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Topic: Gaming: Five Levels is Too Much: Beta Review of Lineage 2 (Read 101600 times)
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Matt
Developers
Posts: 63
Iron Realms
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*Sigh*. No shit. I hear Deer Hunter is really popular too.
Yep. Good for Deer Hunter! A well-targetted game, if not my thing.
And in case you missed it in the latest pc gamer (#123) article on EQ2, there are over 1.6 million people who USED to play EQ but don't anymore. Yes, that includes me. Guess we shouldn't bother trying to make something better to get those customers already pre-disposed to the genre eh?
Unless you're a developer that's a moot question. I think the companies that make graphical muds should certainly try to make something that's going to appeal to people disenchanted with Everquest. I don't call that better, just different. --matt |
"And thus, they ate horseflesh as if it was venison, and they reckoned it most savory, for hunger served in the place of seasoning."
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Rasix
Moderator
Posts: 15024
I am the harbinger of your doom!
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Cliff notes for the last 3 pages:  |
-Rasix
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Fargull
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I don't think it will be a goldmine. Look at other Subscription content. Only those with a very strong vested interest are willing to pay. People who don't watch much TV tend to not pay 100 bucks a month for 500 TV channels.
I think it's reasonable to say that people simply are not willing to pay 15 bucks a month for a game they play 10 hours a month.
Hmm... Slog, I think here is your most askew view in the argument your making. I have always rationalized my entertainment dollar on a per hour vestment. Most casuals are not playing 10 hours a month, but more in line with 10 hours every two weeks or even a week. At $15.00 for 20 hours a month, that is a $ 0.75 price per hour. The biggest bite is the initial box cost, which much of the Beta before you buy crowd are overjoy'd about. I play MMORPG's for the enjoyment of meeting a challenge not only with friends, but strangers with in a world of fantasy. UO allowed great flexability in this regard, EQ less so but more than most of the flavor currently out there. However, the difference between UO and EQ is the fact that the more time I invest in my character, the greater time I need to invest in that character to accomplish something with EQ. It never felt that way in UO. From what I understand of this thread, your sense of accomplishment from the game comes from the treadmill and the sense of beating that treadmill. My sense of accomplishment comes from defeating the challenges, not from the ding. I play till I no longer enjoy the game. EQ, DAOC, Ect stratify the player base, which breaks up friends with different time constraints. It stratifies in an exponential rate the power gain from level 1 to whatever. Now.. one question not asked that seems like it needs to be asked, do you enjoy a game two months after you max a character out and beat that treadmill? |
"I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit." John Steinbeck
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Snowspinner
Terracotta Army
Posts: 206
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Doom and the Ultima games had meaningful endpoints - at some point, you ran out of game.
That's not a factor for EQ. Neither, frankly, is a decline of shininess, as they've demonstrated.
So what's going to be the motivating factor for people to move off the game? Who knows. It will happen though. Nothing lasts forever. =) --matt Yes, but not everything is replaced. |
I will bellow like the thunder drum, invoke the storm of war
A twisting pillar spun of dust and blood up from the prairie floor
I will sweep the foe before me like a gale out on the snow
And the wind will long recount the story, reverence and glory, when I go
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Snowspinner
Terracotta Army
Posts: 206
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And in case you missed it in the latest pc gamer (#123) article on EQ2, there are over 1.6 million people who USED to play EQ but don't anymore. Yes, that includes me.
Bullshit. EQ has not sold 2 million boxes. |
I will bellow like the thunder drum, invoke the storm of war
A twisting pillar spun of dust and blood up from the prairie floor
I will sweep the foe before me like a gale out on the snow
And the wind will long recount the story, reverence and glory, when I go
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Xilren's Twin
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And in case you missed it in the latest pc gamer (#123) article on EQ2, there are over 1.6 million people who USED to play EQ but don't anymore. Yes, that includes me.
Bullshit. EQ has not sold 2 million boxes. Sidebar: I'm just repeating what the article said. On the surface, I find it wholly believable from anecdotal evidence simply b/c I know a lot of people who used to play EQ but no longer do compared to any who currently do. I don't think a 20% overall lifetime retention rate for 5 years is that out of whack for eq. What would you guesstimate it to be? Besides, if you include expansion purchases as a "box sale" the 400k current subscribes could probably account for more than 2 million box sales all by themselves... Xilren |
"..but I'm by no means normal." - Schild
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Alluvian
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1205
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EQ has not sold 2 million boxes. Didn't eq run a free trial a few times of classic oldworld EQ sometime post SoL? Think there was a downloadable free client for that and it lasted a week or a month or something. The problem with that is no way in hell anyone but SOE has ANY numbers on the subs during that period. PC gamer is pulling shit out of their ass. You can tell by the stench. |
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Xilren's Twin
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I think the companies that make graphical muds should certainly try to make something that's going to appeal to people disenchanted with Everquest. I don't call that better, just different.
--matt And the problem I have with Lin2 is it's no better and actually no different than it's predecessors. It's actually a step backwards. The mythic end game fun might as well not even exist if a player can;t get to it within the 30 day trial that a box purcahse usually brings. And if the initial gameplay itself isn't better or different than what's gone before... well, that is how this whole thread got started. One thing which I dont recall seeing in this too long thread, Matt, have you actually tried the closed or open beta on Lin2 and what do you think of it? Xilren |
"..but I'm by no means normal." - Schild
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Snowspinner
Terracotta Army
Posts: 206
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Yeah, but we don't include expansions - those are tracked as individual games in sales figures.
Also, buying an expansion doesn't do you much good, since you require the full version of EQ to play - so it's only sales of Kunark, Classic, Trilogy, and Gold that are going to contribute towards box sales of EQ that could lead to cancelled accounts.
For comparison's sake, The Sims has only sold 6.3 million copies. Doom only sold 2.9 million in its first five years of release.
There is no fucking way that EQ has sold the two million boxes that 1.6 million cancelled accounts would require.
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I will bellow like the thunder drum, invoke the storm of war
A twisting pillar spun of dust and blood up from the prairie floor
I will sweep the foe before me like a gale out on the snow
And the wind will long recount the story, reverence and glory, when I go
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Arthur_Parker
Terracotta Army
Posts: 5865
Internet Detective
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And as a futher question to people who like lin2 despite it's grind, how exactly can anyone know if the pvp is any good if it takes months to get there without investing the time?
Xilren
The only way to know for sure is to try it or read a review of someone who has tried it and you believe has similar tastes to you. You are 100% correct it might be terrible, inital signs are promising, the lack of customisation to reduce lag, the battles over leveling spots that will be a major factor just due to the pvp+ nature of the game, the castles etc. In a couple of weeks when the larger guilds have lots of members in the 40+ range and the first major clan wars break out that's when the verdict will come in, either flames or a frenzy of excitement will grip the vault boards. Funny that should just about tie in with release....... Lineage 2 will succeed despite what has been said here, it is already a major hit and I would bet heavily that, providing pvp is worthwhile, it will be a major hit in the usa too. They do need to fix the current technical problems with server 2 fast (please fix my server). The only long term problems I forsee are the same as the original darktide macros/exploits. |
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slog
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8234
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There is no fucking way that EQ has sold the two million boxes that 1.6 million cancelled accounts would require.
Do you have some figures to back that up or is it just a best guess? |
Friends don't let Friends vote for Boomers
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Snowspinner
Terracotta Army
Posts: 206
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There is no fucking way that EQ has sold the two million boxes that 1.6 million cancelled accounts would require.
Do you have some figures to back that up or is it just a best guess? Raph has stated several times that no MMOG has hit the one million mark. |
I will bellow like the thunder drum, invoke the storm of war
A twisting pillar spun of dust and blood up from the prairie floor
I will sweep the foe before me like a gale out on the snow
And the wind will long recount the story, reverence and glory, when I go
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Calantus
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2389
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- You are ALL ABOUT PVP.
- You find killing monsters BORING.
- You believe killing monsters is necessary to grow... so you can kill stronger poeple... who are only stronger because THEY TOO went out and killed monsters. So you grind because everyone else grinds, and they grind because everyone else grinds, who grind because everyone else grinds, who grind because everyone else grinds, who grind because THE WORLD IS FULL OF STUPID FUCKERS.
Now, I can understand if someone says "I hate leveling, but I'll do it if I have to", but... you WANT to do shit you find boring a repetitive just so you can do something else entirely later on? And you want to PAY for the privelidge? o_O
I don't want to defend grinding, but I pay to do things I don't enjoy in order to enjoy something more later all the time. Everytime I go on vacation I'm forced to actually travel to the location, something I find extremely odious. It's worth the payoff though. When I start a new martial art I'm usually forced to go through a bunch of boring crap before I can get to the fun stuff: sparring. Is it worth it? To me it is. To others, perhaps not. The first time I read the Silmarillion I was bored shitless the first 20 or 30 pages. Worth slogging through that to get to the rest? Hell yes. My point is that some of you are dramatically oversimplifying the dynamic at work here, which is not a black/white good/bad dynamic. It's one of cost vs. expected reward. If you expect the elder game will be worth the grind, then it behooves you to do the grind. If you don't, then don't. Simple cost/benefit analysis. --matt The problem with that analogy is that you have valid reasons to go through the crap before you get to the good stuff. Let me put your analogies into context. - The travel company can instantly teleport you to your destination for the same price. Instead they make you go by plane because they know you're a massocistic bastard who thinks it's necessary despite it boring you to tears. - Your karate instructors are aware you are at a level where you can sparr, but they make you train for a few more months just for kicks and giggles (although I found the training kinda fun). - And the Silmarillion comment doesn't fit because (and in any case, it would be there for a reason beyond Tolkien being a sadistic bastard, actually I never got past the 10th or so page before giving up, but I was about 12 so I guess that's fair enough)... And my main problem was that he wanted to be bored to tears. This isn't him soldiering on to get to the good stuff, this is him wanting to be bored to tears before he can get to the good stuiff. You like doing boring shit because you have a strange idea of fun? Fair enough. You're willing to go through boring shit because you have to in order to get to what you want? Fair enough. You want to have to put some effort into developing a character? Fair enough. But this is something else... |
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Riley
Terracotta Army
Posts: 64
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Inspired by this wonderful vault thread on the Horizons board... Which is better, Horizons or L2? Its like the MMORPG special olympics ;) |
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60350
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Inspired by this wonderful vault thread on the Horizons board... Which is better, Horizons or L2? Its like the MMORPG special olympics ;) And if you win you're still a retard. |
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Arthur_Parker
Terracotta Army
Posts: 5865
Internet Detective
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And my main problem was that he wanted to be bored to tears. This isn't him soldiering on to get to the good stuff, this is him wanting to be bored to tears before he can get to the good stuiff. You like doing boring shit because you have a strange idea of fun? Fair enough. You're willing to go through boring shit because you have to in order to get to what you want? Fair enough. You want to have to put some effort into developing a character? Fair enough. But this is something else...
I don't want to be bored leveling I never said that, but lets face it just how exciting is it? The best leveling experience I ever had was AC because it was partly twitch related, also if you created an extreme template character you could tank some insanely high levels, but a week later is that still as exciting? Really is it? Nope. UO was not know for the thrill of killing litch lords, DAoC after a certain point when do you stop trying different tactics to level and just wait for someone who can Mez? SWG PVE was a joke, SB was a piece of badly coded crap I couldn't get into. EQ required a far stronger stomach than I have. I have just set my expectations based on my previous experiences and therefore avoid disappointment, I expect the leveling to suck in lineage 2 As a result am quite surprised I don't have to sit and regain health all the time. Also consider I have been listening to all you EQ players telling me for years how you used to read books while leveling I was expecting that and prepared myself for it. Lum played EQ for gods sake, I even tried the thing twice I would rather poke my eyes out than play that, at least in L2 I can look forward to an end game I might actually enjoy. |
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60350
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...at least in L2 I can look forward to a end game I mgiht actually At least 2 American guilds will have to make it to an endgame for there to be an endgame. Of course, you'll have to be a member of one of those guilds. Then you'll have to be a high enough level to help one of those guilds, and your guild will either need tons of money, a super loser guild leader, and one of each dwarf type maxing out their levels and available 24 hours for sweeping/spoiling. Remind me, how the fuck do you like this game? |
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Arnold
Terracotta Army
Posts: 813
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I don't want to be bored leveling I never said that, but lets face it just how exciting is it? The best leveling experience I ever had was AC because it was partly twitch related, also if you created an extreme template character you could tank some insanely high levels, but a week later is that still as exciting? Really is it? Nope.
I played on Darktide, so when I PvMed it was usually grinding to keep up with the Jonses. But probably the most fun PvM times I had where in the Olthoi Horde Nest going for the acid gem. Man, that place was crazy, especially when we got stuck at the bridge and all the buffs started dropping. I don't think our group had enough high level warriors, but that made it fun. Come to think of it, it was always the quests that kept you moving through the dungeon. Any other time, I'd be hauling ass through the obsidian planes with 23907842938434 mobs on my back, while I traveled to my tusker spawn. |
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Alluvian
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1205
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guilds are not a problem due to the limit of 40 characters, hence encouraging new guilds to form. I don't agree with this statement. Leading a guild in Lineage requires tons of actual ingame sacrifice in ADDITION to the normal cat herding that leading a competitive guild entails. The number of even halfway decent leaders will be an extremely limited resource. The small guild size means you need a LOT, a metric FUCKTON of guild leaders for most players to have reasonable guilds. I don't think those leaders will exist in that quantity. And the result will be that only the creame of the crop (in mmog terms the ones with the most freetime) will fit into the precious few guildslot. The best guild will be the one with the members with the most time and no fat on the roster. This will become clear very soon. My problem with L2 is that you have TWO active skills you can use till level 20. Then you get MAYBE a third depending on which class you pick (warrior only gets three passive shit). How fucking fun will autoattack and 2 hotkeys be? Even in pvp? At least in EQ I could have setup about 3 dozen unique hotkeys for my ranger for class specific actions he could do (and that is counting each spell line as 1 action). And I at least had to be at my keyboard to follow the mob and point toward it. |
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Arthur_Parker
Terracotta Army
Posts: 5865
Internet Detective
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I'm not in a position to disagree with you on that Alluvian, I just don't know as yet. I do know TAO, HOS, DOO are all heavy weight AC1 Darktide Honour/Anti guilds and will most likely have already organised their own sub clans. RhyssaFireheart who posts here is a member of HOS and might be able to provide more details on HOS, I left TAO over a year ago but still hear things from friends.
As for the keys and pvp being be too simplistic, yup you could be right there too. I'll no doubt start another Lineage 2 thread in 3 months when I really know what I'm talking about.
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Romp
Terracotta Army
Posts: 140
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well most of those guilds in that list are established pvp guilds from other games and wouldnt have any problem adapting to L2 or any game really.
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Death_Mule
Guest
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At least 2 American guilds will have to make it to an endgame ... Long list of Red-Blooded 'Merican guilds ...
Castle battles are fought on a 2 hour window once a week I believe, guilds are not a problem due to the limit of 40 characters, hence encouraging new guilds to form.
I like it, shoot me. G-Zeus-H, love it or hate it or something in the middle, anyone with an interest in MMOGs should want L2 to see some margin of success. Success expands the overall market and fills a slot, by a major industry player, with a particular type of gameplay. There's no value in begruding NCsoft for their subscriber numbers any more than begrudging Anheuser-Bush for their Bud-Lite drinking hoards. Drink your micro-brew and forget about it. Nice work Arthur_Parker. I have zero interest in L2 but I look forward to seeing your opinion in a few months. This website isn't about MMORPGS anymore I take it. Instead, it's about former MMORPG players that talk about about how much they don't like MMORPGs anymore and do Television reviews instead. Heh, so this has become the epitome of the old Life Cereal commercial. Kid1: What's this? Kid2: Some MMOG. S'possed to be fun to play. Kid1: You gonna play it? Kid2: I'm not gonna play it! You play it! Kid1: I'm not gonna play it. Hey, let's get Haemish! Kid2: He won't play it. He hates everything. Kid1: He likes it! Kid2: Hey Haemish! ... |
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Arnold
Terracotta Army
Posts: 813
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There's no value in begruding NCsoft for their subscriber numbers any more than begrudging Anheuser-Bush for their Bud-Lite drinking hoards. Drink your micro-brew and forget about it.
If only there were some micro brew for us to drink... |
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Romp
Terracotta Army
Posts: 140
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if currently EQ has around 450k subscribers it would seem to me to make sense that they would have had over 1.5 million total ppl who have played it, hell I would have thought it would be a lot more. I played it and so did about 50 other people I know and almost none of those people are still playing it.
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Margalis
Terracotta Army
Posts: 12335
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There is a difference between accounts and boxes. One box can support multiple accounts no? So that includes people playing two characters, people who stopped playing for a while and started again with a new character, bots, etc.
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vampirehipi23: I would enjoy a book written by a monkey and turned into a movie rather than this.
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Tebonas
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6365
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Only if they changed it. Friend of mine had two accounts in Everquest and needed two boxes for it. So at least at one time you needed one box per account which might have skewed the numbers.
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Alluvian
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1205
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One box does NOT support multiple accounts. You need another key, that is in another box. Its pretty standard for MMOGs, otherwise they would sell one box to the internet saavy and everyone would use that key and download the software. The one box, one key, one account makes them pretty immune to pirating with the exception of those on emulated servers.
But there is also not a direct corrolation between boxes and accounts. One account could have bought multiple boxes. I know a few who quit pre-kunark and then rejoined later by buying one of the "all in one minus latest expansion" boxes so that he would be up to speed. Those boxes can be found pretty cheap and are pretty much intended for both new players and oldtime players who want to catch up. So if you count boxes alone, some people would be counted twice.
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pants
Terracotta Army
Posts: 588
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guilds are not a problem due to the limit of 40 characters, hence encouraging new guilds to form.
Whats to stop people creating Uberguild1 of 40 chars, Uberguild2 of 40 chars, Uberguild3 of 40 chars and so on? Not trying to be a prick, but thats the first way I would, in my inebriated state, get around that limitation to create my Zerg horde. |
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Arthur_Parker
Terracotta Army
Posts: 5865
Internet Detective
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The larger guilds are doing this with sub clans lead by a trusted guild officer, it is the logical thing to do as I mentioned briefly above about HOS etc.
The reason I believe it still encourages new guilds to form is if you have limited spaces in a large guild sorting out the sub clans is a pain, a new clan only has 10 slots and the clan leader has to buy extra to a maximum of 40 using his skill points. It's very expensive later on and so you are less likely to hand the slots out to just anyone.
So I believe larger guilds will tend to have more restrictive recruitment policies than normal.
Tie this in with fact that only the clan leader gets the dragon and I believe that means lots and lots of tiny clans forming. Clan leader is L2's version of a Jedi.
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Arthur_Parker
Terracotta Army
Posts: 5865
Internet Detective
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Nice work Arthur_Parker.
Thanks but I can't take credit for that list it was created by Owyn of the Defenders of Order. First step in the political game of a pvp+ server is to identify all the players (Guilds). Shortly afterwards the creation of alliances/betrayals/KOS lists will begin. This is just the grind before the storm. |
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Riley
Terracotta Army
Posts: 64
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if currently EQ has around 450k subscribers it would seem to me to make sense that they would have had over 1.5 million total ppl who have played it, hell I would have thought it would be a lot more. I played it and so did about 50 other people I know and almost none of those people are still playing it. In MMORPGs, there is also a good amount of account selling/trading. And I'm not talking about the big dollar EBay accounts, but the $20 or giveaways. I'm not saying this is the majority of the accounts, but when you are talking about total number of people played, and total number of boxes sold - this could add up over time. Some of these accounts might have had 5 different people play them but only had one original box sale, they just passed the account key along. |
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HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42666
the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring
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There is no fucking way that EQ has sold the two million boxes that 1.6 million cancelled accounts would require.
Do you have some figures to back that up or is it just a best guess? Raph has stated several times that no MMOG has hit the one million mark. In SUBSCRIPTIONS active at one time. He did not say that no MMOG has hit the one million mark in boxes sold. I do remember that at one time about 2-3 years ago, EQ had sold over 700,000 boxes, so I can see it hitting the million mark in boxes sold not including expansions. 2 million may be stretching it. As for quests, yes Lineage 2 had quests at the lower levels. They involved killing the mobs I (and everyone else in the world) would have been killing for experience anyway and bringing back drops from those kills. Oh, the drops were random and quite rare, especially considering the congestion in the zone from everyone else doing those quests. They might not have been so bad had not the newbie zones been so overcrowded. They were, however, mind-numbingly boring in the "Kill this to get that" sort of way. DAoC had much more interesting quests, even in the "ride a horse to six different places in the world" type of quests. EDIT: Holy Fuck, I'm Mikey. |
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Alluvian
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1205
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There were also at least three low level delivery quests in the starting hometown for humans. One given by a guard where you delivered items they wanted, one that was a series of running around to get a guy up enough nerve to ask his lust bunny out on a hot date, and one that was delivering a message to the guy standing at the foot of the victory tower.
Not exactly exciting, but they were about as exciting as the daoc horseride quests. Both games had the kill quests. Daoc had a few fun and more interactive quests but they were very few and very far between when I played (started about 2 months after launch, beta didnt convince me to buy the game, and then for about 3 months before I quit). I think I remember doing about 3 quests I actually thought were 'fun' while leveling up one character on all three sides to 20. Most of the DAOC quests were still just 'kill this thing' or 'go here' variety. If you want to give DAOC big props for their few involving quests you have to do the same thing to EQ which did that on a much larger scale with some of their quests. The dwarf/giant war in velious for one, that turned an entire zone into a huge warzone. And the earlier part of that quest involved some huge forces spawning at an orc fort.
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schmoo
Terracotta Army
Posts: 171
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As for quests, yes Lineage 2 had quests at the lower levels. They involved killing the mobs I (and everyone else in the world) would have been killing for experience anyway and bringing back drops from those kills. Oh, the drops were random and quite rare, especially considering the congestion in the zone from everyone else doing those quests. They might not have been so bad had not the newbie zones been so overcrowded. They were, however, mind-numbingly boring in the "Kill this to get that" sort of way. DAoC had much more interesting quests, even in the "ride a horse to six different places in the world" type of quests.
For the record, there are a few low-level Fed-Ex type quests in Lineage II. I remember doing one that involve traveling here and there delivering letters or somesuch for a warehouse NPC, for which I got something like 5000 adena (pretty good at the level I was). |
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