One problem with the raid content

[Paelos]

It's simply a matter of opinion. I think some things are better trinkets because they go with my playstyle, which is raiding. No, I don't really care about helping people get trinkets so they can pvp or solo because I have no interest in these things. They can find pvp guildees/friends who want to help them do these things. Let's just post all of the ST trinkets, and I'll point it out.

Priest trinket: +190 to spells and healing for 20s, 2 min cool - This is solid in a raid, and good in pvp. Good all around.
Warlock: Summons a free VW, 30 min cool - This has nothing to do with raiding, it's purely solo/pvp. Nice to have, but won't break the game.
Hunter: 150 attack power, 2% chance to hit for 20s, 2 min cool - Again, this could be used in both, but crit would be much better than hit.
Shaman: I'm alliance, who cares.
Warrior: Restores 9 health every 5 sec, str +75 for 1 min, 6 min cool - It's shit. Really, the health is stupid, and the strength buff you get off a Crusader proc makes more sense than taking up a lame trinket slot.
Mage: Restores 1 to 500 mana, increases next fire spell by 100, 3 min cool - I don't play a mage, I can't speak to how much mana this is at endgame, but the fact it's 1 to 500 means you're probably averaging 250, which doesn't seem like much at all.
Pally: 3% crit to spells and melee for 25 sec, 3 min cool - if this means heals, ok. Otherwise meh.
Rogues: I couldn't find this one.
Druid: This one either.

Anyway they are all use trinkets, and there are better things out there:

This for example drops off the Golem Lord in BRD.
The useful warrior trinket drops in DM.
Another nice warrior thing from BRD.
Here's a better hunter trinket, IMO from BRD.

And then all the book trinkets, etc. It really doesn't even matter that much, trinkets are cool, but it's not like missing your weapon or that helm you'll wear until getting an epic.

See the difference is that you are highly pvp oriented, and I am not at all. Therefore you would find value in things I simply don't. It's not that uncommon.

[Nija]

Compare a level 10 with maxxed skills to a level 30 with poorly developed skills.  The level 10 still has no chance.  This is the case in every mmog.  Skills are there to fine tune a player of a given level or possibly to even spread out players within a level.  Often this difference in skills within a level means less than having an extra level or two under one's belt.  This is the thrust of my issue.  I would argue that you can ignore skill levels if the disparity between character levels is high enough.  Skill levels play only a marginal role in distributing or differentiating players at a given character level.

I'll try to address the rest when I'm more awake.

Well, that's mostly true. Except for AC1 and AC2.

Here is a shot of my first alt in AC2 at level 28 ( I don't have a good shot of his current level in cap295, or any of the next few, but there are a few more shots of the fight, so just add or subtract numbers to it if you really care. Which nobody does.) killing a level 40 guy and a level 28 guy at the same time. The level 40 guy, at the time, was the toughest class to beat, feral intendant. I was a mage/defender and I had a level 45+ guy already, and I just knew more about it than the level 40 did. I had my buffs up, I knew how long my snare would last, and I knew which kind of attacks I could expect from him.

In AC1 you could do the same type of stuff.

[Nebu]

I think there are plenty of exceptions to the level > skill system, but the truth remains that the mass market doesn't want them.  AC1 was a very decent game and look at what happened to it.  Aspects were removed or simplified, the population base was never stellar, and we can all admit that the sequel (AC2) was a disaster.

What has WoW shown us:

1) Players want "DING! Grats."

2) Players want itemization. A decent number of players will do obscene things to have a 1% advantage over another player.

3) Players want to play solo until forced to group.

4) Players want lots of tools to make the gaming/quest experience easier (icons over NPC's heads, maps, etc.).

5) Players like linear progression with strict rules for encounters. (i.e. go to coordinates x, y and kill this foozle.  Return to me for a reward.)

This all seems to point toward: Easy access and power that scales with time.  I'd also dare to say that the mainstream desire to "feel heroic" translates more appropriately into easiy-to-win encounters.  This is my biggest problem with the direction that current mmogs have taken.  PvE just isn't challenging unless the player artificially creates a challenge for themself.  I want there to be more encounters with high failure rates that aren't based solely on the number of players present or having just the right class mix.  Publish a game where the player base loses as often as they win and I'll show you a niche product. 

I want more games like golf. 
 - It's always a challenge, even for the best players in the world.   
 - Even people that suck at it can love it.

[Nija]

I kinda disagree with that Nebu. I get what you're saying, and I see where you're coming from, but I think what WoW shows us is that if you actually polish a game and release it in a semi-complete state, you'll get subscribers.

I've watched or participated in launches since Meridian 59, and I think WoW's launch was the best. I say that even when my server was Archimonde, and it was down 4 days the first week as they moved it to a different colocation.

Saying that people want the ding grats and all that fluff is like saying that PVP games will never work because Shadowbane failed. PVP didn't kill SB, it was the unbalanced, buggy gameplay and the awful, awful, AWFUL client that would crash if you sneezed.

WoW was just a license that people knew with a client that worked, and on top of those two already rare things they actually created about 3 months worth of casual content to launch with. Nobody else has done that before.

Auto Assault, D&DO, and EQ2 haven't even considered those things, and 2 out of those 3 have to follow WoW. Yeah good luck with that AA and DDO, we'll see how well it works out for you.

[cevik]

No, I don't really care about helping people get trinkets so they can pvp or solo because I have no interest in these things.

Heh, so your definition of "friend" is "someone who can help me achieve my desired objective".. fine with me, but I'll refer you back to the very begining of this branch of the thread, and how it all got started:

If I can just say in all seriousness :  You either need to look up, or get, a new definition of the word 'friend'.

Followed by further clarification:

Um.

Seriously, you both have different ideas of 'friends' than I do.  I have 3 lvl 60's now and I still run through the lower 54-60 quests with my friends because, er, they are my friends.  Indeed, once you start to get epics and the like, it's even easier to help them out....

That's what friends do.  It's the very definition of friendship to help someone out even when there's nothing in it for you and it may even be something you don't particularly want to do.

As I say, either get a new definition of friends or just start saying 'acquaintances' or 'guildies' or 'fucking newbs'.


 

Followed by Calantus saying he wouldn't help his REAL LIFE BROTHER get these items because Calantus doesn't like the dungeon.  If you won't help your real life brother or a "friend" get a needed end game item for their class to thrive in a "different" playstyle than you, then I agree with Ironwood, you don't understand the meaning of the word friend..

Anyway they are all use trinkets, and there are better things out there:

Okay, I will repeat my question.. you do realize that trinkets can be swapped, right?  You do realize you can use the trinket, then swap it for another while it's on cooldown right?  In fact there are addons that will swap trinkets automatically for you based on "events" that you define..

[HaemishM]

WoW was just a license that people knew with a client that worked, and on top of those two already rare things they actually created about 3 months worth of casual content to launch with. Nobody else has done that before.

I disagree with what you said.

Even at release, and I hated the game at release, EQ2 had as much content as WoW did. We can dick around about the quality of said content all we want, but EQ2 had it. And as for server stability, EQ2 had a few weeks of absolute shitty service, but so did WoW. WoW just disguised it with fucking queues.

Really, WoW did a lot of things "right" but it wasn't demonstrably better at release than EQ2, and I say this having hated EQ2 at release and having played WoW at release. EQ2 had a lot of things that killed it head to head vs WoW (steep system requirements, lack of artistic style) but WoW's biggest selling point at first was that it was a Blizzard title, and had Blizzard frothtards evangelizing the game.

[Calantus]

Followed by Calantus saying he wouldn't help his REAL LIFE BROTHER get these items because Calantus doesn't like the dungeon.  If you won't help your real life brother or a "friend" get a needed end game item for their class to thrive in a "different" playstyle than you, then I agree with Ironwood, you don't understand the meaning of the word friend..

It works the other way too. I asked him the other day to do a BRD coffer run. He said no, and so I asked another tank in the guild. If I put some pressure on him he would have helped me, but then I'm forcing him to come to a run he doesn't want to do when I'm perfectly capable of finding someone else or going without. I guess I just see things from the opposite direction. You see helping a friend with whatever they ask is the good thing to do, I see respecting a friend's desire not to do that activity as more important. If you would drag a "friend" into an instance they hate for that marginally useful trinket, you don't understand the meaning of friend..

[El Gallo]

Really, WoW did a lot of things "right" but it wasn't demonstrably better at release than EQ2,

I disagree with what you said.  EQ2 was a steaming pile of ass that reeked of failure from every pore of its being on release day.  Classes barely implemented, broken systems everywhere, etc (look at how many times they've overhauled it since then).  It was nowhere close to being ready in any way.  I think you've been so blinded by the fact that the EQ2 team has converted that turd into a decent game over the past year of paid beta that you've forgotten the turd Smed pooped out two Novembers ago. 

That, or Schild has taken over your account.

[HaemishM]

Really, WoW did a lot of things "right" but it wasn't demonstrably better at release than EQ2,

I disagree with what you said.  EQ2 was a steaming pile of ass that reeked of failure from every pore of its being on release day.  Classes barely implemented, broken systems everywhere, etc (look at how many times they've overhauled it since then).  It was nowhere close to being ready in any way.  I think you've been so blinded by the fact that the EQ2 team has converted that turd into a decent game over the past year of paid beta that you've forgotten the turd Smed pooped out two Novembers ago. 

That, or Schild has taken over your account.

No, I remember that. I also look at how each class in WoW has gotten almost an entire patch devoted to them since release and think "WoW is not demonstrably better than EQ2." Its server stability was just as shitty, but hidden much better with queues which are inexcusable, but for some reason I found more bearable than server downtime even though they amount to the same goddamn thing.

What WoW did have was better client performance, a better quest system, and it didn't have that assy Mcassy "20 levels before you actually pick your class" bullshit.

So ok, maybe WoW was more fun at release. It was. But it wasn't more stable, it's gone through just as much revision, it's just been hidden better by being revision one class at a time (the DAoC method) than all classes at once.

[cevik]

It works the other way too. I asked him the other day to do a BRD coffer run. He said no, and so I asked another tank in the guild. If I put some pressure on him he would have helped me, but then I'm forcing him to come to a run he doesn't want to do when I'm perfectly capable of finding someone else or going without. I guess I just see things from the opposite direction. You see helping a friend with whatever they ask is the good thing to do, I see respecting a friend's desire not to do that activity as more important. If you would drag a "friend" into an instance they hate for that marginally useful trinket, you don't understand the meaning of friend..

Nah, I see the happy medium.  If there is something that is going to help someone end game I will help them in a heartbeat.. even if they are using it for some other endgame reason than what I need them for (that's just absurdly silly if they are your friend).  But if it's something that in 2 levels they will be throwing away I will tell them "look.. you really don't want that item, call me in 2 levels and I'll get you *this* item instead".. If they push me I'll go get it, but I'll expect them to understand they owe me one.. :)

I agree with you for the most part, I just think Paeleos's "I won't help anyone unless it's getting them an item that will directly help me" is stupid and selfish.. If my friend wants fire resist gear, even though I think raiding is stupid, I will help them get the gear.. He is after all, my friend.. :)

[Calantus]

Yea... I think Paelos was talking about new guys to the guild he doesn't know when he said that particular thing though.

[Paelos]

Exactly, my point was on guildees who ask for too much, not friends. "Friend" brings in a whole mishmash of weirdness and exceptions and tolerance depending on the type of friend you are talking about. Which is stupid really because this thread has hit semantics and those are the least fun arguments ever.

[Paelos]

I agree with you for the most part, I just think Paeleos's "I won't help anyone unless it's getting them an item that will directly help me" is stupid and selfish.. If my friend wants fire resist gear, even though I think raiding is stupid, I will help them get the gear.. He is after all, my friend.. :)

Never once did I say anything about them being my friends.

EDIT: Actually, I've stated that fact numerous times so far, and you seem to ignore it each time.

[Venkman]

EQ2 was a steaming pile of ass that reeked of failure from every pore of its being on release day

It was not that bad. It worked enough to keep the money flowing so they could make it the casual game they really thought they were making originally. WoW and GW proved what "casual" needs to be in order to truly attract a broader playbase. EQ2 turned out to be casual only for the genre veterans.

And WoW hasn't been peachy either. 14 months of playing it I think I accrued something like 3 1/2 weeks of free time, since they kept handing them out for downtimes. Then they redesigned all the classes with the talent specs, completely redesigned PvP and Honor Points before launching them both incomplete, and have circa 1999 SOE level of CSR, with circa 1997 forums.

But these comparisons are pointless anyway, since unless someone's lived both fulltime from day one, they're knowledge of the other is out of date. I'm sorry if the not-hating-on-SOE bothers you though.

What has WoW shown us:

What EQ showed us long ago. WoW sped it up.

And to your point about Levels, yes, Levels just raise the required skill level of the player with a new cap. But it still requires players fulfill those skill requirements, sometimes (though rarely), making a choice. Of course, in WoW, you could cap every skill your class can get, so it's not much of a choice. Meanwhile, in EQ1, you're choosing AAXPs and, for casting, spell specialization. Someone already cited AC1. There's also AO and SB. Exceptions and whatnot. Levels are required, but it's not all of it.

[Ironwood]

As disturbing as it is to agree with Calantus, I do on this one.

In an argument about friends.  If you don't want to be part of the bandwagon, don't jump on.  Or make a seperate post about 'raiding with guildies'.

[cevik]

Never once did I say anything about them being my friends.

EDIT: Actually, I've stated that fact numerous times so far, and you seem to ignore it each time.

EDIT:  Actually I keep pointing out that we are talking about friends, and you seem to ignore it each time.

[El Gallo]

EQ2 was a steaming pile of ass that reeked of failure from every pore of its being on release day

It was not that bad.

Obviously, I was engaging in some over-the-top hyperbole.  I think people know I do that a lot, and I was talking to Haemish, who can certainly relate.  Normally, I'd save such language for the likes of AC2 or SWG, but I was feeling a little frisky.

It worked enough to keep the money flowing so they could make it the casual game they really thought they were making originally.

"It limped around long enough for us to run a year of paid beta to actually make the core game not suck" is close to the opposite of WoW, which was the point I was making. which was only about the two games on release day.

And WoW hasn't been peachy either. 14 months of playing it I think I accrued something like 3 1/2 weeks of free time, since they kept handing them out for downtimes. Then they redesigned all the classes with the talent specs, completely redesigned PvP and Honor Points before launching them both incomplete, and have circa 1999 SOE level of CSR, with circa 1997 forums.

Fidgeting with some talents is not the same thing as redesigning the world fundamentally (e.g. radically changing overland populations from elites to non elites) or core combat mechanics (the "play match the flashing icon so thief groin kick + cleric regenerate + shaman slow + warrior shield bash = fireballs fly out of the druid's ass and obliterate your enemies and also aggro 3 other linked groups" combo system was the core of EQ2's combat and has, as I understand it, is no longer central; the "play match the flashing icon and hope the forge doesn't kill you as you do 87 trillion subcombines to construct a dagger hilt" tradeskill system has been mostly scrapped by flushing extraneous steps; ditto group xp debt; solo xp rates; etc).  Those are all good changes, but they are changes from stuff that really sucked to stuff that doesn't suck.

Changing talents so druids heal 85% as efficiently as a priest instead of 75% as well is a significant change, but it's not in the same ballpark.  It's not something a first timer is even going to notice, whereas they surely will notice "wow, playing match-the-icon is fucking stupid" or "jesus, getting slaughtered by the groups of group mobs surrounding every solo mob is fucking stupid."  The basic nature of the world, class roles, advancement rates, and combat mechanics in WoW today are basically the same as on day 1.

Neither game had a PvP system on release day, so that's not relevant to the comparison of the games on release day.  WoW added PvE content and a PvP reward system and PvP content.  EQ2 added (lots more) PvE content (and PvP just with the most recent expansion?).  But that's all after release day.
 
Anyway, that stuff is comparatively minor compared to your next statement.  It's a tangent, because I'm just talking about release day, but the CSR is nowhere close.  First, in-game CSR (i.e. "can you reset this bugged NPC, replace my accidentally deleted character")  has been fine from my experience in both.  If you mean message board/PR type CSR, I can't believe you are seriously comparing WoWs CSR people to Abashi?  Abashi?  To Smed sucking Pat Robertson's cock and banning a player for (stupid) fanfic?  To Brad McQuaid logging into the game in ranger epic armor and directly lying to a player's face when asked if it's in game?  To "alchemy is working as intended" for months?  To watching players blow month after month on the Rathe Council or the Vex Thal key quest, never telling them that they were intentional cockblocks to hide the fact that the zones behind them weren't finished?  You've been coddled far, far too long, and I suggest you go re-read some Lum rants from the era.  WoW's PR-monkeys are worthless, but the sure as hell aren't Abashi-caliber.  Keep sending in your ten bucks, little man... (actually, I always thought that one [by Milo?] was funny and blown out of proportion).

these comparisons are pointless anyway, since unless someone's lived both fulltime from day one, they're knowledge of the other is out of date.

Eh?  You don't have to have lived in both (or even either) from day one to know which game was better on day one, which was the only point that I was making.  I was in both betas for some time, and I remember thinking WoW was ready for prime time long before it was released, and people everywhere chomping at the bit for release.  I also remember the schock/laughter on the EQ2 beta boards when they announced their release date, and I distinctly remember Smedley posting a "I know most of you don't think this game is ready, but we're good at this and it'll be way different on release day I promise" message on the beta boards a couple weeks before release.  It was AO's "seekret test client" v2.0.  I remember how many people had access to both betas, and we've all seen where most of those people went.

Now, if you want to compare the games as they stand here in February of 2006, you can make a colorable argument that EQ2 is as good or better than WoW.  I disagree with that conclusion (and it's beyond the scope of even this tangent of this thread) but it's a non-insane position to take.  In November of 2004, that position was insane.  Even the biggest WoW-hating EQ2 fanbois I know (Schild, a couple people on FoH, a few guys from my old EQ1 guild) think EQ2 was garbage on release day, but that their live team has re-made the game into something special, which is why I'm surprised to see anyone here steadfastly insist that the games were equal on release day.  They weren't, and I'd be shocked if the threads on this site from late-04 didn't back that view up overwhelmingly.

I'm sorry if the not-hating-on-SOE bothers you though.

You've been one of my favorite posters for a long time, but you aren't so important to me that I'm upset by your newfound adoration of Smedco (internet being serious business and all), so there's no need for you to apologize or lose any sleep over it.     I do think it's fun to hate on Smedco, at least for old time's sake, and will probably continue to do so.

Anyway, this was a longish rant, so feel free to pick a random sentence and call me out on it.  After all, that's what I did to Haemish to get this little clusterfuck of a tangent off the ground.  To the Den!

[HaemishM]

Read what I said about EQ2. I said nothing about the FUN of EQ2. EQ2 was monkey shit boring on release day, and in beta. It wasn't worth playing.

BUT...

As I said, it had just as much content as WoW on release day. It had about equal server stability. I say equal because EQ2 had about 48 hours of downtime soon after release, and WoW didn't, but WoW had an asston of 1000 people queues for a few weeks, and that amounts to the same thing, people couldn't play.

Ask a hunter how good and complete their class was on release day. It wasn't good or complete. How many class rewrite patches have they done? Warriors redone, hunters finished then redone, druids redone, etc. etc. etc.

Yes, WoW was much more FUN at release, but that isn't what I was talking about. EQ2 had just as much content to consume, and just as poor server performance. The fact that it was more fun at release (oh and was made by Blizzard and was Warcraft-based) led to it having more subscriptions.

EQ2's design was no worse than WoW's, but its implementation of that design was, which is why it wasn't fun.

[Ironwood]

?


I don't understand.

[HaemishM]

EQ2 at release = not fun
WOW at release = fun

EQ2's amount of content at release = WoW's amount of content at release (Not == in programmer terms)

EQ2's server stability at release = WoW's server stability at release (Not == in programmer terms)

[El Gallo]

Violent agreement gets me pretty hot.

[HaemishM]

You're hot blooded...

Yeah...

Check it and you'll see

[El Gallo]

I don't need no instructions to know how to ROCK!