I have no interest in such a server, or the poll, but offer one piece of feedback:
The name "immersion" is completely misleading for what you're talking about. Most of the points have absolutely nothing to do with what's commonly termed "immersion" in an MMO setting. "Hardcore" or possible "Old School" would be better names. Although, "old school" only fits if one is coming from a certain type of server in a certain type of game.
Additionally, given what is known (or not known) about EQN, i think this type of post is better put into "general discussion" forum. As it stands it doesn't seem to take into consideration ANY EQN-specific mechanics or issues. It seems to be a list drawn that can be applied to any random game in development and has nothing to do with EQN other than being posted on its board.
I went into this read thinking I would end up with the same verdict, but I don't really agree with you at all in your first paragraph. There a few a couple of items on the list that really have nothing to do with immersion and are more hardcore, but for the most part he hits the nail on the head.
For example #3. Making the game 'harder' doesn't really have anything to do with immersion unless the original game itself is overly easy. Yet, I like the idea. #2 is another one. I don't think having a harsh death penalty is a bad thing at all. I started this genre with UO, and that was one of my favorite aspects. It made fights feel very important in regards to survival. That being said I would love to see this entire ruleset on a server. Not sure if I would enjoy it (not even sure if i'll like the game), but it seems like my kinda thing. So I chose option B on the poll.
I think too many people don't understand the whole issue with harsh death penalties.
It makes you really, really, really not want to die. It adds a whole layer to the game that makes it mean a lot more. Pretty much every game out now not only makes death no big deal, they make the game so easy that you never really play the character to the best of your ability because who cares if you die.
I would love if they made a server with Old School EQ rules. I know me and my friends would definitely play there.
I think that most people who played EQ pre-Luclin would agree too. There is just something immersive missing from MMO's in the last 5 years or so. I think it comes down to how easy they have made everything. Leveling goes by so fast that you miss most of the content, end up maxing out and then get bored with the game.
My original character on Vallon Zek was started when Kunark came out. I played for almost 2 years and never made it to max level. The only reason I left was because other cool games came out that i really wanted to spend my money on.
I think that a lot of the people that won't want to play this type of server have never had the level of immersion that the OP is talking about in a game, so they just don't understand why you would want to deal with these issues. I can understand that.
Why would you want to have to deal with chasing after a corpse? Why would you want to care about inventory management, why would you want to actually travel all the way to your desired fighting location? It is all a waste of time right?
When you know that it is going to take you 15 minutes to go from where you are to the awesome dungeon with dangers on the path you are really playing the game. The chance that you are going to not only have to fight, but very probably die if you are not paying attention adds immersion to the game. You can't be looking at the TV, or FB while you are playing the game. You have to be there!
No interest personally, but I have always thought this should be included in every game. Give players a chance to play this way Maybe this would stop the "I want games to be hard" versus "Just let me play without all these tedious mechanics" threads. Seems a simple solution to me. Not sure why it hasn't been done before.
It all sounds fine and dandy, until the population drops... Then it is not as much fun any more and since it has a special rule-set you can not merge it with other servers.
But i´l support you, if nothing else just to be able to ask a few years down the road "How are you liking your extra hard group-focused ghost town."
Actually i retract that... It is a waste of development time.
This is just another thinly disguised request for a developer to customize a game for a specific niche market. Just like an RP-only or PvP focused game, the hard-core market is just as much a niche, and ultimately is a very minor segment of the market. Any company that wants its product to reach a larger market will not be trying to focus on a segment of that market.
And, while I like the term 'Immersion', using a different term to repackage 'old-school' and request another 'EQ1 with better graphics' just proves that someone knows what a thesaurus is. Any niche markets could use 'Immersion' to describe their own particular subset of MMORPG features.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
This is more of a list of hardcore features than immersion. I know immersion has different meanings to different people but there is only one definition of hardcore and this is it.
that's not a server ruleset, that's a whole different game.
you cant expect the devs to up difficulty and completely turn off instancing if their game is designed around certain parts being instanced. "up difficulty" might be easy to write but there's a lot more to it than just giving mobs more HP and damage- in fact if this difficulty increase were actually carried out, the big complaint would be "all they did was up the HP and damage on the enemies".
also Don't mistake "immersion" with "difficulty". they DO sometimes overlap! but not always. and immersion is subjective. For example I'll use myself. to me unlimited teleports are immersion breakers, BUT flight paths aren't. to whoever made the original list, flight paths are indeed immersion breakers. Personally I imagine my character takes a stagecoach or a caravan to get where she or he wants, then resumes his or her adventures.
I LIKE things such as tough death penalties in an MMO but is that an immersion thing? or is it a "good play is rewarded" thing?
what immersion means to me is the removal of things that remind me "its a game" and the emphasis on the things that make me invested in my character.
^this.
"There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play." Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
I voted in the poll and said I would try it .It would start as my primary. I like the work for what you get mentality.Forced grouping was the only item to give me SIGNIFICANT pause.
I know that "Immersion" is usually considered an undefined term, since roleplayers have been using it to start message board fights for three decades now...
But that ruleset is really, really confused about its goals.
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 would play but my friend who tends to like easy mode won't. He never played EQ1 so he wouldn't understand the value of the rule set.
I think some of these will make it into EQN like restricted travel. They already said you need tokens to use the spires. So it's not just a matter of paying a small price like GW2. Plus there will be only one spire per biome.
Also a non-centralized economy seems to be where they are going. There wa talk of setting up merchants near the spires in EQNL
You are gonna have to fire back up Everquest if you want to get all your asking for. EQNext is going to be just like all the other new games being released these days. Catering to those that get frusterated easily and overall just a normal run of the mill game that you can smash stuff in. Woo hoo .
Originally posted by moguy2 You are gonna have to fire back up Everquest if you want to get all your asking for. EQNext is going to be just like all the other new games being released these days. Catering to those that get frusterated easily and overall just a normal run of the mill game that you can smash stuff in. Woo hoo .
Unfortunately EQ is not EQ anymore. It is totally an easy mode game now. I actually did just fire EQ back up and started a new character. There are a couple hundred zones now, yet you only need to visit about a dozen to get to level 60 or so.
Travel through the Plane of Knowledge means you can be where ever you want within 2 zones in minutes. Everything you need to buy is right there. Most people spend their time AFK in POK.
Leveling is so fast that you can get a character to end game stuff in a week if you work at it. Gear is ridiculous. My friend is level 30 and has most of his stats maxed with the Defiant Gear he got at level 20.
Add in the new Mercenary healers and tanks and you can solo almost everything. I go in there with my Ranger and a Merc Healer and can solo red mobs or 3 or 4 yellows at a time. XP comes so fast that I usually don't bother to let my merc cleric Rez me so i don't have to re-buff.
Most of the awesome gear drops off of random mobs instead of named. Quests are almost pointless since you can get great gear from random grindy mobs.
It is rather disappointing, yet still better than playing Rift or the Dragon whatever that is out now. I definitely miss the days of old when MMORPG meant some real action and excitement.
Hopefully, EQN Devs realize this and don't follow the crowd. The fact that they scrapped the game and started over leads me to believe that they are serious about making something better.
By the way, for anyone who didn't already catch it, the podcast with MMORPG of some of the devs (including Dave G. ) is very encouraging.
To jump to the meat concerning EQN, find between 17:40 and 25:00, where Dave G. says basically that the game is going to buck the MMO trend, encourage group play, and be harder overall. I can't find a transcript yet.
i want every single one of these points in my mmorpg. So yes i want this game setup.
Also im not sure why point #6 is in discussion, it should be there!. Mounts break immersion when you are killed and they magically disappear. They break immersion when they are immortal and you arent, etc. Some mmorpgs already have done something similar with mounts where they can die if you dont feed them while others have made them fight on your side and take damage too.
Sad thing is SoE's round table has failed IMO as well. No matter the outcome of their own poll they say why it should be the way they intended. Its clear that EQ fans want a solid trinity game but I think they will put even less stock in this poll when they dont even care about the outcome of their own polls. I hope I am wrong but its the way things seem to be going!
Originally posted by Nanfoodle Sad thing is SoE's round table has failed IMO as well. No matter the outcome of their own poll they say why it should be the way they intended. Its clear that EQ fans want a solid trinity game but I think they will put even less stock in this poll when they dont even care about the outcome of their own polls. I hope I am wrong but its the way things seem to be going!
It is a poll not a vote. They care way more about the discussions about the polls than the polls themselves as well. It is sad to me that people keep saying this type of stuff without really trying to understand the process. The round table is working exactly as it should, I hope they keep it up.
Thanks for the link Bivin. It was really good to hear about the group based stuff and I'm looking forward to the info release that they said was coming in a week.
Originally posted by Nanfoodle Sad thing is SoE's round table has failed IMO as well. No matter the outcome of their own poll they say why it should be the way they intended. Its clear that EQ fans want a solid trinity game but I think they will put even less stock in this poll when they dont even care about the outcome of their own polls. I hope I am wrong but its the way things seem to be going!
This is one of the things i always get frustrated about. The votes that everyone is talking about were something like 60%-30% Sure there was a majority, but at least 40% of the people actively DIDN'T want that to happen.
Add to it that the round table polls are just a way to get the mood of the people and start a discussion.
They did the same thing with Planetside 2. They had tons of discussions - pre-round table label - about how the players would like the game to go. But the most important thing about it was it started a discussion. Vets and New people all had input and had talks about the pros and cons of both sides of the argument. Sometimes, something was discussed and fleshed out that actually convinced the devs that there was a better way.
The one that i remember specifically was giving Galaxy Air Transport ships the spawn point feature unstead of a ground vehicle. There were arguments on both sides and it didn't take long for the community to convince the devs that even though it was a cool feature, it was not right for the game and they changed it.
It is going to be the same for EQ:N. They are right now building the game up to an Alpha stage, once they get it all basically working they will give it to us in Beta. Then the real work begins to make sure nothing truly bad ends up in the final product.
Patience is key here. If you just get freaked out about it, no one is going to pay attention.
Yep. Throwing a tantrum over the race poll is just bizarre. In effect 54% wanted restrictions and 44% didn't. At that point the discussion outweighs anything the poll could possibly say.
Originally posted by Nanfoodle Sad thing is SoE's round table has failed IMO as well. No matter the outcome of their own poll they say why it should be the way they intended. Its clear that EQ fans want a solid trinity game but I think they will put even less stock in this poll when they dont even care about the outcome of their own polls. I hope I am wrong but its the way things seem to be going!
This is one of the things i always get frustrated about. The votes that everyone is talking about were something like 60%-30% Sure there was a majority, but at least 40% of the people actively DIDN'T want that to happen.
Add to it that the round table polls are just a way to get the mood of the people and start a discussion.
They did the same thing with Planetside 2. They had tons of discussions - pre-round table label - about how the players would like the game to go. But the most important thing about it was it started a discussion. Vets and New people all had input and had talks about the pros and cons of both sides of the argument. Sometimes, something was discussed and fleshed out that actually convinced the devs that there was a better way.
The one that i remember specifically was giving Galaxy Air Transport ships the spawn point feature unstead of a ground vehicle. There were arguments on both sides and it didn't take long for the community to convince the devs that even though it was a cool feature, it was not right for the game and they changed it.
It is going to be the same for EQ:N. They are right now building the game up to an Alpha stage, once they get it all basically working they will give it to us in Beta. Then the real work begins to make sure nothing truly bad ends up in the final product.
Patience is key here. If you just get freaked out about it, no one is going to pay attention.
When a poll shows a majority and the video to follow just talks about why they are not going with the majority vote more the once, you have a problem! The round table is a joke at that points. You can justify it any way you want but when you give your fans a forum to help direct how the game is going and you dont listen. Well you can call it what you will but we know what it means. They have decided what the game will and wont be. At best some polls will go in the direction SoE wants and it will be enough they can point and say "See we listened" If your not really gona listen then dont ask. If you think other wise you have been fooled.
Or you are just an intelligent person. A poll where 54% want something is certainly not some big deal when they go against it. Sounds more like you had an agenda going in and you were just looking for something to criticize. This is one of those cases where I feel like I'm in bizarro world because peoples opinions on this seem to be coming out of nowhere. They even said they were siding towards having restrictions and the discussions were so compelling they went the other way. This is more a case for the round table working than anything.
They polled the community, got a discussion going and the discussion finalized their decision.
OP, that poll assumes way too many things about EQ:N that we just don't know, so it is faulty to want a server like that without feeling out the game first. Wait for Landmark, and then put in the proposals.
for example, "7) Put weight on items." Is this in an attempt to be realistic? In a sandbox game, you will have tons upon tons of material alone. If you can carry these with no problems, you should be able to carry your armor inventory with absolutely no effort.
Or you are just an intelligent person. A poll where 54% want something is certainly not some big deal when they go against it. Sounds more like you had an agenda going in and you were just looking for something to criticize. This is one of those cases where I feel like I'm in bizarro world because peoples opinions on this seem to be coming out of nowhere. They even said they were siding towards having restrictions and the discussions were so compelling they went the other way. This is more a case for the round table working than anything.
They polled the community, got a discussion going and the discussion finalized their decision.
So an intelligent person expects a polled question to have the majority shot down repeatedly with "this is why we are ignoring the poll"? WOW your idea of intelligence and mine are very different. Round table is a farce. I stand by that polls like this mean very little when they ignore the results of their own poll showing a majority wanted something they had already decided. By their words and stance its clear they had picked a direction before the poll. Rewatch the round table videos and listen for it, its clear, very clear.
Comments
I went into this read thinking I would end up with the same verdict, but I don't really agree with you at all in your first paragraph. There a few a couple of items on the list that really have nothing to do with immersion and are more hardcore, but for the most part he hits the nail on the head.
For example #3. Making the game 'harder' doesn't really have anything to do with immersion unless the original game itself is overly easy. Yet, I like the idea. #2 is another one. I don't think having a harsh death penalty is a bad thing at all. I started this genre with UO, and that was one of my favorite aspects. It made fights feel very important in regards to survival. That being said I would love to see this entire ruleset on a server. Not sure if I would enjoy it (not even sure if i'll like the game), but it seems like my kinda thing. So I chose option B on the poll.
Good idea OP.
I think too many people don't understand the whole issue with harsh death penalties.
It makes you really, really, really not want to die. It adds a whole layer to the game that makes it mean a lot more. Pretty much every game out now not only makes death no big deal, they make the game so easy that you never really play the character to the best of your ability because who cares if you die.
I would love if they made a server with Old School EQ rules. I know me and my friends would definitely play there.
I think that most people who played EQ pre-Luclin would agree too. There is just something immersive missing from MMO's in the last 5 years or so. I think it comes down to how easy they have made everything. Leveling goes by so fast that you miss most of the content, end up maxing out and then get bored with the game.
My original character on Vallon Zek was started when Kunark came out. I played for almost 2 years and never made it to max level. The only reason I left was because other cool games came out that i really wanted to spend my money on.
I think that a lot of the people that won't want to play this type of server have never had the level of immersion that the OP is talking about in a game, so they just don't understand why you would want to deal with these issues. I can understand that.
Why would you want to have to deal with chasing after a corpse? Why would you want to care about inventory management, why would you want to actually travel all the way to your desired fighting location? It is all a waste of time right?
When you know that it is going to take you 15 minutes to go from where you are to the awesome dungeon with dangers on the path you are really playing the game. The chance that you are going to not only have to fight, but very probably die if you are not paying attention adds immersion to the game. You can't be looking at the TV, or FB while you are playing the game. You have to be there!
That is what the OP means by immersion.
It all sounds fine and dandy, until the population drops... Then it is not as much fun any more and since it has a special rule-set you can not merge it with other servers.
But i´l support you, if nothing else just to be able to ask a few years down the road "How are you liking your extra hard group-focused ghost town."
Actually i retract that... It is a waste of development time.
This have been a good conversation
This is just another thinly disguised request for a developer to customize a game for a specific niche market. Just like an RP-only or PvP focused game, the hard-core market is just as much a niche, and ultimately is a very minor segment of the market. Any company that wants its product to reach a larger market will not be trying to focus on a segment of that market.
And, while I like the term 'Immersion', using a different term to repackage 'old-school' and request another 'EQ1 with better graphics' just proves that someone knows what a thesaurus is. Any niche markets could use 'Immersion' to describe their own particular subset of MMORPG features.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Yeah, I want a server like this. I doubt I'll play EQN if it isn't like this.
But is this poll being offered by Sony or a third party? If it isn't Sony then unfortunately I can't imagine Sony will care about a poll like this.
^this.
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
I know that "Immersion" is usually considered an undefined term, since roleplayers have been using it to start message board fights for three decades now...
But that ruleset is really, really confused about its goals.
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 think some of these will make it into EQN like restricted travel. They already said you need tokens to use the spires. So it's not just a matter of paying a small price like GW2. Plus there will be only one spire per biome.
Also a non-centralized economy seems to be where they are going. There wa talk of setting up merchants near the spires in EQNL
Unfortunately EQ is not EQ anymore. It is totally an easy mode game now. I actually did just fire EQ back up and started a new character. There are a couple hundred zones now, yet you only need to visit about a dozen to get to level 60 or so.
Travel through the Plane of Knowledge means you can be where ever you want within 2 zones in minutes. Everything you need to buy is right there. Most people spend their time AFK in POK.
Leveling is so fast that you can get a character to end game stuff in a week if you work at it. Gear is ridiculous. My friend is level 30 and has most of his stats maxed with the Defiant Gear he got at level 20.
Add in the new Mercenary healers and tanks and you can solo almost everything. I go in there with my Ranger and a Merc Healer and can solo red mobs or 3 or 4 yellows at a time. XP comes so fast that I usually don't bother to let my merc cleric Rez me so i don't have to re-buff.
Most of the awesome gear drops off of random mobs instead of named. Quests are almost pointless since you can get great gear from random grindy mobs.
It is rather disappointing, yet still better than playing Rift or the Dragon whatever that is out now. I definitely miss the days of old when MMORPG meant some real action and excitement.
Hopefully, EQN Devs realize this and don't follow the crowd. The fact that they scrapped the game and started over leads me to believe that they are serious about making something better.
To jump to the meat concerning EQN, find between 17:40 and 25:00, where Dave G. says basically that the game is going to buck the MMO trend, encourage group play, and be harder overall. I can't find a transcript yet.
Here's the link:
http://www.mmorpg.com/gameon.cfm/cast/61 (Note especially Dave G.'s comments between about 17:40 and 24:00. Good stuff.)
In EQN, would an Immersion server (high risk) interest you?
Vote here:
http://www.wepolls.com/p/20521024/Would-you-create-a-character-on-an-Immersion-Server-in-Everquest-Next-,-EQ-Next-(See-Blurb-below-for-proposed-server-rules.
i want every single one of these points in my mmorpg. So yes i want this game setup.
Also im not sure why point #6 is in discussion, it should be there!. Mounts break immersion when you are killed and they magically disappear. They break immersion when they are immortal and you arent, etc. Some mmorpgs already have done something similar with mounts where they can die if you dont feed them while others have made them fight on your side and take damage too.
It is a poll not a vote. They care way more about the discussions about the polls than the polls themselves as well. It is sad to me that people keep saying this type of stuff without really trying to understand the process. The round table is working exactly as it should, I hope they keep it up.
Thanks for the link Bivin. It was really good to hear about the group based stuff and I'm looking forward to the info release that they said was coming in a week.
This is one of the things i always get frustrated about. The votes that everyone is talking about were something like 60%-30% Sure there was a majority, but at least 40% of the people actively DIDN'T want that to happen.
Add to it that the round table polls are just a way to get the mood of the people and start a discussion.
They did the same thing with Planetside 2. They had tons of discussions - pre-round table label - about how the players would like the game to go. But the most important thing about it was it started a discussion. Vets and New people all had input and had talks about the pros and cons of both sides of the argument. Sometimes, something was discussed and fleshed out that actually convinced the devs that there was a better way.
The one that i remember specifically was giving Galaxy Air Transport ships the spawn point feature unstead of a ground vehicle. There were arguments on both sides and it didn't take long for the community to convince the devs that even though it was a cool feature, it was not right for the game and they changed it.
It is going to be the same for EQ:N. They are right now building the game up to an Alpha stage, once they get it all basically working they will give it to us in Beta. Then the real work begins to make sure nothing truly bad ends up in the final product.
Patience is key here. If you just get freaked out about it, no one is going to pay attention.
Yep. Throwing a tantrum over the race poll is just bizarre. In effect 54% wanted restrictions and 44% didn't. At that point the discussion outweighs anything the poll could possibly say.
When a poll shows a majority and the video to follow just talks about why they are not going with the majority vote more the once, you have a problem! The round table is a joke at that points. You can justify it any way you want but when you give your fans a forum to help direct how the game is going and you dont listen. Well you can call it what you will but we know what it means. They have decided what the game will and wont be. At best some polls will go in the direction SoE wants and it will be enough they can point and say "See we listened" If your not really gona listen then dont ask. If you think other wise you have been fooled.
Or you are just an intelligent person. A poll where 54% want something is certainly not some big deal when they go against it. Sounds more like you had an agenda going in and you were just looking for something to criticize. This is one of those cases where I feel like I'm in bizarro world because peoples opinions on this seem to be coming out of nowhere. They even said they were siding towards having restrictions and the discussions were so compelling they went the other way. This is more a case for the round table working than anything.
They polled the community, got a discussion going and the discussion finalized their decision.
OP, that poll assumes way too many things about EQ:N that we just don't know, so it is faulty to want a server like that without feeling out the game first. Wait for Landmark, and then put in the proposals.
for example, "7) Put weight on items." Is this in an attempt to be realistic? In a sandbox game, you will have tons upon tons of material alone. If you can carry these with no problems, you should be able to carry your armor inventory with absolutely no effort.
So an intelligent person expects a polled question to have the majority shot down repeatedly with "this is why we are ignoring the poll"? WOW your idea of intelligence and mine are very different. Round table is a farce. I stand by that polls like this mean very little when they ignore the results of their own poll showing a majority wanted something they had already decided. By their words and stance its clear they had picked a direction before the poll. Rewatch the round table videos and listen for it, its clear, very clear.