M&M: WoW + EQ2, gaming for morons and masochists.

[Qhue]

Okay so we are in the last stretches before these two Titans of gaming get released. I've played both of them extensively and while it is somewhat questionable to base a hard opinion on un-released software, I don't see many signs of these two titles changing much before they are released.


World of Warcraft -- Gaming for morons.


Blizzard is a very successful company. They have a track record of making mass market releases that capture an aspect of the potential software market that almost no one else is able to bait, much less have the ability to reel in. When I talk to people in the real world and who are very much removed from the geekgasm that is the MMORPG community they think of only a few things when it comes to PC gaming : Sims, Quake, and Warcraft. People who buy games at Target are a different sort of demographic than the ones who have standing next-day shipping orders from EBWorld. These are casul gamers of the Nth degree and they are a hard bunch to satisfy. They don't deal with bugs, they dont deal with any sort of complex or non-inutitive UI, and they certainly do NOT pay subscription rates for games. EA tried to translate their Sims franchise into an online world and it bombed horribly for everyone but cybersex purveyors. People who play the Sims in record numbers arent the sort of people who really care about multiplayer at all, much less massively multiplayer. I mention this by means of justification for World of Warcraft. You cannot imagine that this extremely lucrative market wasn't considered when developing the game. Blizzard is used to selling millions of copies of games, most of which go to people you wouldn't call gamers and yet they are now trying to get those same people to buy into a subscription service... they need to cater to those needs in a big way.

As a result we have a game whose interface is elegant to the point of criminality. When you start to play the game, whether as a RPG expert or someone who has never so much as touched a Final Fantasy much less an Everquest, within minutes you are seemlessly moving around the world and interacting with it. Anyone can take to the World of Warcraft UI as if it were as natural as breathing and that is a very very good thing. The game is gorgeous and makes use of ARTISTS who are capable of taking a small number of polygons and low rez textures and turn them into an amazing vista that engenders very visceral reactions in people who play or just happen to be looking over someone's shoulder. I cannot emphasize enough how the atmosphere and look of Warcraft is downright perfect. The game evokes moods through excellent use of FX, color palletes, and musical cues. Just walking around the World of Warcraft is a rewarding experience, when you add in critters and personalities it only gets better.

The game is very FUN to play. Whenever I was adventuring in WoW I was always entertained. Its a very enjoyable experience and I don't regret one iota of time I spent playing it.

But I don't play it anymore.

The reason I don't play it anymore is because the game has been intentionally tuned for morons. The game moves fast, so fast that if you blink you've gained a level. The plus side of this is that you never really need to worry about grinding experience because you are so occupied with trying to at least see SOME of the things you could be doing at the current level that you naturally gain levels while going about the business of adventuring. The downside is that large honking tracts of really cool looking content is just missed by any single character. If you want to really appreciate all there is to offer in the game you have to have multiple characters and force yourself to tread off the beaten path. Sure you can go visit an instanced dungeon when you are high enough level to solo the whole place without breaking a sweat...but how fun is that?

So its easy to level up and you can't help but skip content... that in itself isnt so bad really is it? No, but consider that everyone else is also levelling up in a trivial manner. In fact no matter what you do, a few hours of almost any activity will result in you levelling up. Being a high level character isnt all that special because EVERYONE is a high level character and the content has been tuned so that Sally the Sims Player can do just as well as a hardcore powergamer in being able to consume content and progress in the game. There's little sense of accomplishment in the game...especially when it seems almost everyone gimps their way past content involving cheats, exploits and using raids in areas where raids arent intended. Personal accomplishment of clearign Uldaman with your favorite group of six is a strong thing, and the experience was a lot of fun, but when it comes to dick-waving and bragging rights that belongs to the kiddies who just have enough raw TIME on their hands to farm purple items off gimp crap. Some of the best items in the game come from some of the most inane places and some of the hardest content results in ho-hum gear.

Why do I bring such things up? Because to capture the CONTINUED attention of a powergamer like me you need to have a strong hook. Typically that hook has been lewtz, and personal power. I play to be the best and if that effort is rewarded I keep playing. In World of Warcraft you can be really good at playing the game and yet look like a total schmuck compared to someone who just has more time on their hands to let the random item drops come up in their favor. Brad McQuad had a very important point that a powerful and skilled player should LOOK the part. That you could tell by sight that such a person had accomplished great things. Right now, however, that isnt the case. While I enjoy playing WoW with friends and we have done very well for ourselves in playing smart and efficiently that doesn't seem to really matter in terms of those deep hook bragging rights that keep me and mine coming back for more.

Random loot drops that are insanely good, ultra fast levelling so that a parrot could be level 60 in about 3 weeks, massive exploits of content that never seem to get patched and which allow gimping to occur on a Diablo-level scale all add up to making a very fun and enjoyable game into a one-time-only experience. I played WoW and had fun, but was left with no real desire to keep playing it after I had done things once.


BUT STOP YOU CRACK SMOKING WHORE!!! YOU DIDNT TALK ABOUT THE RAIDZ!!! OMGZORS THE RAIDS AER GONNA ROXORS!!@#$

Newsflash for ya bub. I don't give a rats ass about the raids. I like to raid, hell I love to raid. I love it when a plan comes together and I like seeing other people's virtual faces light up when we all succeed as a team. I gave up playing WoW long before the raids were added and I suspect in retail I will give up playing long before reaching the raiding level. People I know will play, we'll have fun, but eventually they will drift off as they realize that all the skill in the world cant make up for finding a purple item off a gimp mob...that doing Scholomance with one group is silly when people can just take 2 or 3...and that we all have better things to do than wait around for content to be added at the top of the levelling curve when we ended up skipping past so much content on the way up.

WoW is a great game, but its a trivial game for casual gamers and casual gaming. It feels more like a single-player game with lots of other people around than a really addictive MMORPG and will probably get as much of my time as a single player game would. I'm sorely dissapointed that Furor and Tigole had a large role in crafting a game where a trained chimp could easily be the most powerful character in the game. They both bemoaned EQ content that rewarded numbers over skill and mindless zerging over strategy and yet the game they've crafted and which is based on a franchise that emphasizes skill and strategy has very little of either.



EQ2 -- Gaming for Masochists


SoE is bastion of online gaming. As an entity they've presided over EverQuest, in all its forms, and have gained a great deal of institutional memory on the subject of MMORPGS even if any one person still there lacks the Vision of a Brad McQuaid. They understand what makes hardcore gamers tick, they understand addiction, they understand that for the MMORPG niche market you need to strike a perfect balance between pleasure and pain, keeping the players tantalized just enough to keep them hooked while you keep them occupied.

In stark contrast to WoW, EQ2 has some amazing graphical engine capabilities that really pushes to the boundary and beyond of what is possible in terms of rendering in a fully actualized 3D world...and they have the worst artists known to man generating that 3D world. Seriously I think they could print up Timmy the Turtle adverts on matchbook covers and recruit a better group of artists or at least 3D modelers. The whole game takes a page from the old Interplay game Stonekeep and shows realistic stone walls, bones, and worldly items in high detail but with a very subdued color pallete. While WoW uses cartoonishly exaggerated colors to invoke emotional responses in the player, EQ2 does a very good job of making you feel like you really are in a dismal medieval setting. EQ2 excels at dank, dark, and dismal. If you are in a sewer infested with mold and all manners of undead hordes then EQ2 looks amazing, but come out into the light of day and everything resembles an unfortunate cross between a Boris Valejo painting and a Hummel figurine. The Sun doesnt so much shine in EQ2, instead dead sunlight falls onto a landscape populated with misshapen mutant deer and a population of really ugly adventurers.

The first part of the EQ2 masochism hits when you dare to scale the graphics bar up above "High Performance". The graphics and environment gets much more detail but at the cost that your portal into the 3D world turns into a slideshow. You can take a glimpse at how the world looks on the maximal settign and it really does look quite amazingly detailed...but its totally unplayable at such a level and it only serves to torture the player by showing them that their mojo just isnt strong enough to take what they can deliver. Of course NO mojo is currently strong enough to play the game at even High detail, much less highest, as the game is built to grow into next generation CPUs and GPUs to help counteract potential datinng of the game as it grows and expands.

EQ2, as a game system, has many evolutionary ideas built into it. Having been bitten by the eternally conflicting roles and responsibilities issues of class balance in other games SoE chooses to come out up front with a series of specific roles for each character class. In particular they recognize that you can break adventuring needs down into 4 Archetypes : Fighter, Priest, Mage and Scout and set certain functions that each needs to bring to the table in order to have a viable group. The goal with this effort is a noble one : To make sure that any Fighter can accomplish the Role of a Fighter in a group and yet still have uniqueness compared to other Fighters. In EQ hybridization got out of control and has resulted in some strange mismatches of abilities and blurring of too many lines while at the same time allowing the characters that represented core aspects of the game (Clerics, Rogues, Warriors etc) to dominate because they are invaluable. Its a simple realization that if one class heals better than any other that one class will be highly desired if not necessary. The solution, of course, is to make sure that all the healing classes accomplish that role to the same level of effectiveness but not in the same way. Its clear that quite alot of design thought went into the principles behind the Archetypes, Classes and even Subclasses, but they haven't been implemented with such care. While the Archetypes remain distinct, the Classes and Subclasses blur too many lines between them. In some cases (the Fighters) it seems to have been an easy thing to make distinctions while in other areas (the Mages) the distinctions are almost non existant between classes and the subclasses in the large are carbon copies of each other with different spell names.

EQ2 has some great encounter ideas, especially involving linked groups. These are groups of mobs that are permanently linked together as an encounter. You fight one of them and you fight the whole bunch, no sissy singly pulling here please thanks. As a result they have created situations that have great potential to break the 6-on-1 gangbang that has been pervasive since EQ1 came out as well as making AE effects viable in a way that doesnt also let them get out of control. AE effects, in general, target all the members of a linked group regardless of their proximity to each other. This means that you can have AE without worrying about getting things bunched into a small area or worrying about AE spells being overpowered when used in ways they were not intended to be used. Its a simple thing, but a very nice and new game mechanic. EQ2 also has some wonderful ideas about how to manage instanced content both for individuals and groups and how to tie that instanced content into progression quests, and storyline events even at low levels. I cant help but think they saw the FFXI model and ran with it in terms of built in cutscenes and dramatic milestone events that unlock new content as you move through the semi-linear storyline.

The problem with EQ2 is that its is sooo hardcore in terms of its time commitment, levelling speed, and difficult path to player progression that only the most fiendishly driven players will survive to see the upper echelons of content. EQ2 brings back the concept of "grinding" exp and sadly the most efficient way to do this is to avoid all the content that might be compelling for other reasons and instead choose to sit in one place and kill relatively gimpy mobs for a steady source of exp and maybe some loot. This grind combined with the overall lagginess of the graphics, the lack of distinction between classes and the overall lack of a sense of accomplishment (I spent 3 days, finally gained a level and all I got was @%@%@% GROUP DETECT INVISIBILITY?!?!) makes playing this game a masochistic exercise. People say that once you get past level 30 that the game gets more interesting and less grindy, but I have a real issue with "it gets better honest" type talk. I dont want to suffer now in the hopes of having fun later...I want to have fun now and have MORE fun later.



The Bottom Line

WoW is a fun game that is a joy to play through once, but doesnt really have the necessary hooks to keep me interested past the first go-round. Itemization was done by a crack-smoking junkie and any moron can do well in a game that feels like it was written as a Junior guide to RPGS for idiots. It has promise but ultimately its a casual gamers game. I'll play it, but I dont think I'll play for long and neither will many of the people who read this board.

EQ2 is a technically advanced game that is going to be released about 1 year too early. It has some pretty good hooks built into it but suffers from old-fashioned grind issues. Accomplishment in EQ2 doesnt come easy and when you do a /who all 20 30 in the game, even after months of Beta, you see a fairly small list of people. /who all 30 50 shows some downright insane motherfuckers who have the patience of Job and who either have waaay too much time on their hands or are really good at playing the game. A moron who plays EQ2 just ends up in permanent exp debt and can barely get from point A to point B without keeling over and the snob in me likes that. Ultimately I shouldn't feel like Im at work when I play a game and EQ2 has more in common with SimSweatshop than anything else at this point (which again is about 1 year before it SHOULD be released).


If WoW were made less gimp-intensive and if EQ2 were given the necessary polish that it needs then BOTH games would be very successful in their chosen markets. I'm just a bit surprised that WoW ended up the casual gamer's game and that EQ2 is going after the hardcore gamer market when I'm pretty sure originally the two goals were reversed.

[Slagar]

But anyways, did you just say that if WoW was like EQ2 and if EQ2 was like WoW, you'd play them both?

Kinda fruity.

Personally I'm reserving any /final/ judgment on either game until release, which better be by the end of this year.

[Duhulk]

A well written post, I have a few comments however.

I cant help but think they saw the FFXI model and ran with it in terms of built in cutscenes

Where? As far as I can see EQ2 has thusfar contniue in the EQ1 tradition of giving us lore simply as explaning past events. There are no cutscenes. Maybe there are later on, but I haven't seen any. I haven't seen ANY "progression" of lore yet.

I must also STRONGLY disagree with your assertion that the best xp is gotten from sitting in one spot and grinding. The best xp is achieved by going to a dungeon where you have a shitload of quests, this requires exploring the world, and NOT STAYING IN ONE SPOT. Move your ass around, through, and explore the dungeon fully. Assuming it's not over camped (heh...heh...heh, big assuming there) You'll likely end up with 60-70% of your quests finished, a good chunk of xp from discoveries, and probably even a new quest or two. You'll easily have gained, at least, half a level in the process. Now, this is still just experience from the pre-20 portion of the game. I don't know how many quests there are later than that at a time. Bottom line is, as long as there are quests that are giving you 15%-20% experience for finished them (there's not many, but i've done a few) there's no excuse for grinding unless it's to finish a difficult quest.

[Gar]

Yes, WoW is way too easy.

The problems are infact quite bad as there is no way of doign dungeons when they are hard. Want to do VC? 20+ only they say in ooc when dungeon is doable with group of level 15 players, as that is the dungeons intended level.

But, when there is no trivial loot code and the quest system allows players to over-level zerg every quest and instance, there is no challenge left in WoW. Same thing with high level instances, "oh no, you have to be 60, 59 isnt good enough!".

And the talks that "well, you dont have to do it like others and gimp VC at level 20+".. Bullshit, you cant get a freaking group bold enough to do it before 20. Gamers dont want challenge if they think they are smarter than the game and do it when they are stronger than the intended quest.. Levelling is faster that way, but it also takes away all the excitement there is in WoW.

Quick and dirty fix:

If quest intended level is 20, you lose all items provided that quest if you finnish it at level 21 and you lose the quest if you try to do it at level 22.

Double the amount of EXP required for each level. Reduce exp gained from fighting monster below your level by huge marking. At level 40, killing level 39 monster should not yield you any exp.

There are also problems with monsters, elite's are too easy, generally your own level mob is too weak. They should hit harder, every class alone should be able just barely kill a mob that is their own level solo. That way the solo grinders would be able to level into 60, but with huge time penalty. And dont give em any exp if they fight feaker monsters.

Then add bonus for grouping.. voila!

And we have a winner.

I think blaming tigole and furor for failures in challenge @ wow is wrong though. I'm quite sure it was not their idea since the consept problem is not made by them, but its due to the lead developers idea that every class should be able to solo with effiency to level 60 that caused this solo fuckfest without any challenge and quest system so abusable that no one does quests on their intended levels.

We need fixes.

[Cedil]

Good post.

[Hardcore Cracka]

Gar, those are some of the worst fucking ideas for a game ever.

[Goofy]

It has been months since we've seen a well thought out and intelligent post. Your arrival today is a shining beacon for humanity. These are dark times for the boards.

[Templor]

Originally posted by hardcore_cracka

Gar, those are some of the worst fucking ideas for a game ever.

Seriously, loot from quests being destroyed if you are one level over the reccomended level for the quest and mobs one level lower than you not giving any experience... lol.

please say you were kidding =(

[Kreugen]

You didn't comment much on the gameplay. In the cases where a battle lasts longer than a couple of breaths, WoW has awesome gameplay, with lots of varied skills to use (and you WILL use) for each class. Every class in WoW is varied, interesting, and fun to play. To this day I have no idea what class I would consider my "main." Even soloing is quite fun (but repetative) - its grouping that has a problem. You simply kill WAY too fast, it makes the game world smaller than it should be - one player can wipe out an entire cave system before catching respawn, come on. I honestly think the #1 way to instantly boost WoW's gameplay value would be to double every mobs current hitpoints. You'd still be able to win almost any 1 vs 1 situation, but having a 3 man group woulden't feel so much like a game of Doom. You'd actually have time to use more than a skill or two. Healers might even have to heal at times in non-boss fights, what a concept.

EQ2, at some point (mid/upper 20's?) the gameplay reaches its ceiling - you do nothing new from that point forward. Skills for each class are VERY limited. Mobs are terribly uninteresting (maybe tweaked some this coming patch, but nothing like WoW) with very few abilities. The game is also every bit as easy as WoW. You know before you ever make a pull if you will win or not. There is no in-combat power regen at all - if your healers run out of mana, that's the end of your healing for the fight. Downtime has been much improved, however, and is nearly on the same level of a WoW instance group. The masochism comes into play with the tradeskill portion of the game. Holy fucking boring - and required. If you want phat loot, you have to tradeskill, plain and simple. And there is nothing in the world more tedious than crafting in EQ2. Also, EQ2 is VERY hard to get into. I have two days of playtime on a level 16 cleric and I only now feel like I'm "getting it." Not the simplistic gameplay, mind you, but all the other things that make up the game can be confusing, such as finding access to the handful of adventure areas. By far the most annoying part of the game is just finding the damn NPC you need, as waypoints are limited.

Both games suffer from mundane-monster syndrome, with EQ2 worse off than WoW at the low levels (rats and bats.. and snakes, and armadillos, and beetles, and dogs) and WoW having some sort of bear fetish throughout its entire level range (level 60 elite bear, oh nos!) Artistically, WoW is a hell of a lot more interesting, but EQ2 characters make nice screenshots when you are zoomed in and standing still. Forming a general group in EQ2 is very easy, its trying to get one for a specific, time-involved out of the way task that can be tough. (I've yet to find people to do Den of Thieves, Serpent Sewer, or Bloodskull valley access, any tips?) Forming a group in WoW can be a fucking nightmare. Being unable to put together anyone for gnomeregan (out of the way dungeon for horde) is what pissed me off enough to actually play EQ2 some. Generally the way you group in WoW is by going to the location of the quest, and ninja inviting people standing around. Of course, almost no one in WoW has any group skills whatsoever. In WoW, you advance too fast to see a lot of the content, especially anything off of the obvious path. In EQ2, you will beat the same content to death. Ten LONG levels in each of the handful of major zones (there's what, five?) with open dungeons (read: overcamped) and private adventure areas (tough to get groups for) in each.

Anyway, perhaps I should actually do, like, classwork now.

[Mezzdat]

I could not agree more. What's sad is they are both so close to being amazing games. As of right now, I'm leaning toward WoW. If for no other reason than while it does get a tad boring, it never feels like I'm slicing my own wrists, like EQ2 does.

[Clowns]

Qhue, that was an excellent post. You compared and contrasted both games, but at the same time you stayed unbiased throughout the entire ordeal. Nice job.

[Dynalisia]

It doesn't matter wether or not WoW is too easy for me, as long as it'll hold out till Vanguard can take over.
Even though, I strongly agree with most of the negative points on wow in this thread. Especially the diablo-esque gameplay when grouping for "Kill X amount of mob_soandso".
Soloing level 19 mobs at 15 is also a bit strange imo. No idea if that changes higher up, since I only had an account for 3 days.

[seraa]

the tradeskill portion of the game. Holy fucking boring - and required. If you want phat loot, you have to tradeskill, plain and simple. And there is nothing in the world more tedious than crafting in EQ2.

I can see where you might think this is true, that you have to do crafting to make money. And people around your level that have money are the crafters. Once you get higher and start grouping in Thundering Steppes, Varsoon, etc, you'll start getting better loot (giant meat sells for a fuckton) so you won't have to tradeskill. I'm a mid 20's Inquisitor and I don't tradeskill but I manage to get the gold I need, I'm just not ultra rich like dedicated tradeskillers, but those people don't really adventure hardly at all. I've played with level 25-30 people that adventure regularly and on average have like 10-20 gold, depending on if the lotto turns in their favor on major drops.

[Lweniel]

Originally posted by Kreugen
There is no in-combat power regen at all - if your healers run out of mana, that's the end of your healing for the fight. [/b]

As an enchanter, if you're dilligent with it, and invest in upgrades for it and Essence Shift you can do a decent job with Cycling your health to mana, Breezing the healers, and having them Regen you. However, it does rather break the 'any of an archetype will do' idea, as Chanters have a monopoly on Power regen and decent Crowd Control, making them very different to the other mages (I understand the same is true of Bard vs other Scouts)...

I suppose at least it's true to EQ1 in this respect

[Sampo]

Pointless write ups filled with pointless opinions.