f13.net

f13.net General Forums => World of Warcraft => Topic started by: Morfiend on October 11, 2004, 05:02:35 PM



Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: Morfiend on October 11, 2004, 05:02:35 PM
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/pvp/raid-article.shtml

*snip*
Quote
Raids have been a staple of high-end gameplay in massively multiplayer online RPGs for years. It will be no different for World of Warcraft, where the designers have plans for some incredibly challenging and rewarding raid content for players that approach or hit the maximum level cap of 60. Designer Jeffrey Kaplan, who designed hundreds of quests and is now heading up the world and raid design, shared his thoughts on designing and implementing raids, how non-instanced raids will benefit the entire server, and how raid looting will differ from normal looting.


Read up and comment. EQ2.5 or some thing new? You decide.


Title: Re: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: schild on October 11, 2004, 05:04:18 PM
Quote from: Morphiend
*snip snip*


Blizzard doing something original? Is that what you were saying? Don't be so delusional. They streamline. They don't innovate. I will beat this into you if I have to. Next time I'll use sides of beef.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: Kageru on October 11, 2004, 05:31:55 PM
The idea of raids opening access to new content (I assume for a limited time) is a clever reaction to the sleeper debacle on EQ. If raiders can provide a benefit to others they have the potential to become valued in the community. Whereas in EQ they were villains because their action removed content from the game.

The article doesn't really say much though, other than that there will be raid content, which is no surprise at all. The deep loot tables, maximum kill rate and low drops confirm that WoW will have a loot centric endgame.. which is no surprise either.

I was pleased to see they fixed the soulstone exploits this patch though, in quite a clever fashion.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: Riggswolfe on October 11, 2004, 05:40:59 PM
I'm not all that excited about raids simply because I don't have the time to devote to something like that anymore really.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: eldaec on October 11, 2004, 07:11:49 PM
Identifying that any spawn-timer-restricted non-instanced cooperative raid content should deliver realm wide benefits, instead of two drops to be shared between a gazillion people (or, more likely, grabbed by uber guilds) is a significant (though obvious) step forward.

Other than that, it mostly looks like EQ1.

Oh, and built in (rapid) loot lottoing is a good thing too.


Title: Re: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: Ardent on October 11, 2004, 11:21:54 PM
Quote from: schild
Blizzard doing something original? Is that what you were saying? Don't be so delusional. They streamline. They don't innovate.


I'd rather play a streamlined game than a game featuring "innovative" brain-melting grinding like SWG.


Title: Re: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: Mesozoic on October 12, 2004, 06:38:36 AM
Quote from: schild
Blizzard doing something original? Is that what you were saying? Don't be so delusional. They streamline. They don't innovate. I will beat this into you if I have to. Next time I'll use sides of beef.


You're going to ding WoW for the very presence of raids?  You moan about innovation while creaming your pants over EQ2?

Yeah, remind me never to care what you think.


Title: Re: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: schild on October 12, 2004, 07:06:07 AM
Quote from: Mesozoic
You're going to ding WoW for the very presence of raids?  You moan about innovation while creaming your pants over EQ2?

Yeah, remind me never to care what you think.


Once again, your ability to misread is infallible. I never 'creamed my pants' over EQ2. I was just far more excited about it as a game than I was WoW. And you know what? I was right to be. There are far better things to crack on Blizzard for than raids. I was cracking on Morphiend for starting a thread and being excited about vague information. But thanks for the input.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: Mesozoic on October 12, 2004, 08:06:05 AM
You seem oddly disapointed that Blizzard has not completely re-invented the genre.  At the same time, you seem fine with SOE making another PvE game set in the same world with many of the same key points.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: HaemishM on October 12, 2004, 08:29:04 AM
Wow, raids. Some of the streamlining aspects of the raid game seem interesting, especially the looting restrictions set by the raid leader. It does sound like EQ1.5, streamlined to remove some of the blatant stupidity.

But it's still raiding, which is a blatantly stupid thing in itself. And if there is someone on the raid who doesn't get loot because the loot table isn't deep enough, it hasn't streamlined enough. Not to mention that if the exterior raid bosses drop loot, unless it blows monkeys, there WILL be fights over who can kill it. And then fights over which guild gets to be first into the new raid zone.

If MMOG players can find anything trifling and stupid to argue about, they will.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: MrHat on October 12, 2004, 08:39:40 AM
Quote from: HaemishM

 Not to mention that if the exterior raid bosses drop loot, unless it blows monkeys, there WILL be fights over who can kill it. And then fights over which guild gets to be first into the new raid zone.


And that's why I'm playing on the PvP server for release.  If there's going to be fights, I at least want to be able to gut the other guy.  It's also why I'm playing WoW over EQ2 on release.  I have no doubts that EQ2 will be a deeper experience PvE wise, but PvE no matter how it's wrapped gets boring.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: Raven on October 12, 2004, 08:42:14 AM
Quote
Another exterior raid we have involves fighting multiple raid bosses in a zone-wide battle. When the battle finishes, a new raid zone will open up for the entire server. Everybody who is in the zone is going to want to take place in the battle to make the gates open. Even though only one person is going to be able to start the battle and complete the quest, everyone is going to want to help because their help will lead directly to the opening of this new raid zone.


Wouldn't the lag from this be unbearable. It sounds like potentially hundreds of players all in one zone, along with assorted boss mobs and big bads.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: Soukyan on October 12, 2004, 09:04:43 AM
Quote from: Raven
Quote
Another exterior raid we have involves fighting multiple raid bosses in a zone-wide battle. When the battle finishes, a new raid zone will open up for the entire server. Everybody who is in the zone is going to want to take place in the battle to make the gates open. Even though only one person is going to be able to start the battle and complete the quest, everyone is going to want to help because their help will lead directly to the opening of this new raid zone.


Wouldn't the lag from this be unbearable. It sounds like potentially hundreds of players all in one zone, along with assorted boss mobs and big bads.


Yes, but all told, that's only about 4,000 polygons in the WoW engine. Square arms for the win! ;)


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: Merusk on October 12, 2004, 09:13:28 AM
Quote from: HaemishM
Wow, raids. Some of the streamlining aspects of the raid game seem interesting, especially the looting restrictions set by the raid leader. It does sound like EQ1.5, streamlined to remove some of the blatant stupidity.

But it's still raiding, which is a blatantly stupid thing in itself. And if there is someone on the raid who doesn't get loot because the loot table isn't deep enough, it hasn't streamlined enough. Not to mention that if the exterior raid bosses drop loot, unless it blows monkeys, there WILL be fights over who can kill it. And then fights over which guild gets to be first into the new raid zone.

If MMOG players can find anything trifling and stupid to argue about, they will.


I agree on the 'boss mob' loot, it will definatly cause problems in terms of who gets to kill it next. (Unless the boss is just a block and loot inside is superior to the exterior boss.) But from reading it, I got the impression that the 'new raid zone' would be yet another instanced zone.  That's the whole "everyone benifits from uberzerg doing their thing" aspect.

As for the depth of loot tables: I wouldn't expect them to be as deep as you've suggested. 40 items from a single boss is too many, IMO.  Particularly since there will be more than one 'lewt dropper' in the zone, (cf, references to "Lieutenants"). But it should be more than the 4-5 drops EQ's bosses had.  "Farming" a raid for 50-60 kills to get the items you want gets old very very fast.  6-10 raids of the same boss to fully equip a guild (A GUILD, not a raid force, and figure 40-50% guild attendence on raids) would be pretty acceptable to me.  But, this is definatly an aspect that's going to be tailored to the upper % of the server, so it'll be "catass_2_crush" again. Yay.


Title: Re: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: Morfiend on October 12, 2004, 10:32:00 AM
Quote from: schild
Quote from: Morphiend
*snip snip*


Blizzard doing something original? Is that what you were saying? Don't be so delusional. They streamline. They don't innovate. I will beat this into you if I have to. Next time I'll use sides of beef.


No, thats not what I was saying. I was asking if you guys felt that the raid where some thing different from EQ, since I never got high enough in EQ to do raids.

One thing I did like the sound of, was the dragon raid they talked about, how there would be few monsters in the raid, and the big boss. I like this, cause it makes it quick to get to the dragon, and it wont be 5 hours out of my day.

Also, I know where the dragon instance is going in, I have been there before, really cool zone. It feels like a dragon ravaged it. I am excited about trying this.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: Mesozoic on October 12, 2004, 10:43:35 AM
We seem to be getting a lot of negativity stemming from the use of the "R" word.   The only real problem that I can see here is the pairing of raid loot with PvP, and the resulting feeling (well-founded or not) that raid loot is "mandatory" for a good showing in PvP.  A la Camelot and ToA.  

Aside from that, I don't see any inherent  problem with getting 20 or so people together to go kill something big.  If there are instanced raid zones, and you don't need 100 people, and at least some of them can be done in a few hours, and if (big if) the loot won't turn characters into demi-gods, then I'm fine with that.


Title: Re: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: Morfiend on October 12, 2004, 10:44:34 AM
Double Post for teh win.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: Rasix on October 12, 2004, 10:47:32 AM
Creative double post.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: Nebu on October 12, 2004, 10:50:11 AM
I think the problems with mmog raids stem from a few foundational points.  Let me give some thoughts:

1) Organization - getting together 40-60 people for any type of online activity is a logistics nightmare.  People needing potty breaks, LD's, and personal issues all make unification difficult.  Also ther fact that there will be a select few mouthbreathers that won't listen to instructions and cause a complete wipe can make the lengthy process even longer.

2) Elitism - Initially there will be a single power guild or alliance that will dominate each large scale encounter.  It soon degenerates into a pissing match and/or a scheduling conflict.  Calendars get created and now your gaming is set to a schedule.  For people with lives, this sucks.  I'm not going to even get into the whole bitching_about_loot nightmare.

3) Imbalance - If a major encounter drops high end items AND the game has a pvp component, it soon makes raiding necessary to be on level ground in pvp.  This means that casual players interested in pvp to any appreciable level must deal with 1 & 2 in order to have a fair shot at competitive pvp.  

4) Technical issues - Raids create lag.  If Blizzard has a way to overcome this, then they have revolutionized an aspect of online play.  I'm thinking that their low end graphics may be more amenable to this type of large scale encounter.  I'm a little leary though... especially from a company using BT for downloads.

I'll quit here... too many thoughts to process.

Edit: Credit to many of you, including Mesozoic, who have made similar comments here and in other threads.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: El Gallo on October 12, 2004, 11:50:10 AM
Quote from: Nebu


1) Organization -


This may sound harsh, but join a guild that doesn't suck.  If it takes people forever to get organized and your raid is full of assclowns who cause wipes, /guildremove is your friend.

Quote
2) Elitism - Initially there will be a single power guild or alliance that will dominate each large scale encounter.  It soon degenerates into a pissing match and/or a scheduling conflict.  Calendars get created and now your gaming is set to a schedule.


Most of this evaporates when all the good raid targets are instanced.  No need to schedule when Uberguild A gets Target I and so forth.

Quote
3) Imbalance - If a major encounter drops high end items AND the game has a pvp component, it soon makes raiding necessary to be on level ground in pvp.


 Yeah, this sucks, one of the many reasons I think it is a huge mistake to put PvP and PvE together in the same game.  They said that they are trying to minimize the effect of loot and levels on PvP, but there is a roughly 0% chance that will ever happen.

Quote
4) Technical issues - Raids create lag.  If Blizzard has a way to overcome this, then they have revolutionized an aspect of online play.


I have been on literally hundreds of EQ raids involving over 60 people and have only rarely experienced noticeable lag, usually .  Since WoW uses stick figure avatars and has raids in instanced zones aimed at ~30 or fewer participants, I don't think that will be too much of a problem.

On the BT comment, they have said about 37,000 times that you won't have to use BT after release.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: Nebu on October 12, 2004, 12:58:13 PM
Quote from: El Gallo
This may sound harsh, but join a guild that doesn't suck.  If it takes people forever to get organized and your raid is full of assclowns who cause wipes, /guildremove is your friend.


I have NEVER (I repeat nevah) been in a guild that didn't have at least a handfull of morons in it.  How they get in, I'll never know... someone's brother or RL friend usually does it.  Even if I did, I'm not sure it would be enough to have me play WoW at release.  It's entirely personal, but this game did nothing for me.  Nada.  

Quote from: El Gallo
Most of this evaporates when all the good raid targets are instanced.  No need to schedule when Uberguild A gets Target I and so forth.


Good point. I agree.  We'll see how it works.  

Quote from: El Gallo
Yeah, this sucks, one of the many reasons I think it is a huge mistake to put PvP and PvE together in the same game.  They said that they are trying to minimize the effect of loot and levels on PvP, but there is a roughly 0% chance that will ever happen.


I agree here too.  The only way that PvE and PvP should be in the same game is if the game is built upon a PvP foundation with PvE added to it.  This isn't the case with WoW and PvP will suffer for it.

Quote from: El Gallo
I have been on literally hundreds of EQ raids involving over 60 people and have only rarely experienced noticeable lag, usually .  Since WoW uses stick figure avatars and has raids in instanced zones aimed at ~30 or fewer participants, I don't think that will be too much of a problem.

On the BT comment, they have said about 37,000 times that you won't have to use BT after release.


Perhaps this was just my experience from early EQ play.  I also notice lag and ld's to be an issue in daoc raids as well.  

As for the BT comment, I understand that you "won't have to use it" but I wonder what the cost will be to those that don't?  How much slower will the non-BT means be?  Why not just one unified system?  I guess my points are hollow as I won't be playing, so I don't intend to pursue this.

EDIT: Sorry to SirBruce you El Gallo.  I agree with most of what you had to say and your information did help to clarify some issues.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: El Gallo on October 12, 2004, 01:39:02 PM
NP, I SB'd you first :)

Also, that hanging "usually" in my bit about lag was supposed to be "usually only when other guilds were raiding the same zone."  I have some bad memories of Temple of Veeshan and Plane of Fire with 200 people in them.  Very bad.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: HaemishM on October 12, 2004, 02:49:41 PM
Quote from: Nebu
Quote from: El Gallo
This may sound harsh, but join a guild that doesn't suck.  If it takes people forever to get organized and your raid is full of assclowns who cause wipes, /guildremove is your friend.


I have NEVER (I repeat nevah) been in a guild that didn't have at least a handfull of morons in it.  How they get in, I'll never know... someone's brother or RL friend usually does it.  Even if I did, I'm not sure it would be enough to have me play WoW at release.  It's entirely personal, but this game did nothing for me.  Nada.  


I will echo this sentiment, and add the statement "Even when you yourself are picking the members of the guild." Unless you know every person in REAL REALLY REAL LIFE (and even then), there is no insulation against assclownishness. The nicer you are as a person, the more you will attract assclowns.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: Kageru on October 12, 2004, 05:26:50 PM
Tradeskills and PvP both hang off the side of the PvE core. Partly as a reflection that they're not deep or varied enough to keep people paying and playing over the sort of durations a MMORPG wants. This seems to me like the correct call. That said avoiding excessive power inflation through itemisation is important for both PvP and PvE.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: Koyasha on October 12, 2004, 05:56:51 PM
Quote from: Raven
Quote
Another exterior raid we have involves fighting multiple raid bosses in a zone-wide battle. When the battle finishes, a new raid zone will open up for the entire server. Everybody who is in the zone is going to want to take place in the battle to make the gates open. Even though only one person is going to be able to start the battle and complete the quest, everyone is going to want to help because their help will lead directly to the opening of this new raid zone.


Wouldn't the lag from this be unbearable. It sounds like potentially hundreds of players all in one zone, along with assorted boss mobs and big bads.


It's not the lag I'd worry about.  Depends on how these raids work in WoW, but in EQ, if a random newbie walked past and sneezed at the wrong time, you got a wipe on some raids.  Naturally, I'm exaggerating, but the point is that the 'help' of people who don't follow orders = wipeout, in general.  If this is true in WoW, I'd hate to be doing raids where just anyone is allowed to come up and 'help'.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: Fargull on October 12, 2004, 06:30:38 PM
Quote from: HaemishM
The nicer you are as a person, the more you will attract assclowns.


Can you some that up in a single word Haemish?  I like it, kind of a rule of the MMORPG universe.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: schild on October 12, 2004, 06:34:37 PM
Why don't we just call it "The MacLennan Theory." I think that has a nice ring to it. Cuz it's true. I've stopped being nice to people who send me a message in game. If I don't know you or approach you, I just don't have time for you.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: Romp on October 12, 2004, 07:52:41 PM
my biggest worry about raids are that it's going to mean that being uber at PvE will actually be more important than being good at PvP when it comes to pvp.

As in, those guilds who catass and spend all their time raiding and getting uber items will be able to kickass at pvp because of their item advantage.  This is what happened in EQ when I played on Sullon Zek.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: Trippy on October 12, 2004, 10:37:34 PM
Quote from: Koyasha
It's not the lag I'd worry about.  Depends on how these raids work in WoW, but in EQ, if a random newbie walked past and sneezed at the wrong time, you got a wipe on some raids.  Naturally, I'm exaggerating, but the point is that the 'help' of people who don't follow orders = wipeout, in general.  If this is true in WoW, I'd hate to be doing raids where just anyone is allowed to come up and 'help'.

Oh yeah, nothing like trying to do a Fear break back in the good old days with a bunch of raid newbies tagging along trying to get their first pieces of Planes armor. No matter how much you told them to sit their butts down and not zone in until the word is given, inevitably some would jump through and immediately aggro multiple mobs and then lead them straight towards camp where of course everybody is OOM and near death from having barely survived the initial break.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: Trippy on October 12, 2004, 10:48:01 PM
Quote from: Romp
my biggest worry about raids are that it's going to mean that being uber at PvE will actually be more important than being good at PvP when it comes to pvp.

As in, those guilds who catass and spend all their time raiding and getting uber items will be able to kickass at pvp because of their item advantage.  This is what happened in EQ when I played on Sullon Zek.

PvPers who accumulate a high enough rank will have access to their own special vendors from which they can buy items. No idea if these items will match up to raid items, though.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: Romp on October 12, 2004, 10:59:05 PM
Yea, I'm guessing they won't be nearly as good.

Also, the points system they have is stupid, currently I believe all the points go to the person who gets the kill instead of being shared around the group.  So support classes are never going to get enough points to get the best items.  (I know that points wil also get shared amongst the whole team at the end of each day but I expect indivudual kills will be the only way to get a decent amount of points)


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: MrHat on October 12, 2004, 11:34:25 PM
Quote from: Romp
Yea, I'm guessing they won't be nearly as good.


Based on the EQ vets currently on the dev team, I would completely agree with you.  

Quote from: Romp

Also, the points system they have is stupid, currently I believe all the points go to the person who gets the kill instead of being shared around the group.  So support classes are never going to get enough points to get the best items.  (I know that points wil also get shared amongst the whole team at the end of each day but I expect indivudual kills will be the only way to get a decent amount of points)


I'm pretty sure we can't say anything until battlegrounds is finally put in.  Hopefully they hook this up before open beta as I'm extremely excited (only selling point thus far) for this.  I spent countless hours playing DotA and ToB map mods in WC3 which is essentially the game type that Battlegrounds is shooting for.  

What I hope for is that if one side defeats all the big battle instances (100 v 100) then a new vendor or raid dungeon or some shit opens up.  Same concept as the raid rewards, but you defeat real people instead.  It doesn't matter how cool or challenging a raid can be, nothing brings more excitement than skinning a few night elves.  Speaking of which, can you use the tradeskill 'skinning' on night elves?  That would be icing.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: Kageru on October 13, 2004, 12:03:39 AM
Seems smarter to me, since there's always less content than people would like, to cross the paths. So there'll be some items that are PvE only and some items that are PvP only. You can do well with either, but it would be best to have both.

The original comment said that PvP items would be primarily trophy items, rather than power items. Which is inline with a PvE main game and PvP as diversion. Of course until the items are known the degree can't be estimated.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: eldaec on October 13, 2004, 02:05:55 AM
Quote
I have been on literally hundreds of EQ raids involving over 60 people and have only rarely experienced noticeable lag, usually . Since WoW uses stick figure avatars and has raids in instanced zones aimed at ~30 or fewer participants, I don't think that will be too much of a problem.


Stick figures won't stop lag.

Unless the WoW server sends rendering commands direct to your video card?

30 or fewer people on a raid obviously would, but I get the impression that the 30 person thing only applies to instanced raids.

Quote
my biggest worry about raids are that it's going to mean that being uber at PvE will actually be more important than being good at PvP when it comes to pvp.


Level based pvping probably always means this.

The devs will always need to provide ever higher pve content, which makes you ever more powerful, or the pve players find they reach the 'end' and stop playing.  Whether this is raids or anything else, it's still going to have the same effect.

Diminishing returns rarely helps because it doesn't matter much if you get beaten in pvp by 90% or by 20%.  You're still just as dead.

DAoC gank groups have been living proof of this for 3 years. It doesn't matter what new content Mythic add, from the relatively innocuous Darkness Falls items, all the way up to the apparently overpowering ToA gear; they all led to the gank group community dominating the servers (more than usual) while everyone else caught up.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: HaemishM on October 13, 2004, 07:49:34 AM
Quote from: schild
Why don't we just call it "The MacLennan Theory." I think that has a nice ring to it. Cuz it's true. I've stopped being nice to people who send me a message in game. If I don't know you or approach you, I just don't have time for you.


I'm Haemish MacLennan, and I approve this message.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: El Gallo on October 13, 2004, 11:22:52 AM
I was using "lag" in the broader sense that it is often used by MMO players.  The biggest "lag" problem on most EQ raids was "graphics lag".  To satisfy the pedantic techies, I should have said that the low population cap and instancing will decrease lag, while the stickfigures decrease graphical hiccups or whataver terms pedantic techies use for the phenomenon that caused clerics in EQ raid guilds to set their clip plane to zero and stare at the floor while counting out their spot in the CH rotation.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: Soukyan on October 13, 2004, 11:28:28 AM
Quote from: El Gallo
I was using "lag" in the broader sense that it is often used by MMO players.  The biggest "lag" problem on most EQ raids was "graphics lag".  To satisfy the pedantic techies, I should have said that the low population cap and instancing will decrease lag, while the stickfigures decrease graphical hiccups or whataver terms pedantic techies use for the phenomenon that caused clerics in EQ raid guilds to set their clip plane to zero and stare at the floor while counting out their spot in the CH rotation.


The word you are looking for is framerate. Most "lag" problems occur when the PC hardware cannot render the graphics quickly enough resulting in a degraded framerate. Some game engine optimizations can help with framerate in the way of occlusion culling and lowered poly count, etc. but the game engine cannot overcome the limitations of player hardware.

Network latency between clients/servers certainly becomes an issue in large scale encounters as well because the servers need to be able to calculate and communicate exponentially better as the players involved increase. Network latency can cause rubberbanding and other "laggy" symptoms.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: Romp on October 13, 2004, 07:53:37 PM
Quote
Quote:
my biggest worry about raids are that it's going to mean that being uber at PvE will actually be more important than being good at PvP when it comes to pvp.


Level based pvping probably always means this.


not really, not in Shadowbane for example.  But when you have uber mobs that drop uber items and no looting in pvp then yes you will pretty much always get this.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: Trippy on October 13, 2004, 10:46:22 PM
EQ had both graphics lag like El Gallo mentioned and server lag where server updates were delayed big time. The problem with the old EQ UI (dunno if this is still true) is that when your framerate started to lag, your UI responsiveness lagged as well -- that's why you had to stare at the floor for things that required critical timing like casting in a CH rotation. The other problem was if you packed too many players too close together, the server would start lagging on its updates back to the client, meaning text messages, HP updates, etc. would all start to be delayed, sometimes by minutes. This was really noticable in places like ToV where somedays you would have 300+ people in that zone and where the break in spots for all three wings are close enough to each other that the server had to send updates of all characters to everybody else. Once the groups got further apart, the problem diminished.


Title: WoW Releases Raid Info
Post by: HaemishM on October 14, 2004, 07:46:44 AM
Not to mention that in EQ, up until Velious I think, there were no server-side filters on text messages. So, for instance, a player could turn off the display of text messages like "other people's hits and misses" but it was client-side: the client would still RECEIVE those messages, it just wouldn't display them. The server would still have to send out every one of those messages to every client applicable. So not only did you have the graphical framerate problems in raids, but your and the server's bandwidth was getting choked as well. Once server-side text filters were added, lag on raids went down an assload.

Any game which releases nowadays without server-side text filters is just crazy. DAoC had the same problem at release, I think. Shadowbane didn't add the server-side filters til late in the beta, I think, and it didn't help anyway, because the client was shitty, and the one-box "Big Iron" server solution didn't automagically work as well as they thought it would.