V13 tidbit
- Thread starter Brother None
- Start date
please tell me your kidding?Tyshalle said:
First off EVE online is a Space based mmo wich means that theirs lots and lots of nothing. the missions are hyper boring and repeative, mining even more so, the totaly open pvp enviroment means that you end up with empire carebare newbies flying crap fit ships running mission because they want to avoid the bored shitless Pirates who have ships kitted out with better gear that they will be at least another month or two from fitting and with sheild-armor-hull speed and other stats from 6 months of leveling the apropreate skills. this leads to a lot of players being stuck in carebear land because eventualy they get their dream fit ship only to realise it cost them an assload of ISK to buy-fit (never mind the cost to replace all their implants) so it ends up that loseing a ship in low sec is a non starter.
that and you end up spening hours on end in whats a defacto chatroom trying to find something more interesting to shoot at besides yet another crap npc ship/s
Never mind the odd skill system they have that actualy rewards you for NOT PLAYING THE GAME.
no MMOs suck because the developers start getting into lets create the biggest uberraid mode posible and put all the Bigger!!!!1!1!11!!!!! Better!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!11 rewards !!!!11!1!!! 1into said content, and because we need to make it even BIGGER than the Last Uber raid content we need to make it take Twice as many people Twice as long to do!!!!!!!!!!11!!11!!!!!!!1!!!! LOLMrBumble said:
Trithne
Still Mildly Glowing
Oakraven said:
On the other hand, as we also said, if you made the entire economy player-driven, with all crafting of items being done by players, so there was no NPCs selling an infinite supply of crap weapons, and you used a barter economy, which is what Fallout has, it would work better. Have territory control simply be a case of shooting people you don't like who come knocking, and there you go.
When I say the Eve model, I'm referring to the game being about player-driven action and world control, rather than going through endless battles against NPC mobs.
UncannyGarlic
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
You mean because they have broken economies? Soul binding is a lazy solution to a broken economy and shitty as hell for RPing (though part of the problem is that most soul binding is lazy in and of itself, there is no IC reason provided that you can't use the weapon other than someone else used it before you). Besides which, soul binding would be even more jarring and stupid in a non-magical world than it is in a magical one, especially in Fallout. For Fallout I think that a parts based durability system with limited repair (a part can only be repaired so many times before it must be replaced) is one of the better routes to solving the underlying problem.SuAside said:
You're forgetting the most important piece, a screened playbase. If you want the P&P experience with other players online you're choices are to either use IRC or play on a custom NWN server with a good number of mods. One of the reasons that MMOs don't have good RPing is because anyone and everyone can play, it draws from an audience which has no interest in RPing, and most lack interaction with DMs (the other big bit in RPing, the world reacting to the players' actions).Snackpack said:
Exactly. Part of the problem of MMOs is that most require you to work with other people, especially if you want decent rewards, and most loose their "fun because it's new and different" after a few hours and don't become fun again until you're maxed out.Tyshalle said:
I don't know about most being in their mid-twenties to early 30's but I would agree that WoW is a good example of the "average" gamer, which is to say it's populated with douchebags. Yes, there are exceptions and maybe it's matured massively since I played it (though I doubt it given what my friends who play it say [the group I played with was a mixed bag but there were some standout exceptions]) but then you're just left with a game which is fundamentally less fun than Diablo II and built on it's core system (though slowed down and adapted to typical MMORPG gameplay).Snackpack said:
EVE's problems are that it's too repetitive, combat isn't interesting enough, mining is botting (which means that you're not playing), traveling is slow (not unique in this and at least it has autopilot) and mostly only a problem when traveling long distances, and it basically requires you to be in a corp for the most interesting gameplay (ie the PvP). It fails to execute in places but the fundamental ideas behind it are solid, such as the experience system which doesn't encourage normal MMO play (botting, grinding, etc.), although money and other activities can take it's place for some of that. I'd agree that it does need to start new players off with more skills so that they can get into it quicker, though it mostly doesn't matter unless you belong to a corp anyway (again, this problem).
That said, I've yet to come across any MMO that's worth a monthly fee as all of the fantasy MMOs just aren't as fun as Diablo II for grinding and don't even touch playing on a PW NWN server for RPing.
I think that Chris' comment about not playing EVE for more than an hour might be a bad indication for FOOL being overly complex and/or deep and certainly seemed like the comment of someone with a short attention span. Games that are a bit of a beast to tackle starting out because of how much crap they have are a good thing in my book as they tend to be conducive to a wider variety of play or more involved play.
We'll see how FOOL turns out, I'm still hoping for an adaptation of Fallout and SPECIAL to a bigger, broader world rather than a generic MMO.
It just gets worse. First Bethesda turns Fallout 3 into an action game, and now Interplay is a day late and a dollar short on making a real Fallout game, so they're going to try something even more risky than a niche RPG, and have decided to just head for the MMO graveyard...
I have my doubts regarding a Fallout MMO, too. (I'll check out FOnline next weekend. I think it is as close to a Fallout MMO as we can get.)
It's quite simple. Why do we like Fallout? (By Fallout I mean 1 and 2.)
I like it because it is a RPG with a very customizable character and vast possibilities to choose what you do. And your choices will change how NPCs react towards you. Sometimes you will end up in "oooh nice!" situations sometimes your choices will lead to "oooh fuck!" situations (and often in a reload
).
In a MMO you simply can't let one person affect the world per definition. You can only act within boundaries. There are no real choices.
In terms of character customization the only thing that would work well is the one from Ultima Online (a shame I never played that one). There you have a massive amount of skills, and they raise as you use them. Melee would raise if you fight with melee weapons, small guns if you shoot stuff and so on.
There should be a hardcap, so that not everyone could do everything in the end though.
Oh and you can add tagged skills in that quite easily. Tagged skills are higher at the beginning an raise faster/easier. Makes sense to me. There were Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence in AO, too. Change Dexterity to Agility and add the rest.
Then add a playerdriven economy, like said before.
But that are all things which stray from the established mmorpg ruleset created by Blizzard. So I fear we won't see such things in V13. But I do hope we will see such things.
That being said, I like mmos. Though I don't like WoW. Yes I have played it. Yes I wish I could sue Blizzard to give me back the time I wasted on it.
Regardless I will keep an eye on V13 and hope they won't dish out some halfassed WoW clone. A solid mmorpg set in an post apocalyptic wasteland would be neat.
It's quite simple. Why do we like Fallout? (By Fallout I mean 1 and 2.)
I like it because it is a RPG with a very customizable character and vast possibilities to choose what you do. And your choices will change how NPCs react towards you. Sometimes you will end up in "oooh nice!" situations sometimes your choices will lead to "oooh fuck!" situations (and often in a reload
). In a MMO you simply can't let one person affect the world per definition. You can only act within boundaries. There are no real choices.
In terms of character customization the only thing that would work well is the one from Ultima Online (a shame I never played that one). There you have a massive amount of skills, and they raise as you use them. Melee would raise if you fight with melee weapons, small guns if you shoot stuff and so on.
There should be a hardcap, so that not everyone could do everything in the end though.
Oh and you can add tagged skills in that quite easily. Tagged skills are higher at the beginning an raise faster/easier. Makes sense to me. There were Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence in AO, too. Change Dexterity to Agility and add the rest.
Then add a playerdriven economy, like said before.
But that are all things which stray from the established mmorpg ruleset created by Blizzard. So I fear we won't see such things in V13. But I do hope we will see such things.
That being said, I like mmos. Though I don't like WoW. Yes I have played it. Yes I wish I could sue Blizzard to give me back the time I wasted on it.
Regardless I will keep an eye on V13 and hope they won't dish out some halfassed WoW clone. A solid mmorpg set in an post apocalyptic wasteland would be neat.
Hjotorn, you hit the nail right on the head for me in terms of what I hate about MMO's. It's the lack of change in the game world.
I just killed a boss character, but IT DOESN'T MATTER. Nothing changes. Nothing at all. The world doesn't react to what you do.
Imagine in FO1, if you killed the Master, and nobody reacted to it? You went to the Overseer, and he told you to go raid the Cathedral now.
ugh... terrible.
I just killed a boss character, but IT DOESN'T MATTER. Nothing changes. Nothing at all. The world doesn't react to what you do.
Imagine in FO1, if you killed the Master, and nobody reacted to it? You went to the Overseer, and he told you to go raid the Cathedral now.
ugh... terrible.
The problem is, it isn't really possible that the world reacts on you. I mean, you kill the boss now. Thats it, he is dead. You saved the world, you are the hero. And the other 10000 Players have now no chance to kill the boss because you already killed him. At the end it will be that there are only a few player that are "doing all the work" and the others are just running around and doing.. don't know.. something else.
The only possibility I see is to handle it with lots of gamemasters and a bunch of heavy roleplaying dudes. But not some random players who just want to go around, killing stuff and beat boss monsters.
See the russian Fallout Online. There are three types of players: The normal ones. They start the game, run around, enter the next town and .... get killed by the second group. The second group are the "I don't fucking care I kill you all"-dudes. They run around, want to have all items and the best stuff they can get and if they are bored, kill everyone else. The third group are the more or less roleplayers. They try to interact with the environment, are doing quests in a group just for fun and do other rp-esque stuff in the game. Just to get killed from the second group, like the first group.
Yeh.
The only possibility I see is to handle it with lots of gamemasters and a bunch of heavy roleplaying dudes. But not some random players who just want to go around, killing stuff and beat boss monsters.
See the russian Fallout Online. There are three types of players: The normal ones. They start the game, run around, enter the next town and .... get killed by the second group. The second group are the "I don't fucking care I kill you all"-dudes. They run around, want to have all items and the best stuff they can get and if they are bored, kill everyone else. The third group are the more or less roleplayers. They try to interact with the environment, are doing quests in a group just for fun and do other rp-esque stuff in the game. Just to get killed from the second group, like the first group.
Yeh.
See, this is the genius of EVE. It's all about the players. There are no "bosses." But when you kill somebody, unless it's a n00b combat mission against NPC's, you're actually affecting another player. You're ruining somebody's day, or you're protecting yourself or your friends from having your/their day ruined. Your actions actually matter, and not in an entirely superficial way.
And mind you, I don't think EVE is perfect. There's a reason I don't play it. But the basic model to it is spectacularly beyond anything idiot-games like WoW have come up with. There's also a reason why the ratio of intelligent gamers to total idiots is far superior than it is in game's like WoW and such. The game is designed with actual intelligence. Say what you will about the skill system that "rewards you for not even playing the game," it is a system that prevents you from grinding simply to advance your character. It's also a system that, at least in terms of skils, doesn't make the gap in power between somebody who's been playing for a couple of months and somebody who's been playing for a couple of years enormous. The longer you play the more diverse your skills are, but in terms of raw power, you can specialize within a couple of months pretty well. It's not a system for everyone, but it's a brilliant system that deserves respect, because it solves a lot of problems that most MMO's seem to revel in, as it supports their whole "Let's addict our players to our game through dishonest and nefarious means" mindset.
Now, skill systems aside, Fallout should follow the EVE system of PvP and putting players at the forefront of EVERY game design decision. NPC's are ultimately useless and needless when you give your players enough freedom. Fallout, like EVE, is a game DESIGNED for open-PvP. And as EVE has proven, you can have open-PvP if you design it smartly enough so that it's not just a meaningless combat-fest ala Battlefield 2.
If you have an open-PvP system that actually means something, then you're going to find that people will actually fight and die for a reason, which will ultimately be much more meaningful and much more fulfilling than anything the mainstream offers.
The WoW model works, but if you notice, it only *really* works for WoW. Before WoW, the standard was EverQuest, and everybody was trying to, but not quite achieving the numbers EQ had, which was somewhere around 400,000 subscribers. WoW changed all that, but they did it by doing something different from EQ. EQ was all about the group-grind. It wasn't big on missions. It was big on you going to a location, killing everything in sight until you got what you were looking for, be it loot or experience points, and then you'd go to the next zone and do it all over again. WoW turned it into a largely single-player experience, unless you *wanted* to group, at least until the max levels. It also kept things about the mission, so that you actually felt, if only superficially, like you were actually doing something.
Nobody's achieving what WoW did because WoW did its own thing, and nobody's going to like a shameless copycat. That's just physics. This is why Fallout Online is going to outright FAIL, and why we're going to see Interplay die all over again. Because they're not going to do anything except shamelessly copy WoW to a large enough degree that you won't be able to tell the difference beyond the graphics and a few key systems, and nobody's going to be able to do WoW justice like WoW can. Innovation is what's going to lead to success, and I think that's proven by EVE.
Despite the fact that EVE Online isn't a huge success, it's the only MMO that's been consistantly GROWING for years, whereas every other MMO (even WoW) has been gradually losing numbers.
And once EVE brings in actual character-avatars instead of having everything be ships, you're going to see a ton of people buying the game, I suspect.
And mind you, I don't think EVE is perfect. There's a reason I don't play it. But the basic model to it is spectacularly beyond anything idiot-games like WoW have come up with. There's also a reason why the ratio of intelligent gamers to total idiots is far superior than it is in game's like WoW and such. The game is designed with actual intelligence. Say what you will about the skill system that "rewards you for not even playing the game," it is a system that prevents you from grinding simply to advance your character. It's also a system that, at least in terms of skils, doesn't make the gap in power between somebody who's been playing for a couple of months and somebody who's been playing for a couple of years enormous. The longer you play the more diverse your skills are, but in terms of raw power, you can specialize within a couple of months pretty well. It's not a system for everyone, but it's a brilliant system that deserves respect, because it solves a lot of problems that most MMO's seem to revel in, as it supports their whole "Let's addict our players to our game through dishonest and nefarious means" mindset.
Now, skill systems aside, Fallout should follow the EVE system of PvP and putting players at the forefront of EVERY game design decision. NPC's are ultimately useless and needless when you give your players enough freedom. Fallout, like EVE, is a game DESIGNED for open-PvP. And as EVE has proven, you can have open-PvP if you design it smartly enough so that it's not just a meaningless combat-fest ala Battlefield 2.
If you have an open-PvP system that actually means something, then you're going to find that people will actually fight and die for a reason, which will ultimately be much more meaningful and much more fulfilling than anything the mainstream offers.
The WoW model works, but if you notice, it only *really* works for WoW. Before WoW, the standard was EverQuest, and everybody was trying to, but not quite achieving the numbers EQ had, which was somewhere around 400,000 subscribers. WoW changed all that, but they did it by doing something different from EQ. EQ was all about the group-grind. It wasn't big on missions. It was big on you going to a location, killing everything in sight until you got what you were looking for, be it loot or experience points, and then you'd go to the next zone and do it all over again. WoW turned it into a largely single-player experience, unless you *wanted* to group, at least until the max levels. It also kept things about the mission, so that you actually felt, if only superficially, like you were actually doing something.
Nobody's achieving what WoW did because WoW did its own thing, and nobody's going to like a shameless copycat. That's just physics. This is why Fallout Online is going to outright FAIL, and why we're going to see Interplay die all over again. Because they're not going to do anything except shamelessly copy WoW to a large enough degree that you won't be able to tell the difference beyond the graphics and a few key systems, and nobody's going to be able to do WoW justice like WoW can. Innovation is what's going to lead to success, and I think that's proven by EVE.
Despite the fact that EVE Online isn't a huge success, it's the only MMO that's been consistantly GROWING for years, whereas every other MMO (even WoW) has been gradually losing numbers.
And once EVE brings in actual character-avatars instead of having everything be ships, you're going to see a ton of people buying the game, I suspect.
Autoduel76
Look, Ma! Two Heads!
Chris Taylor said:
Honestly, I think these comments are very telling. Not only about Fallout Online, but about what would have likely "really happened" if members of the original Fallout team were making Fallout 3 at this juncture.
Those quotes are fairly identical to the type of thing that Bethesda was saying (and taking crap about) during F3's development. Making a game "they would want to play", updating it to make it "modern", comparing it to current games rather than to Fallout, etc.
I'm not writing off Fallout Online. And for that matter, I enjoyed Fallout 3. But its long past time to accept the fact that Fallout, in the mold of Fallout 1 & 2 has been dead and buried for years and was never going to happen, no matter who aquired the license, even if by some miracle it was the original team.
Now, I haven't even tried an MMO in over 5 years, as the last thing I can afford is time sink gaming since I got married and had kids. I'd much rather see my daughter grow up and play with her, than aquire some new shiny (make believe) sword. But, I will give FOOL a try. If I can feasabley play it very casually (like a couple hours a week) and not be overrun by douchehelmets then they may even get my money on a monthly basis.
Slaughter Manslaught
Vault Senior Citizen
I think a Fallout MMO should be player-driven. Instead of things like "Instances" and "bosses", the focus should be in player interaction, fighting, socializing, trading, etecetera.
The funny thing, it that it began like this and got more complex. In the second test, we first and third group had no chance against the second group, until the Third Group (The Unity) announced the Cathedral as english-speaking territory, atracting the first group. When the second group took the Cathedral, both the first and the third group migrated, reagrouped and took it back! The Cathedral is ours and ours only.
And, frankly, I like the second group. I mean, I hate when they kill me, but this IS the wasteland. Bandits, raiders, thieves and crazy hi-tech organizations always exist, and what better representation of them than the crazy PKers? They force the player to keep himself on his toes, adapt and find out some friends. In the wastelands, you should ALWAYS be on the lookout for trouble, or there's no proper "wasteland" feeling and then it becomes a mere generic MMO.
The funny thing, it that it began like this and got more complex. In the second test, we first and third group had no chance against the second group, until the Third Group (The Unity) announced the Cathedral as english-speaking territory, atracting the first group. When the second group took the Cathedral, both the first and the third group migrated, reagrouped and took it back! The Cathedral is ours and ours only.
And, frankly, I like the second group. I mean, I hate when they kill me, but this IS the wasteland. Bandits, raiders, thieves and crazy hi-tech organizations always exist, and what better representation of them than the crazy PKers? They force the player to keep himself on his toes, adapt and find out some friends. In the wastelands, you should ALWAYS be on the lookout for trouble, or there's no proper "wasteland" feeling and then it becomes a mere generic MMO.
Endless Void
It Wandered In From the Wastes
I never was in favor of MMORPGs but sometimes you see the wasted potential in them...
The usual problem with the MMOs is that they always reward combat over everything else. UO for instance was a good idea at it's core on this aspect but you always needed combat skills, at least to an extent because of enormous population of PKs surrounding you. This concept of needing even a little knowledge of combat to survive actually fits the FO setting but the painful fact is that the aim of the raiding is NEVER the resources in MMOs. You only hack and grind for gold or XP or more specifically PHAT LEWT.
Another problem with the MMOs vs. FO setting is that in a world of desparation there's only a "Chosen One" to save the world and it's whole population (with the emphasis on the word "One"). And in an MMO you'll risk having towns full of heroes or "Chosen One"s to be more specific. Face it. No one will sit around and do boring jobs like mining in Broken Hills or farming in Shady Sands for all day long. No one but maybe a handful few. Because each of us know what FO is all about and the feeling that it gives you is to put it roughly (or as Bethsoft said) "You're SPECIAL". Of course even a lousy farmer might want to strap a gun and go out on a journey to "save the world" but that points out to a yet another problem with MMOs vs. FO...
Remember the first one to try and leave the vault? Remember his corpse lying in front of the vault door? This was the first scene to greet you in the harsh, outside world of Fallout. I even remember sharing his fate on my first playthrough; flesh eaten by those damned rats. World of FO is one unforgiving motherfucker. I remember saying the wrong things in the wrong place. A place that is unfortunately called Khans base. And I remember being outnumbered and trying to run, only to be shot down before I reach the exit. And I remember seeing my skeleton decaying in the wasteland... When you die in the harsh wasteland your skull smiled at you which indicated (at least for me) "you're dead. Better luck next time". In MMOs it kinda whistles the tune from Nick Cave's last track from Murder Ballads. And it all comes down to "You couldn't kill him/her/whatever. Try again". Death is the end. Even if you're a farmer reeking of brahmin shit or a badass in Power Armor. I don't want to see my body cut in two by a laser rifle only to be knitted back to life by some über techno gizmo with Vault-Tec/Robo-Tec label on it. Death must have unforgivable consequences. Not just losing some of your PHAT LEWT! When you die, you die. End of story. It is the harsh law of the world. I think it'll even make the most powerful raider to think twice about a raid. And it'll keep everyone in edge...
And lastly there's this thing that'll throw all the uninhabited, desolate wasteland feel to trash. Yes, the overpopulation of the gameworld. Fortunately something like limiting the number of registered characters by server will solve this problem.
All that being said unfortunately Interplay wouldn't stray away from a tried and accomplished path (which is WoW) and even if they tried Bethsoft/Zenimax wouldn't let them.
And that was just my 2 cents...
The usual problem with the MMOs is that they always reward combat over everything else. UO for instance was a good idea at it's core on this aspect but you always needed combat skills, at least to an extent because of enormous population of PKs surrounding you. This concept of needing even a little knowledge of combat to survive actually fits the FO setting but the painful fact is that the aim of the raiding is NEVER the resources in MMOs. You only hack and grind for gold or XP or more specifically PHAT LEWT.
Another problem with the MMOs vs. FO setting is that in a world of desparation there's only a "Chosen One" to save the world and it's whole population (with the emphasis on the word "One"). And in an MMO you'll risk having towns full of heroes or "Chosen One"s to be more specific. Face it. No one will sit around and do boring jobs like mining in Broken Hills or farming in Shady Sands for all day long. No one but maybe a handful few. Because each of us know what FO is all about and the feeling that it gives you is to put it roughly (or as Bethsoft said) "You're SPECIAL". Of course even a lousy farmer might want to strap a gun and go out on a journey to "save the world" but that points out to a yet another problem with MMOs vs. FO...
Remember the first one to try and leave the vault? Remember his corpse lying in front of the vault door? This was the first scene to greet you in the harsh, outside world of Fallout. I even remember sharing his fate on my first playthrough; flesh eaten by those damned rats. World of FO is one unforgiving motherfucker. I remember saying the wrong things in the wrong place. A place that is unfortunately called Khans base. And I remember being outnumbered and trying to run, only to be shot down before I reach the exit. And I remember seeing my skeleton decaying in the wasteland... When you die in the harsh wasteland your skull smiled at you which indicated (at least for me) "you're dead. Better luck next time". In MMOs it kinda whistles the tune from Nick Cave's last track from Murder Ballads. And it all comes down to "You couldn't kill him/her/whatever. Try again". Death is the end. Even if you're a farmer reeking of brahmin shit or a badass in Power Armor. I don't want to see my body cut in two by a laser rifle only to be knitted back to life by some über techno gizmo with Vault-Tec/Robo-Tec label on it. Death must have unforgivable consequences. Not just losing some of your PHAT LEWT! When you die, you die. End of story. It is the harsh law of the world. I think it'll even make the most powerful raider to think twice about a raid. And it'll keep everyone in edge...
And lastly there's this thing that'll throw all the uninhabited, desolate wasteland feel to trash. Yes, the overpopulation of the gameworld. Fortunately something like limiting the number of registered characters by server will solve this problem.
All that being said unfortunately Interplay wouldn't stray away from a tried and accomplished path (which is WoW) and even if they tried Bethsoft/Zenimax wouldn't let them.
And that was just my 2 cents...
Slaughter Manslaught said:
You are right, but: It is not balanced. There are too much Power armors in the game now so that it doesn't fit the setting well, in my opinion. Power armor should be something that is really hard to get and only a few people should have one. At the moment, fighting in the game is 100% high tech.
Morbus
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
I'm not so sure as Endless Void. I think it's still possible that V13 turns out to be something innovative and solid. I'm not saying it's likely, I'm saying I think it's possible. Of course, just as with Fallout 3, we will know exactly what to expect from the moment the first info is released. If it's actiony first/third person, then it's crap (like, no matter what?), if it has few combat instances, quality writing and stuff like that, then even if it's crap, I think it's probably gonna be something good in its essence.
I'll admit that I didn't give EVE a fair chance, I think EQOA or SWG shipped around the same time and held my attention longer. EVE is easily one of the more interesting games out there, but mining asteroids was terribly boring. Never making it past that stage, I'm know I missed a lot of game. I try to follow what's happening in EVE, but that's not the same as playing it. (The new tactic of using an Orca to bring in -10 players to secure areas cracks me up as a sign of player ingenuity.)
We are constantly thinking about how to better involve the players into the world (from player-driven economies, to player-created content and other player-focused systems). We have some new ideas on how to involve players into the overall story. Some of them are very tricky, but if we can pull it off, players will have more control over how the world turns out than any other game I can think of (except, perhaps, A Tale in the Desert).
There has to be more to the game than just grouping/raiding or looking for that next piece of phat lewt (not that there isn't anything wrong with doing that, there just has to be more to life than who's carrying the biggest gun for those that want to do something else). We've got more planned than just a grind.
We are constantly thinking about how to better involve the players into the world (from player-driven economies, to player-created content and other player-focused systems). We have some new ideas on how to involve players into the overall story. Some of them are very tricky, but if we can pull it off, players will have more control over how the world turns out than any other game I can think of (except, perhaps, A Tale in the Desert).
There has to be more to the game than just grouping/raiding or looking for that next piece of phat lewt (not that there isn't anything wrong with doing that, there just has to be more to life than who's carrying the biggest gun for those that want to do something else). We've got more planned than just a grind.
Morbus
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
Oh boy, and here was I hoping for no grinding whatsoever 
Oh well...
I mean, if grinding is fun, it's fine by me, but it's just that 100% of the time (and this is like ALWAYS) it's the complete opposite of fun. You do it because you have to, because if you hadn't to, you wouldn't be doing it. The saddest thing to realize is that in most grind-based games, if you didn't need to grind your ass off for hours, you wouldn't have anything to do in the game at all. In the end, what's the point?
Oh well...I mean, if grinding is fun, it's fine by me, but it's just that 100% of the time (and this is like ALWAYS) it's the complete opposite of fun. You do it because you have to, because if you hadn't to, you wouldn't be doing it. The saddest thing to realize is that in most grind-based games, if you didn't need to grind your ass off for hours, you wouldn't have anything to do in the game at all. In the end, what's the point?
Autoduel76
Look, Ma! Two Heads!
Ctaylor said:
Fair enough. Although I suppose the other part of that statement means that you do have a "phat lewt level grind" planned out as well.
I don't neccessarily think there's anything wrong with that, depending on how its done. I will give it a shot regardless.
If you want my input (which I'm sure you don't), the only MMO I've ever truly enjoyed was Ultima Online, at the very beginning, even as the PKs were ruining the enjoyment for others. Its the only one that seemed to make any kind of sense.
Added side effects of things like the rampant PKing, as well as the very quick skill raising, was that it was actually a more casual friendly game at that time, that involved far less of a time sink to enjoy. No, you weren't going to be the greatest character in the world, but there were plenty of fairly casual weekend players that were able to afford houses, even castles, playing mostly solo even.
As I said, I will be there (near) day 1 to give it a shot. If I can play for only a handfull of hours a week and have my time and progress feel rewarding, then you will have a monthly subscription coming in from me. If I have to spend hours upon hours to get anywhere, due to lack of solo content, difficulty finding people that aren't douchehelmets, leveling/character building that takes years, or something, then it will probably be a short lived trial for me.
I wish you the best though. Its the only MMO I'm looking forward to seeing at this point.
Autoduel76 said:
I am hard-pressed to think of some kind of CRPG that has XP and levels that doesn't have some sort of "grind". If you spend time to earn XP, levels and gear, then almost all games have a longer amount of time required as the player advances. We will do our best to hide the grind behind quests and meaningful activities that disguise it, but it will exist. We have a rough idea of how long it should take an average player to advance, but some of those numbers (especially about what an "average" player is) are kind of sketchy. We'll need playtesting to fine-tune it.
Leveling is important because it gives the player a sense of accomplishment, it gates some content, and it spreads out character development choices. I love games that have challenges at the beginning that the player has to run from, but then the player can grow and develop, returning later with "superior firepower". Or come up with a clever way of bypassing those challenges.
Autoduel76 said:
I like reading all sorts of comments and input. It's filtering all of it that's the difficult part. ^_^
One of our designers was heavily involved in UO during the day and had many stories to tell. He was in a very nasty PK guild. That certainly left him with some strong opinions about what the game should be.
I like having rewards for casual players (off-line time can be used as a resource), and think that casual/solo players should always be able to make progress. Ultimately, however, the player that invests more time into the game will be able to make faster progress and earn more rewards. The same way that a person spends more time mastering a hobby or a sport. The differences in skill are important, too. A skilled player should have advantages over lesser skilled players.
Autoduel76 said:
Thank you.