Good post. Good memories. I couldn't care less if some raids required 6 hours to complete. Just because I might not have the time I used to have, doesn't mean that sort of gameplay should be removed. Obviously that shouldn't be the main developmental focus, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't exist.
Its that line of thinking - the "it's not fair" if everything isn't accessible to everyone - that has things so messed up. Its like going to a movie theater as an adult but only being permitted to watch Disney films. A big part of this genre used to be exclusivity, and thats a big part of whats missing today.
I can't say I agree with this point. Care to explain what about exclusivity is fun? I also don't understand your analogy. If a theater decided to only show Disney films, their sales would plummet. One thing I think WoW did right was to have raids instanced (at least most). Content should be available to everyone. The challenge should come from the game, not competing against a bunch of jobless neckbeards to see who has more free time on their hands.
Well, to start, I'm not sure I like the word "exclusivity". But, I'll roll with it in the context of Dullahan's post...
To start, 'fun' and 'exclusivity' are not mutually exclusive. Both can co-exist in any given combination. For example, a game designed for broad appeal can be very fun, or not fun at all... Add in the fact that "fun" is a very subjective thing to begin with and, any single title can range from "best game ever" to "complete PoS", and for any variety of reasons, depending on who you ask.
To put Dullahan's post another way...
It's okay if there are games targeting specific audiences, looking for a specific style of gameplay.
Not every game has to appeal to every type of player, and it's not a crime, or some horrible offense, if one doesn't.
It's no more "unfair" to have a game cater to a specific demographic than it is "unfair" to have a restaurant that only caters to seafood lovers. There are options available for people who want chicken, or beef, or a burger, or a hotdog, or a salad, etc. A seafood restaurant doesn't have to check all those boxes, because there are already other restaurants that do.
There are dozens of MMOs on this site's list that are designed for mass appeal. Yet, that doesn't seem to be enough for some people, who take offense to even a single game not catering to a playstyle they enjoy - even if they have no interest in playing it. In a genre that's already drowning in MMOs designed for "mass appeal", it's a level of selfishness and myopia I just can't wrap my head around.
More diversity and specialization in specific playstyles would be a good thing, not a bad one. It should be encouraged, not talked down.
The group and raid content may be fairly challenging, but it's completely segregated from the others and people can't enjoy watching others taking on large challenges or doing things they might not have thought of themselves.
What are you talking about? You never heard of youtube or twitch tv?
Everquest wasn't/isn't exactly blazing trails or leading the pack.
Since I've been involved with and following Landmark I must of heard a hundred times "The EQ community wont like this", "The EQ community expects that...", "The EQ community...", The EQ community". How big is that community exactly? 50k? 100k people?
Don't you think the EQ brand would be better served by looking at what the rest of the gaming community wants? I see this recent shake up as something that could possibly unshackling EQ from the past and allow it to move forward in a more progressive way. There's no question that Dave and his team had to show their cards (EQN) and what was shown to Nova must not have been the nuts.
Only time will tell, but am I the only one that sees this move as a potential positive for the franchise?
Lol yea .. the communities want games like Wushu , cause they are blazing trails and errrr ohh nv/m that game failed
It's okay if there are games targeting specific audiences, looking for a specific style of gameplay.
Not every game has to appeal to every type of player, and it's not a crime, or some horrible offense, if one doesn't.
...
More diversity and specialization in specific playstyles would be a good thing, not a bad one. It should be encouraged, not talked down.
edit: Sigh i walled of texted this so breaking into sections
I have lurked on here and other MMO forums for quite some time and it seems to be the running theme of discussion for the past 8+ years. Even during the hype train of an MMO's release there are some extremely vocal people against any opinion that doesn't run parallel with this broken concept that games must be something for everyone and how mass appeal is the only design solution worthwhile. Somehow producers are making these sound decisions because that's what everyone wants.
The kicker in all of this, it's apparently coming from the mouths of fly-by-night gamers who only want an experience that lasts a few months at best. Even worse is the fact that released purchasing models are directly reflecting that same demographic. When did game business ROI decisions become so entrenched in high upfront cost, a risk-centric high variable return scheme, with short term commitments?
What do I think is the reason? The game business ROI model. Firstly you have a huge demographic that only want to consume expensive, short lived, polished content. From here on I'll just refer to this consumer as 'The Shinies'.
Production: To keep up with platform/hardware advancements which consumers have access to you must spend a ton of money. Artwork/Aesthetics, software utilization of hardware, this all means you gotta spend spend spend on huge teams of content producers. This is especially true when your goal is to release content on fixed schedules. To top that off the best places to ensure you have plenty skilled employees to choose from also live in the huge metro-boroughs where cost of living further inflates their expected wages.
Marketing/Leadership: Really really expensive, and ultimately determines the success of a product (statistically).
Critical infrastructure: Back end technologies have huge initial costs, and maintenance is more to do with scaling up/out and having constant staff/operations to keep things running. The larger your data-center's capacity the cheaper/flexible it gets.
Customer service: Only important in the very beginning, and only crucial otherwise when you strive for long term retention of customers.
So with the production studio's large staff, potentially reusable infrastructure, and allocation of various overhead and expenses what choices do you make?
* You want your content to be popularly relevant, so get a team narrowly focused on a production goal that will sell and output in the shortest time possible.
* Ever evolving tech translates into fire/forget implementations that work for now. You only need to keep your top artists, programmers, etc and carry them over to the next project. You can spin your number twos elsewhere or work on the fine tuning on the project after release.
* You want games to die after they make their monetary returns. Now we can reuse that infrastructure for something else and the costs are marginal compared to scaling out.
* Marketing can focus on the moment in time, and executives can manage their strings for the current golden
* As soon as a game dies you can shrink your customer service staff or move them onto the front lines of big game #next
This doesn't event account for the pressure of investors and publishers, and how they change the vision of actual design goals during production. This is getting too wall of text for me so ill just end my rant here.
I can't say I agree with this point. Care to explain what about exclusivity is fun? I also don't understand your analogy. If a theater decided to only show Disney films, their sales would plummet. One thing I think WoW did right was to have raids instanced (at least most). Content should be available to everyone. The challenge should come from the game, not competing against a bunch of jobless neckbeards to see who has more free time on their hands.
EQ's raids have been instanced for over a decade. It was also EQ players that advocated that raid zones should also be accessible as grouping zones.
For example, up until OOW raid zones were off limits for group players.
But many EQ players said that wasn't fair, it wasn't fair that groupers payed for expansions and didn't have any access to many zones simply because they were raid zones. In the next expansions in DoN and DoD this issue was addressed, many raid zones were accessible to group players with group mobs.
The same zone had basically 2 versions.
1. An open world zone with regular mobs
2. A raid instanced version.
Before DoN, raid zones were off limits to groupers, which I also felt was unfair.
However, I don't really agree that all raids should be instanced, there is a balance you can strike. Griefing should be avoided, but I have no issues with some harder mobs in group zones. For example, in Noble's causeway, there are 3 raid mobs that are in a group zone, they never caused problems for grouping, and they never lead to competition.
The best balance seems to be that the majority of raid mobs are in instanced zones, but there are many ways you can put raid mobs in the normal world without them causing problems.
For example putting those mobs on a short spawn time of a couple of hours, and giving them limited items so they're not farmed for long, ensures they don't cause drama.
If exclusivity was a good thing, then EQ was the best game to grace this planet. Same like in vanilla WoW, 40 man raiding was not for regular people. The only people who could spare the time to play the content were:
1) People in school who have lots of spare time
2) Unemployed people who don't have many responsibilities
A game like EQ will tank so fast today that you won't even have the time to say BOOM! And back in the day it thrived because it was played by the above demographic.
There is a reason why there were so many jokes that Evercrack is played by basement dwellers. The game was unplayable by people who didn't want to devote their life to a game. How many of you "EQ fans" are willing to spend more than half of your waking hours playing a video game?
This is also why you would hear EQ fans talk about "living world", "being lost in a virtual reality" and wanting "living world". BEcause those people spent most of their waking hours playing it. They didn't play it as a game, they played it as a second life.
Now some poeple are ok with that but there is a reason why EQ was so infamous.
Again i am sure a lot of you guys won't stick in EQ much even if you wre given what you wanted because I am sure you have probably grown up and now you don't have all the time in the world to play "this virtual reality" game. I might be wrong thogh.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
If exclusivity was a good thing, then EQ was the best game to grace this planet. Same like in vanilla WoW, 40 man raiding was not for regular people. The only people who could spare the time to play the content were:
1) People in school who have lots of spare time
2) Unemployed people who don't have many responsibilities
I don't think this is fair. We held pick up raids in EQ every week-end, that were accessible to everyone, all you needed was the right level.
The requirements for pick-up raids we had was "just be there on time". That's all.
We held them on a saturday so everyone could make it. We even were lax on the level limit, if you really wanted to raid, and were't the correct level, we would let you in regardless.
Gear wasn't a requirement, skill wasn't a requirement, just be a player of the right level, we even ran many ppl to the raid who didn't know the zone.
We were much much more tolerant and much much less exclusive than many players are now.
Many EQ players weren't raiders, many were casuals and many raiders helped casuals back then.
I even remember that we ran back for people who showed up 30 minutes late and mobs had respawned and we couldn't CoH, we actually fought our way back to get them.
We didn't know them, we didn't need them for the raid, we could have easily told them they were too late, but we fought our way back to the zone in with multiple people just to get that one person so that person could join the raid.
I doubt you'd see that amount of courtesy in new MMO.
Were the newest raid zones exclusive to raiders, yes, they were. Were raids in general exclusive to raiders, no they weren't. EQ held plenty of pick up raids so groupers and casuals could do the raids without having to be in a raid guild.
Originally posted by Temp0 Regardless of what is best for income or "the brand" as you put it, what kind of non-sense is it that a "brand" should abandon its own legacy and fans? Take any of your favorite games and imagine in the next iteration they completely scrapped everything about it and went some different direction with it. That would be utterly crappy (and it happens more often than it should as is without people suggesting it because THEY were not a fan of what came before) for you wouldn't it?
The initial plan was to make EQNext like EQ.
Somewhere down the line someone at SoE had the bright idea to throw out tab target, throw out trinity, throw out tanking, throw out class dependency, and everything that had anything to do with EQ.
It went south from then on, and here we are, SoE sold off, half their staff fired.
See this is exactly what I'm talking about. Things like this is exactly what I've been hearing from the EQ community on the Landmark forums, thus my thread. If the only thing that will appeal to this 50k-100k community is an copy of EQ, why should Daybreak even care.
Don't you think some changes are in order before they end up with a 7 year $200mill+ product that only appeals to 50k people? Wouldn't that be bad for the franchise. Hell wouldn't it be bad for the industry and mmorpg community as a whole?
EQ had more than 450K fans at its height, I doubt they have forgotten what they liked about the game and I'm also sure they would be intrigued by a reboot. There are also new audiences that might be intrigued by a modern version of EQ.
Everquest wasn't/isn't exactly blazing trails or leading the pack.
Since I've been involved with and following Landmark I must of heard a hundred times "The EQ community wont like this", "The EQ community expects that...", "The EQ community...", The EQ community". How big is that community exactly? 50k? 100k people?
Don't you think the EQ brand would be better served by looking at what the rest of the gaming community wants? I see this recent shake up as something that could possibly unshackling EQ from the past and allow it to move forward in a more progressive way. There's no question that Dave and his team had to show their cards (EQN) and what was shown to Nova must not have been the nuts.
Only time will tell, but am I the only one that sees this move as a potential positive for the franchise?
I think that the game needs to be true to the Everquest spirit but that doesn't mean they just should remake the game. There should of course also be ways to get new players into the IP but you do need to get some of the players who in the past enjoyed the first 2 games. And EQ might not have that many players right now but it topped at around 600K players and that means that probably at least twice that number played the game at some time.
What the comminty don't need is an exact remake of an older game, it has been done before many times and usually fails badly.
EQ fans need to live with new mechanics but the game must still feels like Norrath or Daybreak will miss out on many potential and pretty easy to get players.
I don't think most MMOers actually want exactly what they want, I sure don't until I actually play it. Well, besides a fun game worth spending a long time in that is. With new mechanics you can just say how they sounds in theory but until you tried them it is just a guess.
All that said, I have no clue if EQN is going in the right direction or not, the most important thing is that it is fun and that I recognize Norrath as the world I spent a lot of time in (yeah, the ones of you that know me knows that I played Meridian instead of EQ but I did play 5 years in EQ2 so I do like the world even if it was somewhat different there).
IF EQN get 75% of the former EQ 1 & 2 players it would be a huge success, even better would be if it gets as many new players as well. But with a sequel your former players need to recognize at least the world or you will give away a great advantage for the very slim possibility that your game might be the next big thing. That would be very stupid.
EQ had more than 450K fans at its height, I doubt they have forgotten what they liked about the game and I'm also sure they would be intrigued by a reboot. There are also new audiences that might be intrigued by a modern version of EQ.
A lot of jump ship when WOW came out.
They don't have to forget .. they just have to realize that there are now better (subjective) alternatives. No one says a fan have to stay a fan forever.
They may be intrigued .. but will enough of them be willing to pay a sub to wait in line to kill a boss? I doubt that.
Originally posted by Pratt2112 Originally posted by nariusseldonOriginally posted by Pratt2112
By today's standards, no EQ's population wasn't that much. However, context is extremely important here.EQ's success was considered a major phenomenon, a huge success, in its time.So? Pong was successful in its peak too ... but it is totally irrelevant to today's gaming .. not unlike EQ.Speaking of context, and people who have no grasp of it...
Shall I type more slowly so you can keep up, and understand better? Because you completely missed the point (or, more likely just ignored it, like you often do).
Actually.... nevermind. I've already wasted too much time on you just with this post.
I wouldn't try to carry on a logical discussion with Nari about this. He likes aRPG and wants all MMORPG to become them. He is a casual single player driven player who never really seemed to like MMORPG in the first place. Those games are fine and I'm glad they exist but they shouldn't be the only games made.
The game was unplayable by people who didn't want to devote their life to a game.
That is completely false, EQ had plenty of casual players. I won't be the only one who corrects you on that.
There were ppl who played once a week, there were ppl who played 6 days a week.
There were guilds who raided once on a saturday, there were guilds who raided every workday.
Plenty of ppl played EQ casually.
EQ even had players who barely leveled at all and all they did was talk in PoK to others and do a bit of tradeskilling.
Yes...you played when you could and when you wanted. There was nothing saying you had to devote your life to it. It's only those people who feel they have to play to keep up with the majority in levels, gear, etc. that say those things or felt that way about it.
The leader board people concerned about their 1337 status within the community.
I worked full time, had 2 young kids and had a social life and was still in the top raiding guild and PvP guild on my server in EQ. You certainly did not have to lose your life to the game. To just play and have fun you could easily just play a few hours a week though.
I will say moreso than most games this one punished inefficient players. The PvE in this game wasn't just about being able to kill or not kill something, it was about efficiently using your resources to kill to get better XP/Hour. It was very easy for a good group to get more than double the XP of a bad one.
I worked full time, had 2 young kids and had a social life and was still in the top raiding guild and PvP guild on my server in EQ. You certainly did not have to lose your life to the game. To just play and have fun you could easily just play a few hours a week though.
I will say moreso than most games this one punished inefficient players. The PvE in this game wasn't just about being able to kill or not kill something, it was about efficiently using your resources to kill to get better XP/Hour. It was very easy for a good group to get more than double the XP of a bad one.
I agree.. I too was a family man that didn't LIVE on the game.. I logged on, and grouped some times, and some times I soloed.. I do think the game had some issues that could of been fixed, but that is a different discussion.. EQ did promote "efficiency" and it did generate a tremendous about of envy and jealousy.. Too many players, especially the unsocial ones worried too much what others had or able to do.. IMO
I worked full time, had 2 young kids and had a social life and was still in the top raiding guild and PvP guild on my server in EQ. You certainly did not have to lose your life to the game. To just play and have fun you could easily just play a few hours a week though.
I will say moreso than most games this one punished inefficient players. The PvE in this game wasn't just about being able to kill or not kill something, it was about efficiently using your resources to kill to get better XP/Hour. It was very easy for a good group to get more than double the XP of a bad one.
I, on the other hand, played a shit ton of hours a day, and still wasn't among the top geared players on my server. There was just too much to do, and too much fun to be had. I spent a lot of my time helping my guild or pvping. Fighting over contested spawns for quest items and epics was huge. When I wasn't at school, I spent almost every waking hour playing EQ and there was still many things I never saw or did despite averaging roughly 8 hours a day. Could I have personally accomplished more? Sure. The point is, it was so much more than what people call an MMORPG today.
I, on the other hand, played a shit ton of hours a day, and still wasn't among the top geared players on my server. There was just too much to do, and too much fun to be had. I spent a lot of my time helping my guild or pvping. Fighting over contested spawns for quest items and epics was huge. When I wasn't at school, I spent almost every waking hour playing EQ and there was still many things I never saw or did despite averaging roughly 8 hours a day. Could I have personally accomplished more? Sure. The point is, it was so much more than what people call an MMORPG today.
8 hours a day for a single game? That is practically a full time job.
I certainly hope that MMORPGs (or any game) today would not waste so much time. Small dozes of entertainment is great ... hours and hours of it ... not so much .. at least for me.
Originally posted by Dullahan Originally posted by Ender4I worked full time, had 2 young kids and had a social life and was still in the top raiding guild and PvP guild on my server in EQ. You certainly did not have to lose your life to the game. To just play and have fun you could easily just play a few hours a week though.I will say moreso than most games this one punished inefficient players. The PvE in this game wasn't just about being able to kill or not kill something, it was about efficiently using your resources to kill to get better XP/Hour. It was very easy for a good group to get more than double the XP of a bad one.
I, on the other hand, played a shit ton of hours a day, and still wasn't among the top geared players on my server. There was just too much to do, and too much fun to be had. I spent a lot of my time helping my guild or pvping. Fighting over contested spawns for quest items and epics was huge. When I wasn't at school, I spent almost every waking hour playing EQ and there was still many things I never saw or did despite averaging roughly 8 hours a day. Could I have personally accomplished more? Sure. The point is, it was so much more than what people call an MMORPG today.
Yeah I think that is what is really missing these days. In EQ/DAOC/SB and even early WoW I would log in and ask what did I miss. I was actually mentally invested in the game and the world. MMORPG in my opinion were meant to be more than just a game. If I want to play just a game I could play SC or D2 or any of a number of great single player games etc, MMOPRG can be so much more. Unfortunately the genre has become just a game and well other types of games are much better at just being a game than a MMORPG is.
Originally posted by Dullahan Good post. Good memories. I couldn't care less if some raids required 6 hours to complete. Just because I might not have the time I used to have, doesn't mean that sort of gameplay should be removed. Obviously that shouldn't be the main developmental focus, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't exist.Its that line of thinking - the "it's not fair" if everything isn't accessible to everyone - that has things so messed up. Its like going to a movie theater as an adult but only being permitted to watch Disney films. A big part of this genre used to be exclusivity, and thats a big part of whats missing today.
I can't say I agree with this point. Care to explain what about exclusivity is fun? I also don't understand your analogy. If a theater decided to only show Disney films, their sales would plummet. One thing I think WoW did right was to have raids instanced (at least most). Content should be available to everyone. The challenge should come from the game, not competing against a bunch of jobless neckbeards to see who has more free time on their hands.
Well, to start, I'm not sure I like the word "exclusivity". But, I'll roll with it in the context of Dullahan's post...To start, 'fun' and 'exclusivity' are not mutually exclusive. Both can co-exist in any given combination. For example, a game designed for broad appeal can be very fun, or not fun at all... Add in the fact that "fun" is a very subjective thing to begin with and, any single title can range from "best game ever" to "complete PoS", and for any variety of reasons, depending on who you ask.To put Dullahan's post another way...It's okay if there are games targeting specific audiences, looking for a specific style of gameplay.Not every game has to appeal to every type of player, and it's not a crime, or some horrible offense, if one doesn't.It's no more "unfair" to have a game cater to a specific demographic than it is "unfair" to have a restaurant that only caters to seafood lovers. There are options available for people who want chicken, or beef, or a burger, or a hotdog, or a salad, etc. A seafood restaurant doesn't have to check all those boxes, because there are already other restaurants that do.There are dozens of MMOs on this site's list that are designed for mass appeal. Yet, that doesn't seem to be enough for some people, who take offense to even a single game not catering to a playstyle they enjoy - even if they have no interest in playing it. In a genre that's already drowning in MMOs designed for "mass appeal", it's a level of selfishness and myopia I just can't wrap my head around. More diversity and specialization in specific playstyles would be a good thing, not a bad one. It should be encouraged, not talked down.
This is such a beautiful post, Pratt!
Since "red cars" are the most popular, should ALL cars only come in red? And if one decides to come in blue only, does that make it "exclusive?" Yes, to those who like the color blue. Those who like red STILL have cars they can drive, but since NOT EVERY CAR is to their liking, they throw out the "exclusivity" card. Tough shit. Welcome to MY world, where MMOs exclude *my* type of player. (I do not think I am alone in this desire.)
If a player, ANY player, has the belief that EVERY MMO must cater to their kind of enjoyment, they are not hitting on all cylinders....
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
I cannot understand why you are getting upset with any player that might say something against a certain type of game or dissuade the production of the type of game you want. It is developers you need to convince. The reason there are not more of the type of games we like is not because forum posts saying otherwise is it. I'd say you are railing against the people who have no influence . It is the developers you need to be annoyed with.
Originally posted by AlBQuirky Originally posted by Pratt2112 Originally posted by Kezzadrix Originally posted by Dullahan Good post. Good memories. I couldn't care less if some raids required 6 hours to complete. Just because I might not have the time I used to have, doesn't mean that sort of gameplay should be removed. Obviously that shouldn't be the main developmental focus, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't exist.Its that line of thinking - the "it's not fair" if everything isn't accessible to everyone - that has things so messed up. Its like going to a movie theater as an adult but only being permitted to watch Disney films. A big part of this genre used to be exclusivity, and thats a big part of whats missing today.
I can't say I agree with this point. Care to explain what about exclusivity is fun? I also don't understand your analogy. If a theater decided to only show Disney films, their sales would plummet. One thing I think WoW did right was to have raids instanced (at least most). Content should be available to everyone. The challenge should come from the game, not competing against a bunch of jobless neckbeards to see who has more free time on their hands. Well, to start, I'm not sure I like the word "exclusivity". But, I'll roll with it in the context of Dullahan's post...
To start, 'fun' and 'exclusivity' are not mutually exclusive. Both can co-exist in any given combination. For example, a game designed for broad appeal can be very fun, or not fun at all... Add in the fact that "fun" is a very subjective thing to begin with and, any single title can range from "best game ever" to "complete PoS", and for any variety of reasons, depending on who you ask.
To put Dullahan's post another way...
It's okay if there are games targeting specific audiences, looking for a specific style of gameplay.
Not every game has to appeal to every type of player, and it's not a crime, or some horrible offense, if one doesn't.
It's no more "unfair" to have a game cater to a specific demographic than it is "unfair" to have a restaurant that only caters to seafood lovers. There are options available for people who want chicken, or beef, or a burger, or a hotdog, or a salad, etc. A seafood restaurant doesn't have to check all those boxes, because there are already other restaurants that do.There are dozens of MMOs on this site's list that are designed for mass appeal. Yet, that doesn't seem to be enough for some people, who take offense to even a single game not catering to a playstyle they enjoy - even if they have no interest in playing it. In a genre that's already drowning in MMOs designed for "mass appeal", it's a level of selfishness and myopia I just can't wrap my head around.
More diversity and specialization in specific playstyles would be a good thing, not a bad one. It should be encouraged, not talked down.
This is such a beautiful post, Pratt!
Since "red cars" are the most popular, should ALL cars only come in red? And if one decides to come in blue only, does that make it "exclusive?" Yes, to those who like the color blue. Those who like red STILL have cars they can drive, but since NOT EVERY CAR is to their liking, they throw out the "exclusivity" card. Tough shit. Welcome to MY world, where MMOs exclude *my* type of player. (I do not think I am alone in this desire.)
If a player, ANY player, has the belief that EVERY MMO must cater to their kind of enjoyment, they are not hitting on all cylinders....
Actually White is the most popular car color.
Red used to be a highly popular car color but its not the most popular these days. So, if you like Red cars dont get angry that its not as popular as it was in the past.
Originally posted by Dullahan Good post. Good memories. I couldn't care less if some raids required 6 hours to complete. Just because I might not have the time I used to have, doesn't mean that sort of gameplay should be removed. Obviously that shouldn't be the main developmental focus, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't exist.Its that line of thinking - the "it's not fair" if everything isn't accessible to everyone - that has things so messed up. Its like going to a movie theater as an adult but only being permitted to watch Disney films. A big part of this genre used to be exclusivity, and thats a big part of whats missing today.
I can't say I agree with this point. Care to explain what about exclusivity is fun? I also don't understand your analogy. If a theater decided to only show Disney films, their sales would plummet. One thing I think WoW did right was to have raids instanced (at least most). Content should be available to everyone. The challenge should come from the game, not competing against a bunch of jobless neckbeards to see who has more free time on their hands.
Well, to start, I'm not sure I like the word "exclusivity". But, I'll roll with it in the context of Dullahan's post...To start, 'fun' and 'exclusivity' are not mutually exclusive. Both can co-exist in any given combination. For example, a game designed for broad appeal can be very fun, or not fun at all... Add in the fact that "fun" is a very subjective thing to begin with and, any single title can range from "best game ever" to "complete PoS", and for any variety of reasons, depending on who you ask.To put Dullahan's post another way...It's okay if there are games targeting specific audiences, looking for a specific style of gameplay.Not every game has to appeal to every type of player, and it's not a crime, or some horrible offense, if one doesn't.It's no more "unfair" to have a game cater to a specific demographic than it is "unfair" to have a restaurant that only caters to seafood lovers. There are options available for people who want chicken, or beef, or a burger, or a hotdog, or a salad, etc. A seafood restaurant doesn't have to check all those boxes, because there are already other restaurants that do.There are dozens of MMOs on this site's list that are designed for mass appeal. Yet, that doesn't seem to be enough for some people, who take offense to even a single game not catering to a playstyle they enjoy - even if they have no interest in playing it. In a genre that's already drowning in MMOs designed for "mass appeal", it's a level of selfishness and myopia I just can't wrap my head around. More diversity and specialization in specific playstyles would be a good thing, not a bad one. It should be encouraged, not talked down.
This is such a beautiful post, Pratt!Since "red cars" are the most popular, should ALL cars only come in red? And if one decides to come in blue only, does that make it "exclusive?" Yes, to those who like the color blue. Those who like red STILL have cars they can drive, but since NOT EVERY CAR is to their liking, they throw out the "exclusivity" card. Tough shit. Welcome to MY world, where MMOs exclude *my* type of player. (I do not think I am alone in this desire.)If a player, ANY player, has the belief that EVERY MMO must cater to their kind of enjoyment, they are not hitting on all cylinders....
Actually White is the most popular car color. Red used to be a highly popular car color but its not the most popular these days. So, if you like Red cars dont get angry that its not as popular as it was in the past. And, yes, this has been an analogy.
So, those who liked red cars should just shut up and drive white cars, eh? Be happy with that?
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Comments
Well, to start, I'm not sure I like the word "exclusivity". But, I'll roll with it in the context of Dullahan's post...
To start, 'fun' and 'exclusivity' are not mutually exclusive. Both can co-exist in any given combination. For example, a game designed for broad appeal can be very fun, or not fun at all... Add in the fact that "fun" is a very subjective thing to begin with and, any single title can range from "best game ever" to "complete PoS", and for any variety of reasons, depending on who you ask.
To put Dullahan's post another way...
It's okay if there are games targeting specific audiences, looking for a specific style of gameplay.
Not every game has to appeal to every type of player, and it's not a crime, or some horrible offense, if one doesn't.
It's no more "unfair" to have a game cater to a specific demographic than it is "unfair" to have a restaurant that only caters to seafood lovers. There are options available for people who want chicken, or beef, or a burger, or a hotdog, or a salad, etc. A seafood restaurant doesn't have to check all those boxes, because there are already other restaurants that do.
There are dozens of MMOs on this site's list that are designed for mass appeal. Yet, that doesn't seem to be enough for some people, who take offense to even a single game not catering to a playstyle they enjoy - even if they have no interest in playing it. In a genre that's already drowning in MMOs designed for "mass appeal", it's a level of selfishness and myopia I just can't wrap my head around.More diversity and specialization in specific playstyles would be a good thing, not a bad one. It should be encouraged, not talked down.
What are you talking about? You never heard of youtube or twitch tv?
In fact, didn't millions watch LoL games?
Lol yea .. the communities want games like Wushu , cause they are blazing trails and errrr ohh nv/m that game failed
edit: Sigh i walled of texted this so breaking into sections
This doesn't event account for the pressure of investors and publishers, and how they change the vision of actual design goals during production. This is getting too wall of text for me so ill just end my rant here.
The numbers were released by SoE and he simply put them in a graph. Did you even read my reply?
SoE used to release population numbers.
Unless you believe in some kind of conspiracy theory that SoE was lying in their financial data, which is a criminal offense.
EQ's raids have been instanced for over a decade. It was also EQ players that advocated that raid zones should also be accessible as grouping zones.
For example, up until OOW raid zones were off limits for group players.
But many EQ players said that wasn't fair, it wasn't fair that groupers payed for expansions and didn't have any access to many zones simply because they were raid zones. In the next expansions in DoN and DoD this issue was addressed, many raid zones were accessible to group players with group mobs.
The same zone had basically 2 versions.
1. An open world zone with regular mobs
2. A raid instanced version.
Before DoN, raid zones were off limits to groupers, which I also felt was unfair.
However, I don't really agree that all raids should be instanced, there is a balance you can strike. Griefing should be avoided, but I have no issues with some harder mobs in group zones. For example, in Noble's causeway, there are 3 raid mobs that are in a group zone, they never caused problems for grouping, and they never lead to competition.
The best balance seems to be that the majority of raid mobs are in instanced zones, but there are many ways you can put raid mobs in the normal world without them causing problems.
For example putting those mobs on a short spawn time of a couple of hours, and giving them limited items so they're not farmed for long, ensures they don't cause drama.
That's what EQ did.
If exclusivity was a good thing, then EQ was the best game to grace this planet. Same like in vanilla WoW, 40 man raiding was not for regular people. The only people who could spare the time to play the content were:
1) People in school who have lots of spare time
2) Unemployed people who don't have many responsibilities
A game like EQ will tank so fast today that you won't even have the time to say BOOM! And back in the day it thrived because it was played by the above demographic.
There is a reason why there were so many jokes that Evercrack is played by basement dwellers. The game was unplayable by people who didn't want to devote their life to a game. How many of you "EQ fans" are willing to spend more than half of your waking hours playing a video game?
This is also why you would hear EQ fans talk about "living world", "being lost in a virtual reality" and wanting "living world". BEcause those people spent most of their waking hours playing it. They didn't play it as a game, they played it as a second life.
Now some poeple are ok with that but there is a reason why EQ was so infamous.
Again i am sure a lot of you guys won't stick in EQ much even if you wre given what you wanted because I am sure you have probably grown up and now you don't have all the time in the world to play "this virtual reality" game. I might be wrong thogh.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
I don't think this is fair. We held pick up raids in EQ every week-end, that were accessible to everyone, all you needed was the right level.
The requirements for pick-up raids we had was "just be there on time". That's all.
We held them on a saturday so everyone could make it. We even were lax on the level limit, if you really wanted to raid, and were't the correct level, we would let you in regardless.
Gear wasn't a requirement, skill wasn't a requirement, just be a player of the right level, we even ran many ppl to the raid who didn't know the zone.
We were much much more tolerant and much much less exclusive than many players are now.
Many EQ players weren't raiders, many were casuals and many raiders helped casuals back then.
I even remember that we ran back for people who showed up 30 minutes late and mobs had respawned and we couldn't CoH, we actually fought our way back to get them.
We didn't know them, we didn't need them for the raid, we could have easily told them they were too late, but we fought our way back to the zone in with multiple people just to get that one person so that person could join the raid.
I doubt you'd see that amount of courtesy in new MMO.
Were the newest raid zones exclusive to raiders, yes, they were. Were raids in general exclusive to raiders, no they weren't. EQ held plenty of pick up raids so groupers and casuals could do the raids without having to be in a raid guild.
That is completely false, EQ had plenty of casual players. I won't be the only one who corrects you on that.
There were ppl who played once a week, there were ppl who played 6 days a week.
There were guilds who raided once on a saturday, there were guilds who raided every workday.
Plenty of ppl played EQ casually.
EQ even had players who barely leveled at all and all they did was talk in PoK to others and do a bit of tradeskilling.
EQ had more than 450K fans at its height, I doubt they have forgotten what they liked about the game and I'm also sure they would be intrigued by a reboot. There are also new audiences that might be intrigued by a modern version of EQ.
I think that the game needs to be true to the Everquest spirit but that doesn't mean they just should remake the game. There should of course also be ways to get new players into the IP but you do need to get some of the players who in the past enjoyed the first 2 games. And EQ might not have that many players right now but it topped at around 600K players and that means that probably at least twice that number played the game at some time.
What the comminty don't need is an exact remake of an older game, it has been done before many times and usually fails badly.
EQ fans need to live with new mechanics but the game must still feels like Norrath or Daybreak will miss out on many potential and pretty easy to get players.
I don't think most MMOers actually want exactly what they want, I sure don't until I actually play it. Well, besides a fun game worth spending a long time in that is. With new mechanics you can just say how they sounds in theory but until you tried them it is just a guess.
All that said, I have no clue if EQN is going in the right direction or not, the most important thing is that it is fun and that I recognize Norrath as the world I spent a lot of time in (yeah, the ones of you that know me knows that I played Meridian instead of EQ but I did play 5 years in EQ2 so I do like the world even if it was somewhat different there).
IF EQN get 75% of the former EQ 1 & 2 players it would be a huge success, even better would be if it gets as many new players as well. But with a sequel your former players need to recognize at least the world or you will give away a great advantage for the very slim possibility that your game might be the next big thing. That would be very stupid.
A lot of jump ship when WOW came out.
They don't have to forget .. they just have to realize that there are now better (subjective) alternatives. No one says a fan have to stay a fan forever.
They may be intrigued .. but will enough of them be willing to pay a sub to wait in line to kill a boss? I doubt that.
So? Pong was successful in its peak too ... but it is totally irrelevant to today's gaming .. not unlike EQ.
Speaking of context, and people who have no grasp of it...
Shall I type more slowly so you can keep up, and understand better? Because you completely missed the point (or, more likely just ignored it, like you often do).
Actually.... nevermind. I've already wasted too much time on you just with this post.
I wouldn't try to carry on a logical discussion with Nari about this. He likes aRPG and wants all MMORPG to become them. He is a casual single player driven player who never really seemed to like MMORPG in the first place. Those games are fine and I'm glad they exist but they shouldn't be the only games made.
Yes...you played when you could and when you wanted. There was nothing saying you had to devote your life to it. It's only those people who feel they have to play to keep up with the majority in levels, gear, etc. that say those things or felt that way about it.
The leader board people concerned about their 1337 status within the community.
I worked full time, had 2 young kids and had a social life and was still in the top raiding guild and PvP guild on my server in EQ. You certainly did not have to lose your life to the game. To just play and have fun you could easily just play a few hours a week though.
I will say moreso than most games this one punished inefficient players. The PvE in this game wasn't just about being able to kill or not kill something, it was about efficiently using your resources to kill to get better XP/Hour. It was very easy for a good group to get more than double the XP of a bad one.
I agree.. I too was a family man that didn't LIVE on the game.. I logged on, and grouped some times, and some times I soloed.. I do think the game had some issues that could of been fixed, but that is a different discussion.. EQ did promote "efficiency" and it did generate a tremendous about of envy and jealousy.. Too many players, especially the unsocial ones worried too much what others had or able to do.. IMO
I, on the other hand, played a shit ton of hours a day, and still wasn't among the top geared players on my server. There was just too much to do, and too much fun to be had. I spent a lot of my time helping my guild or pvping. Fighting over contested spawns for quest items and epics was huge. When I wasn't at school, I spent almost every waking hour playing EQ and there was still many things I never saw or did despite averaging roughly 8 hours a day. Could I have personally accomplished more? Sure. The point is, it was so much more than what people call an MMORPG today.
8 hours a day for a single game? That is practically a full time job.
I certainly hope that MMORPGs (or any game) today would not waste so much time. Small dozes of entertainment is great ... hours and hours of it ... not so much .. at least for me.
Yeah I think that is what is really missing these days. In EQ/DAOC/SB and even early WoW I would log in and ask what did I miss. I was actually mentally invested in the game and the world. MMORPG in my opinion were meant to be more than just a game. If I want to play just a game I could play SC or D2 or any of a number of great single player games etc, MMOPRG can be so much more. Unfortunately the genre has become just a game and well other types of games are much better at just being a game than a MMORPG is.
Since "red cars" are the most popular, should ALL cars only come in red? And if one decides to come in blue only, does that make it "exclusive?" Yes, to those who like the color blue. Those who like red STILL have cars they can drive, but since NOT EVERY CAR is to their liking, they throw out the "exclusivity" card. Tough shit. Welcome to MY world, where MMOs exclude *my* type of player. (I do not think I am alone in this desire.)
If a player, ANY player, has the belief that EVERY MMO must cater to their kind of enjoyment, they are not hitting on all cylinders....
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Well, to start, I'm not sure I like the word "exclusivity". But, I'll roll with it in the context of Dullahan's post...
To start, 'fun' and 'exclusivity' are not mutually exclusive. Both can co-exist in any given combination. For example, a game designed for broad appeal can be very fun, or not fun at all... Add in the fact that "fun" is a very subjective thing to begin with and, any single title can range from "best game ever" to "complete PoS", and for any variety of reasons, depending on who you ask.
To put Dullahan's post another way...
It's okay if there are games targeting specific audiences, looking for a specific style of gameplay.
Not every game has to appeal to every type of player, and it's not a crime, or some horrible offense, if one doesn't.
It's no more "unfair" to have a game cater to a specific demographic than it is "unfair" to have a restaurant that only caters to seafood lovers. There are options available for people who want chicken, or beef, or a burger, or a hotdog, or a salad, etc. A seafood restaurant doesn't have to check all those boxes, because there are already other restaurants that do.There are dozens of MMOs on this site's list that are designed for mass appeal. Yet, that doesn't seem to be enough for some people, who take offense to even a single game not catering to a playstyle they enjoy - even if they have no interest in playing it. In a genre that's already drowning in MMOs designed for "mass appeal", it's a level of selfishness and myopia I just can't wrap my head around.
More diversity and specialization in specific playstyles would be a good thing, not a bad one. It should be encouraged, not talked down.
This is such a beautiful post, Pratt!
Since "red cars" are the most popular, should ALL cars only come in red? And if one decides to come in blue only, does that make it "exclusive?" Yes, to those who like the color blue. Those who like red STILL have cars they can drive, but since NOT EVERY CAR is to their liking, they throw out the "exclusivity" card. Tough shit. Welcome to MY world, where MMOs exclude *my* type of player. (I do not think I am alone in this desire.)
If a player, ANY player, has the belief that EVERY MMO must cater to their kind of enjoyment, they are not hitting on all cylinders....
Actually White is the most popular car color.
Red used to be a highly popular car color but its not the most popular these days. So, if you like Red cars dont get angry that its not as popular as it was in the past.
And, yes, this has been an analogy.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Not to me. They are worse games to me, until the dev wise up and start making them more like games, less like worlds.