hate?
Bad pathing, mobs not clearing their aggro list properly and comming back 10 minutes later with the entire zone in tow. AOE spells going through walls/floor/ceiling(Hello Hate 2nd floor inc...).
Heck in the early days, the biggest obstacle of doing raids like Vox and Nagafen was people going LD during the fight.
For the most though, these things are no longer a problem today...pathing AI is better, aggro list clear properly and we generally don't aggro stuff through walls anymore. And going LD is a rare occurance unless someone has an insanely bad connection.
So basically, bugs were fixed and because of it...games became easier.
In a way, WoW wasn't made easier...it was just less buggy.
I mean, it was a challenge...but a very large part of that challenge was due to bugs and poor coding(or limits of the times).
What was really hard about doing dungeons, or Fear/Hate?
Bad pathing, mobs not clearing their aggro list properly and comming back 10 minutes later with the entire zone in tow. AOE spells going through walls/floor/ceiling(Hello Hate 2nd floor inc...).
Heck in the early days, the biggest obstacle of doing raids like Vox and Nagafen was people going LD during the fight.
For the most though, these things are no longer a problem today...pathing AI is better, aggro list clear properly and we generally don't aggro stuff through walls anymore. And going LD is a rare occurance unless someone has an insanely bad connection.
So basically, bugs were fixed and because of it...games became easier.
In a way, WoW wasn't made easier...it was just less buggy.