[Opinion] EQ Next - Game Changers/Breakers

[stormlord]

Originally Posted by Vondra [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I never saw item camps as being a big problem, that people couldn't get things.

On live classic, there were many things I never did loot off the corpse myself. But people traded and sold back then (more trading on my server) just as they do now.

It's not like "Oh i'm screwed, there's a line waiting to camp x" was a big deal. At least not when it came to tradeable dungeon loot.

Gotta admit camping sucked bad. I didn't like it then and still don't. This is one of the reasons my character was gimp somewhat on live. I could never farm/camp stuff. God didn't make me to camp. So I just ran around and killed stuff in different zones. I researched quests/items that weren't too much camping to do.

Odd thing is, I liked not having the in-game map. Liked corpse runs. Liked trains. Etc.

I believe every problem needs several answers. Eq1 wasn't always good at giving you options, but then again, it depends who you ask. Some people would want a button they can click to get their corpse straight away (without penalty). They'd consider that an option. Others would consider the summon corpse spell an option or a corpse rod or a secret entrance in a dungeon to get to your corpse faster. The difference is hte first person doesn't want to have any part with corpse runs. If they have to do more than click a button, they'll quit. So for a company to give them an "option" means they have to essentially make corpse runs purposeless.

[August]

Honestly, you're setting yourself up for failure if you think that a big box SOE MMO is not going to have instancing.

Please describe how you would accommodate 1 million+ subscriptions w/o the virtual real estate provided by instancing. All popular or near popular MMOs contain instanced dungeons, or even instanced zones at large.

The scale of gameplay cannot be contained to static zones that crash if there are 150+ people in them. The population is just too spread out. With the prevalent technology we have all information about the game will be catalogued and readily available within days of its discovery. If people have to wait to get to a singular spawn that only occurs once every 30 minutes, they will rightfully think that is bad game design.

I absolutely think there is a place for static zones and a server community. I just don't see why an instance is evil - given the circumstances I described. A bundled adventure that you have to form a group for yourself, that has to be traveled to. It doesn't mean there can't be zones like unrest, it just means that there can't ONLY be zones like unrest.

How many unrest zones do you need for a server whose population is 30,000?

[Tecmos Deception]

Originally Posted by August [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Please describe how you would accommodate 1 million+ subscriptions w/o the virtual real estate provided by instancing.

It's not like I get paid [whatever big-shot MMO designers get paid] to design brilliant MMOs! But I'd like to think that the people who DO design games for a living would be able to come up with something. Of course, I'm pretty pessimistic, so I don't actually think that.

I think I'd be more willing to see instances that aren't specific to a single group though. A "1 instance per group" type of instancing just damages too many things about MMOs, imo, even though it does address overcrowding and performance issues. I think it was DDO that did this with the city zones? When the servers would be busy, there would be multiple instances of the different city zones and you could pick which you wanted to go to... so you could go meet up with buddies if you wanted, or you could go to a less-crowded instance, whatever. Maybe that could be adapted to dungeons in a way that would relieve overcrowding and such issues but without causing much damage to the community by fracturing players into their own little universes any more than absolutely necessary or enabling every individual who wants to have his own wonderland to play in by himself.

[Kiwaukee]

Originally Posted by August [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Honestly, you're setting yourself up for failure if you think that a big box SOE MMO is not going to have instancing.

Please describe how you would accommodate 1 million+ subscriptions w/o the virtual real estate provided by instancing. All popular or near popular MMOs contain instanced dungeons, or even instanced zones at large.

The scale of gameplay cannot be contained to static zones that crash if there are 150+ people in them. The population is just too spread out. With the prevalent technology we have all information about the game will be catalogued and readily available within days of its discovery. If people have to wait to get to a singular spawn that only occurs once every 30 minutes, they will rightfully think that is bad game design.

I absolutely think there is a place for static zones and a server community. I just don't see why an instance is evil - given the circumstances I described. A bundled adventure that you have to form a group for yourself, that has to be traveled to. It doesn't mean there can't be zones like unrest, it just means that there can't ONLY be zones like unrest.

How many unrest zones do you need for a server whose population is 30,000?

Original EQ worked fine with similar circumstances and less technology by limiting server populations. Limit the server population to 5000 and have 200 servers. Encourage players to create characters on low population servers using common methods (Preferred servers, free transfers, etc.).

Couple that with the innate diversity within the game (characters of different races level in different areas and each have different options within a given level range) and you have a functional system that can operate without fracturing the community.

That's the driving point behind non-instanced gameplay - people would rather have a real community and wait 30 minutes for a spawn or move to another camp because their target is occupied than instantly get what they're looking for and never care about the people they play with. Your focus is too narrow - you're assuming people will only enjoy the game if they don't have to wait for things, and that's simply not true. Having to wait or having to work for things in games like EQ was what made each upgrade and each group a true accomplishment. Ask people who play here what they think about WoW as it stands currently, and most of them will tell you that it's turned into a kiddie game where you're spoon fed pixels.

No thanks. I like my pixels at the top of a mountain, not right outside my front door.

EDIT: Making a game that's instantly gratifying in the manner described is only asking to be in direct competition with WoW, and no one in their right mind wants to do that. People who play WoW (or are addicted) will likely never leave it for a similar experience for any extended amount of time because of the investment that they have in their characters. WoW, while watered down, is still fun sometimes. People won't just quit for a similar game. You have to have a marked difference in your content and play style to draw players out of the MMO market and retain them. Non-instanced, competition for content can be that difference for EQN.

[August]

Originally Posted by Tecmos Deception [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It's not like I get paid [whatever big-shot MMO designers get paid] to design brilliant MMOs! But I'd like to think that the people who DO design games for a living would be able to come up with something. Of course, I'm pretty pessimistic, so I don't actually think that.

It's mainly about resource management. You either have low population servers, no servers at all (multilayer-instanced zones - everyone zones into Dreadlands, or Dreadlands_01, Dreadlands_0xx), or high population servers that employ hubs of connectivity (Cities, other leveling zones) with instances in them to increase the real estate. When you have 2000 people at level 40, you need them to go somewhere. It's really just a thought exercise in population distribution.

I don't think there's a magic bullet. I think the EQ we played, and the way we played right now, was unique. Servers had relatively low populations as the genre was new. We had lots of players playing at different times of days, and even then zones got 'crowded'. Now that MMO is more mainstream, you have to be able to sustain that model, or throw it out entirely. However, most attempts I've seen make you either feel like you're playing solo, or there's no community, or that everything is too easy.

Also consider the effect of a high population server and static zones with regards to loot distribution. Say normally there are 1-2 FBSS on this server entering per day on a population of about 900 peak hours. To keep prices the same, on a population of 30,00, you'd need 35-45 dropping a day. You can't do that in a static zone - it has to be instanced. I think a lot of this conversation has to do with scaling a community when we are used to our small ones, and maybe what a lot of you want is just a small community.

You can guarantee that SoE is not going for 'small' w/ EQNEXT.

[Tecmos Deception]

Originally Posted by August [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I think the EQ we played, and the way we played right now, was unique. Servers had relatively low populations as the genre was new.

I think you're wrong here. Last time I was about to try playing WoW seriously again, I was exploring for a high population server that had a datacenter nearest to me. The majority of WoW's servers have smaller populations of players online than EQ servers had back in the classic-velious era. Some of them have smaller populations than p99. And iirc even the largest WoW servers are only a couple thousand players per side at peaks?

[August]

Originally Posted by Kiwaukee [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Original EQ worked fine with similar circumstances and less technology by limiting server populations. Limit the server population to 5000 and have 200 servers. Encourage players to create characters on low population servers using common methods (Preferred servers, free transfers, etc.).

Couple that with the innate diversity within the game (characters of different races level in different areas and each have different options within a given level range) and you have a functional system that can operate without fracturing the community.

That's the driving point behind non-instanced gameplay - people would rather have a real community and wait 30 minutes for a spawn or move to another camp because their target is occupied than instantly get what they're looking for and never care about the people they play with. Your focus is too narrow - you're assuming people will only enjoy the game if they don't have to wait for things, and that's simply not true. Having to wait or having to work for things in games like EQ was what made each upgrade and each group a true accomplishment. Ask people who play here what they think about WoW as it stands currently, and most of them will tell you that it's turned into a kiddie game where you're spoon fed pixels.

No thanks. I like my pixels at the top of a mountain, not right outside my front door.

I don't understand why you think that having 'instances' causes your entire gameplay is non-instanced.

As to my focus, it's anything but narrow. You cannot limit an MMO launch to 5k people. The amount of uptake and then submission relapse is huge on new releases. If you start with 5k people per server, it may end up with only 1k active people. Increase this cap but don't increase the game world, and people are constantly fighting over resources (quest mobs, drops, camps) and people quit out of frustration. There is a very fine balance between world size and population that I feel the majority of people don't put into consideration.

And please stop bringing up WoW in its current incarnation. I don't like it and I don't participate it, and I'm not advocating that system at all if you read what I write.

[Kagatob]

Originally Posted by Tecmos Deception [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'd like to see an MMO that puts the RP back into MMORPG.

I'm not talking about people writing up elaborate backstories to their characters or speaking in ye olde english or whatnot. No no. I'm talking about removing the focus on esport PvP and PvE, about taking the some of the harsh reality aspects from PNP RPGs and from survival horror games and weaving them into an MMO.

On p99 you park your dwarf cleric and your ogre shaman and your iksar monk in tube room for 3 weeks at a time, logging in one at a time as needed to get the pixels from king. Your characters are living in a wet, slimy, damp, dark 10x10 room with a goo waterfall in it, right around the corner from their enemies. There's no RP there!

I want to see characters who are soft-capped on playtime because the characters need rest, because the characters don't get much rest when they are sleeping on slimy stone floors in the bottom of a dungeon with their enemies patrolling just feet away. I want characters to stay ingame when offline, obeying scripts from the player, etc. I want druids to plant trees that grow into a forest, gear to decay (but that not be a OMG HORRIBLE thing because it is designed to decay and be repaired and replaced and that's no big thing), weight (and volume, omg) limits to exist and be meaningful, PvP actions to have reprecussions with NPCs and PCs alike, etc.


Might be asking for a bit much for this decade, but god knows no MMO is going to convince me to spend a dime on it until a lot of these sorts of things are put into one.

Isn't this pretty close to what they wanted Vanguard SoH to be? We all know how that worked out. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I agree that instances are terrible for communities, I stuck with Everquest for about 5 years after it's release, I stopped enjoying it and pretty much just went with the flow for a couple of years once LDoN released. After LDoN, GoD and PoTime becoming instanced EQ just lost everything that felt magical about it.

[August]

Originally Posted by Tecmos Deception [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I think you're wrong here. Last time I was about to try playing WoW seriously again, I was exploring for a high population server that had a datacenter nearest to me. The majority of WoW's servers have smaller populations of players online than EQ servers had back in the classic-velious era. Some of them have smaller populations than p99. And iirc even the largest WoW servers are only a couple thousand players per side at peaks?

WoW servers on average have 50k population.

The height of everquest in 2003 - when the world was already huge by comparison, was 425k subs total . It's hardly even close. Not to mention that EQ spread out leveling quite a bit - a tactic that can be used again, but, with technology the way it is today, I don't see it really being a possibility.

November of 1999 had 225k subs - wikipedia to the rescue

[stormlord]

Originally Posted by August [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Honestly, you're setting yourself up for failure if you think that a big box SOE MMO is not going to have instancing.

Please describe how you would accommodate 1 million+ subscriptions w/o the virtual real estate provided by instancing. All popular or near popular MMOs contain instanced dungeons, or even instanced zones at large.

The scale of gameplay cannot be contained to static zones that crash if there are 150+ people in them. The population is just too spread out. With the prevalent technology we have all information about the game will be catalogued and readily available within days of its discovery. If people have to wait to get to a singular spawn that only occurs once every 30 minutes, they will rightfully think that is bad game design.

I absolutely think there is a place for static zones and a server community. I just don't see why an instance is evil - given the circumstances I described. A bundled adventure that you have to form a group for yourself, that has to be traveled to. It doesn't mean there can't be zones like unrest, it just means that there can't ONLY be zones like unrest.

How many unrest zones do you need for a server whose population is 30,000?

No point in tryign to convicne people who do not like isntancing.

But I agree that there's very very high chance of instancing in EQN.

Just don't start pounding your chest and acting superior.

I wish people would just realize there's a difference in opinion and leave it alone. The past 15 years of arguing back and forth is never productive. It's like a husband and wife that can't divorce or something.

I was arguing a whole lot back on live. That was b4 I realized there were options out there. I felt like the game I had liked was being smashed and remade into some circus show. I didn't realize back then how many games are available. There're tons. I tended to stick to a couple games, I didn't explore a lot.