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[Column] EverQuest Next: Why EQN Could Be Huge for Community
BillMurphy
Former Managing EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 4,565
This week's Social Hub is focusing on the recently revealed EverQuest Next and why SOE's gamble could be a huge deal for MMO communities.
When EverQuest Next had its big reveal last week, during the presentation, my thoughts couldn't help turning toward the potential effects this could have for the in-game community. EverQuest and EverQuest II have solid communities with devoted players to this day, and it will be tough to follow in several ways. Yet some of what EQN sets out to do might mean some potentially awesome things for community building if they are successful.
Read on for the rest of Christina Gonzalez' The Social Hub: Why EQN Could Be Huge for Community.
Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
Comments
Great article. Im actually still on the fence about EQN. Theres just too much we dont know yet. So far I like the things Ive seen, and can look past graphics to see the features beneath them.
I think, EQN Landmark will probably do even more to bring communities together. Since its the actual world building tool, players and even whole guilds will come together to use larger plots of lands, linking them together, and competing in the contests to have their creations put into the actual game, EQN.
We finally have a real sandbox, and with the Voxel system, it really is "sand". Players can build just about anything, and not in the blocky 16-bit Minecraft style, but true, smooth, polished surfaces. I cant wait to see more about this, and get my hands on the building tools
Societies are built by bringing different people together who have different talents.
"I'm a Farmer."
"I'm a Soldier."
"I'm a Priest."
"Let's work together to make a better life for ourselves and our kin."
Distinction between player characters is what creates community in a MMORPG.
Combine that with content that requires different players who enjoy different play styles and fit a different role in the group is what builds a community.
"We need more healers, another tank, and a few DPS for a raid (or for our PvP squad.) Let's recruit new like-minded members who fill those roles."
The % of players that want to sit around towns working on their houses or RP'ing is quite small compared to the % that wants the above.
Guilds create community. Guilds need cooperative (and/or competitive) content and systems to survive.
Guild Wars 2 figured this out very quickly, and tried and is trying to add guild specific larger group content.
Interdependency between players with varying skill sets, combining their efforts to overcome challenges they could not surmount alone is like... the very soul of the MMORPG.
What GW2 is and what they seem to be making EQN into is not a MMORPG, it's more like a MSPOAG.
Massively Single Player Online Action Game.
No reason for grouping with lots of people, finding a larger group to join (guild) and no roles in that larger structure for a player to fill.
When everyone is the same, no one stands out. Players aren't given opportunity to showcase their skills and what makes them unique without being able to differentiate themselves from others, and without being able to own and maximize their chosen style of play into a specific role.
BadSpock, from what I have seen so far, the complexity of the multi-classing combined with loot choices seem to indicate that not everyone will in fact be the same. Just because everyone has the same potential does not mean that they will all be the same.
Didn't turn out too well for GW2, maybe EQN will do it better?
Based on what they've said, there will be no threat mechanics, and without threat, tanking will be about positioning and collision detection, unless there is no collision detection...
And without that, how does a healer stand in the back and heal? They don't.
ESO looks to be doing the same kind of thing, and based on their presentation Friday too - combat is just as much of a mess in a group setting as GW2.
Do you really have faith SOE is going to be able to pull off somehow what both Zenimax and Anet have failed (or appear to fail) to do?
I don't write them off without giving them the chance to succeed, that's for sure.
I am not saying they will pull it off, but the system itself does not promote "one size fits all" necessarily. At least not more than traditional restrictive class-systems.
Having played GW2, I have my worries too, don't get me wrong.
I think the game definitely has the possibility of a more diverse community than most have had. There are a lot of people that like to "build" ... and one of the things common in most virtual worlds... is that there are people who like to decorate (their character, home etc).
I liked the one example during the reveal where he mentioned.. if you made a tricked out tower that you could put it up for sale. Then if someone used your tower to make a castle you will get a portion of their sales (based on how much of your work was in their product). That opens up a door to an entire community of people...
I think the more doors that are open the better.... Allowing people with all kinds of different interests to have something they enjoy as a pursuit... well yes the potential is obviously there.. how it works out? We'll have to wait and see of course.
Killing dragons is my shit
Here is what happened in original Everquest.
They created a game that required you to group. They created mobs so that you were not as powerful as an equal leveled mob. They created a death penalty that caused loss of EXP and loss of time when you died. They had combat encounters where you could pull mobs, split mobs, use crowd control, tank mobs, and DPS mobs down as well as buffing and debuffing. Each class had certain things they brought to the group.
So you had to talk to other people in your group to figure out the strategy, and what to do when it went wrong which it frequently did.
That was the basis of the community. The reason why EQ had a great community was because it had to have a great community in order for your characters to advance.
If there is no classes, no leveling, no threat system or a combat system like Guild Wars 2....then there is NO reason for players to communicate with other players. And that is exactly what you have in Guild Wars 2. No one talks to anyone else because you do not have to.
If they are serious about building a game with a great community, you actually need a reason to talk to other people.
Whether you like what I have to say or not...its true. For this system to work, you need clan pvp vs pvp. For example, a siege system where clans take ownership...not faction...clans. That will get the community involved. Also, while I don't like crafting, they need an indepth crafting system and that will make people communicate as well.
Incognito
www.incognito-gaming.us
"You're either with us or against us"
every mmo that offer tools to players deserve +10
Best way build perfect game is give tools to players.
Wish WoW would give tools to make own server/world and be able edit every think, add new monsters,gears,full pvp loot etc etc...
Having played GW2, and them saying that they have also played GW2, I'm hoping that they understand what went wrong with that system and are ready to create something that fixes that because even Arenanet have begun to figure out what went wrong and are avidly beginning to apply fixes.
If you've played the Flame and Frost dungeon and the Secret of Southsun dungeon, you'll see some of these changes that really affect structure, coordination and team work.
This is not a game.
Another easy solution would be to introduce (non-stacking) group buffs.
"The chatter around the Internet after the reveal was decidedly mixed, with the stylized art seemingly the most contentious point."
You may actually want to read some chatter from the internet. The most contentious point is clearly the combat direction and lack of combat roles such as tank/heal/dps.
Exactly.
And the above ^ does not mean you can't have PLENTY of solo gameplay available in your game too.
The more devs have tried and are trying to change the MMORPG genre, the worse it is getting.
I love the idea of no static mob spawns/respawns, everything truly dynamic, a constantly shifting game space, but not at the expense of role-based party play, large cooperative and competitive group content, and community building through shared goals and player interdependency.
They are throwing the baby out with the bath water. Give us a voxel based, destructable world, with truly dynamic NPCs and Mobs, a world that remembers your place in it and allows you to interact with it in meaningful ways.
But don't take way my ability to carve out a unique niche for myself, and for me to band with other players who have chosen different niches to fill in order to accomplish greater things together.
"If you build it, they will come."
Give us difficult, party based group content that requires dedicated roles, and we'll build our characters to fit those roles.
Exactly This!
I'm not saying that Tank/Heal/Crowd Control/DPS roles are the only possible system for strategic combat and group play. I'm saying that they are proven and can still be improved upon.
Don't throw these things out because you think there is a better way when there is no successful alternative! Improve upon them. Most players do not believe this system is broken, but evidently abandoning these roles is some kind of Game Designer Hot Spot or Buzzword at the moment.
SWTOR took tanks and gave them the ability to "Guard" other players in PvP. They took the established roles and attempted to build upon them and make them valuable and diverse. This was smart. Let Guild Wars 2 be a lesson to you. Walking away from roles in combat does not build a successful game or community!
This is a common misconception borne from ignorance. Many people who only touched the surface of GW2 thought there was no diversity. People who actually played the game in large groups will be able to correct you. When you played in large groups (not 5 man dungeons), you needed people from every class with multiple builds and armor types to be successful.
A dagger/dagger elementalist was not the same as a staff elementalist. You needed a completely different build for both to be successful. It was the same for every class, every weapon type had a unique build, different roles required different armor stats, and even with just those 3 things to customize, you still had a uniqueness to you. 2 of the same class could be usinig 2 different weapons. Same class, same weapons could still be using different builds. Same class, same weapon, same talents, could be wearing different statted armor. There was choice, and in larger groups (WvW especially) you HAD to have those differences.
Now looking back at EQN, if you watched the videos, not just making baseless accusations, just because you are the same class as the guy next to you, doesnt mean you are the same. Two warriors can have completely different abilities/hotbars. They can be using completely different armor, which also effects their abilities differently. Those even lead to different roles. I can be a warrior built to repel mages, while you can be a warrior built to combat melee opponents. Maybe a third warrior is built specifically to deal with ranged, and has all gap closers. To make a statement about no diversity is pure ignorance.
As far as the need for large groups, they havent said whether there will be raids or not. We dont know what a group size is, and we have no information on PVP, world, instanced, or serverwide. So to assume anything in those areas is also ignorant.
As for aggro management. This is the one thing I can almost agree with you on. Yes they said there is no direct hate, and no "taunting". But they also said the mobs will know whats hurting them and seek to stop it. GW2 aggro was very random, still to this day I dont think people know for certain why a mob targets a player. Thats not what SOE is saying. If you are standing there, nuking away, dealing large damage, the mob is going to be mad at you specifically. This could mean, healers are still safe, since they arent doing damage. It could also be assumed you can control a mob by the damage you do. If I do too much, mob comes for me, so I stop all DPS, he could move on to the next target. It may not be direct hate control, but as long as the players know what makes aggro it can still be controlled. We can just as easily assume there will be a way to control it as we can there wont. They havent given those details out yet.
Personally, Im glad games are moving in this direction. Old school hate, like what trinity games give you is absurd. A tank stands in the corner and "taunts" and the mobs are supposed to just ignore all the DPS thats actually killing it. Meanwhile the healers stand in another corner, or behind everyone else, and can do their job completely unmolested. Seriously, whats wrong with you players who want to stand in one spot completely out of harms way. Why bother to play a game, if theres no challenge or danger? Seems to be, most of those arguments will be made by bad players who dont understand how to avoid damage, and therefore need to rely on better players to keep mobs off them. If thats the case, learn to play or try a different game. Im all for having everyone involved in a fight (and yes, I always play ranged caster DPS, so Im used to standing in the back and nuking from afar, safely standing next to my healers). It was absurd in the 90s, and its even more so now, 2 decades later.
Well, what remains to be seen is how this player created content is going to be used. If it's just for housing...meh. I don't see how that helps the community much since not all players give a crap about housing. I don't see MMORPGs as a glorified doll house or fantasy flavored SIMS game.
Either way, how does having the ability to pay cash in a GAME to buy content created by other players help anything? It's just another lame way for companies to make money (I'm sure SOE will take a cut of any player to player transaction).
IMO, no F2P MMO can ever really have a strong community. F2P is intended for high player churn and turnover, not for longevity. F2P has a lot of lower quality players (those attempting to not pay or care) and players just aren't invested and don't stick around consistently. It's a model for making money for companies, not for doing anything for players (many seem confused on this point and somehow still don't understand that corporations only care about money, not you). It's hard to even keep guilds strong and consistent in F2P where players just come and go randomly. Way less player investment and consistency in F2P.
The other thing that leads to strong community is grouping. The whole public quest thing where soloists can zerg together without ever speaking/typing a word does zero for developing relationsihps (and building community). Endless content is an awesome idea. Endless solo content...meh...does nothing for community.
Very little was actually revealed about EQN, IMO, but one thing that did stand out to me was that there was zero mention of "normal" group PvE. They did mention PvP. Oh yay. Griefer community rejoice.
I consider games like GW2 to be massively single player online games. Everything you do including grouping is solo (with grouping being a group of soloists sharing a chat channel and instance). It looks like TESO is going to be doing the same. There's a market for this, since there's lots of confused people who want to solo in online games, but to me, these types of games are not really MMORPGs.
I'm hoping EQN ends up being MMORPG and not a glorified single player game but the "reveal" didn't really reveal enough to really know what the game IS going to be. I'm leaning more towards it being more of a single player experience based on the dumbed down console-based gameplay, but I guess we'll see over the next year or two.
Premium MMORPGs do not feature built-in cheating via cash for gold pay 2 win. PLAY to win or don't play.
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
Plenty of diversity in GW2 is not the problem, it is what do you actually DO with all of those different builds?
Kill things in different ways. Provide the same buffs/debuffs as others, but in different ways.
WoW is not the best example anymore, as the game has been dramatically simplified from the "good old days" when small group content was hard.
Large group content in WoW is still complex, but not hard. It is memorizing dance steps. Fitting into patterns.
It used to be about how well you were able to play your class and chosen role. There was PLENTY of challenge and danger.
Managing aggro as a tank on multiple mobs was challenging. Pulling required knowledge, experience. Picking up adds, maintaining threat with all the DPS wailing away, tank switching, maximizing cooldowns, planning for damage spikes to utilize reduction tools.. etc.
Tanking had merit. It was a skill. Good players stood out.
Healing took focus, skill. Triage of targets, prioritizing your heals, managing your mana, cooldown use, preparing for and managing damage spikes, back in the day even downranking your spells to maximize mana usage.
Healing had merit. It was a skill. Good players stood out.
Being a DPS wasn't just about topping meters. It was about debuffs, using proper CC, pulling (at times), managing your threat, being reactive to adds, burn phases, managing your resources, avoiding taking damage, picking up heals if the healer when down, kiting mobs, locking down adds, and all this while maximizing your rotations to pump out as much damage as possible to beat enrage timers, and keeping yourself alive - as you can't DPS if you're dead.
DPS had merit. It was a skill. Good players stood out.
Don't take this away from the MMORPG genre.
Bring it back!