EQ 'Next'

[Malakili]

XP loss and corpse runs are the very essence of punishing tedium that drives people to play ultra conservatively and seek predictability. They are safely enshrined in the past history of the genre.

I actually agree with this.  I, generally, dislike XP loss and corpse runs.  I, however, like "full loot."   Of of the things about the full loot system is that you are never really going to hit that magical "I have all the loot I want" spot.  The loot ceases to be a loot grind because saving up the perfect set of gear is simply not a reasonable possibility.  Certainly people want better gear for a variety of reasons. However, the dynamic life of a character which loses gear, has to get some new stuff, cobbles together a reasonable set to take out to PvP with without putting all their eggs in one basket, etc, is much more to my liking than the simple "Got Epic 1, now time to grind for Epic 2, Now time to grind Epic 3, oh I have a full set, wait for new loot to be released"  That loot treadmill makes me bored to tears (though I'll admit there was a time when I enjoyed it). 

EVE for instance, has loot loss, but it doesn't have corpse runs, necessarily, and it has avoidable skill loss.  Loot though, means that game has a constantly movement of resources, which adds a huge amount to potential game play.  Recovering from a loot loss isn't a big deal unless you are an idiot and spend all you resources on the gear you were using at the time of death.  But that isn't a BAD thing, it just means the "top end" gear for a given character isn't defined by the top end they can possibly acquire, but rather the top end they can afford to lose.  This isn't a big deal to me. 


Anyway, I'll agree with you in terms of XP loss definitely.  I don't like *mandatory* corpse runs (like in WoW), but I don't mind if my loot gets dropped and I can choose to go retrieve it (if I think it'll still be there), or not.

I think there is just a ton you can add when loot is constantly moving around/ out of the economy, that just can't be replicated in an economy in which items are BoE/BoP and never go away.

[Azazel]

EQ1 wasn't hard. It was grindy and punitive. That's not hard.

[Trippy]

Depends on when you played. When the SSoY was the best weapon you could reasonably get things were a wee bit more challenging

[Azazel]

I played from pre-Kunark until about 3-4 months into WoW. With another month or so in Sept 2005. The days when you saved up and then ran to Highhold to buy ringmail off players as it dropped off the gnolls from people trying for a PGT. It still wasn't especially hard, but damn it was punitive.

[grunk]

Holy shit! What the fuck was so difficult about EQ?!?!?! Been a while since these 3 smileys describe my reaction to a post  . If you think difficulty is the time spent getting your ding/gratz, I'm sorry but you're wrong. If you think difficulty is some archaic death penalty, you're wrong. If you think difficulty is having to pug, good god your wrong. If you think difficulty is the game making you take 3 steps back forever 1 step forward? If you think difficulty is spawn camping a spot on the map to prevent the other "noobs" from getting drops? If you think difficulty is dieing randomly because you didn't look at the guide that told you this area is filled with the super elite monsters who you can't kill because your 5 levels below the level requirement and losing several hours worth of xp because you died? Than your wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong , wrong, wrong. You're so wrong that I kinda wonder how can you possible think your right. You know why I know you're wrong?

To answer your original question, which might or might not have been trolling - although I tend to assume it was - yes,  I think that is diffculty. I think this was difficulty back since the days of Zelda and Final Fantasy I in the genre of role-playing games: The game being totally balanced against your character, your in-game power being way off compared to the power of the environment that was designed for your level and the game ass-raping you with the cruelest death penalties that you could imagine.

I'm sure you can define difficulty differently for RTS/driving/sports/FPS/adventure games and so on, but yeah, you nailed "difficulty" pretty good for RPGs. Ding, gratz!

Because all the things you considered the hallmark of difficulty can be circumvented by a bot with 10 lines of C code. 

Yes. Like anything. FPS, RTS, RPG, fighting games. Anything can be circumvented by a bot, although probably not within your clueless 10 lines limit. Assuming you are talking about the time investment in grinding, the bot can sit there for you. He can cast the right spells, counter the right things, sit on his butt and heal. Assuming shooters, a bot can aim for you. Assuming fighting games, a bot can auto-block and throw counters for you. Assuming RTS, a bot can do the trivial but tedious micro-management.

Although, EQ 5 years after launch is about as far from "original EQ" as WoW '04 to  EQ '04. Which is a lot. The Vision was murdered by then. Which is a good thing.

No. My guess is that the game grunk played in EQ '04 would be right after the GoD megadisaster and somewhen OoW expansion. The Vision(tm) wasn't exactly dead but wounded badly with a WoW deathblow coming in. It was still the unforgiving game that grunk describes. The Vision(tm) well and truly died (with the head chopped off and garlic stuffed in the pantaloons) when they introduced the Drakkin master race and hirable mercenaries; just so you don't need to find a group to level or be forced to "solo"  .

I'd say Vanilla EQ + Kunark + Velious is what qualifies as Vision canon (coincindentally done when McQ was still holding the reins). Most of the stuff past Luclin (including Luclin) made huge efforts to lessen the degree of uber catassing required to get anything done. EQ 2004 had stuff like "fast" travel (PoK/Spires), instancing (LDoN) and a few other very notable improvements which would have never made it live in the Vision era.

P.S. Heh, mercenaries, no kidding? Never went back to EQ once EQ2/WoW were out, I missed out on all the fun!

Good stuff here, thanks.

[Bzalthek]

Grunk has apparently gone sane, and now we have DLRiley. Coincidence?

R: "Ah, I think I've got it. A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense, not to himself."

G: "Or just as mad."

R: "Or just as mad."

G: "And he does both."

R: "So there you have it."

G: "Stark raving sane."

[Stormwaltz]

Of of the things about the full loot system is that you are never really going to hit that magical "I have all the loot I want" spot.  The loot ceases to be a loot grind because saving up the perfect set of gear is simply not a reasonable possibility.

That's one of the reasons I support item decay. It's not even close to being the best reason, but it's in there. 

I think for some Achievers, such a system just becomes an endless grind. They can't not have the best equipment, and would run themselves into burnout to get it and keep it.

[WindupAtheist]

Man it's true, grunk isn't even being THAT crazy this time. He even sorta owned DLRiley with that "I was going to reply to this post but I lost interest" thing. What the crap. Grunk go huff some paint until you're back to being the f13 phuckin' lunatic mascot we all love tolerate know about.

[Venkman]

I think for some Achievers, such a system just becomes an endless grind. They can't not have the best equipment, and would run themselves into burnout to get it and keep it.

In all seriousness, how is that any different from right now?

[Draegan]

Item Decay?  Really? 

[Stormwaltz]

Item Decay?  Really?  

I like item decay for its macro effects.

I'm a crafter.

I make the best sword for everyone in my guild.

I'm out of a job.

Most MMGs are not EVE, in which the destruction of resources by PvP serves to drive the economy and curb MUDflation.

[Demonix]

Depends on when you played. When the SSoY was the best weapon you could reasonably get things were a wee bit more challenging

Never did get my hands on that or a single piece of rubicite, despite all my camping.
-grumble grumble-

I did manage to get jboots by camping najera for 15 hours.

Still, i'm glad those kinds of mechanics are in the past...mostly because I have bills to pay.

[Lakov_Sanite]

15 hours.

15 hours.

15 hours.

 Now I know some of you may have fond memories of everquest and even miss that 'hardcore' playstyle but I've already played those games and I'm nearing thirty so all I can say is...

Fuck.That.

[Nebu]

Fuck.That.

I still marvel at the fact that I camped jboots, Ghoulbane, an SMR, a SSOY, an FBSS, and other items all while staring at a spell book when the game was in its infancy.  It's pretty amazing what we were willing to tolerate back in those days.  Now I find myself stabby if I have to wait 2 mins for a quest mob to respawn in WoW. 

I agree 100% with your sentiment. 

also... CAMP CHECK!

[Ratman_tf]

I like item decay for its macro effects.

I'm a crafter.

I make the best sword for everyone in my guild.

I'm out of a job.

Most MMGs are not EVE, in which the destruction of resources by PvP serves to drive the economy and curb MUDflation.

As a crafter, I like item decay. It's an elegant solution to item glut.

As a player, I hate item decay. It's like a maddening itch to know that my hard earned Razor Sword of Catass is slowly falling apart.

[Shatter]

I spent 8 months camping mob after mob after mob getting my Enchanter Epic Snake Staff(forgot actual name).  8 months of daily mob checking and competing with other guilds for rare spawns that popped once every 3 days or some shit.  My second favorite is dying on a POF wipe and waiting 6 hours naked for another guild to go clear it so we could get our shit back.  6 hour corpse run baby! 

[Ingmar]

Item decay exposes the inner gears and wheels driving the subscription engine too much for my tastes.

Also any game with it better have one hell of a great inventory management system, since everyone is going to be carrying around extra stuff to use on content that isn't important enough to use some of the precious lifespan of your +12 Sword of Awesome.

[Nebu]

Why not just have weapons repairable by weapon crafters, armor repairable by armor crafters, etc?  Seems to value crafting without pissing off achievers.  You still have people macro crafting as a matter of convenience either way, so it would serve the same purpose. 

[Lakov_Sanite]

Well, there already is a sort of item decay in WoW, as in the more you get hit/use your sword the lower it's durability. I think outright destroying items would be too much a kick in the balls.  On the other hand though lets say only a smith could repair your sword, while it's a neat idea if it's 2am and i wanna do a quest but cant find any smith around and half my gear is broken, am I fucked? I'd like to think not.

[Nebu]

Well, there already is a sort of item decay in WoW, as in the more you get hit/use your sword the lower it's durability. I think outright destroying items would be too much a kick in the balls.  On the other hand though lets say only a smith could repair your sword, while it's a neat idea if it's 2am and i wanna do a quest but cant find any smith around and half my gear is broken, am I fucked? I'd like to think not.

Have two of everything.  Redundancy is the trademark of MMO's!

[LK]

In games like WoW and EQ, there wasn't enough resources going out of the system to keep the value on resources being produced. Making something and having it be there forever and ever and ever hurts a good crafting system. EVE is the epitome of keeping resources valuable via a consumption rate / demand that keeps up with supply.

Those are more "life" / "world" aspects of an MMO. For some they just want to plop down and play the "game" aspect of the MMO without worrying about doing things like upkeep, resource acquisition, etc. I don't blame them either. Sometimes I want to build. Sometimes I want to kill.

Also, losing everything in a death in an MMO is like going back to the lobby between multiplayer matches in a first person shooter: it's a GREAT way get your player to stop playing. Minimal downtime along with a consistent experience keeps people subscribed and happy.

[Stormwaltz]

Why not just have weapons repairable by weapon crafters, armor repairable by armor crafters, etc?  Seems to value crafting without pissing off achievers.

I discarded that idea in 2004. Repair is not crafting. Making a new item is crafting.

The joy of crafting is in adding something to the world that didn't exist before. Ideally, you get to customize it for to the satisfaction of the customer or your own artistic sensibility.

Repair pisses off both crafters and achievers, leads to Item Enchanter / Entertainer buffbots, and therefore serves no audience at all.

[Fordel]

Crafters are just crazy people in disguise.

[Slyfeind]

This thread makes me want 1999 back. :(

[fuser]

I spent 8 months camping mob after mob after mob getting my Enchanter Epic Snake Staff(forgot actual name).  8 months of daily mob checking and competing with other guilds for rare spawns that popped once every 3 days or some shit.  My second favorite is dying on a POF wipe and waiting 6 hours naked for another guild to go clear it so we could get our shit back.  6 hour corpse run baby! 

Skip that, I lost my soul getting orb of mastery skittle stick items from kedge keep, and the horrors in plane of motherfucking sky. But really the accomplishment at the end was nice (then they nerfed the summoned pet all to hell).

Speaking of which with items, I really miss the chance you had in EQ to have an item before it was nerfed in its original state (see COS).

[UnSub]

This thread makes me want 1999 back. :(

Here you go:

[Surlyboi]

also... CAMP CHECK!

Green Room.

[WindupAtheist]

If you're gonna have item decay, individual items can't be that important. It worked in pre-2002 UO because a crafter could easily churn out piles and piles of gear that was competetive with even the best looted stuff. Plus even the good looted stuff was relatively easy to get. It's not like there would be a 40 man raid to get 1 guy a new helmet in UO. Item decay in a game with a gear system like WoW would be brutal and pointless.

[Malakili]

If you're gonna have item decay, individual items can't be that important. It worked in pre-2002 UO because a crafter could easily churn out piles and piles of gear that was competetive with even the best looted stuff. Plus even the good looted stuff was relatively easy to get. It's not like there would be a 40 man raid to get 1 guy a new helmet in UO. Item decay in a game with a gear system like WoW would be brutal and pointless.

I think the point is not to make a gear system like WoW, I could be wrong though.

[Ubvman]

15 hours.

15 hours.

15 hours.

 Now I know some of you may have fond memories of everquest and even miss that 'hardcore' playstyle but I've already played those games and I'm nearing thirty so all I can say is...

Fuck.That.

Its just a Vision(tm) thing really...  

Edit -
PS:
15 hours is nothing. I have camped the old school cleric epic (the rez stick) in Nagafen's lair for something like 30 hours straight (and in shifts of 5 days) for SOMEONE ELSE, for the only guild cleric that raids regularly. The Ragefire camp got so bad that when Verant (pre-SOE) changed it to a triggerable outdoors spawn, it made news on the BBC. And what we did for our cleric was the norm for our server. Unwritten rules and ethics were followed to the letter, there was another cleric who was next in line and he too helped us camp the damn dragon (and we helped him kill his Dragon 5 days later) - no thought of Kill-stealing on such a major endeavor, at least on the Quellious server.

Now putting discussion on punishing cockblock gameplay like that aside, what game nowadays engenders such a sacrifice of virtual blood sweat and tears for virtual toons that you would hardly know in RL? Not endorsing EQ or the Vision(tm) of course, but the punishing gameplay produced incredible camaraderie amongst the guild people that you need to rely on to advance in the game.

PPS:
The monk epic is the stupidest "camping" epic (not hard at all - just all camp) . Seven day camps were not unknown with the Monk epic in a dark cave fighting random green frogloks waiting for Raster (anagram for rarest - ho ho ho - such wit that Vision(tm).)  

[Slyfeind]

This thread makes me want 1999 back. :(

Here you go:

Woo!

[Kageh]

Fuck.That.

I still marvel at the fact that I camped jboots, Ghoulbane, an SMR, a SSOY, an FBSS, and other items all while staring at a spell book when the game was in its infancy.  It's pretty amazing what we were willing to tolerate back in those days.  Now I find myself stabby if I have to wait 2 mins for a quest mob to respawn in WoW. 

I agree 100% with your sentiment. 

also... CAMP CHECK!

I agree with the agreement as well. Ghoulbane, check, SSOY, check, no FBSS ... yet!

Camp check: Executioner! Still need my FBSS!

[Merusk]

Why not just have weapons repairable by weapon crafters, armor repairable by armor crafters, etc?  Seems to value crafting without pissing off achievers.  You still have people macro crafting as a matter of convenience either way, so it would serve the same purpose. 

Because when Devs go this route, they still feel the need to enforce resource rarity and tiers of equipment OR a combination of the two.  A noob crafter can't make the same thing as a master.. and the masters must be better, after all.  It's in the MMO laws of the universe and "more realistic!"

The crafters then have a lock on the resources for farming as only their friends get the best equipment, or at least first shot at it.  Typically the highest tier have guilds farming and pushing mats at them and those not in the loop must pay a premium or compete against this cabal for those resources. 

What winds up happening then is you get to spend your time farming cash or crafting mats instead of camping items.   SWG was a great example of this.. and made worse by those in beta who knew how to abuse the Factory 'bug' that was fixed about two weeks after the game went live.  They were already masters while others were still struggling in the mid-tiers.

[DLRiley]

Merusk  just summarize why I avoid games with crafting as a "major feature".

[Lantyssa]

I discarded that idea in 2004. Repair is not crafting. Making a new item is crafting.

How about Fallout 3's repair system?

Make it so you cannot lose the item, however you need others of the same type to repair it.  Make its effectiveness based on its condition and people will always want repair materials.  I wouldn't have decay be quite as fast as Fallout's, nor vary the effectiveness too much, but it's a good basis.  Let people trade-off effectiveness versus repair costs while making a constant market for crafters.

Fallen Earth uses decay and repair kits.  They're not needed much, at least at the low levels though.  Following their long-term crafting system should provide some interesting insights.