EQ 'Next'

[Lantyssa]

Laughing pants deployed.  On the off-chance it's the sandbox I've wanted, I'll laugh with joy.

[Numtini]

There's also the possibility it's a terrible sandbox, a bunch of stuff and nothing to do, and they rush in a triage quests on rail fix. They've done it once before.

[Nyght]

There's also the possibility it's a terrible sandbox, a bunch of stuff and nothing to do, and they rush in a triage quests on rail fix. They've done it once before.

Yep, now that this has raised my interest, this is exactly what I expect. At least I won't be disappointed.

[shiznitz]

Laughing pants deployed.  On the off-chance it's the sandbox I've wanted, I'll laugh with joy.

Laughing pants? More like balls over a bear trap. I mean man balls, not the kind your throw and bounce.

[Paelos]

Laughing pants PROTECT MY BALLS!

[Sky]

Laughing pants deployed.  On the off-chance it's the sandbox I've wanted, I'll laugh with joy.

Ditto.

And even if it's a terribad sandbox filled with kitty turds and cigarette butts, it might be fun to pee in for a while.

That's also how I'm approaching that TUG game I backed on KS. I had to really work to not back Shadow of the Avatard for the same reason, just go in and grief the ever loving shit out of the retards from the KS comments who dropped five grand on a title.

[palmer_eldritch]

Yes, I have no idea what to expect. But the big announcement is going to be entertaining, whether because they genuinely unveil something exciting or because it's so far removed from the hype that the whole thing becomes a train wreck.

I'll admit though that I do unironically hold out some small sliver of hope that the game might give me a few months of fun. EQ2 did.

[shiznitz]

I was a fan of EQ and EQ2, but I have a better chance of having anal sex with a real life wood elf than SOE launching a groundbreaking MMO title after all these years.

[Hawkbit]

Quick, someone call that peter pan guy.

[Sky]

[Venkman]

Yes like Eve. Except the systems in Eve are not friendly to casual experience. They require a lot of investment, and they have (or have had) poor user interfaces. I think you could make a game like Eve that has the depth and interest of its existing systems, while also making it more accessable to newcomers, and also offering more casual game experiences that people could enjoy without feeling like they have to get as invested as others.

Honestly, Eve is a good game in spite of many things that could reasonably easily be done better (IMO, of course).

One of the ways I thought Eve could be made more casual friendly was through how T2C-era UO and early SWG played. All the makings of regional commerce and local economies, but little of the other players getting too much in the way through exploitable PvP systems that please only a relative few. Of course both games had ample issues, and required a lot more work than just supporting every player running on relatively the same rails through linear PvE content. But I always felt it was a shame each didn't get as big as those linear PvE experiences which ultimately became what defined "MMORPG" for a generation.

[Kitsune]

It's not hard to sandbox an economy, or at least the basic trappings of one, just rip off Eve's model:

Step 1: Don't have a global auction house, instead have local trade hubs in cities.
Step 2: Have resources be location-specific rather than global.
Step 3: PvP.

This way you have materials that can only be had from specific places (inferno stones only come from Neriak's mines, lala wood trees only grow in the Feydark, etc.), forcing people to travel and/or trade for them since there isn't a magical global teleporting auction house where you can sit on your ass and have everything delivered to you.  And if the only way for things to get from point A to point B are for people to carry them, we gain an all new economic model of banditry when people jump other people for their stuff.  An element of risk involved in the moving of goods will make the cost somewhat more dynamic and force people to group together for protection (or group together to ambush the other groups).  The early EQ2 design proposal of NPC caravans is an example of bad sandboxing; in a good sandbox the players themselves should be caravanning because it makes the most sense to do so.

[Count Nerfedalot]

It's not hard to sandbox an economy, or at least the basic trappings of one, just rip off Eve's model:

Step 1: Don't have a global auction house, instead have local trade hubs in cities.
Step 2: Have resources be location-specific rather than global.
Step 3: PvP.

Perhaps, but any such formula has just written off any possibility of attracting (insert your own arbirary percentage value) % of the potential market. You have automatically reduced the maximum reach of the game to niche, and possibly even smaller. Probably neccessary when discussing anyone's ideal dream game given everyone probably falls into one niche or another.  But good luck on finding significant backing for such a design. And don't be surprised if Sony of all people elects not to jump into the cesspool of open pvp with their reboot of their flagship ip.

[Malakili]

It's not hard to sandbox an economy, or at least the basic trappings of one, just rip off Eve's model:

Step 1: Don't have a global auction house, instead have local trade hubs in cities.
Step 2: Have resources be location-specific rather than global.
Step 3: PvP.

Perhaps, but any such formula has just written off any possibility of attracting (insert your own arbirary percentage value) % of the potential market. You have automatically reduced the maximum reach of the game to niche, and possibly even smaller. Probably neccessary when discussing anyone's ideal dream game given everyone probably falls into one niche or another.  But good luck on finding significant backing for such a design. And don't be surprised if Sony of all people elects not to jump into the cesspool of open pvp with their reboot of their flagship ip.

Maybe.  Allow the fantasy game equivalent of "High Sec" space, make it easy to have a little homestead, and I could easily see lots of casual players logging in to tend their garden, take their wares to the local market to put them up for sale, etc.  That sort of thing could scratch the same itch as popular casual games that people seem to like and play a lot. 

[Sky]

Step 1: Don't have a global auction house, instead have local trade hubs in cities.
Step 2: Have resources be location-specific rather than global.
Step 3: PvP.

So, 3. As someone who played UO, when your harvesting is subject to pvp, it's just better to pvp harvesters than to bother trying to do it yourself.

Or play another game.

Eve is very niche. And it already exists.

[Rendakor]

I know I'm not alone in wanting a fantasy-Eve.

[Paelos]

I think in general fantasy settings sell better than space, but I don't have anything numerically to back that up.

[Kageru]

Space works better as a stage. It can have a huge area which you don't have to fill with terrain and the idea of manufactured and identical player outposts makes sense.

That said the fantasy equivalent would be the korean MMO's with castles, sieges and ball-breaking to make sure it doesn't get a wide audience.

I'd still like to see a PvE equivalent (with an opt-in PvP layer). It looks like wildstar is somewhat doing this with the idea of placing structures that unlock special quests, vendors and facilities and need to be "defended". I'm pretty sure there was a zombie game which was also working on the basis of building defenses, other than Rockets dreams that Day-Z might actually have that level of depth.

[Malakili]

I think we're getting a bit adrift here.  We all know what EVE is, but this started out as a way to do a sandbox that was attractive to the types of people who like things like Farmville and other casual/popular games.  It strikes me that things like farming in a sandbox could be designed to accommodate short play sessions with reasonable feedback/reward for logging in regularly for short periods of time.

The question is are people willing to launch a game client to do that instead of just popping open a new tab and cruising over to facebook for 5 minutes (or just going to the window in which they already have facebook open - because they probably do - and clicking a few things).  

There is no reason such a thing couldn't exist within a framework that also has vast swaths of  "wilderness" where the PvP/building crowd wants to hang out and do their thing.  Nor does it necessarily exclude things like local markets.

[palmer_eldritch]

Eve is very niche. And it already exists.

Eve has 500,000 subscribers ten years after launch, and the subs are still paid for. You can pay it yourself or get someone else to pay your sub fee in return for in-game currency, but each sub has to be paid for. Is it really that nichey, compared to other MMOs? To take one example, I believe City of Heroes never went above 200,000 subs.

Pretty much every MMO is a niche game in the West compared to WoW and Runescape, but if you exclude those two then Eve has arguably been one of the most successful, especially when you take longevity into account (eg SWTOR has more subscribers but I wonder if it will have half a million players in 2021, ten years after launch).

(But I do agree we don't just want "fantasy world Eve", although I'm not sure anyone's really asking for that)

[Stormwaltz]

Step 3: PvP.

Or item wear. Sandbox != PvP. Neglect this to your peril.

Eve has 500,000 subscribers ten years after launch... Is it really that nichey, compared to other MMOs?

EVE is niche. IMO it's as big as it is because there is simply nothing else in its league of feature set, polish, and inertia. To get a comparable situation in themepark-land, you'd have to imagine a world where there's WoW, but no Guild Wars, LotRO, Rift, Runescape, EverQuest, SWTOR, or Final Fantasy.

How many MMG players currently want a hardcore PvP sandbox? 500,000, apparently.

[Malakili]

Does that ignore the fact that most players in EVE never(or rarely) leave Hi-Sec space?

[shiznitz]

Step 1: Don't have a global auction house, instead have local trade hubs in cities.
Step 2: Have resources be location-specific rather than global.
Step 3: PvP.

So, 3. As someone who played UO, when your harvesting is subject to pvp, it's just better to pvp harvesters than to bother trying to do it yourself.

Or play another game.

Eve is very niche. And it already exists.

You need to have safe and unsafe harvesting zones.  The unsafe zones would have richer resources (although probably not better quality or the PvPers monopolize the best gear).  The design challenge is that you have two games going on at the same time: PvP and tough monsters in the unsafe zones and safer PvE in the safe zones.  I always wondered about having a world where the players completely controlled 10% of the landmass while those who didn't want that could ignore by staying in the 90%.

[palmer_eldritch]

Yeah, Eve is not all about the cut-throat PvP. I think it's worth remembering though that the sandboxy, player-made world elements do involve Empire space (the non PvP zones) too.

People in Empire are setting up businesses, building space stations (moon towers or POSs), and shaping the economy. Corporations are formed, choose an area of space to set up headquarters in, and form or break alliances. While it's vaguely possible to play Eve in a themepark way just by doing missions (Eve's name for quests) over and over, many Empire players would quickly quit the game if that was the only thing to do. Missions are boring. Even in Empire space, the fun in the game comes from the economics and politics and worldy stuff. The fact that a certain amount of PvP and griefing is still possible in Empire space helps with that.

Also, 0.0 space (the PvP zones) and Empire space interact. Many 0.0 corporations operate in Empire too, to an extent. The economies interact because raw materials extracted in 0.0 or in wormholes (which are also PvP) are often exported to Empire space to be turned into spaceships and modules, and then transported back to 0.0, which is actually pretty cool when you think about it.

[Kageru]

Eve would quite possibly fail if it launched now. It built up momentum and community in a time when online games were more of a novelty and people were more willing to sacrifice huge amounts of time. It gained reputation from the actions of the community once it was established. These days, where there are a huge number of online games, it might well find it harder to attract that seed audience not to mention getting a sub out of them.

... speaking of which haven't heard much of perpeptuum lately.

[Merusk]

I always question that 500k number for Eve, because so many of the players have multiple accounts.  I recall 3 being the average for 0.0 players when I played.  One to scout for your miner/ PVP, one to haul/ Mine and one for PvE.

[lamaros]

Eve would quite possibly fail if it launched now. It built up momentum and community in a time when online games were more of a novelty and people were more willing to sacrifice huge amounts of time. It gained reputation from the actions of the community once it was established. These days, where there are a huge number of online games, it might well find it harder to attract that seed audience not to mention getting a sub out of them.

... speaking of which haven't heard much of perpeptuum lately.

Strongly doubt it. There is always a market for the type of game Eve is IMO, and it happens to be the best one going around at the moment.

You only have to look at things like Darkfall to see that a lot of people want a worldy PC-centric MMO. The fact that Eve is the only really playable one at the moment is a product of what is getting funded, not necessarily what there might be an audience for.

[Pennilenko]

I had four accounts in EVE and I know that I wasn't alone. You wouldn't surprise me if you were to tell me that EVE really only has around 125000 real players, maybe even less.

[Venkman]

Still a hell of a lot more than most western MMOs have now. And I doubt it would fail even if new today. It'd be unique just on being space-based. And all of its PR and marketing hooks are also unique. Of course, it would need to launch as it is today, not as it was under Simon & Schuster back a decade ago.

The reason I reference T2C-UO and pre-CE SWG is because of the sharded PvE experiences. And the more I think about it, the more I realize it could really be a fantasy skinned SWG without the combat jank of it first two years.

• In retrospect I do think easy teleporting ala runebooks would need to go, or cost more depending on locale (ala SWG shuttles).
• I am also unconvinced you need PvP in a sandbox to still have the high/low risk and local economies. A tuned version of SWG's POI system would work well. As well as more strict controls on housing sprawl.
• I also don't know you strictly need a uniserver setup. I suspect that's ideal to really get a complex society, and it's easier now than it was ten years ago.

But then, I'm biased. I always saw SWG as UO 2.0 

We don't have any large scale precedent after the early 2000s though, as far as I know. And that's the problem. The money that goes into these games is a lot easier to justify when you can pitch retreads of already established concepts that themselves made buckets of cash. UO hasn't been a bulletpoint on any powerpoint since around the time SWG launched.

And as much as 500k accounts for Eve is an impressive number, money people are savvy enough to ask whose in second place on that kind of game, and become skeptical when the answer basically exposes that Eve is its own genre.

[Lantyssa]

I think in general fantasy settings sell better than space, but I don't have anything numerically to back that up.

Because that's most of the market.  More fantasy games have failed than space (or sci-fi) games, too.

The question should be which has a better ratio of success?  Even that's skewed due to a lack of sample size and a few well-performing games like EVE and pre-NGE SWG (200k after two years is not a failure)

[Numtini]

I suspect fantasy, particularly fantasy with elves and dwarfs and orcs and all that, will remain dominant. I watched D&D crush far far better and more innovative games. I've seen EQ and WoW do the same. Whether you trace it back to Gygax and early gaming experiences or Tolkien and people discovering fantasy lit, I think that paradigm is engraved on our DNA somehow.

I'm very skeptical about "sandbox" games because it seems to mostly be a euphemism for "nothing to do" or "LOL DYE CAREBARE!" I think a big reason Eve works at all is because it's so damned big. Quickly googling 5100 "zones." Really, large parts of nulsec are so far away from anyone else they're essentially safe PVE zones unless you're in the middle of a war. The real place for "open pvp" in lowsec is pretty much UO Crossroads ganking.

[Kageru]

Fantasy has advantages other than being well-understood. The scale is relatively small which means assets go further, magic is a great plot device and the genre has the idea of "roles" and parties. Future tech tends to be much more independent, as in defiance where a group action is basically lots of people soloing the same mob.

[lamaros]

Fantasy is also mostly medieval. Other speculative stuff is usually much less familiar to the audiences and not as intuitive.

[Numtini]

You also don't instantly die from one hit. Or at least that seems more plausible than needing to unload 5 or 10 shotgun blasts into someone's chest in AO or Secret World. (Yes, they have explanations for why you can do this, but wow are they paper thin.)

[Threash]

I'd like to see someone not die instantly from a sword to the face.