Green Monster Games (Curt Schilling)

[Campa]

Originally Posted by Draegan

Your freedom is just broken mechanics Tad.

Wanting encounter designs to not be pigeonholed into only 1 or 2 acceptable strats using a specific & set group markup for defeating them is hardly asking for the allowance of broken mechanics.

[Draegan]

I wasn't referring to encounter design, just general play.

[Zehn - Vhex]

We often fondly recall exploiting the crap out of EQ to our benefit, but one of the biggest tradeoff's I think is also in the "Oh crap..." department.

I mentioned it briefly a long time ago in one of the many "GM's suck..." threads. Essentially, all those cool sploits you could do in EQ? Yeah, they were also the cause of 99% of the petitions. In the 2.5 years I've been playing WoW, I've needed a GM all of twice. Once about a month after WoW's release when we zoned into a completely despawned Molten Core and once when a door wouldn't open in Naxx.

In EQ I think I had about 40, maybe 50 petitions. If not more. Corpse's locked in walls. Death's due to the charm/fear bug where you wouldn't get control of your character back after charm/fear wore off. Twice I had an item disappear when I traded it to somebody. Deaths' due to server crashes. When a member of my group went LD and managed to kill my quest mob for the 8th coldain shawl quest. Quest NPC's stuck under the world. My friend once got locked out of EQ for 7 days because somebody had managed to server transfer their warrior with the same name to our server and it didn't get changed.

Fucking 1017.

Anyways....

[Cadrid]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

I mentioned it briefly a long time ago in one of the many "GM's suck..." threads. Essentially, all those cool sploits you could do in EQ? Yeah, they were also the cause of 99% of the petitions. In the 2.5 years I've been playing WoW, I've needed a GM all of twice. Once about a month after WoW's release when we zoned into a completely despawned Molten Core and once when a door wouldn't open in Naxx.

In EQ I think I had about 40, maybe 50 petitions. If not more. [...]

My experience was the polar opposite; I only had a handful of petitions throughout the 5+ years I played EQ, whereas in WoW I had dozens in less than 2 years. Server issues causing me to fall through the world while in BWL, missing items, exploiters, gold farmers, bugged mobs, missing raid loot, unspawned instances (on a few occasions) and so forth.

In EQ I only recall reporting one guy for KS'ing the AC in SRo, once about 3 weeks after I first started I lost my corpse in BB and a GM was nice enough to summon it for me (I think I had died and clipped most of the way through a wall), and then some general harassment reports. I don't recall anything that was a result of game mechanics that really screwed me over.

I'm not trying to instigate a WoW vs. EQ flamefest, just saying every person can have their own "grass is greener" perspective.

[Maxxius]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

Players will still find ways to do things in their own manner and if it is severe enough then the devs will step in and adjust it.

Reticent to say this, but I think Brad even said they were always amazed at the ingenuity of the players.

[Digits]

Originally Posted by Cadrid

I'm not trying to instigate a WoW vs. EQ flamefest, just saying every person can have their own "grass is greener" perspective.

Quite. I never once petitioned a gm in EQ, and I do not remember any situation I got myself into that I wasn't able to get myself out of. Same deal with WoW outside of the raiding scene, where I wound up petitioning every single molten core raid due to bugged instance tags/loot tags/whatever.

For me, the most important thing in an mmo is freedom and choice. If a game doesn't offer me even basic levels of freedom, like not being able to sell a great item off of a named for the good of the 'economy' (which is guarenteed to be fucked anyway), then I have zero interest in it. Fuck, I haven't encountered a BOP item in EQ2 outside of quest items and that game has the best economy I've seen in an mmo. Everything has a purpose and a price.

[rangoth]

Originally Posted by Digits

Quite. I never once petitioned a gm in EQ, and I do not remember any situation I got myself into that I wasn't able to get myself out of. Same deal with WoW outside of the raiding scene, where I wound up petitioning every single molten core raid due to bugged instance tags/loot tags/whatever.

Same here. Only time I contacted a GM was when my dumbass accidentally destoryed my jboots. And they were back in my inventory when I logged in a mere day or two later. I was quite impressed.

I, as most players I imagine, just dealt with other issues amongst my peers. I think that was a very crucial component of EQ.

I really hope that if and when EQ ever just goes under many of the original dev's and constructors including brad all get together for a "declassification" of all the material, old quests, cockblocks, lies, lore, myths, secrets etc...

By that point it will be 15 years after the fact so who cares? Might as well share the goods with everyone. Fuck I'd even pay to be there/listen/watch.

[Vatoreus]

I see a book deal and a TV special on G4 happening with that kind of platform.

[gn0me]

Brad needs a new Ferrari. Let's make it happen, people. $$$

[Cadrid]

While reading the Ten Ton Hammer interview with Brett Close at AGDC (here) a few things popped out at me.

For one, 38 Studios seems to be sticking to the 2010 release date for their first title. For a game that isn't even in a playable alpha stage, this seems like an insanely short amount of development time. When you also consider the lofty goals of a "real" changing world/storyline based upon player interaction (I assume this goes beyond scripted events like Onyxia's head and the Sleeper being released), the amount of content needed to really fill the world doubles or triples at least.

Another point of personal worry was the eagerness to bring the premier title to consoles as well as PCs. I have nothing against console MMOs, but I'm concerned any cross-platform MMO would end up being dumbed-down or simplified to keep the console players and PC players at an equal level. Even if each platform doesn't intermingle the game has to be designed with consoles in mind, potentially holding back PC players.

Lastly, with all the talk of product tie-ins (cell phone games, comics, books, etc.) it seems like the game will inevitably become stagnant or otherwise mistreated. Sure, you guys have been shooting for Mega Entertainment Corp. since day one, but for a brand new company it seems like a lot to put on your plate.

[Maxxius]

Maybe, but I still think it is a good idea. Console games will generate funds, and create a "name" recognition, something I was arguing earlier in this thread. Maybe SOMEONE finally listened to me ;p I do agree that 2010 might be an early date but then again better game tools out there now than in the past. Plus I'm sure if push came to shove they would push back the release date.

[tad10]

Originally Posted by Cadrid

For one, 38 Studios seems to be sticking to the 2010 release date for their first title. For a game that isn't even in a playable alpha stage, this seems like an insanely short amount of development time.

As noted on the other thread there are a lot better tools out now. According to the article .38 is evaluating existing engines right now and they plan on releasing episodic content so they're not going to try and ship a gigantic world.

[Danz]

Going back to the hybrid discussion. I had this idea last night and wanted to know what you all think of it.
Everyclass has about equal dps. They also fill one of 5 main roles (Tank, healer, CC, buffer, debuffer). For example at a solo level the tank, buffer and debuffer would all solo the same level X mob in the same amount of time and would take a similar amount of dmg. Now grouped together the tank class would take 1/3 rd the dmg that he would have taken solo where the debuffer or buffer would take about 1/2 and the mob would die nine times faster.

[Pyros]

Originally Posted by Danz

Going back to the hybrid discussion. I had this idea last night and wanted to know what you all think of it.
Everyclass has about equal dps. They also fill one of 5 main roles (Tank, healer, CC, buffer, debuffer). For example at a solo level the tank, buffer and debuffer would all solo the same level X mob in the same amount of time and would take a similar amount of dmg. Now grouped together the tank class would take 1/3 rd the dmg that he would have taken solo where the debuffer or buffer would take about 1/2 and the mob would die nine times faster.

At first I thought it'd be stupid for PvP balance, but I guess if everyone's dps is equal, you can play on other factors to balance it between classes(buffer/debuffer being on the short end of the stick it seems, at least solo). Sounds like a decent idea tho, but you'd need to rethink most of the known archetypes, if everyone is dpsing the same, you'd need very powerful buffs/debuffs/CC to make up for the lack of defense or heals compared to tank/healer. Very powerfull buffs would probably lead to a lot of buffbotting, powerful debuffs will be necessary to counter the buffed people, and CC would be way annoying to be useful, aka long duration mez and stuff that's not really fun.
So in the end, I'm not sure it'd end up being fun. Sure it would be fun when lvling, and it might be fun for group pve too, but pvp it'd probably suck badly.

[Ngruk]

The biggest challenge I see, as pretty much a non-pvp'er, is making PvP balanced but challenging. Making it balanced without RPS or cookie cutter implementation.
Making better PvP players be the ones that maximize their class' potential.
As a non-pvp guy I have gotten waxed often in WoW engagements. Trying to take the PVE locations and stuff is fun, but against veteran PvP players I get crushed so in a sense wow does reward that person that plays their class better than I play mine. However I don't have enough insight into PvP to know how to be good at it. Not to mention I panic like a 7 year old the minute a fight starts against a human opponent. Clicking and mashing buttons for the sake of acting or doing something, rather than knowing which skills are to be used when. I know the my class is insanely well equipped to be good at PvP and I know my gear is friggin good, it's just that I suck at it.

We have some extraordinarily good PvP players in house fleshing out our PvP and some of their ideas have hit the bullseye imo because they make me, as a non-pvp player, want to experience it.