EQ 'Next'

[Kirth]

That screenshot still looks like a 90's Ray Trace art project.

Looks better in game. I"m with the open world crown. I miss a bit of adventure and discovery, not a guided by hand, no thinking *cough*questhelper*cough* game.

[Trippy]

That screenshot still looks like a 90's Ray Trace art project.

It's POV-Ray-Tastic!! 

An insult to ray tracers everywhere

EQ II's texturing looks like ass cause, except for the metal bits, the character model and the horse textures all share the same "matte" plastic look. Horse hair, horse hooves, character hair, cloth, character skin, etc. -- they all (again except for the metal) look they are made out of the same material.

[Sky]

Looks better in game. I"m with the open world crown. I miss a bit of adventure and discovery, not a guided by hand, no thinking *cough*questhelper*cough* game.

Hey, when I had all day to play and a fat sack of weed, I loved nothing more than exploring for hours on end.

Now I have maybe an hour a night to play, the last thing I want to do is spend it trudging through some empty expanse of terrain having nothing happen, or looking in every building in a city to find the one quest npc I need to talk to.

[Hawkbit]

There's no reason a game can't have both. 

SWG had theme parks and lots and lots (and lots) of open space.  Not that it was a shining example of how to make an MMO, but that is one aspect I thought worked. 

[Engels]

Hey, when I had all day to play and a fat sack of weed, I loved nothing more than exploring for hours on end.

Now I have maybe an hour a night to play, the last thing I want to do is spend it trudging through some empty expanse of terrain having nothing happen, or looking in every building in a city to find the one quest npc I need to talk to.

You have a point, to a point. There's always a balance between playability and realistic immersion. It is true that in the bad ole days, you had to sacrifice upwards of 3 hours just to start and complete a quest, assuming the right NPC was up, you could gather your friends to defeat the MOB, etc, etc. I think its clear that those days are over in the industry. That said, I'm looking at Fallout3 as a potential model of content dispersal. There's stories lying around absolutely everywhere in that game. GF's been playing it for 4 months solid and is still finding letter and tapes for mini quests in the most remote backwaters of the map. The main quest line exposes you to the central travel lines for the game, but there's stuff for the wanderer. Its all about the options, as opposed to being shunted through the cattle chute-o-fun.

[Ratman_tf]

Questgrind.  Someone needs to write a Bot addon for that shit.

[Kirth]

looking in every building in a city to find the one quest npc I need to talk to.

Read the quest text? 

[Sky]

Read the quest text? 

Did you even play EQ?

Btw, I'm one of the few here that reads everything.

[NiX]

I think he was joking. There's a reason why EQ2Map was so popular.

[Kirth]

I think he was joking. There's a reason why EQ2Map was so popular.

Yes, and yes I played EQ.

[Sky]

I'll just be dusting myself off from my fall.

[CharlieMopps]

My prediction:
Free to play but there will only be about 6 zones you can visit.
all zones above level 10 $5.99
Raid zones $19.95
All items can be bought
XP can be bought
Gold can be bought
Web based
Adverts in the window unless you pay to remove them.
The only thing resembling EQ1 or 2 will be the Name of the game, cities and a few zones.
Froglok Jedi at release, just to mess with us.


Come on SOE, prove me wrong.   

[DLRiley]

My prediction:
Free to play but there will only be about 6 zones you can visit.
all zones above level 10 $5.99
Raid zones $19.95
All items can be bought
XP can be bought
Gold can be bought
Web based
Adverts in the window unless you pay to remove them.
The only thing resembling EQ1 or 2 will be the Name of the game, cities and a few zones.
Froglok Jedi at release, just to mess with us.


Come on SOE, prove me wrong.   

Wouldn't that be a better game than EQ1 and 2 could ever hope to be?

[Venkman]

There'd only be like 2,000 people playing it, but they'd singlehandedly be funding all three EQs 

[CharlieMopps]

There'd only be like 2,000 people playing it, but they'd singlehandedly be funding all three EQs 

You have a point.

Although, I think the one thing SOE excels at is low operating costs. They can keep just about any game going forever, even with just a few customers left.

[Malakili]

 That said, I'm looking at Fallout3 as a potential model of content dispersal.

Absolutely.  Fallout 3 is probably too "short" for an MMO, but if you could take that model of content, and apply it to a larger scale game, I'd be interested.  The problem that immediately comes to mind is that if you go through the "main" or "required" content, whatever you want to call it, I think you'd see a lot of people just rushing the end game and totally ignoring all the chewy goodness off the beaten path.  And, if it was required to get to max level (which is all people seem to care about in MMOs), then it wouldn't be the optional, exploration based, content that we both really love in Fallout 3, and you are back to square one.

Fallout 3 works great as a single player game, and it COULD work great as a multiplayer game with a playerbase willing to play the game a certain way, but I'm not sure that kind of game would really work with the current MMO community.

I think I just talked myself out of this idea.

[kondratti]

Questgrind. 

Questgrind already exists... Blizzard calls it WoW.  That WotLK Questgrind puts any other grind to shame...

[Musashi]

Clearly you've never played any Asian MMOs.

[Simond]

Or any mmo before WoW.

[CharlieMopps]

omg I'm about to defend SOE... holy cats!

Why do people insist on complaining about grind in MMOs? What you're complaining about is called "Playing the game"
Do you call playing the same map over and over again in TF2 for an entire evening "Grinding"?
There's far less content in all of the TF2 maps combined than there is in just about any single outdoor zone in an MMO.

How on earth do you expect to play a game for 20-40hrs a week and not end up having some repetition?

If you don't like "The Grind" what you really don't like is the game. Stop playing.

When I was playing warhammer, the quests felt repetitious, and the PVP was boring... that wasn't grind... that was the game sucking.
The fact of the matter is you can go into either EQ1 or EQ2 and if you get bored with one quest there are a thousand others you can do instead. If there's 1 thing EQ isn't it's repetitious. Just because you chose to repeat the same thing over and over again doesn't mean you actually had to play that way.

[HaemishM]

Why do people insist on complaining about grind in MMOs? What you're complaining about is called "Playing the game"
Do you call playing the same map over and over again in TF2 for an entire evening "Grinding"?
There's far less content in all of the TF2 maps combined than there is in just about any single outdoor zone in an MMO.

And yet somehow, the TF2 is more interesting.

[CharlieMopps]

Why do people insist on complaining about grind in MMOs? What you're complaining about is called "Playing the game"
Do you call playing the same map over and over again in TF2 for an entire evening "Grinding"?
There's far less content in all of the TF2 maps combined than there is in just about any single outdoor zone in an MMO.

And yet somehow, the TF2 is more interesting.

That's cause they did it right. I'm wasn't trying to rip on TF2... quite the opposite actually. I love that game.

[Ratman_tf]

Somehow nothing. Grind is when I wanna do something or have something (or both) in a game, but I have to do Barely Related Activity X a hojillion times in order to "earn" the something.

I'm not going to pop my cap at grind in MMOGs, it's far to ingrained into the genre now. But I sure can snort and laugh at it.

[Kageru]

Do you call playing the same map over and over again in TF2 for an entire evening "Grinding"?

That's pretty much totally invalid. One game is about complex physics and human opponents and wants a known and balanced arena. The other is about coming to a new area, defeating it and looting the bodies with the actual game play not being nearly as dynamic. Thus the second needs a constant diet of new maps even without considering the influence of out-levelling the challenge.

[Ratman_tf]

We can make this TF thing more like MMORPGs if you have to play 150 local matches against bots in order to play online! 

[DLRiley]

When I log off in TF2 I'm rewarded by knowing that I kicked all sorts of ass, probably died 50 times, but it was awesome. When I log off in an mmo I'm rewarded by the fact that I know that I am woefully underpowered and all those guys who could one shot me when I was playing 10 minutes ago can now at worst (for them anyway) have to 2 shot me. Yeah me

[CharlieMopps]

One game is about athletic skill, hand-eye coordination and immediate gratification.
The other is about long hours of planning and preparation followed by a long sought after reward.

It's like the difference between driving a classic car, and restoring a classic car. Some people just don't have the patience for working on cars but enjoy driving them. Other people couldn't imagine driving around it something that was pre-built for them.

[DLRiley]

I recon its the difference between playing a good game and a bad game.

[pxib]

I think it's the difference between depth and breadth. Grinding in TF2 is the process of learning the subtleties within a simple framework. At the end of the process, players have acheived a degree of obvious skill and can enjoy flaunting it. Like a capable pianist, a capable TF2 player can sit down at a keyboard anywhere and impress the rubes. Grinding in DIKUs is like getting a modern highschool diploma. You basically have to obey a schedule and keep your eyes open. A high-level DIKU player, like a graduate, has a certification that allows them a degree of improved access.

The first sort of acheivement is impressive to anybody who plays the game. The second sort of acheivement is only impressive to anybody who wants to believe that their own version of that acheivement is valuable. The accomplishment of either provide a particular sort of fun, and a game can't be judged on this choice alone.

Most DIKUs contain a moderately skill-based endgame for the players who advance too quickly or don't know when to quit, but for the most part they substitute breadth of content for depth of gameplay. When it looks like they're losing subscriptions, they advance the goalposts a few levels and add another continent or a character class.

[Venkman]

MMOs are a gigantic emotional ponzi scheme. The collective belief that people are having fun makes it fun. But on their own, the "game" is usually weaksauce RPG crap that'd never pass muster in a solo RPG.

FPS games are more classic "game". People are there to have fun. Some percentage are there to really compete, but the most serious are rarely in the public space playing random pickup games with the rabble. Players compartmentalize by skill. Any persistence is just a value add, not the main reason to be there. Nobody convinces themselves to stay because everyone else is having fun. They either stay or go and that's it.

Comparing WoW and CoD is folly. They're not comparable in any way other than they both are sold in the same retail space.

[pxib]

I agree that there's a vast difference, but comparisons are still enlightening.

It's reasonable, for example, to distinguish games based on content from games based on gameplay. The first is something you consume, the second something you perfect. Almost all RPGs tend towards the former: any mastery you develop over the course of your first playthrough is largely incidental. Your characters' skill advancement has more in-game effect than your own. Replayability is about trying every class, discovering every subplot, playing through as a "good" or "evil" character. Expansions appear which take place in different environments with additional story.

It's not an environment well suited to competitive play, but it works splendidly as cooperative fodder. A game you can play with your friends and family because even if somebody plays badly, they won't tend pull the whole team down. You get a sense of accomplishment for finishing tasks and are rewarded with exposure to new abilities, new sights, and new equipment. Breadth of experience. Accessible even to total newbies... somebody looking over your shoulder not only "That looks cool," but "I could do that!" The ponzi scheme isn't just emotional.

Popularity tends to also attract people who would rather be playing CoD. They want to start perfecting their skills and are disappointed on two fronts: Little mastery is actually required, but a LOT of tedious, braindead grinding is. When competitive content like raids are added to keep the perfecters busy, it disappoints the consumers since they feel there's part of the game they're implicitly forbidden to see.

[Venkman]

Right, but MMOs can't be held responsible for not fulfilling the entitlement needs of players who don't really know themselves. The emotional bond between player and MMO is almost entirely unique to this particular industry, at this scale anyway. For example, plenty of people still play Diablo 2 with an equivalent fervor, but in far fewer numbers (and no revenue back to Blizzard except in a potential future sale of D3).

I won't say this clouds judgment. But it does changes the rules in how people assess someone's "enjoyment" of an MMO. The type of enjoyment is so different you can't even expect them to instantly jump to another AAA fantasy themed MMO, much less out of the genre.

I agree it's not suited to competitive play in the same way that competitive RTS and FPS games are. However, they certainly are competitive, and they certainly do appeal to people. Here again though, the nature of that appeal is more important than there simply being some appeal at all.

Edit: Realized I had no point here.

But worse still is this "MMO" term still used to canvas everything from Club Penguin to WoW to Eve. Eve is a genre unto itself. Players from CP are not going to graduate to WoW (not all of them anyway). WoW is a genre unto itself, unless something else comes along that actually pulls people away and keeps them.

So the catchall term is really about the EQ1-AoC games vying for second and third place. In a space so saturated with sameness the only way it'll change is when real games that are based on games, but happen to tack on persistent elements, arrive and draw in the people looking for games.

[Ratman_tf]

So the catchall term is really about the EQ1-AoC games vying for second and third place. In a space so saturated with sameness the only way it'll change is when real games that are based on games, but happen to tack on persistent elements, arrive and draw in the people looking for games.

Like Planetside! 

I agree. It's just hard to imagine game types that can deal with latency working well massivley online. Just look at the 'fun' of Heigan and cube clicking and other monstrosties in WoW. Not to mention Frogger in Naxx. 

[Venkman]

Except for an abstract social or economic layer, there hasn't yet been a big huge successful MMO that's required hundreds or thousands of people to act in concert with military precision. Except or Eve which is a genre unto itself. The activities most enjoyed are by those in small groups from 2 to 40 or so, -/+ the dunbar number depending on event.

Since getting so many even in these smaller groups to work together is so tough as to only appeal to minor percentages of a total playerbase, I contend that any engine which limits itself because it might someday need to support 1,000 people in one place has already missed the point. Social gathering and Frogger do not mix, both as activities and as the tech required. So don't even bother. Open World is great. Just smartly compartmentalize the PLAY into areas your tech can deal with as both you and your players expect.

Maybe someday we can have Planetside done right. But the only way it'll be PLAYED right is to force players to start at boot camp to be beaten into hiearchy  

[grunk]

I am going to mention EQ and two other games in this post, because EQLive was so important to me.  I loved the “the old rock” and truly miss the community that it fostered and nourished.  EQLive set a standard that few games followed and embraced, but that’s all it took.  I could never see the “reflection” of EQ in any of these games dating from WOW and on.  Those that found inspiration in EQ created some of the most amazing experiences that I had in gaming.  In WoW we saw how a certain game designs could bring out the worst in people, but as I gaze in to the beauty of EQ I  am able to compartmentalize all I do not like in the genre today.


I started out playing EQ approx 5 years after launch and enjoyed it immensely.  In fact, the first time I logged in I remember falling off a ledge, landing in a pool of water and drowning to death.  Today, a gamer would simply scream bloody murder and hit the IQUIT button.   I played in a duo for a bit with a really cool cat that I meet in commons.  Equs be thy name.  Both of us were console gamers, hard core console gamers that walked into a game shop and saw this shiny box with a hot chic on the cover and poof, magic.  
Not long after, reading about a console version in PSM called EQOA and getting in to the beta, at that moment I realized how great these games can be.  When done in the most simplistic and pure way.  Simple mechanics that encourage team work, heck maybe even forced team work that was far too apparent in the next game I would play.  Four years after EQOA came FFXI.  I was a max player in EQOA, a respected elder of a prestigious guild on the most popular server but it felt like it was time to try something else and FF was by far a standard barrier that I judged RPGS by (well honestly, it was Phantasy Star).

Along came FFXI, the spiritual successor to EQLive (Funny, that’s what Brad advertised Vanguard as).

To this date, nothing has come along that kicked my ass and still made me feel as if I was an active participant in a real breathing world.   A game that was so unforgiving, so much that it produced a community that was forgiving and understanding of what has become the biggest sin in MMO’s to date, being human.  In EQLive, EQOA and FFXI, being a “Noob”, is such virtue or a status that seasoned plays looked upon with admiration and their counter parts looked upon the accomplishments of these elders.  In doing so, players experienced a true feeling of mentorship.  

Mentorship is missing from these games.  EQ and FFXI delivered this in a way that I have never seen and even till this day, I could logon to my old Dwarf or my Galka find this.  Helping my fellow man was amazing and felt genuine for I understood the hardships they encountered.  Helping others was my new drug.  Nothing gave me more pleasure than helping someone to Jueno for the first time.  Seeing some lost soul trying he’s best to get that coffer key and better, that poor soul trying to get that last Genki piece.  Experiences came that I never expected, working with people from other cultures and seeing how someone who lived on the other end of the world, was no different than I.  I can’t even explain how that impacted me, I learned so much and would never have had that privilege if it were not for EQ.

I miss it and as I write this I realize what is wrong.  I am a selfish greedy prick that has left behind friends and a community that I owe something to.

True clans like Neversleep, NuDawn, Ominous and Rites of the Four Horsemen.

Today, I give thanks to Everquest and while I gaze upon FFXIV I also would try the next version of EQ in a heartbeat.

Grunk of Valefor / Remora