The Newbie Trial of the Isle: An EQII Newbie Writeup

[schild]

Margalis sent in a review of the EQII trial. He touches on a lot of things I agree with (and disagree with for that matter).

Read it here.

[Mesozoic]

Good points about the lack of teamplay and HOs in the lowbie areas.  The statement about WoW graphics sucking seemed unneccessary, especially in the "Thats the way it is" manner.  It sounded like she was channeling Schild there for a second. 

[schild]

Good points about the lack of teamplay and HOs in the lowbie areas.  The statement about WoW graphics sucking seemed unneccessary, especially in the "Thats the way it is" manner.  It sounded like she was channeling Schild there for a second.

She? And come now, Margalis wasn't channeling me. I'm not the only one who thinks WoW, in terms of graphics and animation, bit the big one. I'm not big on thinking to the contrary simply because of what the masses think. The first time I saw World of Warcraft, I thought to myself "Great, characters with 4 polygons for arms, but everyone will think it's brilliant because of all the abnormal colors." At the end of the day, having played the game and witnessed the combat animation myself, it seems I was right.

But is that what's important here? No, not really. This is about the trial of a game that by anyone's standards lost a Next Big Thing MMOG Duel.

[Mesozoic]

He, sorry.

It just amuses me how so many conversations about EQ2 morph into conversations about WoW, and here it happened again in a review of EQ2 (and yes, irony enthusiasts, in the thread about the review about EQ2).  No one seems to be able to avoid praising / hating Blizzard, no matter what the subject at hand.

[Shockeye]

It's hard to ignore the 800lb elephant in the room that's wearing a hat made out of money.

[schild]

It's hard to ignore the 800lb elephant in the room that's wearing a hat made out of money.

It's a shame that the 800lb elephants hat is made out of the shredded remains of what innovation was left in this generation of MMOGs. Who knew it would make such fine silk.

[Shockeye]

Innovation obviously doesn't sell.

[El Gallo]

SWG was pretty innovative.

[Ironwood]

That's like my cue, right ?

[HaemishM]

I disagree with most of what that article said, especially when comparing EQ2 to WoW. I think WoW's design sense makes it look a helluva lot better than EQ2.

It's combat animations do suck, however. I also thought the Isle of Refuge section of EQ2 was supremely boring, but the actual game didn't get much better.

[schild]

I also thought the Isle of Refuge section of EQ2 was supremely boring

I thought it was the single best tutorial in any MMOG I've ever played. It was also constructed in such a way that it had it's own economy and trade items. It was how I would expect every game to function - small pocket galaxies in a larger universe that are self-sustaining and easily linked to each other galaxy. But hey, that's just too cool a theme for an entire game or something.

[Margalis]

I compared to FFXI and WoW because those are other games I have played a fair amount of. Comparison is important.

One thing you can do now is look at my WoW "review" and look at my EQ2 writeup and begin to understand what my sensibilities are. So you can figure out for yourself what points are worth ignoring and which ones you might agree with.

My big takeaway from the trial is that it isn't a good advertisement for the game. The WoW trial is much better in that regard. The EQ2 trial just doesn't give you much feel for the overall game. It would be fine if it just didn't end at level 6. As far as the games themselves go, it's hard for me to say that one is significantly better than the other.

[Hoax]

Yeah the most telling/important thing said in the review is that you never see high level players.  I think I managed to make it to NIN20, and WAR15 while my THF main was 43 just because the high level players looked so fucking cool in FFXI.  Hell in all games they look cool as a newb.  Except WoW, once they come out with the new tierII set gfx, god those are just fucking terrible.

EQ2 is throwing away a major hook by making it so trial newbs never see the vets.  But nobody here has ever accused the powers that be at SOE of being smart so I digress.

As to the WoW subject (the thing worth talking about!) I've never played EQ2 on my machine so I can't say how it looked but it used to look like ass.  I mean seriously just plain assy.  WoW gets away with it somehow, I know its bad but it works, those damn underused colors or something.  That isn't to say that WoW doesn't need work in some areas, but they have perfected some things in terms of "look" and "feel".   As for the combat in WoW, I think playing a warrior I am starting to notice what you are talking about.  I never feel like I'm fighting more like running in circles waiting to see the numbers appear over the other player's head.

[Margalis]

It's funny because that dumb free game FlyFF actually has great combat in a way. I mean it's properly synchronized - when you swing your sword the damage appears and the sound effect occurs and the enemy reels all in time with the graphics. Still a horrible game, but that's what I'm looking for.

Not seeing vets is a huge problem with the trial. That's a huge carrot they are not giving to people. It's awesome to go to the auction house in FFXI and see people in full tricked out gear.

By making the newb experience just running around solely with other newbs they are really selling themselves short.

[El Gallo]

High level players look like ass in EQ2.  There is no "cool looking" gear to ooh and ahh over, because (a) everyone wears the same bland-looking tradeskill made stuff because it is easy (but tedious) to acquire and not much different stats-wise from raid gear (b) because the characters are so customizable, they can't have very many types of armor so even the ub4r raid gear looks basically like everything else (unlike EQ1 or WoW, where you were very limited in body choices, so they could make a lot of different armors with little work).  Keep in mind this is a report from a jaded guildie of mine in EQ2, but the times I've popped over there to say hello to people seems to bear this out.  Also, I read something from some SoE mouthpiece that they are trying to rectify this.

They are also supposedly going to let you pick your final class at level 1 soon.

[Strazos]

Just one thing: Am I correct in remembering that in FFXI, not all classes are available at character creation?

Also, I fail to see how Xi's combat is more "strategic". I watched a friend play the game extensively, at the top levels and encounters. The combat did not seem dissimilar from EQ combat; it was just slower.

[schild]

My experience with FFXI is almost none. I'll play it on the 360 when the beta comes out. But here's how I look at it, slower combat means less choices in the course of combat and less choices means that the choices you do get to make are more important. Therefore it inherently takes more strategy or at least feels that way. My giant fucking gripe with FFXI is that it wasn't straight up FF combat. God that would have been great. FFVII online. Hell, even FFV online. Just kickass.

[UD_Delt]

(a) everyone wears the same bland-looking tradeskill made stuff because it is easy (but tedious) to acquire and not much different stats-wise from raid gear

This is not true. Visually raid gear is still not that impressive but stat-wise and effect-wise it is definately much better than rare tier 6 player crafted armor/weapons.

I believe a lot of the items were upgraded around 4-6 weeks ago.

If anyone is familiar with the DKP system it is what we use and is a good indicator as to the quality of gear coming out of a given zone. IE...
1. If Total DKP earned > DKP spent -- This zone is not worth doing
2. If Total DKP earned = DKP spent -- This zone is perfectly balanced
3. If Total DKP earned < DKP spent -- The zone drops some really great gear

Right now most t6 raids fall into 2 and 3.

[El Gallo]

That makes sense.  They guy was bitching about it shortly after the expansion, I guess they went back and fixed the itemization for the new raids (which every game seems to have to do).  Have they said anything about improving the visual appearance of the fat looties?

[UD_Delt]

Have they said anything about improving the visual appearance of the fat looties?

This is one of the things they talk about constantly. They do make periodic changes to things each patch. Some of the new weapons our guild just found supposedly look pretty cool. I haven't been to a raid in 2-3 weeks though so can't confirm.

I can say that a few of the changes have NOT been so well received. They started playing with colors and for a while our main tank was wearing some nice hot pink pants that were about the best t6 raid gear legs we had seen stat-wise. Color and graphic wise though not so great. They also managed to screw up a few of the helms and turned them into chest piece graphics which caused the graphic to disapear entirely.

So, I guess you could say they are definately working on it but the progress they are making is a mixed bag. But at least the awareness of needing to fix this stuff is there.

[jpark]

She? And come now, Margalis wasn't channeling me. I'm not the only one who thinks WoW, in terms of graphics and animation, bit the big one. I'm not big on thinking to the contrary simply because of what the masses think. The first time I saw World of Warcraft, I thought to myself "Great, characters with 4 polygons for arms, but everyone will think it's brilliant because of all the abnormal colors." At the end of the day, having played the game and witnessed the combat animation myself, it seems I was right.

* boggle *

Your right because:

1.  Most people don't enjoy WoW's graphics?
2.  Or you did not enjoy WoWs graphics?

Presumably, you post to predict how the industry / market will respond to a game correct?  If so, I fail to see how your individual reaction is relevant.  The market appears to respond well Blizzard's strategy on graphics - so you're wrong.

You have never come clean on this game.  Do I need to Necro quote - or was it you that thought initially EQ2 would fair well, not just because of the "graphics" but also because of the voice overs.

You have my respect Schild but dammit you're trying at times when you seem to refuse to come clean on being wrong about both games.  Admitting when we are wrong is as important as being right (certain Presidents exempted :P)

(Trivia - I was wrong in a big way here - I thought EQ2 would at least cannabilize EQ and SOE would shift over their subscription base.  My prediction was wrong.)

[Zane0]

A cursory review of the EQ2 newbie experience that quickly derails into bemoaning the state of MMOs and describing how WoW stole everyone's lunch?  Woo, what a fantastic surprise.

I don't know why you people bother half the time.

[Margalis]

A cursory review of the EQ2 newbie experience that quickly derails into bemoaning the state of MMOs and describing how WoW stole everyone's lunch?  Woo, what a fantastic surprise.

The review itself did not derail into that, just the conversation that followed. Yes both WoW and FFXI were mentioned, as they should have been. Part of review is comparison. Especially given that most people are going to only play one or two MMORPGs at a time, the decision to play one is usually a tacit decision not to play another one.

As far as people's opinions on graphics - you guys do understand review right? They are reviewer opinion. I could write a "review" that said "more people play WoW, so WoW is a lot better in every way." That's not a review. Just repeating the "common wisdom" on everything is meaningless.

I think most people agree that technically the WoW are not so great. The main sticking point is how you feel about the visual style. Personally I think the visual style isn't all that, especially when you look at animation and equipment graphics. In EQ2 when I put on a shield I saw it strapped to my back. In WoW equipment changes at the newbie level were barely noticeable. At level one I had a blueish-greenish shirt, 17 levels later I looked basically the same.

IMO FFXI has far better visual style than WoW, and is far better technically. EQ2 visual style isn't great (the character models themselves look pretty bad) but it isn't a lot worse than WoW either, and the equipment looked a lot better. And technically it is far superior.

[AcidCat]

In WoW equipment changes at the newbie level were barely noticeable. At level one I had a blueish-greenish shirt, 17 levels later I looked basically the same.

Weird, as I've had exactly the opposite experience. I've played many WoW characters and I enjoy how they constantly evolve in appearance, even at lower levels. Then again I am the kind to go buy 6-7 different colored shirts at the AH so I'll always have a shirt to match my latest armor, I'm probably a little too obsessed about my characters' appearance and WoW has not disappointed in this area at all.

[Hoax]

I have to say when I said WoW did some things right I was thinking of two things:

1. Weapons, WoW weapons change often and usually make a difference.  Also at high end there is a decent variety and almost every epic weapon has a good look esp after 1.9 changes the gfx for several.

2. The overall "feel" everything in WoW fits with everything else.  This is not usually true of fantasy games for me at least.  FFXI did have that seemless art content feel to it but if anything FFXI was even more stylized then WoW also FFXI's cool gear was immpossible to even obtain, the fuckers.

[Margalis]

1. Weapons, WoW weapons change often and usually make a difference.  Also at high end there is a decent variety and almost every epic weapon has a good look esp after 1.9 changes the gfx for several.

As a lowbie I didn't go out of my way to find interesting weapons and armor. I mean I tried to keep up to date but I certainly wasn't buying a different shirt every hour. I didn't find that equip graphics changed much.

Compare that to Anarchy Online, the king of that area. (Out of what I played) In 2 hours of Anarchy Online I had gone through 3 or so different sets of equipment that all looked different and a couple of different feeling guns, including one that only held 6 rounds but did good damage and made a very satisfying boom sound.

2. The overall "feel" everything in WoW fits with everything else.  This is not usually true of fantasy games for me at least.  FFXI did have that seemless art content feel to it but if anything FFXI was even more stylized then WoW also FFXI's cool gear was immpossible to even obtain, the fuckers.

I agree. The feel of WoW is very consistent. EQ2 less so in my experience. As I mentioned, Froglocks looks way better than a lot of races and the goblins and skeletons look like they were done pretty differently.

IMO stylization is very important in games in general. Accentuating differences is always a good idea. You can tell the difference between a Taru-Taru and a Galka from hundreds of yards away. I htink a good rule is choose two or three things that make this race, armor or weapon different and emphasize them. If it's a big sword, make it really big. If it's spiky armor, make it really spiky. If it's a little gnome, make him really little. That sort of thing.

[jpark]

As far as people's opinions on graphics - you guys do understand review right? They are reviewer opinion. I could write a "review" that said "more people play WoW, so WoW is a lot better in every way." That's not a review. Just repeating the "common wisdom" on everything is meaningless.

I don't have a problem with the sentiment "for my tastes, I don't like X about this game".  That's fine.  If you want to fire comments from an insular world where your own reaction is judge and jury - by all means - you win every discussion by definition.  And in this context - following this authority - wow graphics are poor.

On the other hand:

Schild referred to your remark as vindication that he was "right" about the graphical decisions in the design of WoW.

Presumably, Schild is taking your comment as a surrogate indicator for what other people think who share interest in the genre.  This is no longer a discussion about your taste, but a broader discussion about the design decision itself.  In this context - Schild is wrong if we look at the braoder reaction of the market.  Of course, if he restricts his sample size to you - he's right.

I don't have a problem with the review per se - but how it is being evoked in this context by Schild.

Bringing this back to EQ2, the only innovation SOE has shown is to rely on graphics as the main value proposition of the game; that introduce lag in 5 man dungeon outings, offer little or no differentiation by gear or avatar, and cannot run fully on most people's machines.  A lot of this is actually fixable over time - but this is not so much about the "strategy" of the graphical system than it is about time consuming damage control via follow-up projects.  How can a game that has graphics as a central value proposition have significant complaints regarding gear/avatar differentiation and poorly designed zones?

For what it is worth - I quite enjoyed newbie Isle in EQ2 - they did a great job with it.  Too bad it had little to with what the rest of EQ2 had to offer.

[Shockeye]

Put me down as a person who prefers WoW's graphics. Sure they're cheesy and have less polygons, but they fit together well and nothing seems totally out of place.

[schild]

Schild referred to your remark as vindication that he was "right" about the graphical decisions in the design of WoW.

Presumably, Schild is taking your comment as a surrogate indicator for what other people think who share interest in the genre.  This is no longer a discussion about your taste, but a broader discussion about the design decision itself.  In this context - Schild is wrong if we look at the braoder reaction of the market.  Of course, if he restricts his sample size to you - he's right.

I don't have a problem with the review per se - but how it is being evoked in this context by Schild.

Oh, no, I'm sure there are at least 4 million people who disagree with me (let's just assume that 20% of WoW would like something about the graphics to be changed - complete shot in the dark). Point being I'm not in the majority. And yes, [the graphics] all fit together. But at the end of the day, I look at how much money they spent and how little they achieved. They don't have housing in the game. They don't have a robust crafting experience. WoW always felt like half an MMOG to me. The graphics were a big part of that. Lucky for them, the Blizzard logo more than makes up for their design decisions.

[jpark]

Schild referred to your remark as vindication that he was "right" about the graphical decisions in the design of WoW.

Presumably, Schild is taking your comment as a surrogate indicator for what other people think who share interest in the genre.  This is no longer a discussion about your taste, but a broader discussion about the design decision itself.  In this context - Schild is wrong if we look at the braoder reaction of the market.  Of course, if he restricts his sample size to you - he's right.

I don't have a problem with the review per se - but how it is being evoked in this context by Schild.

Oh, no, I'm sure there are at least 4 million people who disagree with me (let's just assume that 20% of WoW would like something about the graphics to be changed - complete shot in the dark). Point being I'm not in the majority. And yes, [the graphics] all fit together. But at the end of the day, I look at how much money they spent and how little they achieved. They don't have housing in the game. They don't have a robust crafting experience. WoW always felt like half an MMOG to me. The graphics were a big part of that. Lucky for them, the Blizzard logo more than makes up for their design decisions.

We are operating in different worlds.  Out of curiosity - is it your personal goal to be seen as an artist or someone who can track and forecast this industry?

If its the former - I understand.  Your own individual reaction is fair play.  You can say based on your own reaction that Blizzard "achieved little".

If its the latter .... then you cannot ignore the user base.  By looking at the broader market and its reaction you cannot conclude Blizzard achieved little.  Your own opionions are irrelevant unless you are using yourself as a one man focus group.

[schild]

We are operating in different worlds.  Out of curiosity - is it your personal goal to be seen as an artist or someone who can track and forecast this industry?

If its the former - I understand.  Your own individual reaction is fair play.

If its the latter .... then you cannot ignore the user base.  Your own opionions are irrelevant.

Actually you can ignore the userbase. I'd say 80% of them are not a possible target customer for new MMOGs coming out. Just like 80% of the players of Starcraft weren't possible target customers for other RTS games. Blizzard is the 800lb gorilla. They were before WoW came out. And they still are and it's not shocking. It's not worth chasing them. They are a fucking anomaly. They have always had shitty customer service, terrible patching, mediocre launch days, a customer base that would drive the sanest person mad, and a developer team that doesn't think the outside world exists. Any other company pulled all that shit, they'd be hung in town square (at least by the internet). But not Blizzard. They could shit in your cereal and you'd eat it. I don't even need to defend some of the dumb shit they patch, they could care less. 100,000 people disappear overnight from their game, they would probably say they were customers they didn't need and ship an extra 100,000 copies per month.

There's a reason the Diablo and Warcraft Battlechests still sell. And it's not because there aren't better games out.

[jpark]

Actually you can ignore the userbase. I'd say 80% of them are not a possible target customer for new MMOGs coming out. Just like 80% of the players of Starcraft weren't possible target customers for other RTS games. Blizzard is the 800lb gorilla. They were before WoW came out. And they still are and it's not shocking. It's not worth chasing them. They are a fucking anomaly... Any other company pulled all that shit, they'd be hung in town square (at least by the internet). But not Blizzard. They could shit in your cereal and you'd eat it. I don't even need to defend some of the dumb shit they patch, they could care less. 100,000 people disappear overnight from their game, they would probably say they were customers they didn't need and ship an extra 100,000 copies per month.

There's a reason the Diablo and Warcraft Battlechests still sell. And it's not because there aren't better games out.

In other words, people who play WOW do so because they are Blizzard Fanbois.  The user base underpinning wow does not represent actual market expansion for this genre as a whole.  That's what your saying...

[Margalis]

Just because lots of people play WoW doesn't mean they all like the graphics - it just means the graphics don't drive them to quit. Although I think most people are at least OK with the graphics.

As far as EQ2 goes, I don't think graphics are big value, it's more the graphics engine - which is silly. Only programmers care about the engine, users just care about what they see on the screen. But they spent a lot of time talking up their graphics technology.

[Shockeye]

In other words, people who play WOW do so because they are Blizzard Fanbois.  The user base underpinning wow does not represent actual market expansion for this genre as a whole.  That's what your saying...

That's always been his position.

[schild]

In other words, people who play WOW do so because they are Blizzard Fanbois.  The user base underpinning wow does not represent actual market expansion for this genre as a whole.  That's what your saying...

Correct. I do not believe that the userbase should seriously be considered as potential customers for games not made by Blizzard. And I'm fairly certain many developers agree with me.