Waiting for a group or needing to pug in the old games, like EQ sucked big fat bananas.
Just wanted to continue the banana theme we had going.
EQ, the original Themepark. Some here will deny it, but EQ was the game that brought that term about. "On rails" was another phrase used at the same time. WoW refined Themepark by "fixing" those problems through Instances.
Did you play!!?? “Some here will deny it”. Because we know what a theme park and “rails” actually means ffs.
Saying "some here will deny it" does not make you correct.. it just means you already know that people think you are wrong.
It means you believe you are correct and also believe others do too, but refuse to admit it. Otherwise you’d say, “others here will disagree with me”.
Waiting for a group or needing to pug in the old games, like EQ sucked big fat bananas.
Just wanted to continue the banana theme we had going.
EQ, the original Themepark. Some here will deny it, but EQ was the game that brought that term about. "On rails" was another phrase used at the same time. WoW refined Themepark by "fixing" those problems through Instances.
Not sure if EQ was a "Theme Park" as you could quite literally go anywhere you wanted, there was no hard gate to any zone.. as all the dead halflings I am sure would be more than ready to tell you about joys of being able to walk into zones that were WAY over their power level.
Also.. EQ had no story to it, it had lore, but no story, It was a very open world make your own fun kind of game.
Can you explain how it was Theme Park?
I don't know if being free to wander to zones where there is nothing but death because you can't handle the content counts as functionally being able to go anywhere.
Those that go to such places will head back to zones they can handle in short order so they can make some progress. Effectively they would still be routed through the game, would they not?
Exactly. EQ was still "on rails", WoW just organized it better into zones.
I was surprised by Ungood's reply here, he's a better thinker than that. But it boggled my mind to read that comment from him.
And besides, you CAN go anywhere in WoW too. Same difference. Except for the more organized structure of WoW's world. And except for Dungeons that have a Level restriction.
"Better" is entirely subjective here and something I completely disagree with. Wow is the first MMO that I can recall "being on rails". The only way to progress through the game was to run quests from start to finish, quite literally guiding you through the zones... on rails.
Not to mention EQ's mixed level areas where you could come back to after leveling up to run more content.
Eq also had multiple levels of mobs in zones allowing a mix of player levels. Something I don’t see on mmos anymore.
LotRO had that too originally, in the SoA era. It was slowly "fixed" which was a shame.
I believe I even had a rant post here under the news article when they did the ND revamp, to "give it a more coherent flow" or some similar PR bullshit...
Waiting for a group or needing to pug in the old games, like EQ sucked big fat bananas.
Just wanted to continue the banana theme we had going.
EQ, the original Themepark. Some here will deny it, but EQ was the game that brought that term about. "On rails" was another phrase used at the same time. WoW refined Themepark by "fixing" those problems through Instances.
Did you play!!?? “Some here will deny it”. Because we know what a theme park and “rails” actually means ffs.
Saying "some here will deny it" does not make you correct.. it just means you already know that people think you are wrong.
It means you believe you are correct and also believe others do too, but refuse to admit it. Otherwise you’d say, “others here will disagree with me”.
You misunderstand me. I KNOW I'm correct. I'll explain in a following post where I saw a better opportunity to respond.
Waiting for a group or needing to pug in the old games, like EQ sucked big fat bananas.
Just wanted to continue the banana theme we had going.
EQ, the original Themepark. Some here will deny it, but EQ was the game that brought that term about. "On rails" was another phrase used at the same time. WoW refined Themepark by "fixing" those problems through Instances.
Not sure if EQ was a "Theme Park" as you could quite literally go anywhere you wanted, there was no hard gate to any zone.. as all the dead halflings I am sure would be more than ready to tell you about joys of being able to walk into zones that were WAY over their power level.
Also.. EQ had no story to it, it had lore, but no story, It was a very open world make your own fun kind of game.
Can you explain how it was Theme Park?
I don't know if being free to wander to zones where there is nothing but death because you can't handle the content counts as functionally being able to go anywhere.
Those that go to such places will head back to zones they can handle in short order so they can make some progress. Effectively they would still be routed through the game, would they not?
Exactly. EQ was still "on rails", WoW just organized it better into zones.
I was surprised by Ungood's reply here, he's a better thinker than that. But it boggled my mind to read that comment from him.
And besides, you CAN go anywhere in WoW too. Same difference. Except for the more organized structure of WoW's world. And except for Dungeons that have a Level restriction.
"Better" is entirely subjective here and something I completely disagree with. Wow is the first MMO that I can recall "being on rails". The only way to progress through the game was to run quests from start to finish, quite literally guiding you through the zones... on rails.
Not to mention EQ's mixed level areas where you could come back to after leveling up to run more content.
Vanilla WoW created an atmosphere that will stick FOREVER, no matter how it changed.
Here's why: First it was LARGE enough to be on rails, but always gave three choices of zones, and 6 starting areas. 1-10 11-20, 21-30 and so on.
Zones were huge giving freedom within the zone.
No one ever matched the scale of large to do that.
Even GW2 being large, guided the player left to right across the screen, but with an option to switch to another race left to right...... however close, something was never right BECAUSE TWO QUEST AT A TIME QUEST HUBS..... It forced on rails anyway. close but no cigar.
Vanilla World of Warcraft stand alone, is truly the best in my view..... Mainly because it was HUGE and pulled everything off, never to be duplicated again.
Waiting for a group or needing to pug in the old games, like EQ sucked big fat bananas.
Just wanted to continue the banana theme we had going.
EQ, the original Themepark. Some here will deny it, but EQ was the game that brought that term about. "On rails" was another phrase used at the same time. WoW refined Themepark by "fixing" those problems through Instances.
Not sure if EQ was a "Theme Park" as you could quite literally go anywhere you wanted, there was no hard gate to any zone.. as all the dead halflings I am sure would be more than ready to tell you about joys of being able to walk into zones that were WAY over their power level.
Also.. EQ had no story to it, it had lore, but no story, It was a very open world make your own fun kind of game.
Can you explain how it was Theme Park?
I don't know if being free to wander to zones where there is nothing but death because you can't handle the content counts as functionally being able to go anywhere.
Those that go to such places will head back to zones they can handle in short order so they can make some progress. Effectively they would still be routed through the game, would they not?
Exactly. EQ was still "on rails", WoW just organized it better into zones.
I was surprised by Ungood's reply here, he's a better thinker than that. But it boggled my mind to read that comment from him.
And besides, you CAN go anywhere in WoW too. Same difference. Except for the more organized structure of WoW's world. And except for Dungeons that have a Level restriction.
"Better" is entirely subjective here and something I completely disagree with. Wow is the first MMO that I can recall "being on rails". The only way to progress through the game was to run quests from start to finish, quite literally guiding you through the zones... on rails.
Not to mention EQ's mixed level areas where you could come back to after leveling up to run more content.
No, the original "on rails" phrase was coined because the content was on rails for Level Progression, not in a line on a map.
WoW simply organized it on the map "better" for convenience. You can disagree by ignoring the context, but that doesn't make my point wrong.
"Not to mention EQ's mixed level areas where you could come back to after leveling up to run more content." How did that work out? Did players play content that was below their pay grade? Did players play content that was above them? (And I'm not talking about below or above just a little.)
Related: A common problem that players complained about in the early stages of EQ was that they didn't know where to go next.
Waiting for a group or needing to pug in the old games, like EQ sucked big fat bananas.
Just wanted to continue the banana theme we had going.
EQ, the original Themepark. Some here will deny it, but EQ was the game that brought that term about. "On rails" was another phrase used at the same time. WoW refined Themepark by "fixing" those problems through Instances.
Not sure if EQ was a "Theme Park" as you could quite literally go anywhere you wanted, there was no hard gate to any zone.. as all the dead halflings I am sure would be more than ready to tell you about joys of being able to walk into zones that were WAY over their power level.
Also.. EQ had no story to it, it had lore, but no story, It was a very open world make your own fun kind of game.
Can you explain how it was Theme Park?
I don't know if being free to wander to zones where there is nothing but death because you can't handle the content counts as functionally being able to go anywhere.
Those that go to such places will head back to zones they can handle in short order so they can make some progress. Effectively they would still be routed through the game, would they not?
Not really, like for example, if you played EQ, you would know that running from Free Port (Starting City) to Qyenos (Starting City) had many areas that were deadly, you could bypass a lot of them by taking the long way around, and in some cases, you could even partake into events and activities in areas well over or under your level range. But there was no absolute.
To use a great example.
East Freeport, was still a newbie zone, but, you had everything from Orc pawns (level 1 ish) to gryphons (Level 37+) in that zone, so.. you never really were "Safe" unless you could really outlevel a zone, and even then, not as easy as one may think, as even a green con mob, if there were about half a dozen of them, they were still going to kick your teeth in, unless you were an amazing solo class.
And while East Karana was listed as 10 - 35, you could go there lower or higher level and still find things to do.
Just like Froon and Choon in West Karana, they were quite the wake up call to a lot of starting players, but they were not alone, there was other places to find higher and lower level fights in West Karana, which left players the option to do things like hang around West Karana, or move to North, South, East.. most of the time, it was the mod density and exp gain that moved players in EQ, like the Lake of Ill Skilled Loot Whores Omen, was in the same level range as East Freeport, South Karana, Lake Rathe, and many others, but Ill Omen was always far more populated because for some reason or another, the mobs were easier to kill, more plentiful, and gave better loot and exp.. so everyone went there to farm and grind exp.. not because of the level range, which they could have their pick of many other zones.. because of loot.
In short, if it was "Theme park" it gave a huge split on who could get on the rides, just saying.
and Foon and Choon where always around to remind people that just because you were tall enough, does not mean you won't get stepped on.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Waiting for a group or needing to pug in the old games, like EQ sucked big fat bananas.
Just wanted to continue the banana theme we had going.
EQ, the original Themepark. Some here will deny it, but EQ was the game that brought that term about. "On rails" was another phrase used at the same time. WoW refined Themepark by "fixing" those problems through Instances.
Not sure if EQ was a "Theme Park" as you could quite literally go anywhere you wanted, there was no hard gate to any zone.. as all the dead halflings I am sure would be more than ready to tell you about joys of being able to walk into zones that were WAY over their power level.
Also.. EQ had no story to it, it had lore, but no story, It was a very open world make your own fun kind of game.
Can you explain how it was Theme Park?
I don't know if being free to wander to zones where there is nothing but death because you can't handle the content counts as functionally being able to go anywhere.
Those that go to such places will head back to zones they can handle in short order so they can make some progress. Effectively they would still be routed through the game, would they not?
Not really, like for example, if you played EQ, you would know that running from Free Port (Starting City) to Qyenos (Starting City) had many areas that were deadly, you could bypass a lot of them by taking the long way around, and in some cases, you could even partake into events and activities in areas well over or under your level range. But there was no absolute.
To use a great example.
East Freeport, was still a newbie zone, but, you had everything from Orc pawns (level 1 ish) to gryphons (Level 37+) in that zone, so.. you never really were "Safe" unless you could really outlevel a zone, and even then, not as easy as one may think, as even a green con mob, if there were about half a dozen of them, they were still going to kick your teeth in, unless you were an amazing solo class.
And while East Karana was listed as 10 - 35, you could go there lower or higher level and still find things to do.
Just like Froon and Choon in West Karana, they were quite the wake up call to a lot of starting players, but they were not alone, there was other places to find higher and lower level fights in West Karana, which left players the option to do things like hang around West Karana, or move to North, South, East.. most of the time, it was the mod density and exp gain that moved players in EQ, like the Lake of Ill Skilled Loot Whores Omen, was in the same level range as East Freeport, South Karana, Lake Rathe, and many others, but Ill Omen was always far more populated because for some reason or another, the mobs were easier to kill, more plentiful, and gave better loot and exp.. so everyone went there to farm and grind exp.. not because of the level range, which they could have their pick of many other zones.. because of loot.
In short, if it was "Theme park" it gave a huge split on who could get on the rides, just saying.
and Foon and Choon where always around to remind people that just because you were tall enough, does not mean you won't get stepped on.
I love reading you EQ1 players stories...... Great read
Unfortunately I only have one story in my few weeks and very low level time in P1999.
Under the lifts of Kelethi I decided to venture around and ran across some kind of small little halfling or whatever (cute as a button)..... I thought it would be friendly... no !
That little bastard chased me all over the map for a half hour relentlessly until I was dead.
Waiting for a group or needing to pug in the old games, like EQ sucked big fat bananas.
Just wanted to continue the banana theme we had going.
EQ, the original Themepark. Some here will deny it, but EQ was the game that brought that term about. "On rails" was another phrase used at the same time. WoW refined Themepark by "fixing" those problems through Instances.
Not sure if EQ was a "Theme Park" as you could quite literally go anywhere you wanted, there was no hard gate to any zone.. as all the dead halflings I am sure would be more than ready to tell you about joys of being able to walk into zones that were WAY over their power level.
Also.. EQ had no story to it, it had lore, but no story, It was a very open world make your own fun kind of game.
Can you explain how it was Theme Park?
I don't know if being free to wander to zones where there is nothing but death because you can't handle the content counts as functionally being able to go anywhere.
Those that go to such places will head back to zones they can handle in short order so they can make some progress. Effectively they would still be routed through the game, would they not?
Exactly. EQ was still "on rails", WoW just organized it better into zones.
I was surprised by Ungood's reply here, he's a better thinker than that. But it boggled my mind to read that comment from him.
And besides, you CAN go anywhere in WoW too. Same difference. Except for the more organized structure of WoW's world. And except for Dungeons that have a Level restriction.
"Better" is entirely subjective here and something I completely disagree with. Wow is the first MMO that I can recall "being on rails". The only way to progress through the game was to run quests from start to finish, quite literally guiding you through the zones... on rails.
Not to mention EQ's mixed level areas where you could come back to after leveling up to run more content.
No, the original "on rails" phrase was coined because the content was on rails for Level Progression, not in a line on a map.
WoW simply organized it on the map "better" for convenience. You can disagree by ignoring the context, but that doesn't make my point wrong.
"Not to mention EQ's mixed level areas where you could come back to after leveling up to run more content." How did that work out? Did players play content that was below their pay grade? Did players play content that was above them? (And I'm not talking about below or above just a little.)
Related: A common problem that players complained about in the early stages of EQ was that they didn't know where to go next.
With rails you don’t have to figure out the next move. It literally guides you along the path of progression. You can deny that all you want, but it doesn’t make you right.
When you play ANY MMORPG. From level 1-60 you can round up an entire zone and kill everything and anything solo...... -No exaggeration !!! -One button mass murder !!
Under the lifts of Kelethi I decided to venture around and ran across some kind of small little halfling or whatever (cute as a button)..... I thought it would be friendly... no !
That little bastard chased me all over the map for a half hour relentlessly until I was dead.
It is a funny world we live in. We had Empires run by Emperors, we had Kingdoms run by Kings, now we have Countries...
In everquest all characters of the same class were essentially Carbon copies. You had no impact upon the world at all. The only thing to do was essentially kill mobs. Even crafting had you killing mobs to get materials.
A class based, grind in spot based have with no world impact and very limited charcuter design.
Sounds like a themepark to me.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Waiting for a group or needing to pug in the old games, like EQ sucked big fat bananas.
Just wanted to continue the banana theme we had going.
EQ, the original Themepark. Some here will deny it, but EQ was the game that brought that term about. "On rails" was another phrase used at the same time. WoW refined Themepark by "fixing" those problems through Instances.
Not sure if EQ was a "Theme Park" as you could quite literally go anywhere you wanted, there was no hard gate to any zone.. as all the dead halflings I am sure would be more than ready to tell you about joys of being able to walk into zones that were WAY over their power level.
Also.. EQ had no story to it, it had lore, but no story, It was a very open world make your own fun kind of game.
Can you explain how it was Theme Park?
I don't know if being free to wander to zones where there is nothing but death because you can't handle the content counts as functionally being able to go anywhere.
Those that go to such places will head back to zones they can handle in short order so they can make some progress. Effectively they would still be routed through the game, would they not?
Not really, like for example, if you played EQ, you would know that running from Free Port (Starting City) to Qyenos (Starting City) had many areas that were deadly, you could bypass a lot of them by taking the long way around, and in some cases, you could even partake into events and activities in areas well over or under your level range. But there was no absolute.
To use a great example.
East Freeport, was still a newbie zone, but, you had everything from Orc pawns (level 1 ish) to gryphons (Level 37+) in that zone, so.. you never really were "Safe" unless you could really outlevel a zone, and even then, not as easy as one may think, as even a green con mob, if there were about half a dozen of them, they were still going to kick your teeth in, unless you were an amazing solo class.
And while East Karana was listed as 10 - 35, you could go there lower or higher level and still find things to do.
Just like Froon and Choon in West Karana, they were quite the wake up call to a lot of starting players, but they were not alone, there was other places to find higher and lower level fights in West Karana, which left players the option to do things like hang around West Karana, or move to North, South, East.. most of the time, it was the mod density and exp gain that moved players in EQ, like the Lake of Ill Skilled Loot Whores Omen, was in the same level range as East Freeport, South Karana, Lake Rathe, and many others, but Ill Omen was always far more populated because for some reason or another, the mobs were easier to kill, more plentiful, and gave better loot and exp.. so everyone went there to farm and grind exp.. not because of the level range, which they could have their pick of many other zones.. because of loot.
In short, if it was "Theme park" it gave a huge split on who could get on the rides, just saying.
and Foon and Choon where always around to remind people that just because you were tall enough, does not mean you won't get stepped on.
I love reading you EQ1 players stories...... Great read
Unfortunately I only have one story in my few weeks and very low level time in P1999.
Under the lifts of Kelethi I decided to venture around and ran across some kind of small little halfling or whatever (cute as a button)..... I thought it would be friendly... no !
That little bastard chased me all over the map for a half hour relentlessly until I was dead.
Never found my body..... Good time
If you are talking about the Pixie in Nilipuss, when you do finally beat him, he says:
"My lies broken by your wicked hand, a curse on your soul and a pox on this land"
Took me forever to finally get him.. and I remember that line fondly.. almost as much I recall kicking the hell out of Holly Windstalker.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
"Better" is entirely subjective here and something I completely disagree with. Wow is the first MMO that I can recall "being on rails". The only way to progress through the game was to run quests from start to finish, quite literally guiding you through the zones... on rails.
Not to mention EQ's mixed level areas where you could come back to after leveling up to run more content.
No, the original "on rails" phrase was coined because the content was on rails for Level Progression, not in a line on a map.
WoW simply organized it on the map "better" for convenience. You can disagree by ignoring the context, but that doesn't make my point wrong.
"Not to mention EQ's mixed level areas where you could come back to after leveling up to run more content." How did that work out? Did players play content that was below their pay grade? Did players play content that was above them? (And I'm not talking about below or above just a little.)
Related: A common problem that players complained about in the early stages of EQ was that they didn't know where to go next.
That was a very common complaint with EQ, of "Where to go" and this was driven by the fact that, while most of us for a very long time never had to leave where were, as zones could accommodate a 20 level split, and the higher you went the harder the mobs were, so it would take you longer to kill them or you needed a good group.
So, anyway, to find good hunting/farming spots we needed to keep moving around, to find a better place to be, sometimes the best places for us were the least populated, and all too often there were reasons why those places were not popular, but we made due with what we had.
I would define that as "Off The Rails" as it was the players that were directing and affecting where we went more than the mobs or the game itself.
And yes, in EQ, many players would farm maps well below their level grade while looking for items and such.
Also, players would go above their level as well, if they were in a good guild or had a solid group of friends, they would just get dragged along, and this was very common for healers that didn't need to actually hurt the mobs to be useful.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
When you play ANY MMORPG. From level 1-60 you can round up an entire zone and kill everything and anything solo...... -No exaggeration !!! -One button mass murder !!
Under the lifts of Kelethi I decided to venture around and ran across some kind of small little halfling or whatever (cute as a button)..... I thought it would be friendly... no !
That little bastard chased me all over the map for a half hour relentlessly until I was dead.
On rails (linear) and off-the-rails (non-linear) is a separate thing to whether the game is sandbox or themepark.
So, whether EQ was linear or not doesn't have any effect on whether it is a themepark or not.
Ok.. well.. EQ was definitely not on rails (early game, I left shortly after Planes of Power, no idea what the later game was like).. or those rails were all over the place.. like they were smoking crack before they laid them down.
As for Theme Park.. there were no quest hubs in EQ, and no level limits, I mean, I remember when Kunark came out, and players were running around the newbie area kicking and punching skeletons for faction points.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
On rails (linear) and off-the-rails (non-linear) is a separate thing to whether the game is sandbox or themepark.
So, whether EQ was linear or not doesn't have any effect on whether it is a themepark or not.
I still disagree. Mainly because I remember when the "on rails" comment came out. Right after the "Themepark" tag was applied (or maybe right along with it, if I missed it), and talking about EQ. I remember because it hit me that it was a very good description of the -then- new topic, as far as MMORPGs go. It was an old topic with text based, MUDs being Sandbox, and DICU being Themepark. (I don't know if these terms were used during the text based games debates, and simply rolled over into the new animated games.)
When you say "linear", the question is what was that referring to? And it was the extreme Level Power Gaps, which was way more than even Paper and Pencil D&D had. "On rails" was about the Level Grind and dictated content by levels. Linear Progression to an extreme. Causing the same thing with gear. And player groups being forced to wait in lines to get into the Dungeons that had the specific gear they deemed "needed" for the next Level range Grouping. <-Themepark. <-On rails. <Level after level, gear after gear.
Waiting for a group or needing to pug in the old games, like EQ sucked big fat bananas.
Just wanted to continue the banana theme we had going.
EQ, the original Themepark. Some here will deny it, but EQ was the game that brought that term about. "On rails" was another phrase used at the same time. WoW refined Themepark by "fixing" those problems through Instances.
Not sure if EQ was a "Theme Park" as you could quite literally go anywhere you wanted, there was no hard gate to any zone.. as all the dead halflings I am sure would be more than ready to tell you about joys of being able to walk into zones that were WAY over their power level.
Also.. EQ had no story to it, it had lore, but no story, It was a very open world make your own fun kind of game.
Can you explain how it was Theme Park?
I don't know if being free to wander to zones where there is nothing but death because you can't handle the content counts as functionally being able to go anywhere.
Those that go to such places will head back to zones they can handle in short order so they can make some progress. Effectively they would still be routed through the game, would they not?
Not really, like for example, if you played EQ, you would know that running from Free Port (Starting City) to Qyenos (Starting City) had many areas that were deadly, you could bypass a lot of them by taking the long way around, and in some cases, you could even partake into events and activities in areas well over or under your level range. But there was no absolute.
To use a great example.
East Freeport, was still a newbie zone, but, you had everything from Orc pawns (level 1 ish) to gryphons (Level 37+) in that zone, so.. you never really were "Safe" unless you could really outlevel a zone, and even then, not as easy as one may think, as even a green con mob, if there were about half a dozen of them, they were still going to kick your teeth in, unless you were an amazing solo class.
And while East Karana was listed as 10 - 35, you could go there lower or higher level and still find things to do.
Just like Froon and Choon in West Karana, they were quite the wake up call to a lot of starting players, but they were not alone, there was other places to find higher and lower level fights in West Karana, which left players the option to do things like hang around West Karana, or move to North, South, East.. most of the time, it was the mod density and exp gain that moved players in EQ, like the Lake of Ill Skilled Loot Whores Omen, was in the same level range as East Freeport, South Karana, Lake Rathe, and many others, but Ill Omen was always far more populated because for some reason or another, the mobs were easier to kill, more plentiful, and gave better loot and exp.. so everyone went there to farm and grind exp.. not because of the level range, which they could have their pick of many other zones.. because of loot.
In short, if it was "Theme park" it gave a huge split on who could get on the rides, just saying.
and Foon and Choon where always around to remind people that just because you were tall enough, does not mean you won't get stepped on.
I played very little and did so long after the game was in it's prime. I'm sure it was much different back in the day. I did hear about that run.
Generally, what I feel to be theme park is a game where the story runs the players, rather than the players driving the story.
In ESO, I can adventure where I please in whatever order I like, so there is no defined path. However, regardless of where I choose to go I am still being led by the game's story. I can't genuinely change that story or the world at large by my actions. All I can do is go along for the ride, as though each chapter of the story is akin to a theme park attraction.
For it to not be such the players must drive the story instead.
On rails (linear) and off-the-rails (non-linear) is a separate thing to whether the game is sandbox or themepark.
So, whether EQ was linear or not doesn't have any effect on whether it is a themepark or not.
I still disagree. Mainly because I remember when the "on rails" comment came out. Right after the "Themepark" tag was applied (or maybe right along with it, if I missed it), and talking about EQ. I remember because it hit me that it was a very good description of the -then- new topic, as far as MMORPGs go. It was an old topic with text based, MUDs being Sandbox, and DICU being Themepark. (I don't know if these terms were used during the text based games debates, and simply rolled over into the new animated games.)
When you say "linear", the question is what was that referring to? And it was the extreme Level Power Gaps, which was way more than even Paper and Pencil D&D had. "On rails" was about the Level Grind and dictated content by levels. Linear Progression to an extreme. Causing the same thing with gear. And player groups being forced to wait in lines to get into the Dungeons that had the specific gear they deemed "needed" for the next Level range Grouping. <-Themepark. <-On rails. <Level after level, gear after gear.
In a real life themepark, the rides themselves are linear - on rails, literally - but your experience in the park is non-linear, you can do the rides in whatever order you want.
Similarly, in a themepark mmorpg, the rides are the quests and dungeons that you undertake, they are carefully curated to give you an experience, just like a rollercoaster ride. Whether the quests themselves have to be undertaken in a linear order or not doesn't change the fact that the majority of your time is spent doing activities directed by the devs.
Levels, gear, powergaps doesn't enter the equation of whether it's a sandbox or a themepark. Likewise, linear progression (or not) has no bearing on the matter either.
A sandbox feature is one where the devs give you tools (the sandpit, spade, buckets, flags etc) and then you choose how to use them (you can build a sandcastle, racetrack, animal, person or whatever). Your experience is not directed by someone else, you are not on rails.
The reason why most themeparks are also considered to be on-rails is because themeparks are often based around story. When we are the actors in that story, its very hard to make that story anything other than linear, especially when combined with progression. Can't really jump back and forwards in time like you can in a book or film as it would mean undoing progression, taking you away from your current location, perhaps breaking up your group. So, devs stick to very linear stories, which results in linear quests, which results in a game that feels on-rails.
But, if they got rid of over-arching storylines and just kept quests separate so you could do them in any order, it would still be a themepark if the majority of the time you're still doing quests and dungeons.
Finally, no mmorpg is exclusively themepark or sandbox, they all have a mixture of both.
On rails (linear) and off-the-rails (non-linear) is a separate thing to whether the game is sandbox or themepark.
So, whether EQ was linear or not doesn't have any effect on whether it is a themepark or not.
I still disagree. Mainly because I remember when the "on rails" comment came out. Right after the "Themepark" tag was applied (or maybe right along with it, if I missed it), and talking about EQ. I remember because it hit me that it was a very good description of the -then- new topic, as far as MMORPGs go. It was an old topic with text based, MUDs being Sandbox, and DICU being Themepark. (I don't know if these terms were used during the text based games debates, and simply rolled over into the new animated games.)
When you say "linear", the question is what was that referring to? And it was the extreme Level Power Gaps, which was way more than even Paper and Pencil D&D had. "On rails" was about the Level Grind and dictated content by levels. Linear Progression to an extreme. Causing the same thing with gear. And player groups being forced to wait in lines to get into the Dungeons that had the specific gear they deemed "needed" for the next Level range Grouping. <-Themepark. <-On rails. <Level after level, gear after gear.
In a real life themepark, the rides themselves are linear - on rails, literally - but your experience in the park is non-linear, you can do the rides in whatever order you want.
Similarly, in a themepark mmorpg, the rides are the quests and dungeons that you undertake, they are carefully curated to give you an experience, just like a rollercoaster ride. Whether the quests themselves have to be undertaken in a linear order or not doesn't change the fact that the majority of your time is spent doing activities directed by the devs.
Levels, gear, powergaps doesn't enter the equation of whether it's a sandbox or a themepark. Likewise, linear progression (or not) has no bearing on the matter either.
A sandbox feature is one where the devs give you tools (the sandpit, spade, buckets, flags etc) and then you choose how to use them (you can build a sandcastle, racetrack, animal, person or whatever). Your experience is not directed by someone else, you are not on rails.
The reason why most themeparks are also considered to be on-rails is because themeparks are often based around story. When we are the actors in that story, its very hard to make that story anything other than linear, especially when combined with progression. Can't really jump back and forwards in time like you can in a book or film as it would mean undoing progression, taking you away from your current location, perhaps breaking up your group. So, devs stick to very linear stories, which results in linear quests, which results in a game that feels on-rails.
But, if they got rid of over-arching storylines and just kept quests separate so you could do them in any order, it would still be a themepark if the majority of the time you're still doing quests and dungeons.
Finally, no mmorpg is exclusively themepark or sandbox, they all have a mixture of both.
(sigh) What you are saying is true, but there's an issue you are not considering.
Themepark games, as they are built, reward players with Levels and leveled Gear. They work under the theory that "more is better." Huge Power Gaps, as a result.
And that creates the problem of dividing players into Level Groupings. It destroys the social aspects of the game outside of a player's small group that can Level along evenly with them. Absolutely destroys "Social" in anything wider than their small group, if they manage to have one they can keep together. It turns "Massively Multiplayer" into just "Multiplayer" at best, "Solo" all too often.
That's a separate issue than Themepark vs. Sandbox, but it has an affect.
Sandbox games provide "tools" for players to: - build with their imagination, - interact with the world. That's the reward.
There are 2 ways that this reward is felt. 1. Individual reward, they can "build" for themselves. 2. Social reward. Where they can "build" for others, share what they've done with others. And those others can be rewarded too, sometimes.
So for as much damage as these Power Gaps do to the game's social interactions as a whole, they also affect the "reward" of the Sandbox elements. Less "Social", less reward from sharing Sandbox creativity.
This has nothing to do with Classes. You could take WoW, and by drastically reducing the Power Gaps, you could totally remove the bad effects of them on the Social interactions to players. You could add Sandbox Elements to WoW, and that would be a better game. But it would still suffer from the Player Divisions and loss of Social interaction.
I've tried for years to get folks around here to realize that. But they just won't accept it. They love them the Power Trips.
Hell, most of them won't even read this post. They don't want to hear from me. Reality is a biatch. It's slapping them in the face, with the slide of this industry, and they've got their heads in the sand.
I don't know if being free to wander to zones where there is nothing but death because you can't handle the content counts as functionally being able to go anywhere.
Those that go to such places will head back to zones they can handle in short order so they can make some progress. Effectively they would still be routed through the game, would they not?
Not really, like for example, if you played EQ, you would know that running from Free Port (Starting City) to Qyenos (Starting City) had many areas that were deadly, you could bypass a lot of them by taking the long way around, and in some cases, you could even partake into events and activities in areas well over or under your level range. But there was no absolute.
To use a great example.
East Freeport, was still a newbie zone, but, you had everything from Orc pawns (level 1 ish) to gryphons (Level 37+) in that zone, so.. you never really were "Safe" unless you could really outlevel a zone, and even then, not as easy as one may think, as even a green con mob, if there were about half a dozen of them, they were still going to kick your teeth in, unless you were an amazing solo class.
And while East Karana was listed as 10 - 35, you could go there lower or higher level and still find things to do.
Just like Froon and Choon in West Karana, they were quite the wake up call to a lot of starting players, but they were not alone, there was other places to find higher and lower level fights in West Karana, which left players the option to do things like hang around West Karana, or move to North, South, East.. most of the time, it was the mod density and exp gain that moved players in EQ, like the Lake of Ill Skilled Loot Whores Omen, was in the same level range as East Freeport, South Karana, Lake Rathe, and many others, but Ill Omen was always far more populated because for some reason or another, the mobs were easier to kill, more plentiful, and gave better loot and exp.. so everyone went there to farm and grind exp.. not because of the level range, which they could have their pick of many other zones.. because of loot.
In short, if it was "Theme park" it gave a huge split on who could get on the rides, just saying.
and Foon and Choon where always around to remind people that just because you were tall enough, does not mean you won't get stepped on.
I played very little and did so long after the game was in it's prime. I'm sure it was much different back in the day. I did hear about that run.
Generally, what I feel to be theme park is a game where the story runs the players, rather than the players driving the story.
In ESO, I can adventure where I please in whatever order I like, so there is no defined path. However, regardless of where I choose to go I am still being led by the game's story. I can't genuinely change that story or the world at large by my actions. All I can do is go along for the ride, as though each chapter of the story is akin to a theme park attraction.
For it to not be such the players must drive the story instead.
Not sure about later times.. like I said, I left with PoP.
But, when I started playing, the thing about EQ was it didn't have a "Story" you as a player were not a part of some story.
By that, I mean in EQ there was nowhere anyone expected you to be, and nothing they expected you to do.
I played very little of ESo, but it was kinda like in GW2, you have a story, you are part of an ongoing Saga, involving many other people, and series of events, and you go step 1 to Step 2, and so forth and so on. Even if you manage to bypass sections of the story by way of expansions or living world or other means, the Story still happened exactly as it was always going to happen, you had done all that you were going to do, regardless if you actually did it or not.
Now, in contrast to that, EQ had its own lore, the world and areas all had a deep rich history to it , but, you as a player, were just one of many adventures in that world, and things went on around you, that you could partake in, or not, but there was no story that involved you.
Players were left to make their own fun, do the quests they wanted to do, and pretty much set their own path in the game.
Like for example, I made an ogre, and right out the door I ran off to freeport, and spent the next few levels doing quests to build faction so I could enter the city, there was nothing stopping me from doing this, and there was nothing I was missing out on by doing this. There was no story I was supposed to follow, quest line I was supposed to do, or anything else for that matter.
Now to be fair, back then, at the early age of MMO's we were just ape shit excited to have such a cool ass game world that we could play when we wanted, with other people and not want to stab that one asshole who kept argining the rules all night, as such, the quest for power for the sake of power, to just go off and kill bigger badass things to.. well get more power.. was enough to keep us entertained for thousands upon thousands of hours over the course of many YEARS!
But EQ, while was the forefather of all the modern 3rd person MMO's, it was not anything like what we have today, it was much, much, simpler.
This is why I am really at a loss when people tell me that EQ, was Themepark and on Rails. It's like they never played the game.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
On rails (linear) and off-the-rails (non-linear) is a separate thing to whether the game is sandbox or themepark.
So, whether EQ was linear or not doesn't have any effect on whether it is a themepark or not.
I still disagree. Mainly because I remember when the "on rails" comment came out. Right after the "Themepark" tag was applied (or maybe right along with it, if I missed it), and talking about EQ. I remember because it hit me that it was a very good description of the -then- new topic, as far as MMORPGs go. It was an old topic with text based, MUDs being Sandbox, and DICU being Themepark. (I don't know if these terms were used during the text based games debates, and simply rolled over into the new animated games.)
When you say "linear", the question is what was that referring to? And it was the extreme Level Power Gaps, which was way more than even Paper and Pencil D&D had. "On rails" was about the Level Grind and dictated content by levels. Linear Progression to an extreme. Causing the same thing with gear. And player groups being forced to wait in lines to get into the Dungeons that had the specific gear they deemed "needed" for the next Level range Grouping. <-Themepark. <-On rails. <Level after level, gear after gear.
In a real life themepark, the rides themselves are linear - on rails, literally - but your experience in the park is non-linear, you can do the rides in whatever order you want.
Similarly, in a themepark mmorpg, the rides are the quests and dungeons that you undertake, they are carefully curated to give you an experience, just like a rollercoaster ride. Whether the quests themselves have to be undertaken in a linear order or not doesn't change the fact that the majority of your time is spent doing activities directed by the devs.
Levels, gear, powergaps doesn't enter the equation of whether it's a sandbox or a themepark. Likewise, linear progression (or not) has no bearing on the matter either.
A sandbox feature is one where the devs give you tools (the sandpit, spade, buckets, flags etc) and then you choose how to use them (you can build a sandcastle, racetrack, animal, person or whatever). Your experience is not directed by someone else, you are not on rails.
The reason why most themeparks are also considered to be on-rails is because themeparks are often based around story. When we are the actors in that story, its very hard to make that story anything other than linear, especially when combined with progression. Can't really jump back and forwards in time like you can in a book or film as it would mean undoing progression, taking you away from your current location, perhaps breaking up your group. So, devs stick to very linear stories, which results in linear quests, which results in a game that feels on-rails.
But, if they got rid of over-arching storylines and just kept quests separate so you could do them in any order, it would still be a themepark if the majority of the time you're still doing quests and dungeons.
Finally, no mmorpg is exclusively themepark or sandbox, they all have a mixture of both.
(sigh) What you are saying is true, but there's an issue you are not considering.
Themepark games, as they are built, reward players with Levels and leveled Gear. They work under the theory that "more is better." Huge Power Gaps, as a result.
And that creates the problem of dividing players into Level Groupings. It destroys the social aspects of the game outside of a player's small group that can Level along evenly with them. Absolutely destroys "Social" in anything wider than their small group, if they manage to have one they can keep together. It turns "Massively Multiplayer" into just "Multiplayer" at best, "Solo" all too often.
That's a separate issue than Themepark vs. Sandbox, but it has an affect.
Sandbox games provide "tools" for players to: - build with their imagination, - interact with the world. That's the reward.
There are 2 ways that this reward is felt. 1. Individual reward, they can "build" for themselves. 2. Social reward. Where they can "build" for others, share what they've done with others. And those others can be rewarded too, sometimes.
So for as much damage as these Power Gaps do to the game's social interactions as a whole, they also affect the "reward" of the Sandbox elements. Less "Social", less reward from sharing Sandbox creativity.
This has nothing to do with Classes. You could take WoW, and by drastically reducing the Power Gaps, you could totally remove the bad effects of them on the Social interactions to players. You could add Sandbox Elements to WoW, and that would be a better game. But it would still suffer from the Player Divisions and loss of Social interaction.
I've tried for years to get folks around here to realize that. But they just won't accept it. They love them the Power Trips.
Hell, most of them won't even read this post. They don't want to hear from me. Reality is a biatch. It's slapping them in the face, with the slide of this industry, and they've got their heads in the sand.
You don't have to sell me on the negative effects of vertical progression and power gaps, I hate them! I'm a massive fan horizontal progression and wished it existed in mmos properly.
I'm still a little bit confused about the point you're trying to make, so forgive me if I've got it wrong.
I believe you are saying that one of the negative effects of vertical progression is that it encourages developers to design their worlds in a linear fashion, and also encourages linear themepark design because the linear telling of a story fits in with the linear nature of vertical progression?
You don't have to sell me on the negative effects of vertical progression and power gaps, I hate them! I'm a massive fan horizontal progression and wished it existed in mmos properly.
I'm still a little bit confused about the point you're trying to make, so forgive me if I've got it wrong.
I believe you are saying that one of the negative effects of vertical progression is that it encourages developers to design their worlds in a linear fashion, and also encourages linear themepark design because the linear telling of a story fits in with the linear nature of vertical progression?
Am I close?
Well, it's not the vertical progression itself. It's the Power Gaps. Because the players are jumping ahead in Power so fast, everything else has to too. And that's what causes the problems.
In effect, the Power Gaps are pulling the game apart, stretching the game/world into too many sectioned off portions.
- Content designated to fairly small groups of Power separation (level groups). - Players separating from "friends" by the amounts of time they can play. (Falling behind.) - Guilds losing members that can't stay within range of other members. - Lack of Socialness as a result of not maintaining associations with known players. - Lack of Trust as a result of THAT. - Leading to tendencies to play Solo. - Economy that's equally divided, so it doesn't function as an economy at all. - Content that becomes meaningless as you progress past it. - Content ahead of you that you can't use. - Leaving players with only a small part of the game that they can play at any one time. - Same for gear, as above. - Directions and controls, paint by numbers "world." - etc., etc.
Comments
I KNOW I'm correct.
I'll explain in a following post where I saw a better opportunity to respond.
Once upon a time....
I always say WoW is #1 for a reason.
Vanilla WoW created an atmosphere that will stick FOREVER, no matter how it changed.
Here's why:
First it was LARGE enough to be on rails, but always gave three choices of zones, and 6 starting areas.
1-10 11-20, 21-30 and so on.
Zones were huge giving freedom within the zone.
No one ever matched the scale of large to do that.
Even GW2 being large, guided the player left to right across the screen, but with an option to switch to another race left to right...... however close, something was never right BECAUSE TWO QUEST AT A TIME QUEST HUBS..... It forced on rails anyway. close but no cigar.
Vanilla World of Warcraft stand alone, is truly the best in my view..... Mainly because it was HUGE and pulled everything off, never to be duplicated again.
WoW simply organized it on the map "better" for convenience.
You can disagree by ignoring the context, but that doesn't make my point wrong.
"Not to mention EQ's mixed level areas where you could come back to after leveling up to run more content."
How did that work out?
Did players play content that was below their pay grade?
Did players play content that was above them?
(And I'm not talking about below or above just a little.)
Related:
A common problem that players complained about in the early stages of EQ was that they didn't know where to go next.
Once upon a time....
To use a great example.
East Freeport, was still a newbie zone, but, you had everything from Orc pawns (level 1 ish) to gryphons (Level 37+) in that zone, so.. you never really were "Safe" unless you could really outlevel a zone, and even then, not as easy as one may think, as even a green con mob, if there were about half a dozen of them, they were still going to kick your teeth in, unless you were an amazing solo class.
And while East Karana was listed as 10 - 35, you could go there lower or higher level and still find things to do.
Just like Froon and Choon in West Karana, they were quite the wake up call to a lot of starting players, but they were not alone, there was other places to find higher and lower level fights in West Karana, which left players the option to do things like hang around West Karana, or move to North, South, East.. most of the time, it was the mod density and exp gain that moved players in EQ, like the Lake of Ill Skilled Loot Whores Omen, was in the same level range as East Freeport, South Karana, Lake Rathe, and many others, but Ill Omen was always far more populated because for some reason or another, the mobs were easier to kill, more plentiful, and gave better loot and exp.. so everyone went there to farm and grind exp.. not because of the level range, which they could have their pick of many other zones.. because of loot.
In short, if it was "Theme park" it gave a huge split on who could get on the rides, just saying.
and Foon and Choon where always around to remind people that just because you were tall enough, does not mean you won't get stepped on.
Unfortunately I only have one story in my few weeks and very low level time in P1999.
Under the lifts of Kelethi I decided to venture around and ran across some kind of small little halfling or whatever (cute as a button)..... I thought it would be friendly... no !
That little bastard chased me all over the map for a half hour relentlessly until I was dead.
Never found my body..... Good time
Under the lifts of Kelethi I decided to venture around and ran across some kind of small little halfling or whatever (cute as a button)..... I thought it would be friendly... no !
That little bastard chased me all over the map for a half hour relentlessly until I was dead.
We had Empires run by Emperors, we had Kingdoms run by Kings, now we have Countries...
We had Empires run by Emperors, we had Kingdoms run by Kings, now we have Countries...
A class based, grind in spot based have with no world impact and very limited charcuter design.
Sounds like a themepark to me.
"My lies broken by your wicked hand, a curse on your soul and a pox on this land"
Took me forever to finally get him.. and I remember that line fondly.. almost as much I recall kicking the hell out of Holly Windstalker.
So, anyway, to find good hunting/farming spots we needed to keep moving around, to find a better place to be, sometimes the best places for us were the least populated, and all too often there were reasons why those places were not popular, but we made due with what we had.
I would define that as "Off The Rails" as it was the players that were directing and affecting where we went more than the mobs or the game itself.
And yes, in EQ, many players would farm maps well below their level grade while looking for items and such.
Also, players would go above their level as well, if they were in a good guild or had a solid group of friends, they would just get dragged along, and this was very common for healers that didn't need to actually hurt the mobs to be useful.
I'll not even think of answering this.
Once upon a time....
As for Theme Park.. there were no quest hubs in EQ, and no level limits, I mean, I remember when Kunark came out, and players were running around the newbie area kicking and punching skeletons for faction points.
I remember because it hit me that it was a very good description of the -then- new topic, as far as MMORPGs go.
It was an old topic with text based, MUDs being Sandbox, and DICU being Themepark.
(I don't know if these terms were used during the text based games debates, and simply rolled over into the new animated games.)
When you say "linear", the question is what was that referring to? And it was the extreme Level Power Gaps, which was way more than even Paper and Pencil D&D had.
"On rails" was about the Level Grind and dictated content by levels.
Linear Progression to an extreme.
Causing the same thing with gear.
And player groups being forced to wait in lines to get into the Dungeons that had the specific gear they deemed "needed" for
the next Level range Grouping. <-Themepark. <-On rails. <Level after level, gear after gear.
Once upon a time....
What you are saying is true, but there's an issue you are not considering.
Themepark games, as they are built, reward players with Levels and leveled Gear.
They work under the theory that "more is better."
Huge Power Gaps, as a result.
And that creates the problem of dividing players into Level Groupings.
It destroys the social aspects of the game outside of a player's small group that can Level along evenly with them.
Absolutely destroys "Social" in anything wider than their small group, if they manage to have one they can keep together.
It turns "Massively Multiplayer" into just "Multiplayer" at best, "Solo" all too often.
That's a separate issue than Themepark vs. Sandbox, but it has an affect.
Sandbox games provide "tools" for players to:
- build with their imagination,
- interact with the world.
That's the reward.
There are 2 ways that this reward is felt.
1. Individual reward, they can "build" for themselves.
2. Social reward. Where they can "build" for others, share what they've done with others.
And those others can be rewarded too, sometimes.
So for as much damage as these Power Gaps do to the game's social interactions as a whole, they also affect the "reward" of the Sandbox elements.
Less "Social", less reward from sharing Sandbox creativity.
This has nothing to do with Classes.
You could take WoW, and by drastically reducing the Power Gaps, you could totally remove the bad effects of them on the Social interactions to players.
You could add Sandbox Elements to WoW, and that would be a better game. But it would still suffer from the Player Divisions and loss of Social interaction.
I've tried for years to get folks around here to realize that.
But they just won't accept it.
They love them the Power Trips.
Hell, most of them won't even read this post. They don't want to hear from me.
Reality is a biatch.
It's slapping them in the face, with the slide of this industry, and they've got their heads in the sand.
Once upon a time....
But, when I started playing, the thing about EQ was it didn't have a "Story" you as a player were not a part of some story.
By that, I mean in EQ there was nowhere anyone expected you to be, and nothing they expected you to do.
I played very little of ESo, but it was kinda like in GW2, you have a story, you are part of an ongoing Saga, involving many other people, and series of events, and you go step 1 to Step 2, and so forth and so on. Even if you manage to bypass sections of the story by way of expansions or living world or other means, the Story still happened exactly as it was always going to happen, you had done all that you were going to do, regardless if you actually did it or not.
Now, in contrast to that, EQ had its own lore, the world and areas all had a deep rich history to it , but, you as a player, were just one of many adventures in that world, and things went on around you, that you could partake in, or not, but there was no story that involved you.
Players were left to make their own fun, do the quests they wanted to do, and pretty much set their own path in the game.
Like for example, I made an ogre, and right out the door I ran off to freeport, and spent the next few levels doing quests to build faction so I could enter the city, there was nothing stopping me from doing this, and there was nothing I was missing out on by doing this. There was no story I was supposed to follow, quest line I was supposed to do, or anything else for that matter.
Now to be fair, back then, at the early age of MMO's we were just ape shit excited to have such a cool ass game world that we could play when we wanted, with other people and not want to stab that one asshole who kept argining the rules all night, as such, the quest for power for the sake of power, to just go off and kill bigger badass things to.. well get more power.. was enough to keep us entertained for thousands upon thousands of hours over the course of many YEARS!
But EQ, while was the forefather of all the modern 3rd person MMO's, it was not anything like what we have today, it was much, much, simpler.
This is why I am really at a loss when people tell me that EQ, was Themepark and on Rails. It's like they never played the game.
It's the Power Gaps.
Because the players are jumping ahead in Power so fast, everything else has to too.
And that's what causes the problems.
In effect, the Power Gaps are pulling the game apart, stretching the game/world into too many sectioned off portions.
- Content designated to fairly small groups of Power separation (level groups).
- Players separating from "friends" by the amounts of time they can play.
(Falling behind.)
- Guilds losing members that can't stay within range of other members.
- Lack of Socialness as a result of not maintaining associations with known players.
- Lack of Trust as a result of THAT.
- Leading to tendencies to play Solo.
- Economy that's equally divided, so it doesn't function as an economy at all.
- Content that becomes meaningless as you progress past it.
- Content ahead of you that you can't use.
- Leaving players with only a small part of the game that they can play at any one time.
- Same for gear, as above.
- Directions and controls, paint by numbers "world."
- etc., etc.
Once upon a time....