My favorite online game of all time was EQ1 (up to a certain point when too many things changed the game). On top of being a really fun game, in my opinion, it also had a very good community. Sure, there were a few bad apples on my server that I encountered but I could count those players on one hand. That's pretty darn good for a server with thousands of players. I've thought about why I think EQ had such a good community and I think it boils down to these 2 main reasons..
Slow Character Progression: Experience in EQ was slow and death was harsh. It took a long time to level a character up. Players invested a lot of time into it. When experience is fast and easy to obtain, players don't feel like they've invested a lot into their character and will care less about them.
Group Oriented Content: I believe that having to rely on other people helps keep jerkyness in check. Those few bad apples I mentioned.. people knew them well because they were often being jerks to everyone, and over time a lot of people just refused to deal with them. Many people in the community wouldn't group with them, or help them or even sell things to them in some cases. I imagine in a world where you need people, being alienated from a large portion of the community makes things even more difficult.
I find it unfortunate that so many people actually hate these concepts in MMOs. I'm not saying that it's a perfect system. There were a few times I experienced the suckyness of LFG for 2 hours with no luck. However, way more often than not, I found a group and I had an alt for when I couldn't.
Long BS rant with lots of hating people for the way they play games, or just for not being Strayfe.
You have the amazing ability to see the future, or are you just making up fears? Considering how time and science work the answer is number 2, you're pretending people will do things that instantly occurred to you to do.....
Important areas are protected, no one is going to 24 hour camp the middle of a desert to dig a hole into nothing. Your concerns are somewhere between crazy person and very stupid person.
FYI, the terrible disgusting dregs of society are the people who start attacking and accusing people for not having done anything yet... aka you. Please don't play EQN, or at least make your name the same as here so I can switch servers when I see you trying to chase people out of forests for collecting wood.
My favorite online game of all time was EQ1 (up to a certain point when too many things changed the game). On top of being a really fun game, in my opinion, it also had a very good community. Sure, there were a few bad apples on my server that I encountered but I could count those players on one hand. That's pretty darn good for a server with thousands of players. I've thought about why I think EQ had such a good community and I think it boils down to these 2 main reasons..
Slow Character Progression: Experience in EQ was slow and death was harsh. It took a long time to level a character up. Players invested a lot of time into it. When experience is fast and easy to obtain, players don't feel like they've invested a lot into their character and will care less about them.
Group Oriented Content: I believe that having to rely on other people helps keep jerkyness in check. Those few bad apples I mentioned.. people knew them well because they were often being jerks to everyone, and over time a lot of people just refused to deal with them. Many people in the community wouldn't group with them, or help them or even sell things to them in some cases. I imagine in a world where you need people, being alienated from a large portion of the community makes things even more difficult.
I find it unfortunate that so many people actually hate these concepts in MMOs. I'm not saying that it's a perfect system. There were a few times I experienced the suckyness of LFG for 2 hours with no luck. However, way more often than not, I found a group and I had an alt for when I couldn't.
I have to agree with ye there and would add on top of that the death penalty hehe. Personally I loved the more severe death penalty of EQ as it made you actually be afraid of dying which in turn kept you on your toes and the edge of your seat as things could get a lot more intense a lot easier. In pretty much every game today death is a minor setback and no big deal really so theres no real fear of dying and thus a lot less of a rush when things get intense.
In all of these discussions about destructibility and possibilities for griefing people don't seem to realize the amount of destruction that we will be able to achieve. First of all we won't be able to topple mountains, collapse caves or similar. The most that we'll be able to do would be to destroy small bridges, crumble pillars, crash through thin walls and such. Any sort of destruction on a bigger scale will maybe only be possible in GvG sieges and battles, and that's a big maybe. Making a hole in the ground and falling though will be scripted, you can't just fall through anywhere, especially when you're just about to get that long sought after loot, it boggles my mind that anyone would think otherwise. People are just getting to carried away with this destruction feature. We will only be able to destroy the thin surface made of Voxels, which will look cool during a fight, then after 5 minutes that terrain will regenerate and wait for the next one who comes along. Any other kind of destruction of castles and bigger buildings will be scripted, probably during those long public events.
Completely agree with the OP but see, the world isnt "really" destructible..It is not going to be.Even it will be its gonna be "temporary softcore " destructibility.So, relax.
I dont believe players can do much to change things in the game.Be it story, be it soil.We wont have much choices to do here guys.Wake up.?t's another marketing strategy.And when they pull the game out of the oven, you will only see softcore destructibility such as some serious walls or castles owned by someone (very similar to GW2 wvw)
You dont have to put that much effort and energy into this game and you shouldn't.Because they won't be investing the same energy into yourself.
You're combining four things, F2P, action/twitch combat, console gameplay and destructible environments. Think about that for a second. You're going to take the console crowd, toss them in with the F2P crowd, throw in the FPS/Twitch gaming crowd, and then place them in an environment where things can be destroyed? This is like taking a prison camp on a field trip to a Columbian drug cartel, or a group of sex offenders to a whorehouse.
Now that's an exaggeration.
You are taking the bottom feeders of the MMORPG community, the lowest common denominators, and giving them an environment where they have carte blanche to devastate any efforts at forming an actual community. Minecraft succeeds in part BECAUSE it is a contained experience. When you allow such things to promulgate over a massive environment, involving many servers, you lose the ability to effectively police the demonstrated, natural instinct of the F2P/Console/Twitch playerbase to turn everything they touch into a free for all.
We are sorry oh great superior race of higher steps in mmorpg community. That is a great way to start a conversation... by archetyping over 80% of entire player community and offending them at the same time, bravo.
I'll wait for someone to offer the inevitable argument that, "You're generalizing a huge group of people, and it's not going to be that bad." Trust me, it is. Lower barrier of entry -always-, without exception, results in lower commitment and loyalty. Lack of loyalty and commitment results in a lower quality of customer. This is really simple business practice and simple logic. You don't see many people changing careers once they become a doctor or a lawyer, because it takes so much hard work and dedication to become a doctor or a lawyer. How many quality people do you know who work at a fast food joint their entire life? Exactly.
Why should I trust you? What authority you have in this industry? Are you even in it?
That being said, steps will need to be taken by SOE to ensure that the playerbase they are pitching EQN toward doesn't steamroll their intended features and create an unplayable environment full of jerkwads. To do that, I'd imagine many of the proposed elements of their pillars will need to be curtailed and cut back to some extent. The holy trinity and aggro style of combat mechanics are used, in part, not because they're outdated and work well, but because they are impossible (or very difficult) to exploit, being as basic as they are. Any "advanced" AI can be tricked, outsmarted and exploited once it becomes understood because AI simply hasn't evolved far enough to create what SOE are claiming they can create, unless, by some miracle, SOE has a secret robotics and AI division that has managed to outdo NASA and MIT.
Of course the entire thing will be simplified, what did you expect? Virtual reality? Go back a year and see how GW2 was promoted. If you only read what devs said, you thought it was going to be a new virtual life simulator. Of course everything was simplified, that is how games are.And why are you so upset about it?
Having said that, you are again, taking a system that will be easier to exploit and placing it in front of the people most likely to exploit it. You are taking a game mechanic in destructible environments, and placing it in front of the people most likely to use it in a negative manner. It is far easier to destroy than it is to create, and even if you suggest a ratio of 1 troll/jerkwad for every 50 legit players (very conservative estimate), the damage that many jerkwads can do far outweighs the benefits of including community building features to this extent.
You don't even know how this will all work, you only saw a tech demo with few examples. Even the examples in it were not explained enough for you to pull such crazy assumptions. You don't even know how the final product will look, or how the engine is done. You only have few of their ideas and the entire rest is all your imagination.
If SOE responds by limiting the methods by which trolls and jerkwads can ruin the experience for anyone else, it will necessarily limit their vision, their proposed features and create a watered down game on all fronts. IF (and I say if speculatively, because I won't go as far as everyone else does and doomsay by saying the game will fail) Everquest: Next fails, it will be because SOE is severely underestimating the destructive behavior their target audience is capable of, within the context of an environment that would appear to be a perfect breeding ground for said behavior.
Even a simple solution that they said about, like giving large cooldowns on destruction skills will fix most fo the griefing. They will redo and simplify their ideas until they have something that can't be abused to a dangerous extend. This is too obvious to even write about. The game still will be more advanced than anything else so far. If you are dissapointed that it won't be as awesome as the ideas say, then too bad, you'll need to get over it.
You are a great example for the quote under my avatar, “Discussion is impossible with someone who claims not to seek the truth, but already to possess it.”
Teh, several of my friends have said the exact same to me as you, OP. It may be so. Still, I hope that is not the case, and somehow SOE finds mechanics to solve this issue.
Personally I rather have a monthly fee = flatrate gaming, than the so called "free" to play. That would solve a lot of issues, IMO.
True, WoW is not known for having immature, lower denominator, kids playing it since it has a fee...heck EQ never had one single idiot ranting in chat or training mobs over people. Thank you monthly fees!
now take a deep breath and ask urselve: "what if Wow were entirely F2P?" the community would improve a lot i m sure.
Originally posted by OriginOfWaves In all of these discussions about destructibility and possibilities for griefing people don't seem to realize the amount of destruction that we will be able to achieve. First of all we won't be able to topple mountains, collapse caves or similar. The most that we'll be able to do would be to destroy small bridges, crumble pillars, crash through thin walls and such. Any sort of destruction on a bigger scale will maybe only be possible in GvG sieges and battles, and that's a big maybe. Making a hole in the ground and falling though will be scripted, you can't just fall through anywhere, especially when you're just about to get that long sought after loot, it boggles my mind that anyone would think otherwise. People are just getting to carried away with this destruction feature. We will only be able to destroy the thin surface made of Voxels, which will look cool during a fight, then after 5 minutes that terrain will regenerate and wait for the next one who comes along. Any other kind of destruction of castles and bigger buildings will be scripted, probably during those long public events.
Thanks for interjecting some sanity. They have already said they are not going to let the players turn their cities in the game into a parking lot.
As for the other points the op made.... I present to you sir eve online. Monthly fee check, no twitch combat slow paced play check, learning curve that tends to drive the casual players away check, hardcore player base many of whom have been playing the game for years check. Want to know something else about that game? It's absolutely notorious for the griefing that goes on in it. Hell that community prides itself on being vicious.
Comments
All OP does is demonize certain groups of players, intelectual racism if you want, and doomsays the game because of these groups.
Well, I hope he doesnt want these groups to sit back in the bus... It certainly sounds like it.
My favorite online game of all time was EQ1 (up to a certain point when too many things changed the game). On top of being a really fun game, in my opinion, it also had a very good community. Sure, there were a few bad apples on my server that I encountered but I could count those players on one hand. That's pretty darn good for a server with thousands of players. I've thought about why I think EQ had such a good community and I think it boils down to these 2 main reasons..
Slow Character Progression: Experience in EQ was slow and death was harsh. It took a long time to level a character up. Players invested a lot of time into it. When experience is fast and easy to obtain, players don't feel like they've invested a lot into their character and will care less about them.
Group Oriented Content: I believe that having to rely on other people helps keep jerkyness in check. Those few bad apples I mentioned.. people knew them well because they were often being jerks to everyone, and over time a lot of people just refused to deal with them. Many people in the community wouldn't group with them, or help them or even sell things to them in some cases. I imagine in a world where you need people, being alienated from a large portion of the community makes things even more difficult.
I find it unfortunate that so many people actually hate these concepts in MMOs. I'm not saying that it's a perfect system. There were a few times I experienced the suckyness of LFG for 2 hours with no luck. However, way more often than not, I found a group and I had an alt for when I couldn't.
You have the amazing ability to see the future, or are you just making up fears? Considering how time and science work the answer is number 2, you're pretending people will do things that instantly occurred to you to do.....
Important areas are protected, no one is going to 24 hour camp the middle of a desert to dig a hole into nothing. Your concerns are somewhere between crazy person and very stupid person.
FYI, the terrible disgusting dregs of society are the people who start attacking and accusing people for not having done anything yet... aka you. Please don't play EQN, or at least make your name the same as here so I can switch servers when I see you trying to chase people out of forests for collecting wood.
I have to agree with ye there and would add on top of that the death penalty hehe. Personally I loved the more severe death penalty of EQ as it made you actually be afraid of dying which in turn kept you on your toes and the edge of your seat as things could get a lot more intense a lot easier. In pretty much every game today death is a minor setback and no big deal really so theres no real fear of dying and thus a lot less of a rush when things get intense.
Completely agree with the OP but see, the world isnt "really" destructible..It is not going to be.Even it will be its gonna be "temporary softcore " destructibility.So, relax.
I dont believe players can do much to change things in the game.Be it story, be it soil.We wont have much choices to do here guys.Wake up.?t's another marketing strategy.And when they pull the game out of the oven, you will only see softcore destructibility such as some serious walls or castles owned by someone (very similar to GW2 wvw)
You dont have to put that much effort and energy into this game and you shouldn't.Because they won't be investing the same energy into yourself.
beLIEve
now take a deep breath and ask urselve: "what if Wow were entirely F2P?" the community would improve a lot i m sure.
Thanks for interjecting some sanity. They have already said they are not going to let the players turn their cities in the game into a parking lot.
As for the other points the op made.... I present to you sir eve online. Monthly fee check, no twitch combat slow paced play check, learning curve that tends to drive the casual players away check, hardcore player base many of whom have been playing the game for years check. Want to know something else about that game? It's absolutely notorious for the griefing that goes on in it. Hell that community prides itself on being vicious.