Green Monster Games (Curt Schilling)

[Burf]

So, I know it's probably been said before, but can you make it so that casters don't have to stand still to cast? That is some seriously annoying crap.

[Draegan]

nm

[Fammaden]

Originally Posted by Zarcath

Whatever game you're making, please include cross-server chat channels!

It seems unacceptable in this day and age to be separated from friends/family. It's impossible to try and manage face-time with different groups of friends, and it's not like you can hop on other peoples ventrillos for 5-10 minutes and expect things to be kosher.

Thats one of the biggest things for me in regards to EQ/EQ2. Even if friends left for EQ2, I could still chat with them. I don't know why Blizzard refuses to implement it. Even if channels were locked to factions that would be better than nothing.

And they made chat channels without the most basic functionality that was in EQ six fucking years ago. Did this ever change? Being able to actually own a channel and restrict it with a permanent password would be a nice start.

[Sythrak]

I'd just like a MMO with a continuous storyline and possibly many side branches of it for once. A storyline you could go from level one to max with. I don't think I speak for myself when most everyone around here is tired of the kill 10 boars for their pelts, tongues, hooves, teeth, whatever shit. Or AoC's version of a storyline where you do 1 quest and come back in ten levels. I want a long drawn out storyline from start to finish. Probably asking too much. I'd even be happy with just one long drawn out quest storyline per PoI you come to. One where you aren't rushing to hit accept and just look on your radar for the quest spot.

The storyline could be done solo with some group parts. You can do it on your own time anytime you feel like logging in. For those more group oriented there'd be plenty of dungeons, group quests, and the like. I think the next gen MMO will definitely have to incorporate some brand new styles to ever be considered next gen. None of these MMO's have anything different over what's already been out 5 years ago.

[Froofy-D]

Originally Posted by Gaereth

Consumables??

Since it was mentioned. For the love of Jesus, Allah, Buddha, and Babe Ruth, please Curt (or whoever else is reading) ... no consumables. Adding an additional hour of farming for every hour of raiding is one of the worst mechanics ever. Fuck flasks. Not to mention it keeps thousands of asian farmers in business.

[Maxxius]

Interesting point, when you think about it. Curt, in your development are you considering the potential impact "farming" may have on the game?

[Mkopec1]

Originally Posted by Froofy-D

Since it was mentioned. For the love of Jesus, Allah, Buddha, and Babe Ruth, please Curt (or whoever else is reading) ... no consumables. Adding an additional hour of farming for every hour of raiding is one of the worst mechanics ever. Fuck flasks. Not to mention it keeps thousands of asian farmers in business.

I would be more happy if this new game explored an entirely different avenue of end game other than "raiding".

[Faille]

Originally Posted by Mkopec1

I would be more happy if this new game explored an entirely different avenue of end game other than "raiding".

How about EPIC GROUPING!

[Moorgard Mobhunter]

Originally Posted by Faille

How about EPIC GROUPING!

Forwarding this to our lawyers so they can get that phrase trademarked. You should start seeing it in our press releases very soon.

[Mannorai]

I would really like to see the return of meaningful questlines and have them incorporated into raiding. Something I always thought would have been cool was to have actually been able to watch each part of my Water Sprinkler of Nem Ankh or Orb of Mastery forged. That's a whole lot of time and frustration spent just to have someone hand me the thing and there was nothing truly "epic" about any of it other than my time invested in acquiring them. Not that I'm really complaining. They should take a long time, but the payoff needs to be adequate. If not in the item itself, in the experience. It would have also been nice to have those questlines started very early in the game, like from the moment you enter the world. I know some people hate forced grouping, but this could be one area where all parts of the quest require a group, if you do them at the level range you're meant to. This is all assuming class specific epic weapons/armor are even implemented. I'm just throwing it out there. Please don't hate me for being a masochist.

[Tropics]

Originally Posted by Moorgard Mobhunter

Forwarding this to our lawyers so they can get that phrase trademarked. You should start seeing it in our press releases very soon.

While you may be kidding it does bring up a thought I had during the production of VG.

I would love to see more variety in group numbers and raid numbers in the game. Have some dungeons made for only 4 people, some for 6, some would allow 8 in the group, ect... Balance the dungeon difficulty and itemization based to a large extent on this allowable number of group members. The same thing all the way up to raids, have some raids for only 20 people, some for 30, some that allow 40, and as someone who misses the huge raids of EQ have some that allow up to 60 people to participate.

For the raids it would work really well to have those large number of people required and then having smaller raids as well. Anyone who has been in a raiding guild even in WOW knows that in prime-time when most people are online you have a huge number of people who are ready to go, alot of the time people had to miss raids because of the 40 person cap. Then 4-6 hours later people start quiting because they have to go to sleep and the group starts to lose its ability to do the raid content. If you had various raids with varying amounts of people required the raid leaders could aim for the content that takes alot of people during the primetime and as the numbers dwindle they could switch to a smaller raid requiring less people for those hardcore late nighters.

You could even make the group/raid limits soft caps. Basically just say "reccomended for 12 people" on a tab and then have the 13th person cause the mobs to take 5% less damage from all attacks of all kinds and have it do 3% more damage. A 14th person causes 10% less damage to be dealt to the mobs and 6% more damage done by them. And so on. This would limit the groups but allow for that 13th or 14th buddy if you wanted them there.

It would also work amazingly well for raid content when you have 3 or 4 extra max level people that want to come but with no slots open. Then later in the night when people start leaving the raid is not left short handed, it instead now be going down to the reccomended level and seeing a loss of a couple people but a increase in DPS and damage mitigation.

This would of course all be balanced through beta and the math of what the extra character is worth. In a 4 man reccomended group an extra guy is cleary going to cause more of an alteration in DPS and damage then a extra guy in a 40 man raid is going to cause.

It would take some work and fiddleing but a system that did something like this would be very player friendly and give guilds and groups alot more freedom to prowl around and kill stuff without telling some guy he has to go because they have the limit of players reached for an instance.

[Froofy-D]

Originally Posted by Tropics

While you may be kidding it does bring up a thought I had during the production of VG.

I would love to see more variety in group numbers and raid numbers in the game. Have some dungeons made for only 4 people, some for 6, some would allow 8 in the group, ect... Balance the dungeon difficulty and itemization based to a large extent on this allowable number of group members. The same thing all the way up to raids, have some raids for only 20 people, some for 30, some that allow 40, and as someone who misses the huge raids of EQ have some that allow up to 60 people to participate.

For the raids it would work really well to have those large number of people required and then having smaller raids as well. Anyone who has been in a raiding guild even in WOW knows that in prime-time when most people are online you have a huge number of people who are ready to go, alot of the time people had to miss raids because of the 40 person cap. Then 4-6 hours later people start quiting because they have to go to sleep and the group starts to lose its ability to do the raid content. If you had various raids with varying amounts of people required the raid leaders could aim for the content that takes alot of people during the primetime and as the numbers dwindle they could switch to a smaller raid requiring less people for those hardcore late nighters.

You could even make the group/raid limits soft caps. Basically just say "reccomended for 12 people" on a tab and then have the 13th person cause the mobs to take 5% less damage from all attacks of all kinds and have it do 3% more damage. A 14th person causes 10% less damage to be dealt to the mobs and 6% more damage done by them. And so on. This would limit the groups but allow for that 13th or 14th buddy if you wanted them there.

It would also work amazingly well for raid content when you have 3 or 4 extra max level people that want to come but with no slots open. Then later in the night when people start leaving the raid is not left short handed, it instead now be going down to the reccomended level and seeing a loss of a couple people but a increase in DPS and damage mitigation.

This would of course all be balanced through beta and the math of what the extra character is worth. In a 4 man reccomended group an extra guy is cleary going to cause more of an alteration in DPS and damage then a extra guy in a 40 man raid is going to cause.

It would take some work and fiddleing but a system that did something like this would be very player friendly and give guilds and groups alot more freedom to prowl around and kill stuff without telling some guy he has to go because they have the limit of players reached for an instance.

I remember that thread as well Tropics. There was actually a few good discussions on the Sigil games board occasionally.

Anyway, I think the basic idea of no arbitrary difference between raid or group is a good one. Just invite however many people you like and go do stuff (up to the maximum raid size of course).

That way you can do the same content with either 4 people or 10 people. The 4 man group will just get more loot and more XP.

[Fog]

I never quite figured out why in most fantasy raiding MMOs there are usually just two sizes of dungeons: small ones with X people (where 3 < X < 7) and large ones for Y people (where 20 < Y < 50). Why aren't there dungeons for all the numbers in between and on either end?

[Digo]

Because it's nigh-impossible to design well-tuned, consistently challenging and rewarding content for fluctuating group sizes. Class power is predetermined by the combat designer based on a fixed maximum number of players in a group, which means the creatures are also balanced around these numbers.

In other words, you need to determine what a class' max DPS or healing output will be based on group size and composition. This can vary wildly by class depending on the number of players and class composition. No fixed sliding scale for monsters will be able to accurately match the changes in player power, especially because things like player power tend to fluctuate as players figure out new ways of min/maxing, or new gear and spells get introduced.

The only way you could implement this is if the game was entirely based around simple, linear DPS with no group synergy. Group damage would have to scale in a perfectly linear fashion. The system that controlled monster scaling would require a perfect understanding of the group's composition, spell use, and power scaling to appropriately scale the mobs. I don't think a computer can do this and make the content appropriately challenging for players.

[Faille]

I really like the 8 man groups in vanguard. Made it so much easier to get groups happening and to add people. There was a lot more flexibility in terms of adding the perceived non essential classes. It's amazing how restricting it felt when they dropped it back to 6.