After reading over this again, and talking about it over that Hero's Hall forum, this needs to be looked at. I'm not sure how well it will work in practice. Some Professions get a rather crappy skill (like the Ranger I'm going to be) while others get skills that are well, mandatory for the players. And some of the them are too much like crafting (as in, you'll need to pay for it) to my liking. That and of course finding one that will do what you need, when you need it done. I'm not sure I like it much. I could be fun, but it could be a real pain in the ass.
Just a quick heads up. If you want to get the attention of us with questions, comments, or suggestions it's better to pose them over in the HJ forums on this site. I'm just now catching this thread, and it seems to be getting out of hand.
That being said. Other then world lore, monster lore, names, places, etc nothing is completely set in stone. Everything will get fleshed out more with testing, and even after that things may change. While I'm not involved on the programming end of these services, and as a result don't know the full details, I can safely say that they're not going to be done in any way that will be like how they've been handled in the past. "More fun, less tedium." Is our motto because we're trying very hard to break away from what traditionally constitutes what a MMO is.
An unfortunate side effect of not telling you everything is that there's a lot of speculation and concern. We're tight lipped about a lot of things because we don't want to make it look like we're commited to something and it won't change. We also don't want to ruin the discovery of the new things we're bringing to the playing field. A lot of thought and care goes into anything we come up with for HJ. Simu didn't spend 3 years creating their development engine just to bullrush into the game design.
Before I finish I'll address a couple things.
As far as the soling concerns I saw. We're building the game with soloing as the basis of gameplay. All quest instances are built with the ability to scale to the number participating in it as well as the level. (Some quests ofcourse will have a minimum level.) The common hunting areas will have set levels though, but a solo person will still be able to find stuff to hunt by themselves. The services will be perks not must haves.
To whoever it was who said a Necromancer/Fighter will be a gimp. You're in for a big surprise.
Sure it can be tough to find a cleric or healer or locksmith at the "dead" hours in GS or DR but I don't think that HJ will have that problem. I don't know what the peak is for players in either of those games now, but when I was playing GS I think it was maybe 1500-2000, maybe not, I can't remember. And the low point was probably 200-300. I expect those numbers to be higher in HJ. I think that Final Fantasy averages 3000 people per server at any given time. Average, not peak. So if HJ can average half that then there should always be plenty of healers, clerics and locksmiths around.
I don't agree with this at all:
1. Dead hours - Even during peek it's the same deal depending on where you are. When character was way off on the Islands, and I came back after a year to play some more, the majority of the players had moved to other areas. I spent 3 or more days on the island that used to be popular, during peek hours, waiting for healers, clerics, locksmiths, etc. During that time period, I saw only 3 other characters.
2. HJ having the numbers - Even with 5k characters logged in at a time, forcing interdependence is problematic. Look at EverQuest, StarWars Galaxies, and other games (the other responses to this I agree with and they go into some detail).
EverQuest- playing a 34th level cleric and I couldn't find groups even with 2 to 3 thousand people online
All games - lying dead in some dark dungeon waiting for help; sending tells to strangers in the hopes that they would be willing to help
The number of characters online has rarely made a difference in services being available in my experience. I had better luck on test servers with small communities than I ever did on live servers with huge numbers of players.
This can sometimes be mitigated by having decent guilds, but I'm too old to play the politics involved with these kinds of guilds.
Don't get me wrong - there were great moments I had with DragonRealms; there were times of absolute enjoyment. Most of these times were because I had a network of friends that I would play with and I had locksmith, cleric, and empath friends that were always on hand. When those went away, so did the enjoyment. Each time I return which is about once a year for 2 months, I run into the same problems - nobody to play with, or if I play my old characters I can't find the locksmiths, clerics, or empaths when I need them (and it's during peek hours).
It's the same with EverQuest or any games that require interdependence. With a good guild with characters my level, it was fun. When everybody in the game is level 60 and your character is level 30, it's not so fun.
Comments
Just a quick heads up. If you want to get the attention of us with questions, comments, or suggestions it's better to pose them over in the HJ forums on this site. I'm just now catching this thread, and it seems to be getting out of hand.
That being said. Other then world lore, monster lore, names, places, etc nothing is completely set in stone. Everything will get fleshed out more with testing, and even after that things may change. While I'm not involved on the programming end of these services, and as a result don't know the full details, I can safely say that they're not going to be done in any way that will be like how they've been handled in the past. "More fun, less tedium." Is our motto because we're trying very hard to break away from what traditionally constitutes what a MMO is.
An unfortunate side effect of not telling you everything is that there's a lot of speculation and concern. We're tight lipped about a lot of things because we don't want to make it look like we're commited to something and it won't change. We also don't want to ruin the discovery of the new things we're bringing to the playing field. A lot of thought and care goes into anything we come up with for HJ. Simu didn't spend 3 years creating their development engine just to bullrush into the game design.
Before I finish I'll address a couple things.
As far as the soling concerns I saw. We're building the game with soloing as the basis of gameplay. All quest instances are built with the ability to scale to the number participating in it as well as the level. (Some quests ofcourse will have a minimum level.) The common hunting areas will have set levels though, but a solo person will still be able to find stuff to hunt by themselves. The services will be perks not must haves.
To whoever it was who said a Necromancer/Fighter will be a gimp. You're in for a big surprise.
GM Illuminatis
World Builder
Hero's Journey
I don't agree with this at all:
1. Dead hours - Even during peek it's the same deal depending on where you are. When character was way off on the Islands, and I came back after a year to play some more, the majority of the players had moved to other areas. I spent 3 or more days on the island that used to be popular, during peek hours, waiting for healers, clerics, locksmiths, etc. During that time period, I saw only 3 other characters.
2. HJ having the numbers - Even with 5k characters logged in at a time, forcing interdependence is problematic. Look at EverQuest, StarWars Galaxies, and other games (the other responses to this I agree with and they go into some detail).
The number of characters online has rarely made a difference in services being available in my experience. I had better luck on test servers with small communities than I ever did on live servers with huge numbers of players.
This can sometimes be mitigated by having decent guilds, but I'm too old to play the politics involved with these kinds of guilds.
Don't get me wrong - there were great moments I had with DragonRealms; there were times of absolute enjoyment. Most of these times were because I had a network of friends that I would play with and I had locksmith, cleric, and empath friends that were always on hand. When those went away, so did the enjoyment. Each time I return which is about once a year for 2 months, I run into the same problems - nobody to play with, or if I play my old characters I can't find the locksmiths, clerics, or empaths when I need them (and it's during peek hours).
It's the same with EverQuest or any games that require interdependence. With a good guild with characters my level, it was fun. When everybody in the game is level 60 and your character is level 30, it's not so fun.