Scott Hartsman/Gallenite is a free agent

[Alarion]

Originally Posted by Gecko

The question which would lay this thread to rest is given the good changes you did in EQ2, why did you never fix the combat system!

I can't speak for the guy, but from my experience in software development I would assume budget and or higher ups not allowing this.

Sometimes in development there are things that need to be fixed. Things that everyone knows needs to be fixed. But due to everything else that "needs" to be done, it never gets put on the front burner.

Take for example the company I work for. Horrid (almost non-existent) development process. And we are a software development company. I have been screaming for 2 years that we need to get this shit fixed. Yet, there are other things the management above me deems as more important (ie: add this shit in, cause (potential new) customers want it right now and they are (getting ready to be) paying millions).

I guess my point is, no matter who you are - sometimes your hands are tied.

[Tyen]

Originally Posted by Ngruk

1) this NE weather likely wouldn't be an incentive for him

From Cambridge now in Portland; I agree with this statement.

[Miele]

Originally Posted by Gecko

The question which would lay this thread to rest is given the good changes you did in EQ2, why did you never fix the combat system!

By the time they could or would accept to rework it, it was already too late.
First, because the existing playerbase likes it and by changing it, most of them would say "fuck you" and leave, also it wouldn't guarantee a large influx of new players.

They are certainly better served by making EQ3 right now, taking everything good from the 2 and improving combat tenfolds, they'd have the best game on the market.

[dorfeater]

Combat systems are something you definitely don't screw with once they are in place. It's a quick way to piss off your current player base, and if it backfires (which it most likely will) you go down the shitter never to seriously be spoken of again unless it's, "Man, remember xxx before they fucked it up"

Tweaks to the combat system, a-ok.

Complete overhaul? Disaster. Even in beta completely re-hauling combat freaks people out.

[Gecko]

Originally Posted by Miele

By the time they could or would accept to rework it, it was already too late.
First, because the existing playerbase likes it and by changing it, most of them would say "fuck you" and leave, also it wouldn't guarantee a large influx of new players.

They are certainly better served by making EQ3 right now, taking everything good from the 2 and improving combat tenfolds, they'd have the best game on the market.

The combat system discussions though date back to right after the release of EQ2, with a plethora of misinformation handed out from early on.

I think a mass overhaul of combat would cause ripples, and it would've been risky, but it also could've made the game a mainstream hit, I think.

There's a right way and a wrong way to do this. Obviously, the SWG NGE was a disaster. I wouldn't see SOE doing this again and pushing this change out the door immediately after a big expansion with zero player knowledge.

However, a smart rebuild with a long testing cycle, giving people a more fun, simple, and good combat system in the proper manner would have done wonders for the game.

Again, EQ2 had a lot of issues, such as the stupid adherence to rushing out expansion packs in a rapid and vapid manner to the unpolished zones to the class systems. I'd say most people can look past some flaws as long as the game mechanics are fun. EQ2's was not, in my opinion, and SOE doomed a game with great idea's to mediocrity due to this.

[dorfeater]

Originally Posted by Gecko

The combat system discussions though date back to right after the release of EQ2, with a plethora of misinformation handed out from early on.

I think a mass overhaul of combat would cause ripples, and it would've been risky, but it also could've made the game a mainstream hit, I think.

There's a right way and a wrong way to do this. Obviously, the SWG NGE was a disaster. I wouldn't see SOE doing this again and pushing this change out the door immediately after a big expansion with zero player knowledge.

A combat revamp may have been an option 1 year after release, after the subs took a dive. I'm thinking coupled with the release of KoS. But.. now? I don't think so. They have their player-base and they seem content with that. A revamp now would spell doom. Just like NGE.

[Miele]

Quite some time ago, I went through a serie of ideas to revamp EQ2 system, which back then (and currently I guess) relied on pretty much every single skill having a short cooldown and thus requires people to use more buttons to give the feeling of being busy all the time.

In short, if they would just give each class 1-2 spammable skills for single target and 1-2 for AE encounters, change all the others to buffs or debuffs of sorts to be reapplied on a medium timer (30 seconds-2 minute) and introduce a different way to handle healing, where the tweaks should be oriented in a different way, then they could keep the same amount of hotkeys, but making most of them situational or not used too often.

As an example I remember the swashbuckler having 6-8 single target skills used in a sort of rotation (if it's available, use it, but in a certain order- type of rotation) and compared it to the WoW rogue spamming one key most of the time and using a bunch of others on a timer or in a situational way. The difference is staggering to say the least.

It's certainly too late now, the game has aged a lot and it wouldn't do any good to have a massive change done now, unless it's an experiment for EQ3.

[Gecko]

I definitely agree now is not the time for a combat revamp. They missed the window to make a difference.

I personally would still love to see one, though.

Originally Posted by Miele

It's certainly too late now, the game has aged a lot and it wouldn't do any good to have a massive change done now, unless it's an experiment for EQ3.

SOE currently has in their stable EQ, EQ2, Vanguard, and Free Realms. Do they have room for another fantasy MMO, or really a need?

They are still releasing expansions for EQ and EQ2, and Free Realms fills their mainstream game market avenue better than a new EQ game would.

What would be fabulous is if they upgraded EQ to EQ2 graphics and fixed the glaring 10 year old issues with the game design and code. How many people still play EQ? I'm not sure if that's a dumb idea, but put EQ2 graphics and engine into EQ, and fix a lot of the old issues that exist and it'd be appealing to a lot of MMO people, I think.

[Kuro]

They tried to re-do Tank/DPS Combat mechanics a few months ago, it was a pretty huge overhaul in the offing.

The playerbase screamed and thrashed at the mere mention of it, until it was shitcanned.

[Miele]

Originally Posted by Gecko

What would be fabulous is if they upgraded EQ to EQ2 graphics and fixed the glaring 10 year old issues with the game design and code. How many people still play EQ? I'm not sure if that's a dumb idea, but put EQ2 graphics and engine into EQ, and fix a lot of the old issues that exist and it'd be appealing to a lot of MMO people, I think.

I'd be all over it, seriously. I'm one of those weird people that appreciated EQ2 graphic, not truly in love with it, but found it good (animations need work tho) and EQ1 turns me off because of its graphic that is too dated nowadays, but still has something I like in terms of gameplay.
Anyway I doubt this is gonna happen anytime soon.

[Gecko]

Originally Posted by Kuro

They tried to re-do Tank/DPS Combat mechanics a few months ago, it was a pretty huge overhaul in the offing.

The playerbase screamed and thrashed at the mere mention of it, until it was shitcanned.

This in a nutshell is what was wrong with EQ, EQ2, and even DAOC. Policy dictated by forum posts, instead of wise design and leadership.

No wonder Hartsman ran kicking and screaming from there, despite the happy, happy, joy, joy burn-no-bridges posts.

[Cuppycake]

Originally Posted by Utnayan

I went through and started clicking on random "Blogs". Hartsman is the only designer worth a shit when I looked at the side bars of people. And then after reading the bullshit these "designers" write, it's no wonder why jack shit gets done in this industry.

Protip: Quit analyzing the fuck out of everything and just make the God Damn game. After reading why Lisa Boleyn (Isn't this the same one that was hired at Sigil because she fell in love with MMORPG's after playing SWG?) decided she should play Halo 3 a year and a half after it was released because it would expand her knowledge of game design (All I saw was it expanded my knowledge of adjectives to use in useless emo blogs) I had to click off before I upchucked my Chipotle Burrito Bol.

Sorry to break it to you man, but the game industry isn't filled with a bunch of superstars. It's people just like you or I who happened to apply, write a good design doc, and get in. Sometimes, they knew someone who knew someone. Sometimes they worked their way up from 10 dollar an hour QA. Sometimes it works out - they are creative people with great ideas. Sometimes it doesn't. But if games only hired people who were proven excellent at what they do 10 times over, this industry would be even more incestuous than it already is. No thanks.

Lisa is a pretty freaking fantastic designer and a brilliant writer too, so you chose a bad example. There were much better examples you could have picked if you wanted to nitpick people's blogs and judge their design ability from it.

[Vorph]

Originally Posted by Miele

As an example I remember the swashbuckler having 6-8 single target skills used in a sort of rotation (if it's available, use it, but in a certain order- type of rotation) and compared it to the WoW rogue spamming one key most of the time and using a bunch of others on a timer or in a situational way. The difference is staggering to say the least.

How is that really any worse than a feral druid, ret paladin, DW DK (back when they were relevant, anyway) or any other FCFS rotation dps class in WoW? Ret has at least 5 abilities being rotated at all times, with a sixth thrown in under 20%. Last I heard, feral was still pretty complicated to play at max performance. DW DK was pretty intensive back when that was popular too.

(Personally I hate FCFS rotations, so I'm not really defending eq2 here so much as I'm saying that WoW is just as bad in many cases if that shit annoys you.)

And as far as casters go, I'd say a shadow priest requires far more attention to cooldowns than any eq2 caster I played. Affliction warlock was far more complicated before the recent changes too. EQ2 casters may not have ever been on the level of, say, warlocks in T6, but I'd say they've never been any more complex than a WoW mage.

[Sythrak]

Way back when Nagafen on EQ2 was young Scott helped an unfortunate few of us that had our characters corrupted due to a bug. He stayed late to make sure we were all up and running. Just wanted to say thank you!

[Utnayan]

Originally Posted by Cuppycake

Sorry to break it to you man, but the game industry isn't filled with a bunch of superstars. It's people just like you or I who happened to apply, write a good design doc, and get in. Sometimes, they knew someone who knew someone. Sometimes they worked their way up from 10 dollar an hour QA. Sometimes it works out - they are creative people with great ideas. Sometimes it doesn't. But if games only hired people who were proven excellent at what they do 10 times over, this industry would be even more incestuous than it already is. No thanks.

Lisa is a pretty freaking fantastic designer and a brilliant writer too, so you chose a bad example. There were much better examples you could have picked if you wanted to nitpick people's blogs and judge their design ability from it.

As in what? I see someone hired on with Sigil through the buddy system and then writing an emo blog on Halo 3. Exactly what has been accomplished here as a "pretty freaking fantastic designer" aside from you kissing ass yourself (Publically) to move up like she did (Privately)?

And I also will combat this with people who played these games inside and out for years and then became not only damn good designers, but did it right off the bat. Kaplan, Furor to name two who knew their shit from the start because they actually played for long amounts of time over the course of YEARS to see the design flaws and accomplishments in other games besides logging into SWG for a month, fucking someone at a company, and getting hired. And look at what those two have accomplished.

My point isn't to ridicule anyone even though it sure sounds like that. She will be used as an example in my point. And my point is when you let people in this way (And let's not fucking kid ourselves on the kiss ass meter hierarchy over at the good ol' boys club at SOE, (Or Sigil when it was still around) you end up with people who do not have a clue what is going on in development and it shows in the final product. Take people who are seasoned MMORPG players who understand what could be missing, and those are the people you want.

In a nutshell, you do not need people who are going to try and stew over the next greatest idea in a video game and write a thesis. You want people who will impact the design right off the bat and they let fly the ideas they had to begin with and implement them without having to write a 5 month long blog about art style in an FPS on a console in a vein attempt to be taken seriously. All this with the experience as a true player to back it.

An example? Gurgthock. People like Zoid. (Yeah I am biased for EJ people. Sue me) Although I doubt Valve will let Zoid go anywhere soon. As when it comes to one of the best, he is one of the best. And Edit: Zoid goes back to the Capture the flag days back in the 90's so he is above and beyond damn near anyone anyway. So that isn't a fair comparison.

I admire people who want to get into the industry, work there way up from a shit position in QA, to prove themselves. Good for them if they can get past the political bullshit they are going to endure. What I cannot stand are people who take the easy way in. And your buddy is one of them. So try not to kiss ass too hard publically so you become her. I would rather see you kick ass by way of proving what you can do. (And honestly, I mean that)

Key points: Don't write a 10 page paper on how Koster was right in certain aspects and wrong in others on Sandbox MMORPG's. Instead, on your off time, get into the tools and create something that will be remembered as fucking awesome and fun. If it fails, at least you stepped up to the plate and didn't artsy fartsy the entire process on a blog.