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Hero's Journey E3 Video
Harelin
Member UncommonPosts: 409
Yep, an actual video. Time to put some visuals to all the E3 reviews you've been reading... includes the rocks falling on the group of mobs, character creation, and so forth.
It's in English, even though the site I've linked to below is German.
http://www.onlinewelten.com/include.php?path=content/download.php&contentid=3795
Comments
Looking great so far. I wish they would have left some parts in...if you listen to the audio track, some explanations were left out, like if their would be player owned buildings and to what extent the public hunting zones will extend.
Wow really nice. The gameplay may still be a bit buggy but the graphics, especially the enviroments, are quite impressive. The physics are really nice too, those rocks looked pretty painful
We do plan player owned property. What isn't decided on is the exact form it'll take. But, keep in mind, we invented this (see GemStone III), so like everything else in HJ, we'll be making it very cool. Ideas are, as always with us, eagerly welcomed!
Hero's Journey uses instances for quests (others call them missions). But there will be plenty-o common space to run around in and hunt. The very-cool-thing is that we'll be adding more space all the time. And I mean... ALL THE TIME. The key to Hero's Journey is that it is built around an extremely powerful toolset that is exposed to our GameMaster teams. They build the world. And keep building it. Once we launch, that doesn't change... the world just keeps getting bigger and more detailed. And features flow in constantly. Again, see GemStone III, DragonRealms, etc. for examples of how we have mastered this craft.
Hero's Journey is bringing what we've done in our text based games to the world of graphical MMORPGs. It is really a whole ball game... as everyone who was it at E3 can attest.
-- David
Good to hear straight from someone who really knows! OK, so player housing is in...somehow. Might I suggest player owned cities ala Star Wars Galaxies? They have a limit of property (10 units) that a player may own at one time as well as having to pay upkeep on said property. The only way to make a true city and not just a collection of buildings is by having a Politican (which is a character class). I have to say that, despite any other shortcomings people may see in SWG, they have the player owned building thing down REALLY well. Thanks for listening!
The easiest way to think about it is where you will spend most of your time. And that depends on what you want to do as a player. If you like, you could (in theory) just hang out in the common areas and ignore the instanced quests (though I wouldn't recommend it!). The common areas will be zoned, and there will be plenty of it.
GMs will always be adding more quest areas and common area space. In fact, there is really no difference between a common area and an instanced area as far as how the GMs work (they just mark it as such). They have the same characteristics in all other ways.
There are four cities planned to start, and a bunch of smaller villiages. But that just means what we have planned now. GMs will be creating more all the time. These will just sorta "appear" when they are released.
I realize that how others have done instanced parts of their MMORPGs may have left you with a bad taste, but I think once you experience what we are doing you will be much happier with the concept. We're doing this because we are going to take advantage of what segregating players (for the duration of a quest) can do for the level of detail and depth of game play elements.
-- David
Agent_X7 AKA J Star
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Notice: The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com or its management.
First of all, thx for answering my question. My problem was/is with instancing that I am cut off from other players. Maybe I am in the minority, but sometimes I like it when I just find another player let say ina dungeon or ina zone and we team up to kill the dungeon boss, etc or if it is a pvp game then kill eachother if we are in a territory that allows it. I know solo content is important and most ppl moan about it a lot(EQ2), but this is a mmo game for crying out loud. I am playing the game to play with or aginst other human beings and discover new wonders in the game. I hope instanced wont kill the "feel" of the game. I know GW is not the same type of game but the instanced world really put me down. I really enjoyed GW's world during beta, but the instanced world just put me off. To summ it up, I think my problem with instanced zones is that I am cut off from the rest of the players and I am on my own little world and for some odd reason it just doesnt feel that great. I like it when I see other players wave at me or in worse case shoot at me:(, etc but that is the interaction I enjoy seeing in a mmo game.
Is this a pve or pvp game? From the vid and the info I have I assume this is a pve game. Are there any info on that?
Will there be live event with GMs like in Wish? Probably that was the only game where they had such thing and that was actually a real live event and was enjoyable. Will GMs "just" build the world and create quests?
On Instancing: We're taking steps in our design and implementation to prevent people in instances from feeling as cut off as they do in other games, but regardless of that ... I think an important thing to realize here is that if you don't ever want to enter an instance in Hero's Journey, you won't HAVE to. There will be plenty of Common Areas for you to hunt in and advance through. There will be some content that is only possible, however, in instances.
On PvP: There will be PvP in Hero's Journey.
On Live Events: Simutronics has a long history of live events in our games. We think we do it best, and we will continue that tradition in Hero's Journey. So yes, you will see live GameMaster run events. That will be one of many responsibilities our GameMasters have.
Its great to see so much involvement in the community from you guys (Simutronics). Most Devs are never this vocal outside of their games community forums, ill just say you guys seem to be doing an awsome job so far, cant wait for it! (Also, that was a really cool part in the demo when the Oleofische rose out of the trees, will we be able to ride one of those things?)
One more thing, when the player shot the fireball at the rockpile, how did he do that? Did the rockpile appear as a target that he simply targeted and then used the spell, or are you able to manually aim where you want to fire the spell?
That video was awesome. I can't wait! The great support you guys show in your MUDs is starting to become apparent in your PR about HJ, and I am so happy about that. Keep up the awesome work Simu!
We like being involved. We're gamers and like to talk about our game. Most importantly, we like to hear you talk about our game.
As for the Oleofische, he (she/it?) didn't really rise out of the trees. He came sailing over them. He's a bit too large to be flying down below the treetops. I'd estimate him around blue whale size? Maybe bigger.
As for the rockpile...that spell was actually the helix spell you might catch being fired off in other places. I haven't watched the video of that demo run too closely, but there may be another instance of it being fired at a living target. The after effect is a large Triumverate symbol, so look for that.
It's a targeted spell, and the rocks were targetable. So click on the rocks and you get a pretty indicator that you have it selected (since the other guy targeted it, you didn't see that). Then he fires off that spell.
By the way, in that video, I was the guy she met up with in town who was dressed in blue, Silas. They ran the demo at E3 in LA with clients connecting to our server here at the office. So we got to play extras and be at E3, albeit in the least physical sense. <g>
Skippy
Thanks for the video link! Impressive.. most impressive.
I hope Simu posts a high quality version of their own fairly soon (Hint! Hint!)
Navarre
Former and Future Paladin of Elanthia
So, I've been away from the forums for a while, guess I missed a bit.
Nice video, guys. The AoE spell interface looks very promising, good job to whoever designed and implemented that.
I also really like the direction you're taking with alternate paths for instanced quests - it gives a real reason to have instances.
I'd like to hear more about PvP, if you don't mind.
Will we be seeing areas of PvP, or a PvP toggle?
Arenas? With spectator locations?
Will a FFA area be in the game? Unplanned PvP is the most exciting kind. I realize that it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it really relieves the tedium that most games suffer from at the high-end.
What about zones, as seen in other games? An area, pathway, pass, gate, etc., where you disappear from one zone and reappear in another, creating a sort of chokepoint? This type of world structure makes it difficult to do zoned PvP properly.
Sorry if I brought up a question already covered, I've been out of touch for a while.
-----------------------------
Listen Asmodeeus, seven years ago, Ultima Online didn't even have those pathetic "quests" that you refer to or those "professions" of ninja, samurai, necromancer, and paladin. Nor did it have any of the neon crap, or bug mounts. It didn't even have any "combat moves." You turned on attack and jousted with simplistic swings. It was a better game then. if you can't guess why then just uninstall the thing and move along. - Crabby
They are looking at rule specific servers, ie, PVP, Perm Death, etc, for those who want a specifc type of play.
Not sure how many will be supported, but its nice they are going to.
Explorer 73% Achiever 53% Socializer 53% Killer 20%
I heard about this project several months back (hell could be a year or more) with the main selling point being that it was to be an RP'ers dream. I'm not sure if that would still be said, but it definitely seems as much.
From talking to several people post EQ2, WoW, Guild Wars, Ryzom etc about the resounding factors that are still missing in the MMO environment, one of the loudest seems to be immersion. The concept of 'why am I logging in today? Just to kill 198 mobs to make the other 50% of this level? To farm for some better loot? etc' The ol' 'What's my motivation?' concept. We are all roleplayers/actors/inhabitants so it rings true as much in the gaming environment as it does in acting on the screen/stage, I think. If you are they way inclined.
Which leads me to ask, especially with such an amazing Dev interactivity on these boards (do you realise how amazing that really is!!!), what will be my motivation for logging in each day within HJ? What are the steps being taken to eliminate grind and monotony? And on that, reading about the fun things like making rock falls to kill mobs etc, how much of the game and questing environment will actually be linear? Aka Guild Wars, Dungeon Seige... hell.. most MMOs and RPGs really..
I know, for example, with Guild Wars you can literally say 'Oh, hold up heading around this corner. When I was here with my Ranger last week 5 nasty mobs came out of the ground and wiped us,' and sure enough those same mobs will spawn (when triggered...). Thus, will it be a case of 'I did this quest with another of my characters, we just need to trigger x, then activate y, kill z and kill the boss'..? Or do you plan there to be more depth somehow? A task I honestly do NOT think is even remotely beyond you.
Therefore, will HJ be more Morrowind than WoW? *grins*
Erg... so rambling aside, I guess what I am trying to get at is this (in the hope of a Dev response *grins*);
In essence HJ seems to be a fully interactive world, with adaptable skills, varying types of combat, amazing clothing and avatar customisation etc etc. But from looking at the E3 gameplay vid, which visually looks amazing (and the 'draw where you spell lands' thing, omg!! =D), the quest we were walked through had a strong sense of being very linear (read: all MMOs). I'm just curious, was that due to the E3 demonstration, or is there indeed a lot of pathing? I'm just very, very interested to see how free-form our interactivity in the world will be.
After the amazingly bland vid of D&L, I am looking elsewhere for the coming MMO God of Free-form Gaming. Will it be Hero's Journey?
(Appologies for the long rambling nature of this post. I am just starting to see HJ as being the light at the end of a long tunnel of MMO frustration is all
"(The) Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude." - George W Bush.
Oh. My. God.
Heya MisfitZ, just thought I would throw in this bit of info from the RPG Vault interview:
"David Whatley: Hero's Journey is heavily weighted towards cooperative play; however, we plan to have PvP play in the game as well. The exact nature of this is still being decided, and because we can create multiple versions of the world with different rules easily, we can have unique versions to cover just about everyone's tastes. The thing to keep in mind is that when we design something like PvP, we do so with exceeding care. It has to not just be "in there"; it has to be balanced, interesting and fun. We'll talk more about PvP plans as we get closer."
"(The) Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude." - George W Bush.
Oh. My. God.
>What are the steps being taken to eliminate grind and monotony?<
Grind and monotony are the dark side of the hunt cycle. The hunt cycle works ... that's why it's a part of almost every game. But when you don't give it thought and care, you end up with a feeling of repetition. (Grind.) People are very goal oriented. If you provide 100 levels, most will do everything in their power to reach the end with as much efficiency as possible. No matter how much they want to enjoy the journey or stop and smell the roses, they just can't resist. So it's the game designer's responsibility to make the journey so compelling that people do want to stop and enjoy it. That is our intention.
The biggest problem with most missions/quests out there today are that the goals are so specific, that they do not require thought and personal investment. "Bring me 10 orc pelts," doesn't leave you a lot of alternatives. But, if instead, your goal is more broad, such as "stop the orcs any way you can" then you've opened up a wide range of alternatives to get you from your mission start to the mission conclusion. The choices that you make along the path may be right, wrong or anything in between. What is the best way for you to obtain your goal? You need to decide that. And by simply making that choice, you're investing yourself a little more in your adventure.
Of course, the fact that your choices will not be the same as someone else's choice is what makes our Journey system work. Because it's those choices which set in motion future events that your character experiences. And the combination of these choices and events, as well as their order ... is what builds your character's personal storyline.
>the quest we were walked through had a strong sense of being very linear <
One thing we did manage to demonstrate is that we want to provide multiple solutions to problems -- which, in and of itself, reduces some of feel of a linear quest. But there is more that we didn't show because we had to fit a lot of ideas into 20 minutes for that demo.
Our original spec for the sample Quest included multiple branches for the quest. However, we ended up cutting that because, given that the demo was by appointment only, it was not likely that people would get to experience the variences that a branching quest can provide.
Our quests are also somewhat dynamic. There are multiple maps for each quest and plot points can be swapped out as well. So, if you choose, you can run the same quest with different experiences each time.
Except for some quests that run in a story arc, our quests can be run at any time and at any level. So we expect people to take the quests in different orders. In fact, our Journey System (a system which basically generates each hero's personal "story") takes advantage of the fact.
hehehe wild!
An official response in like, 3 hours? That is just amazing and has me sold on HJ for the Dev support alone. Way to run a company you guys, amazing
Melissa, all you have said about the quests fills me with a lot of excitement. The general goals you are aiming for, the wide open possiblities, will make HJ truly unique. Hell, even giving us TWO ways to do one quest would be unique *grins*.
Well seeing I have your ear, what else...
What of crafting? I have yet to check your official forum etc for info on this. Being a fan of crafting, I was interested in EQ2's indepth system, but am honestly shocked that there is no variation in products. A shiny white sword is the same as any other shiny white sword made. Or are you going for a loot only approach?
Gah so many things I could ask, but I'll just keep looking around.
Any chance you can release another gameplay vid sometime soon though? =D I get all excited just watching the E3 demo again.. and again
hehe.
Again, thankyou for the response
"(The) Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude." - George W Bush.
Oh. My. God.
To the Simutronics folks:
I have to say that after absorbing all of the E3 coverage, and reading your comments and responses on these forums (very cool, by the way), that I am SO ready to jump into Hero's Journey. Pretty much every feature in the game is exactly what I am looking for in an MMO right now (too bad HJ is still a ways off).
A couple of questions: First, how do you think HJ will compare graphics-wise to the games that will be coming out around the same time frame (ie next year)? I watched the E3 demo video, and well, video quality is always blurry with stuff like that, but I got the impression still that the graphics looked pretty darn good
. Just curious as to what you guys think..
Second, will HJ cater to the roleplaying crowd more than the current crop of games? From what I've read, my gut tells me yes, but I have to remain skeptical on this one a bit
. So many games, even those that have dedicated RP servers, have a sorry RP communtity simply because the basic mechanics of the game fly in the face of good roleplaying.
Well, that's it for now
. Thanks again you guys for your participation on these boards.
Journey System eh? Tell me more! I'll beg! I'm not kidding!
Wow sounds great!
Im sure I dont have to ask, judging from all the other options you included, will there be a fat/skinny slider as well? The only characters youve shown so far all have an athletic build, please say there will be a weight slider!
Let me say that I loved how that mission looked and played out all things considered and I'll trust you guys on that a mission can have several paths rather than the linear one shown
My main worry, as I posted in previous threads, is that combat itself won't be any different from other games. I saw the video, and other than the little flip special at the end, combat pretty much consisted of the guy doing the same attack/lunch/flip animation over and over. What is going to be done to keep the fighter active beyond wack'a'mole with his specials as they refresh, and occasional the co-op special with a friend or two? Are there going to be advantages for flanking? additional bonuses for targetting parts of the body or linking different types of attacks: fient, leg slash, head slash, etc? Again, from the video it looks like the game divates little from EQ, WoW, AO, etc.
Magic is the other concern, linked to melee combat. I loved the drawing for the AOE spells (and am hoping that team damage will play a role, although I doubt it will). I assume that there are direct damage spells, so how will these be more exciting than just target and then press hotkey one?
I realize people want to know more about the quest dynamics, but I feel strongly that Simu has a good reputation for events and quests so I have faith in that (I remember Dragon Dice and the raids on towns for GS3) aspect of their business. I don't have faith in any company though in combat entertainment, and since a large part of this, and any mmo is combat...the dev's should devote a great deal to removing the hyponotic effects of auto-combat.