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Will this game be 'truly dynamic'?
sonicwhip2
Member Posts: 86
Will Everquest Next be a truly dynamic and ever changing world with real lasting consequences and permanent world changes due to a single players actions?
Or is SoE pulling the same PR stunt as ArenaNet when they promised Guildwars 2 would be a truly dynamic world and it turned out to just be the same old events repeating themselves every 5 minutes with no actual changes to the world except for the controlled and scripted "living" story updates?
I'm really hoping EQNext will live up to the hype and bring hope to the mmo market because it seems like every recent mmo release has been a huge disappointed especially Wildstar.
Comments
no, it wont be.... it will be the same as Landmark with the addition of quests, dungeons, and instanced pvp. Another mmorpg as we know it, only with terraforming that goes back to normal after its timer resets.
EDIT: this is my opinion and will stay like that until SOE prove me wrong with facts, not words.
Well they showed a lot of promising things for Everquest Next during the SoE live presentations who knows this may actually be the game to deliver real change.
i hope it does, i want to play EQN, but if its just a bigger Lanmark i dont think it will deliver good change to the genre. We will see.
The game will be dynamic in that NPC factions and NPCs have their own goals to achieve, and a variety of ways to achieve those goals. The NPCs do not have to remain in a single location, but can move all around the world to find locations that are better suited to their tastes. The land itself can change as well, depending on the NPCs and players that are in those areas interacting with it, but this does not include terraforming.
It is also possible for the StoryBricks system to include more intricate quest dynamics as well. I have no idea if that stuff is going to show up in the game or not. I'm talking like the Bar Keep wants a better price on beer, but the problem is that the Baker is buying stuff that the Brewer needs to produce more beer. The Bar Keep hires you to threaten the Baker into producing less bread or something. Now, normally this happens because the developer codes the quests in there, but with StoryBricks it happens because the Bar Keep wants or needs more beer. Of course, now the Baker is going to want something. And so on. I don't know if stuff like this will show up in EQN or not.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I think too many games have come along throwing the word dynamic around only to later find out dynamic to them means a scripted event that resets on a timer. Developers seem better at rewriting the dictionary than actually changing yet another static world design mmo.
I think like most people we all hope SOE can do something different but it's fingers crossed, not hold your breath type of hope.
Should be interesting. We could either get something way cooler than what we're used to, or something that's even more repetitive than usual.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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I beta tested GW2. The first iteration was 100% exploring and no quest on the map and no pointers to events. People complained they didnt know what to do lol. After all the added pointers on the map on where to go people would mass when an public quest started. When the first step was done 99% of the people would take off before the next step in the chain started and missed tones of content.
I worry SoE will make the game truly dynamic with no real quest marks over NPC heads and people will complain till they change it lol. As for the system they are shooting for. Its 100% dynamic. NPC are not scripted but more sent in the world with a set of rules that govern they choices. Thats what makes it dynamic is that the NPC have options. If SoE pulls it off, server to server things will look different unless people start crying and making SoE water it down so they can understand it lol
The first 'truly dynamic' MMORPG was Ultima Online... and they learned a very important lession. If the players can affect the balance, they will destroy it.
Balance is based on the principle of limits. Everything is kept in check by something else, and this all comes together to form an ecosystem. In the example of UO, Dragons would eat sheep. If they didnt find enough, they would roam wider, and attack humans and such. This was all part of an elaborate simulation, that the players could affect via gameplay. What happened was that the players killed all the sheep, then kept going and killed all the dragons. There was never any 'dymanic' element as adding players to the enviornment turned out to be the equivelent of unleashing the plague... they just wiped everything out.
Everquest Next has show how they have built the NPC balance in a similar way... but they have not shown any idication of understanding the player problem, or how they are going to deal with it. The game will be 'truly dynamic' in one sense... but there is no indication that it will matter when the players are unleashed.. and they just decimate everything.
Games in of themselves are never " truly dynamic ". That being said you can have elements that make them appear so. Quest chains that are open permutations with variable of choices and in game decisions affecting the path of the character. examples would be : player race, player deity choice, player choice of good/evil, player sex choice etc... It all opens possibilities.
The world is generally static. Housing areas, harvesting areas, static village areas, quest givers ( not necessarily in a way people are use to or familiar with ) this seems to be a portion that Sony considers innovative , but it really isn't. As mentioned resources will undergo linear reset so it's not truly dynamic. Since the environment never remains truly scared from you're harvesting .
The model that'll apparently be used for resource is a combination of Minecraft/Vanguard. The crafting system seems to be lifted from Vanguard although not in it's entirety or complexity.
Designated housing areas. Is not a dynamic feature.
Personally to me it appears that this game will be a compilation of a couple of previous Sony game mechanics/designs combined in a game and then simplified for use in the PS 4 and the controller. Will it be groundbreaking and dynamic, to a whole generation that never experienced anything like it , yes. If you've played PC games since the 90's and a wide variety of them then, no. I see elements of EQ, SWG and Vanguard coupled to a Minecraft style environment constituting this game. With NPC's wandering about so willy nilly as they claim I hope they provide a tracking mechanic for NPC's.
Finally we actually don't know enough to say how dynamic EQN will be. They have a few technologies like their Voxel Engine and Storybrick(Emotional/emergent AI), which could be a huge source of a rather dynamic world, mixed with a huge player involvement. However, i do believe SOE will not use it to its fullest, because they shy away from the possible outcome and the unpredictability of it. But maybe another more indy, and smaller developer will take up those technologies and will risk more and will make a more dynamic world.
Nevertheless you have to applaud SOE to pick up those technologies, to invest in them, to bring them forward, which will profit a lot of future projects and developers. Even if SOE can not, or is not willingly to use them for the fullest. If you make a game for the mass market you are limited, you can not risk the destruction of complete servers, hell not even the complete destruction of ingame properties of your players, damn even your pvp have to be consented in one way or the other. And all that restricts a dynamic outcome or world.
On the other side most players don't want a true dynamic world anyway, because of the above described rigors, which could occur, like the destruction of your own build up village, home, belongings.
So is it really SOEs fault, or the players fault that they will not deliver, can not deliver a full dynamic world? Because finally only a few players are willingly to accept anything like that... and therefore only a very niche market actually wants a full dynamic world.. and only a small indy company, with a small budget, and low expectations can risk something like that.
Just start a survey how many players are willingly to lose permanently their village, house or other belongings.. either to other NPCs or players.
True.. I agree.. Using the current definition that devs are using for dynamic, I guess we could technically say that EQ original epic quest were dynamic.. The one issue with games today I have, is that devs seem to focus on one side of the spectrum or the other.. Meaning, they either go 95% PvP, or 95% Sandbox, or 95% Quest hub.. It's never a happy middle.. I for one would love to see someone make a game that is 50/50 SandPark with a mixture of dynamic changes, static content, solo/group play and NO DAMN INSTANCES.. lol It seems as much as devs keep trying to make games to appeal to all, they always end up only focusing on a select genre.. Blizzard IMO is the only company that has budged a little from that 95% dominance target, but they are far from being 50/50..
I think SOE hopes the game will turn out this way. But 'permanent' world changes are something that they appear to be against. They have already stated that land will revert to its original state over time to keep new players from experiencing a vast devastated plain where there should be nice, easy newbie mobs to fight. They have outright stated that cities will be immune from the combat destruction, and most player housing, although the statements about player housing appear to have run through several levels of 'truth'. My gut feel is that there still aren't concrete design decisions in place, only vague wishlists, and those might vary from developer to developer.
I don't put as much trust in Storybricks as many posters here do. Yes, if implemented properly, it may be able to put in a level of high-level A.I. behavior, helping groups of mobs make decisions on what to do. But someone still has to implement the actions to achieve those goals. If Storybricks determines that the Everfrost orc nation needs to attack Halas, then assigns specific combat roles to each group and individual orc (attack humans, steal resources, tear down wall, heal orcs), someone still has to code those individual behaviors. My maxim: if gnolls will play /gems, then somebody's got to make that happen. So, the limitation on behaviors that Storybricks element isn't going to be the decision, but the component actions necessary to implement each decision.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Dynamic: adj(of a process or system) characterized by constant change, activity, or progress
n a force that stimulates change or progress within a system or process.
Thats exactly what storybricks does to quests in EQNext. Its in constant change depending on npc movements, player interactions, controlling of regions.Theoretically the AI system gets better the more times its used. Id say that's dynamic.