Just like Free to play is the natural evolution of the business side of MMORPGs. There are a few things like bonus exp or bag space that you are going to want to buy if you play the game. But this amounts to actually less money than you would pay for a game box + subscription fees. Meanwhile, there are a lot of "fluff" items that people with dedication and a wallet can buy to pick up the slack and provide extra profit.
The kind of "pay to play" format that people rant about of forums...i haven't seen in any SoE game, or game in general (besides Age of Wu Shu). There is no reason to suppose that is what is going to take place here. SoE Cash shops don't let you buy dps upgrades and progressed characters. That's what IGN and Ebay are for. And if you haven't noticed, game companies can't stop it. So I'd get over it.
I find this statement to be false or at least, unprovable. The reason the F2P has become so prevalent is that so many games lately were just not that good (unpolished, lacking promised features) or had no staying power due to lack of content/single-player focus, so couldn't retain sub numbers and f2p solved this lack of game quality, but this by no means show that a natural evolution of pay model, just a shift that will probably shift back or to some else of time. The change didn't come about because people refuse to pay subs, but that games weren't good enough to justify one.
And don't be fooled into thinking xp and bags will be the only things in the CS. With full f2p, they will have to get people in the shop and will be intrusive.
The most popular game is LoL... it is free to play and not pay to play. LoL has literally four times the player base that WoW had at its peak.
Why don't you go ahead and give me some SoE titles that the cash shop ruined. Until then, I maintain that "pay to play" is forum rhetoric with no basis.
Since then we've had the fluke of WoW. And since WoW, for reasons that defy any kind of reason, the genre has shifted away from the thing it does best, and the thing that's unique about the the genre, the grouping, and has shifted towards solo gameplay. At the same time it has shifted away from challenge and reward towards giving away rewards for every trivial little action.
You can't fathom any kind of reason for the shift?
Selective memories abound on MMORPG.com! WoW wasn't designed with some nefarious plot in mind to ruin all your fun. MMO gamers had been complaining about various issues and Blizzard listened. I know people like to pretend that imaginary gamers just showed up to play WoW, but the initial playerbase was EQ'ers who were fed up with EQ. "Why are there so few QUESTS in everQUEST?" If I had a nickel for every time I heard that I would be able to buy Blizzard.
Wow did take some EQ players, but the vast majority of their player base came from outside the mmo genre. There were probably barely over a million mmo gamers between the few games that were out before wow and they took it to 12 million. Most that left for WoW probably just wanted to check it out because of it's buzz or because it was getting old and EQ2 had issues. I never heard anyone in EQ complain that there weren't quests. Those that played long term enjoyed it over wow.
Now as too EQN, I'm glad they are doing something different, but hoped they would've kept some things from EQ, like art style with better gfx). They are making some bold claims and promising some truly groundbreaking advances in mechanics and gameplay and if they can even pull of 75% of it, then it should be a game to capture old vets and new school players for years.
Obviously all our experiences differ, but the majority of early WoW players that I played with, came from EQ, DAoC, UO, and SWG.
Almost my entire guild and many other "big name" guilds from DAoC, went to WoW. Many of them had previously played EQ. Very few people in any of the early guilds I was in, were brand new to mmorpgs. Then again, I played with more experienced people so that could explain it as well.
While I can't confirm this data, it seems fairly accurate to what I remember during the time. End of 2004 was the end of most western mmos.
I honestly can't remember a single person that I gamed with for years that went back to EQ. A few went back to DAoC for a bit, but most either played older games along with WoW or just WoW.
WoW wasn't a fluke, it was a well designed game that alleviated a lot of the issues gamers had with previous games. Not that it didn't have it's own problems, but it solved more than it caused for the majority, based on how well it did at least.
I'm not an altaholic, though I understand some people are. You are right in that a particular character can't do everything though. The "easily" part on gearing up I guess is funny .. not because of what you said, but because of how accessibility has allowed this to happen. It was in no way "easy" to gear up alts in EQ1 or WoW Vanilla.
The trinity adds to the value someone feels on their character. Melee is hard. Healing is a bitch. DPS is tricky to get decent results. Making everyone able to do everything just dumbs down the system, because now Melee is easy, healing is a breaze, and dps requires no skill. Above all, lack of a trinity requires no sincere organization to what is being done. But that is also a product of accessibility, which means everyone wins, regardless of skill ..
In light of the last sentence, the MOBA angle becomes slightly more humorous :-)
Side Note:
Separate elements, treat them separately. There is no "or".
You can either imagine a system where people have different roles outside the tank and spank, or you can't. It's pretty obvious you are in the latter category. I've already wasted enough time on other threads arguing this point. There is plenty of evidence from existing games. Extrapolating the concepts from MOBAs and applying them to an MMORPG is a good way to picture this. If you can't even do that, than IDK what to tell you.
I've never been impressed by someone nit picking grammar in the midst of a disagreement online. I doubt anyone else ever has either.
I partly agree OP and I hope that there is a lot of places to go that require a group. It adds a sense of danger to the world and exploration if you don't cram harder content into just dungeons or small, spread out areas.
Having a lot of hard content would go far in attracting those who have been fans of the franchise. As it stands now I see a lot of assumptions on what kind of gameplay it will have, namely that it will be an easy, watered down game. If it's easy to scale difficulty lets see what it can look like .
Originally posted by goozmania You're a bit late, meng. They've already shown us that it is a predominately single player action game, and it will definitely be F2P... And, not only that, but they are pretty excited about that fact, too.
and by "they" you mean me... because I know I am excited.
Here is what I get from the videos and information I have read. It seems.
EQNEXT will be like GW2, simply put. This is a good thing imo. Gw2 is a good game.
Now SOE will add the EQ flavor of an actual end game and tons of dungeons and quests and most likely public events.
Throw in your favorite Race (mine is Dwarfs)
add stylized graphics that will stand the test of time. Make them too realistic and the game looks crappy (see dated) in 5 years.
Basic classes to start and over 40 to unlock and customize your character to your liking.
Holy Trinity is over rated. I know a lot of people like it, but a lot don't like it as well. Most MMOs have like 2-3 tank classes and 2-3 healer classes and 1,000 dps classes. Yay nothing like LFG for 8 hours to have a LEET priest just say "F'ck it" this group sucks! /facepalm
I like Monsters fighting at random.. a Dragon isn't gonna fight you because you have a shield and keep taunting him. Dragons don't care. He will kill the closest thing to him/her.. am I right? Most of the time it is the "tank"
EQNEXT might be the best MMO ever made, depending on how linear it is. Looks awesome so far.
That kind of depends on how its done. People had 5 alts in EQ and could do every job as well. You probably can be all the different classes (or the vast majority of them) on one character. That doesn't mean you will be able to get them all tiered up and geared easily. I don't really see what making everyone pick between tank, healer, dps, has to do with longevity directly.
The trinity or "jack of all trades" false dichotomy is kind of a separate issue. Generally it involves people that haven't played MOBAs or can imagine how there can be role versatility without a trinity.
I'm not an altaholic, though I understand some people are. You are right in that a particular character can't do everything though. The "easily" part on gearing up I guess is funny .. not because of what you said, but because of how accessibility has allowed this to happen. It was in no way "easy" to gear up alts in EQ1 or WoW Vanilla.
The trinity adds to the value someone feels on their character. Melee is hard. Healing is a bitch. DPS is tricky to get decent results. Making everyone able to do everything just dumbs down the system, because now Melee is easy, healing is a breaze, and dps requires no skill. Above all, lack of a trinity requires no sincere organization to what is being done. But that is also a product of accessibility, which means everyone wins, regardless of skill ..
In light of the last sentence, the MOBA angle becomes slightly more humorous :-)
Side Note:
Separate elements, treat them separately. There is no "or".
This is subjective. I feel just as immersed in Team Fortress 2 which has on the fly class switching as I do in any traditional mmorpg. The difference is that in TF2, I feel like a good player instead of just a good "insert class." Sure I can be an amazing Heavy or Medic, but I am able to do it all and help the team in anyway that is needed. I might suck at one particular class, but that doesn't mean I can't give it a try.
I don't get how class swapping = ezmode. They've said that you can be anything you want, but encounters will benefit from particular classes and skills being used. So maybe you have a 5% chance at winning with a full team of DPS mages, but a 75% chance with a mixed group of offensive, defensive, supportive classes. Same content, different approaches.
EQN classes do not allow a player to do it all at once. You have to pick a particular role for the encounter. You can't be the uber plate wearing mage that can heal and dps like crazy. GW2 has self-contained solo machines, EQN doesn't seem that way so far.
Personally, I feel the trinity is a safety net that forces people to focus on only one part of combat and limits their overall ability and experience.
You stand here and taunt, I'll watch your health bar and keep it full, other guy spam dps, but watch your threat meter the entire time, not the fight, until mob is dead.
Where EQN is looking to require a deal more of communication and team work as mobs won't just stand in place hitting the most ugly guy. There should be less room for error in EQN as there isn't a set system in place that the trinity covers the majority of the time.
Obviously we all see and hear things differently, but so far, I don't see EQN turning into ezmode faceroll combat.
Either way, I believe the trinity has been popular because people like to play particular roles. No reason those people can't continue to play tanks, healers, cc, dps, etc in EQN. Maybe they won't be carbon copies of previous versions, but there will still be offensive, defensive, supportive roles and abilities that align with what many consider the trinity.
But if I get bored of healing my buddy all day, we can switch or both try something completely different.
Originally posted by goozmania You're a bit late, meng. They've already shown us that it is a predominately single player action game, and it will definitely be F2P... And, not only that, but they are pretty excited about that fact, too.
and by "they" you mean me... because I know I am excited.
Here is what I get from the videos and information I have read. It seems.
EQNEXT will be like GW2, simply put. This is a good thing imo. Gw2 is a good game.
Now SOE will add the EQ flavor of an actual end game and tons of dungeons and quests and most likely public events.
Throw in your favorite Race (mine is Dwarfs)
add stylized graphics that will stand the test of time. Make them too realistic and the game looks crappy (see dated) in 5 years.
Basic classes to start and over 40 to unlock and customize your character to your liking.
Holy Trinity is over rated. I know a lot of people like it, but a lot don't like it as well. Most MMOs have like 2-3 tank classes and 2-3 healer classes and 1,000 dps classes. Yay nothing like LFG for 8 hours to have a LEET priest just say "F'ck it" this group sucks! /facepalm
I like Monsters fighting at random.. a Dragon isn't gonna fight you because you have a shield and keep taunting him. Dragons don't care. He will kill the closest thing to him/her.. am I right? Most of the time it is the "tank"
EQNEXT might be the best MMO ever made, depending on how linear it is. Looks awesome so far.
The only thing in EQN even remotely similar to GW2 is telegraphs/dodging during combat. They have even expressed in the class panels during the reveal that roles will be important. This is the opposite of GW2. They said you will have to switch roles and strategies in order to beat some mobs.
Does that sound like the zerg that is GW2? You don't need to adapt to fight a mob in GW2 you just avoid damage and spam dps. To further separate it from GW it's got :
Destructible environments
A huge seamless world with 4 to 5 tiers of depth
Emergent AI with story bricks so NPCs react to your choices
Multi-class system with 40 classes to mix and match
Dynamic world - no more static spawns
Robust crafting system
Custom built Player houses you can decorate
MOUNTS!
And this is only what we know so far. If you think telegraphs and dodging make EQN like GW2 then you need to look at it again.
The only thing in EQN even remotely similar to GW2 is telegraphs/dodging during combat. They have even expressed in the class panels during the reveal that roles will be important. This is the opposite of GW2. They said you will have to switch roles and strategies in order to beat some mobs.
Combat has bearly been touched. Certainly not enough to make any judgement. The Devs have said the the combat will not be MOBA or GW2 like.
Does that sound like the zerg that is GW2? You don't need to adapt to fight a mob in GW2 you just avoid damage and spam dps. To further separate it from GW it's got :
Destructible environments
A huge seamless world with 4 to 5 tiers of depth
From what I have seen the world is made of two sub tiers
Emergent AI with story bricks so NPCs react to your choices
Multi-class system with 40 classes to mix and match
Over 40 classes actually
Dynamic world - no more static spawns
Robust crafting system
Hasn't been revealed yet
Custom built Player houses you can decorate
MOUNTS!
Only for Landmark as of right now.
And this is only what we know so far. If you think telegraphs and dodging make EQN like GW2 then you need to look at it again.
What defies reason, is the misguided belief that these pre-WoW style MMO's should be made. There's no proof that players will support it. You say you will, but what happens when something isn't to your liking? You leave it to gather dust. Don't you guys realize that there's no incentive to pursue people like yourselves?
Kind of hard to speculate without demographic data, but surely a good many of them are retired from gaming by now.
A great many of the people I gamed with 15 years ago did their time as Staff, and there aren't many still doing that, even.
But if you assume the original player base of GameX attrits away at about 10% a year (not unreasonable)...only (0.9^^N) of the original player pool still remains, maximum...and getting continually smaller.
If GameX peaked at half a mill, a decade ago--is 50k remaining old fussbudgets guarding their Sunk Costs worth pursuing?
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I'm not an altaholic, though I understand some people are. You are right in that a particular character can't do everything though. The "easily" part on gearing up I guess is funny .. not because of what you said, but because of how accessibility has allowed this to happen. It was in no way "easy" to gear up alts in EQ1 or WoW Vanilla.
The trinity adds to the value someone feels on their character. Melee is hard. Healing is a bitch. DPS is tricky to get decent results. Making everyone able to do everything just dumbs down the system, because now Melee is easy, healing is a breaze, and dps requires no skill. Above all, lack of a trinity requires no sincere organization to what is being done. But that is also a product of accessibility, which means everyone wins, regardless of skill ..
In light of the last sentence, the MOBA angle becomes slightly more humorous :-)
Side Note:
Separate elements, treat them separately. There is no "or".
You can either imagine a system where people have different roles outside the tank and spank, or you can't. It's pretty obvious you are in the latter category. I've already wasted enough time on other threads arguing this point. There is plenty of evidence from existing games. Extrapolating the concepts from MOBAs and applying them to an MMORPG is a good way to picture this. If you can't even do that, than IDK what to tell you.
I've never been impressed by someone nit picking grammar in the midst of a disagreement online. I doubt anyone else ever has either.
How refreshing. You tell me I have no idea how great EQN will be, yet you can't provide any details .. not a single one... you just say it's going to be better than anything I've seen. Great job.
I'm not an altaholic, though I understand some people are. You are right in that a particular character can't do everything though. The "easily" part on gearing up I guess is funny .. not because of what you said, but because of how accessibility has allowed this to happen. It was in no way "easy" to gear up alts in EQ1 or WoW Vanilla.
The trinity adds to the value someone feels on their character. Melee is hard. Healing is a bitch. DPS is tricky to get decent results. Making everyone able to do everything just dumbs down the system, because now Melee is easy, healing is a breaze, and dps requires no skill. Above all, lack of a trinity requires no sincere organization to what is being done. But that is also a product of accessibility, which means everyone wins, regardless of skill ..
In light of the last sentence, the MOBA angle becomes slightly more humorous :-)
Side Note:
Separate elements, treat them separately. There is no "or".
You can either imagine a system where people have different roles outside the tank and spank, or you can't. It's pretty obvious you are in the latter category. I've already wasted enough time on other threads arguing this point. There is plenty of evidence from existing games. Extrapolating the concepts from MOBAs and applying them to an MMORPG is a good way to picture this. If you can't even do that, than IDK what to tell you.
I've never been impressed by someone nit picking grammar in the midst of a disagreement online. I doubt anyone else ever has either.
How refreshing. You tell me I have no idea how great EQN will be, yet you can't provide any details .. not a single one... you just say it's going to be better than anything I've seen. Great job.
Pls learn grammar versus semantics. Thanks.
Please learn to engage the substance of a topic. Thanks.
Your arguing that it is either trinity combat or a game where everyone is jack-of-all-trades. This argument does not pertain strictly to EQN. None of us know exactly what EQN combat will look like. So your criticism of non-trinity systems is not specific to EQN. You are making a ridicules sweeping statement about what is possible in MMORPG design generally.
EQN could be "dumbed-down," zergy, with every character being jack of all trades, and you still would be wrong. If you had tried to address the substance of the posts here, you might have had something to contribute. Instead you engaged in sophistry to try to look intelligent.
Just one word to sum up your post, and the main reason (not the only reason) that current MMOs have gone to crap...MONEY. The greedy pursuit of it has ruined not only the MMO genre we used to know and love, but nearly every other facet of life of well.
They think...should we design a game to get 2 people paying $15 a month or 20 people paying $5 a month on average purchasing extra inventory space, fluff items, pay-to-win items, and extra experience boosts? The result has been turning MMOs into a third world garage sale atmosphere that repels most of us.
Just a side note with a couple of the EQN graphics comments. I don't mind the non-realistc graphics at all. It runs smoother, and it really doesn't make that much difference to me as long as the GAMEPLAY is challenging. When people scream for better looking/more realistic graphics, I think of what a disaster EQ2 was when they tried to go that route. It ran not so smoothly, and frankly looked horrible.
I see zero point of them clinging to the past at this point. Go with what works now. That's not to say it cant be challenging, but the base game has to be appealing to the broadest subset of players available now.
OP, you may as well have written a dear john letter to the hobby. All of the points, all of these trends, you raise or rail against are a direct result of what server statistics and internal audits show people actually do in games they play. They do not exist nor are they designed in a vacuum and they do milk you for a dollar. Games trend solo when group play isn’t predominant (look what happened with LOTRO just for surprise example.) Games go free to play because the interested player base refuses to pay up front. Games go pay to win when enough people with disposable income push it. EQN is the end result of what players that have gone before you did and do. We either adjust or go do something else as they have satisfied the majority of the three month herd.
I think the problem is that today many players can't accept it when a game provides a challenge they can't beat. Instead players a used to fake challenges. There is a unwritten rule, that the game will always make you feel like a badass gamer, even when you really are not, and the game will never provide any challenges you can't overcome. This is very obvious when you look at single player games. There is non single player game anymore that can't be completed with little afford. Games have become more of a cinematic experience then a challenge. This leaves many players believing they are more hardcore then they really are and they hate it to be brought back to earth. This happens every time a game provides any challenge that in not reduced to the lowest common denominator. And this is why WoW doesn't have such things. WoWs design principle is that no one should ever be kept from completing the highest possible content because he is not able or not willing to improve his play style or maintain any social relationships within the game.
The fact is that no matter how hardcore you are, there is always someone who is more hardcore then you. People need to accept that.
I think there should be something for everyone. I have nothing against solo content as long as it is not the only one. I often prefer it myself. To be in a group can be quite stressful and I don't like that all the time. There should be different content for different levels of skill and commitment.
I believe that EQN really could provide that. They where talking about different tiers of content. As I understand it, this are no levels as some people believe, but steps in difficulty. So tier one is easy solo content and tier five is very hard group centric content that provides risk versus reward.
"On tiers: While trying to get a handle on the new concepts of EverQuest Next, some folks latched onto the term tiers as a substitute for levels. Georgeson, however, explained that the two are not just interchangeable terms for the same idea. Tier doesn't equate to power level -- it means capability. Higher tiers mean that players have a handle on how the game is played, from how to do combat to how to manipulate their skills to make various builds. It also means that they have a more robust selection of skills, giving them more flexibility to deal with situations."
Unfortunately, EQN won't be close to anything that made EQ1 popular. It will be a watered down MMO, revolving around a cashshop, in which every player can be a hero, or buy their success, all without being P2W (because it's all PVE purchases, right?).
EQN is a console game, frankly, best played on consoles. No bother upgrading your system if you want to play it .. just buy a PS4. There is enough buttons to do everything you want in an action adventure lobby game :P
I agree with most of this unfortunately except the P2W as we do not have a clue about the cash shop yet.
Which is also why I have lost most interest in this game. Also I am so tired of companies ruining PC games so they can be console port friendly.
Unfortunately, EQN won't be close to anything that made EQ1 popular. It will be a watered down MMO, revolving around a cashshop, in which every player can be a hero, or buy their success, all without being P2W (because it's all PVE purchases, right?).
EQN is a console game, frankly, best played on consoles. No bother upgrading your system if you want to play it .. just buy a PS4. There is enough buttons to do everything you want in an action adventure lobby game :P
I agree with most of this unfortunately except the P2W as we do not have a clue about the cash shop yet.
Which is also why I have lost most interest in this game. Also I am so tired of companies ruining PC games so they can be console port friendly.
Todays consoles are pc's so im not sure your argument has much validity. You can use a keyboard and a mouse with them I believe. What exactly would they ruin?
Comments
The most popular game is LoL... it is free to play and not pay to play. LoL has literally four times the player base that WoW had at its peak.
Why don't you go ahead and give me some SoE titles that the cash shop ruined. Until then, I maintain that "pay to play" is forum rhetoric with no basis.
Obviously all our experiences differ, but the majority of early WoW players that I played with, came from EQ, DAoC, UO, and SWG.
Almost my entire guild and many other "big name" guilds from DAoC, went to WoW. Many of them had previously played EQ. Very few people in any of the early guilds I was in, were brand new to mmorpgs. Then again, I played with more experienced people so that could explain it as well.
http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-2.png
http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-1.png
While I can't confirm this data, it seems fairly accurate to what I remember during the time. End of 2004 was the end of most western mmos.
I honestly can't remember a single person that I gamed with for years that went back to EQ. A few went back to DAoC for a bit, but most either played older games along with WoW or just WoW.
WoW wasn't a fluke, it was a well designed game that alleviated a lot of the issues gamers had with previous games. Not that it didn't have it's own problems, but it solved more than it caused for the majority, based on how well it did at least.
You can either imagine a system where people have different roles outside the tank and spank, or you can't. It's pretty obvious you are in the latter category. I've already wasted enough time on other threads arguing this point. There is plenty of evidence from existing games. Extrapolating the concepts from MOBAs and applying them to an MMORPG is a good way to picture this. If you can't even do that, than IDK what to tell you.
I've never been impressed by someone nit picking grammar in the midst of a disagreement online. I doubt anyone else ever has either.
Having a lot of hard content would go far in attracting those who have been fans of the franchise. As it stands now I see a lot of assumptions on what kind of gameplay it will have, namely that it will be an easy, watered down game. If it's easy to scale difficulty lets see what it can look like
and by "they" you mean me... because I know I am excited.
Here is what I get from the videos and information I have read. It seems.
EQNEXT will be like GW2, simply put. This is a good thing imo. Gw2 is a good game.
Now SOE will add the EQ flavor of an actual end game and tons of dungeons and quests and most likely public events.
Throw in your favorite Race (mine is Dwarfs)
add stylized graphics that will stand the test of time. Make them too realistic and the game looks crappy (see dated) in 5 years.
Basic classes to start and over 40 to unlock and customize your character to your liking.
Holy Trinity is over rated. I know a lot of people like it, but a lot don't like it as well. Most MMOs have like 2-3 tank classes and 2-3 healer classes and 1,000 dps classes. Yay nothing like LFG for 8 hours to have a LEET priest just say "F'ck it" this group sucks! /facepalm
I like Monsters fighting at random.. a Dragon isn't gonna fight you because you have a shield and keep taunting him. Dragons don't care. He will kill the closest thing to him/her.. am I right? Most of the time it is the "tank"
EQNEXT might be the best MMO ever made, depending on how linear it is. Looks awesome so far.
This is subjective. I feel just as immersed in Team Fortress 2 which has on the fly class switching as I do in any traditional mmorpg. The difference is that in TF2, I feel like a good player instead of just a good "insert class." Sure I can be an amazing Heavy or Medic, but I am able to do it all and help the team in anyway that is needed. I might suck at one particular class, but that doesn't mean I can't give it a try.
I don't get how class swapping = ezmode. They've said that you can be anything you want, but encounters will benefit from particular classes and skills being used. So maybe you have a 5% chance at winning with a full team of DPS mages, but a 75% chance with a mixed group of offensive, defensive, supportive classes. Same content, different approaches.
EQN classes do not allow a player to do it all at once. You have to pick a particular role for the encounter. You can't be the uber plate wearing mage that can heal and dps like crazy. GW2 has self-contained solo machines, EQN doesn't seem that way so far.
Personally, I feel the trinity is a safety net that forces people to focus on only one part of combat and limits their overall ability and experience.
You stand here and taunt, I'll watch your health bar and keep it full, other guy spam dps, but watch your threat meter the entire time, not the fight, until mob is dead.
Where EQN is looking to require a deal more of communication and team work as mobs won't just stand in place hitting the most ugly guy. There should be less room for error in EQN as there isn't a set system in place that the trinity covers the majority of the time.
Obviously we all see and hear things differently, but so far, I don't see EQN turning into ezmode faceroll combat.
Either way, I believe the trinity has been popular because people like to play particular roles. No reason those people can't continue to play tanks, healers, cc, dps, etc in EQN. Maybe they won't be carbon copies of previous versions, but there will still be offensive, defensive, supportive roles and abilities that align with what many consider the trinity.
But if I get bored of healing my buddy all day, we can switch or both try something completely different.
The only thing in EQN even remotely similar to GW2 is telegraphs/dodging during combat. They have even expressed in the class panels during the reveal that roles will be important. This is the opposite of GW2. They said you will have to switch roles and strategies in order to beat some mobs.
Does that sound like the zerg that is GW2? You don't need to adapt to fight a mob in GW2 you just avoid damage and spam dps. To further separate it from GW it's got :
Destructible environments
A huge seamless world with 4 to 5 tiers of depth
Emergent AI with story bricks so NPCs react to your choices
Multi-class system with 40 classes to mix and match
Dynamic world - no more static spawns
Robust crafting system
Custom built Player houses you can decorate
MOUNTS!
And this is only what we know so far. If you think telegraphs and dodging make EQN like GW2 then you need to look at it again.
Kind of hard to speculate without demographic data, but surely a good many of them are retired from gaming by now.
A great many of the people I gamed with 15 years ago did their time as Staff, and there aren't many still doing that, even.
But if you assume the original player base of GameX attrits away at about 10% a year (not unreasonable)...only (0.9^^N) of the original player pool still remains, maximum...and getting continually smaller.
If GameX peaked at half a mill, a decade ago--is 50k remaining old fussbudgets guarding their Sunk Costs worth pursuing?
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
How refreshing. You tell me I have no idea how great EQN will be, yet you can't provide any details .. not a single one... you just say it's going to be better than anything I've seen. Great job.
Pls learn grammar versus semantics. Thanks.
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.
Please learn to engage the substance of a topic. Thanks.
Your arguing that it is either trinity combat or a game where everyone is jack-of-all-trades. This argument does not pertain strictly to EQN. None of us know exactly what EQN combat will look like. So your criticism of non-trinity systems is not specific to EQN. You are making a ridicules sweeping statement about what is possible in MMORPG design generally.
EQN could be "dumbed-down," zergy, with every character being jack of all trades, and you still would be wrong. If you had tried to address the substance of the posts here, you might have had something to contribute. Instead you engaged in sophistry to try to look intelligent.
Voqar, you sir, are my hero.
Great post.
Just one word to sum up your post, and the main reason (not the only reason) that current MMOs have gone to crap...MONEY. The greedy pursuit of it has ruined not only the MMO genre we used to know and love, but nearly every other facet of life of well.
They think...should we design a game to get 2 people paying $15 a month or 20 people paying $5 a month on average purchasing extra inventory space, fluff items, pay-to-win items, and extra experience boosts? The result has been turning MMOs into a third world garage sale atmosphere that repels most of us.
Just a side note with a couple of the EQN graphics comments. I don't mind the non-realistc graphics at all. It runs smoother, and it really doesn't make that much difference to me as long as the GAMEPLAY is challenging. When people scream for better looking/more realistic graphics, I think of what a disaster EQ2 was when they tried to go that route. It ran not so smoothly, and frankly looked horrible.
I see zero point of them clinging to the past at this point. Go with what works now. That's not to say it cant be challenging, but the base game has to be appealing to the broadest subset of players available now.
OP, you may as well have written a dear john letter to the hobby. All of the points, all of these trends, you raise or rail against are a direct result of what server statistics and internal audits show people actually do in games they play. They do not exist nor are they designed in a vacuum and they do milk you for a dollar. Games trend solo when group play isn’t predominant (look what happened with LOTRO just for surprise example.) Games go free to play because the interested player base refuses to pay up front. Games go pay to win when enough people with disposable income push it. EQN is the end result of what players that have gone before you did and do. We either adjust or go do something else as they have satisfied the majority of the three month herd.
I think the problem is that today many players can't accept it when a game provides a challenge they can't beat. Instead players a used to fake challenges. There is a unwritten rule, that the game will always make you feel like a badass gamer, even when you really are not, and the game will never provide any challenges you can't overcome. This is very obvious when you look at single player games. There is non single player game anymore that can't be completed with little afford. Games have become more of a cinematic experience then a challenge. This leaves many players believing they are more hardcore then they really are and they hate it to be brought back to earth. This happens every time a game provides any challenge that in not reduced to the lowest common denominator. And this is why WoW doesn't have such things. WoWs design principle is that no one should ever be kept from completing the highest possible content because he is not able or not willing to improve his play style or maintain any social relationships within the game.
The fact is that no matter how hardcore you are, there is always someone who is more hardcore then you. People need to accept that.
I think there should be something for everyone. I have nothing against solo content as long as it is not the only one. I often prefer it myself. To be in a group can be quite stressful and I don't like that all the time. There should be different content for different levels of skill and commitment.
I believe that EQN really could provide that. They where talking about different tiers of content. As I understand it, this are no levels as some people believe, but steps in difficulty. So tier one is easy solo content and tier five is very hard group centric content that provides risk versus reward.
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/08/17/the-tattered-notebook-quips-quotes-and-eq-next-tidbits-from-s/
"On tiers: While trying to get a handle on the new concepts of EverQuest Next, some folks latched onto the term tiers as a substitute for levels. Georgeson, however, explained that the two are not just interchangeable terms for the same idea. Tier doesn't equate to power level -- it means capability. Higher tiers mean that players have a handle on how the game is played, from how to do combat to how to manipulate their skills to make various builds. It also means that they have a more robust selection of skills, giving them more flexibility to deal with situations."
I agree with most of this unfortunately except the P2W as we do not have a clue about the cash shop yet.
Which is also why I have lost most interest in this game. Also I am so tired of companies ruining PC games so they can be console port friendly.
Todays consoles are pc's so im not sure your argument has much validity. You can use a keyboard and a mouse with them I believe. What exactly would they ruin?