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EQ Next :: Need for food and light sources
Karble
Member UncommonPosts: 750
Do you think that Everquest Next will have any requirements of eating food or drinking water?
Also do you think we will be creating special food and drink with bonus properties?
One more though here...if you pick a certain race, will they have night vision or infravision.....do you even think we will need it?
I found a great deal of immersion and role play in the original EQ with just these small details. Is this a relic of the past or do you think these things should make a comeback with this next EQ?
Comments
If it does have a requirement for food, it will probably go the way of every other game that has required players to stay nourished; it will be nerfed and made optional.
Countless hours of dev time spent on cooking skill, farming, and hunting mechanics and balancing and art work will all go to waste because some entitled casuals don't want to have to bother with buying/making and eating food to stay alive or combat effective.
Click to play, click to hit, click to loot, click to quit. Welcome to the "Next Gen" of MMOs.
Yeah, I'm a bitter old cynical fart and MMO Veteran....and get off my lawn!
"If MMORPG players were around when God said, "Let their be light" they'd have called the light gay, and plunged the universe back into darkness by squatting their nutsacks over it."
-Luke McKinney, The 7 Biggest Dick Moves in the History of Online Gaming
"In the end, SWG may have been more potential and promise than fulfilled expectation. But I'd rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
-Raph Koster
The day/night cycle shown in videos looks pretty dark even if the sky is clear. Not completely dark though and Jeff Butler said that not being able to see enough to play was denial of service. That doesn't mean other races won't see better, just worst case scenerio won't be night blindness lol.
An RT response was just released regarding EQNs day/night cycle. It will be a two hour cycle, one hour day to one hour night, longer than EQ was at a 72 hour cycle.
Lost my mind, now trying to lose yours...
They have explicitly said that they will not have the pitch black nights where you don't even know what killed you.
Personally, I think the added difficulty of these types of things enhanced the feeling of danger and made the game more immersive. However, we have to be realistic and acknowledge that people are no longer willing to deal with these kinds of things. If people get frustrated or annoyed they will just switch to another game.
I believe you have a good point here. I played a game since EQ that took and made things almost completely dark when the moon was obstructed or when there was only a sliver of moon.
There should be a balance. The level of darkness should, in my opinion, be such that is is hard to make out details when things are not around light sources or when there is no vision assisting spell or ability. You should still be able to navigate and notice creatures, locations, npcs, and players. Just not to the degree of....telling that the goblin you are looking at from 30 feet away in the dark is the named one with the special dagger you have been after for a few days or not.
As far as food goes. I like the idea of food preparation to provide buffs of specific type when eaten or drank. And these could be used more than one at a time for differing effect bonuses. Maybe drinking chloro-ade provides 10% to mana regen rate.
Perhaps a blizzard spider pie provides 12% agility and 15%dexterity but -5% strength
Hill giant stew makes you grow twice your size and doubles strength for 10 minutes but 1/2 int for that time.
I agree rations may be a thing of the past, but food and drink can still be a fun part of gameplay and almost a requirement in
certain battles.
Another area where it makes sense for SOE to have a separate server. One with truly dark night, the need for food and drink, etc. And no, I don't buy into the argument this means you have to go 100 percent and deal with all bodily functions!
Let the casual "point and click" players choose whether or not to play on that server. No one is forced into anything. And people who welcome the immersive aspects also have a place to go. Problem solved.
They've made it pretty obvious so far that they are going for the casual crowd. I don't know if we will ever again have challenging, realistic or deep game worlds ever again, because casuals make up the majority and they don't want it. Even the "challenging" AI they've promised either won't be as challenging as they've said or they will tune it down when too many people complain because the fights are too hard or that they've died twice in a week fighting and would rather cakewalk through a world fillied with monsters instead of facing and overcoming challenging content.
And I'm not saying we need things to be as tough or time consuming as the earlier games (I hated waiting for boats or mana to replenish as everyone else) and I do embrace many changes/advances in games, but many of these little things (such as needing light to see at night) made things more challenging and engaging, as in you are in an actual world and not a lobby game. Like the guy above posting how having to eat or it being dark was the same as having to use the bathroom in a game-seems a childish exaggeration instead of a actual debate about the benefits of realism vs fun-but these are who play mmos in the majority now. And most of these people will play for a few months or occasionally, off/on since it is free, spend no money and move on, while those that like challenge or realism (like race restrictions, grouping, actually spending time in game) will play much longer if the have something to keep them engaged for more than 1-3 months and running out of things to do. But being in the minority of mmo gamers, they aren't trying to get us to play.
EQ2 weight and food system never mattered since launch. At least keep your examples relevant. You were pretty much never overweight and food was just used to heal yourself to full in 5seconds like every other lifeless MMO.
However, EQ1 weight and food systems mattered quite a bit for a good many expansions till SoE ruined the game in general.
Gonna have to agree with you on all fronts. Nothing about the game screams EQ1 and since they're asking the masses for input on every feature the game is guarantee'd to hand hold casuals like every other crapshoot on the market.
I wouldn't put the stamp on it quite yet. There will be no quest icons and things like classes will have to be sought after and earned, they specifically said they don't want people wiki'ing how to do things in EQN. As far as being for casuals, as in short times to complete things, I'd agree but to an unknown degree. There needs to be a balance of course, I myself like group content, but EQN is not a niche MMO and in fact is unique enough to be successful in a market saturated by many "me too" titles.
Let's not forget that when they were making EQ they had the same idea then as they do now: get as many players playing as possible. Why? Because they believe the product they are putting out is fun and worth playing. SoE cannot be held accountable for what the majority wants, only whether the game they put out is fun and worthwhile. If it is, then it will succeed. I think they are emulating EQ a lot more than some see or give them credit for. We'll see for sure though, it's too early to tell.
I really wish I could disagree with you, but after the last shitastic livestream I have to agree.
Aa far as food and drink (or any crafting) nothing much has been said yet. Since they are moving away from Character levels as a means of progression hopefully other things will fill the gap such as crafted food that can increase a certain stat.
Light or more appropriately darkness has already been partially addressed. They will not be making the game so dark that any player would not be able to see at night. What they haven't addressed yet is the level of detail that can be made out with different abilities or skills.
Guys, dont get excited - it will be the usual casual friendly let down that all the recent games have been!!! Why do you even bother wasting time on this stuff.
I understand hope dies last but it is time to give up on this genre, you will not find what you are looking for. Everything produced these days is easy, mediocre, cash-shop infested dog turd.
Doomsaying adds absolutely nothing the conversation. Especially when you don't even address that OPs question or even anything closely related to the OPs comment.
Not so in Age Of Wulin/Wushu, eating food and fending of starvation is a big deal, you need to eat.
http://news.mmosite.com/content/2013-05-02/age_of_wushu_fighting_hunger_in_jianghu.shtml
I have addressed the OP's question, you are just lacking reading apprehension. There will not be what he is hoping for because modern game developers develop mediocre, casual friendly, easy, cash-shop infested, lack of customization, immersion, challenge crap.
They throw us a few key words ie sandbox, risk reward, challenge, etc and we fantasize the rest, inevitably being let down once the game is released and we realize its the same crap they have been doing since wow.
Its not doomsaying but reality.
The funny thing is from the two rants you have posted it seems like you have already been let down, before the details are even out. Sure, what you are saying could come true and be as detrimental to you as you state but why skip to the end before it's even known. Seems far more constructive to think about what could be and talk about it, it is just talk after all, than it is to run around screaming that "it's all going to be horrible!!" There is also the possibility that no matter what features are in EQN it could be...
Fun
That's just me though. I can be excited for something and just shrug my shoulders if it's bad. The time leading up to the final knwowing moment was postitive which is better than wollowing the whole time where at best I can be pleasently suprised, making up for the lead up.
How can it be reality when they haven't even reached a real product yet. Sure there is a lot of conjecture on the boards. Predicting doom and gloom for a product that is still in early developement with out basing your predictions on specific released tidbits is dumb. There is no evidence that they can't deliver on thier promises.
There is no evidence that the game will be mediocre. Is there something wrong with a game supporting casual play? The range of difficulty has not been revealed but indications are they want the game to scale for Solo players as well as whole server events. If not for cash shops how else do you think they should fund there game? They have yet to reveal any customization but that doesn't mean that it won't be done well. Immersion is a hard target but EQ and EQ2 worked well.
Why not take the development team at thier word and trust that they might actually produce a game that is fun and immersive for any number of players.
All due respect to all of you and your optimism. The reality as far as I am concerned is that there is 0% chance that they will achieve what you claim. It is my personal opinion that this is so and that the ideology and methodology behind producing modern MMOs doesnt allow them to be anything more than what I already stated.
There are probably lots of smart creative people working on these products but the way the whole thing is approached guarantees that it will be the same old mediocrity. Like I said it is my personal opinion and I do not have the energy to write an essay on why this is so.
I joined the discussion and contributed by saying no chance in hell will they deliver what the OP has asked for, and here I do not mean the specific light and food but the gameplay and atmosphere he is looking for. Nothing against SOE, they all work from the same template and hence we get what we get for the last 3-4 years.
Why stop with food and light sources? You should also need to take periodic breaks to urinate or take a dump, and if you eat the wrong food it should give you gas and the runs. Also, in order to stay effective you should have to spend a third of every day sleeping, so if it is a two hour day, then for every two consecutive hours you play you should have to spend at least forty minutes laying in place sleeping. Your food should also have to be nutritionally balanced to keep you healthy, and you should have to devote time to exercising to stay in shape. Oh, and don't forget laundry. If you walk around in dirty clothes you should get stinky and get negative reactions from NPCs. And most non-humanoids you fight shouldn't be dropping anything of value, so unless you become a bandit and just kill and rob people, you should probably have to get a job in order to have enough money to pay for your food and some shelter. And if you don't show up for work, you should get fired.
After all, nothing is more important than realism.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
If SOE doesn't want to go super hardcore with their systems (I would rather it be hardcore) to appeal to a larger number of people, they could do food similar to FFXI did. It wasn't exactly necessary to eat, but it gave substantial increases to your character that it became frowned upon by the community that if you weren't eating food (and proper food based on your role) then you were likely to be removed from groups because you were not performing up to everyone elses standard.
The cooking skill in turn became a very worthwhile crafting skill to take to cap.
Light sources would be awesome to need. They have already shown some screens of nighttime and it does look like carrying a torch around would be useful. As for cave delving and requiring a light source, that is something else I would love to see in game, but I'm not so sure if SOE will do it or not.
"In the immediate future, we have this one, and then weve got another one that is actually going to be so were going to have, what we want to do, is in January, what were targeting to do, this may or may not happen, so you cant hold me to it. But what were targeting to do, is have a fun anniversary to the Ilum shenanigans that happened. An alien race might invade, and they might crash into Ilum and there might be some new activities that happen on the planet." ~Gabe Amatangelo
They will probably go the route of EQ2 where food provides buffs / regen. Making it look like a perk when in fact it is essential for anyone wanting to perform optimally.
From a PR perspective it just seems more palatable than telling someone they are starving and giving them a penalty.
Presented as perks instead of penalty = happy casuals. SoE have always been big on crafting, so I doubt that they would skip on cooking.