The integrity and difficulty of open world content is only sacrificed or undermined when the zones are overcrowded, the devs said if overcrowding becomes a frequent happening they'll create "Shards" (open world replicas of the same zone) to avoid the overcrowding. So the difficulty and integrity of the areas will never be in question, the game will play as the devs want and the zones will have the number of players the devs fell is right.
So in other words they'll be doing what the OP pointed out, more or less... Call it sharding, instancing, whatever you want. That's the only thing I was trying to point out to Dullahan. Sometimes that has to be done, and it's the opposite of cancerous to do so. Cancerous is letting zones sit empty of content because everything is dead or camped.
What you're describing is convenience any way you slice it. You're either being intellectually dishonest, or you're unaware of the impact it has and are happy with the status quo where nothing stands in the players way of immediately achieving what they've set out to do.
I understand we have a difference of opinion what form of integrity should reign supreme in an mmorpg. The integrity of the world, including realism, and social imperatives that accompany it, or the integrity of challenge.
My god man....my concern stemmed from the amount of content that will be on offer, what part of that do you not understand? I think that is what will cause issues with the system you're describing. That has nothing to do with being able to do anything specific, it's about having anything to do at all. It's not a PVP game....
SO lets clear this up. I have no problem with things being difficult, I have no problem with games based around player dependency (my favorite MMO's were SWG and DAOC for pete's sake)... And I mostly play survival titles for MP fixes today, because I don't like the MMORPGs all that much that are on offer. My preference is player dependency, I love the idea of players being the villains, I like the concept of being destroyed if you try and go it alone (It just isn't popular).
Let me state this differently, maybe you will get it then...
My concerns are about an indie game trying to go against the grain of where the genre stands today. I just don't see it working, it's not so hard for a PVP game, because such factors with PVE content really don't mean much. It's the players that get overrun, not the content...
PVE content being overrun in a PVE game is an issue, and it's not an issue about convenience, it is an issue of a game failing to offer what is being sought. Content. Saying having content is a convenience is laughably WTF worthy.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The integrity and difficulty of open world content is only sacrificed or undermined when the zones are overcrowded, the devs said if overcrowding becomes a frequent happening they'll create "Shards" (open world replicas of the same zone) to avoid the overcrowding. So the difficulty and integrity of the areas will never be in question, the game will play as the devs want and the zones will have the number of players the devs fell is right.
So in other words they'll be doing what the OP pointed out, more or less... Call it sharding, instancing, whatever you want. That's the only thing I was trying to point out to Dullahan. Sometimes that has to be done, and it's the opposite of cancerous to do so. Cancerous is letting zones sit empty of content because everything is dead or camped.
What you're describing is convenience any way you slice it. You're either being intellectually dishonest, or you're unaware of the impact it has and are happy with the status quo where nothing stands in the players way of immediately achieving what they've set out to do.
I understand we have a difference of opinion what form of integrity should reign supreme in an mmorpg. The integrity of the world, including realism, and social imperatives that accompany it, or the integrity of challenge.
My god man....my concern stemmed from the amount of content that will be on offer, what part of that do you not understand? I think that is what will cause issues with the system you're describing. That has nothing to do with being able to do anything specific, it's about having anything to do at all. It's not a PVP game....
SO lets clear this up. I have no problem with things being difficult, I have no problem with games based around player dependency (my favorite MMO's were SWG and DAOC for pete's sake)... And I mostly play survival titles for MP fixes today, because I don't like the MMORPGs all that much that are on offer. My preference is player dependency, I love the idea of players being the villains, I like the concept of being destroyed if you try and go it alone (It just isn't popular).
Let me state this differently, maybe you will get it then...
My concerns are about an indie game trying to go against the grain of where the genre stands today. I just don't see it working, it's not so hard for a PVP game, because such factors with PVE content really don't mean much. It's the players that get overrun, not the content...
PVE content being overrun in a PVE game is an issue, and it's not an issue about convenience, it is an issue of a game failing to offer what is being sought. Content. Saying having content is a convenience is laughably WTF worthy.
This thread is literally the only one I've ever read where there's been concern over a lack of available PVE content due to player botting or over crowding.
I also can't recall any posts where someone said they quit playing a game because all of the good spots were camped.
I'm playing the DAOC free shard now, on Hib as has always been the case of early DAOC Fins are perma camped 18+ hours a day.
Yet I've leveled there, you ask to join the list and wait your turn. (could take an hour or so). Fins camps also can be found in Alliance, Guild or the recently added LFG channel.
But I rarely go there much these days as there are many other places and ways to level including DF, SH, Bogs, Frontiers, Gobbos and more.
If they cap the number of players per server and find a way to curtail the botting I think they'll be fine.
I guess many years of playing EVE taught me you don't always get to do the content you want to do "when" you want to do it.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Well said, that's precisely the point that is most important here. It's not about what any single person wants or prefers, it's about what is sustainable, unpopular ideas usually aren't, that's just the way of things. Anyone who played an older game knows how this story plays out. When push comes to shove, any dev is going to side with the perceived majority, if the majority feels there's a problem, you're going to see changes, that's just how things are.
I doubt many of the harshest of ideas survive alpha and beta testing. Which if you look at their rhetoric on the matter. A lot of different systems are being considered there, in terms of harshness of penalty.
Considering what most are used to dealing with in games today. I have a feeling they're going to get a lot of push back against the original EQ trappings they try out. The majority today seem to care about nothing but progression, anything impeding that is not going to be popular to those folks. That includes harsh xp penalties, content issues due to camp mechanics, or anything in between.
Pantheon's "harsh" ideas are plenty popular. There are millions of people who enjoyed EQ, and many more who will enjoy Pantheon should they incorporate those ideas. That doesn't mean they'll have WoW numbers, but the only way they won't be successful is if they fail to deliver what they've promised in a stable format.
Don't know why people still insist on championing the mmos of today when, 3 months after launch, they cannot hold the numbers that EQ had during the days of dial up internet.
The only thing we know for certain is that the current paradigm is unsustainable. It requires cash shops, dump trucks of marketing money, and continual infusions of new content to even break even. We should probably wait and see how harsher systems do before falling on our swords and going that route.
Well said, that's precisely the point that is most important here. It's not about what any single person wants or prefers, it's about what is sustainable, unpopular ideas usually aren't, that's just the way of things. Anyone who played an older game knows how this story plays out. When push comes to shove, any dev is going to side with the perceived majority, if the majority feels there's a problem, you're going to see changes, that's just how things are.
I doubt many of the harshest of ideas survive alpha and beta testing. Which if you look at their rhetoric on the matter. A lot of different systems are being considered there, in terms of harshness of penalty.
Considering what most are used to dealing with in games today. I have a feeling they're going to get a lot of push back against the original EQ trappings they try out. The majority today seem to care about nothing but progression, anything impeding that is not going to be popular to those folks. That includes harsh xp penalties, content issues due to camp mechanics, or anything in between.
Pantheon's "harsh" ideas are plenty popular. There are millions of people who enjoyed EQ, and many more who will enjoy Pantheon should they incorporate those ideas. That doesn't mean they'll have WoW numbers, but the only way they won't be successful is if they fail to deliver what they've promised in a stable format.
Don't know why people still insist on championing the mmos of today when, 3 months after launch, they cannot hold the numbers that EQ had during the days of dial up internet.
The only thing we know for certain is that the current paradigm is unsustainable. It requires cash shops, dump trucks of marketing money, and continual infusions of new content to even break even. We should probably wait and see how harsher systems do before falling on our swords and going that route.
A totally false analogy in an argument by analogy. Because something was popular and successful in the past does not in any way imply that it will be equally successful in the present or future, especially considering changes in the population. I'm with @Distopia here.
EQ1 changed from 'harsh' to 'relaxed' on many decisions over the years. Reverting back to the 1999 level of harshness just to be harsh throws away all evolution that the genre has accomplished, and players that make up those historic players adapted to. If EQ1 had everything so right in the first place, why did it change? Or why didn't EQ1 dominate its newer competitors?
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
The integrity and difficulty of open world content is only sacrificed or undermined when the zones are overcrowded, the devs said if overcrowding becomes a frequent happening they'll create "Shards" (open world replicas of the same zone) to avoid the overcrowding. So the difficulty and integrity of the areas will never be in question, the game will play as the devs want and the zones will have the number of players the devs fell is right.
So in other words they'll be doing what the OP pointed out, more or less... Call it sharding, instancing, whatever you want. That's the only thing I was trying to point out to Dullahan. Sometimes that has to be done, and it's the opposite of cancerous to do so. Cancerous is letting zones sit empty of content because everything is dead or camped.
What you're describing is convenience any way you slice it. You're either being intellectually dishonest, or you're unaware of the impact it has and are happy with the status quo where nothing stands in the players way of immediately achieving what they've set out to do.
I understand we have a difference of opinion what form of integrity should reign supreme in an mmorpg. The integrity of the world, including realism, and social imperatives that accompany it, or the integrity of challenge.
My god man....my concern stemmed from the amount of content that will be on offer, what part of that do you not understand? I think that is what will cause issues with the system you're describing. That has nothing to do with being able to do anything specific, it's about having anything to do at all. It's not a PVP game....
SO lets clear this up. I have no problem with things being difficult, I have no problem with games based around player dependency (my favorite MMO's were SWG and DAOC for pete's sake)... And I mostly play survival titles for MP fixes today, because I don't like the MMORPGs all that much that are on offer. My preference is player dependency, I love the idea of players being the villains, I like the concept of being destroyed if you try and go it alone (It just isn't popular).
Let me state this differently, maybe you will get it then...
My concerns are about an indie game trying to go against the grain of where the genre stands today. I just don't see it working, it's not so hard for a PVP game, because such factors with PVE content really don't mean much. It's the players that get overrun, not the content...
PVE content being overrun in a PVE game is an issue, and it's not an issue about convenience, it is an issue of a game failing to offer what is being sought. Content. Saying having content is a convenience is laughably WTF worthy.
This thread is literally the only one I've ever read where there's been concern over a lack of available PVE content due to player botting or over crowding.
I also can't recall any posts where someone said they quit playing a game because all of the good spots were camped.
I'm playing the DAOC free shard now, on Hib as has always been the case of early DAOC Fins are perma camped 18+ hours a day.
Yet I've leveled there, you ask to join the list and wait your turn. (could take an hour or so). Fins camps also can be found in Alliance, Guild or the recently added LFG channel.
But I rarely go there much these days as there are many other places and ways to level including DF, SH, Bogs, Frontiers, Gobbos and more.
If they cap the number of players per server and find a way to curtail the botting I think they'll be fine.
I guess many years of playing EVE taught me you don't always get to do the content you want to do "when" you want to do it.
That's just my concern considering the budget and small team. Why do folks keep talking about content "you want to do" in regard to that? I'm just looking at it being like a new game at release, at least any that didn't use some form of instancing/phasing. Where every where you go everything is dead. Which has nothing to do with wanting to do anything specific.
A video posted here a while back showing off p99, highlights a good example of what I'm talking about. I wish I could remember which thread it was posted in. While the guy was talking about the dangers of old EQ, he was going from place to place, only to find everything dead. When areas/zones are overrun like that, it's problematic any way you slice it. I never experienced that problem in DAOC, not once. Even in dungeons.
EQ and the like are a bit different in that regard. The entire point of the game is the camping of PVE content. Masses of players also aren't being funneled off from the PVE world into a PVP zone as they were in DAOC.
It seems to me that the EQ system would work fine on a PVP server in a smaller game, as the idea of contested content works well in that scenario, there's also something interesting to do to serve as a motivator. PVP.
On a PVE server on the other hand, who wants to sit around waiting to play a game you're paying to play? That just seems counter productive to me. I just don't see a lot of players doing that in today's gaming world (look how folks react in PVP games today when all of the property is taken up). Everyone is so used to instant action, as well as the do what you want, when you want, tendency of most games today. WHen anything comes along and prevents that, you typically end up with a retention issue.
In that sense the OP's point about instancing is rather relevant. It is an easy way to avoid all of this. Sure it has it's downsides, and it needs to be kept in check, but it preserves the integrity of the dangers you're intended to face. That's all I'm saying.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Well said, that's precisely the point that is most important here. It's not about what any single person wants or prefers, it's about what is sustainable, unpopular ideas usually aren't, that's just the way of things. Anyone who played an older game knows how this story plays out. When push comes to shove, any dev is going to side with the perceived majority, if the majority feels there's a problem, you're going to see changes, that's just how things are.
I doubt many of the harshest of ideas survive alpha and beta testing. Which if you look at their rhetoric on the matter. A lot of different systems are being considered there, in terms of harshness of penalty.
Considering what most are used to dealing with in games today. I have a feeling they're going to get a lot of push back against the original EQ trappings they try out. The majority today seem to care about nothing but progression, anything impeding that is not going to be popular to those folks. That includes harsh xp penalties, content issues due to camp mechanics, or anything in between.
Pantheon's "harsh" ideas are plenty popular. There are millions of people who enjoyed EQ, and many more who will enjoy Pantheon should they incorporate those ideas. That doesn't mean they'll have WoW numbers, but the only way they won't be successful is if they fail to deliver what they've promised in a stable format.
Don't know why people still insist on championing the mmos of today when, 3 months after launch, they cannot hold the numbers that EQ had during the days of dial up internet.
The only thing we know for certain is that the current paradigm is unsustainable. It requires cash shops, dump trucks of marketing money, and continual infusions of new content to even break even. We should probably wait and see how harsher systems do before falling on our swords and going that route.
Who said anything about championing the MMO's of today? There isn't a single current MMO I'd champion as my ideal system. That means nothing toward what is sustainable though, which is why it's irrelevant.
It's not 1999, this is not a free private server, this will be a new commercial product attracting a 2018 or later audience. It will be judged as such. Which means the devs will be getting 2018 style complaints. Have you played anything recently or at least paid much attention to the complaints made about those games? From those who actually play them of course, not those on these forums who do not.
It's ridiculous how easy people want things today. The level of entitlement on display is well beyond anything we saw in the old days. Devs can't design anything in these games that creates a have and have not environment. "It's not fair..."
This is why I feel as I do. These folks rule the day in this genre. They always get what they want.
The whiners did back in the day as well. Which is what prevented many greats games from actually moving forward. They had to spend too much time moving back to appease those who whined about anything that took some amount of devotion to achieve it..
I'd love to believe this case will be different, but nothing I've seen over the years leads me to believe that. THis is why i think it's best to just shoot this problem in the face from the get go, design what they know they have to, then move forward from there.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
EQ1 changed from 'harsh' to 'relaxed' on many decisions over the years. Reverting back to the 1999 level of harshness just to be harsh throws away all evolution that the genre has accomplished, and players that make up those historic players adapted to. If EQ1 had everything so right in the first place, why did it change? Or why didn't EQ1 dominate its newer competitors?
Well that's easy to answer. All MMORPGs went NGE mode once WOW launched. Established Companies always go where the big money is, in this case the big money was in the WOW fanbase, so all the companies that had already MMORPG running tried to adapt their older games to appeal the WOW player base and get a slice of that market. It is normal behavior in business. It is rare that Established Companies decide to make a niche product instead of making a product that appeals the mass market. It is very risky and requires balls, it requires the Company a good understanding of the niche market they want to operate in.
But just because most Companies refuse to make products for the niche market, that doesn't mean that the niche market doesn't exist, and certainly it doesn't mean that a product designed for this market cannot be successful.
A totally false analogy in an argument by analogy. Because something was popular and successful in the past does not in any way imply that it will be equally successful in the present or future, especially considering changes in the population. I'm with @Distopia here.
EQ1 changed from 'harsh' to 'relaxed' on many decisions over the years. Reverting back to the 1999 level of harshness just to be harsh throws away all evolution that the genre has accomplished, and players that make up those historic players adapted to. If EQ1 had everything so right in the first place, why did it change? Or why didn't EQ1 dominate its newer competitors?
Luckily, an analogy isn't false merely because you think it the case.
It's relevant because it was the last time it was done and it worked, and when the inverse has been done, it's done nothing but produce flops and games on F2P life support. That alone should lead to the conclusion that the best bet is sticking closer to the model that worked. That doesn't guarantee success, but it's certainly the best bet.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Make no mistake, suggesting the harshness of EQ should be dialed back is just another way of asking for VR to compromise and conform to the established norms.
EQ1 changed from 'harsh' to 'relaxed' on many decisions over the years. Reverting back to the 1999 level of harshness just to be harsh throws away all evolution that the genre has accomplished, and players that make up those historic players adapted to. If EQ1 had everything so right in the first place, why did it change? Or why didn't EQ1 dominate its newer competitors?
Well that's easy to answer. All MMORPGs went NGE mode once WOW launched. Established Companies always go where the big money is, in this case the big money was in the WOW fanbase, so all the companies that had already MMORPG running tried to adapt their older games to appeal the WOW player base and get a slice of that market. It is normal behavior in business. It is rare that Established Companies decide to make a niche product instead of making a product that appeals the mass market. It is very risky and requires balls, it requires the Company a good understanding of the niche market they want to operate in.
But just because most Companies refuse to make products for the niche market, that doesn't mean that the niche market doesn't exist, and certainly it doesn't mean that a product designed for this market cannot be successful.
Why did EQ1 evolve to incorporate some of the convenience issues that WoW popularized? If they were so popular, the old ways should have won out. They didn't.
Why didn't EQ1 and SOE stick to their 'harshness' guns in the face of newer mechanics? They were hemorrhaging customers to WoW / Blizzard. SOE recognized a losing cause.
The history of EQ1 suggests they changed because the market preferred the newer games with less 'harsh' conditions, not because they gave up on some 'niche' ideal. SOE updated their game to compete with the newer games, not because they gave up on their niche market. A competitor came along and took the customer base away from them.
Just because something used to be, doesn't mean it will always be so. Dinosaurs don't rule the Earth. The market that existed in 1999 that supported EQ1 has changed. It isn't the same anymore.
The only answer I've ever gotten from the 'Where are these people now?' question was from Brad in a post in another thread on this site. He suggested very vaguely that a good portion of his customer base was currently playing things like Call of Duty. If that is where Pantheon's future 25,000 subscriber base exists, I wish VR immense luck in taking that money from the Call of Duty franchise. A business that doesn't know where its customers are, is a business with a shaky plan to me.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
EQ1 changed from 'harsh' to 'relaxed' on many decisions over the years. Reverting back to the 1999 level of harshness just to be harsh throws away all evolution that the genre has accomplished, and players that make up those historic players adapted to. If EQ1 had everything so right in the first place, why did it change? Or why didn't EQ1 dominate its newer competitors?
Well that's easy to answer. All MMORPGs went NGE mode once WOW launched. Established Companies always go where the big money is, in this case the big money was in the WOW fanbase, so all the companies that had already MMORPG running tried to adapt their older games to appeal the WOW player base and get a slice of that market. It is normal behavior in business. It is rare that Established Companies decide to make a niche product instead of making a product that appeals the mass market. It is very risky and requires balls, it requires the Company a good understanding of the niche market they want to operate in.
But just because most Companies refuse to make products for the niche market, that doesn't mean that the niche market doesn't exist, and certainly it doesn't mean that a product designed for this market cannot be successful.
Why did EQ1 evolve to incorporate some of the convenience issues that WoW popularized? If they were so popular, the old ways should have won out. They didn't.
Why didn't EQ1 and SOE stick to their 'harshness' guns in the face of newer mechanics? They were hemorrhaging customers to WoW / Blizzard. SOE recognized a losing cause.
The history of EQ1 suggests they changed because the market preferred the newer games with less 'harsh' conditions, not because they gave up on some 'niche' ideal. SOE updated their game to compete with the newer games, not because they gave up on their niche market. A competitor came along and took the customer base away from them.
Just because something used to be, doesn't mean it will always be so. Dinosaurs don't rule the Earth. The market that existed in 1999 that supported EQ1 has changed. It isn't the same anymore.
The only answer I've ever gotten from the 'Where are these people now?' question was from Brad in a post in another thread on this site. He suggested very vaguely that a good portion of his customer base was currently playing things like Call of Duty. If that is where Pantheon's future 25,000 subscriber base exists, I wish VR immense luck in taking that money from the Call of Duty franchise. A business that doesn't know where its customers are, is a business with a shaky plan to me.
Wow. It's called greed, man. Greed is why they changed it. They were unhappy with what they had and wanted the success someone else had. So they emulated someone else, and it quite obviously harmed both the brand and it's popularity. There is a clear correlation between changing the way the game worked, and it's popularity. This can also been seen in that the most popular emulated servers emulate the original game. It can also be seen by the dramatic drop in population after the classic thru velious on progression servers.
EQ1 changed from 'harsh' to 'relaxed' on many decisions over the years. Reverting back to the 1999 level of harshness just to be harsh throws away all evolution that the genre has accomplished, and players that make up those historic players adapted to. If EQ1 had everything so right in the first place, why did it change? Or why didn't EQ1 dominate its newer competitors?
Well that's easy to answer. All MMORPGs went NGE mode once WOW launched. Established Companies always go where the big money is, in this case the big money was in the WOW fanbase, so all the companies that had already MMORPG running tried to adapt their older games to appeal the WOW player base and get a slice of that market. It is normal behavior in business. It is rare that Established Companies decide to make a niche product instead of making a product that appeals the mass market. It is very risky and requires balls, it requires the Company a good understanding of the niche market they want to operate in.
But just because most Companies refuse to make products for the niche market, that doesn't mean that the niche market doesn't exist, and certainly it doesn't mean that a product designed for this market cannot be successful.
Why did EQ1 evolve to incorporate some of the convenience issues that WoW popularized? If they were so popular, the old ways should have won out. They didn't.
Why didn't EQ1 and SOE stick to their 'harshness' guns in the face of newer mechanics? They were hemorrhaging customers to WoW / Blizzard. SOE recognized a losing cause.
The history of EQ1 suggests they changed because the market preferred the newer games with less 'harsh' conditions, not because they gave up on some 'niche' ideal. SOE updated their game to compete with the newer games, not because they gave up on their niche market. A competitor came along and took the customer base away from them.
Just because something used to be, doesn't mean it will always be so. Dinosaurs don't rule the Earth. The market that existed in 1999 that supported EQ1 has changed. It isn't the same anymore.
The only answer I've ever gotten from the 'Where are these people now?' question was from Brad in a post in another thread on this site. He suggested very vaguely that a good portion of his customer base was currently playing things like Call of Duty. If that is where Pantheon's future 25,000 subscriber base exists, I wish VR immense luck in taking that money from the Call of Duty franchise. A business that doesn't know where its customers are, is a business with a shaky plan to me.
Wow. It's called greed, man. Greed is why they changed it. They were unhappy with what they had and wanted the success someone else had. So they emulated someone else, and it quite obviously harmed both the brand and it's popularity. There is a clear correlation between changing the way the game worked, and it's popularity. This can also been seen in that the most popular emulated servers emulate the original game. It can also be seen by the dramatic drop in population after the classic thru velious on progression servers.
If SOE was motivated by greed, why didn't they revert out the changes that caused a direct negative impact on their player base?
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Why did EQ1 evolve to incorporate some of the convenience issues that WoW popularized? If they were so popular, the old ways should have won out. They didn't.
Why didn't EQ1 and SOE stick to their 'harshness' guns in the face of newer mechanics? They were hemorrhaging customers to WoW / Blizzard. SOE recognized a losing cause.
I gave you the answer to your question in the post you just quoted. Read it again in case you missed some bits.
But I will try to simplify the concept for you
EQ1 Fanbase = 400k WOW Fanbase = 10 Millions Which Fanbase do you think SoE (or any other company) would want to cater for?
That's why they made the NGE for SWG and tried to turn EQ and EQ2 in WOW clones, it's about adapting your products to appeal to a bigger market, nothing to do with Old School games being out of fashion. Old School MMORPGs were a niche and they will always be a niche, a BIG niche but still a niche. Generally Established Companies don't care for a niche market, not matter how big the size of the market is. That's Indie Companies territory.
PS: And EQ1 lost most of its players not to WOW but mostly to EQ2, launching a remake of a MMORPG after only 5 years is one of the biggest mistake a Company can do.
This thread is literally the only one I've ever read where there's been concern over a lack of available PVE content due to player botting or over crowding.
[snip]
I guess many years of playing EVE taught me you don't always get to do the content you want to do "when" you want to do it.
I wonder if you actually played EvE or visit the forums.
There were a huge mass of people posting they couldn't play the game and mine belts in HS due fleet 10+ one-man multiboxing and cleaning all the belts everyday in many systems around starting areas. I was one of many complaining about it and receiving a huge backlash from the community.
Now it is illegal. Now. How nice.
That is one of the many reasons new player numbers dropped like hell.
A couple of things:
1) I only started mining in EVE about 3 years back, did other things before then. 2) I did start in high sec, but I located in remote systems 10 plus jumps from any major market hub to avoid the other boxers (I ran six accts myself) and "the CODE" 3) I "permitted"people to mine in "my system." meaning anyone who annoyed me was dealt with by either 4) The "bumper car", a ship fitting I got from CODE using a cruiser hull and a large MWD which permitted me to knock a mining hull about 150 KM from the belt. Could even move an Orca a decent distance coming in at over 4000 m/sec. 5) Every now and then someone would threaten to report me to CCP saying bumping was illegal. I returned the favor and reported them to the CODE. Didn't much care as I ran my own scouts and figured if I couldn't mine a system, no one would mine it.
Drew a few war decs so after 6 months moved out to null sec for good.
Still stand by my point in EVE you definitely learn to do something else, like move to null sec if multi boxing jerks like me are spoiling the fun.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
This thread is literally the only one I've ever read where there's been concern over a lack of available PVE content due to player botting or over crowding.
[snip]
I guess many years of playing EVE taught me you don't always get to do the content you want to do "when" you want to do it.
I wonder if you actually played EvE or visit the forums.
There were a huge mass of people posting they couldn't play the game and mine belts in HS due fleet 10+ one-man multiboxing and cleaning all the belts everyday in many systems around starting areas. I was one of many complaining about it and receiving a huge backlash from the community.
Now it is illegal. Now. How nice.
That is one of the many reasons new player numbers dropped like hell.
A couple of things:
1) I only started mining in EVE about 3 years back, did other things before then. 2) I did start in high sec, but I located in remote systems 10 plus jumps from any major market hub to avoid the other boxers (I ran six accts myself) and "the CODE" 3) I "permitted"people to mine in "my system." meaning anyone who annoyed me was dealt with by either 4) The "bumper car", a ship fitting I got from CODE using a cruiser hull and a large MWD which permitted me to knock a mining hull about 150 KM from the belt. Could even move an Orca a decent distance coming in at over 4000 m/sec. 5) Every now and then someone would threaten to report me to CCP saying bumping was illegal. I returned the favor and reported them to the CODE. Didn't much care as I ran my own scouts and figured if I couldn't mine a system, no one would mine it.
Drew a few war decs so after 6 months moved out to null sec for good.
Still stand by my point in EVE you definitely learn to do something else, like move to null sec if multi boxing jerks like me are spoiling the fun.
You can't do that with trial week. You can't go NS or LS with week old account.
But you can, and the game tells you should, mine belts in high sec.
The mining respawn system for belts changed.
Your answer hardly addresses anything.
So much so multi boxing is now illegal. Why would that be?
You sure you actually play EVE or just repeat what you read?
Multi boxing is still legal, using programs like isBoxer isn't permitted.
I controlled all 6 of my accounts individually from a single laptop and screen.
Made for some very frantic resetting of mining lasers which is why I preferred Skiffs to Hulks/Macks, at least until last fall when they normalized the number of lasers for all hulls.
No one with a week old account should ever try mining as their first profession....way too boring, much better to mission run IMO.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I gave you the answer to your question in the post you just quoted. Read it again in case you missed some bits.
But I will try to simplify the concept for you
EQ1 Fanbase = 400k WOW Fanbase = 10 Millions Which Fanbase do you think SoE (or any other company) would want to cater for?
That's why they made the NGE for SWG and tried to turn EQ and EQ2 in WOW clones, it's about adapting your products to appeal to a bigger market, nothing to do with Old School games being out of fashion. Old School MMORPGs were a niche and they will always be a niche, a BIG niche but still a niche. Generally Established Companies don't care for a niche market, not matter how big the size of the market is. That's Indie Companies territory.
PS: And EQ1 lost most of its players not to WOW but mostly to EQ2, launching a remake of a MMORPG after only 5 years is one of the biggest mistake a Company can do.
The thing you guys ignore in this is that it wasn't just about WOW having more people, it was that lots of people were leaving and joining WOW. Which is what happened to SWG, DAOC, and so many others. IF your customers are leaving for the competition, you have 2 options: do nothing and hope to retain "some"... OR try and offer what they're leaving for....
A small company beholden to no one can do the former, a company that is beholden to a greater entity which cares nothing about fandom and everything about market presence, not so much.... The latter is SOE, they weren't some company that could just ignore the money, the loss, especially within a genre that they previously dominated more or less.
Failing in market presence means fading revenue, that isn't something a company like Sony is going to deal with longterm, as we see in hindsight the outcome of that battle. Blizzard won SOE no longer exists.
You think it would be different if they just tried running their games as niche antiquated offerings? I don't... Their demise would have come sooner IMO as they would have fell into irrelevancy faster. Their actions at least showed a desire to compete. That's how they get funding.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Why did EQ1 evolve to incorporate some of the convenience issues that WoW popularized? If they were so popular, the old ways should have won out. They didn't.
Why didn't EQ1 and SOE stick to their 'harshness' guns in the face of newer mechanics? They were hemorrhaging customers to WoW / Blizzard. SOE recognized a losing cause.
I gave you the answer to your question in the post you just quoted. Read it again in case you missed some bits.
But I will try to simplify the concept for you
EQ1 Fanbase = 400k WOW Fanbase = 10 Millions Which Fanbase do you think SoE (or any other company) would want to cater for?
That's why they made the NGE for SWG and tried to turn EQ and EQ2 in WOW clones, it's about adapting your products to appeal to a bigger market, nothing to do with Old School games being out of fashion. Old School MMORPGs were a niche and they will always be a niche, a BIG niche but still a niche. Generally Established Companies don't care for a niche market, not matter how big the size of the market is. That's Indie Companies territory.
PS: And EQ1 lost most of its players not to WOW but mostly to EQ2, launching a remake of a MMORPG after only 5 years is one of the biggest mistake a Company can do.
The thing you guys ignore in this is that it wasn't just about WOW having more people, it was that lots of people were leaving and joining WOW. Which is what happened to SWG, DAOC, and so many others. IF your customers are leaving for the competition, you have 2 options: do nothing and hope to retain "some"... OR try and offer what they're leaving for....
A small company beholden to no one can do the former, a company that is beholden to a greater entity which cares nothing about fandom and everything about market presence, not so much.... The latter is SOE, they weren't some company that could just ignore the money, the loss, especially within a genre that they previously dominated more or less.
Failing in market presence means fading revenue, that isn't something a company like Sony is going to deal with longterm, as we see in hindsight the outcome of that battle. Blizzard won SOE no longer exists.
You think it would be different if they just tried running their games as niche antiquated offerings? I don't... Their demise would have come sooner IMO as they would have fell into irrelevancy faster.
I think it would. And actually think it is a failure in your analysis.
If you bet in something you are not, you risk the most common outcome: You end without the ones who prefer the other thing and the ones who liked what you were. And that's exactly what happened - not only for that game.
You must understand that said thing, the other game, already is the thing they want. The "word" is that said experience is found there. That's what made people leave you. So, changing, won't change much since you would become "the one who tried to be also like that" in the eyes of those people, the ones who left you. And, at the same time, you'll be pissing off the ones who stayed.
The very same thing happened to WoW after WoTLK. Look at the numbers. It is undeniable.
The difference is that War Craft as an IP carries way more weight in mainstream market - that is what carries WoW these days: Casual players that leaves as soon they cap the content.
What has WOW done since it's inception? It has incorporated features from the competition, to good and bad results. This is why they stay where they are... on top. What has every major studio done since WOW? Built off it's systems.. To good and bad result..
Why? Because that's how markets work. It's only indies who are sitting around lapping up the interests that aren't covered. That's how every major entertainment industry works. Major funding operations essentially demand a competitive product. That's just how things are in the business world... So I don't see how you think I'm off in that analysis.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Why did EQ1 evolve to incorporate some of the convenience issues that WoW popularized? If they were so popular, the old ways should have won out. They didn't.
Why didn't EQ1 and SOE stick to their 'harshness' guns in the face of newer mechanics? They were hemorrhaging customers to WoW / Blizzard. SOE recognized a losing cause.
I gave you the answer to your question in the post you just quoted. Read it again in case you missed some bits.
But I will try to simplify the concept for you
EQ1 Fanbase = 400k WOW Fanbase = 10 Millions Which Fanbase do you think SoE (or any other company) would want to cater for?
That's why they made the NGE for SWG and tried to turn EQ and EQ2 in WOW clones, it's about adapting your products to appeal to a bigger market, nothing to do with Old School games being out of fashion. Old School MMORPGs were a niche and they will always be a niche, a BIG niche but still a niche. Generally Established Companies don't care for a niche market, not matter how big the size of the market is. That's Indie Companies territory.
PS: And EQ1 lost most of its players not to WOW but mostly to EQ2, launching a remake of a MMORPG after only 5 years is one of the biggest mistake a Company can do.
The thing you guys ignore in this is that it wasn't just about WOW having more people, it was that lots of people were leaving and joining WOW. Which is what happened to SWG, DAOC, and so many others. IF your customers are leaving for the competition, you have 2 options: do nothing and hope to retain "some"... OR try and offer what they're leaving for....
A small company beholden to no one can do the former, a company that is beholden to a greater entity which cares nothing about fandom and everything about market presence, not so much.... The latter is SOE, they weren't some company that could just ignore the money, the loss, especially within a genre that they previously dominated more or less.
Failing in market presence means fading revenue, that isn't something a company like Sony is going to deal with longterm, as we see in hindsight the outcome of that battle. Blizzard won SOE no longer exists.
You think it would be different if they just tried running their games as niche antiquated offerings? I don't... Their demise would have come sooner IMO as they would have fell into irrelevancy faster.
I think it would. And actually think it is a failure in your analysis.
If you bet in something you are not, you risk the most common outcome: You end without the ones who prefer the other thing and the ones who liked what you were. And that's exactly what happened - not only for that game.
You must understand that said thing, the other game, already is the thing they want. The "word" is that said experience is found there. That's what made people leave you. So, changing, won't change much since you would become "the one who tried to be also like that" in the eyes of those people, the ones who left you. And, at the same time, you'll be pissing off the ones who stayed.
The very same thing happened to WoW after WoTLK. Look at the numbers. It is undeniable.
The difference is that War Craft as an IP carries way more weight in mainstream market - that is what carries WoW these days: Casual players that leaves as soon they cap the content.
What has WOW done since it's inception? It has incorporated features from the competition, to good and bad results. This is why they stay where they are... on top. What has every major studio done since WOW? Built off it's systems.. To good and bad result..
Why? Because that's how markets work. It's only indies who are sitting around lapping up the interests that aren't covered. That's how every major entertainment industry works. Major funding operations essentially demand a competitive product. That's just how things are in the business world... So I don't see how you think I'm off in that analysis.
Look up the impacts of "disruptors" on a fixed and stagnent marketplace.
Not only small firms can be disruptors, big firms are getting in the game as well.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
It seems many are content writing off this post as "another filthy casual" while not addressing anything but group instancing.
What is your solution to the 1 guild to rule them all raiding system of EQ?
What is your solution to multi-boxers permacamping every decent item on every server?
What is your solution to loot systems that severely punish full groups, unless boxing?
Why are we limiting travel and UI/maps for the sake of difficulty? Isn't immersion the point?
1 - Different progression levels between guilds.
We can all agree that hardcore guilds will be way ahead in terms of progression, gear, level and everything in general when compared to the other guilds on the server. Levelling will take months, this will create a nice big gap between the content hardcore guilds do and the content more casual players do, this gap in progression will stay about the same because no hard caps will prevent any guild of player from progressing. So casual guilds will almost never be on par with the progression of an Hardcore guild. I'm assuming that raids will range from 30-70 players so guilds will be huge but there will also be fewer of them. So for example "harcore guild 1" 3 months into the game reachs max level and starts clearing "raid tier 1" , 3-4 months after this "casual guild 2" Reach max level and starts clearing "raid tier 1" by this time "hardcore guild 1" will already be in "raid tier 3 or 4" and nothing from the first raid tier holds any value to them.
2 - Decent items will be in difficult dungeons.
Remember that his is not EQ, were dungeons are trivial if you have a full group, the good items will come from the difficult places and multiboxing to get them will certainly be near to impossible. Also, multiboxing software will not be allowed, if you wanna multibox you'll have to control 2.3.4,5 characters by yourself, so again remember this is not EQ and gameplay will be alot harder, not the spam 1-2, med heal, taunt and you're good. If a player can multibox 3 characters efficiently in a hard zone ill be impressed.
3 - How does the loot system punish the group, to my knowledge there will be no loot system, it will be Free for all, and the group decides who gets the loot.
4 - They're limiting travel to make the world feel like a world, if you wanna go from 1 end to another it will take time and effort, or cash and a player to port you, this also encourages healthy socialisation. Another reason for limited travel is their local auction house system, you can choose to carry an item from one end of the world to another and get extra profit, because the item will be rare around those parts, or you can sell it near the town you found it for less money.
UI/maps, so many people don't understand the bad effect gps maps and minimaps have on the game experience. I can guarantee you that 99% of players constantly look to their minimaps/worldmaps/zonemaps to see where they're going or want to go, it's the most effective way of doing it so why not? But if there's no easily accessible map or minimap, you'll look to the actual game, to your environment and surroundings, maybe you'll stop a ominous looking ruins or castle and decide to explore it. There's not easy way to explain this but if you've played without a minimap or a gps map you'll understand, the huge difference it makes, I can guarantee you that you will pay a lot more attention to the game, to where you're going and to the surrounding environment, it's a try it to believe it type of situation.
It seems many are content writing off this post as "another filthy casual" while not addressing anything but group instancing.
What is your solution to the 1 guild to rule them all raiding system of EQ?
What is your solution to multi-boxers permacamping every decent item on every server?
What is your solution to loot systems that severely punish full groups, unless boxing?
Why are we limiting travel and UI/maps for the sake of difficulty? Isn't immersion the point?
Filthy casuals are the enormous segment of the population. They have just as much right to play what they want as I do, so "filthy" is not a term I like to use.
3 of your questions are related strongly to instancing and the fourth is subjective. In fact, I might argue all of them are subjective, since you're assuming they're essentially universal problems, independent of other variables.
What is your solution to the 1 guild to rule them all raiding system of EQ? What is your solution to multi-boxers permacamping every decent item on every server? What is your solution to loot systems that severely punish full groups, unless boxing?
Do instancing. Problem solved. Post complete... no, not for me it isn't.
There're so many things I should and could bring up, but I won't. I do agree "raid scheduling" and waiting lists for groups can be problematic if people are hitting walls. This is assuming there's not enough content. As for rolling for loot, whether it's problematic is more subjective. Your fourth question is subjective.
The common thread here is content contesting. Instancing is of course one of the easiest solutions, as well creating new servers or making new content via expansions. There may be other more comprehensive solutions, things like spawn management, looting or raid limitations. Diablo 2 isn't a great example, but it managed content consumption by increasing the power of monsters as more players joined. This enabled a server to be equally playable by a soloer or by 8 players.
Multi-boxing is similar and different. Like soloers, groupers and raiders, it consumes content. It's different in that it gives a single player the power of a group to consume content. Thus, it may require a different resolution. For example, many servers limit multi-boxing with ip checking, subscription requirements and checking for 3rd party programs ofteb used to manage alts. It's hard to hide those.
Why are we limiting travel and UI/maps for the sake of difficulty? Isn't immersion the point? Man, I don't evne want to go here, that's how strongly I disagree with you. Suffice to say, I hate GPS maps and in-game radars and travel being too easy or uncreative.In 2012 i started playing Wurm Online. It had corpse runs, no in-game map, no in-game radar and a plethora of other things you'd probably condemn, but I enjoyed the f*** out of it. I had the best time I think I'e ever had in any MMO.
The thing you guys ignore in this is that it wasn't just about WOW having more people, it was that lots of people were leaving and joining WOW. Which is what happened to SWG, DAOC, and so many others. IF your customers are leaving for the competition, you have 2 options: do nothing and hope to retain "some"... OR try and offer what they're leaving for....
As I mention in the other thread, the majority of EQ exodus happened in favor of EQ2. I certainly agree though that there has been an influx of players from older MMORPGs to WoW.
But that's pretty normal. Firstly it was a new game, and people always want to try the new shiny thing, this happens always when a new game comes out. Secondly WoW was a Masterpiece, let's not kid ourselves, WoW is one of a kind. Thirdly WoW was a breath of fresh air at that time when most MMORPGs were pretty much similar to each other, and most player were burned out and needed a break from them, and WoW was the perfect game to play as it was the one who stood out.
My point is. If those games would have stuck with their guns and waited until the novelty of WoW wore off, many old players would have come back, but also some of the new WoW players would have tried and maybe liked those games once they got burned out by WoW. Now if you get bored of WoW you don't really have an alternative as the majority of existing MMORPG are more or less WoW copies, including the older games like EQ and EQ2, which were modified to appeal WoW fanbase.
Today if someone wants to have a true Old School experience they can't have it (unless they play on Private Servers), because Companies don't want to invest in a niche (not dead) market. Do you think it is fair on us?
WoW didn't get the majority of its player base from raiding UO, EQ1, AC and other games. There simply weren't 10 million players of the older games for Blizzard to steal. Blizzard and WoW grew the MMORPG industry by converting a large number of their RTS players to their new offering. Basically, players followed the IP.
Players left EQ1 in equal numbers for EQ2 and WoW, at least in my experience. Companies did not see the original EQ1 marketplace as alive and doing well. SOE moved to compete in the market, and adapted many of the competitor's features. Failure to do that would probably have lead to a much earlier demise for SOE, and we wouldn't have almost 20 years of history with EQ1.
'Sticking to their guns' and hoping the shine will wear off the competitor is not a winning business solution. It's just nonsense.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
It's ridiculous how easy people want things today. The level of entitlement on display is well beyond anything we saw in the old days. Devs can't design anything in these games that creates a have and have not environment. "It's not fair..."
This is why I feel as I do. These folks rule the day in this genre. They always get what they want.
The whiners did back in the day as well. Which is what prevented many greats games from actually moving forward. They had to spend too much time moving back to appease those who whined about anything that took some amount of devotion to achieve it..
I'd love to believe this case will be different, but nothing I've seen over the years leads me to believe that. THis is why i think it's best to just shoot this problem in the face from the get go, design what they know they have to, then move forward from there.
Players left EQ1 in equal numbers for EQ2 and WoW, at least in my experience. Companies did not see the original EQ1 marketplace as alive and doing well. SOE moved to compete in the market, and adapted many of the competitor's features. Failure to do that would probably have lead to a much earlier demise for SOE, and we wouldn't have almost 20 years of history with EQ1.
Shame we don't have the counter proof. Ok, let me pull stuff out of my ass as well. I believe that if SoE kept the old mechanics EQ would have been even more popular than it was. There, you have it, my guess is as good as yours.
'Sticking to their guns' and hoping the shine will wear off the competitor is not a winning business solution. It's just nonsense.
EVE did it and it did pretty well. Unfortunately that's the only MMORPG that had the balls to stay truthful to itself. We really can't tell what could have happened if EQ would have kept ts original core design, nobody really can, unfortunately.
But business teach us that niche market needs to be serviced too, and the Old School market has been completely vacant for more than 10 years now. So logic might suggest that EQ might have done even better than it did if it would have kept catering for its original market rather than moving to the crowded WoW market.
What most of you guys don't get is that in Gaming, like every other branch of the Entartainment business, there is always something for everyone, and almost everything works if it's done properly. The MMORPG market though seems to escape this unwritten law for some reasons. Apparently if a game stray too far away from the WoW blueprint suddenly it becomes not viable. I call this ignorance, I believe that the MMORPG industry should follow the rest of the Entartainment business and try to cater for all of its branches, not just the most popular like it has been for the last 13 years.
Comments
My god man....my concern stemmed from the amount of content that will be on offer, what part of that do you not understand? I think that is what will cause issues with the system you're describing. That has nothing to do with being able to do anything specific, it's about having anything to do at all. It's not a PVP game....
SO lets clear this up. I have no problem with things being difficult, I have no problem with games based around player dependency (my favorite MMO's were SWG and DAOC for pete's sake)... And I mostly play survival titles for MP fixes today, because I don't like the MMORPGs all that much that are on offer. My preference is player dependency, I love the idea of players being the villains, I like the concept of being destroyed if you try and go it alone (It just isn't popular).
Let me state this differently, maybe you will get it then...
My concerns are about an indie game trying to go against the grain of where the genre stands today. I just don't see it working, it's not so hard for a PVP game, because such factors with PVE content really don't mean much. It's the players that get overrun, not the content...
PVE content being overrun in a PVE game is an issue, and it's not an issue about convenience, it is an issue of a game failing to offer what is being sought. Content. Saying having content is a convenience is laughably WTF worthy.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I also can't recall any posts where someone said they quit playing a game because all of the good spots were camped.
I'm playing the DAOC free shard now, on Hib as has always been the case of early DAOC Fins are perma camped 18+ hours a day.
Yet I've leveled there, you ask to join the list and wait your turn. (could take an hour or so). Fins camps also can be found in Alliance, Guild or the recently added LFG channel.
But I rarely go there much these days as there are many other places and ways to level including DF, SH, Bogs, Frontiers, Gobbos and more.
If they cap the number of players per server and find a way to curtail the botting I think they'll be fine.
I guess many years of playing EVE taught me you don't always get to do the content you want to do "when" you want to do it.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Don't know why people still insist on championing the mmos of today when, 3 months after launch, they cannot hold the numbers that EQ had during the days of dial up internet.
The only thing we know for certain is that the current paradigm is unsustainable. It requires cash shops, dump trucks of marketing money, and continual infusions of new content to even break even. We should probably wait and see how harsher systems do before falling on our swords and going that route.
EQ1 changed from 'harsh' to 'relaxed' on many decisions over the years. Reverting back to the 1999 level of harshness just to be harsh throws away all evolution that the genre has accomplished, and players that make up those historic players adapted to. If EQ1 had everything so right in the first place, why did it change? Or why didn't EQ1 dominate its newer competitors?
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
A video posted here a while back showing off p99, highlights a good example of what I'm talking about. I wish I could remember which thread it was posted in. While the guy was talking about the dangers of old EQ, he was going from place to place, only to find everything dead. When areas/zones are overrun like that, it's problematic any way you slice it. I never experienced that problem in DAOC, not once. Even in dungeons.
EQ and the like are a bit different in that regard. The entire point of the game is the camping of PVE content. Masses of players also aren't being funneled off from the PVE world into a PVP zone as they were in DAOC.
It seems to me that the EQ system would work fine on a PVP server in a smaller game, as the idea of contested content works well in that scenario, there's also something interesting to do to serve as a motivator. PVP.
On a PVE server on the other hand, who wants to sit around waiting to play a game you're paying to play? That just seems counter productive to me. I just don't see a lot of players doing that in today's gaming world (look how folks react in PVP games today when all of the property is taken up). Everyone is so used to instant action, as well as the do what you want, when you want, tendency of most games today. WHen anything comes along and prevents that, you typically end up with a retention issue.
In that sense the OP's point about instancing is rather relevant. It is an easy way to avoid all of this. Sure it has it's downsides, and it needs to be kept in check, but it preserves the integrity of the dangers you're intended to face. That's all I'm saying.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
It's not 1999, this is not a free private server, this will be a new commercial product attracting a 2018 or later audience. It will be judged as such. Which means the devs will be getting 2018 style complaints. Have you played anything recently or at least paid much attention to the complaints made about those games? From those who actually play them of course, not those on these forums who do not.
It's ridiculous how easy people want things today. The level of entitlement on display is well beyond anything we saw in the old days. Devs can't design anything in these games that creates a have and have not environment. "It's not fair..."
This is why I feel as I do. These folks rule the day in this genre. They always get what they want.
The whiners did back in the day as well. Which is what prevented many greats games from actually moving forward. They had to spend too much time moving back to appease those who whined about anything that took some amount of devotion to achieve it..
I'd love to believe this case will be different, but nothing I've seen over the years leads me to believe that. THis is why i think it's best to just shoot this problem in the face from the get go, design what they know they have to, then move forward from there.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
All MMORPGs went NGE mode once WOW launched.
Established Companies always go where the big money is, in this case the big money was in the WOW fanbase, so all the companies that had already MMORPG running tried to adapt their older games to appeal the WOW player base and get a slice of that market.
It is normal behavior in business.
It is rare that Established Companies decide to make a niche product instead of making a product that appeals the mass market.
It is very risky and requires balls, it requires the Company a good understanding of the niche market they want to operate in.
But just because most Companies refuse to make products for the niche market, that doesn't mean that the niche market doesn't exist, and certainly it doesn't mean that a product designed for this market cannot be successful.
It's relevant because it was the last time it was done and it worked, and when the inverse has been done, it's done nothing but produce flops and games on F2P life support. That alone should lead to the conclusion that the best bet is sticking closer to the model that worked. That doesn't guarantee success, but it's certainly the best bet.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Make no mistake, suggesting the harshness of EQ should be dialed back is just another way of asking for VR to compromise and conform to the established norms.
Why didn't EQ1 and SOE stick to their 'harshness' guns in the face of newer mechanics? They were hemorrhaging customers to WoW / Blizzard. SOE recognized a losing cause.
The history of EQ1 suggests they changed because the market preferred the newer games with less 'harsh' conditions, not because they gave up on some 'niche' ideal. SOE updated their game to compete with the newer games, not because they gave up on their niche market. A competitor came along and took the customer base away from them.
Just because something used to be, doesn't mean it will always be so. Dinosaurs don't rule the Earth. The market that existed in 1999 that supported EQ1 has changed. It isn't the same anymore.
The only answer I've ever gotten from the 'Where are these people now?' question was from Brad in a post in another thread on this site. He suggested very vaguely that a good portion of his customer base was currently playing things like Call of Duty. If that is where Pantheon's future 25,000 subscriber base exists, I wish VR immense luck in taking that money from the Call of Duty franchise. A business that doesn't know where its customers are, is a business with a shaky plan to me.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Read it again in case you missed some bits.
But I will try to simplify the concept for you
EQ1 Fanbase = 400k
WOW Fanbase = 10 Millions
Which Fanbase do you think SoE (or any other company) would want to cater for?
That's why they made the NGE for SWG and tried to turn EQ and EQ2 in WOW clones, it's about adapting your products to appeal to a bigger market, nothing to do with Old School games being out of fashion.
Old School MMORPGs were a niche and they will always be a niche, a BIG niche but still a niche.
Generally Established Companies don't care for a niche market, not matter how big the size of the market is.
That's Indie Companies territory.
PS: And EQ1 lost most of its players not to WOW but mostly to EQ2, launching a remake of a MMORPG after only 5 years is one of the biggest mistake a Company can do.
1) I only started mining in EVE about 3 years back, did other things before then.
2) I did start in high sec, but I located in remote systems 10 plus jumps from any major market hub to avoid the other boxers (I ran six accts myself) and "the CODE"
3) I "permitted"people to mine in "my system." meaning anyone who annoyed me was dealt with by either
4) The "bumper car", a ship fitting I got from CODE using a cruiser hull and a large MWD which permitted me to knock a mining hull about 150 KM from the belt. Could even move an Orca a decent distance coming in at over 4000 m/sec.
5) Every now and then someone would threaten to report me to CCP saying bumping was illegal. I returned the favor and reported them to the CODE. Didn't much care as I ran my own scouts and figured if I couldn't mine a system, no one would mine it.
Drew a few war decs so after 6 months moved out to null sec for good.
Still stand by my point in EVE you definitely learn to do something else, like move to null sec if multi boxing jerks like me are spoiling the fun.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
What is your solution to the 1 guild to rule them all raiding system of EQ?
What is your solution to multi-boxers permacamping every decent item on every server?
What is your solution to loot systems that severely punish full groups, unless boxing?
Why are we limiting travel and UI/maps for the sake of difficulty? Isn't immersion the point?
Multi boxing is still legal, using programs like isBoxer isn't permitted.
I controlled all 6 of my accounts individually from a single laptop and screen.
Made for some very frantic resetting of mining lasers which is why I preferred Skiffs to Hulks/Macks, at least until last fall when they normalized the number of lasers for all hulls.
No one with a week old account should ever try mining as their first profession....way too boring, much better to mission run IMO.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
A small company beholden to no one can do the former, a company that is beholden to a greater entity which cares nothing about fandom and everything about market presence, not so much.... The latter is SOE, they weren't some company that could just ignore the money, the loss, especially within a genre that they previously dominated more or less.
Failing in market presence means fading revenue, that isn't something a company like Sony is going to deal with longterm, as we see in hindsight the outcome of that battle. Blizzard won SOE no longer exists.
You think it would be different if they just tried running their games as niche antiquated offerings? I don't... Their demise would have come sooner IMO as they would have fell into irrelevancy faster. Their actions at least showed a desire to compete. That's how they get funding.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Why? Because that's how markets work. It's only indies who are sitting around lapping up the interests that aren't covered. That's how every major entertainment industry works. Major funding operations essentially demand a competitive product. That's just how things are in the business world... So I don't see how you think I'm off in that analysis.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Not only small firms can be disruptors, big firms are getting in the game as well.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
We can all agree that hardcore guilds will be way ahead in terms of progression, gear, level and everything in general when compared to the other guilds on the server. Levelling will take months, this will create a nice big gap between the content hardcore guilds do and the content more casual players do, this gap in progression will stay about the same because no hard caps will prevent any guild of player from progressing. So casual guilds will almost never be on par with the progression of an Hardcore guild. I'm assuming that raids will range from 30-70 players so guilds will be huge but there will also be fewer of them. So for example "harcore guild 1" 3 months into the game reachs max level and starts clearing "raid tier 1" , 3-4 months after this "casual guild 2" Reach max level and starts clearing "raid tier 1" by this time "hardcore guild 1" will already be in "raid tier 3 or 4" and nothing from the first raid tier holds any value to them.
2 - Decent items will be in difficult dungeons.
Remember that his is not EQ, were dungeons are trivial if you have a full group, the good items will come from the difficult places and multiboxing to get them will certainly be near to impossible. Also, multiboxing software will not be allowed, if you wanna multibox you'll have to control 2.3.4,5 characters by yourself, so again remember this is not EQ and gameplay will be alot harder, not the spam 1-2, med heal, taunt and you're good. If a player can multibox 3 characters efficiently in a hard zone ill be impressed.
3 - How does the loot system punish the group, to my knowledge there will be no loot system, it will be Free for all, and the group decides who gets the loot.
4 - They're limiting travel to make the world feel like a world, if you wanna go from 1 end to another it will take time and effort, or cash and a player to port you, this also encourages healthy socialisation. Another reason for limited travel is their local auction house system, you can choose to carry an item from one end of the world to another and get extra profit, because the item will be rare around those parts, or you can sell it near the town you found it for less money.
UI/maps, so many people don't understand the bad effect gps maps and minimaps have on the game experience. I can guarantee you that 99% of players constantly look to their minimaps/worldmaps/zonemaps to see where they're going or want to go, it's the most effective way of doing it so why not? But if there's no easily accessible map or minimap, you'll look to the actual game, to your environment and surroundings, maybe you'll stop a ominous looking ruins or castle and decide to explore it. There's not easy way to explain this but if you've played without a minimap or a gps map you'll understand, the huge difference it makes, I can guarantee you that you will pay a lot more attention to the game, to where you're going and to the surrounding environment, it's a try it to believe it type of situation.
3 of your questions are related strongly to instancing and the fourth is subjective. In fact, I might argue all of them are subjective, since you're assuming they're essentially universal problems, independent of other variables.
What is your solution to the 1 guild to rule them all raiding system of EQ?
What is your solution to multi-boxers permacamping every decent item on every server?
What is your solution to loot systems that severely punish full groups, unless boxing?
Do instancing. Problem solved. Post complete... no, not for me it isn't.
There're so many things I should and could bring up, but I won't. I do agree "raid scheduling" and waiting lists for groups can be problematic if people are hitting walls. This is assuming there's not enough content. As for rolling for loot, whether it's problematic is more subjective. Your fourth question is subjective.
The common thread here is content contesting. Instancing is of course one of the easiest solutions, as well creating new servers or making new content via expansions. There may be other more comprehensive solutions, things like spawn management, looting or raid limitations. Diablo 2 isn't a great example, but it managed content consumption by increasing the power of monsters as more players joined. This enabled a server to be equally playable by a soloer or by 8 players.
Multi-boxing is similar and different. Like soloers, groupers and raiders, it consumes content. It's different in that it gives a single player the power of a group to consume content. Thus, it may require a different resolution. For example, many servers limit multi-boxing with ip checking, subscription requirements and checking for 3rd party programs ofteb used to manage alts. It's hard to hide those.
Why are we limiting travel and UI/maps for the sake of difficulty? Isn't immersion the point?
Man, I don't evne want to go here, that's how strongly I disagree with you. Suffice to say, I hate GPS maps and in-game radars and travel being too easy or uncreative. In 2012 i started playing Wurm Online. It had corpse runs, no in-game map, no in-game radar and a plethora of other things you'd probably condemn, but I enjoyed the f*** out of it. I had the best time I think I'e ever had in any MMO.
I certainly agree though that there has been an influx of players from older MMORPGs to WoW.
But that's pretty normal.
Firstly it was a new game, and people always want to try the new shiny thing, this happens always when a new game comes out.
Secondly WoW was a Masterpiece, let's not kid ourselves, WoW is one of a kind.
Thirdly WoW was a breath of fresh air at that time when most MMORPGs were pretty much similar to each other, and most player were burned out and needed a break from them, and WoW was the perfect game to play as it was the one who stood out.
My point is.
If those games would have stuck with their guns and waited until the novelty of WoW wore off, many old players would have come back, but also some of the new WoW players would have tried and maybe liked those games once they got burned out by WoW.
Now if you get bored of WoW you don't really have an alternative as the majority of existing MMORPG are more or less WoW copies, including the older games like EQ and EQ2, which were modified to appeal WoW fanbase.
Today if someone wants to have a true Old School experience they can't have it (unless they play on Private Servers), because Companies don't want to invest in a niche (not dead) market.
Do you think it is fair on us?
Players left EQ1 in equal numbers for EQ2 and WoW, at least in my experience. Companies did not see the original EQ1 marketplace as alive and doing well. SOE moved to compete in the market, and adapted many of the competitor's features. Failure to do that would probably have lead to a much earlier demise for SOE, and we wouldn't have almost 20 years of history with EQ1.
'Sticking to their guns' and hoping the shine will wear off the competitor is not a winning business solution. It's just nonsense.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Shame we don't have the counter proof.
Ok, let me pull stuff out of my ass as well.
I believe that if SoE kept the old mechanics EQ would have been even more popular than it was.
There, you have it, my guess is as good as yours.
EVE did it and it did pretty well.
Unfortunately that's the only MMORPG that had the balls to stay truthful to itself.
We really can't tell what could have happened if EQ would have kept ts original core design, nobody really can, unfortunately.
But business teach us that niche market needs to be serviced too, and the Old School market has been completely vacant for more than 10 years now.
So logic might suggest that EQ might have done even better than it did if it would have kept catering for its original market rather than moving to the crowded WoW market.
What most of you guys don't get is that in Gaming, like every other branch of the Entartainment business, there is always something for everyone, and almost everything works if it's done properly.
The MMORPG market though seems to escape this unwritten law for some reasons.
Apparently if a game stray too far away from the WoW blueprint suddenly it becomes not viable.
I call this ignorance, I believe that the MMORPG industry should follow the rest of the Entartainment business and try to cater for all of its branches, not just the most popular like it has been for the last 13 years.