Goblin Squad Member
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Hopefully PFO will not shut down access to certain essential vendors during the game's night times. That strikes me as a potentially frustrating design decision.
Hopefully PFO will shut down access to all vendors at some time. Pretending vendors are able to stay awake and sell their goods 24/7 is an entirely unrealistic design decision...and we do not need non-realism for the sake of non-realism. "They" are already discussing 3 hour day/night cycles so no one in inconvenienced by logging in at a certain in-game time.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Hopefully PFO will shut down access to all vendors at some time. Pretending vendors are able to stay awake and sell their goods 24/7 is an entirely unrealistic design decision...and we do not need non-realism for the sake of non-realism.
It isn't non-realism for the sake of non-realism. It's non-realism for the sake of convenience. It's worrisome that you don't seem to see this.
"They" are already discussing 3 hour day/night cycles so no one in inconvenienced by logging in at a certain in-game time.
How much of this game's hypothetical player base do you imagine spending more than three hours in an average single session of play?
If I log on at the start of your proposed three-hour night cycle, I now have to wait three hours to buy anything. That's terrible. If I need certain supplies in order to continue playing the game in the way I want to, I'm now frustrated with the three-hour delay you've placed on my enjoyment, for no other reason than to satisfy your arbitrary desire for immersion.
Essentially, if you shut vendors down for half of the game's up-time, you need to make vendors completely unimportant to playing the game.
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Hopefully PFO will not shut down access to certain essential vendors during the game's night times. That strikes me as a potentially frustrating design decision.Hopefully PFO will shut down access to all vendors at some time. Pretending vendors are able to stay awake and sell their goods 24/7 is an entirely unrealistic design decision...and we do not need non-realism for the sake of non-realism. "They" are already discussing 3 hour day/night cycles so no one in inconvenienced by logging in at a certain in-game time.
Imagine "Bob".
Bob works 8 hours a day and has a family. The only thing Bob likes to do in his off time is play his favorite MMO for a couple hours a day while his time permits. Perhaps Bob's kids are asleep and his wife is catching her nightly T.V. programming. Bob has two free hours but his favorite MMO, PFO, is in it's night cycle during these hours. Unfortunately for Bob, the vendors are off sleeping to maintain some much needed realism for a small minority of other players...
It sure sucks to be Bob since night cycles are consistent and so is his work/home schedule. Bob uninstalls PFO and goes back to playing the various other MMOs that don't arbitrarily punish him for having a job and family.
One thing to keep in mind is that there are alot of "Bobs" in the world.
Disclaimer: No Bobs were harmed in the writing of this post.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Welcome to a sandbox...In a real sandbox, in the original sense (like second life), there are no NPC vendors and you have to wait for a player who can craft/sell your stuff to come on. I am all for this idea.
On the other hand, the definition of sandbox appears to have changed to simply mean allowing free roaming. A sad distinction...and I am sure you are correct...convenience will be the primary design consideration. It does not mean we who want more than a "gimme all your purples button masher" cannot try to influence the design by submitting our arguments. I will also admit, as you can probably tell, convenience is low on my design priorities.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It does not mean we who want more than a "gimme all your purples button masher"
Please stop describing yourself this way. It implies that those who disagree with you want a "gimme all your purples button masher," which isn't true.
We don't want Pathfinder WoW. Or anything like that. Not that it wouldn't be cool, mind you, but it's not what any of us are arguing for. We want a unique game that will be successful enough that we can continue to enjoy it well into the future. What we are averse to are ideas that, if implemented, would jeopardize that goal.
cannot try to influence the design by submitting our arguments.
You can try, but you'll receive responses like the ones you've gotten.
I'm telling you right now: your efforts on this are probably wasted. Your time would be better spent coming up with ideas that build on other successful ideas, or ideas that help bring the Pathfinder world into the game.
I will also admit, as you can probably tell, convenience is low on my design priorities.
It needs to be higher on your list of priorities if you want to be able to contribute meaningfully to the design process. Otherwise you're just going to be that guy who won't stop arguing for a hyper-realistic experience, and your ideas will be dead in the water before you even type them out. You need to accept that convenience is a big deal, and that immersion occasionally (and perhaps often) needs to take a back seat to convenience unless a truly compelling purpose can be found.
Don't stop coming up with ideas. Just start applying a better rubric to the ideas you come up with, and maybe change the focus of your ideas to something that has less of a mechanical impact on the game.
Design is hard. Way harder than people give it credit for. And I'll freely admit that I suck at it, too. My best-received suggestion on this sub-forum has been, "Hey, let's turn religions into rep factions!" which really isn't a novel idea, just an idea that provides a huge new vector for campaign setting material to be introduced.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I understand your argument. As I just posted, I am sure you will "win" any design priority arguments...if for no other reason than the publishers care more about making money than designing a "good" game...and therefore, what constitutes a "good" game will always be what makes the most money...or appeals to the largest player base.
I understand your argument and based on it, I don't understand why characters don't start out with the ability to do anything and remove skills/classes/levels all together. Why have day/night at all? This is a magical world, someone could "make it" so the sun does not move...just match counter rotation with revolution and you get one face of the planet always facing the sun.
Continuing...this would allow everyone to jump into the game at anytime, and be competitive except for gear (there has to be something that makes those who work hardest (or play most....whatever) have more than those who don't). Of course, then there would be people sitting in the forums complaining about those inequalities and the inconveniences of having to log in at all to get good stuff. Maybe we could remove that to. Give everyone the best stuff at the start. This means the devs can spend all their time building roller coasters and dungeons and other forms of entertainment for everyone to go stretch their epicness in. This would be most convenient...and sounds a lot like the way WoW is going. I guess if you cannot beat them, join them...
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Goblin Squad Member
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I understand your argument and based on it, I don't understand why characters don't start out with the ability to do anything and remove skills/classes/levels all together.
Because part of the fun of a game is in advancement. It provides a reward structure, and we human creatures respond remarkably well to good reward structures (no matter how shallow they may be).
Why have day/night at all? This is a magical world, someone could "make it" so the sun does not move...just match counter rotation with revolution and you get one face of the planet always facing the sun.
This is a potentially interesting idea for a campaign setting, but it's not the Pathfinder campaign setting.
Continuing...this would allow everyone to jump into the game at anytime, and be competitive except for gear (there has to be something that makes those who work hardest (or play most....whatever) have more than those who don't).
Sure, or you could include day/night cycles and just make them a non-barrier to advancement.
Of course, then there would be people sitting in the forums complaining about those inequalities and the inconveniences of having to log in at all to get good stuff.
Some people do that anyway. They are a tiny minority, even in terms of how vocal they are, and are largely ignored. The vast majority of players inherently understand that in a persistent game there is a positive correlation between time invested and in-game capability.
Maybe we could remove that to. Give everyone the best stuff at the start.
You could, but that would eliminate the reward structure I mentioned. Reward structures help make games compelling.
This means the devs can spend all their time building roller coasters and dungeons and other forms of entertainment for everyone to go stretch their epicness in.
Definitely, but people need to experience some sort of sensation of accomplishment in order to push them along. Rewards like experience, skills, and magic items provide tangible indicators of those accomplishments.
This would be most convenient...and sounds a lot like the way WoW is going. I guess if you cannot beat them, join them...
WoW is not going in that direction. WoW makes you work for your character accomplishments. You cannot log in and start at 85 in full epic gear. You have to work yourself up.
You need to stop insinuating that anyone who disagrees with you is trying to make this game like WoW. First, WoW is a good game. It's not the same as what PFO is going to be, but PFO is inevitably going to borrow from WoW in certain instances because WoW did a lot of things right. Second, wanting to avoid allowing significant inconveniences to creep into the game's design without a sufficiently compelling justification would be a good idea whether or not WoW existed.
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Goblin Squad Member
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We want a unique game.This is one of the most constructive things I have seen you say. Care to elaborate?
Not particularly, because I don't have an ideal game in mind. But obviously I don't want a clone of another game that already exists. If another game did what PFO will end up doing, I'd be better off playing the game that's already out.
And we won't get a clone of another game that already exists, so that's really not something we need to worry about.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Not particularly, because I don't have an ideal game in mind. But obviously I don't want a clone of another game that already exists. If another game did what PFO will end up doing, I'd be better off playing the game that's already out.
And we won't get a clone of another game that already exists, so that's really not something we need to worry about.
Then please don't be offended when I classify your deconstructive posts as such and treat your opinions as not constructive. I welcome constructive discussion if you ever get some ideas.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I really like the way that The Witcher handles lighting and the significance of what you can do in the evening vs. daytime. i.e. normal business is closed at evening times, certain quests only can be accomplished at night,etc. I think it has REALLY added to the realism for me as a player. I realize it isn't an MMO but was hoping that PFO was going to include lighting as well. Oh well.Can we please return darkness to the mmorpg genre? I mean real darkness not this constant twilight that present in today's mmo's? In EQ, I remember the exhilaration of going to places like Kithicor Forest, The Feerott and Innothule Swamp (as a human) and not being able to see much more than 5 feet in front of me. Was it terrifying at times? Sure, but I'd had friends with spells or night vision that would act as my guide so I could make it from place to place, and sometimes without dying!
I haven't played The Witcher. But I assume that as a single player experience, if you really need to shop, there is a "sleep at the inn until morning function" that other similar games provide. In an MMO shops that are closed for a significant amount of time would be highly annoying. Do you really want to wait four hours of real time to buy potions of healing before going on your next adventure?
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Let's talk about me for a minuite. I have a maximum of three hours a day for gaming (I have a problem). If I want to head in to Thousandbreah Forrest and hunt fey for a bit but upon logging in realize that it's night and I can't play because some neck beard on the Internet thinks I should wade my time slogging back to town to get torches (that guy also opposes fast travel) it's honestly unliky I'll download the 'able to play the game' patch. What I will do is not subscribe or play the game.
A game is about having fun not simulating reality.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Some reality simulation would be good, but not to a hilarious extent.
Torches would be good, but it should be either a minor tactical advantage vs basically alerting everything within a 100 yards with unobstructed LoS where you are and who is with you, or a merely cosmetic choice.
Some people will take advantage of the 'slowdown' for shop-keepers and open up a Night Owl's Bazzar of some description. Could be an NPC thing, could be hosted by PCs. NPCs could even change depending upon the time of day.
Tony the Player who has a gaming time (using the 3 hour system described by a previous poster) two hours ahead of Bob the Player. Tony is constantly selling his crops to Elwynn, a bright-eyed Halfling in charge of the day shift. Bob logs on, it's night-time, and he sells his crops to Oswald, a sleepy, stubbly Human who is saddled with the night shift.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Nit, Scott isn't be obstructive to your idea for the sake of it. I'm in the limited play time camp, and I would have no interest in playing a game where I am arbitrarily restricted on what I can do. We all play a fantasy game, so there are no requirements to impose realism onto it. Certainly not to the extent you propose.
At the end of the day, even in this thread, your viewpoint is outnumbered. Perhaps that should indicate that on this particular point, it is an unpopular one.
Some reality simulation would be good, but not to a hilarious extent.
Torches would be good, but it should be either a minor tactical advantage vs basically alerting everything within a 100 yards with unobstructed LoS where you are and who is with you, or a merely cosmetic choice.
Some people will take advantage of the 'slowdown' for shop-keepers and open up a Night Owl's Bazzar of some description. Could be an NPC thing, could be hosted by PCs. NPCs could even change depending upon the time of day.
Tony the Player who has a gaming time (using the 3 hour system described by a previous poster) two hours ahead of Bob the Player. Tony is constantly selling his crops to Elwynn, a bright-eyed Halfling in charge of the day shift. Bob logs on, it's night-time, and he sells his crops to Oswald, a sleepy, stubbly Human who is saddled with the night shift.
I think the idea of having different vendors at different times of day - even if they have the same selection - would be a fun way to make it feel like there's a difference, that someone in the made up world is respecting the day night cycle, even if we as heroes and villains don't.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the idea of having different vendors at different times of day - even if they have the same selection - would be a fun way to make it feel like there's a difference, that someone in the made up world is respecting the day night cycle, even if we as heroes and villains don't.Some reality simulation would be good, but not to a hilarious extent.
Torches would be good, but it should be either a minor tactical advantage vs basically alerting everything within a 100 yards with unobstructed LoS where you are and who is with you, or a merely cosmetic choice.
Some people will take advantage of the 'slowdown' for shop-keepers and open up a Night Owl's Bazzar of some description. Could be an NPC thing, could be hosted by PCs. NPCs could even change depending upon the time of day.
Tony the Player who has a gaming time (using the 3 hour system described by a previous poster) two hours ahead of Bob the Player. Tony is constantly selling his crops to Elwynn, a bright-eyed Halfling in charge of the day shift. Bob logs on, it's night-time, and he sells his crops to Oswald, a sleepy, stubbly Human who is saddled with the night shift.
I wouldn't be opposed to a change up in NPCs, I have a feeling the game is going to be very NPC light anyway, as far as townsfolk, I think that many of the normal NPC roles will likely be carried out by players, whether the stores can be run AFK etc...
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Goblin Squad Member
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Not every person can be online at once. Assuming Pathfinder Online has a majority of Americans with a smattering of other countries (England, Australia/New Zealand, French, European etc) there will always be people online, but not necessarily within range of each other.
Having NPCs around who CAN service PCs (God, that sounds wrong, but bear with me, it's 12 at night and my brain is shutting down due to a lack of timtams) with repairs, purchases and novelty goods/gamers/interactions is useful, but at the same time PCs who are around and can offer the same services can make an absolute killing.
NPC will sell a Masterwork Longsword for 315 gold, discounts or increases in price available depending upon your standing within that town and personal encounters with that NPC. He's reliable, but really only interested in your coins.
A PC can manufacture that same Masterwork Longsword for half that cost (and hopefully make different 'models' of the same weapon, albeit variations of blade/handguard/hilt) and might sell it to you for only 265 gold, taking a slight hit in the wealth department but earning a repeat customer. Alternatively that same PC might be willing to trade the Masterwork Sword for a few ingots of Cold Iron, enough to forge another Sword. Both players walk away happy with their respective 'bargains'.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Not every person can be online at once. Assuming Pathfinder Online has a majority of Americans with a smattering of other countries (England, Australia/New Zealand, French, European etc) there will always be people online, but not necessarily within range of each other.
Having NPCs around who CAN service PCs (God, that sounds wrong, but bear with me, it's 12 at night and my brain is shutting down due to a lack of timtams) with repairs, purchases and novelty goods/gamers/interactions is useful, but at the same time PCs who are around and can offer the same services can make an absolute killing.
NPC will sell a Masterwork Longsword for 315 gold, discounts or increases in price available depending upon your standing within that town and personal encounters with that NPC. He's reliable, but really only interested in your coins.
A PC can manufacture that same Masterwork Longsword for half that cost (and hopefully make different 'models' of the same weapon, albeit variations of blade/handguard/hilt) and might sell it to you for only 265 gold, taking a slight hit in the wealth department but earning a repeat customer. Alternatively that same PC might be willing to trade the Masterwork Sword for a few ingots of Cold Iron, enough to forge another Sword. Both players walk away happy with their respective 'bargains'.
Actually why I specified, being able to vend AFK or offline. Actually at greater risk of issues when everyone is online, but even then there is never that large of an overlap. In general things like vending etc... are not done durring the 2-6 hours people are playing but durring the 14-18 hours they aren't, Primarally because sitting there being a store waiting for people to want to buy stuff, is not an activity people enjoy. That being said I agree that NPCs should probably exist to an extent, for low population towns with few people who enjoy crafting.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ Zesty
I know what you miss Zesty. I miss it too.
There has never been another game like EQ that created such an awesome gaming community.
The game WAS difficult. In the beginning if you had mana you had to stare at your spellbook until you got your mana back. Everything took much longer, leveling, traveling, meaningful boat rides. It was a slower paced MMO that did not cater to instant gratification.
I played a warrior all the way from beta through PoP. I know the meaning of pain, I absolutely had to find a group because soloing was impossible.
Your core point isn't just about the darkness of EQ, it's really a core fond desire to recapture the community of EQ.
Because everything was slower and more difficult you were forced to interact with other players. Long boat rides would cause you to chat with fellow players. Waiting on mana or health to regen would mean stopping in a safe area where there would be others waiting and you'd end up chatting there. If you had loot to sell, you went to Eastern Commons and actually sold it (no AH folks). All of this social interaction created the greatest gaming community I have ever seen.
People cared about their characters because it took real time to devote to the game. You also cared for your fellow gamers with him you've bled and sweated with to where you were at.
God forbid if on a raid someone ninja looted, in EQ they'd be forced to change servers because of the strong community.
Though EQ was beloved, it was extremely time consuming, frustrating, and often times painful.
Along came WoW. Like many others, I started playing WoW and realized, whoa I could play and have fun without all the downtime in this huge open world. I didn't have to rely on others, I can solo and play when I want to play. I didn't have to spend an entire night banging my head on the keyboard because I couldn't find a group. I could just log on for thirty minutes and get something done.
Years later I'm playing WoW and thinking to myself, why are so many people such douchebags. Mind you I play on a PvE server but I leveled on PvP server. We have instant queing for dungeons. Now there is instant queing for Raids. The only reason I even see certain people in my guild, let alone talk to them, is when its raid night and everyone is fighting for a spot to go. I find myself angry when I lose that roll on a piece of loot that is slightly better than what I have already. Suddenly I realize, I'm a douchbag too. What went wrong? I find myself missing my EQ days...
Partly because I'm an experienced MMOer AND partly because I'm getting old, I realize that I lost something when I went to the easier, prettier, instant gratification of WoW. This was that the reason I play MMO's and not single player games, because I enjoyed playing with others.
The built in system of forced socialization created by the extremely difficult world of EQ created a strong cummunity.
WoW's community, in general, sucks.
So, as a game developer, what's the answer?
Create a challenging, difficult world that has REAL darkness, long corpse runs and a penalty for dying?
or
Create a game that's easily solo-able, more friendly to the casual gamer?
I don't have an answer, maybe someone here who is smarter than me can come up with one.
My friend, I doubt we will ever see another gaming community like EQ. Even though I miss the community immensely, whenever I reinstall and go back to play EQ, I find myself back on WoW soon enough because those days, and most of the people there, are gone.
P.S. - Wow what a downer of post, let me leave you with one of my fondest and funniest memories of EQ. While on the boat between Butcherblock and Freeport, in the Ocean of Tears, two of my RL friends decided to dual on the boat. One of my friends was an enchanter, and he dire charmed the other. He then typed /pet get lost and what ensued was something that is still brought up in our weekly get gaming get together. My friend that was charmed shot off at super speed and proceeded to run off the boat and quickly out of eye site. He then ran past all known landmasses at super speed until he eventually hit the zone wall which forced him down at an angle, he then super speedily ran into the water and down down down down, eventually drowning. He then spent the next few hours trying to recover his corpse and eventually a GM arrived to help. The GM was flabbergasted that he managed to die in such a spot and then several other GMs showed up, including several high ranking GMs. Eventually there was a server wide message congratulating my RL friend on the most bone headed corpse retrieval they had ever seen.
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Goblin Squad Member
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EPIC STUFF
This. This is what I hope Pathfinder Online brings. A massive world where you can spend an entire day just wandering about going "Holy crap look at that!" and then sheepishly realise you haven't completed a single quest at all.
Solo play is one thing. There are times in an MMO you just want to go off and be the Lone Wolf, but I think most of the time that stems from dealing with Jerks with Hearts of Lead rather than any real problem with the game.
Group questing should be fun. Even if nobody brings a healer, people will hopefully remember that good tactics and solid skill can help minimise that damage. Bandages ahoy, maybe not to 'heal' wounds but to help with the non-magical Healing Over Time.
Ideally .... a PvP server and a PvE server would be best, judging by the Board at this moment. Some people rage at the thought of being denied the ability to go rip another player's face off, others rage at the thought of being ganked simply by setting foot out of town.
But in a Sandbox MMO, ESPECIALLY in a Sandbox MMO, a community spirit is the foundation of the game's success. Players willing to go out on a limb for each other, being able to know you can lend that other player some herbs to make some potions with and you'll get a reasonable return off them sometime down the track.
One of the things I miss most about Vanilla WoW (once again attempts to pry the ruby-tinted glasses off his face with little success) was that Players on a Server were known to each other. That Night Elf Hunter that kept on coming into Orgrimmar and challenging people to duels right next to Thrall's keep, Nock I think it was, was a g*&%**n legend to us Hordies because no matter what we threw at him, he kept coming back.
Likewise I would have quit the game over being unable to afford bags (due to being on dial-up and basically being a bad) but a complete stranger walked up to me, mentioned he'd heard me complaining about running around with only 6-slotters, and handed me 12 Runecloth bags.
Back in the day, that was a hideous amount of wealth off the AH being handed to a complete stranger, and one who was terrible at that. But suddenly I could adventure more than 50 yards from town without running out of ammunition or food or being loaded down with buzzard-asses. A while later, when I was higher level and finally on Broadband (a saga in and of itself!) I derived a tremendous amount of enjoyment from being able to turn around and help people out by escorting them through low-level content and handing out relatively large bags and healing potions and even the occasional weapon.
Eventually the Guild I was in at the time ended up being quite well known because of our 'Caravans' in which we would travel between the towns of the Kalimdor Horde and barter low-level items with low-level characters for materials and/or cost, and with higher level characters we often gave them contracts for rare materials or specific ingredients that we needed but couldn't gain access to because of our Roleplaying and our general lack of talent for doing anything other than being nice (oh god I remember that day we finally went from just Gamers to End-Game Gamers, 28 people in the Guild total plus people we had befriended during our Roleplay, we finally get to Ragnaros, we kill him and then suddenly we went from being "those nice wagoneers" to "the wagoneers with a level in badass").
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Goblin Squad Member
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I too am looking for the former solution suggested by Kosten. I too have been wandering around various MMOs since about 2006...wondering where the feeling of accomplishment had gone...and where the feeling of community had gone, it is after all a choice to play an MMO or single-player game.
It was my hope that PFO would at least feel as if it had reinvented the wheel, a better wheel (just as they did with the PF ruleset).
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Goblin Squad Member
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I too am looking for the former solution suggested by Kosten. I too have been wandering around various MMOs since about 2006...wondering where the feeling of accomplishment had gone...and where the feeling of community had gone, it is after all a choice to play an MMO or single-player game.
It was my hope that PFO would at least feel as if it had reinvented the wheel, a better wheel (just as they did with the PF ruleset).
The Pathfinder ruleset is pretty much a textbook example of not reinventing the wheel. They had a modern ruleset that they liked, that they were comfortable working with, and that they imagined a few minor tweaks might improve, but they didn't want to veer off from the established principles of the ruleset.
The Pathfinder ruleset is to D&D 3.5 as RIFT or SW:TOR is to WoW.
4e is a much more apt example of throwing out a lot of the arguably outdated assumptions of the past few years of design in favor of a new direction.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yes, I admit I have not played 4e, and also admit to being a bit of a PF fanboy...but from what I have read, 4e does seem much more convenient.
EDIT: Erased stuff that violated don't be a jerk. Unfortunately I have more important things to do than get mad at some guy in the internetz. I wish this endeavor and community well.
I wouldn't be against a few pitch-black thickets or caves. Not for realism--convenience should almost always come before realism--but just because it might be interesting. Entering a goblin lair and having to fend them off with a torch, for instance.
I don't think it should be common, though. More of a novelty. If it gets too prevalent, nobody would want to play a human, and we can't have that!
If nobody plays humans, how will I be the uniquest with my dwarf? ;P
Yes, I admit I have not played 4e, and also admit to being a bit of a PF fanboy...but from what I have read, 4e does seem much more convenient.As a matter of fact, it is!
Yes, it was made for people like Scott.
@ Zesty
I know what you miss Zesty. I miss it too.
There has never been another game like EQ that created such an awesome gaming community.
Thank you for your reply. I'm happy to know that there are others who can reminisce fondly over this mutual experience. Though I would have to say you're partially wrong here, Neverwinter Nights and NWN2 both created awesome gaming communities as well.
The game WAS difficult. In the beginning if you had mana you had to stare at your spellbook until you got your mana back. Everything took much longer, leveling, traveling, meaningful boat rides. It was a slower paced MMO that did not cater to instant gratification.
I played a warrior all the way from beta through PoP. I know the meaning of pain, I absolutely had to find a group because soloing was impossible.
What server did you play on?
Your core point isn't just about the darkness of EQ, it's really a core fond desire to recapture the community of EQ.
Yes, that and I enjoy a closer simulation of "reality" in my "fantasy" but you're absolutely correct I do miss that community.
Because everything was slower and more difficult you were forced to interact with other players. Long boat rides would cause you to chat with fellow players. Waiting on mana or health to regen would mean stopping in a safe area where there would be others waiting and you'd end up chatting there. If you had loot to sell, you went to Eastern Commons and actually sold it (no AH folks). All of this social interaction created the greatest gaming community I have ever seen.
I miss the strife that forced us to build that community. I remember sitting for hours down in lower Guk, Cazic Thule, Mistmoore Castle, the Estate Unrest, etc. camping mobs for items and just sitting there chatting with the group people that I was with between spawns. With WoW, for example, you get in queue for a dungeon, run through it as quick as possible and then you leave the group and likely never communicate those people again. In EQ when I joined a guild it was with those same people that I had spent time in Crushbone, Najena, and Blackburrow and same people that I raided the dragons and the gods with. In WoW, guilds invites are thrown at you right and left by strangers to fill their guild roster. Unless it's some elite guild and I wouldn't be the person to ask about the process of getting into one of those. WoW is a great game, I will never say otherwise but WoW also spotlights everything that's wrong within the gaming community.
People cared about their characters because it took real time to devote to the game. You also cared for your fellow gamers with him you've bled and sweated with to where you were at.
God forbid if on a raid someone ninja looted, in EQ they'd be forced to change servers because of the strong community.
Though EQ was beloved, it was extremely time consuming, frustrating, and often times painful.
Along came WoW. Like many others, I started playing WoW and realized, whoa I could play and have fun without all the downtime in this huge open world. I didn't have to rely on others, I can solo and play when I want to play. I didn't have to spend an entire night banging my head on the keyboard because I couldn't find a group. I could just log on for thirty minutes and get something done.
Years later I'm playing WoW and thinking to myself, why are so many people such douchebags. Mind you I play on a PvE server but I leveled on PvP server. We have instant queing for dungeons. Now there is instant queing for Raids. The only reason I even see certain people in my guild, let alone talk to them, is when its raid night and everyone is fighting for a spot to go. I find myself angry when I lose that roll on a piece of loot that is slightly better than what I have already. Suddenly I realize, I'm a douchbag too. What went wrong? I find myself missing my EQ days...
Partly because I'm an experienced MMOer AND partly because I'm getting old, I realize that I lost something when I went to the easier, prettier, instant gratification of WoW. This was that the reason I play MMO's and not single player games, because I enjoyed playing with others.
The built in system of forced socialization created by the extremely difficult world of EQ created a strong cummunity.
WoW's community, in general, sucks.
So, as a game developer, what's the answer?
Create a challenging, difficult world that has REAL darkness, long corpse runs and a penalty for dying?
or
Create a game that's easily solo-able, more friendly to the casual gamer?
I don't have an answer, maybe someone here who is smarter than me can come up with one.
My friend, I doubt we will ever see another gaming community like EQ. Even though I miss the community immensely, whenever I reinstall and go back to play EQ, I find myself back on WoW soon enough because those days, and most of the people there, are gone.
P.S. - Wow what a downer of post, let me leave you with one of my fondest and funniest memories of EQ. While on the boat between Butcherblock and Freeport, in the Ocean of Tears, two of my RL friends decided to dual on the boat. One of my friends was an enchanter, and he dire charmed the other. He then typed /pet get lost and what ensued was something that is still brought up in our weekly get gaming get together. My friend that was charmed shot off at super speed and proceeded to run off the boat and quickly out of eye site. He then ran past all known landmasses at super speed until he eventually hit the zone wall which forced him down at an angle, he then super speedily ran into the water and down down down down, eventually drowning. He then spent the next few hours trying to recover his corpse and eventually a GM arrived to help. The GM was flabbergasted that he managed to die in such a spot and then several other GMs showed up, including several high ranking GMs. Eventually there was a server wide message congratulating my RL friend on the most bone headed corpse retrieval they had ever seen.
I thought your post was very well written and beautifully captured the essence of what we've lost by going the "instant gratification" route, EQ wasn't perfect but it was far closer to what I expect from an mmoRPG. RPG has for the most part lost its mean in that acronym.
Since you left me with an amusing EQ story I'll leave you with one of my own. I was traveling on foot to the Estate of Unrest with a Barb Shammy buddy of mine and we stopped to chit and bit while other that were going to be joining us caught up. So we decided to duel, my Human Monk vs him, this was also my first time dueling. So we got into it and he was beating the piss out of my Monk and suddenly my screen went black. I had a rather troublesome CRT monitor that would sometime blackout or do other weird stuff. So I immediately apply the fix all the seemed to always fix whatever was ailing my monitor, I hit the rest on my computer and forced a reboot. Computer boots to windows and I log into EQ and my character. When enter the game my Barb friend is gone, I send him a message and ask him where he's at. He said "Running back", I said "From where?", he replied "From my bind point.", "Why?" I replied, "Because you just handed me my ass...". As it turns out he had cast a Blind spell on me which is what caused my screen to go black and when I did the sudden disconnect/reboot in the middle of the duel it forced the AI to take over my character and beat him to a pulp far more efficiently than I was capable. EQ, not a perfect game but great at forming memories that made it worth playing.|
Goblin Squad Member
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Yes, it was made for people like Scott.Yes, I admit I have not played 4e, and also admit to being a bit of a PF fanboy...but from what I have read, 4e does seem much more convenient.As a matter of fact, it is!
I know you really wanted this to be an offensive comment, but it just comes off as sort of pointlessly elitist.
I think the worst part is that it's supposed to be an insult.
"Say, we have here multiple arguments containing patronization and name-calling. We've brought in WoW-hate, rollplayer-hate...what else can we do?"
"Oh, I know! Let's try and rekindle the edition wars!"
The quoted individuals are my two scarecrows, who I stole from some farmer's cornfield. I use them when I want to make the 'opposition' look stupid. Or when nobody's coming to my parties. Certainly beats giving a french accent to a sack of flour or something. /MLP reference
In seriousness, though, bad idea. Way too many personal comments on both sides here. :/
No, actually I didn't. You agreed that 4E was "convenient" and if there's one thing I've noticed about Scott Betts over the past few weeks is that he loves himself some convenience. I can't call that a statement of fact but that's definitely what I've observed and I wouldn't expect you to be offended about liking a game that was designed to be something that fit your gaming style.
I'm not sure how it comes off as elitist, it's a game built to attract a wider audience, much like WoW. I played 4E for about two years and our 4E campaign wrapped up about 3 months ago. I'm glad to be done with the system and I've successfully influenced my friends to give Pathfinder a shot. 4E was designed to be easy on the DM, which is good in my book, but in my opinion it lacks almost every other way and right now the game is a mess. Does that make me better than people that love 4E? I don't think so.
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Goblin Squad Member
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No, actually I didn't. You agreed that 4E was "convenient" and if there's one thing I've noticed about Scott Betts over the past few weeks is that he loves himself some convenience.
Except, as I've gone through the effort to explain a number of times, I'm not arguing against things like friendly fire from a position of what features I want or do not want in PFO. I'm arguing from a position of what will give the game the best chance of being successful. I like convenience, but frankly I can handle a little less convenience than I'm pushing for. But I know that convenience makes games more palatable to a larger audience.
All that said, putting friendly fire into the game would score below my ideal convenience threshold. I don't think it's a good idea.
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Goblin Squad Member
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To get back on topic (slightly):
I think darkness in the game is a bad idea, for the reasons outlined. I live in the country with no streetlights, let me tell you that actual darkness isn't fun at all. It is dark out there on the edge of civilization, and going to your mailbox while hearing coyotes howl over the next hill may do wonders for my immersion but I don't do it for fun.
One MMO that I've recently tried is World of Tanks. You don't have night (that I've noticed) but there are visibility restrictions, based on cover, movement, and maximum sight range. There are certain in game items you can purchase that will increase your visual range, and some that will increase your stealth.
Pathfinder already has rules for this in the darkness, stealth, and perception mechanics. I can't imagine it would be too much of a stretch to put limited visibility into the game (indeed all games have this anyway, as you can't exactly see the entire zone in any MMO).
It's important to remember that anything implemented for the game has to be fun. If it's not fun, people will not play it, and then the game will shut down and nobody will have fun.
No, actually I didn't. You agreed that 4E was "convenient" and if there's one thing I've noticed about Scott Betts over the past few weeks is that he loves himself some convenience.I like convenience, but frankly I can handle a little less convenience than I'm pushing for. But I know that convenience makes games more palatable to a larger audience.
All that said, putting friendly fire into the game would score below my ideal convenience threshold. I don't think it's a good idea.
Scott, PFO isn't being designed for or targeting large audience. 100k is comparatively small to WoW's reach and what SWTOR is targeting. Here you should be asking for things you would like to see in PFO and trying to comes up with ways that it could rather than shooting down other peoples ideas.
Personally, as much as I like the idea of friendly fire I don't see a way to make it work in a mmo without causing much grief but that's a discussion for another thread.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Scott, PFO isn't being designed for or targeting large audience.
I should clarify.
When I say "larger audience" I'm not referring to trying to increase PFO's player base from 50,000 to 5,000,000. I'm talking about trying to increase it from 500 to 50,000, because my concern is that individual "features" like friendly fire will limit your audience severely, and combining those "features" with other comparably limiting "features" will have a sort of Venn diagram effect on the size of the game's player base - instead of getting everyone interested in a Pathfinder MMO, you will now only have people who are interested in a Pathfinder MMO who are also okay with friendly fire and real darkness and open PvP and not knowing anyone's name and vendors being closed for half the day and so on and so on.
The people who will say, "Open PvP? Screw that!" are different from the people who will say, "Friendly fire? Screw that!" who are different from the people who will say, "Forced default anonymity? Screw that!" etc.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ Zesty
I've never really played NWN or NWN2 online. I played on Brell and was gone before it merged with another server.
Bringing it all back to Pathfinder MMO, I think game developers have to balance what they want to do and how it will generate them money.
In the end it really all does come back to making money, as that investors want a return on their money. The guys making the game also want to make the best game they can.
With all the MMOs competing with a small but growing market ( I think I read somewhere that the gaming entertainment industry has or will soon pass movies, TV, and music combined in profits ), a game has to be able to appeal to a broad range of folks.
Then again there is the story of EVE which took the usual playbook for MMOs and threw it out.
I really like Ryan's post explaining how they plan on breaking the mold with PFO.
It's really too early to make snap judgment calls like some others have posted about whats going to happen. So far I'm extremely impressed with the constant communication we're receiving about the game.
So, would having true darkness be awesome? In my gaming experience I'd say hell yeah. If PFO doesn't I still think we're going to be blown away by other aspects of them game that we might not even have seen coming.
Scott, PFO isn't being designed for or targeting large audience.I should clarify.
When I say "larger audience" I'm not referring to trying to increase PFO's player base from 50,000 to 5,000,000. I'm talking about trying to increase it from 500 to 50,000, because my concern is that individual "features" like friendly fire will limit your audience severely, and combining those "features" with other comparably limiting "features" will have a sort of Venn diagram effect on the size of the game's player base - instead of getting everyone interested in a Pathfinder MMO, you will now only have people who are interested in a Pathfinder MMO who are also okay with friendly fire and real darkness and open PvP and not knowing anyone's name and vendors being closed for half the day and so on and so on.
The people who will say, "Open PvP? Screw that!" are different from the people who will say, "Friendly fire? Screw that!" who are different from the people who will say, "Forced default anonymity? Screw that!" etc.
Okay so we'll assume default mmorpg mode is PvE, Open PvP will limit your audience severely, Friendly Fire (assuming there's no way to make it interesting and/or meaningful) will limit your audience severely, Real Darkness (which isn't what I advocated in this thread) in a PvP would be cheated around in a PvP only game and therefore would be pointless but it could work in a PvE game, Default Anonymity may limit your audience minorly (I'm not sure why you included the word "forced" other than to drive your dislike of that feature), Vendors being close half the day would limit your audience depending on the frequency of the games day/night cycle(personally not a fan of this idea but I like the suggestion vendors work in shift and just switch out). The biggest audience limiter listed above are Open PvP (or PvP of any type) and Friendly Fire. Why is it that you don't rail against Open PvP? That will be a huge limiter in PFO's growth.
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Goblin Squad Member
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(I'm not sure why you included the word "forced" other than to drive your dislike of that feature)
"Forced" being the difference between being able to opt out versus not being able to opt out. Default anonymity with the option to turn everyone's name on would be one thing, but forcing you to play that way is something else entirely.
Why is it that you don't rail against Open PvP? That will be a huge limiter in PFO's growth.
A couple reasons.
First, we don't know how open the PvP system is going to be. With a good deal of restraint in design, it can work fine, I think. We'll get something between open PvP and isolated PvP.
Second, everyone's already arguing against it, and they've made all the arguments I could have made. I don't feel the need to pile on.
Bringing it all back to Pathfinder MMO, I think game developers have to balance what they want to do and how it will generate them money.
In the end it really all does come back to making money, as that investors want a return on their money. The guys making the game also want to make the best game they can.
With all the MMOs competing with a small but growing market ( I think I read somewhere that the gaming entertainment industry has or will soon pass movies, TV, and music combined in profits ), a game has to be able to appeal to a broad range of folks.
I live in a town of 60,000 people. Let us call this town Podunk. I want to open a restaurants. In Podunk there are 15 pizza places. Therefore according to your logic I should open a pizza place because that's what is most popular. In reality I would probably do better opening a grill-house and serving wood fired chunks of fresh pig and cow (from nearby family farms), because there isn't a place that does that in Podunk. So even if all the college kids just keep ordering pizza, getting the locals to come in for a good steak or a rack of ribs is going to be a lot easier then trying to muscle my way past the established pizza buisnesses for a profitable market share.
Lesson: Doing the thing that everyone else is doing only works in high school.
But you certainly would not be smart to open an eatery that specializes in making people prepare their own crap sandwiches, because not that many people would wish to pay you for the privilege of preparing and eating their own crap sandwiches.
Lesson: The problem is that when creating the menu of options for a new MMO, you have to make the tough decisions as to which items are wood-fire grilled steaks, and which are crap sandwiches, and the answer is usually that most options which make gameplay play more difficult just for the sake of being more difficult really are crap sandwiches in disguise.
I'd say that they are the pepper in the spicy BBQ, but to each their own.
Remind me never to eat at your place, then. ;)
I live in a town of 60,000 people. Let us call this town Podunk. I want to open a restaurants. In Podunk there are 15 pizza places. Therefore according to your logic I should open a pizza place because that's what is most popular. In reality I would probably do better opening a grill-house and serving wood fired chunks of fresh pig and cow (from nearby family farms), because there isn't a place that does that in Podunk. So even if all the college kids just keep ordering pizza, getting the locals to come in for a good steak or a rack of ribs is going to be a lot easier then trying to muscle my way past the established pizza buisnesses for a profitable market share.
Lesson: Doing the thing that everyone else is doing only works in high school.
It seems to me that you're being very specific. It would be more like you're wanting to open a restaurant in the United States.
I hope that Goblinworks isn't making PFO to cater to a tiny portion of MMO players. There's not an unlimited number of people who would willingly put up with closed vendors, darkness, anonymity (most people who play the game like to achieve a point where people will recognize their achievements, not just call them Bob), etc.
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(I'm not sure why you included the word "forced" other than to drive your dislike of that feature)"Forced" being the difference between being able to opt out versus not being able to opt out. Default anonymity with the option to turn everyone's name on would be one thing, but forcing you to play that way is something else entirely.
Right, when you use the word "default" to me that implies that there's other options. Also, when I think of default anonymity, I think of being able to turn on your name on so either everyone can see it or your friends and guild mates can see it or or no one can see it. Having the option to turn everyone name on or off wouldn't classify as anonymity in my opinion and would pretty innocuous but uninteresting to me. However, I wouldn't be against it.
Why is it that you don't rail against Open PvP? That will be a huge limiter in PFO's growth.
There a lot of things we, you included, don't know, but hasn't stopped you from speaking as though you know for certain what people will and will not like in an mmorpg and will or will not tolerate.A couple reasons.
First, we don't know how open the PvP system is going to be.
With a good deal of restraint in design, it can work fine, I think. We'll get something between open PvP and isolated PvP.
I'm very skeptical that PvP in PFO will work in a way that the majority of MMO players would enjoy.
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most people who play the game like to achieve a point where people will recognize their achievements, not just call them Bob), etc.
"Most" people? Do have any data to back that up? I can only speak for my self but I don't care if any beyond my friends and guild mates recognize the name floating above my head.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There a lot of things we, you included, don't know, but hasn't stopped you from speaking as though you know for certain what people will and will not like in an mmorpg and will or will not tolerate.
I'm not sure what you're saying here. I comment on things that I feel relatively assured about. For instance, I feel relatively assured that friendly fire has little or no place in an MMORPG. However, I am not relatively assured that PFO will feature truly free-for-all PvP - I think it's more likely that we'll have a system that places some restrictions on where and how PvP can take place. When it's more clear what sort of PvP the developers are aiming for, I'm sure you'll see me talking about it.
I'm very skeptical that PvP in PFO will work in a way that the majority of MMO players would enjoy.
I would argue that the majority of MMORPG players don't enjoy PvP much at all. Rather, I think the majority of MMORPG players enjoy their PvE game, but consider PvP either something that just isn't for them, or something that is occasionally fun but that they could probably live without.
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Goblin Squad Member
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For a client to run without lag, it has to draw outside of your viewpoint before it displays it. ANYTHING that the client knows, the player can trick the client into displaying. In network security, anything on the clients side, is guaranteed to be cracked. The only way to lessen draw distance, is to force the client to render everything at the exact moment it is known to the player. That is a technical infeasibility that would put insane strain on anything but the fastest CPUs and GPUs.
Ryan,
Depending upon the engine being used....couldn't you simply reduce the draw distance to simulate a "dark effect" or place a grey curtain or fog around the player in order to black-out screen elements that would otherwise be rendered if the engine doesn't show the player as having an appropriate light source (or dark vision)?
I get that people can pretty easly mess with the contrast of whats being rendered on thier screen in order to essentialy turn day into night..... but what if you aren't actualy rendering it in the first place? Wouldn't that eliminate a large portion of the advantage of such cheats? Just curious.
I don't really see that as a valid arguement, Onishi, that same arguement could be used for just about any feature loaded onto the client....including things like not having walls block vision...or not allowing characters to be stealthed. Unless you are using a thin client...you'd pretty much not have a game in that regards.
IT Security (20 years experience here...last 10 of it running Ops for an SaaS) tells us that pretty much any application or security measure can be breached given enough time, effort and resources.
What we are talking about here are features that would be EASLY compromise as opposed to ones that took a real hack to do. I believe what Ryan was specificaly refering to (and he can correct me if I'm wrong) is the ability for the user to circumvent darkness effects by playing games with the contrast of the monitor (output device). That's a method that is extremely easy to employ and nearly impossible to detect because it doesn't need to crack the clients security or delve into the packets that are delivered to it (which I assume would be encrypted anyway) to get thier payload....it just works with the output of the client to the rendering device by modifying the properties of how the device renders. Same principle as using an analog recorder to make a copy of a song that is protected by DRM.
I was just wondering if one possible solution to that would be to reduce the draw distance of what was rendered or to draw some artifact in front of it (say a solid grey curtain) that essentialy stoped the exploiter from being able to see beyond the intended range of thier vision even if they were messing with the contrast of the rendering device?