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Flaming Desert of Lost Subscriptions Announced (http://www.f13.net/index2.php?subaction=showfull&id=1115305613&archive=&start_from=&ucat=13&)!

CoH should be kicking themselves that they wont be able to claim this one.



Oh, yeah this one sounds like a good idea.  I can hear the cacophany of mindless voice emoting already, this might possibly replace the jumping in place for favorite stupidiot activity...

Wait what am I thinking?  They will just jump in place and spam voice emotes simultainiously.

Seems a bit fast. If I had not just cancelled my subscription in boycott of their online selling deal - I would be thinking about it based on these expansions. I'd start thinking..."More content I will likely never have time to see."

... that your monthly fee pays for."  Nothing like financing the catasses to make you think about leaving a game.

Their expansion schedual was stated early on in beta. They have since beta said they were aiming for 1 expansion pack and 1-2 adventure packs the first year and 2 expansions and 2-4 adventure packs per year thereafter. The only thing shocking would be a dev team actually keeping to a schedual they made that early in beta.


kaid

Oh as for voice emotes for players it was only a matter of time. WoW already has them although most either don't know they exist or just don't use them. Since eq2 has voice almost everywhere else this was only a matter of time.

Also as for upping the level to 60 that also was expected. They have laid out the framework to take players in eq up to level 200 so expect every expansion to increase levels by at least 10. So basically twice a year your level cap will rise which while maybe not fast enough for the ubers it plenty quick for just about everybody else.

kaid

No one uses this feature in WoW, at least no one I know.

I just threw up a little in my mouth.

Oh man, I need to get you a copy of Disgaea. It would make level 200 seem like an 8 hour cakewalk.

I do.  I'm almost always asked immediately after using them, "How'ed you do that?"

/silly
/flirt
ftw

Why would levels to 200 make you throw up? AO and AC1 already have it. It is far better for them to plan a really long way out for future expansion than what they did in eq1 where they never thought it would be expanded at all and then had to break the game horribly to allow advancement.

People always bitch about lack of content so why would you be upset that a company actually is trying to plan for long term content?


kaid

We had quite a bit of this in CoH with the Badges for exploration (bridges, sewers, scaffholds, statues, roofs etc.).  Cryptic > SOE  :evil:

I am kinda puzzled by the whole climb up the walls claims. Hell Daoc has had wall climbing in specified areas for freaking ages. Its how stealthers sneak into forts and castles. COH may not have wall climbing but with free form flying/jumping/teleporting it has got to outdo in spades any manuverablity you could gain by climbing walls.

I was always kinda curious why COH didn't add wall crawling through.

kaid

I get woozy at the thought of even 15 EQ2 levels. 200? Yeah, I'm sick already.

I don't consider the number of levels to be content unless getting those levels is fun, fun enough that I don't much notice what level I'm at.

Probably too much of a "rip off" - the Wolv^H Claws Scrapper stuff is probably as close to the edge as they want to go, and it did lead to the inevitable clones.

As for wall climbing, MxO has drain pipes and ladders you can climb to get to/from rooftops. But then, much of MxO feels like CoH anyway.

Odd I have had my combat xp turned off for the last week and a half because I am having fun trying to explore both runnyeye and the bloodlines higher dungeons at the same time. I am having real issues leveling up to fast for the content I want to see so thank god for the ablity to shut off xp gain or mentor.

I would admit that the first 15 levels or so in eq2 are not super great. The problem is at those levels the characters just are not differentiated nearly enough so if you play a few alts you can get a bit bored. Once you start getting to higher teens they have opened up I think 2 or 3 new instances and there becomes a huge freaking pack of content that opens up at 20+. The higher I get the more content I seem to find and there just are not enough hours in the day to do all the random stuff I want to do.

I like wow as well but WoW content feels much more linear than EQ2. In wow I always felt I was on one of two or three quest paths and that the game was leading me around by the nose. Its still a fun game but EQ2's content I find more interesting because it gives you so many things you could potentially do that there is a great deal of replayablity. Right now my main is level 39 and holding and I have only been on zek twice and never really hunted there. This is a huge landmass with tons of content that I have not even scratched the surface of becaue I have to much else to do.




kaid

Oh come on - you know how many EQ2 players have "full" quest books?  There is so much fun there waiting to be discovered.

And wait it will :)

Fry's Electronics has EQ2 for $14.99 according to their advertisement today.

I visited the DIE HARD warrior site today known as Steel Warrior.  This site was created for EQ warriors concerned with high level tanking.

http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/

Over the years the site now has other forums - WoW, EQ2 and CoH for tanks.

If you look at the forum activity - EQ tanking issues are big - followed by WoW.  There is very little discussion of EQ2 (even less of CoH but we know they have the smallest sub base).

This underscores HaemishM arguement:  all station pass users counted as subs for EQ2 are not spending their time playing EQ2.

That's the impression I get from looking at posting activity on that site.

Sorry, I was referring to the wall crawling not the exploration.  CoH has been talking about putting in wall crawling and web swinging since mid-beta.  From what I recall they said they hadn't done it yet because they hadn't found an implimentation that they liked yet.

Anyway the wall crawling better be universal or I don't think it counts.  If there is a goddamn vertical surface my toon better be able to get up it or have a SOLID ingame roleplaying reason for it not too (magic ice or something).

If there are three locations in the game you can wall crawl with little flashing neon signs that say "Look unique content!"  then SOE needs to be bitch slapped yet again for half-truths.

Classic.

I agree that a lot of content opens up at 20+. However, most of it isn't content I desire to replay. The Heritage quests are fun once. I cannot imagine doing them again. For me, the game is "replayable" once - Qeynos and Freeport. No way in hell I am doing all the core Qeynos/Antonica/Thundering Steppes quests again. Not going to happen.

I killed myself off and quit around level 25. I wasn't able to touch whole rafts of mobs in an area because of the fucking social chaining, and then I'd turn around and level and they'd all be grey....  Of course I was Ranger, which blows and was another good excuse... 

My Super Speeder better be able to run UP walls if this kind of thing is implemented.

Because peoples are stupid and a company seconding them is even more stupid.
But how is the content accessible, especially in the long term? It's just pure mudflation.

Maybe it's ok right now but how you'll be able to do what you like if there won't be remotely enough players on the server to pack up every zone? LFG for hours, days and weeks?

The content remains accessible till there are peoples using it. When the content start to grow exponentially it just becomes a replacement of what was obsolete. The result is an actual erosion instead of an expansion.

There's LESS content available as the time passes.

That's a really interesting point.  In EQ2's current state, I'm not sure that it's really a subtraction of content, though.

I'm basing that opinion on the way the population of the world is laid out right now in terms of the split between group-required vs group-not-required content -- Feel free to tell me if I'm completely insane. :)

The split used to be around 90/10, where 90% required a group, and now it's about 40/60.  (We've added quite a few instances for soloists and small groups, and changed the entire overland population to more accurately reflect people's desired playstyles.  New quest paths, and all of that as well.)


In the old 90/10 world - Absolutely.  Each addition distributes the potential LFG pool farther and farther. 

In this current world of EQ2, though, since the average person can run around and do quests, have fun, solo or with a friend or two (primarily overland and in specific instances), it really does serve to broaden the amount of stuff any given person can choose to do in a session. 

For those who are looking to group, the problem you describe will definitely hit eventually -- And it'll be time for an enhancement of the (somewhat simplistic) LFG tools we already have.  We did just do a pretty good round with the guild tools, but that doesn't do a lot for someone who's not guilded.

There is one thing that's for sure, though -- People love exploring new places.  We have to keep making new places.  It's really on us at that point to make sure they have something to do when no one else is around, or improve their abilities to hook up with others.

Apologies if I missed your point - That part of your observation was too interesting to not reply to. :)

Take care,

- Scott

That's because sometimes during beta, they turned down their volume so much its impossible to hear them.

My normal group of 4 just finished the last of the bloodlines quests last night well aside from the uber raid in T'haens. I have to say that was a very fun quest track and we had hit it at just the right level and progressed from 30 to 40 doing it. The dungeons were well done and fun although I have to say vampires are dirty cheating gits and those 2k aoe'ing vampires should just be renamed magebane hehehhe. Still we did them even if I died more than a couple times to their blasts.

One thing about adding in new content that should help eq2 is lessening of linear zone progression. Eq2 still offers more choices than WoW but both have a few fairly well defined paths. Things like bloodline helped us alot and we have high hopes for the split paw dungeon. Replayability with alts is a big thing with MMRPG and the lead you by the nose early levels in WoW turned me off. Eq2 has some of that till about 15 but then you can start branching off more and more. The more they can do to give you different paths of advancement will help replayability alot. Our group basically is just skipping zek because we want to go that route instead of EL with our ebil frog alts we are planing.

kaid

Oddly enough, when I played, it seemed I was locked into FP Newb Areas > Commonlands/Newb Dungeon > Fallen Gate > Nek > Thundering Steppes (Varsoons).

Just my experience.

I like the outside = solo, inside = group split EQ2 is doing.  Please add some kind of cross zone transport in TS and Nek, though. Traveling from Qeynos to Nektropos Castle/RoV every night is a serious pain in the ass. Both zones are largely gray so it is just a time sink. Or add 'recall friend' like CoH has.

CoH features every game should have:

• Recall Friend
• Sidekick
• Exemplar
• Flying

You missed Super Speed and Kick Ass Emotes.

The initial level 1 to 15 or so is still fairly locked in but they have started to make more use of the other instances such as shattered vale so that you can branch off and do other stuff.

Still if you take the qeynos side if you are a sewer hound you can actually do levels 8 to about 25 or so and never leave the qeynos sewers. Or you can go do the black burrow storm hold route. Or the all instance route and spend your time in fyremyst gully and the new shattered vale instances.

They have also been adding so many quests its a lot easier now to do a ton of quests without having to do the same ones all the time when making alts.

The new story line chain quests in the zones have so far been pretty amusing. Nothing earth shattering but some funny humor decent xp and cash to be had.

kaid

I love the voice over emotes in WoW and in the random groups I find it comes up regularly.  It's great.  They are racial specific and for some voice emotes what is actually said is randomly chosen from a set (e.g. /silly).;

The voice emotes in wow are pretty well done and most are pretty funny. The volume on them is so low that unless you are activly trying to listen to somebody using them its pretty hard to hear them.

The funniest voice emotes in wow are from the dwarf males and the human males. The human male /silly jokes are all pretty damn funny most are silly bar jokes but his rambling about the wow version of fellowship of the rings is funny.

The night elf voice emotes for both gender are pretty sad and not funny at all the males are really pathetic.

kaid

To begin with, what I wrote comes from previous considerations I made more extensively here (http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/555) and here (http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/566).

What you say makes sense, of course. There isn't an objective erosion of content if the content is soloable. The fact that you can solo means that there isn't a barrier between the content you want to see and the actual possibility to do so. The world is open and will remain open forever.

But that's just one aspect of the problem because way more important is the *function* of the content, not only its accessibility. It may be true that the solo content is always accessible, but will it preserve an actual role in the gameplay? The "carrots" you have as goals in the game are in a finished quantity and type. This means that a quest offering a +5 sword will mudflate a quest that will offer a +3 sword. This second quest will vanish from the world even if you didn't remove it directly.

From my point of view even the PvE should be balanced in a similar way to what happens to the PvP. The content, the zones, the various Points of Interest, the quests, the rewards etc... Everything should have a precise *role* in the gameplay without having content continuously developed to "replace" what was there before. If the plan is to actually replace obsolete content, you'd obtain better results by replanning and restructuring the zones and the quests *already* in the game, keeping the game world fresh and cohesive (and healthy) instead of expanding its borders while the core is aging and decaying.

Before adding more content at will there should be a consideration of the actual needs of the game. "More content" is good for demagogy but it won't make the game better if that content doesn't have a specific purpose that isn't just a replacement of something else.

Yet you are a few months after release. What will happen in a few years? How long this model will hold? And, especially, there could be a better, more efficient, model?

I read you plan for 200 levels. This is obviously an excuse to develop the game in this direction. Stealing a post from another forum (from the same 'El Gallo' we have here):
That's the most direct definition of the development. Producing content that will become completely irrelevant after the novelty wears off. Disposable. It's work finishing in a black hole.

Now, in EQ2, this will be excused by a constant rise of the level cap. Instead of adding more content uniformly along the whole level range, the content is progressively added to build a new margin. But we also know that this is an illusion, after some months there will be a serious need to design "shortcuts" in order to keep constant the gap between new and old players (like Rob Humble explains in this post (http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=231629&highlight=#231629)), so that the treadmill will remain tolerable.

The fact that this level cap will keep shifing up, becomes just an illusion. The "career" of a new players will have to remain constant, so a new player will have to "jump" a large quantity of content that was needed for a previous generation of players and now became completely *useless*.

Now, where is all that content gone?

The fact that the game has "lots of content" is again just illusion because the content is *reduced*. What is happening is just a rehash of the most common of the tricks:

(http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/storeroom/misc/hamster.gif)

Right now, maybe, the content is well balanced, easily accessible and also with a specific role within the gameplay. But what will happen in some time with two retail expansions and four adventures packs each year? Where is this game heading (along with all the resources to develop all that)?

The increasing level cap is just a trick to push the dirt under the carpet. The fact is that this type of development is unexcused, isn't leading anywhere if not trying to keep the players hooked in an infinite, repetitive race. An illusory production of content because what happens concretely is just the stretch of the same stuff, till it breaks up or till EverQuest 3.

The possibility to solo and better LFG tools can be useful workarounds to address the issues (consequences of a bigger problem) but all this doesn't hint that, maybe, there's something wrong in the model?

There are two basic points that are way more important to consider:
1- The *role* of the content in the gameplay. Both as its function in the formal system, and as functional considerations (variety of zones and places to hunt, replay value, ease of travel, popular meeting points and so on).
2- The possibility to add depth and breadth to the game instead of eroding itself. To simulate other aspects of the game world instead of just the combat, integrate more systems together and add more possibilities of interaction that make the world something more than just a background.

Maybe a less superficial approach in the creation and planning of the content will bring to the production of a game that is able to remain healthy, cohesive and strong in the long run, instead of being exploited and squeezed till its limit and instead of heaping content just for the sake of it.

You see, I can reduce all these considerations even more to find what's the real point:
The development of "more content" should be the *consequence* of a need. What is happening at SOE is that, firstly there's the absolute, unquestioned principle to "produce more". THEN you create the needs in order to excuse that production. The logical sense is reverted.

Anyway, it's good to see that at least this problem seems at least acknowledged.

That's a great post.  I sincerely wish I had more than five minutes to hang around right now.  I don't want to reply to one or two specifics parts of it, since that'll just look like I'm dodging the rest, which I don't want to do.

For now, I'll apologize in advance for potentially resurrecting this thread from the dead this weekend.  :)

- Scott

Heh, that was possibly the most non-Viklas! post I've seen Hrose pull off yet.

*Sniff*  He's all grown up.

Give him a minute.  :evil:

But on this, I must answer:


It is. The need just happens to be the need to keep EQ2 profitable and regenerating lost accounts with new accounts, which is hopefully achieved by keeping the box on the shelf, or putting a newer, shinier box on the shelf. The concept of an expansion box to an MMOG is a silly one. You don't NEED a box to expand an MMOG, just patch in a new zone/zones, whatever. The game is designed to be expandable without ever needing to hit the retail market.

The expansions are merely an excuse to bundle up an assload of content and refresh the SKU at the retail outlets. If you've been popular enough, the monthly fee should take care of maintaining the game, with profit and company expansion to boot. But to keep new players coming into the game to replace players that you've lost, you need that box on the shelf.

Oh, I won't complain. It will be nice to hear another point of view after I passed months convincing myself of things I was already convinced.

I don't think there isn't anything new in what I wrote. Possibly just one of the rules written by Raph about the community.

That's part of an old discussion that brings toward something else than EQ2. In fact I'd actually rise the monthly fee and completely erase the expansion packs. This allows the dev team to fully focus on the game and keeping developing it in a cohesive way instead of just heaping content to place on the margins and create gaps between "have and have-not". The accessibility to the game should be as flat as possible in order to keep the "body" of the game up to date and healthy. Where all the features are stictly tied together instead of being forced as "optional".

Of course this is also possibly the case where what's good for the game could not coincide with what's good for the market. How many players will accept to pay an higher monthly fee even if with the promise of a dedicated full dev team throughout the existence of the game?

If it cannot be done the Guild Wars model could work better. So you deliver content when it's ready and let the players pay for that directly. If you are slow the players will just take a vacation, play something else and come back when something new is added. It's exactly what already happens, today noone sticks with one game anymore and with the years this trend will consolidate. The subscription numbers will start to climb and fall more sharply. Guild Wars anticipated all that and is offering a model that seconds this trend. It's not an "exclusive" game monopolizing your attention, but it's just one of the games you'll buy and play. They don't want you in the game, as much as possible. They just want you to have enough fun to make you come back when a new chapter is out.

You want to keep the boxes on the shelves? Okay, but do this *directly*. Instead of putting the expansion on the shelves you just transform it in a digital download for a reduced price. Instead on the shelves you don't put the expansion but just a new, complete bundle: the original game plus all the expansions of the game till that point.

That's how you get new players. In the shops you offer directly the *complete* product, so that your new players will experience the game at its best and complete of all the features, while your current subscribers just pay directly and download the add-on.

Why this doesn't make sense? In the shops you want to attract the attention of potential new players. You DO NOT want to draw the attention to a long list of pre-requirements that would require that possible new customer to buy other boxes in order to have the whole product. Instead the current subscribers don't need to walk till a shop to get what they need. They know ALREADY that the expansion is out and they do not need it to be publicized and on display.

Finally there's the problem of the design of the game itself. Building expansion packs force you into a type of development that can just heap marginal stuff. Marginal because it must be optional. So you have this limits that prevents the design to actually matter within the game.

Again we are back to the two models and goals. If a mmorpg is just an adventure to share with a few friends, the best plan to deliver this is "Guild Wars". The perfect shape to deliver exactly that type of experience, where all is under control and within strict rules. If, instead, a mmorpg becomes a simulation of a world, trying to reach a depth and breadth that is way different from just a shared PvE adventure, then the model you should use for the development is completely different. You cannot develop this game because you cannot divide the world into optional segments. You cannot develop the margins of an "enlarging stain". All the game, throughout all its body requires a constant, homogeneous attention and development.

How much attractive is today the classic EverQuest to the eye of a new player? I believe not much.

All the work that was done along the years is, for the most part, vanished. Mudflated and directly removed from the actual experience. I just wonder if all these years of work couldn't have been better spent to keep all the parts of the game together, without just simply replacing the same type of content and without denying an EFFECTIVE growth in depth and breadth.

The current mmorpg development resembles closely to the "conquest of the West" at the origin of the American culture. The goal is to translate a vertical horizon of conquest toward the West. Incessantly searching new spaces, without never stopping and looking back. Just moving forth.

Instead, in Europe, there was no new space to conquer, the land was already packed up. This generated conflict because while in America when you had problems you could simply move somewhere else (following an ideal of continue movement and ineluctable "progress" - the same idea that now drives both the politics and the religion with the shared idea of predestination), In Europe we couldn't, there's no space. So there is conflict, from the conflict we have politics and from the politics we have the compromises.

Look what you like as "sport". The football is just the symbolic representation of that run to the west. The same horizontal, unavoidable advancement of an uniform, vertical horizon. The game of football symbolize the American history and its conception of the space and the progress.

Now the space is finished, peoples cannot just move somewhere else (even if the USA are still big and there's still space). There's the need to not just conquer new space, but also to administrate it. you cannot burn anymore the ground because that's where you have to live. so the conflict cannot be avoided as before. It must be faced.

This is why, maybe, it could be useful to give some "respect" to these games and keep them healthy as cohesive units. offering them more depth than just fantasy combat simulations and endless conquests. Maybe simulating a different depth will be more fun instead of keeping the players always running toward the "edges of the world".

Without eating them. Without developing them from the start as disposable commodities. But as fun places where you could enjoy your stay without the urge to run somewhere else.

The ones who love us never want us to change.

Thus the ones who love us are our worst enemy.  Contemplate this upon the Tree of Woe.

HRose that was a great post.

In particular I like your comments about adding new zones instead of updating "old" ones, as well as adding more content to the lower levels rather than simply increasing the "margin".

I'm done finals.

The prospect of reading that much in one post hurt my brain.

 


Brad McQuaid (I think it was him, it may have been another Vanguard developer) was talking about this the other day.  Supposedly, Vanguard's instanced quests in public dungeons design is a nod to the fact that they cannot keep up with player demands for content, and it is easier to add new quests to extant dungeons than it is to create whole new dungeons.  I'm a bit skeptical about the system myself, but that's another matter.




 
That could have been any El Gallo.

I think it was this one:

(http://www.ristoklint.com/picture-gallery-7/pictures/rescue-evil-rooster.jpg)

I've covered (http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/706) that too ;)

The idea of multiple narrative and gameplay paths in the same dungeon is good. But it already happens in WoW in every instance. The actual implementation of the whole system in Vanguard is really weak from my point of view. It adds nothing to what other games already accomplish and introduces brand new problems.

Anway, there are various reasons to add or redo the content of the lower levels:
- Fix/update it in order to improve the quality
- Add more variety in order to increase the replay value (for alts)
- Hook in the new content with new systems that may have been introduced in the game

But the point is still to find out the function and the actual need. More and more content could have the negative effect of spreading around too much the players or simply replace what was there before. The old world becomes then just a "museum" for the past memories. This is why the "new content" should represent an increased DEPTH instead of an increased width. Quests to open new possibilities instead of equip improvements, gold and experience.