Developer Retrospective on the MMORPGs of 2004 260
An anonymous reader writes "The Corporation recently posted a four-part series asking a few well known MMOG developers their opinions of the past year in the genre. Participants include Richard Garriott, creator of the Ultima series and Tabula Rasa, Walter Yarbrough, Content Producer for Dark Ages of Camelot, Damion Schubert, former Lead Designer for Meridian59, the cancelled UO2, and presently the Lead Designer for Shadowbane, and Raph Koster, former Lead Designer for Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies, and present Creative Director for Sony Online Entertainment."
There are Other MMO's also.... (Score:3, Informative)
Why MMO? I'd much rather play the RPG part. (Score:2)
Give me a real RPG anytime
Re:Why MMO? I'd much rather play the RPG part. (Score:2)
Or buy into an open-ended online 3D-VR program where users can build their own games.
Just a thought.
my personal current fav MMORPG (Score:4, Informative)
Player hardship vs gaming challange (Score:5, Interesting)
I can tell you about the success of that approach: Bollocks to that!
I abandoned EverQuest because the high-end game was a boring chore rather than an exciting challange. Camping for weeks or months on end for your mob to spawn is a "challange" only in respect of trying to hold your eyelids open. In reality, it's simply player hardship for its own sake.
It seems that because of the ambiguity of the word "hard", some designers can't tell the difference between the two things, and which is good and which is bad.
Re:Player hardship vs gaming challange (Score:2)
Re:Player hardship vs gaming challange (Score:5, Interesting)
So long as MMOs are nothing but graphical spreadsheets, with the game engine handling (read: mangling) all the subtleties of combat, "challenge" is sort of a misnomer.
WoW isn't any more or less challenging than any other MMO I've ever played. EQ, DAoC, UO, AO, WoW... they're all of roughly the same complexity, with pretty shallow combat. The only challenges that come into play are getting the smacktards in your group to do their job right, and your frustration.
Indeed, when I read that Vanguard will be challenging, what I understand is "Vanguard will have horendously bad death pentalties and a a mind-blowingly long leveling treadmill."
And like you said: Bollocks to that!
Re:Player hardship vs gaming challange (Score:2)
Re:Player hardship vs gaming challange (Score:4, Interesting)
D&D Online FAQ [ddo.com]
Re:Player hardship vs gaming challange (Score:2)
I disagree wholly with that assessment. I have played WoW since it opened and I have played FFXI Online for a year prior to that. I also spent time playing EQ, SWG, etc.
WoW, while I admit it is quite fun, has relatively little challenge. While it is true you can have a crappy group, it does not seem to take a lot of skill to be "dece
Re:Player hardship vs gaming challange (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah I have to agree. I think 99% of all "video" games ever made are designed around a false assumption: that players enjoy failing. So games are all built around the concept of completing tasks of ever-increasing difficulty where you are rewarded for success and punished for failure. Punishment is usually doled out in the way of death, XP debt, item wear, lost money etc. What is wrong with this picture?
Surely in 1985 a puzzle was a sure way to keep people occupied, and increasing levels of difficulty
Re:Player hardship vs gaming challange (Score:2)
I have always thought that MMORPG levelling should take a *long* time but cost little effort, so that the system slows down powergamers to prevent them from maxing out their levels overnight, while at the same time not making those higher levels impossible to attain for casual players, and still granting an edge to those who choose to grind. Ultima
Re:Player hardship vs gaming challange (Score:2)
Difficulty should be about strategy, but this is hard--not for the players, but for the game maker. Real strategy requires more options in play, not just higher numbers applied to the same thing. You know the game works if, given the same situation and stats, a good player gains a lot more XP, loot, etc, than a bad player, and t
Re:Player hardship vs gaming challange (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Some games require massive timesinks. People who play these games have an elieteism that they've spent more time on the game than you, and therefore are better. They actually consider the timesink 'hardness' to be an asset. These people played EQ1
Interview? (Score:5, Informative)
I have cancelled UO, SWG, EQ, and CoH for WoW...as an old fart of MMO I can tell you that WoW is where it is at - I think every person I know online has switched to it and have no plans of going back to any of the above games. Oh wait there is this one guy at the helpdesk playing EQ 2 and is a miserable whiner about it.
If you like MMO then just go buy the darn thing - play on a low population PVE or PVP server as per your fancy...if you pvp just remember there is a more uber player over that next hill so dont cry when you get ganked after picking on some n00bs.
Bladedawn on Blackhand
Re:Interview? (Score:3, Interesting)
So I wonder, why is it you've switched to WoW and are not looking back?
Re:Interview? (Score:2)
I liked to go out and actually do some battling. But everyone I knew in the game sat around crafting things to make credits. And the missions themselves are pretty boring. I got tired of shooting the same critters over and over.
The game is also more than a lil buggy, even a year after launch when I went back to it, there were still bugs I'd dealt with at launch.
Finally I don't really like the Teras Kasi Masters profession and those that cho
Re:Interview? (Score:2)
Lots of sitting around waiting on people, cause no one actually wanted to go do missions/quests/whatever (too busy crafting?)
Game ran like ass in a major population center
Economy was fubar/ hard to make money unless you were a powergamer
Personally I've played EQ, Lineage II and UO and would never even dream of going back to any of those after playing WOW. The PVP delieation (can't get PK'd if you dont want to b
Acronym pain (Score:2, Informative)
IMO, TLAMMWTSMEIWARF
(Three Letter Acronyms Make Me Want To Stave My Eye In With A Rusty Fork)
Re:WoW has no challenge to it (Score:2)
after the second week of playing yow will cap your level too! aaaaaah...
If you play 15 hours/day then yes. I think what WoW got right is that they realized the majoriy of the population doesn't want to or can't play a game 8hours/day. It's nice to be able to log into a MMO play for 1-2 hours and actually accomplish something. Since even the casual player can reach a high level an
My Take on 2004 (Score:5, Interesting)
We saw Asian gaming hit US shores with Final Fantasy and Lineage but as with the Asian MMO culture these games resemble 1st gen MMO's at best in many aspects.
Turbine continued to drag players along with it's failed Asheron's Call 2 release. With monthly content patches mostly rebalances every month since launch only to produce a few decent patches before announcing a move to patches every 2 months. Effectively doubling the price per content push (PPCP). Doubt remains wether they can produce viable MMO's that will succeed even with big names like Dungeons and Dragons online and Middle Earth Online. The forgotten realms series supports EQ's success as much as the game itself. Middle Earth Online is late and with no Hobbit movie forthcoming as of yet there's little out there to rekindle the Lord of the Rings fever to the point that this game may succeed. I also do not see where DND online can succeed where Neverwinter Nights did not.
We also saw many successes such as World of Warcraft which is undoubtedly the best game of the year. SOE continued their fame with SWG with the jump to light speed expansion and EverQuest 2 all three of which will continue to dominate the MMO landscape in the US for the forseeable future and beyond with no apparent contender in sight.
City of Heroes (Score:5, Interesting)
It's an MMORPG that I think has succeeded largely by finding a different niche than most of the other offerings in the market: It's set in modern-day cityscapes with superheroes, rather than a fantasy world.
Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, it's simple and elegant: There's no equipment, what money exists is rarely useful, missions (quests) always tell you where to go with no ambiguity, and the GUI is top-notch.
After an old EQ addiction, City of Heroes is a breathe of fresh air-- I can meaningfully log on and accomplish something in half an hour, even at the high levels (I'm level 44 right now, with 50 being the cap).
Re:City of Heroes (Score:2)
Re:City of Heroes (Score:3, Interesting)
I have stopped playing WOW and went back to COH. WOW was a fanstastically well designed and polished game, but it is far too solo-focused, and while almost anyone *can* solo in COH, it is a much better game for group-play. I play with a stable group of RL friends as my guild. As a result the quality of my grouping is undoubtedly far superior to that of most pickup groups and that is an adva
Re:City of Heroes (Score:2)
Also in the end, the city setting was nothing more than pretty graphics. There was little interaction with the world, and the story line quests and arcs were nice, but the game got old after a while
Re:City of Heroes (Score:3, Insightful)
How does this differ from any other MMORPG? They all generally boil down to Kill X, kill Y number of X's, or take this item to NPC A etc. WOW is certainly no different, although its questing system
Re:City of Heroes (Score:2)
I think that is an important point - some time along the history of these games the idea that long and tedious became synomous with fun. I blame EQ for this. EQ was popular for other reasons - good grouping, graphics, and scope - but the bad parts, that people most complained about, is what developers learned. The dreaded treadmill.
Can we go back to games being challenging for more than death penalties, long waits
Deserving a look (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Deserving a look (Score:2)
I was excited about EVE, but after a friend got into beta and described what was, essentially, a sadistically slow-paced, frustrating game where most of your activities didn't even necessitate your being at the keyboard, but where you could lose [i]everything[/i] rather rapidly, I completely lost interest.
EVE isn't talked about because everything about the game reaks of elitism, and it's a far cry from accessible to
WoW player from day 1 of retail (Score:5, Interesting)
It will take a few months to hit 60, then I can spend another month getting gear, then maybe I'll do some PvP. Who knows. I'm glad that I get to experience the whole game, rather than the first few levels as I would on many other MMORPGs.
As for the appeal of the game. My wife and I started, then mentioned we were playing to a friend who lives nearby. He bought the game. Over the last month or so, we've been mentioning the game to our old college friends, who have all gotten online. A couple of their wives have mentioned an interest in playing (these are women who have never played a computer game before).
My wife and I played DAoC a little, didn't get into it too much. Blizzard is very good at making very user friendly games, and I agree that it will probably do a lot for the entire field. All of these people who are playing these types of games for the first time are most likely now confident enough to try out new games in the same field.
As for complaints about the game. I'd say that most of the complaints I've heard about WoW is from the "hard core" gamers. They've complained about how easy it is to level, how much of the game is for "carebears", or those who want to play and cook dinner at the same time. I think Blizzard has hit their market pretty well. They may have sent away a few hard core gamers who will "beat" the game within a month, but in return they've caught the wives, parents, and children of those who normally wouldn't play.
Re:WoW player from day 1 of retail (Score:2)
Although my wife is pretty cool (we watch stargate, and galactica together, sometimes play old games like some flavor of mario bros. or tetris and play a lot of scrabble together), I don't see her playing an MMORPG with me.
Re:WoW player from day 1 of retail (Score:2)
2 computers, 2 accounts, 1 room, broadband, switch, couple of network cables.
Re:WoW player from day 1 of retail (Score:2)
>2 computers, 2 accounts, 1 room, broadband, switch, couple of network cables.
There is a joke in there somewhere.
Re:WoW player from day 1 of retail (Score:2)
sort of along the lines of:
patient: my arm hurts when I do this.
Doc: dont do that.
I was simply stating the obvious. It just doesnt seem that odd to me. Today's kids arent the first generation to grow up with video games, they're the 2nd. My parents grew up with TV and no one thinks it's odd if they watch tv together. I bet if you look really hard, you'll find couples that play cards together too.
Oh, and a small correction, 4 network cables: mine, her's, the kids'
Re:WoW player from day 1 of retail (Score:2)
PVP in WoW (Score:4, Insightful)
What is so great about PvP in games other than WoW is that you have an impact and can make a name for yourself. You *are* the school bully, if even for only a few months. Everyone knows you, and some may even fear you. Others might have bested you, and gloat in their accomplishments.
In WoW PvP, you've got about 300 school bullies, none of them are unique, and no one really fears any of them. Since they are all pretty much nameless, you can't tell the one that turns tail and runs back to the guards from the one that stands up to fight. As time goes on, you realize that those that stay and fight become less and less active, simply because the game is *so* balanced and there is absolutely no reward for PvP, that it is ridiculously lame.
Blizzard is notorious for killing "powergamers". Unfortunately, these people are what make MMORPGs fun. You get rid of the powergamer, and you get rid of the idea that someone can make a name for themself in a virtual world. And, IMHO, making a name for yourself in a virtual world is what MMORPGs are all about.
Re:PVP in WoW (Score:4, Insightful)
> MMORPGs fun. You get rid of the powergamer,
> and you get rid of the idea that someone can
> make a name for themself in a virtual world.
> And, IMHO, making a name for yourself in a
> virtual world is what MMORPGs are all about.
And that's why, IMHO, the MMORPG genre as it is is fundamentally broken.
As you've said, the key extra value of a MMORPG is the ability to make a make for yourself, or to stand out, or to be better than others in a virtual world. None of the other vaunted advantages of MMO games are actually unique to them. Team play? Ordinary (non-massive) multiplayer games have that; on Diablo 2, say, the process of finding a team in the chat lobby then creating a game is identical to that of finding a group then going hunting in a MMO. Persistent world? Any single player game with a save function has that.
No, what everyone wants in an MMO is to be better than the crowd. But obviously, not everyone can have that. And if those people who can't have it decide to quit, then there is no crowd left for the others to be better than.
Raph Koster gave a talk called "Small Worlds" (slides are available on the net somewhere, but I can't recall the URL I'm afraid) where he basically justified levelling treadmills in these terms. His claim was that if "betterness" was distributed in any way other than treadmills, then the 10% of players who were most attuned to that distribution method (most skilled, richest, cleverest, etc.) would consume 90% of the "betterness" and no-one else would play. Treadmills are thus the best method because a) anyone can do them, b) the people who lose out are the people who spend least time playing the game and therefore logically should care least about their character within it, and c) it ties obtaining "betterness" to activity that makes money for the MMO firm.
The example he used of a case where rare individuals got all the "betterness" was Tiger Woods. Yet it's worth noting that the existance of Tiger Woods does not prevent other people from playing and enjoying golf. But the claim that, as long as Tiger Woods exists, going to play golf at a massive tournament with a crowd (at which Tiger will be playing) offers no more, or even less, entertainment than playing with your own local club (with no crowd, but also no Tiger). Which makes a lot more sense.
AFAIK the only MMO which has absolutely zero treadmilling is Planetside, which is also IMHO *seriously* underrated.
Re:PVP in WoW (Score:2)
What I am talking about to make a character feel like someone is following a trichotomy where the three main "food groups" of MMORPGs rely on each other.
And no, contrary to public belief, the three are not: mage, ranged, melee. In fact, that's only the PvP way to lo
Re:PVP in WoW (Score:2)
The reason to play a game is to have fun. If beating people up is your idea of fun, please do it elsewhere. Me personally, I like getting together with a group of friends who are located around th
Re:PVP in WoW (Score:2)
Instead of "keeping up with the Joneses" is it now, "bringing them Joneses back down to our level"?
You see a man driving a Lexus. Do you think, "God, I wanna be like him someday," or do you think, "God, I can't wait till our countries tax laws make him dirt poor someday."?
You'
Re:PVP in WoW (Score:2)
Or you a republican or a democrat?
Re:PVP in WoW (Score:2)
You don't have to be a powergamer to make a name (Score:2)
I used to play Asheron's Call and there was one particular event which I double will ever be replicated again in an MMORPG. In AC there was a heavy storyline which progressed each month, (something I haven't seen in other mmorpgs since btw). During this one particular month there was a quest where Bael'Zharon (sp? been a long time) was contained in a crystal shard
Re:You don't have to be a powergamer to make a nam (Score:2)
Everyone actually hated Mythrandia
Re:You don't have to be a powergamer to make a nam (Score:2)
Like I said, in this case player controled outcome wasn't expected but I think you'd be hard pressed to find people who took part in the event that didn't have an awesome time. Yeah, we were all ticked
Re:You don't have to be a powergamer to make a nam (Score:2)
For me it was not about the money, but playing with friends. When they left, I did as well, and recooped some of the monthly fees I had paid in the process. I don't think I have ever actually pl
Re:You don't have to be a powergamer to make a nam (Score:2)
In this case, I wasn't the hero, I didn't organize the defence but taking part in it was the most memorable experience I have had in 5+ years of playing MMORPGS.
Re:PVP in WoW (Score:2)
You mispelled "PK shitfest" "F-U-N". No one likes the bully. It's only fun for the bully. So Blizz is prioritizing the 598,000 casual players over the 1000 hardcore players and the 1000 or so bullies pk players. In the end it works out for us, the less PK idiots there are the better. PVP isn't meant to be used to harass the lowbies. It's meant to test your stength against others and maybe build an inter
Re:PVP in WoW (Score:2)
UO is the *only* game to have PVP "required" other than Shadowbane and Planetside. It is ironic that 8 years later, we would have individuals still under the impression that PVP = griefing on weaklings.
Exactly how do you describe games like Counter-Strike? UT 2004, Tribes, Black and White, Starcraft, etc? They all have some form of attrition that get applied by one character to another.
The idea that you can have a fantasy world where everyone gains is what EQ2 and WoW are trying to emb
Re:PVP in WoW (Score:2)
Lol, I am a compedative player. I'm #18 us west for 2v2 in war 3 ROC. But the vast majority want their hand held and have nothign happen to them. Thats why there are pvp and pve servers. Some people don't have fun being ganked at anytime for any reason. Others liek the competition and your asserting the ones who do like it are majority is wrong. IT's the ones that don't that are. In war 3 notice the vast majority of games are custom maps. why? because the vast majority of players aren't
Re:PVP in WoW (Score:2)
My statement clarified is this: Warcraft 3 players will begin to hit end game in droves sometime around February and March. They will be frustrated with the game and many will quit. Specifically, I predict that by this time next year, 25% of the current population will be gone, perhaps as much as 30%
Re:PVP in WoW (Score:2)
Re:PVP in WoW (Score:2)
I predict World of Warcraft will drop 25% of its current playerbase by 2006. Quite possibly 30%.
Re:PVP in WoW (Score:2)
Even if everyone were a powergamer, there would be more people disappointed than gratified by extreme rarity. Only those powergammers who also seek fame are unhappy in a system like t
Re:PVP in WoW (Score:2)
If that's what you're talking about, hell yeah, I understand it. But just the fact that someone died to some higher level I don't understand. If someone does not wish to compete in PvP, they certainly d
Re:PVP in WoW (Score:2)
Get a clue. Seriously. Read any of my other 4 replies to the others who have somehow arrived at this conclusion.
Powergamers can be anyone, not simply "PKs". Diablo 1 is a horrible example, that game was nothing compared to Diablo II. It was not meant to be played online with anyone other than friends or enemies. It was certainly not meant to "meet" people. And this is not a fault of Blizzard, this is a fault of all the other competitive games of the same era. They had little to no com
Market share + growth of MMORPGs (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm confused (Score:2)
Raph Koster's interview. (Score:2)
I'm sure you wanted an MMO here, but the MMOs I played the most in the last year were made by us.
What was your favorite new or innovative design from the past year?
What was the most disappointing game or design from the past year?
I think if you were looking for a sense of world or community, you were out of luck this year.
Was Raph Koster rejected for a job at Blizzard, N
A message to the MMO designers (Score:2)
In the meantime, the rest of us are waiting for some decent new RPG's. FFX-2 was a joke, and I haven't see much else. Maybe you can make some cash on thos
Best MMRPG (Score:2)
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year (Score:2)
I hear WoW is also fun and commercially successful.
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year (Score:5, Interesting)
Challenging is fine, and I am playing one of the more complex classes in WoW for the challenge (warlock). But, at its base, this is still entertainment...I don't want my entertainment to feel like work. It should be fun.
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year NOT TRUE (Score:4, Interesting)
Cheap cartoony graphics? Well there are 1000's of adults who truly enjoy those "cheap" graphics. Tell that to the Blizzard artists while you're at it.
Richest backstory? EQ's story is nothing more than another rehashing of Tolkienesque characters and lore. At least WoW has its own back story which I remind you has existed a lot longer than EQ.
WoW is just as strategic as EQ, and you will die if tactics arent in order. You wouldnt know that cause you stopped at lvl 20, right when quests start to get a lot harder.
WoW is a great game that is literally saving the genre whilst you whine about returning to the glory days of EQ.
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year NOT TRUE (Score:2)
Lvl 31 hunter here, and I am lucky enough to be a member of a guild of players who don't dive for a dictionary when someone mentions tactics. Even that considered, if 3 of us group with 1 or 2 idiot players, and go do a difficult quest or instance, any screwup could easily get us all killed. Tactics and strategy are def. a large part of the game once you get into the middle range of levels (and the less forgiving quests)
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year (Score:3, Insightful)
Challenge? Good luck getting past level 12 (or so) solo without grouping. It -can- be done, but it's going to take you almost four times as long to get to 20 as it will if you party (the lone exception being them bastard BSTs).
I've already seen several people come -back- to FFXI from EQ2 (and don't get me started on the folks -running- back from WoW), so I -do- have to question even it's level of challenge (or challenge vs. frustration) against FFXI. That said, -any- MMORPG
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year (Score:2)
Yeah, the fact that you HAVE to party in FFXI in order to get decent xp is a little annoying (and the main reason why I switched from level 62 RDM to BST, at least for the time being), but it makes a certain amount of sense in the game. If you're in a good party, it gets really fun. You can focus on your job and the xp just rolls in. The part that I absolutely hate is the crap shoot involved in trying to find a
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year (Score:2)
Even with the static I'm in, we've had to make a "rule" that if 4 of us are on and ready, the other two get to play catch up.
This past saturday we actually ended up levelling with only 3 - our BLM was on
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year (Score:2)
My personal opinion is that FFXI player base is solidifying. The kids who wanted to check it out, and buy the hard drive for their PS2, are jumping ship to WoW and they were the ones that caused most of the crap in the groups, IMHO. That's not to say that players my ag
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year (Score:2)
My wife started playing at the PS2 release (only she's on the PC) and dragged me kicking and screaming into the game mid-July. I started off as a War, got to 20 and decided I'd really rather be the dude that -wasn't- getting hit all the time, and switched to WHM.
I -do- hate the PTs where people just "drop" and don't come back, or whatever. You can tell when a party is filled with people that are experienced and have a handle on their jobs - it's a blast getting through Qufim or the Jungles in one 4 or
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year (Score:2)
Still, on the odd occasion we needed a fill-in member for the party, we oft
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year (Score:2)
We didn't have a BLM with us, but we have a SMN with Shiva. Distortion chain with Blizzard II (and two-houred another one for fun) absolutely -ruled-.
We never hit chain 7s, chain 5 once, lots of 4s and 3s. We kept running out of beetle's to kill because another PT was on the other side of the hill. >.
But yeah - the ad
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year (Score:5, Interesting)
A typical FFXI session would be : log on at 6:00pm, get my 2 friends into a party and frantically search for a WHM and 2 damage dealers. Any evening where getting WHM was easy, there was no good damage dealers available. Around 7-7:30 if we're lucky, we can set out to go camp. Around 8pm, we're in position, we start killing, it's good. Around 8:45 pm the whm has to leave for whatever reason, the whole evening is shot.
Then you've levelled a bit, let's get some equipment! Great news : that amazingly good dagger for lvl 50 thieves is dropped by a lvl 76 HNM. In other words high levels are making you pay trough the nose for it because there's no way in hell a lvl 50 can go get it for himself, even if there's 18 lvl 50 trying together. So we go farm. 10k gil an hour is the best you can hope to, so there goes THIRTY hours of farming items because that dagger is 300k. Wanna camp a high value item instead? Well, join the 10 other campers at Mee Deggi/Leaping Lizzy/Valkurm Emperor/etc. The monster appears every hour to 1.5 hour, so keep a clock near your computer. Oh, and you might get 4-5 kills and still get no drop, the drop is rare.
FFXI was an exercise in masochism. The nice part of EQ2 is I can group with my 2 RL friends, play 2-3 hours and make progress, then stop for the week. Very casual friendly in my experience.
Haven't played WoW, but I've seen a couple of people say it's "revolutionary". I might be a skeptic, but if it's "revolutionary" like Warcraft was to Command&Conquer and Dune 2, then I'll have to disagree.
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year (Score:2, Interesting)
I've played both. WoW is set up so that you can make some amount of progress on any amount of time. If you get a group together, you'll make more progress. If not, then you can still make progress, just at a slower rate.
The thing that WoW has down that a lot of other MMORPGs - and RPGs in general - lack is that they worked real hard to give you a sense of progress. While a quest in FFXI might be "hunt monster until you finally get a single rare drop" a similar quest in WoW might be "hunt monster until
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year (Score:2)
Me? I want my WHM AF. Got AF1 done (Marchelute's a pansy when fighting a level 70 PLD ^^), and I've got 6 levels to go before I have to deal with Genkai1. Luckily, I'll have a similarly levelled THF, so -hopefyully- we'll get the drops more quickly.
Hmm...you have me wanting to spend time on RDM this
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year (Score:2)
Buh? WarCraft [mobygames.com] came out before C&C [mobygames.com]. C&C was slightly earlier than WC2, though.
There wasn't too much connection between Dune II and WarCraft, either. Dune II had a terrible interface and gameplay that was nearly identical to C&C, not WarCraft.
WoW deserves its game of the year awards (Score:2)
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year (Score:2)
I find it fairly interesting that one could `s/FFXI/EQ/g` and basically get my reasons for dropping EQ... never had large enough (4+ hr) blocks of time to get in a well-formed group at a spot that wasn't over-camped to ever get one of my characters out of the low 30's, and if RL-friends had slightly less life than I did, they seemed to outlevel me anyway. There wasn't any other in-game content (other than maybe guild chat channel) that made it worth me logging in. (No, I haven't played "2"; if it is honest
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year (Score:2)
The same game that deletes your character after your account is cancelled for 3 months?
That alone ensured that I'd never be going back to the game.
FF11 is an excellent game in many respects, but a few things just kill it:
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year (Score:2)
I think I'll play games that make me feel good about myself rather than every getting involved in another life sucking, relationship destroying camp fest like EQ/2 thank you.
EQ2 is prity, I loved the audio - but as far as RPGs go its about as dumbed down and carebeary as can be.
Funnily enough though it actually isnt very successfu
WoW - best mmporg of the year (Score:2, Insightful)
I did 20 levels in 3 days
Seriously, how many hours did it take you to get to level 20? "days" is a useless unit of time unless you mean your
Having said that, I do agree you level too fast in WoW. There's a simple solution to that - put less focus on trying to level, and work on your tradeskills and help su
Re:WoW - best mmporg of the year (Score:2, Interesting)
I meant the original post to be more provocative and less flamebait, but as I reread it, I can see I failed at that.
I think one of the reasons I saw a lack of challenge in WoW was that there seems to be no real death penalty. EQ2 punishes recklessness/carelessness with a shared group penalty, which I love.
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year (Score:5, Interesting)
No, what EQ2 and most other MMORPG's offer is not a challenge, but a timesink. You cannot solo past level 20 or so at any pace other than "unbelievably slow", so you are forced to spend perhaps hours seeking a group; you incur a penalty when *another person in your group* dies; simple things like crafting and travel take tons of time and resources; and so on and so forth. However, WoW, with its action-based gameplay, has been perhaps the most challenging MMO I've ever played, not in terms of the time needed to get anything done, but in terms of *real,* Contra-like challenge.
I won't address this poster's other points, since they're largely opinion. But I will say this: a game should not take "effort" beyond the effort required to have fun. I'm glad the WoW developers recognized this fact and made the game a *game,* rather than just another bunch of timesinks.
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the thing that is lost on people in all this "my game is better than your game" flame throwing is that different people are looking for different things in their games. Its cognitive dissonance, the kind of brain lock you see in Republicans, when people start lecturing other people that what I like in games is RIGHT and what you like in games is WRONG.
The challenge for successful game developers, espec
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year (Score:2)
Moderators, lisen up (Score:3, Insightful)
This is no WoW forum, so I think we should accept people who think that WoW is not perfect. Hell, some people might really think that WoW is boring compared to other more challenging MMOs.
Moderators, in arguments regarding preferences there is no right or wrong. Therefore, please,
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year (Score:2)
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's what I really like about WoW.
1. Just like the previous poster wrote, Dying doesn't ruin your life. In other MMORPG's the death penalties are such that people don't take risks. They won't explore an area until they are reasonably sure they can drop everything in that given realm with ease because if they die, they know they'll have to pay 100 silver and lose a pile of experience. When I played DAOC, all that did was frustrate the hell out of me. It was a game of shoots and ladders... two steps forward, 1 step back, etc. I like that in WoW, live or die, I'm progressing.
2. As for the original posters bitch about leveling too easily, that's just bunk. I think the other games have it the wrong way around. The experience ramp in WoW is right where it should be. Starts off easy and gets progressively harder. Nobody wants to spend 3 hours getting from first level to second. However, people do expect it to take them three hours to get from 8 to 9th. Likewise, when your 20th level, The expectation is that getting to 21 is going to twice as hard as it was to getting to 20. Putting this in the context of the dying aspect, when you combine excessively step experience curves with terrible death penalites, it makes the game only accessible to those people who are willing to spend 10 hours a day pointlessly grinding...
3. WoW is actually quest based. I HATE GRINDING and wandering around without purpose. Even when I'm off going to get some dudes claw so I can make some malajusted Troll feel better about his lack of wear withall as a warrior, I'm doing something. I'm not off in the woods killing bunnies for the sake of killing bunnies. Also the quests force you to actually go out and explore and tackle creatures that will challenge you. Which is exciting since, if you end up dying, you just go back, try a different tactic, etc.
4. Their GUI is great. I'm suspecting that Blizzard put out an email to all their employees that read "If you play an MMORPG, please come to the starcraft conference room at 1pm..." sat them all down and said "What do you HATE about the games your playing and if you had the chance would design better in an MMORPG. They then took all these ideas wrote them down and worked them into the spec for the game. Just stuff like you goto a vendor and if you hover over a weapon in their inventory it'll pop up a little window next to it containing your currently equipped weapon so you can easily compare them.
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year (Score:2)
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year (Score:2)
At high levels of skinning (mine's at 221 out of 300-ish or so), your odds of getting usable material from super low level animals goes down (bunnies are level 1) --for an animal like a bunny, if you were a lower level skinner you could get light leather from it. I would be nearly guaranteed to get Leat
Re:EQ2 - best mmporg of the year (Score:2)
And actually, the only reason a high level character would NEEED light leather is purely for making money (that is, selling it off in bulk) unless he's got a specific order for a low level piece of equipment
At least Garriot hinted at it! (Score:2)
Garriot 4 Life!
Re:Netcraft confirms it: EQ2 is dying (Score:2)
Re:Netcraft confirms it: EQ2 is dying (Score:2)
I truly believe that you could do both and make much more money than if you did one alone. Its clear from the number of people who bothered to d
Re:Netcraft confirms it: EQ2 is dying (Score:2)
Re:Another point on CoH/WoW (Score:2)
Re:Another point on CoH/WoW (Score:2)