There is no question in my mind that EQ3 will be a fantastic game. But I feel that today's announcement of a sandbox type of MMO leaves the door open for failure. Knowing that so many MMO's tend to follow suit with other MMO's, I bring a word of caution to the EQnext team and SOE leadership. Games like Rift, LOTRO, SWTOR and GW2 were all fun games, but will never be HUGE for one reason... class definition. People were confused, deterred, bored. Players not knowing which class was their catalyst lost them many customers and ultimately will lead to their demise. The best part about the Everquest franchise has been class definition. Dependability on a specific class has forced guilds to extend recruitment and has contributed to the success of this game. Many MMOs like those stated above consider class dependency to be a hindrance rather than a benefit, well I beg to differ. It is in my hopes that the EQnext team not follow their example by allowing classes to "blend" like most sandbox MMO's do. It's Everquest! It's rooted into the core that defines this franchise, hense it's success. Guild Wars 2 (for example) eliminated the need for healers by giving all classes healing capability. This was a tragic mistake and believe it or not is having a major impact on female customer potential! Then theres Rift... it allowed classes to blend so much that it has destroyed the community for alt-a-holics. SWTOR was exactly the same way, alts were useless because you already had ability to change your spec to cover almost any scenario. Both games realized their mistakes when retention took a nose dive. They were games designed for simpletons with a "no effort" mentality. Because of that many of us once again, returned to EQ2. Please keep EQnext an Everquest game. We welcome change! But change needs to offer familiarity and challenge to be successful. Our community depends on alts and the ability recreate any specific class for any specific situation. Thanks.
I would completely agree with that. Nowadays, it seems all games want to let any class do anything with the right setup, eliminating the fun and use of having varied classes. EQ2 has fairly good class definition compared to many othe mmos out there now, and the only other mmo I have played with as good, if not better class definition was Eq1. (Though I am by no means an expert at mmos, and never had the time to play enough eq1, sadly.) I think it would be fun if, instead of generalizing classes so that anyone can heal, anyone can dps, etc, classes should be able to further specialise. Examples could be, a bard that can buff attacks quite a bit, but can do very little for defence. A cleric whou can cure better than any other, but has fairly low healing abilities in comparison. However, I completely agree that EqNext should avoid the blending of classes that many games nowadays has.
I agree 100%. Back to the old addage, jack of all trades, master of none. It's more confusing and less for when you can do everything 'sort of' and nothing 'well'. It is harder for the players, it is harder for groups.
I'd prefer a game where the players determine their class - not the developers. What I mean is that the player can spend 'points' to add to their abilities so they can be who they want. You want to be a meat shield who can also drop the occasional ball of hot lava on your enemy? No problem. The point needs to be made that a player who designs their class as the above example would not be as good of a 'meat shield' as someone who dedicates all their 'points' towards that type of build. So if you want to have lots of cool abilities - that's fine - but you want be as powerful in any one ability as someone who focuses on that.
Gravy wrote: Right. Which is exactly what was done with SOE's last (I believe) sandbox game SWG. All of the classes in SWG were pretty unique. But each class could specialize on an aspect of that class.
Grouping becomes much more difficult when players have no real idea what Bill the Blue Adventurer, Jane the Green Adventurer and Spot the Furry Adventurer are actually capable of. Do any of them have any real healing ability? Anybody in the group who can hold aggro? Kill the mobs fast? Regen mana? Crowd controll? Cure? I like the idea of variations within each class, so long as there is still a baseline of what every Blue, Green and Furry class adventurer can do.
It's Everquest. And to the greater good of EQnext, it should remain Everquest in regards to a few basic principals. First and foremost being the topic of this thread. Change is not always good and from those of us that have been playing since EQ1, I don't believe that class blending will contribute in a positive way to the success of EQ3.
I gotta disagree on this one. Rigid role based classes is the past, the future is a game that is less rigid. Most players will prefer a game where they can concentrate on one or two characters and experience many facets of the game, players are less and less willing to have one character for every role. And no one likes not being able to find groups cause their locked role just happens to not be in demand.
ZUES wrote: Ulrichvon wrote: A compromise: A system more flexible than that found in Rift; sets of skills in an SWG-esque system enable "titles", some of which are equivalent to core classes. An additional option is to layer the game-world with more than harvesting, crafting, and non-strategic combat (further layers include, e.g., diplomacy, politics and other semi-automated persistent multi-player and NPC events, resource trade-routes, exploration, puzzles, guilds and pvp, etc.). It could even be a game in which players require certain abilities to successfully interact with environments and complete dungeons. These world engagement abilities do not necessarily need to be bound to combat. World engagement abilities are possible in conjunction with a system of core or customizable combat classes. Player A might require a world engagement ability of Player B in order to complete a precedurally-generated puzzle dungeon. This ability-gate might not be entirely desirable in larger, non-procedurally-generated dungeons.
First off I have to say that "Games like Rift, LOTRO, SWTOR and GW2" are NOT in ANY WAY sandbox mmos. Second, in SWG when you could choose how you built your charactor you got titles based on where you put your points. Every time you mastered a particular line you got a title that told people what they could expect. If you where a Master Swordsmen people knew, that you spent the majority of your points in Sword ablities, however you had more then enough points left over to Master a secondary Skill, and be come say a Master Swordsmen/Master Cobat Medic. Though you couldn't have both titles up at once when LFG you tended to use MS/MCM or the like so people knew what to expect. You also had the CHOICE of Mastering one combat tree and mastering a crafting tree... or you could be a true jack of all trades. It was totally up to you, but there where ways to let people know where you stood in verious areas, even when not at the master level. Third, even with that kind of class system you don't nessicarily have a "sandbox" game, because the whole point of a "sandbox" game is that the player makes thier own fun. Currently the two biggest sandbox games on the market are Eve Online, and Mine Craft. Neither have much in comin exept in both cases the Devs are not spoon feeding the player what "fun" is.
I thought it was really the player made (non instance)housing & citys that made SWG a sandbox game more that anything else.
Forced class blending definately not ... But restrictions for what skills to advance and what equipment can be used should be removed. I understand the concept of people wanting to start out with a generic character then have in game decisions define the path they take ... But why have nursery level grind= 1 click of the button ? Just make all skills available and have classes (pre picked) more conducive to a certain skill advancement.
