The reason EQI was so popular was because of the locked race types and for me I feel that's the thing which could let EQN down, however until we know more then there is no point with the dramatic statements because we no nothing in full yet and I am of the opinion that SOE have not got any where near a game otherwise we would be hearing more information weekly and that's not happening.
I feel the round table thing is there way of getting what we want to play and guiding them and that's why we seen very little of the game thus far. I guess from what we have seen there has to be some kind of game but they holding it to close to their chest and we will have to wait and see. I for one am no fan of hype or speculation so until we see more then I'll just hold judgment until I get my hands on the beta.
you can honestly say that? after what theve said already ? we voted class locked race and they ignored it saying not gunna happen i have zero FAITH in roundtable
I agree with you but this game will be so ultra casual you could level another toon quickly anyway,and as they say now no matter what you do it doesn't matter
This game will be the casuals wet dream,even more than GW2. That dream will probably last until the next MMORPG comes out because these kind of players just jump ship constantly. I don't totally blaim them because the devs are making throw away games to cater to these bottom feeders.
It is time to just face the facts,there will never in our lifetimes be a challenging MMORPG that makes you want to stay in it for years made.
maybe they will take the technology from eqn and reboot eq1 someday id play it even if it was a bit wowified
As far back as the SWG-NGE, SOE took away all the different racial bonuses/penalties, because they do "shallow" gameplay, starting them, continuing to the present. At the beginning, the different races all help create the deep texture that made original SWG great: different languages for each race, different armor abilities, racial effects and bonuses. But then, SOE decided that all of their customers were stupid, and took that all away.
And here it is again.
This is just another example of "simplified everything", the new motto of SOE.
Originally posted by Kyllien I say then let's blame all this on the PvP'ers. They are the ones that can't stand a little uniqueness between the classes, races, skills, what name you. As soon as one Race has an advantage the PvP'ers are up in arms demanding that the race be nerfed. As soon as one class has an advantage the PvP'ers demand the class be nerfed. As soon as one skill has an advantage the PvP'ers are all demanding that the skill be nerfed.
That is patently untrue.
Lots of PvP'ers love racial variation. From DAOC, to EQ1 to vanilla WoW (where Paladins were Alliance only and Shaman was Horde only), and when PvP first started in EQ2 and classes were locked to good / evil. Lots of players enjoyed the diversity.
What happened was that it was easier for developers to balance the factions by homogenising them. Same with the class homogenisation in both EQ2 and WoW. Now every tank and every healer can do exactly the same thing.
It has nothing to do with the subset of PvP players, or subsets of PvE players who wanted their classes to be viable, its just lazy developers who put it in the 'too hard' basket for balancing and made everyone the same.
Originally posted by Kyllien I say then let's blame all this on the PvP'ers. They are the ones that can't stand a little uniqueness between the classes, races, skills, what name you. As soon as one Race has an advantage the PvP'ers are up in arms demanding that the race be nerfed. As soon as one class has an advantage the PvP'ers demand the class be nerfed. As soon as one skill has an advantage the PvP'ers are all demanding that the skill be nerfed.
That is patently untrue.
Lots of PvP'ers love racial variation. From DAOC, to EQ1 to vanilla WoW (where Paladins were Alliance only and Shaman was Horde only), and when PvP first started in EQ2 and classes were locked to good / evil. Lots of players enjoyed the diversity.
What happened was that it was easier for developers to balance the factions by homogenising them. Same with the class homogenisation in both EQ2 and WoW. Now every tank and every healer can do exactly the same thing.
It has nothing to do with the subset of PvP players, or subsets of PvE players who wanted their classes to be viable, its just lazy developers who put it in the 'too hard' basket for balancing and made everyone the same.
This... in spades
Its happening all over the MMO world.
I guess we will have to wait for some indi dev team to break the new norm
P.S. < mad PvPer and love nothing more than class race and factional differences that are substantial and make for creative game play
The goal of not letting folks' uninformed choices screw up their later gameplay seems pretty reasonable to me. Quality of implementation of this idea may, of course, vary.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
The more ambiguous the 'Great MMO Hope' is, the better it will be thought of, as it is just the mirror of each heart's desires. No real world MMO can survive contact with the players in comparison.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
.... its just lazy developers who put it in the 'too hard' basket for balancing and made everyone the same.
This is usually said by people who have never actually had to try to balance things in an mmo, and deal with the thud and blunder that it causes.
And of course it's easier just to make everything the same instead of thinking things through. So in the end it's still lazy devs.
It is true that if you have unlimited time and unlimited money, you can implement anything you want. Barring that, choices have to be made....
Sometimes I wonder how it was possible 15 years ago but not now with much more advanced technology. I'm afraid it's not even about resources but casual friendliness and trying to appeal for every single sentinel being with IQ starting from around 50.
.... its just lazy developers who put it in the 'too hard' basket for balancing and made everyone the same.
This is usually said by people who have never actually had to try to balance things in an mmo, and deal with the thud and blunder that it causes.
And of course it's easier just to make everything the same instead of thinking things through. So in the end it's still lazy devs.
It is true that if you have unlimited time and unlimited money, you can implement anything you want. Barring that, choices have to be made....
It was something that could be managed in the past when MMOs were made of far less money and often in far less time.
I doubt this is about saving money or time, its about appealing to a particular section of the gaming community, namely the NON MMORPG gaming community.
Funny thing is, while many MMOs are throwing out the RPG part many FPS games are adding more and more RPG elements.
What we know to date from what the devs have said
1. CLASS allowing all people to be all things but makes NO class/combination needed.
2. RACE changing the visual for your toon is the biggest difference between a Dark elf a gnome or an Ogre.
3. FACTIONS that will have NO lasting impact on your character, because if it did you may find yourself locked out of using that paladin or necro or cleric class.
Ohh yea of little minds. Why do you take thing to such extreames? They only said that the Race you chose at the start should not be a limiting factor in your ability to learn new classes. That was all. They did not say that faction would not be important. They did not say that your choice of race would make the game any easier. In fact it is entirely possible that chosing a stupid race to start may make it extreamly hard to learn any skills or classes dependant on Intelligence; not impossible but very hard. Likewise for a weak race trying to train to be a warrior. Or a slow race trying to a rogue. You can learn the other classes but you may not be very good at them without serious training.
.... its just lazy developers who put it in the 'too hard' basket for balancing and made everyone the same.
This is usually said by people who have never actually had to try to balance things in an mmo, and deal with the thud and blunder that it causes.
And of course it's easier just to make everything the same instead of thinking things through. So in the end it's still lazy devs.
It is true that if you have unlimited time and unlimited money, you can implement anything you want. Barring that, choices have to be made....
It was something that could be managed in the past when MMOs were made of far less money and often in far less time.
I doubt this is about saving money or time, its about appealing to a particular section of the gaming community, namely the NON MMORPG gaming community.
Funny thing is, while many MMOs are throwing out the RPG part many FPS games are adding more and more RPG elements.
What we know to date from what the devs have said
1. CLASS allowing all people to be all things but makes NO class/combination needed.
2. RACE changing the visual for your toon is the biggest difference between a Dark elf a gnome or an Ogre.
3. FACTIONS that will have NO lasting impact on your character, because if it did you may find yourself locked out of using that paladin or necro or cleric class.
In ye oldy days (you and the other derp talk about) it was easier to have diversity because MMOs weren't that hard to build in the first place ( even EQ 1's 3D environs hold no candle in terms of complexity to something of today when it comes to coding) but nowadays major shifts in design mid way through the production phase (nevermind something like a NGE) would be either impossible or extremely costly. The developers today have more tools but also have to meet far more stringent numbers in terms of profits and this is EQN, whoever invested in it wants it to be between EQ 1 and WoW levels of popular and you as the developer have to make sure that you're doing your best to meet that goal while also keeping in mind that your game needs to be different to stand out otherwise people will plug in, play for an hour then leave bored.
I am not defending SOE here or any developer in particular I just find it pants on head retarded to ask for realistic graphics then for complex gameplay then for meaningful choices from first log in all within a world that has to be massive or else it sucks. This sort of toxicity from people is what caused WoW clones to be made for so long and what is making most developers outright ignore the more dedicated part of the community because almost everyone in it are numptees who couldn't decide what they wanted as a group and catering to everyone would put GTA V's budget to shame.
.... its just lazy developers who put it in the 'too hard' basket for balancing and made everyone the same.
This is usually said by people who have never actually had to try to balance things in an mmo, and deal with the thud and blunder that it causes.
And of course it's easier just to make everything the same instead of thinking things through. So in the end it's still lazy devs.
It is true that if you have unlimited time and unlimited money, you can implement anything you want. Barring that, choices have to be made....
It was something that could be managed in the past when MMOs were made of far less money and often in far less time.
I doubt this is about saving money or time, its about appealing to a particular section of the gaming community, namely the NON MMORPG gaming community.
Funny thing is, while many MMOs are throwing out the RPG part many FPS games are adding more and more RPG elements.
What we know to date from what the devs have said
1. CLASS allowing all people to be all things but makes NO class/combination needed.
2. RACE changing the visual for your toon is the biggest difference between a Dark elf a gnome or an Ogre.
3. FACTIONS that will have NO lasting impact on your character, because if it did you may find yourself locked out of using that paladin or necro or cleric class.
In ye oldy days (you and the other derp talk about) it was easier to have diversity because MMOs weren't that hard to build in the first place ( even EQ 1's 3D environs hold no candle in terms of complexity to something of today when it comes to coding) but nowadays major shifts in design mid way through the production phase (nevermind something like a NGE) would be either impossible or extremely costly. The developers today have more tools but also have to meet far more stringent numbers in terms of profits and this is EQN, whoever invested in it wants it to be between EQ 1 and WoW levels of popular and you as the developer have to make sure that you're doing your best to meet that goal while also keeping in mind that your game needs to be different to stand out otherwise people will plug in, play for an hour then leave bored.
I am not defending SOE here or any developer in particular I just find it pants on head retarded to ask for realistic graphics then for complex gameplay then for meaningful choices from first log in all within a world that has to be massive or else it sucks. This sort of toxicity from people is what caused WoW clones to be made for so long and what is making most developers outright ignore the more dedicated part of the community because almost everyone in it are numptees who couldn't decide what they wanted as a group and catering to everyone would put GTA V's budget to shame.
I find most of the toxicity coming from fanboys.
I made an observation from the round table and other comments by the devs and expressed my disappointment.
I didnt attack you or suggest that you or others have a mental deficiency for not agreeing with me.
I would expect most people posting here have an interest in the game and are hoping it may be a game they can enjoy
Discussing how it is evolving and expressing positive or negative criticism is what forums are about.
The effort by artists and creatives to build the complex art assets needed for any modern game can not be underestimated.
However this has little to NO impact on the effort put into developing a good game system and mechanic.
The developers CHOICE to make race a cosmetic option is just that... a choice made for the reasons they outlined and I quoted some pages back.
Hope by some here that race will have some in game effect on classes and abilities is just that HOPE, the devs have not given any details on this yet since the round-table where they admitted the original plan was to have class/race restrictions and they have now dropped that for reasons that may well make them drop any previously mentioned plans to have race/faction impact on classes and effectiveness
.... its just lazy developers who put it in the 'too hard' basket for balancing and made everyone the same.
This is usually said by people who have never actually had to try to balance things in an mmo, and deal with the thud and blunder that it causes.
And of course it's easier just to make everything the same instead of thinking things through. So in the end it's still lazy devs.
It is true that if you have unlimited time and unlimited money, you can implement anything you want. Barring that, choices have to be made....
It was something that could be managed in the past when MMOs were made of far less money and often in far less time.
I doubt this is about saving money or time, its about appealing to a particular section of the gaming community, namely the NON MMORPG gaming community.
Funny thing is, while many MMOs are throwing out the RPG part many FPS games are adding more and more RPG elements.
What we know to date from what the devs have said
1. CLASS allowing all people to be all things but makes NO class/combination needed.
2. RACE changing the visual for your toon is the biggest difference between a Dark elf a gnome or an Ogre.
3. FACTIONS that will have NO lasting impact on your character, because if it did you may find yourself locked out of using that paladin or necro or cleric class.
In ye oldy days (you and the other derp talk about) it was easier to have diversity because MMOs weren't that hard to build in the first place ( even EQ 1's 3D environs hold no candle in terms of complexity to something of today when it comes to coding) but nowadays major shifts in design mid way through the production phase (nevermind something like a NGE) would be either impossible or extremely costly. The developers today have more tools but also have to meet far more stringent numbers in terms of profits and this is EQN, whoever invested in it wants it to be between EQ 1 and WoW levels of popular and you as the developer have to make sure that you're doing your best to meet that goal while also keeping in mind that your game needs to be different to stand out otherwise people will plug in, play for an hour then leave bored.
I am not defending SOE here or any developer in particular I just find it pants on head retarded to ask for realistic graphics then for complex gameplay then for meaningful choices from first log in all within a world that has to be massive or else it sucks. This sort of toxicity from people is what caused WoW clones to be made for so long and what is making most developers outright ignore the more dedicated part of the community because almost everyone in it are numptees who couldn't decide what they wanted as a group and catering to everyone would put GTA V's budget to shame.
I find most of the toxicity coming from fanboys.
I made an observation from the round table and other comments by the devs and expressed my disappointment.
I didnt attack you or suggest that you or others have a mental deficiency for not agreeing with me.
I would expect most people posting here have an interest in the game and are hoping it may be a game they can enjoy
Discussing how it is evolving and expressing positive or negative criticism is what forums are about.
The effort by artists and creatives to build the complex art assets needed for any modern game can not be underestimated.
However this has little to NO impact on the effort put into developing a good game system and mechanic.
The developers CHOICE to make race a cosmetic option is just that... a choice made for the reasons they outlined and I quoted some pages back.
Hope by some here that race will have some in game effect on classes and abilities is just that HOPE, the devs have not given any details on this yet since the round-table where they admitted the original plan was to have class/race restrictions and they have now dropped that for reasons that may well make them drop any previously mentioned plans to have race/faction impact on classes and effectiveness
Criticism (the constructive kind at least) is objective and thus far you have nothing to objectively critique beyond words and some (possibly alpha) footage.
You do show a amazing lack of knowledge when it comes to programming though and how it is growing ever more complex which each generation of games. To use a comparison try and create a website template using Word (however rudimentary you want it to be) then try to do the same thing with php...then HTML5. Those art assets created by the 3D guys, those animations, everything has to be put in the game and has to work right unless you wanna see people's head unscrew themselves, water flowing sideways and other delightful things all of which require coding, allot of it and just for realism, if you want deep gameplay, more code gets put in, if you want meaningful choices that impact the world around you add in another gigantic portion of code, it balloons rather quickly out of control in complexity and all this code is what gets changed or tweaked in patches and if you're not careful or you built it to be extremely efficient you will get a butterfly effect due to changes.
You and all the other toxics can continue missing the obvious in front of your eyes and continue demanding the earth and the sky while also neglecting to check facts such as "they could do it back in the day! why not now!" but all you're doing in the end is proving to already stressed developers that the community as a whole isn't worth listening to.
Addendum: I am not a fanboi, my next MMOs will include Albion Online (whenever it hits closed alpha or beta) Gloria Victis ( same as Albion, though also waiting for the crafting system to get put in), EQN, War Thunder (once land combat and the persistent element gets put in), UWO and gonna take another dip in GW2. This in addition to Xenonauts and Gnomemoria which I plan on getting this coming week. Will I play all those MMOs at the same time? Unlikely unless I find a group to wander between them but I'll likely stick with 1-2 and drop in to the others I liked when bored to keep burnout risks low.
.... its just lazy developers who put it in the 'too hard' basket for balancing and made everyone the same.
This is usually said by people who have never actually had to try to balance things in an mmo, and deal with the thud and blunder that it causes.
And of course it's easier just to make everything the same instead of thinking things through. So in the end it's still lazy devs.
It is true that if you have unlimited time and unlimited money, you can implement anything you want. Barring that, choices have to be made....
It was something that could be managed in the past when MMOs were made of far less money and often in far less time.
I doubt this is about saving money or time, its about appealing to a particular section of the gaming community, namely the NON MMORPG gaming community.
Funny thing is, while many MMOs are throwing out the RPG part many FPS games are adding more and more RPG elements.
What we know to date from what the devs have said
1. CLASS allowing all people to be all things but makes NO class/combination needed.
2. RACE changing the visual for your toon is the biggest difference between a Dark elf a gnome or an Ogre.
3. FACTIONS that will have NO lasting impact on your character, because if it did you may find yourself locked out of using that paladin or necro or cleric class.
In ye oldy days (you and the other derp talk about) it was easier to have diversity because MMOs weren't that hard to build in the first place ( even EQ 1's 3D environs hold no candle in terms of complexity to something of today when it comes to coding) but nowadays major shifts in design mid way through the production phase (nevermind something like a NGE) would be either impossible or extremely costly. The developers today have more tools but also have to meet far more stringent numbers in terms of profits and this is EQN, whoever invested in it wants it to be between EQ 1 and WoW levels of popular and you as the developer have to make sure that you're doing your best to meet that goal while also keeping in mind that your game needs to be different to stand out otherwise people will plug in, play for an hour then leave bored.
I am not defending SOE here or any developer in particular I just find it pants on head retarded to ask for realistic graphics then for complex gameplay then for meaningful choices from first log in all within a world that has to be massive or else it sucks. This sort of toxicity from people is what caused WoW clones to be made for so long and what is making most developers outright ignore the more dedicated part of the community because almost everyone in it are numptees who couldn't decide what they wanted as a group and catering to everyone would put GTA V's budget to shame.
I find most of the toxicity coming from fanboys.
I made an observation from the round table and other comments by the devs and expressed my disappointment.
I didnt attack you or suggest that you or others have a mental deficiency for not agreeing with me.
I would expect most people posting here have an interest in the game and are hoping it may be a game they can enjoy
Discussing how it is evolving and expressing positive or negative criticism is what forums are about.
The effort by artists and creatives to build the complex art assets needed for any modern game can not be underestimated.
However this has little to NO impact on the effort put into developing a good game system and mechanic.
The developers CHOICE to make race a cosmetic option is just that... a choice made for the reasons they outlined and I quoted some pages back.
Hope by some here that race will have some in game effect on classes and abilities is just that HOPE, the devs have not given any details on this yet since the round-table where they admitted the original plan was to have class/race restrictions and they have now dropped that for reasons that may well make them drop any previously mentioned plans to have race/faction impact on classes and effectiveness
You and all the other toxics can continue missing the obvious in front of your eyes and continue demanding the earth and the sky while also neglecting to check facts such as "they could do it back in the day! why not now!" but all you're doing in the end is proving to already stressed developers that the community as a whole isn't worth listening to.
Awww poor devs. Maybe we should suggest them to do less instead of asking for good and playable products? I'm terribly sorry that as a consumer I expect some quality. Also, what's this "you and all the other toxics" are all about? Ad hominem attacks like this usually tend to be in fanboi arsenal.
Criticism (the constructive kind at least) is objective and thus far you have nothing to objectively critique beyond words and some (possibly alpha) footage.
You do show a amazing lack of knowledge when it comes to programming though and how it is growing ever more complex which each generation of games. To use a comparison try and create a website template using Word (however rudimentary you want it to be) then try to do the same thing with php...then HTML5. Those art assets created by the 3D guys, those animations, everything has to be put in the game and has to work right unless you wanna see people's head unscrew themselves, water flowing sideways and other delightful things all of which require coding, allot of it and just for realism, if you want deep gameplay, more code gets put in, if you want meaningful choices that impact the world around you add in another gigantic portion of code, it balloons rather quickly out of control in complexity and all this code is what gets changed or tweaked in patches and if you're not careful or you built it to be extremely efficient you will get a butterfly effect due to changes.
You and all the other toxics can continue missing the obvious in front of your eyes and continue demanding the earth and the sky while also neglecting to check facts such as "they could do it back in the day! why not now!" but all you're doing in the end is proving to already stressed developers that the community as a whole isn't worth listening to.
Addendum: I am not a fanboi, my next MMOs will include Albion Online (whenever it hits closed alpha or beta) Gloria Victis ( same as Albion, though also waiting for the crafting system to get put in), EQN, War Thunder (once land combat and the persistent element gets put in), UWO and gonna take another dip in GW2. This in addition to Xenonauts and Gnomemoria which I plan on getting this coming week. Will I play all those MMOs at the same time? Unlikely unless I find a group to wander between them but I'll likely stick with 1-2 and drop in to the others I liked when bored to keep burnout risks low.
The toxic poster in this thread is you mate, there was no need to make this personal.
You are coming form a position of ignorance on so many levels its breathtaking.
The only point I will bother making is no game these days is made in the monolithic spaghetti way you suggest
Art assets, animation assets, logic, data and much more are handled with a high degree of abstraction.
EQN is NOT making race cosmetic because its too hard or takes too long to design races with difference.
They have stated quite plainly its a game design decision.
The devs said that they never wanted to put players in the position where they'd make decisions they'd later regret.
With over 40 classes, multi-classing, and all of the items in the world, the team felt that players would not be able to be informed enough to pick a race in the beginning if it would be restricted, class-wise, down the road.
Another issue is if the team added new races and classes in the future, they'd be forced to arbitrarily restrict some people from playing them due to information the players didn't have up front.
Criticism (the constructive kind at least) is objective and thus far you have nothing to objectively critique beyond words and some (possibly alpha) footage.
You do show a amazing lack of knowledge when it comes to programming though and how it is growing ever more complex which each generation of games. To use a comparison try and create a website template using Word (however rudimentary you want it to be) then try to do the same thing with php...then HTML5. Those art assets created by the 3D guys, those animations, everything has to be put in the game and has to work right unless you wanna see people's head unscrew themselves, water flowing sideways and other delightful things all of which require coding, allot of it and just for realism, if you want deep gameplay, more code gets put in, if you want meaningful choices that impact the world around you add in another gigantic portion of code, it balloons rather quickly out of control in complexity and all this code is what gets changed or tweaked in patches and if you're not careful or you built it to be extremely efficient you will get a butterfly effect due to changes.
You and all the other toxics can continue missing the obvious in front of your eyes and continue demanding the earth and the sky while also neglecting to check facts such as "they could do it back in the day! why not now!" but all you're doing in the end is proving to already stressed developers that the community as a whole isn't worth listening to.
Addendum: I am not a fanboi, my next MMOs will include Albion Online (whenever it hits closed alpha or beta) Gloria Victis ( same as Albion, though also waiting for the crafting system to get put in), EQN, War Thunder (once land combat and the persistent element gets put in), UWO and gonna take another dip in GW2. This in addition to Xenonauts and Gnomemoria which I plan on getting this coming week. Will I play all those MMOs at the same time? Unlikely unless I find a group to wander between them but I'll likely stick with 1-2 and drop in to the others I liked when bored to keep burnout risks low.
The toxic poster in this thread is you mate, there was no need to make this personal.
You are coming form a position of ignorance on so many levels its breathtaking.
The only point I will bother making is no game these days is made in the monolithic spaghetti way you suggest
Art assets, animation assets, logic, data and much more are handled with a high degree of abstraction.
EQN is NOT making race cosmetic because its too hard or takes too long to design races with difference.
They have stated quite plainly its a game design decision.
Design decisions are made because of multiple reasons but again you avoid the point I made, go look up the number of lines of code required to make EQ1 run then look up the lines of code in something more recent like say Dragon's Prophet or if you wanna be P2P only FF XIV.
Btw it's no coincidence that sandbox titles became less popular for developers as well around the time 3D graphics became allot more prevalent and sophisticated than the pre-EQ1 era ones.
Even if it is a bit unrealistic I can live with a game that makes all races functionally equivalent. It is a game after all. And I never have liked hard factions. What I really want to know about the races is if they will have separate starting areas as they did with EQ back in the day. Having a single starting point for everyone is the single worst design choice that most developers have made in the last decade. It may save money, but then cheap graphics, cookie cutter design and never trying anything new also saves money. Somethings are worth the extra effort and content is one of them. I want 20 races, each with their own unique home. Vanguard was another great example of this. Before they screwed that one up too.
I joined the forums so that I could respond to the course this conversation has taken. While programming has become more complex throughout the years, you don't pay people for shoddy work. If they are incapable of utilizing the new technology and providing a product that we, as the consumers, want...then they shouldn't be paid for a half ass attempt geared towards doing nothing other than making a disposable product with drastically watered down mechanics. These aren't flash games.
That isn't a "toxic" way of thinking, that's just business. We don't owe them sympathy for advancements in technology and the difficulties that these advancements bring, we simply owe them money for learning to exploit these advancements and providing the products that we desire. If they can't deliver, they don't get paid...it's as simple as that.
I long for the day that developers stop being lazy and actually work towards a product that topples all of these watered down MMORPGs coming out. There's so many good ideas out there, and yet...they just don't deliver on their own dreams, let alone ours.
I've a heart of pure black jade, beating forth the ebon ink of shattered dreams. So spread those thighs my darlings, and let me hear those lustful screams... For twisting coils and silken strands, my venom coursing through your veins. It's my bliss you seek, to ease those troubled pains...
So, given the devs have said they dont want any choice a player makes when making a character to limit them from being effective in any role, we must conclude that RACE will be no more than a cosmetic choice.
No racial factions
No racial limitations
No racial variation (that impacts on game play)
No racial advantage
In short race is about as relevant as choosing the color of your underpants.
For me this is a big disappointment.
Well as much as I am into racial limitations, or I am just use to it. The lore and the game-play support SOEs change for EQN.
From the lore perspective: it seems most of the races have been together with the Combine and the only split are social reasons. This would create shared cultures and mixed ideas, especially being enslaved by the snake-like humanoid Shissar together for a few hundred years or so.
After 500 years of living on Kunark and returning to found Qeynos on Amaril consisting what we know so far as: Dwarves; Ogres; Gnomes; Elves (Feir'Dal, Koal'Dal); Humans; and Kerrans.
The odd men out, so far, are the Dark Elves (Teir'Dal) and Iksar. The former Elven Teir'Dal have transformed into Dark Elves after entering a portal and possibly mixing themselves with Draconic blood somehow; being left behind on Amaril when the Combine left.
The Iksar, former mind-controlled subordinates to Shissar, are split in half as a whole; some want to continue the tradition of the Shissar and control the Combine, while the other Iksar want to join with the Combine and not enslave them.
No lore, or information, has supported: Trolls, Fae, Arasai, Sarnak, Freeblood, Ratonga (besides the round table), Erudite, Barbarian, Drakkin, Froglok, Hafling, Half-elf (which we kinda assume since humans and elves are living together),
From a gameplay standpoint you have a multi-class system now with AI potentially capable of remembering actions you did with consequences of both good, bad and neutral in nature. Quest-like unlocks have already been confirmed for certain classes based on your actions such as the paladin helping the farmer from the orcs; or likewise you learn to be a shadowknight helping the orcs slaughter the farmer. I believe classes and the decision you make throughout the game will create the type of character you want to play.
When did they say there would be no unique racial abilities? In other games I enjoyed the drastic racial differences, but the class system in eqn makes more freedom seem attractive to me.
Comments
you can honestly say that? after what theve said already ? we voted class locked race and they ignored it saying not gunna happen i have zero FAITH in roundtable
maybe they will take the technology from eqn and reboot eq1 someday id play it even if it was a bit wowified
TV Shows proposed by the OP!
(Relax, it's a joke)
This should be no surprise what so ever.
As far back as the SWG-NGE, SOE took away all the different racial bonuses/penalties, because they do "shallow" gameplay, starting them, continuing to the present. At the beginning, the different races all help create the deep texture that made original SWG great: different languages for each race, different armor abilities, racial effects and bonuses. But then, SOE decided that all of their customers were stupid, and took that all away.
And here it is again.
This is just another example of "simplified everything", the new motto of SOE.
That is patently untrue.
Lots of PvP'ers love racial variation. From DAOC, to EQ1 to vanilla WoW (where Paladins were Alliance only and Shaman was Horde only), and when PvP first started in EQ2 and classes were locked to good / evil. Lots of players enjoyed the diversity.
What happened was that it was easier for developers to balance the factions by homogenising them. Same with the class homogenisation in both EQ2 and WoW. Now every tank and every healer can do exactly the same thing.
It has nothing to do with the subset of PvP players, or subsets of PvE players who wanted their classes to be viable, its just lazy developers who put it in the 'too hard' basket for balancing and made everyone the same.
This... in spades
Its happening all over the MMO world.
I guess we will have to wait for some indi dev team to break the new norm
P.S. < mad PvPer and love nothing more than class race and factional differences that are substantial and make for creative game play
This is usually said by people who have never actually had to try to balance things in an mmo, and deal with the thud and blunder that it causes.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
And of course it's easier just to make everything the same instead of thinking things through. So in the end it's still lazy devs.
It is true that if you have unlimited time and unlimited money, you can implement anything you want. Barring that, choices have to be made....
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
Sometimes I wonder how it was possible 15 years ago but not now with much more advanced technology. I'm afraid it's not even about resources but casual friendliness and trying to appeal for every single sentinel being with IQ starting from around 50.
It was something that could be managed in the past when MMOs were made of far less money and often in far less time.
I doubt this is about saving money or time, its about appealing to a particular section of the gaming community, namely the NON MMORPG gaming community.
Funny thing is, while many MMOs are throwing out the RPG part many FPS games are adding more and more RPG elements.
What we know to date from what the devs have said
1. CLASS allowing all people to be all things but makes NO class/combination needed.
2. RACE changing the visual for your toon is the biggest difference between a Dark elf a gnome or an Ogre.
3. FACTIONS that will have NO lasting impact on your character, because if it did you may find yourself locked out of using that paladin or necro or cleric class.
In ye oldy days (you and the other derp talk about) it was easier to have diversity because MMOs weren't that hard to build in the first place ( even EQ 1's 3D environs hold no candle in terms of complexity to something of today when it comes to coding) but nowadays major shifts in design mid way through the production phase (nevermind something like a NGE) would be either impossible or extremely costly. The developers today have more tools but also have to meet far more stringent numbers in terms of profits and this is EQN, whoever invested in it wants it to be between EQ 1 and WoW levels of popular and you as the developer have to make sure that you're doing your best to meet that goal while also keeping in mind that your game needs to be different to stand out otherwise people will plug in, play for an hour then leave bored.
I am not defending SOE here or any developer in particular I just find it pants on head retarded to ask for realistic graphics then for complex gameplay then for meaningful choices from first log in all within a world that has to be massive or else it sucks. This sort of toxicity from people is what caused WoW clones to be made for so long and what is making most developers outright ignore the more dedicated part of the community because almost everyone in it are numptees who couldn't decide what they wanted as a group and catering to everyone would put GTA V's budget to shame.
I find most of the toxicity coming from fanboys.
I made an observation from the round table and other comments by the devs and expressed my disappointment.
I didnt attack you or suggest that you or others have a mental deficiency for not agreeing with me.
I would expect most people posting here have an interest in the game and are hoping it may be a game they can enjoy
Discussing how it is evolving and expressing positive or negative criticism is what forums are about.
The effort by artists and creatives to build the complex art assets needed for any modern game can not be underestimated.
However this has little to NO impact on the effort put into developing a good game system and mechanic.
The developers CHOICE to make race a cosmetic option is just that... a choice made for the reasons they outlined and I quoted some pages back.
Hope by some here that race will have some in game effect on classes and abilities is just that HOPE, the devs have not given any details on this yet since the round-table where they admitted the original plan was to have class/race restrictions and they have now dropped that for reasons that may well make them drop any previously mentioned plans to have race/faction impact on classes and effectiveness
Criticism (the constructive kind at least) is objective and thus far you have nothing to objectively critique beyond words and some (possibly alpha) footage.
You do show a amazing lack of knowledge when it comes to programming though and how it is growing ever more complex which each generation of games. To use a comparison try and create a website template using Word (however rudimentary you want it to be) then try to do the same thing with php...then HTML5. Those art assets created by the 3D guys, those animations, everything has to be put in the game and has to work right unless you wanna see people's head unscrew themselves, water flowing sideways and other delightful things all of which require coding, allot of it and just for realism, if you want deep gameplay, more code gets put in, if you want meaningful choices that impact the world around you add in another gigantic portion of code, it balloons rather quickly out of control in complexity and all this code is what gets changed or tweaked in patches and if you're not careful or you built it to be extremely efficient you will get a butterfly effect due to changes.
You and all the other toxics can continue missing the obvious in front of your eyes and continue demanding the earth and the sky while also neglecting to check facts such as "they could do it back in the day! why not now!" but all you're doing in the end is proving to already stressed developers that the community as a whole isn't worth listening to.
Addendum: I am not a fanboi, my next MMOs will include Albion Online (whenever it hits closed alpha or beta) Gloria Victis ( same as Albion, though also waiting for the crafting system to get put in), EQN, War Thunder (once land combat and the persistent element gets put in), UWO and gonna take another dip in GW2. This in addition to Xenonauts and Gnomemoria which I plan on getting this coming week. Will I play all those MMOs at the same time? Unlikely unless I find a group to wander between them but I'll likely stick with 1-2 and drop in to the others I liked when bored to keep burnout risks low.
Awww poor devs. Maybe we should suggest them to do less instead of asking for good and playable products? I'm terribly sorry that as a consumer I expect some quality. Also, what's this "you and all the other toxics" are all about? Ad hominem attacks like this usually tend to be in fanboi arsenal.
The toxic poster in this thread is you mate, there was no need to make this personal.
You are coming form a position of ignorance on so many levels its breathtaking.
The only point I will bother making is no game these days is made in the monolithic spaghetti way you suggest
Art assets, animation assets, logic, data and much more are handled with a high degree of abstraction.
EQN is NOT making race cosmetic because its too hard or takes too long to design races with difference.
They have stated quite plainly its a game design decision.
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/09/23/everquest-next-devs-decide-against-class-race-restrictions/
The devs said that they never wanted to put players in the position where they'd make decisions they'd later regret.
With over 40 classes, multi-classing, and all of the items in the world, the team felt that players would not be able to be informed enough to pick a race in the beginning if it would be restricted, class-wise, down the road.
Another issue is if the team added new races and classes in the future, they'd be forced to arbitrarily restrict some people from playing them due to information the players didn't have up front.
EQ2 fan sites
Design decisions are made because of multiple reasons but again you avoid the point I made, go look up the number of lines of code required to make EQ1 run then look up the lines of code in something more recent like say Dragon's Prophet or if you wanna be P2P only FF XIV.
Btw it's no coincidence that sandbox titles became less popular for developers as well around the time 3D graphics became allot more prevalent and sophisticated than the pre-EQ1 era ones.
All die, so die well.
I joined the forums so that I could respond to the course this conversation has taken. While programming has become more complex throughout the years, you don't pay people for shoddy work. If they are incapable of utilizing the new technology and providing a product that we, as the consumers, want...then they shouldn't be paid for a half ass attempt geared towards doing nothing other than making a disposable product with drastically watered down mechanics. These aren't flash games.
That isn't a "toxic" way of thinking, that's just business. We don't owe them sympathy for advancements in technology and the difficulties that these advancements bring, we simply owe them money for learning to exploit these advancements and providing the products that we desire. If they can't deliver, they don't get paid...it's as simple as that.
I long for the day that developers stop being lazy and actually work towards a product that topples all of these watered down MMORPGs coming out. There's so many good ideas out there, and yet...they just don't deliver on their own dreams, let alone ours.
I've a heart of pure black jade, beating forth the ebon ink of shattered dreams. So spread those thighs my darlings, and let me hear those lustful screams... For twisting coils and silken strands, my venom coursing through your veins. It's my bliss you seek, to ease those troubled pains...
Well as much as I am into racial limitations, or I am just use to it. The lore and the game-play support SOEs change for EQN.
From the lore perspective: it seems most of the races have been together with the Combine and the only split are social reasons. This would create shared cultures and mixed ideas, especially being enslaved by the snake-like humanoid Shissar together for a few hundred years or so.
After 500 years of living on Kunark and returning to found Qeynos on Amaril consisting what we know so far as: Dwarves; Ogres; Gnomes; Elves (Feir'Dal, Koal'Dal); Humans; and Kerrans.
The odd men out, so far, are the Dark Elves (Teir'Dal) and Iksar. The former Elven Teir'Dal have transformed into Dark Elves after entering a portal and possibly mixing themselves with Draconic blood somehow; being left behind on Amaril when the Combine left.
The Iksar, former mind-controlled subordinates to Shissar, are split in half as a whole; some want to continue the tradition of the Shissar and control the Combine, while the other Iksar want to join with the Combine and not enslave them.
No lore, or information, has supported: Trolls, Fae, Arasai, Sarnak, Freeblood, Ratonga (besides the round table), Erudite, Barbarian, Drakkin, Froglok, Hafling, Half-elf (which we kinda assume since humans and elves are living together),
From a gameplay standpoint you have a multi-class system now with AI potentially capable of remembering actions you did with consequences of both good, bad and neutral in nature. Quest-like unlocks have already been confirmed for certain classes based on your actions such as the paladin helping the farmer from the orcs; or likewise you learn to be a shadowknight helping the orcs slaughter the farmer. I believe classes and the decision you make throughout the game will create the type of character you want to play.
In other games I enjoyed the drastic racial differences, but the class system in eqn makes more freedom seem attractive to me.