Originally posted by ste2000 Aildrik, your analisys on the average EQ player is old stuff, you are not the first one that tries to make a patronising psycoanalisys of EQ player base. And quite honestly that was unecessary.
There are some lonely people that lives just for games, it is true, but it is not just restricted to EQ.
I go out friday and saturday nights with my friends(none of them play games), got a girlfriend and I got a rewarding job. Yet my hobby is Videogames, so when my RL allows me, I dedicate my spare time playing games. Some people like fishing, some other play football, some collect stamps, some people rob banks, I prefer using my sparetime playing games. And when I play games, any kind of games, I like to play to win, to be the best. I like playing challenging games, where your skills make the difference. Whether I play Doom 3, Unreal Tournement, EQ or Pac Man, my challenge is always to be the number one. I am an Achiever, with the capital A. Like me, there are lots of people out there with the same competitive spirit. Wanting challenge doesn't necessary equal being a recluse.
So next time you feel like analyse people, and generalise, think it twice, because you might risk to insult lots of people. And by your remarks, I know it wasn't your intention.
I know you don't agree with "EQ old days", but unfortunately this game is going to be about that. It is not the game for you, leave this game to people that liked the original EQ and try not to diminish the ego of people that doesn't fit your play style.
Take care
Very well said. These folks who simply must contend that people who play more than them, who play more seriously than them, or who simply seek more difficult or more social gaming circumstances are somehow deficient in the RL side of life are tiresome. In all my years in EQ, including the high end, I knew innumerable people in every conceivable walk of life - from professionals to mechanics to housewives to students - and they all had remarkably normal RL existences. People ran businesses (as I do), had families, pets, houses, went on vacations, etc. In short, they were simply normal people who happened to like gaming for recreation. And having met a lot of them personally over the years, I can assure you they even looked and acted like normal people in person
Who knows, maybe the person who doesn't want to have to deal with other people is the one with "issues"
Originally posted by ste2000 Aildrik, your analisys on the average EQ player is old stuff, you are not the first one that tries to make a patronising psycoanalisys of EQ player base. And quite honestly that was unecessary.
There are some lonely people that lives just for games, it is true, but it is not just restricted to EQ.
I go out friday and saturday nights with my friends(none of them play games), got a girlfriend and I got a rewarding job. Yet my hobby is Videogames, so when my RL allows me, I dedicate my spare time playing games. Some people like fishing, some other play football, some collect stamps, some people rob banks, I prefer using my sparetime playing games. And when I play games, any kind of games, I like to play to win, to be the best. I like playing challenging games, where your skills make the difference. Whether I play Doom 3, Unreal Tournement, EQ or Pac Man, my challenge is always to be the number one. I am an Achiever, with the capital A. Like me, there are lots of people out there with the same competitive spirit. Wanting challenge doesn't necessary equal being a recluse.
So next time you feel like analyse people, and generalise, think it twice, because you might risk to insult lots of people. And by your remarks, I know it wasn't your intention.
I know you don't agree with "EQ old days", but unfortunately this game is going to be about that. It is not the game for you, leave this game to people that liked the original EQ and try not to diminish the ego of people that doesn't fit your play style.
Take care
I expected that, despite my disclaimer at the beginning, someone would take my post as an attack anyhow. I'll say it again, and please read my post carefully so you can see for yourself - I'm not here to pass judgment on how other people play the game or what aspect of it they find enjoyable. There is no "psychoanalysis" and I never lumped the entire EQ player base into any one category. I am speaking about facts. I'm bringing up a very valid point and discussing something that apparently is taboo to some people in the gaming community, that point being the unpleasant sides of the gaming population. I think its very relevant to talk about this when we mention "community" and I have plenty of experience to draw upon going back to the release of Ultima Online.
Online games do bring people together and the community is certainly a big part of the experience. I've met some absolutely wonderful people online. However, anyone who played EQ prior to Kunark or especially played UO at release is absolutely kidding themselves if you can tell me these games didn't attract some extremely immature and sometimes downright destructive people. I recall trying to explore Britannia with a friend during the first few weeks of UO only to quickly figure out that instead of exploring, we spent the majority of the time dodging roving bands of PKs or figuring out ways we could prevent exploiters from breaking into our houses. In EQ, the concept of delving into a dungeon with friends quickly turned into the reality that a handful of the same people were constantly holding a monopoly on many of the named monsters. Again, many of these people hand loads of time because they didn't have jobs, were in college, etc. They weren't interested in fostering a friendly atmosphere, they were interested in farming FBSS's, SMR's, etc to sell for plat or later on, sell on Ebay or other sites for real cash.
Now to avoid turning this into a doom and gloom post, the reason I'm saying all of this is that many of the early MMORPG's invariably and somewhat unintentionally pitted certain classes of players against one another. The gamer who wanted to have fun for a couple hours a day or week many times had to take a back seat to the people who had little or no constraint on the hours they could play. If my friend and I wanted to get a shot at a Robe of Fred, there was a pretty high likelihood that the resident camper had already staked his claim. On a grander scale, I joined a guild during the Velious period of EQ that was made up largely of working people. many of which had families but also enjoyed playing and raiding. We prided ourselves on doing a lot more with a lot less people. However, the design of EQ meant that our progression as a guild was hindered because many of the progression encounters (NToV & Sleeper's Tomb in Velious, Sraa temple and vex Thall in Luclin) were actively and deliberately blocked out by the larger guilds who made it a point to enforce their monopolies on those zones.
Finally, the entire reason I brought this up in the first place is that the newer MMORPG's (WoW, etc) deal with these issues with instancing. What I love about instanced content is that I can hob-knob and socialize in a zone with people, form groups and such, and then go off and experience the game with my wife, guild, friends, etc without worrying that some immature jerk is going to ruin our raid. I don't believe ALL of the content should be instanced, and in WoW many of the quests and such do involve some degree of sharing with the community.
And to address two of your points:
"So next time you feel like analyse people, and generalise, think it twice, because you might risk to insult lots of people. And by your remarks, I know it wasn't your intention."
Again, I never analysed anyone. I never generalized or lumped people into categories. I discussed a very real and very relevant class of player.
"I know you don't agree with "EQ old days", but unfortunately this game is going to be about that. It is not the game for you, leave this game to people that liked the original EQ and try not to diminish the ego of people that doesn't fit your play style."
old EQ was about many things, and one of those that I never want to go back to was the people who drew enjoyment by stomping on other players. I don't care about the ego of other people, I simply do not want to be the tool that people use to inflate those egos.
Very well said. These folks who simply must contend that people who play more than them, who play more seriously than them, or who simply seek more difficult or more social gaming circumstances are somehow deficient in the RL side of life are tiresome. In all my years in EQ, including the high end, I knew innumerable people in every conceivable walk of life - from professionals to mechanics to housewives to students - and they all had remarkably normal RL existences. People ran businesses (as I do), had families, pets, houses, went on vacations, etc. In short, they were simply normal people who happened to like gaming for recreation. And having met a lot of them personally over the years, I can assure you they even looked and acted like normal people in person
Who knows, maybe the person who doesn't want to have to deal with other people is the one with "issues"
Please point out in my post where I said that just because someone is serious about playing, that they are deficient in RL? That was your implication, not mine. I was talking SPECIFICALLY about a certain class of player who takes their RL deficiencies and takes them out on people ingame who are just there to try and have some fun.
Also, could you explain further why someone has "issues" just because they don't want their online experience trodden upon by other people? Many current games have taken steps to prevent "griefing" in games. I don't know enough about Vanguard at this point to know what the developers have done to follow this trend. I am simply saying that when you throw a bunch of people together in an online world, there needs to be ways for people to experience the game and content in the way that THEY enjoy. Their enjoyment of the game should not be dictated, blocked or ruined by other people.
If you want me to go into more detail about why this was a problem in the past, I can give one small example, and that is the failed "play nice policy" that SoE/Verant ended up trying to implement in Everquest to deal with that problem.
Originally posted by Feyshtey "This is the most intelligent post in the entire thread. Emphasis added for truth. What I'm sure Sigil already knows is that lawsuits and threats of bannination will have zero effect on the secondary market. Only in a game where easily farmable items are not in high demand will the secondary market fizzle. You probably can't do away with account sales, as long as the MMORPG genre encourages level grinding. But you can remove the f*cking stupid 37-hour spawn camps, and you can remove the 0.00001% droprate tradeable items that inevitably end up on ebay."
Oddly, you partly answered the question yourself. The drama. There's a rush and a tension with direct competition that many find appealing. Even as they hate it. They love it when they win without recognizing why, and hate it when they lose. The loss causes some to cement their resolve to win the next time. It also forces players to react more quickly. You can't just sit there and discuss how you're going to go after that mob when there's another party marching towards it as well. Those with more experience (as players, not the characters) often find greater success because of this. But that is only a part of it. When you're in an area with 50-100 other people, there's actually a sense of community. There's an ability to randomly help and be helped. With that there's a greatly likelyhood of meeting allies you might not otherwise have met. There's also a greater ability to recognize people of the community because you are always interacting with people outside of your group. Not only are you granted a greater chance of cataloguing people you respect, but also people you chose to avoid. Short version : it hightens your participation in the community. And for a ton of people, that means a greater game experience. There are more reasons than just that, but at least you might get the idea why some people really try to avoid instancing. It's not for everyone, and some people really could care less about what community they are a part of in a game. But for others, it's paramount.
There is way to bring about a sense of community that doesn't involve people stepping over each other and "racing" for spawns, camps or content. Sure, it might excite YOU to race someone for a mob while other people are also going for it, but what you are essentially saying is that its OK for one person's gaming experience to ruin someone else's as long as its in the name of "fun".
Again, I contend that what should get the adrenaline flowing is the excitement of taking on a tough encounter with friends and winning it, not that I'm racing other players or being rushed just so I might be able to experience that content. Some of the ugliest drama I've experienced happened in original EQ, Kunark and Velious. Guilds stepping over each other for contended mobs, people training each other, camp stealing, kill stealing, etc were things that I believe simply don't need to exist in order for a game to be exciting.
In short, I enjoy the sense of community in online games. I enjoy meeting new people who have similar goals and interests in the game and experiencing it with them. However, I don't want to return to a game that makes griefing easy or where I have to wait months for the local uber guild to move to the next expansion just so I have a chance to experience some of the high end content.
Very well said. These folks who simply must contend that people who play more than them, who play more seriously than them, or who simply seek more difficult or more social gaming circumstances are somehow deficient in the RL side of life are tiresome. In all my years in EQ, including the high end, I knew innumerable people in every conceivable walk of life - from professionals to mechanics to housewives to students - and they all had remarkably normal RL existences. People ran businesses (as I do), had families, pets, houses, went on vacations, etc. In short, they were simply normal people who happened to like gaming for recreation. And having met a lot of them personally over the years, I can assure you they even looked and acted like normal people in person
Who knows, maybe the person who doesn't want to have to deal with other people is the one with "issues"
Please point out in my post where I said that just because someone is serious about playing, that they are deficient in RL? That was your implication, not mine.
Well these are your words I believe: _______________________________________________________________________________
I really need to comment on your "community" remark. This might come across harsh to some people so please don't take it as an attack. There is a class of player I like to refer to as the internet social butterfly. This is the pale, introvert who lives in his parents' basement and whos entire social circle exists as other people in online games, people on msg boards, etc. _______________________________________________________________________________
You seems to forget quite easily what you say.
As I said, I didn't took it personally, I was just pointing out that you are talking rubbish, which is quite evident to everyone. You keep confusing competitive people with recluse people who play 24/7.
You don't have to play 50 hours a week to achieve things in EQ, you just need to be organised. I never had problems in camping mobs, since my guild always had a back up plan and we could change our target if the first(or second) choice was taken already. So it was not a biggy if other Guilds camped our mob already. Personally, I didn't have any problem in raiding with my Guilds (I changed a few), I hardly took part in more than 1 raid a week, yet I leveled 3 characters to Max level and with good equipment. All of this playing around 20 hours a week.
Nobody is denying that in EQ there was the "butterfly class" of players as you call it, but this kind of player exist in every game. So stop generalising. It is not the "butterfly" class that prevented you to camp a mob. It was the competitive/kickass class that ruled EQ. The best man survises, the weak will die. That s what I liked about EQ. And yes, as a competitive players, I took that game quite seriously, in the end it is my hobby, and when you have an hobby, you make sure you put lot of dedication in it. Dedication doesn't mean spending extra hours in front of the monitor, it means making sure you play the game cleverly making sure you get the most from other players interaction.
Playing 50 hours, but behaving like a complete twat, was the recipe to getting nowhere in EQ. Knowing how to play the game, and interact with other players, that was the key of success . EQ is a difficult game, and if you haven't got the skills to play it, you wouldn't achieve anything, no matter how many hours you play.
Now, if you can't understand that, it means that you didn't played EQ long enough, or simply that you were crap. But only because people is better than you, you haven't got the right to call them recluse (or better: "The pale, introvert who lives in his parents' basement and whos entire social circle exists as other people in online games, people on msg boards", as you like to call them)
I hope you understand the point, because this thread is going way off topic. We are here to discuss about games, we are not here to judge the people who play them.
Where are you getting the idea that I am passing judgement on *anyone*? I mentioned a specific class of player. I didn't slam those people, I didn't say I was better.
"As I said, I didn't took it personally, I was just pointing out that you are talking rubbish, which is quite evident to everyone. You keep confusing competitive people with recluse people who play 24/7."
Please, please please point out where in MY post I said that people who are competitive play 24/7. I was pretty well known on my server for being a knowledgeable necro and I was in one of the bigger raiding guilds on my server. However, I personally knew of MANY people who played 24/7 and made EQ their life. Those same people also had a habit of ruining the fun of players who were trying to enjoy the game by hogging spawns, creating drama, etc. My point is that in Vanguard, I would very much like there to be ways of preventing THOSE kinds of players from griefing people. If you want to mis-read my post or attack me personally by saying I'm talking "rubbish" then I can't help you really.
"It was the competitive/kickass class that ruled EQ. The best man survises, the weak will die. That s what I liked about EQ."
So basically what you are saying is that the "weak" player had no right to enjoy EQ or your concept of the idea MMORPG - he should go and "die". The new player who is just trying to learn and enjoy the game and isn't out to stroke his e-penis and be "competitive" should take a back seat to you because you are competitive, and its the competitive class that ruled EQ afterall! I considered myself pretty skilled at my class and had a decent amount of respect among other long term players, however I would *never* have even thought of considering myself in any kind of "competitive ruling class". Are you sure you aren't mixing up the term "competitive" with "arrogant prick"?
Here is a better question, why can't a game like Vanguard accomodate all kinds of players and still be an innovative game and capture some of the magic that was in EQ? I don't believe that in order to be a "fun" game, the game needs to be made up of a "competitive ruling class" that can bully around "the weak guy".
One last thing: "EQ is a difficult game, and if you haven't got the skills to play it, you wouldn't achieve anything, no matter how many hours you play.
Are you joking? I knew plenty of people that didn't have a lot of skill, but with enough time, anyone was able to level to 60 or join an uberguild and get nice gear. The combat in EQ was very simple. It didn't take skill to do things like kite mobs around a zone. Maybe to do CERTAIN things in EQ took skill and knowledge of your class and its interaction with other people. However, at its core, EQ and the mob AI was VERY predictable and even little kids could figure out the mechanics of the game quickly.
Here is what I hope for Vanguard~
-A huge world that encourages exploration and rewards people for being aware of their surroundings. -A game that rewards social interaction but also has measures to prevent griefing. -A game where faction plays a bigger role in the world, not just allowing me to buy items from NPCs. I'd like to be able to pick sides and wage wars on the enemies of my allies and have entire quests or areas open up depending on this.
Originally posted by Aildrik I really need to comment on your "community" remark. This might come across harsh to some people so please don't take it as an attack. There is a class of player I like to refer to as the internet social butterfly. This is the pale, introvert who lives in his parents' basement and whos entire social circle exists as other people in online games, people on msg boards, etc.
Some of you seem to be focusing on what you believe Aildrik is calling you, here. Yet none of you are addressing the issue that he brought up.
Originally posted by Aildrik I think Vanguard has some promise, but I get REALLY nervous when Brad starts invoking the "EQ early days" really heavily. Yeah, I look back on those days with Nostalgia but i would NEVER go back. Concepts such as camping a room in a dungeon ... 1 hour long CR's when a raid wipes ... a god-awful, practically non-existant quest system and killkillkill-level-killkillkill gameplay are things that need to stay in the past.
This is my fear also. The Sigil team is made up, for the most part, of Ex-Verant Developers, the same ones that believe that time sinks are needed, that 1 drop in 100 is a good ratio, that quest mobs spawn 1 out 4 times (but rarely drop what you need), that it's the player base responsibility to police it's own, yet the tools to do so are not available.
Another issue (touched on by someone) is the dependancy on "The Holy Trinity" (an Everquest term for requiring a Tank, Cleric and Shaman/Enchanter for any encounter). WoW addressed this issue by making every class independant. DAoC addressed this by making all their encounters generic. Final Fantasy made this policy law - as I understand it, in Final Fantasy, you have to group to progress and you have to group with specific classes.
It is for these issues that other developers have begun to include "instanced" zones. Some companies have set quest mobs to always drop the quested item, if you have the quest. Another solution was PvP or RvR (neither of which seems to have been implimented very well).
---------------------------------------- My dog barks some. Mentally you picture my dog, but I have not told you the type of dog which I have. Perhaps you even picture Toto, from "The Wizard of Oz." But I warn you, my dog is always with me.
We understand his "issues". We just don't buy into them. What you "fear" is what we want
In any event, he's adopted a "put down" sort of tone, so he got the predictable response.
And once someone starts telling me EQ wasn't difficult, they've lost my attention. You have people everywhere complaining they don't want another game that difficult and here we have somebody claiming it wasn't difficult. Can we say "agenda" ?
Originally posted by Wickes We understand his "issues". We just don't buy into them. What you "fear" is what we want In any event, he's adopted a "put down" sort of tone, so he got the predictable response. And once someone starts telling me EQ wasn't difficult, they've lost my attention. You have people everywhere complaining they don't want another game that difficult and here we have somebody claiming it wasn't difficult. Can we say "agenda" ? And, yeah, the weak should die Pure Darwinism.
Hey, I gave a disclaimer at the beginning of my post. I stated clearly I wasn't putting anyone down. If you decide to read into my post anyhow, thats not really my problem
I'll gladly explain in more detail why I say EQ wasn't that challenging. EQ *did* have a steep learning curve. It wasn't very friendly to new players, and had harsh penalties for dying such as having to run back to your corpse naked. From that perspective, EQ was difficult to pick up and learn as a newbie. EQ also had a lot of timesinks, but timesinks do not = difficult, just annoying. The problem is that people quickly figured out that all the mobs basically had the same agro code / AI. Even caster mobs had extremely predictable casting habits. You could easily figure out that zones had safe spots making CR easier. As a matter of fact, it was people abusing the very simple AI of mobs that caused Verant to take the easy road and just make some high level mobs summon you. Its also the reason for the very annoying habit of mobs to warp onto your head if they cant path to you (I recall being level 16 a few weeks into release and watching people exploit pathing to kill griffons by trapping them above the EC Tunnel - before they put in the code to make mobs warp onto you). Now, *some* parts of EQ were challenging in that they required you to know how to play your class, such as enchanters breaking a spawn of mobs in a dungeon. The PROBLEM is that EQ did not encourage people to crawl through dungeons; it encouraged you to camp which took away all the possibility of being remotely challenging. I WISH I could have done more dungeon crawls, but you would just end up getting yelled at by people for intruding on their camp Heck, even doing something like raiding Trakanon turned into learning the pulls and pathing of mobs. There just was not much dynamic mob behavior to counter the predictability.
So basically, EQ had some challenge but overall it was a very predictable and repetitve (and easy!) game. Many people happily leveled to 50 pre-kunark by kiting mobs in zones like Freeport and Steamfont Mts. I enjoy that in WoW, at least you can't get away with abusing the AI so much. Even the casters are smarter about which spells they use. Hopefully Brad and co can avoid those problems in Vanguard.
If you disagree, at least give me more reasons than "sorry, your wrong EQ was hard!"
Disclaimers really don't work when you go right ahead and do what you said you're not going to do
God knows I am not going to turn this into a EQ vs. WOW thread. It doesn't surprise me though to find out that you're a WOW player The simple reality is that you have an endless number of people all over the net saying EQ is XXX and WOW is YYY, and here you are trying to sell the opposite. Bzzzt. Sorry, no sale
Originally posted by Wickes We understand his "issues". We just don't buy into them. What you "fear" is what we want
In any event, he's adopted a "put down" sort of tone, so he got the predictable response.
Ah! I understand. Rather than discuss the issues that he brought up, the same ones I touched on, the ones you seem to want, you decided to take umbrage with what you presumed to be "his attitude".
Originally posted by Wickes And once someone starts telling me EQ wasn't difficult, they've lost my attention. You have people everywhere complaining they don't want another game that difficult and here we have somebody claiming it wasn't difficult
And here again, rather than ask Aildrik what was meant, you lash out. Your opinion is right, don't confuse you with facts. I so understand. Might interest you to know that not everyone feels the same way. I think Everquest (which I still play) is difficult only in the sense that it takes vast amounts of time to progress through, rather than any degree of game skill.
Originally posted by Wickes And, yeah, the weak should die Pure Darwinism.
I'm not exactly sure that Darwinism is an accepted form of gaming strategy. I do know that both the Roman Empire and the American constitution are not followers of Darwin. Were talking about the definition, the market strategy of a mmog, not Halflife, Tribes or Quake.
Why don't you detail out the features that you feel Aildrik and I dislike, that you like, and justify them. Why is it that you feel they are "good" and lend true value to a game?
---------------------------------------- My dog barks some. Mentally you picture my dog, but I have not told you the type of dog which I have. Perhaps you even picture Toto, from "The Wizard of Oz." But I warn you, my dog is always with me.
Originally posted by Wickes Disclaimers really don't work when you go right ahead and do what you said you're not going to do God knows I am not going to turn this into a EQ vs. WOW thread. It doesn't surprise me though to find out that you're a WOW player The simple reality is that you have an endless number of people all over the net saying EQ is XXX and WOW is YYY, and here you are trying to sell the opposite. Bzzzt. Sorry, no sale
Work with me here
The entire reason I brought up WoW was to illustrate some of the shortcomings EQ had (mob AI, camping, etc). I said nothing past that, and I certainly wasn't turning it into anything resembling EQ vs. WoW. The fact is, when you talk about Aradune and Vanguard, its very relevant to talk about the past work of the developers - which would be EQ.
You know, if you are a Vanguard fanatic then it really shocks me that you aren't willing to talk maturely about what was good and bad in EQ, WoW, etc - and MOST importantly, the kinds of things Sigil can do and avoid to make Vanguard the best game possible. There are some things Vanguard does NOT want to take from EQ and as a longtime player of that game, I think its very reasonable of me to come here and voice those opinions while the game is still in development.
And here again, rather than ask Aildrik what was meant, you lash out. Your opinion is right, don't confuse you with facts. I so understand. Might interest you to know that not everyone feels the same way. I think Everquest (which I still play) is difficult only in the sense that it takes vast amounts of time to progress through, rather than any degree of game skill.
I won't argue that at all. EQ required huge time investments. Perhaps its too general to say that "EQ is hard" or "EQ is easy". EQ was not friendly; it didn't hold your hand. Mistakes and death sucked. However, there were many times, especially when grinding XP, that you realize its not a complex game. Also, its amazing how some encounters go from being hard when you learn them, to being snooze-fests when you have them figured out. I wished many times that some of the raid encounters had more dynamic aspects to them instead of the sterile, predictable scripts. I realize that much of that is due to constraints of the game itself, the tools the developers have access to, etc.
Future games I hope should put more work into making the NPCs especially and computer AI more intelligent. For instance, maybe enemy NPCs react differently depending on the what "class" you are. A caster should do whatever he can to avoid getting into melee with a plate class. Maybe reputation and level affect how encounters play out, etc. I think there needs to be SOME predictability, but it shouldn't be so bad that people joke about clicking auto-attack and going AFK.
Originally posted by Aildrik I really need to comment on your "community" remark. This might come across harsh to some people so please don't take it as an attack. There is a class of player I like to refer to as the internet social butterfly. This is the pale, introvert who lives in his parents' basement and whos entire social circle exists as other people in online games, people on msg boards, etc.Not everyone who plays a MMORPG is looking to log into a graphical IRC session. Personally, I have my circle of friends at work, my wife, other friends and when I log into WoW (or formerly EQ) it wasn't that I was anti-social, its just that I didn't want to RELY on making a huge gaggle of online "friends" just so I could play the game and get something accomplished. Taking it a step further, on the server I was on in EQ (TMarr) I actively avoided some people because of the enormous amounts of drama that seemed to follow them around. EQ, especially among the top end players, seemed to attract some real nutballs. For that reason, I personally can't see playing another game where your success and ability to get anything accomplished rely on you getting on some sort of regular schedule or planning around meeting up with certain people and then realizing you are SOL when the cleric doesn't log in.I really enjoy the pace of WoW. I enjoy that I can find 4 other people and do an instanced dungeon and not worry about someone else jumping in and messing with us. I absolutely detested sitting around LFG in EQ and then having to ask "Gee, whats NOT camped in Sebilis tonight?". Don't even get me started on how much I detested the entire concept of camping and sitting in one spot (and as such you couldn't truly "crawl" through a dungeon in EQ lest, God forbid, you encroach on someone else's camp). I think Vanguard has some promise, but I get REALLY nervous when Brad starts invoking the "EQ early days" really heavily. Yeah, I look back on those days with Nostalgia but i would NEVER go back. Concepts such as camping a room in a dungeon ... 1 hour long CR's when a raid wipes ... a god-awful, practically non-existant quest system and killkillkill-level-killkillkill gameplay are things that need to stay in the past.
I tend to find just the opposite is true. People who are social in RL tend to be social in the game as well, and those who are anti-social in RL tend to be anti-social in game as well. Those who are the opposite in the game from what they are in RL are the exception, not the rule.
As for hour long corpse runs, BRING THEM BACK!!! I believe death in PvP should be relatively painless, but death in PvE should hurt. I used to really, really hate dying in EQ. Then, after playing games with minimal death penalties (and even EQ when every cleric had a res stick and then PoP with it's graveyards), I realized that there just wasn't that rush when taking risks that there were when the death penalites were severe. Without some serious lows in a game, there can be no highs. If everyone can get the uber sword of gnoll slaying, and there are no penalties for death, the game is bland and easy, no lows, but no highs either.
Bring back the lows, bring back the highs, bring back severe death penalties, and bring back rare drops.
Sorry I dont really care what either of you "meant". Im not seeking to offend anyone, but the conversation strikes me as silly. I simply want a "successor" to EQ ... a tough, miserable, irritating game where its difficult to survive, difficult to progress, difficult to travel, etc, etc.. I WANT to deal with trains, KSing, camping, crowded zones, long dangerous travel, nasty death penalties, time-sinks, rare drops, pain in the ass quests, etc. Some of you dont want to accept investment of time as an element of difficulty ... to me it is. End of story, and no matter how long you argue that isnt going to change my mind on that point. I want a game where working harder, being smarter, and putting in more time produces greater rewards. I dont care if my limited time only permits me to get 50% through the game - at least I will feel a sense of accomplishment about that 50%. Or if it takes me YEARS again to get to the point I want in the game, like it did in EQ, that works for me. Thats exactly what I want - a game that sucks me in for years. If this doesnt work for you, dont do it.
WTH Rome and the U.S. constitution have to do with Darwinism escapes me ... I dont want a democracy or a republic here, I want a very difficult world simulation. I dont need Earth again, I already have that.
I dont want MY game to incorporate all these "improvements" from WOW and any number of other games. I dont want offline selling, griffon airlines, mailboxes, locked encounters or the functional equivalent, quest NPCs with exclamation points over their heads, "combine all" tradeskills, etc. I dont want every class to be independent or to be equal. If I need to buy something, I want to talk to the guy and go interact with him to get the item. If I need to get to a bad spot, I want to go through hell trying to get there. I dont want mobs that give up chasing you 50 feet later. I dont want a lot of the "improvements" from later EQ either. I fully recognize not everything will be the way I want it, so I am just shooting for a decent percentage, and Ill live with the rest.
If you guys want to maintain that EQ was easy, thats fine with me, but I am sorry to say my eyes are glazing over. I simply dont have the time or inclination for a discussion that I consider absolutely silly. If its too "easy" for anybody, then by all means continue to enjoy the "challenges" of WOW or whatever ... we wont be offended at all.
I fully realize that you guys want something different from me. Again, thats fine with me. I truly hope you get what you want, and I hope I get what I want
Yes yes, before you even ask why I dont just go back to EQ ... because I spent 6 years there, Ive done it over and over, and I am just burnt on it ... not to mention I am sick of raiding all the damn time and thats what it eventually devolved into.
I tend to find just the opposite is true. People who are social in RL tend to be social in the game as well, and those who are anti-social in RL tend to be anti-social in game as well. Those who are the opposite in the game from what they are in RL are the exception, not the rule.
Do not miss an absolute fascinating article in the latest edition of Discover magazine. It seems the research being done about gaming and gamers is going to stand a lot of people on their heads. (hint: your observation is correct).
(btw, you snuck in there ... my above post wasn't directed at you)
Originally posted by Wickes Sorry I dont really care what either of you "meant". Im not seeking to offend anyone, but the conversation strikes me as silly. I simply want a "successor" to EQ ... a tough, miserable, irritating game where its difficult to survive, difficult to progress, difficult to travel, etc, etc.. I WANT to deal with trains, KSing, camping, crowded zones, long dangerous travel, nasty death penalties, time-sinks, rare drops, pain in the ass quests, etc. Some of you dont want to accept investment of time as an element of difficulty ... to me it is. End of story, and no matter how long you argue that isnt going to change my mind on that point. I want a game where working harder, being smarter, and putting in more time produces greater rewards. I dont care if my limited time only permits me to get 50% through the game - at least I will feel a sense of accomplishment about that 50%. Or if it takes me YEARS again to get to the point I want in the game, like it did in EQ, that works for me. Thats exactly what I want - a game that sucks me in for years. If this doesnt work for you, dont do it. >SNIP<
Hey, if you don't want to discuss ideas and differences and would like to stick your finger in your ears and shout "im not listening", thats totally cool. I'm not here to convince anyone. I kind of figured since this was a message board and all, people could exchange, discuss and debate ideas, silly me! If you think the conversation is silly, no one is holding a gun to your head and making you reply - just ignore it.
I truly believe a game can suck you in for years without resorting to artificial timesinks, etc. Many of the things you mentioned are crutches that developers have to use in place of actual content to slow peoples' progression through the game. I would rather have a game that is HUGE with more quests than I could ever hope to do, with more places than EQ has now after 6 years. I would love to be rewarded with exploration by finding a far-away dungeon in an area so huge that other people would have to really look for to find. I want the content, I want the fun, I want the danger - but lets do away with the roadblocks, the tedium and the total lack of QC.
Vanguard will be exactly what you hate, so move on. The direction of this game is pretty much decided, so there is nothing else to discuss. There are already lots of games you can enjoy that suits your preferences, and more are coming out this year (DnL, Darkfall and D&D, which I gonna try btw)
What you hate is what we love, so there is no point in keeping to explain your theories, because we want the opposite. The only thing I agree with, is that I would like to see the timesink nerfed a bit compared to EQ, but I would like to be higher than any other game on the market. Also I would like lots of places to explore and discover (which we know is going to be implemented in Vanguard). Other than that the gameplay and the structure of the game will take inspiration from EQ, and that s what the majority of people that is following Vanguard wants. So do expect Uber Guilds, lots of drama, and be prepared to invest lots of time in it. If you don't like it, there are other games similar to Vanguard, less raid oriented, like DnL for example.
I don't think Vanguard is the game for you, I hope you can find a game with cool people, that won't give you hard time while playing.
Originally posted by ste2000 Aildrik, maybe you don't get it.
Vanguard will be exactly what you hate, so move on. The direction of this game is pretty much decided, so there is nothing else to discuss. There are already lots of games you can enjoy that suits your preferences, and more are coming out this year (DnL, Darkfall and D&D, which I gonna try btw)
What you hate is what we love, so there is no point in keeping to explain your theories, because we want the opposite. The only thing I agree with, is that I would like to see the timesink nerfed a bit compared to EQ, but I would like to be higher than any other game on the market. Also I would like lots of places to explore and discover (which we know is going to be implemented in Vanguard). Other than that the gameplay and the structure of the game will take inspiration from EQ, and that s what the majority of people that is following Vanguard wants. So do expect Uber Guilds, lots of drama, and be prepared to invest lots of time in it. If you don't like it, there are other games similar to Vanguard, less raid oriented, like DnL for example.
I don't think Vanguard is the game for you, I hope you can find a game with cool people, that won't give you hard time while playing. Good luck.
I don't mind investing time into a game I think its possible to derive inspiration from EQ without emulating it too heavily. I think you and I agree more than you would like to admit.
I am curious what your definition of timesink is btw. For me, a timesink is an artifical roadblock set in place to slow players down so that they dont run out of content. Its basically what developers use when there is a lack of content. It's a very general term. Im curious, if a developer spends enough time to put in enough content/exploration, why is a "timesink" even necessary?
Well, youre tenacious anyway See, if youd apply this tenacity in the games there wouldnt be a problem
Timesinks are necessary because otherwise theres not enough money on earth to generate content as fast as longterm mmorpg "pros" can eat it up. Maybe its sad, but its also true. Thus they simply have to make things take more time than some think appropriate. (Of course, some seem to think everything should be instantaneous). Separates the men from the boys too. The whiners whine and leave and life is a lot more pleasant for those remaining ... and you get better people in your groups .
Plus, you do need times to take a pee or get more chips.
You cant handle the truth bucko!
(FWIW, I agree with STE. I wouln't like to see the timesinks as extreme as original EQ ... just worse than everything else out there.)
Originally posted by Wickes Well, youre tenacious anyway See, if youd apply this tenacity in the games there wouldnt be a problem Timesinks are necessary because otherwise theres not enough money on earth to generate content as fast as longterm mmorpg "pros" can eat it up. Maybe its sad, but its also true. Thus they simply have to make things take more time than some think appropriate. (Of course, some seem to think everything should be instantaneous). Separates the men from the boys too. The whiners whine and leave and life is a lot more pleasant for those remaining ... and you get better people in your groups . Plus, you do need times to take a pee or get more chips. You cant handle the truth bucko! (FWIW, I agree with STE. I wouln't like to see the timesinks as extreme as original EQ ... just worse than everything else out there.)
Hey, I am like many people in this forum - I don't play 8 hours a day, but when I do play I tend to be pretty serious about gaming!
I think a lack of timesinks will be the hallmark of the true next generation games. EQ, I believe, had to deal with hardware restrictions when it was developed. I think we can all agree on that. There was a limit to how large a zone could be, how many textures could be applied to mobs, etc. It was because of the limits to the gaming world that timesinks had to be put in place.
I think we are finally at a point where developers can create HUGE worlds, and complex ones at that. Think about the design of the original LGuk. It was a pretty big place, even compared to some of the later dungeons in Kunark and Velious. Now imagine taking a cool design like LGuk and making it x5 or even x10 as big. Imagine a dungeon so big that you actually have to stop and camp somewhere and pick up your exploration of it the next day.
That is what I'm talking about You can make a game intense and hardcore and when you can do that without artificially limiting players THAT will be an impressive game.
You NEED some time sinks and downtime in order for a social game to be a success. The challenge is making time sinks not seem like time sinks (make them less boring). But there is no way around downtime (except maybe in game voice chat with Vanguard promises) otherwise you do very little chatting with other players, which means you don't make friends as quickly, which means they don't get you with the best long term game hook out there (people who continue to play the game because their friends play it). Solo players just don't tend to get attatched to games for the long haul as groupers who end up making a large circle of friends.
As for things like camping one spot or one loot drop, I don't think you will see that as much in Vanguard. They have already said they have come up with ways to make dungeon crawling the norm and not dungeon camping. They have also mentioned many other things they are doing which are not only well ahead of anything EQ did, they are well ahead of anything any other game has ever done. This isn't going to be an EQ clone, it is going to be EQ the way it would have been if Brad and company had known then what they know now and had the hardware then that they have now. It will be a much different game than EQ, but it will continue with the idea that grouping is more rewarding than soloing and death should hurt just like the original EQ did. People like to complain about EQ, but when you play other things, you notice that there are so many things that EQ got right, and hopefully Vanguard will capture most of those instead of making their game the anti-EQ (like so many games have claimed to be since the success of EQ).
But for those that think the rewards for soloing should be equal to those gained from grouping or raiding, then Vanguard will not be the game for you.
Originally posted by ste2000 Aildrik, maybe you don't get it.
Vanguard will be exactly what you hate, so move on. The direction of this game is pretty much decided, so there is nothing else to discuss. There are already lots of games you can enjoy that suits your preferences, and more are coming out this year (DnL, Darkfall and D&D, which I gonna try btw)
What you hate is what we love, so there is no point in keeping to explain your theories, because we want the opposite. The only thing I agree with, is that I would like to see the timesink nerfed a bit compared to EQ, but I would like to be higher than any other game on the market. Also I would like lots of places to explore and discover (which we know is going to be implemented in Vanguard). Other than that the gameplay and the structure of the game will take inspiration from EQ, and that s what the majority of people that is following Vanguard wants. So do expect Uber Guilds, lots of drama, and be prepared to invest lots of time in it. If you don't like it, there are other games similar to Vanguard, less raid oriented, like DnL for example.
I don't think Vanguard is the game for you, I hope you can find a game with cool people, that won't give you hard time while playing. Good luck.
I don't mind investing time into a game I think its possible to derive inspiration from EQ without emulating it too heavily. I think you and I agree more than you would like to admit.
I am curious what your definition of timesink is btw. For me, a timesink is an artifical roadblock set in place to slow players down so that they dont run out of content. Its basically what developers use when there is a lack of content. It's a very general term. Im curious, if a developer spends enough time to put in enough content/exploration, why is a "timesink" even necessary?
Aildrik we agree in many things, I am not shy to admit it. We both want immersive and challenging games. The difference between me and you, which is the difference between who loves Vanguard as it is and who would like to see it more accessible to anyone, is that I want a game that is not for everyone. I would like a game that is the opposite of casual, not mildly challenging, I want it incredibly challenging. I want a game with hardcore Raids, hardcore Guilds, and hardcore Players, who takes the game extremely seriously. And for people who object that taking a game too seriously is stupid, I would answer that for me EQ is not just a game is an hobby, so expect lots of drama. What I don't want is this category of players that think that a game is a game (which I admit is the large majority, so I know my views will be pretty unpopular).
I suggested to you in a previous post, other games to play, because they are more likely to meet your requirement than Vanguard. DnL will be a fantastic game, with lots of challenge and places to explore, but it won't be as group/raid oriented as Vanguard. I have to admit that I will play DnL too, because it looks very interesting, but if Sigil keep their promises to make Vanguard more appealing for the CORE players (EQ, UO, AC and DAoC players), I am sure 100% that I will play Vanguard.
The only reasons I am hyped about Vanguard is that it is made by the co-creator of Everquest, and the only reason I am so confident that it will meet my expectation, is because I believe the "Vision" of Brad McQuaid. This game smells like EQ, and I like it, and I am not the only one
So please try to understand that this game for most of us will be the true successor of EQ, it is our last hope. We don't want it watered down like EQ2, just to accomodate everyone requirements.
I hope you will be back in a year time and play Vanguard, you will discover that of course it plays like EQ, but with less timesink and more new features, borrowed from other games, that will make this game unique.
In other words this will be the ultimate MMORPG to play, for everyone who likes RPGs, just give Brad some credit and let him do his job, I believe that in the end even the most sceptics will be surprised by the quality and depth of this game.
Originally posted by n2sooners You NEED some time sinks and downtime in order for a social game to be a success. The challenge is making time sinks not seem like time sinks (make them less boring). But there is no way around downtime (except maybe in game voice chat with Vanguard promises) otherwise you do very little chatting with other players, which means you don't make friends as quickly, which means they don't get you with the best long term game hook out there (people who continue to play the game because their friends play it). Solo players just don't tend to get attatched to games for the long haul as groupers who end up making a large circle of friends. As for things like camping one spot or one loot drop, I don't think you will see that as much in Vanguard. They have already said they have come up with ways to make dungeon crawling the norm and not dungeon camping. They have also mentioned many other things they are doing which are not only well ahead of anything EQ did, they are well ahead of anything any other game has ever done. This isn't going to be an EQ clone, it is going to be EQ the way it would have been if Brad and company had known then what they know now and had the hardware then that they have now. It will be a much different game than EQ, but it will continue with the idea that grouping is more rewarding than soloing and death should hurt just like the original EQ did. People like to complain about EQ, but when you play other things, you notice that there are so many things that EQ got right, and hopefully Vanguard will capture most of those instead of making their game the anti-EQ (like so many games have claimed to be since the success of EQ). But for those that think the rewards for soloing should be equal to those gained from grouping or raiding, then Vanguard will not be the game for you.
Equal but differents could work for this if it didnt work for race distinctions.
However, I think you can add that if someone think that the rewards from grouping should be equal to those gained from raiding, then Vanguard will not be the game for them either. If you dont like raiding, Vanguard is NOT for you. (I could be wrong, and this is the only reason I keep checking, in case I would be wrong, but lack of clear answer = I am right and they just try to lie more, they teach SoE how to lie after all).
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Timesink: As my collegues stated in the above post, you can't eliminate timesink all together. Look at WoW, it has not timesink, people reach 60 in 3 weeks and they beat all the content in 1 month, which took Blizzard 3 years of hard work to implement. Now Blizzard is about to introduce its timesink (Battleground) because people is beginning to realise how boring the game is becaming (well it was supposed to be implemented at launch, to be honest).
You need to realise that in order to create a zone with new content (new Quests, new NPCs, new mobs, new environment), the developers spend around 6 months. Whithout timesink, for player to discover and beat that content it takes between 2 weeks 1 month. Now you understand that at this pace, the devs will never be able to stay ahead of players (that s what happened with WoW), so timesink is necessary (unfortunately).
Camping: Sigil announced that camping Named Mobs won't be like EQ. First of all Mobs are not anchored to a fixed spot, they rom around, so you need to find them first. Second not everyone would be able to engage a Named. In order to engage an epic mob you need to find an epic item, only the group or raid that possess that item will be able to spawn, and lock that particular encounter. So you don't have to worry about Uber Guild camping your mob.
This and other original features, tells me that Vanguard, will be an innovative game, even mantaining the feel and gameplay of the original EQ. I hope everyone will keep an open mind on this game, and stops judging it by its cover.
Comments
Very well said. These folks who simply must contend that people who play more than them, who play more seriously than them, or who simply seek more difficult or more social gaming circumstances are somehow deficient in the RL side of life are tiresome. In all my years in EQ, including the high end, I knew innumerable people in every conceivable walk of life - from professionals to mechanics to housewives to students - and they all had remarkably normal RL existences. People ran businesses (as I do), had families, pets, houses, went on vacations, etc. In short, they were simply normal people who happened to like gaming for recreation. And having met a lot of them personally over the years, I can assure you they even looked and acted like normal people in person
Who knows, maybe the person who doesn't want to have to deal with other people is the one with "issues"
I expected that, despite my disclaimer at the beginning, someone would take my post as an attack anyhow. I'll say it again, and please read my post carefully so you can see for yourself - I'm not here to pass judgment on how other people play the game or what aspect of it they find enjoyable. There is no "psychoanalysis" and I never lumped the entire EQ player base into any one category. I am speaking about facts. I'm bringing up a very valid point and discussing something that apparently is taboo to some people in the gaming community, that point being the unpleasant sides of the gaming population. I think its very relevant to talk about this when we mention "community" and I have plenty of experience to draw upon going back to the release of Ultima Online.
Online games do bring people together and the community is certainly a big part of the experience. I've met some absolutely wonderful people online. However, anyone who played EQ prior to Kunark or especially played UO at release is absolutely kidding themselves if you can tell me these games didn't attract some extremely immature and sometimes downright destructive people. I recall trying to explore Britannia with a friend during the first few weeks of UO only to quickly figure out that instead of exploring, we spent the majority of the time dodging roving bands of PKs or figuring out ways we could prevent exploiters from breaking into our houses.
In EQ, the concept of delving into a dungeon with friends quickly turned into the reality that a handful of the same people were constantly holding a monopoly on many of the named monsters. Again, many of these people hand loads of time because they didn't have jobs, were in college, etc. They weren't interested in fostering a friendly atmosphere, they were interested in farming FBSS's, SMR's, etc to sell for plat or later on, sell on Ebay or other sites for real cash.
Now to avoid turning this into a doom and gloom post, the reason I'm saying all of this is that many of the early MMORPG's invariably and somewhat unintentionally pitted certain classes of players against one another. The gamer who wanted to have fun for a couple hours a day or week many times had to take a back seat to the people who had little or no constraint on the hours they could play. If my friend and I wanted to get a shot at a Robe of Fred, there was a pretty high likelihood that the resident camper had already staked his claim.
On a grander scale, I joined a guild during the Velious period of EQ that was made up largely of working people. many of which had families but also enjoyed playing and raiding. We prided ourselves on doing a lot more with a lot less people. However, the design of EQ meant that our progression as a guild was hindered because many of the progression encounters (NToV & Sleeper's Tomb in Velious, Sraa temple and vex Thall in Luclin) were actively and deliberately blocked out by the larger guilds who made it a point to enforce their monopolies on those zones.
Finally, the entire reason I brought this up in the first place is that the newer MMORPG's (WoW, etc) deal with these issues with instancing. What I love about instanced content is that I can hob-knob and socialize in a zone with people, form groups and such, and then go off and experience the game with my wife, guild, friends, etc without worrying that some immature jerk is going to ruin our raid. I don't believe ALL of the content should be instanced, and in WoW many of the quests and such do involve some degree of sharing with the community.
And to address two of your points:
"So next time you feel like analyse people, and generalise, think it twice, because you might risk to insult lots of people.
And by your remarks, I know it wasn't your intention."
Again, I never analysed anyone. I never generalized or lumped people into categories. I discussed a very real and very relevant class of player.
"I know you don't agree with "EQ old days", but unfortunately this game is going to be about that.
It is not the game for you, leave this game to people that liked the original EQ and try not to diminish the ego of people that doesn't fit your play style."
old EQ was about many things, and one of those that I never want to go back to was the people who drew enjoyment by stomping on other players. I don't care about the ego of other people, I simply do not want to be the tool that people use to inflate those egos.
Very well said. These folks who simply must contend that people who play more than them, who play more seriously than them, or who simply seek more difficult or more social gaming circumstances are somehow deficient in the RL side of life are tiresome. In all my years in EQ, including the high end, I knew innumerable people in every conceivable walk of life - from professionals to mechanics to housewives to students - and they all had remarkably normal RL existences. People ran businesses (as I do), had families, pets, houses, went on vacations, etc. In short, they were simply normal people who happened to like gaming for recreation. And having met a lot of them personally over the years, I can assure you they even looked and acted like normal people in person
Who knows, maybe the person who doesn't want to have to deal with other people is the one with "issues"
Please point out in my post where I said that just because someone is serious about playing, that they are deficient in RL?
That was your implication, not mine. I was talking SPECIFICALLY about a certain class of player who takes their RL deficiencies and takes them out on people ingame who are just there to try and have some fun.
Also, could you explain further why someone has "issues" just because they don't want their online experience trodden upon by other people? Many current games have taken steps to prevent "griefing" in games. I don't know enough about Vanguard at this point to know what the developers have done to follow this trend. I am simply saying that when you throw a bunch of people together in an online world, there needs to be ways for people to experience the game and content in the way that THEY enjoy. Their enjoyment of the game should not be dictated, blocked or ruined by other people.
If you want me to go into more detail about why this was a problem in the past, I can give one small example, and that is the failed "play nice policy" that SoE/Verant ended up trying to implement in Everquest to deal with that problem.
There is way to bring about a sense of community that doesn't involve people stepping over each other and "racing" for spawns, camps or content. Sure, it might excite YOU to race someone for a mob while other people are also going for it, but what you are essentially saying is that its OK for one person's gaming experience to ruin someone else's as long as its in the name of "fun".
Again, I contend that what should get the adrenaline flowing is the excitement of taking on a tough encounter with friends and winning it, not that I'm racing other players or being rushed just so I might be able to experience that content.
Some of the ugliest drama I've experienced happened in original EQ, Kunark and Velious. Guilds stepping over each other for contended mobs, people training each other, camp stealing, kill stealing, etc were things that I believe simply don't need to exist in order for a game to be exciting.
In short, I enjoy the sense of community in online games. I enjoy meeting new people who have similar goals and interests in the game and experiencing it with them. However, I don't want to return to a game that makes griefing easy or where I have to wait months for the local uber guild to move to the next expansion just so I have a chance to experience some of the high end content.
Very well said. These folks who simply must contend that people who play more than them, who play more seriously than them, or who simply seek more difficult or more social gaming circumstances are somehow deficient in the RL side of life are tiresome. In all my years in EQ, including the high end, I knew innumerable people in every conceivable walk of life - from professionals to mechanics to housewives to students - and they all had remarkably normal RL existences. People ran businesses (as I do), had families, pets, houses, went on vacations, etc. In short, they were simply normal people who happened to like gaming for recreation. And having met a lot of them personally over the years, I can assure you they even looked and acted like normal people in person
Who knows, maybe the person who doesn't want to have to deal with other people is the one with "issues"
Please point out in my post where I said that just because someone is serious about playing, that they are deficient in RL?
That was your implication, not mine.
Well these are your words I believe:
_______________________________________________________________________________
I really need to comment on your "community" remark. This might come across harsh to some people so please don't take it as an attack. There is a class of player I like to refer to as the internet social butterfly. This is the pale, introvert who lives in his parents' basement and whos entire social circle exists as other people in online games, people on msg boards, etc.
_______________________________________________________________________________
You seems to forget quite easily what you say.
As I said, I didn't took it personally, I was just pointing out that you are talking rubbish, which is quite evident to everyone.
You keep confusing competitive people with recluse people who play 24/7.
You don't have to play 50 hours a week to achieve things in EQ, you just need to be organised.
I never had problems in camping mobs, since my guild always had a back up plan and we could change our target if the first(or second) choice was taken already. So it was not a biggy if other Guilds camped our mob already.
Personally, I didn't have any problem in raiding with my Guilds (I changed a few), I hardly took part in more than 1 raid a week, yet I leveled 3 characters to Max level and with good equipment.
All of this playing around 20 hours a week.
Nobody is denying that in EQ there was the "butterfly class" of players as you call it, but this kind of player exist in every game.
So stop generalising.
It is not the "butterfly" class that prevented you to camp a mob.
It was the competitive/kickass class that ruled EQ. The best man survises, the weak will die.
That s what I liked about EQ.
And yes, as a competitive players, I took that game quite seriously, in the end it is my hobby, and when you have an hobby, you make sure you put lot of dedication in it.
Dedication doesn't mean spending extra hours in front of the monitor, it means making sure you play the game cleverly making sure you get the most from other players interaction.
Playing 50 hours, but behaving like a complete twat, was the recipe to getting nowhere in EQ.
Knowing how to play the game, and interact with other players, that was the key of success .
EQ is a difficult game, and if you haven't got the skills to play it, you wouldn't achieve anything, no matter how many hours you play.
Now, if you can't understand that, it means that you didn't played EQ long enough, or simply that you were crap.
But only because people is better than you, you haven't got the right to call them recluse (or better: "The pale, introvert who lives in his parents' basement and whos entire social circle exists as other people in online games, people on msg boards", as you like to call them)
I hope you understand the point, because this thread is going way off topic.
We are here to discuss about games, we are not here to judge the people who play them.
Where are you getting the idea that I am passing judgement on *anyone*? I mentioned a specific class of player. I didn't slam those people, I didn't say I was better.
"As I said, I didn't took it personally, I was just pointing out that you are talking rubbish, which is quite evident to everyone.
You keep confusing competitive people with recluse people who play 24/7."
Please, please please point out where in MY post I said that people who are competitive play 24/7. I was pretty well known on my server for being a knowledgeable necro and I was in one of the bigger raiding guilds on my server. However, I personally knew of MANY people who played 24/7 and made EQ their life. Those same people also had a habit of ruining the fun of players who were trying to enjoy the game by hogging spawns, creating drama, etc. My point is that in Vanguard, I would very much like there to be ways of preventing THOSE kinds of players from griefing people. If you want to mis-read my post or attack me personally by saying I'm talking "rubbish" then I can't help you really.
"It was the competitive/kickass class that ruled EQ. The best man survises, the weak will die.
That s what I liked about EQ."
So basically what you are saying is that the "weak" player had no right to enjoy EQ or your concept of the idea MMORPG - he should go and "die". The new player who is just trying to learn and enjoy the game and isn't out to stroke his e-penis and be "competitive" should take a back seat to you because you are competitive, and its the competitive class that ruled EQ afterall! I considered myself pretty skilled at my class and had a decent amount of respect among other long term players, however I would *never* have even thought of considering myself in any kind of "competitive ruling class". Are you sure you aren't mixing up the term "competitive" with "arrogant prick"?
Here is a better question, why can't a game like Vanguard accomodate all kinds of players and still be an innovative game and capture some of the magic that was in EQ? I don't believe that in order to be a "fun" game, the game needs to be made up of a "competitive ruling class" that can bully around "the weak guy".
One last thing:
"EQ is a difficult game, and if you haven't got the skills to play it, you wouldn't achieve anything, no matter how many hours you play.
Are you joking? I knew plenty of people that didn't have a lot of skill, but with enough time, anyone was able to level to 60 or join an uberguild and get nice gear. The combat in EQ was very simple. It didn't take skill to do things like kite mobs around a zone.
Maybe to do CERTAIN things in EQ took skill and knowledge of your class and its interaction with other people. However, at its core, EQ and the mob AI was VERY predictable and even little kids could figure out the mechanics of the game quickly.
Here is what I hope for Vanguard~
-A huge world that encourages exploration and rewards people for being aware of their surroundings.
-A game that rewards social interaction but also has measures to prevent griefing.
-A game where faction plays a bigger role in the world, not just allowing me to buy items from NPCs. I'd like to be able to pick sides and wage wars on the enemies of my allies and have entire quests or areas open up depending on this.
This is my fear also. The Sigil team is made up, for the most part, of Ex-Verant Developers, the same ones that believe that time sinks are needed, that 1 drop in 100 is a good ratio, that quest mobs spawn 1 out 4 times (but rarely drop what you need), that it's the player base responsibility to police it's own, yet the tools to do so are not available.
Another issue (touched on by someone) is the dependancy on "The Holy Trinity" (an Everquest term for requiring a Tank, Cleric and Shaman/Enchanter for any encounter). WoW addressed this issue by making every class independant. DAoC addressed this by making all their encounters generic. Final Fantasy made this policy law - as I understand it, in Final Fantasy, you have to group to progress and you have to group with specific classes.
It is for these issues that other developers have begun to include "instanced" zones. Some companies have set quest mobs to always drop the quested item, if you have the quest. Another solution was PvP or RvR (neither of which seems to have been implimented very well).
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My dog barks some. Mentally you picture my dog, but I have not told you the type of dog which I have. Perhaps you even picture Toto, from "The Wizard of Oz." But I warn you, my dog is always with me.
We understand his "issues". We just don't buy into them. What you "fear" is what we want
In any event, he's adopted a "put down" sort of tone, so he got the predictable response.
And once someone starts telling me EQ wasn't difficult, they've lost my attention. You have people everywhere complaining they don't want another game that difficult and here we have somebody claiming it wasn't difficult. Can we say "agenda" ?
And, yeah, the weak should die
Pure Darwinism.
Hey, I gave a disclaimer at the beginning of my post. I stated clearly I wasn't putting anyone down. If you decide to read into my post anyhow, thats not really my problem
I'll gladly explain in more detail why I say EQ wasn't that challenging. EQ *did* have a steep learning curve. It wasn't very friendly to new players, and had harsh penalties for dying such as having to run back to your corpse naked. From that perspective, EQ was difficult to pick up and learn as a newbie. EQ also had a lot of timesinks, but timesinks do not = difficult, just annoying.
Heck, even doing something like raiding Trakanon turned into learning the pulls and pathing of mobs. There just was not much dynamic mob behavior to counter the predictability.
The problem is that people quickly figured out that all the mobs basically had the same agro code / AI. Even caster mobs had extremely predictable casting habits. You could easily figure out that zones had safe spots making CR easier. As a matter of fact, it was people abusing the very simple AI of mobs that caused Verant to take the easy road and just make some high level mobs summon you. Its also the reason for the very annoying habit of mobs to warp onto your head if they cant path to you (I recall being level 16 a few weeks into release and watching people exploit pathing to kill griffons by trapping them above the EC Tunnel - before they put in the code to make mobs warp onto you).
Now, *some* parts of EQ were challenging in that they required you to know how to play your class, such as enchanters breaking a spawn of mobs in a dungeon. The PROBLEM is that EQ did not encourage people to crawl through dungeons; it encouraged you to camp which took away all the possibility of being remotely challenging. I WISH I could have done more dungeon crawls, but you would just end up getting yelled at by people for intruding on their camp
So basically, EQ had some challenge but overall it was a very predictable and repetitve (and easy!) game. Many people happily leveled to 50 pre-kunark by kiting mobs in zones like Freeport and Steamfont Mts. I enjoy that in WoW, at least you can't get away with abusing the AI so much. Even the casters are smarter about which spells they use. Hopefully Brad and co can avoid those problems in Vanguard.
If you disagree, at least give me more reasons than "sorry, your wrong EQ was hard!"
Disclaimers really don't work when you go right ahead and do what you said you're not going to do
God knows I am not going to turn this into a EQ vs. WOW thread. It doesn't surprise me though to find out that you're a WOW player
The simple reality is that you have an endless number of people all over the net saying EQ is XXX and WOW is YYY, and here you are trying to sell the opposite. Bzzzt. Sorry, no sale 
Ah! I understand. Rather than discuss the issues that he brought up, the same ones I touched on, the ones you seem to want, you decided to take umbrage with what you presumed to be "his attitude".
And here again, rather than ask Aildrik what was meant, you lash out. Your opinion is right, don't confuse you with facts. I so understand. Might interest you to know that not everyone feels the same way. I think Everquest (which I still play) is difficult only in the sense that it takes vast amounts of time to progress through, rather than any degree of game skill.
I'm not exactly sure that Darwinism is an accepted form of gaming strategy. I do know that both the Roman Empire and the American constitution are not followers of Darwin. Were talking about the definition, the market strategy of a mmog, not Halflife, Tribes or Quake.Why don't you detail out the features that you feel Aildrik and I dislike, that you like, and justify them. Why is it that you feel they are "good" and lend true value to a game?
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My dog barks some. Mentally you picture my dog, but I have not told you the type of dog which I have. Perhaps you even picture Toto, from "The Wizard of Oz." But I warn you, my dog is always with me.
Work with me here
The entire reason I brought up WoW was to illustrate some of the shortcomings EQ had (mob AI, camping, etc). I said nothing past that, and I certainly wasn't turning it into anything resembling EQ vs. WoW. The fact is, when you talk about Aradune and Vanguard, its very relevant to talk about the past work of the developers - which would be EQ.
You know, if you are a Vanguard fanatic then it really shocks me that you aren't willing to talk maturely about what was good and bad in EQ, WoW, etc - and MOST importantly, the kinds of things Sigil can do and avoid to make Vanguard the best game possible. There are some things Vanguard does NOT want to take from EQ and as a longtime player of that game, I think its very reasonable of me to come here and voice those opinions while the game is still in development.
And here again, rather than ask Aildrik what was meant, you lash out. Your opinion is right, don't confuse you with facts. I so understand. Might interest you to know that not everyone feels the same way. I think Everquest (which I still play) is difficult only in the sense that it takes vast amounts of time to progress through, rather than any degree of game skill.
I won't argue that at all. EQ required huge time investments. Perhaps its too general to say that "EQ is hard" or "EQ is easy". EQ was not friendly; it didn't hold your hand. Mistakes and death sucked. However, there were many times, especially when grinding XP, that you realize its not a complex game. Also, its amazing how some encounters go from being hard when you learn them, to being snooze-fests when you have them figured out. I wished many times that some of the raid encounters had more dynamic aspects to them instead of the sterile, predictable scripts. I realize that much of that is due to constraints of the game itself, the tools the developers have access to, etc.
Future games I hope should put more work into making the NPCs especially and computer AI more intelligent. For instance, maybe enemy NPCs react differently depending on the what "class" you are. A caster should do whatever he can to avoid getting into melee with a plate class. Maybe reputation and level affect how encounters play out, etc. I think there needs to be SOME predictability, but it shouldn't be so bad that people joke about clicking auto-attack and going AFK.
I tend to find just the opposite is true. People who are social in RL tend to be social in the game as well, and those who are anti-social in RL tend to be anti-social in game as well. Those who are the opposite in the game from what they are in RL are the exception, not the rule.
As for hour long corpse runs, BRING THEM BACK!!! I believe death in PvP should be relatively painless, but death in PvE should hurt. I used to really, really hate dying in EQ. Then, after playing games with minimal death penalties (and even EQ when every cleric had a res stick and then PoP with it's graveyards), I realized that there just wasn't that rush when taking risks that there were when the death penalites were severe. Without some serious lows in a game, there can be no highs. If everyone can get the uber sword of gnoll slaying, and there are no penalties for death, the game is bland and easy, no lows, but no highs either.
Bring back the lows, bring back the highs, bring back severe death penalties, and bring back rare drops.
Sorry
I dont really care what either of you "meant". Im not seeking to offend anyone, but the conversation strikes me as silly. I simply want a "successor" to EQ ... a tough, miserable, irritating game where its difficult to survive, difficult to progress, difficult to travel, etc, etc.. I WANT to deal with trains, KSing, camping, crowded zones, long dangerous travel, nasty death penalties, time-sinks, rare drops, pain in the ass quests, etc. Some of you dont want to accept investment of time as an element of difficulty ... to me it is. End of story, and no matter how long you argue that isnt going to change my mind on that point. I want a game where working harder, being smarter, and putting in more time produces greater rewards. I dont care if my limited time only permits me to get 50% through the game - at least I will feel a sense of accomplishment about that 50%. Or if it takes me YEARS again to get to the point I want in the game, like it did in EQ, that works for me. Thats exactly what I want - a game that sucks me in for years. If this doesnt work for you, dont do it.
WTH Rome and the U.S. constitution have to do with Darwinism escapes me ... I dont want a democracy or a republic here, I want a very difficult world simulation. I dont need Earth again, I already have that.
I dont want MY game to incorporate all these "improvements" from WOW and any number of other games. I dont want offline selling, griffon airlines, mailboxes, locked encounters or the functional equivalent, quest NPCs with exclamation points over their heads, "combine all" tradeskills, etc. I dont want every class to be independent or to be equal. If I need to buy something, I want to talk to the guy and go interact with him to get the item. If I need to get to a bad spot, I want to go through hell trying to get there. I dont want mobs that give up chasing you 50 feet later. I dont want a lot of the "improvements" from later EQ either. I fully recognize not everything will be the way I want it, so I am just shooting for a decent percentage, and Ill live with the rest.
If you guys want to maintain that EQ was easy, thats fine with me, but I am sorry to say my eyes are glazing over. I simply dont have the time or inclination for a discussion that I consider absolutely silly. If its too "easy" for anybody, then by all means continue to enjoy the "challenges" of WOW or whatever ... we wont be offended at all.
I fully realize that you guys want something different from me. Again, thats fine with me. I truly hope you get what you want, and I hope I get what I want
Yes yes, before you even ask why I dont just go back to EQ
... because I spent 6 years there, Ive done it over and over, and I am just burnt on it ... not to mention I am sick of raiding all the damn time and thats what it eventually devolved into.
I tend to find just the opposite is true. People who are social in RL tend to be social in the game as well, and those who are anti-social in RL tend to be anti-social in game as well. Those who are the opposite in the game from what they are in RL are the exception, not the rule.
Do not miss an absolute fascinating article in the latest edition of Discover magazine. It seems the research being done about gaming and gamers is going to stand a lot of people on their heads. (hint: your observation is correct).
(btw, you snuck in there ... my above post wasn't directed at you)
Hey, if you don't want to discuss ideas and differences and would like to stick your finger in your ears and shout "im not listening", thats totally cool. I'm not here to convince anyone. I kind of figured since this was a message board and all, people could exchange, discuss and debate ideas, silly me! If you think the conversation is silly, no one is holding a gun to your head and making you reply - just ignore it.
I truly believe a game can suck you in for years without resorting to artificial timesinks, etc. Many of the things you mentioned are crutches that developers have to use in place of actual content to slow peoples' progression through the game. I would rather have a game that is HUGE with more quests than I could ever hope to do, with more places than EQ has now after 6 years. I would love to be rewarded with exploration by finding a far-away dungeon in an area so huge that other people would have to really look for to find. I want the content, I want the fun, I want the danger - but lets do away with the roadblocks, the tedium and the total lack of QC.
Aildrik, maybe you don't get it.
Vanguard will be exactly what you hate, so move on.
The direction of this game is pretty much decided, so there is nothing else to discuss.
There are already lots of games you can enjoy that suits your preferences, and more are coming out this year (DnL, Darkfall and D&D, which I gonna try btw)
What you hate is what we love, so there is no point in keeping to explain your theories, because we want the opposite.
The only thing I agree with, is that I would like to see the timesink nerfed a bit compared to EQ, but I would like to be higher than any other game on the market.
Also I would like lots of places to explore and discover (which we know is going to be implemented in Vanguard).
Other than that the gameplay and the structure of the game will take inspiration from EQ, and that s what the majority of people that is following Vanguard wants.
So do expect Uber Guilds, lots of drama, and be prepared to invest lots of time in it.
If you don't like it, there are other games similar to Vanguard, less raid oriented, like DnL for example.
I don't think Vanguard is the game for you, I hope you can find a game with cool people, that won't give you hard time while playing.
Good luck.
I don't mind investing time into a game
I am curious what your definition of timesink is btw. For me, a timesink is an artifical roadblock set in place to slow players down so that they dont run out of content. Its basically what developers use when there is a lack of content. It's a very general term. Im curious, if a developer spends enough time to put in enough content/exploration, why is a "timesink" even necessary?
Well, youre tenacious anyway
See, if youd apply this tenacity in the games there wouldnt be a problem 
Timesinks are necessary because otherwise theres not enough money on earth to generate content as fast as longterm mmorpg "pros" can eat it up. Maybe its sad, but its also true. Thus they simply have to make things take more time than some think appropriate. (Of course, some seem to think everything should be instantaneous). Separates the men from the boys too. The whiners whine and leave and life is a lot more pleasant for those remaining ... and you get better people in your groups
.
Plus, you do need times to take a pee or get more chips.
You cant handle the truth bucko!
(FWIW, I agree with STE. I wouln't like to see the timesinks as extreme as original EQ ... just worse than everything else out there.)
Hey, I am like many people in this forum - I don't play 8 hours a day, but when I do play I tend to be pretty serious about gaming!
I think a lack of timesinks will be the hallmark of the true next generation games. EQ, I believe, had to deal with hardware restrictions when it was developed. I think we can all agree on that. There was a limit to how large a zone could be, how many textures could be applied to mobs, etc. It was because of the limits to the gaming world that timesinks had to be put in place.
I think we are finally at a point where developers can create HUGE worlds, and complex ones at that. Think about the design of the original LGuk. It was a pretty big place, even compared to some of the later dungeons in Kunark and Velious.
Now imagine taking a cool design like LGuk and making it x5 or even x10 as big. Imagine a dungeon so big that you actually have to stop and camp somewhere and pick up your exploration of it the next day.
That is what I'm talking about
You can make a game intense and hardcore and when you can do that without artificially limiting players THAT will be an impressive game.
You NEED some time sinks and downtime in order for a social game to be a success. The challenge is making time sinks not seem like time sinks (make them less boring). But there is no way around downtime (except maybe in game voice chat with Vanguard promises) otherwise you do very little chatting with other players, which means you don't make friends as quickly, which means they don't get you with the best long term game hook out there (people who continue to play the game because their friends play it). Solo players just don't tend to get attatched to games for the long haul as groupers who end up making a large circle of friends.
As for things like camping one spot or one loot drop, I don't think you will see that as much in Vanguard. They have already said they have come up with ways to make dungeon crawling the norm and not dungeon camping. They have also mentioned many other things they are doing which are not only well ahead of anything EQ did, they are well ahead of anything any other game has ever done. This isn't going to be an EQ clone, it is going to be EQ the way it would have been if Brad and company had known then what they know now and had the hardware then that they have now. It will be a much different game than EQ, but it will continue with the idea that grouping is more rewarding than soloing and death should hurt just like the original EQ did. People like to complain about EQ, but when you play other things, you notice that there are so many things that EQ got right, and hopefully Vanguard will capture most of those instead of making their game the anti-EQ (like so many games have claimed to be since the success of EQ).
But for those that think the rewards for soloing should be equal to those gained from grouping or raiding, then Vanguard will not be the game for you.
I don't mind investing time into a game
I am curious what your definition of timesink is btw. For me, a timesink is an artifical roadblock set in place to slow players down so that they dont run out of content. Its basically what developers use when there is a lack of content. It's a very general term. Im curious, if a developer spends enough time to put in enough content/exploration, why is a "timesink" even necessary?
Aildrik we agree in many things, I am not shy to admit it.
We both want immersive and challenging games.
The difference between me and you, which is the difference between who loves Vanguard as it is and who would like to see it more accessible to anyone, is that I want a game that is not for everyone.
I would like a game that is the opposite of casual, not mildly challenging, I want it incredibly challenging.
I want a game with hardcore Raids, hardcore Guilds, and hardcore Players, who takes the game extremely seriously.
And for people who object that taking a game too seriously is stupid, I would answer that for me EQ is not just a game is an hobby, so expect lots of drama.
What I don't want is this category of players that think that a game is a game (which I admit is the large majority, so I know my views will be pretty unpopular).
I suggested to you in a previous post, other games to play, because they are more likely to meet your requirement than Vanguard.
DnL will be a fantastic game, with lots of challenge and places to explore, but it won't be as group/raid oriented as Vanguard.
I have to admit that I will play DnL too, because it looks very interesting, but if Sigil keep their promises to make Vanguard more appealing for the CORE players (EQ, UO, AC and DAoC players), I am sure 100% that I will play Vanguard.
The only reasons I am hyped about Vanguard is that it is made by the co-creator of Everquest, and the only reason I am so confident that it will meet my expectation, is because I believe the "Vision" of Brad McQuaid.
This game smells like EQ, and I like it, and I am not the only one
So please try to understand that this game for most of us will be the true successor of EQ, it is our last hope.
We don't want it watered down like EQ2, just to accomodate everyone requirements.
I hope you will be back in a year time and play Vanguard, you will discover that of course it plays like EQ, but with less timesink and more new features, borrowed from other games, that will make this game unique.
In other words this will be the ultimate MMORPG to play, for everyone who likes RPGs, just give Brad some credit and let him do his job, I believe that in the end even the most sceptics will be surprised by the quality and depth of this game.
Take care.
Equal but differents could work for this if it didnt work for race distinctions.
However, I think you can add that if someone think that the rewards from grouping should be equal to those gained from raiding, then Vanguard will not be the game for them either. If you dont like raiding, Vanguard is NOT for you. (I could be wrong, and this is the only reason I keep checking, in case I would be wrong, but lack of clear answer = I am right and they just try to lie more, they teach SoE how to lie after all).
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Some thoughts about the timesink and Camping.
stated in the above post, you can't eliminate timesink all together.
Timesink:
As my collegues
Look at WoW, it has not timesink, people reach 60 in 3 weeks and they beat all the content in 1 month, which took Blizzard 3 years of hard work to implement.
Now Blizzard is about to introduce its timesink (Battleground) because people is beginning to realise how boring the game is becaming (well it was supposed to be implemented at launch, to be honest).
You need to realise that in order to create a zone with new content (new Quests, new NPCs, new mobs, new environment), the developers spend around 6 months.
Whithout timesink, for player to discover and beat that content it takes between 2 weeks 1 month.
Now you understand that at this pace, the devs will never be able to stay ahead of players (that s what happened with WoW), so timesink is necessary (unfortunately).
Camping:
Sigil announced that camping Named Mobs won't be like EQ.
First of all Mobs are not anchored to a fixed spot, they rom around, so you need to find them first.
Second not everyone would be able to engage a Named.
In order to engage an epic mob you need to find an epic item, only the group or raid that possess that item will be able to spawn, and lock that particular encounter.
So you don't have to worry about Uber Guild camping your mob.
This and other original features, tells me that Vanguard, will be an innovative game, even mantaining the feel and gameplay of the original EQ.
I hope everyone will keep an open mind on this game, and stops judging it by its cover.