Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
The MMO.... Past vs. Present
Tibbz
Member UncommonPosts: 613
It has been some time since I have logged on, mainly because I was trying to "forget" about AoC so that I do not get my hopes up too high for the launch in March. I have heard rumors here and there about how the game will be from work, my wife (thats right I married a gammer... woot... lol), etc. etc. Simply put, I hope I am not disappointed again. The last generation, and it seems the current generation MMOs have been fairly weak IMO. It seems everyone is wanting "Soloable play and somthing easy to learn." Ok, lets back up, MMORPG, Mass Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. Now is it just me or does anyone else kinda miss the EQ, DAoC, EVEN FFXI games to where you NEEDED a group and game play was not button mashing. It seemed all the older mmos were based around the fact that they were multiplayer, mass multiplayer, and the need for a group was necissary as well as a need for good gear. I may just be rambling on like an old fart but the whole point of MMOs is that you have to have a solid online community, with strong guilds, groups, economy, and make it CHALLENGING!! All these new MMOs have been too easy (simply quest quest quest and get "uber" xp, items are easy, every char looks the same, and there is no unique character development beacuse game makers are afraid of making some people weaker than others. I really miss the times when character names and guilds were known to be strong. They played thier character well and the guild was highly organized; therefore they had better gear and were able to do harder kills and zones. Between going from CoV/CoH, EQ2, WoW, Vanguard, Tabula Rasa, LoTR, and such, I fear that the old MMO style has been lost forever. Is it so hard to ask for a game to be truly challenging, have unique HARD TO OBTAIN items, have characters develop they way the player wants them to and not make the game easy. Easy = many people will play at the beginning then within a year they all get bored of the "same ole thing." I still plan on playing AoC, and possibly WaR, but I fear the way both games have been going, we may just see somthing different once agian.
But hey all we can do is wait, drink some more beer and play another round or 2 of Diablo.
lol sorry for the rambling, I have just been out of the loop for some time and I hope to hear some good news about AoC Development!
Comments
There is certainly nothing out there that comes across from the point of view that AoC will be an easy game.
Right now we can't make that assumption for either way.
There was a recent Developer Diary (#04) can be seen here: http://www.gamespot.com/video/927504/6183430/
In this video the developers talk about Monsters and NPC's and A.I.
It certainly looks like you will need your friends in this game to explore and obtain the best items.
The "Need" that the A.I. with hopefully have as they mention will make the game challenging, going hand in hand with the mature market its aimed at.
just listen from 2m 30 onwards. Hope you enjoy and it might allievate any issues you have. Everything has a purpose, monsters could hunt other monsters, everything has a 'need' programmed in. Camps, spawns, everything acts differently, dynamic A.I. in relation to how you play the game
If you look at the AoC official forums, I think you'd be surprised to find how many people want the ability to solo up to lvl 80 if they want. Many of them say that they dont do that, but they want the ability to do that should they choose. Since that's the pattern with many releases of late that have plenty of subscriptions, I think that's the path that we'll start to see. Granted I dont expect to see people just soloing, but I do expect to see a fair amount of content geared in that direction.
The guild city I think is going to be a step though towards having groups of people who are interested in doing things together. While I dont know how many people in guild you'll have to have to build a guild city, and I dont know what resource type benefits your guild might gain, I suspect that this feature will encourage people to find those guilds, and be more active in them, in order to reap those benefits. Guilds of course will need them to repel the NPC hive that will form, and attack the player city.
If you expand that to PvP as well, I think the scale of the PvP will also demand people to get more involved in groups. I'm hoping that simple numbers wont always carry a fight, but that slightly smaller groups that play together, and work as a team can win as well.
None of these things are total answers, and who knows from a PvE point of view, while I agree that the "forced grouping mechanic" from the past is slowly disappearing, we're also seeing far larger numbers of people playing MMO's, and that being said, I suspect developers spending a AAA budget arent out to make a niche game that just doesnt appeal to the vast majority of players.
Either or...in some cases, it's make the best of it that you can, and others, it's find the games that enourage those mechanics at the very least.
Lot's of initial subscribers that get bored and quit is the best way to make money: short pay-back period and less upkeep.
Vanguard started out medium-slow in terms of leveling and grouping. It got a lot of flak for it, and the game has been getting easier and easier (I don't know, but I imagine you can level 2-3 times faster now).
It seems noone wants to group to level. They want to be "given" max level so they can raid.
Exhibit A: "level-based" mechanics are getting dogged. Seems like there's a desire to make mmo's more like fps's, where everyone is on an equal footing, more or less.
Exhibit B: AoC is going to be single player for the first several levels.
MMO or not, I still like the "single player" initial set up. It gives you time to learn the game without tons of other equally noobers trying to do all the same things at once, ESPECIALLY for launch. Well at least at first. Either way I think this will be my last attempt at an MMO (WAR/AOC), but I do have high hopes for the game. While I am convinced it will not be "easy" I am just hoping they dont have armor that all looks the same, and of course a higher need for goups.
I guess we shall see in March hehe.
Hello Tibbz,
I'll confirm your disappointments first but i'll confirm the wanted features that are in the game aswell.
the 'bad' news is yes you can solo all the way to level 80, thru questing but ofcourse in comparison the ones that require a team will offer a greater reward and AO had a very personal and complex progression/customization but it bit them in the arse since it had a to high learing curve, don't expect the same complexity here, hopefully enough to make you different from the other, they promissed enough diversity on that level let us hope they keep their word.
Visually i think this game will finally give you enough options to make yourself look different and don't be just another dude with the same face with the same body in a different armor suit, this is partially visible in demo videos of character creation.
But yes there will be hard to get items that require teams although so far the maximum people dungeon crawler teams is 24.
The economy is partially player and partially npc controlled, meaning you'll be able to buy some from vendors but the player made will out do that.
The end game is all about guilds, guilds and yep guilds. Therefor i'm happy there are no sides in this game as now politics can be done freely as you want on the server, you'll be able to build large guild cities that can open up markets and AH's just like big npc towns have, it's all about guild effort how far and succesfull you'll be.
Figthing over keeps(not to be mistaken with player cities although they are sort of the same) resource nodes to get the upper hand in the crafting market and even for the smaller but also dedicated guilds you'll have towers.
Although with no sides in a game you have one big risk that is that some 'carebears' infest a server and then build up an allience containing half of the population, the more choas the beter in such games. This is something noone can predict or even prevent completely.
I like your view on this and this actually puts my heart at ease. I must admit i love questing, but i dont like the 100 quests per village that are short and sweet. I like the long, almost epic (and extrememly hard) quests. Either way the end game PvP is probably the biggest seller for me.
Well it has been mentioned there are different quest series.
You'll have quests on regional level and local level and you have the destiny quest line that goes thru from level 1 to 80, a nice bonus is that most quests have a spoken dialog rather then a chunk of text.
So there will be long quest series but not sure if there will be long quests, they might be all woven together at some point ofcourse.
Funcom is know as a good storyteller company all there games are more or less proof of that, especially if i refer to the dreamfall series, so on level of story dept i really have no doubts, although the writer of the dreamfall series name escapes me is working on Funcom's next MMO 'The secret world'.
Here is the FTP that Funcom put up back in June that will give you at least an idea of the various armor and weapons that will be in the game.
Here is a video that goes a bit into it, although it does show even more of the armor models in the last minute or so.
I think each game has to have the ability to solo. Its just not reasonable to be able to port around a group all the time to o everything that each player needs. ONe needs to gain a level, another needs to forrage reagents, a third needs to finish a quest. Solo content is a neccesary evil. Soloing Xp to the max level, sure, but it should be substantally easier to do it with a group. In the end MMORPG players follow "the path of least resistance"
Torrential
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
While group play is very important to me, and the most fun part of MMO's, I reckon it might be difficult to group up all the time. And then instead of standing around waiting for a group you can go out and do stuff on your own. Thats a plus for me, especially after playing WoW for years.
In WoW it was often very difficult to get a group, and once you found one it was full of retards :<
I'm looking so much forward to Age of Conan, because I believe it will contain more mature players, or atleast more groupfriendly players to team up with, be it in a guild or PvP.