Vanguard - From Brad to the catasses

[AOFanboi]

The SafeHouse ones are more interesting since they explain the "spheres" concept and examples of crafting and resource gathering gameplay. Basically with crafting Sigil is trying to do what SOE could not with EQ II which is make crafting its own standalone "career" path with its own gameplay style. There's also a "Diplomacy" sphere and Brad being Brad is making all three spheres (Adventurering, Crafting, Diplomacy) interdependent with each other

I will put my hatred for EQ1 in a box, because that just sold me on the game. Must be tried at least for the first month.

Note that there are (in effect) four spheres, as crafting and resource gathering seemed to be separate careers.

[HRose]

SubSpace was by Jeff Petersen and Rod Humble, and I still consider it one of the best games ever made. The Executive Producer/Director of Development of PoP was Rod Humble, while Jeff Petersen did some of the programming work.

Btw, they recently fled from EQ and are now working at Maxis.

[Raguel]

While I have been quick to criticize EQ1 I have to admit that I was surprised to hear about Diplomacy, perception, etc. I honestly didn't think they (Sigil) had it in them. That is to say, I knew they had the talent, but doubted their desire to make something other than EQ2.

I wonder if I can tolerate the grind long enough to get to the good bits, but then I'm reminded that to Brad and co. the grind is the good bit, so I'm still on the fence.

[El Gallo]

I am looking forward to VG because, other than WoW there has been one major MMOG that actually had environments that appealed to me.  Too many games have randomly generated/modular shit environments (SWG, AC, CoH, LDoN etc) and the rest just have unimaginative handcrafted areas for the most part with little appeal for me (Most post-Luclin EQ expansions, DAOC, etc).  Now, just about every game has an area or two that stand out, but I remember a ton of EQ zones because they were impressive.  Almost all of them felt lovingly and skillfully handcrafted, and that goes a long way with me.  If McQ & Co can make a world like that again, it will be worth a long, long look from me.

Mechanics-wise, I think there is a mean to be found between EQ1 and WoW.  WoW was having some content issues just a few months in.  Let's be honest here.  If you like this style of game, you are going to
A: run out of shit to do very, very fast
B: have timesinks
C: get shitty, modular, randomly-generated and/or extremely buggy, unfinished content
D: pay $100+ a month to play

You can't have "dense" content in a MMOG, it's just not going to happen.  You need to water that steak down into a stew or your game is over in 2 weeks. 

Frankly, WoW could have stood to have group-oriented content and *some* downtime from the beginning.  Instead, they actively penalize their players for grouping for most of their lives (until they get to the "oh shit we don't have nearly enough content, here's UBRS and MC to farm 78,000 times phase"), and don't allow the groups that do form and significant time to chat, and then are shocked that their community ranks somewhere between "non-existent" and "junior high school bathroom." 

Now, do I have worries about VG?  Fuck yeah I have worries.  I worry that McQ will go overboard with the tedium because I fear the "tedium and hard mean the same thing" crowd has his ear at timies.  For example, travel.  I like travelling a long way the first couple times I go somewhere.  I do think it makes the world seem more real, and learning the world is part of its challenge.  But the 900th time is not so fun.  I worry that McQ doesn't know how to make great encounters.  Say what you want about post-Velious/Luclin EQ, the bosses got a *LOT* more interesting and a *LOT* harder after McQ left.  From original EQ until PoP, you had larger bags of hit points to hit and longer complete heal chains to manage and...well, that's about it.  Boring as fuck, hit autoattack and make dinner fights.  Recent EQ bosses have been much more imaginative, and demand a much higher level of skill from the players.  WoW fights are generally much better and much harder as well.  I worry that the tradeskill and diplomacy system will just be craptacular snorefests like EQII's trading system.   Those are just a few, I have a lot more.

But I am looking forward to the game.  _{will suck cock for beta invite}  McQuaid and Koster were the dominant forces in pre-WoW western MMOs.  They made the two games that actually mattered, and the only two that will be long remembered.  Koster got his second-gen shot and struck out with SWG.  McQ might do the same, but he might make something special.  We'll see.

[schild]

Once again, let me chime in. Arguably, we're still in first gen. Guild Wars might be second gen, but then most of it's mechanics are still completely first gen. I don't think second gen will exist until skill with twitch or strategy overtakes the hotkey method of attack. Cuz right now everything feels like...Everquest MajorMud TeleArena AD&D, but slower and less imaginative.

[Evil Elvis]

Frankly, WoW could have stood to have group-oriented content and *some* downtime from the beginning.  Instead, they actively penalize their players for grouping for most of their lives (until they get to the "oh shit we don't have nearly enough content, here's UBRS and MC to farm 78,000 times phase"), and don't allow the groups that do form and significant time to chat, and then are shocked that their community ranks somewhere between "non-existent" and "junior high school bathroom."

If by penalize you mean they don't assfuck you for not being in a group 24/7, I guess you have a point.  Then again, this mechanic already exists in quite a few mmorpg's, and we see how well they're doing.

And WoW's populace consists of jacked up fucktards?  Hi, welcome to every mmorpg I've ever played.  Putting a million mmorpg players in any game is going to give it a rather large element of douchebaggery; you can't blame WoW's endgame as the cause.  The more people you throw in the mix, the higher the signal-to-noise is going to get.

Note to self: learn to type complete thoughts.

[Trippy]

I worry that McQ doesn't know how to make great encounters.  Say what you want about post-Velious/Luclin EQ, the bosses got a *LOT* more interesting and a *LOT* harder after McQ left.  From original EQ until PoP, you had larger bags of hit points to hit and longer complete heal chains to manage and...well, that's about it.  Boring as fuck, hit autoattack and make dinner fights.  Recent EQ bosses have been much more imaginative, and demand a much higher level of skill from the players.

In defense of the original Verant team, they didn't know any better back at the beginning as in the story that it never occurred to them that more than one group would attempt to kill one of the uber mobs at the same time -- i.e raiding was a totally foreign concept at the beginning of EQ. And then they didn't plan properly for stat/item inflation and so you have all the brokenness that is Complete Heal. With Velious I think they were probably too busy putting together the complicated storyline/quest structure in that expansion to try and make significant changes to the end game gameplay though they did tinker around with some of the other mechanics like nerfing Enchanter Mez (another thing they underestimated the uberness of) and Monk FD pulling in raid encounters (though the monkeys compenstated by chain pulling or exploiting gameplay loopholes like the Z-axis).

[Monika T'Sarn]

That's true.

The point is that they want their e-peen to be POPULAR. They will never accept to play a catass-only game where they cannot show the e-peen to EVERYONE.

In order to really aim at this target audience the game must be mainstream AND the e-peen must be exclusive. That what was happening in EQ.

If Brad really aims for the exteme players but without being able to produce a mainstream game, he will just obtain deluded catasses.

Good observation. I think thats part of the success of WoW: Everybody can get to 60, but to successfully raid the high-level content you need to be good at playing the game and organizing, its not just time.

Its a similar relation between pks ( griefers ) and victims: No fun being wolf with no sheep around, just as its no fun being uber if nobody is below you. 

[HaemishM]

From the other board.

I didn't check out the Vanguard demo, but one of my friends did. He reported that their crafting systems have some interesting quirks. For example, to harvest wood, you have to attack a tree, which is not odd in and of itself. However, the trees have levels. And stats. And if you fail the attack, you are penalized. Reportedly, when he asked the demo-er what one would do in this situation, the response was "You could group up with a friend and have him de-buff the tree."

Words fucking fail me.

EDIT:

I have mixed feelings about EQ, and about BM's opinions on why it was popular. I think it's unfair to say all success in EQ was built upon time investment. Well, obviously it was, but the game does (have not played in 2 years, so I don't know about now) require tactics and some degree of common sense to play. Idiots don't do well in EQ, unless the devote a lot of time to playing.

But that's the thing about EQ1. IT WASN'T CHALLENGING. I say that, because for every challenge I ever faced, there was nothing I couldn't overcome given enough patience and/or people. If I was willing to fuck it up a billion times, I knew that on time # billion and one, I'd probably succeed. That's not challenging, that's frustrating. Challenging means that I have to come up with something inventive, something clever or just be really good to win, and I don't feel that at all about EQ (or really most PVE).

Not to mention that the real challenge wasn't even the patience, but the ability or willingness to suffer through the pain of defeats. You had to be willing to lose whole levels just to get things done, and it wasn't because it was challenging, it's because it was punishing. The causes for fuckups in Fear and Hate, on Dragon raids, had to do with either people's idiocy (or their inability to act like complete robots and execute every command letter and time perfect) or with bugs, such as Hate pathing. Again, those aren't challenging, they are frustrating.

[schild]

From the other board.

I didn't check out the Vanguard demo, but one of my friends did. He reported that their crafting systems have some interesting quirks. For example, to harvest wood, you have to attack a tree, which is not odd in and of itself. However, the trees have levels. And stats. And if you fail the attack, you are penalized. Reportedly, when he asked the demo-er what one would do in this situation, the response was "You could group up with a friend and have him de-buff the tree."

Words fucking fail me.

No, my friend. That was a combination of your sword being too weak and your supplemental wood-cutting skill not being up to snuff. Words simply had no effect on the tree, which you should have known before trying to insult it into kindling.

[Yegolev]

In defense of the original Verant team, they didn't know any better back at the beginning as in the story that it never occurred to them that more than one group would attempt to kill one of the uber mobs at the same time -- i.e raiding was a totally foreign concept at the beginning of EQ. And then they didn't plan properly for stat/item inflation and so you have all the brokenness that is Complete Heal.

Saying that they didn't properly learn the lessons of/really improve upon Diku before stealing the gameplay isn't much of a defense.  I remember doing things in Hidden Worlds that I was doing in EQ six years later.

[Merusk]

But, but, but.. EQ isn't based on DIKU, Verant/SOE signed an Affadavit and everything! How can they learn the lessons of something they never even looked at?!

(Yes, I know that was only the codebase. Stop taking things so seriously.)

El Gallo, you're mellowing man. You get older or something? 

 I seriously believe that the  "tedium and hard mean the same thing" crowd not only has his ear, I believe he's still a part of it.  Perhaps I'm wrong, after all they did include that nifty Tooth thing in Velious for travel.  That was a nice touch that kept the world fairly large without the stupidity of travel time that was Kunark.  However, they DID do Kunark in the first place and only did Velious that way after MANY folks bitched about the travel times. 

Like I said, I expect VS to be a great game for people willing to sink a TON of time into it on a large-hour-chunk basis.  Everything I've read from McQ has indicated this is their intent, and they want to 'reward' the people who spend lots of time in the world significantly.  In addition to being just plain bad game design, that's just stupid business (hello server/ bandwith/ CS loads). But there's folks who want a game like that, and will pay the $20 or more to play it.  Great for them, I'll be over here having my life.

[schild]

But there's folks who want a game like that, and will pay the $20 or more to play it.  Great for them, I'll be over here having my life.

I spend a lot of money on games. Fairly wrecklessly. I will not spend $20 a month on a single MMOG unless that MMOG happens to be Soul Caliber online and has at least 8 fighting styles, 7 hojillion weapons, and completely customizable characters.

[Nija]

Reading this thread and the FoH thread just make me sad. Shit has just gone so far downhill.

http://notsecret.spleens.net/minerfarm.html

That is what we need again. Not EQ. Virtual worlds my ass, nothing even compares to UO.

[Merusk]

But there's folks who want a game like that, and will pay the $20 or more to play it.  Great for them, I'll be over here having my life.

I spend a lot of money on games. Fairly wrecklessly. I will not spend $20 a month on a single MMOG unless that MMOG happens to be Soul Caliber online and has at least 8 fighting styles, 7 hojillion weapons, and completely customizable characters.

Nor will I.  But $15 was supposedly also the "I will not cross" line for a number of other folks, and now it's the 'standard' price.  $15 a month debuted with SWG almost 2 years ago.  VS isn't going to be out this year, and likely not the early part of next year.  By then there will have been another price hike, (Perhaps to $17 or $18 a month.)  So yeah, since VS is a 'premier' game, I expect a 'premier' price of $20 or more attached to it.  Ridiculous, yes, but there's folks that will eat it up.

[kaid]

I am not positive how many they will get with their aims but I will note that my eq2 guild just got back 3 members from wow that each got at least 2 characters to 60 and grew bored of it. Getting people to stick with your game for 5 years like eq1 did may not be doable anymore but at the rate people blow through content in games like WoW they are going to have some serious turnover and there is no real way to prevent it.


kaid

[WindupAtheist]

It's also worth noting that I've met a number of other people who got bored with WoW and returned to UO.

[WayAbvPar]

It's also worth noting that I've met a number of other people at my weekly UO Fanboi Cocktail Hour  who got bored with WoW and returned to UO.

Fixed that for you.

[schild]

It's also worth noting that I've met a number of other people at my weekly UO Fanboi Cock Hour  who got bored with WoW and returned to UO.

Fixed that for you.

You had a typo.

[Xilren's Twin]

From the other board.

I didn't check out the Vanguard demo, but one of my friends did. He reported that their crafting systems have some interesting quirks. For example, to harvest wood, you have to attack a tree, which is not odd in and of itself. However, the trees have levels. And stats. And if you fail the attack, you are penalized. Reportedly, when he asked the demo-er what one would do in this situation, the response was "You could group up with a friend and have him de-buff the tree."

Words fucking fail me.

But but but...they've just invented an entirely new class here; the Anti-Druid!  Instead of these elvish pansy tree hugging and frolicing in the glades, it's debuff trees and trample flowers underfoot for great justice!  Brilliant!

On a more serious note, I'd like to see more of what appears to be the only new gameplay stab by Brad and Co; the diplomacy sphere.  Of course, only being able to engage in politics with NPC sounds rather underwhelming, but being able to task invisible npc minions to fulfill your goals sounds different enough to be worth an eyeball.  Them throwing the term "RTS like" control is a red flag however.

Well, we shall see.  Why do I expect "14 lvl Dip LFG to make a peace treaty run to Freeport....again"?

Xilren

[WindupAtheist]

It's true.  I suspect WoW is hurting EQ worse than it is UO, just because anyone capable of being entertained by a levelfest with shinier graphics already left UO years ago.

[StGabe]

StGabe going to weigh in on this one or what?

Naw.  Most on this board have adequately demonstrated that they aren't really interested in outside opinions or the notion that game designers might design games for other playstyles (and only acquire audiences of a few thousand other people, oh noes).  So why bother?  I'd just get called a catass (even though I've been so busy with work and having a life that I haven't logged into any online game in a month now).

I do find humor in the bits where this forum intimated as being representative of hardcore gamers (after having chased off, out-yelled, and otherwise pissed off anyone who has a different opinion as to what is fun hardcore gameplay).

Gabe.

[schild]

StGabe going to weigh in on this one or what?

Naw.  Most on this board have adequately demonstrated that they aren't really interested in outside opinions or the notion that game designers might design games that aren't personally appealing (and only acquire audiences of a few thousand other people, oh noes).  So why bother?  I'd just get called a catass (even though I've been so busy with work and having a life that I haven't logged into any online game in a month now).

I do find humor in the bits where this forum intimated as being representative of hardcore gamers (after having chased off, out-yelled, and otherwise pissed off anyone who has a different opinion as to what is fun hardcore gameplay).

Gabe.

Whoa there dickhead, you were chased off for being a total fanboi and for not using the fucking quote function. Your opinion would have been welcomed if it weren't for those two little bits there, believe it or not. Yes, that's right, it had more to do with HOW you posted rather than WHAT you posted. I'd touch on the other shit you said, but it's not raging douchebag week.

[Signe]

I'd touch on the other shit you said, but it's not raging douchebag week.

Maybe he has a mullet.

[HaemishM]

StGabe going to weigh in on this one or what?

Naw.  Most on this board have adequately demonstrated that they aren't really interested in outside opinions or the notion that game designers might design games for other playstyles (and only acquire audiences of a few thousand other people, oh noes). 

Only, this designer is designing for the SAME playstyle he already designed one game for. And if he only acquires an audience of a few thousand, the game will tank, because he's obviously gearing it to support 250k-500k users. But I'm sure you weren't being sarcastic or anything.

There are plenty of playstyles out there, many of which don't jibe with my playstyle or the majority of this board. However, most of the games out there are designed for ONE playstyle, the hardcore catass, and this game seems to be designed for that playstyle too. The rest of us who do not play in that style would like a game designed for us. While there have been some strides made towards that style, such as WoW and Guild Wars, neither have really embraced our playstyle.

When the designer of the first, real uber-hardcore-catass game that made us all hate camping, timesinks and grinding treadmill play decides he wants to design another game, with "new gameplay" from his previous game, yet determines that all the shit that was bad about his first game is stuff he wants to amp up in his new game, we will deride him. It's up to him to prove us wrong.

[shiznitz]

The only smell test I have to predict Vanguard's potential success is this:

Of the 30 or so people I met in EQ1 and am still in gaming contact with, not a single one is talking about Vanguard. These are people I "saw" every night in EQ1 for 2 years. Some of these people played on the Rallos Zek server from 1999-2001, a server where not only could the PvE content fuck you over, but the other players could as well. Some play CoH, some play WoW, most play EQ2. Some even tried Planetside. We talk about Auto Assault. We talk about CoV. We talk about DDO and LotR Online. We never talk about Vanguard. Never. Same for Tabula Rasa, actually.

If 30 people with their wallets firmly in the genre since 1999 are not interested in a game due out this fall, how big can the potential US customer base really be?

[MaceVanHoffen]

I do find humor in the bits where this forum intimated as being representative of hardcore gamers (after having chased off, out-yelled, and otherwise pissed off anyone who has a different opinion as to what is fun hardcore gameplay).

We only chase off the gamers with thin skins.  Maybe you got chased off because you can't handle one or more dissenting opinions?

If you can't handle being called a crotchpheasant once in a while, this place ain't for you.  I really just wanted to use crotchpheasant in a sentence again.

EDIT:  Woohoo just noticed my new title-isciousness!

[StGabe]

I "got chased off" because, after so much righteous indignation, I no longer give a shit.  That's what half the posts on MMO's here are.  OMG, they aren't building a game just for me, those bastards!

It's not about having a thick skin.  I do.  As evidenced by just how impersonally I took prior threads.  It's about giving a shit.  I once had a girlfriend who was very religious.  And I got to sit down for a while and talk to her pastor about my inability to grok the greatness of Jesus.  And after a while it became apparent that this whole guy's worldview revolved around biblical quotes and there was no way I could change that.  So I just shook his hand, thanked him for his time, and left.  That's what I ended up doing here.  Tohe"game world" views here (for most)  revolve around the idea that anything that isn't your personal playstyle must be bad and that any game designer that dares to build a game that isn't your personal playstyle is an asshole (the latter part is the worst of this).  As though no one should dare build a game without this forum's personal consent.

It's one thing to say: I'm not looking forward to Vanguard because it's not the sort of gaming I'm interested in.  Honestly, I'm not that excited about it myself.  It's quite another to spend literally pages and pages (in thread, after thread, after thread), yelling and screaming about what an asshole this McQuaid guy is and what catasses all those EQ1-style players are . . .

. . . just because they like to play a different game than you.

That's just righteous indignation.  And tediously repetitive at that.

Gabe.

[Shockeye]

It's one thing to say: I'm not looking forward to Vanguard because it's not the sort of gaming I'm interested in.  Honestly, I'm not that excited about it myself.  It's quite another to spend literally pages and pages (in thread, after thread, after thread), yelling and screaming about what an asshole this McQuaid guy is and what catasses all those EQ1-style players are . . .

. . . just because they like to play a different game than you.

Look deeper and you'll notice that the reason we bitch about catasses is because they have a way of ruining the games we do play and are interested in.

[Margalis]

These forums have a lot of good, and a lot of crap. The key is to skim or ignore the crap. If half the posts are crap just ignore them.

I don't hate Brad McQuaid or anything like that. I don't really even know much about EQ. Vanguard sounds like a game I won't like. The end.

I don't think it's right to categorize these forums as being for hardcore gamers. They are for people who like to think and talk about games. There is a big difference. I do think it's interesting to talk about the intended target of the game and how time has changed it's prospects. There is a huge huge difference between the time when EQ1 came out and now. When EQ1 came out the only other game in town was UO, which was most famous for the lawsuits against it.

[StGabe]

Catasses ruined your gameplay?

How?

Because they dare to attract a market?  Should I say that sports gamers or driver gamers ruin my gameplay because they take away from game development that could go into strategy and puzzle titles?

Because they dare to play the game they are interested and you, while playing that game, can't achieve as much?  Isn't that just your fault for actually giving a shit?

The real problem is that a game like EQ1 comes on the market and is fun for a while, or for a certain subset of the gamer population.  And then when it is no longer interesting for a person or when a person isn't in the subset of gamers that likes it, they go the extra step of suddenly blaming the game company for catering to those other 500k players and not themselves.  As though any game on the market has an obligation to appeal directly to you and if it doesn't, the designer is an asshole.

For what it's worth I agree that the market has changed significantly since EQ1 and I think Brad may need to learn that lesson.  However I would agree with Brad that there are a lot of players who did enjoy the experience of EQ1 early days and would like something that harkens to that.  I would go further to say that there is still a lot of room to innovate from there in different directions than those that been taken by WoW, et al.  We have games exploring the casual gamer space in WoW's wake.  Lots of them.  I myself think that means designers have even more reason to go the other way and explore the other ways to go post-EQ1.  I myself see the genre going downhill recently with respect to the gameplay that I enjoy -- take that as you will.  I'm not alone.  There is a market and I hope people try to continue selling to it.  McQuaid is trying to sell to a different market than WoW and I will wait for more than mere vagaries like this to actually judge whether this includes myself or not.

Gabe.

[Xilren's Twin]

Catasses ruined your gameplay?
How?

Generally speaking, the apperance in most recent releases is the catasses tend to drive the design decisions once a game gets through any significant portion of live.  "Improving" a game by designing for the top 20% seems to rub people who aren't in that top slice the wrong way.  Now, I understand from a business standpoint of identifying your most valuable customers and focuing on them, but in terms of an mmorpg, catasses do not appear to me to be those customers.  Since everyone pays the same rate, why wouldn't you want to appeal to the broadest audience possible with your hooks rather than focusing on a niche of a niche (people with 8 hours a day and 2 computers)?

People with the most disposable time will blow through your game content in short order no matter what you do, thus upping the time requirements needed to accomplish anything at the "high end" (or end game, or whatever you want to call it) is viewed by people without 8 hours a day of unallocated time as rather...irritating.  This trend did seem to originate with EQ being the first graphical mmorpg most played; so most of us are extra jaded when it comes to Brad and Co.  The stories of original EQ's foibles and fuckups are the stuff of legends now.  Brad busted many an online cherry, so it's little wonder he stirs some emotion now that he's back in picture like that old girlfriend who gave you clap.

As to the cursing, name calling and general asshattery you see on this site constantly...what were you expecting, the reasoned ivory tower discussion at Terra Nova perhaps?  Calling someone who made a questionable decision a crotchpheasant has it's own entertainment that simply saying "I disagree with what you said" lacks...unless you're Gbob.  if it bothers you, you really are thin skinned in terms of tone.  Lots of good stuff here; and larger amounts of bullshit.  Welcome to the intraweb and all...

Xilren

[Soln]

Catasses ruined your gameplay?

How?

CATASS: "describing the nature to be so deeply involved in something that requires so much time, you allow your real life to degenerate around you."
The corollary of which should also be "forcing the in-game life of other players to degenerate in order to compensate for the real-life effect of the game."  

I'm sure others will describe this better, but for me the problems are basically two-fold, but really the same:

1) designers building games that demand and enable obsessive compulsiveness and other pathologies for success.  
Not every game may have an end-game, but every game has a goal(s) and a prestige to achieve (e.g. new class, new item, new land etc) and achieving success in every MMO == time.  I think it's genuinely very unhealthy to continue building games and increasing the difficulties in existing games by demanding more time online as a differentiator of success between players.  I really do.  It's unfair, it's really unhealthy and it's a bad business model.  People subscribe monthly -- they don't need to be in-game every day of that month.  There should be more imagination and critical thought given for how people can achieve prestige, success and narrative goal(s) than making them spend more time than someone else in the world.  The driver behind time as the big throttle in every game are catasses who are the early achievers and either skew the game economy or lower the prestige of an achievement by their self-promotion or complaints with the ease they could "finish the game".  They are the ones who "finish" the content first, who complain or champion the ease of their success. In short, catasses are the people who I think are the most vocal to complain about a game's content or ruleset that inevitably cause designers to make things more tough == longer.  Not more interesting, not more rich, or sandboxy/flexible/innovative.  They are the cocksuckers that require designers to put a dragon in every room because the dungeon otherwise was solo'able by them.  Fucking over the rest of game community in the process.

2) designers changing existing games to respond to catasses
This almost always involve new constraints (time and rule changes), because catasses have 'sploited or taken a poor gaming behavior to the nth extreme (camping, load jacking, whatever).  They are the people who solo dungeons and complain about it, but they're likewise the people who cap out professions, skills, or content generating part of the game that cause designers to lower DPS or change skills or raise mob levels or whatever to lower the rate at which other players can advance.  Yes it's time again, but it's also designers changing core rules around combat or communication or movement to slow the rate at which players can access content or just attempt a goal or class (e.g. Jedi Padawan instead of Jedi Knight), etc.  It's because catasses have the uber weapons, or the 'spoilted moves or the ultimate class template in PvP that skews a game mechanic that forces designers to nerf or introduce new content to lessen all players in their abilities.  This is because Catass are OUTLIERS in a game community.  They are the forum whores and the people who run and subscribe spoiler and sploiter sites.  They are constantly seeking attention in-game and on-forum for their unique situation.  But because games are designed around time and levels the only way it seems designers can respond to poor behaviors and the game imbalancing effect of catasses is to lower everyone.  They don't have the ability to deal with those players as outliers.

This is is how catasses have ruined my gameplay. 

[HaemishM]

Catasses ruined your gameplay?
How?

Generally speaking, the apperance in most recent releases is the catasses tend to drive the design decisions once a game gets through any significant portion of live.  "Improving" a game by designing for the top 20% seems to rub people who aren't in that top slice the wrong way.  Now, I understand from a business standpoint of identifying your most valuable customers and focuing on them, but in terms of an mmorpg, catasses do not appear to me to be those customers.  Since everyone pays the same rate, why wouldn't you want to appeal to the broadest audience possible with your hooks rather than focusing on a niche of a niche (people with 8 hours a day and 2 computers)?

Try the top 1% and you'll have a more accurate view of the catasses. The other 19% are just hardcore players (meaning they have the play every day mentality, they just may not have the time or addiction).

I'll go through EQ1 and show how catasses ruined my gameplay.

Through the first year of EQ1, I played a decent amount (maybe 15-20 hours a week or less), and got to about level 20. By the end of that year, I was running a guild that would reach about 100 members by the time I left 1 1/2 years later. Now, had I just played by myself mostly or just in pickup groups, I'd probably never have run into the situations that the catasses caused. But I didn't. I played with people, and I led a large group of people and these people expected to do things in the game that others did, like kill dragons. They expected to be able to experience any of the content they wanted to, because they paid the same amount as anyone else.

And that might have worked, had it not been for the catassers.

You know, the guys who made it to 40-50 in a month and realized there wasn't anything else to do except kill a dragon. So they did. And they did it a lot quicker than the designers of the game intended them to be able to do it. And the designers went, "OH SHIT! They will be bored and quit the game, and yell on the web and make others quit the game." And that happened, except they didn't quit. Or if they did, it wasn't in big enough numbers to mean shit. They were addicted, after all.

So the designers made the dragons harder. Or put obstacles to being allowed to get there, maybe more ice giants or fire giants. And it was good enough. Unless you happened to want to see the dragon without camping 3 bazillion foozles to do so.

So then the designers released the PLANES. The Plane of Fear was opened, and my wife and I were online the night it happened. She delighted in making a level 1 ogre and running it suicide like into the Plane of Fear, JUST TO SEE THE ZONE. Because it was cool-looking. And you know what happened?

The catasses complained. They petitioned GM's and screamed to the heavens. "The little level 1's will ninja-loot our stuff" (valid concern over a shittily designed looting system), "they will get our raid killed" (valid concern over shitty pathing), "they didn't EARN passage to the Planes." Now that last complaint is total horseshit, of course, because let me tell you, running a fucking ogre through Nek Forest through the gauntlet of monsters and fucking guards is very hard. It took skill. But that wasn't what they meant. By earning it, they meant putting in just as much time as they did, whether or not you had a life. So the designer changed it, allowing only level 46 and up people from entering the zone. That immediately put a carrot on a stick to the rest of the populace. It said, "If you aren't this tall, you cannot ride this ride."

Yeah, fuck you too. I don't play role-playing games to get treated like I'm in kindergarden just because I like to sleep instead of being up til 2 in the morning camping idiotic AI.

And as the design of EQ1 went on, every time a challenge was found and defeated by the uber catasses, it was changed to be HARDER, to give those whiny fucksticks more of a challenge, thus dangling the carrot ever farther from people like myself and most of my guild who didn't spend 8 hours on the game every single night. But since we couldn't really opt out of doing that content (as a guild leader, I certainly couldn't just tell my guild "We can't do these type of encounters" because part of the reason you have a guild is to be able to do things greater than you could do alone). And as Kunark got released, the new content outside of raids and other catasstastic activities was made harder to compensate for the uber catasses who had all the best gear. That made leveling to get that first carrot (the dragons) EVEN HARDER, all to cater to a playstyle that 1% of the population actually followed.

As for the profanity, as for calling developers pigfuckers, douchebags and crotchpheasants, look up the word hyperbole. It's entertaining. It entertains me. If you are not a fan of such interweb hyperbole, might I suggest you don't read the site?

[ajax34i]

StGabe going to weigh in on this one or what?

If you are not a fan of such interweb hyperbole, might I suggest you don't read the site?

You want him on this board or not?  Make up your minds.

Eh, doesn't matter, sounds like he's gone anyway.