EQ3/EQ Next ~ The Ideas Thread

Any more ideas on a trade-route/resource-instance system?

First as to that screenshot. They posted those a few years ago when EQ Next was first announced. I'll say what I said then. If the game releases with that kind of cartoony look I probably won't be playing it for long. One of the things which keeps me coming back to EQ2 is it's realistic graphics which still look good after all these years. I cannot stand a game with cartoony graphics.
There seems to be some indication they've disavowed those screenshots. I hope so.
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Now trade:
I think profitable trade routes in game would be awesome, but it has to be done right or it'll cause many problems with little gain. The things which would make it work well may require a playerbase noticably different from the kinds of people playing EQ2.

To make trade routes work, you need some things:
1. Different regions have different resources which are cheap and plentiful, while other resources are expensive and rare. Players can, in theory, make money by moving resources between different regions. It could simply be that different raw materials needed for crafting are each available only in one area. Then a broker -- which is NOT global but local to each area -- is a way to sell those items at the other end. If done with just raw materials it would be critical that crafting be an integrated part of the economy -- you can't get good gear unless it's player crafted. If they're not willing to make player crafting so critical then they'll have to work the aboundance/scarcity differently. Bottom line, key items are cheap in some places, expensive in others.
2. No fast travel and limited carry capacity. It takes TIME to move the resources and there is NO WAY to shorten that time past a certain point. Also, there needs to be a severe limitation -- with no way around it -- on how many resources a player can take on any one trip. If even one exploit allows people to get around those limitations the entire system falls apart, so they'd have to be more diligant about pursuing exploits then they've ever been in the past.
3. Danger. You're going to have to defend yourself on that trade route. Otherwise it's just a boring trudge across the world.

If all those conditions aren't met you have at best a broken feature and at worst a massive exploit which can ruin the economy of the game in short order.
Unfortunately, with the kind of player base I see in EQ2 I just don't see that happening. No fast travel? I wouldn't mind but I think most players would be up in arms. No global broker? Likewise.
Basically, if you want to have a realistic aspect of the real world (i.e. midaeval style trade routes), you may have to bring in other aspects of the real world to make it work (no instant travel, local markets only). If people could instantaeously teleport from one part of the real world to another -- and carry huge amounts of raw materials with them -- trade routes would have never arisen.

Gilasil wrote:

[Someone replied!] Yes, I agree with you; however, I think the system I outlined above can also work (basically, economies and resource-trading is automatic (driven by AI) and influenced very slightly by players (enough to notice)).

Few ideas from a 13 years EQ1 vet and EQ2 raider.
I heard many times they were planning to base EQ3 on EQ1 game mechanics. I think they should base on more than combat mecanics.
1- Bazaar really screwed up EQ1 economy back in SoL (SoL = Shadows of Luclin) release. They should do a system similar prior to SoL. Qeynos market, freeport market and such. Trade routes is a cool concept, maybe players could pay a big extra fee for items, let's say from other cities markets to force them travel a bit.
2- Bring back racial postives/negatives bonuses that DO make a diference in the gameplay. Would be great along with class/race limitations like in EQ1 I'd like to see racial faction back and races starting in their actual (based on lore) cities. Actually, anyone can make any class of any races. That being said, we don't see much trolls and some others as we used to back in EQ1. Ogres mages......heck NO, they are supposed to have the IQ of a cat based on lore (trolls as well).
3- Pls, no bells or PoK travel system, that makes the game feel a LOT smaller than it actually is. Based on rumors saying EQ3 will be zoneless (on big massive zone), might be great to actually travel long distances if they do input some contested raid/group encounters around the world. That would ensure so flexibilty and sorta prevent perma camping. *cough* EQ2 Avatars
4- EQ2 spell systems (apprentice, adept, etc....) is really great and similar to 71+ EQ1 spells system (with RK I/II/II spells) They should keep that BUT having to quest/buy/kill for spells like in EQ1 was interesting. That would prevent people to have all top tier abilties few hours after lvl cap increase (took me 3 hours to get my 6 91-92 masters with rares and SC lol) Doing that would also force people to do zones until they get what they need in order to progress. For those who played EQ1, remember what was happening when you were casting lvl 50 spells on lvl 65+ mobs....spell RESISTED lol. While talking about spells, bring back spell FIZZLE!
5- EQ2 tradeskills system is prolly the best one so far in the whole MMO industry, should be pretty much the same for EQ3 imo. EQ1 system was long, painful and a plat sink. (try raising smithing to 200 without spending 20k+ plats) Make TS items more valuable like Banded armor/cultural recipes used to do back in the days. (new cultural armor are sick btw)
6- Game mechanics, pls no flaming, only my 2cp worth here. I think EQ2 is WAY too much button mashing and math/gear related rather than actual player skills. Sorry, a lvl 90+ player need 10 mins to figure a solid casting line with simple math (or excel) and with lil gear, you can rank up in the top of your server easily (dps wise). I tried Tera and I like the action system combined with the hotbars. Yes there is still buttons mashing but at least you gotta pay attention to whats going on around you.
7- AA system in EQ2 is a BIG fail imo. 320 AAs, come on. Each class as like 2-3 main AA setup, rest is garbage. Go look sks or guards or any other class, they all spec up the same. EQ1 was much more flexible BUT of course, some AAs were plain useless *cough* innate stat increase Not saying, make a 10k AA cap like EQ1 but few thousands AAs give us more chances to be different from the crowd if we wish too while remaining good for raid/groups.
8- Gear tag. Pls for the love of god, NO attunable gear in EQ3. When the system been implemented in EQ1, ouch, consequences were horrible. Looking at actual high-end gear in both game, you gotta spend HUGE amount of plats on that gear and rather than reselling it (to someone who can't afford newer stuff, or for an alt when new gear comes out) we gotta trash it and start over again. On the good side of the attunable system in EQ1, old school gear (now called twink gear) worth TONS of money and bring players back to old zones. Small side not: Trakanon is still perma camped nowadays as an example. BPs off him sells for 5-10k plats daily.
9- About gear itself. I like that fact that high end raid gear did and still require TS combines. Gives a signifiant importance to tradesikllers friends. Pls, get back to old EQ1 stats system where WIS do gives resists, Charisma changing market prices and such...

Should be enough for now

Darkholis wrote:

Gilasil wrote:

Awe

http://www.businessinsider.com/psyc...-for-you-2012-6

IMMERSION NOT STYLIZED CLOWN LOOKS: Please, please please DO NOT HEAVILY STYLIZE the player and mob models. Nobody wants Arnold Swarzenagger shoulders and arms on Pewee Herman hips and legs. No 8 foot long swords or staffs that could double as lamp posts. Leave the rediculosity and cartoony look and feel for non-immersive games. It doesn't make anyone feel powerful or epic ... it makes us feel like Bozo or Ronald McDonald.
SIDEGRADES: Building on what we know of Planetside 2 from E3, I would fully support the concept of "sidegrades" that allowed people to endlessly improve their character's flexibility (for raiding, grouping, soloing, pvp'ing, tradeskilling, etc.). I would even be on-board with allowing a single-character to train multiple classes as long as they had to play one class at a time and could only switch in town or something. (No good pvp'ing someone then having them switch classes 30 seconds later to revenge-gank you). Maybe unlocks might be secondary conditions for your spells, such as damage + either X, Y or Z, where X adds a no-cloaking condition, Y adds mana drain, and Z adds a snare.
SPELLBOOK: It would be nice if you could learn 50 spells in your spellbook but had to choose which 12 to put in your skill slots. Sort of an ultimate-respecc'ing of all 50 skills for that particular class, but you couldn't do it on the fly. Again, something you could only to in town maybe? This would allow people to mold the class into what they wanted to play, whether that was a hybrid role or a specialized role, while still enabling constant character improvement that is not game-breaking. New spells do not need to be better. This would make it console-friendly without dumbing it down for PC players.
ONE CHARACTER: The idea of interchangability and sidegrades opens up letting one character learn 2 different classes. So you have and love your Ratonga Ranger, but want to play with a friend who is leveling up and needs a Mystic, so you just go to town and activate your Mystic build and you are the same level as him while still being the same Ratonga with the same name and all of your other friends can find you. No need to switch main's, just activate your Ranger spec in town and hop back onto your max level content. No room on the raid for another Ranger, no problem, you just activate your old Shadow Knight spec for tonight's raid. Similar to leveling up multiple toons, but you never lose anything and your one beloved name stays with you.
ILLUSIONS: People want to look COOL! Sell the ability to customize your look with illusions. Maybe someone really wants to be an ogre but feels the need to have the smallest possible player model for PvP, so they buy a re-usable shrink illusion to be small for PvP. Sure, they'll bounce around the tavern in their ginormous hamfisted double-flaggon-toting full ogre glory, but out on the battlefield, they use the illusion form to be competitive. If the smallest someone could ever be is the size of a halfling, then there's no requirement to make a fae/arsai just to be smaller than a dark elf.

• Access to EQN in the browser through Gaikai, or whatever cloud-based service Sony-Sony decides to use
• The monetization and expansion of music in MMOs: After hearing the composition created (especially) for the zone, players can choose to enable a stream of tracks which are often initially created independently of the game by many artists and bands -- these tracks are applied after being vetted by devs, so that all in-game music remains appropriate to the in-game regions; this endless supply of music is pulled from a service like Pandora -- and the title of the track is displayed on-screen alongside a briefly-appearing embedded link which (upon selection) launches the in-game music store/iTunes/browser; there is a cornucopia of appropriate "epic" and "new age" music.

I disliked the movement in Tera and the cursor. I dislike the FPS feel of Tera. Running around and clicking the mouse is really no different than clicking a hot button. Makes it feel like playing Diablo3 not a "real" fantasy type EQ mmo. I just did not care for it. I prefer throw back to EQ1/2/Vanguard playstyle.
I REALLY dislike the oversized lance and other weapons of Tera.
I somewhat like the political system of Tera.
Tera is imo an example of hokey dumbed down gaming. Yes i prefer tab or clicking on ext target. I would like to see the various classes taking actions together that buff themselves greatr than the individual could, cause greater combined damage, or what have you.

SWG-esque Crafting (my reply taken from another thread)
It will not work involuntarily, in a one-dimensional way, with rare weapons, hunted items or hunted consumables, or harvestables; but it will with: food, furniture, housing blueprints, decorative items, etc.* The SWG crafting system also works fantastically well with the resource/trade-route system found...[above]... . There is a disconnect: if you can eat it, it ought not to be dropping gear; opponents supply gear -- and even rare-items can be transmuted down into components for crafting: Lord Nagafen may have a powerful armor component that can be combined with other components to make something even more powerful, but you can still gain armor and weapons from (appropriate) opponents; or, not. It can work.
Loot and SWG crafting are not "mutually exclusive". I'd like to see both in a PvEvP structure.
*This gives more flexibility to the SC store: the option to sell the small components of style (like tiles), or as the Germans say, "the thing that goes inside the thing that goes inside the thing". Games are played in HD now (item details).

All the old screenshots of EQnext aren't relevant today. Says Smokejumper. Still, no mention of art-style change.

EQ2/1, both of these games are testbeds for SOEmote. It's highly possible that in EQnext SOEmote can even trace our hand and body movements. (+a mention of pupil dilation!)
SOEmote in EQnext can also be used to implement the so-called 'spellweaving' system. This is still not set in stone, so bear in mind. But also highly possible. =)

They will start releasing much more infos early next year. Of course, December 2012 is also the earliest target month for EQnext team.

SOE keep saying it's revolutionary, not 'evolutionary'.... I'm a bit skeptical at this point, though.


http://www.tentonhammer.com/preview...ote-and-eq-next

http://twitter.com/#!/j_smedley

[...edit...]

Celline-Layonaire wrote:

Even more exciting/amazing than expected!

Make it for PCs only not door-brick consoles. Get a real computer if you want to play EQ3.
Sick and tired of ugly and outdated visuals catering to technology that looks old, stale and outdated [Console games]

Well considering the ForgeLight engine was designed for EQNext and Planetside2, I think it's fairly certain that the graphics will be stellar. For example, here is a lower resolution version of the Planetside 2 trailer they released at E3 where Planetside2 won a ton of awards including best MMO and best shooter from various well known sites like PC Gamer, GameSpy, TenTonHammer, Massively, etc. etc. etc. I think this should remove any reservations about the graphics, because IMHO, it's the most visually stunning game at E3. This video doesn't show it, but the graphics settings go up to 25xx, even higher than 1900 and still provides 60 frames per second in heavy action battles. So, yeah, the engine is fantastic. Let's hope the games are too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_htNqTRnv0
OK, so here is a better resolution video that shows off just the quality of graphics we can expect when EQNext hits.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptGe-UplC34

Vexus@Nagafen wrote:

And a map(a continent, actually) can contain up to 2,000 players fighting all at once currently, so it should be a big plus when it comes to the graphic quality of PS2. If the devs in PS2 team can optimize well, it'd be perfect =)

And agree. I also seriously hope EQnext stay away from the 'photorealism' style which many games seem to have lately.

A few of the main points to consider, as I see it, are the following:
1 - When you have an especially large game world, the most important things to consider are:
a - population density,
b - accessibility vs. unreachable locations and
c - keeping the world "large."
Population density doesn't refer to npc's alone. It's important to ensure that, when you want players in certain numbers in certain areas, they won't be the only people they see in that area. Additionally and alternatively, it's important that those players also do not see *everyone* only in the place they're at. Having noteworthy locations is important, but having plenty of noteworthy locations and arbitrary locations which can be treated as important is also substantial for the social end of a massively multiplayer world. That said, there definitely SHOULD be areas of the game world which might be devoid of npc life until too many surrounding areas are being overrun with players. Most life doesn't *want* to live in the harshest deserts, for instance, but they will if they have no other choice.
Where the world ends and the divisions between player and npc locations is always important for any game. An ideal situation would involve players being limited in both their vertical travel capabilities as well as horizontal, for the sake of creating both the illusion of size as well as the illusion of scale. If you've ever climbed up the outside of a skyscraper (and how many of us have?), they're TALL! While flying mounts may be "desireable" in the players' eyes, they are not actually the most beneficial addition for the sake of the game... Now that I'm done getting sidetracked, by having inaccessible locations of any sort, you can dispel the illusion of having enemies appear out of thin air to respawn (in general) and have them either climb down from tall cliffs or crawl out from under areas you might not have thought to look otherwise.
Now, when it comes to keeping a world feeling "large," the first thing that comes to mind is teleportation. You've investigated every nook and cranny of the world, so returning at some point should not be as difficult, right? WRONG! The instant travel is no longer a "chore" is the same instant in which the world has become tiny and insignificant. It doesn't matter how large the world is if traveling around no longer involves traveling. This brings me back to the point about population density. Any specific points of easy travel (whether it be teleportation or automated travel of any nature) will result in a large grouping of players near those points. After all, if you have to travel back for any reason, isn't the best place to go the one reached the soonest?
Moving on...
2 - Day/Night cycles in a persistent world
Let's say you're a more casual player. You generally always play a little per day or two, and generally in the same time frame on those days. This often means that you're getting into a game at the same time every day in-game time. You log in during the in-game daytime and you'll always log in during the in-game daytime. Maybe it's just me, but that seems really boring. From my perspective, the best length of time an in-game day could be would be a prime number, to ensure the longest possible period of time before the cycle would finally repeat itself. Additionally, with a single game world, this could also support the potential for "time zones" of a sort in the game world.
3 - Quest systems
I don't even know where to start with this trainwreck. While the typical quest systems of these days is certainly the most supportive of the casual player's "What was I doing last time?" approach, it really doesn't fit with the concept of a constantly moving, constantly changing massively multiplayer environment.
Also, the simple "Go here and do this" format is fairly uninspiring. Sure, there may be some npc's in the world who need supplies, but that's no reason for them to still care equally to receive those same supplies ("Bring me bear hides which you can't obtain unless you have my quest!" ... no. Just, no.) from the 12,000th person to come their way. If you have what they want already, they should gladly accept them. If they don't want them, then they don't want 'em.
4 - Player community and information availability
For the sake of the company making the MMO, DO NOT be the ones to provide all the information. The best thing for almost any game is for a player community to build itself. When the players take a strong interest in a game, they will form and strengthen the community themselves. Telling players why to keep playing is a far cry from players telling themselves to keep playing.
Additionally, when players want to know every detail and every facet about what every item in the game does for their character, DON'T TELL THEM! Let the community guess and speculate. If something goes so far as to say it provides melee haste, don't state how much. Let the players figure that out for themselves. Even better, make it inconsistent. Then, players will be able to argue and research and build upon the growing community. If this means that players are making "incorrect" assumptions about what works best for their "min-max" strategy, it's all the better! If one player wants to insist that their equipment is a step above someone else's and the other vehemently refuses to accept that point of view, GOOD!
Additionally, part of an effective player community means: DON'T PROVIDE IN-GAME MAPS!
If any maps are going to exist in the game, they should be as simple as possible or, instead, something made BY the players. Link player-made maps to their account and create an exchange system to copy someone's map to another player. Then you can have a new facet of the in-game economy. Either way, don't put a marker on the map to say "I AM HERE!" It kills the immersion in the game world. Learning one's own way around is excellent for a game's growth. If you get lost in a maze, learn your way through the maze. If you learn your way through and, in fact, someone knows and shows you a better way, excellent!

Well, I guess this is a good start for now.

Yeah. Another thing I really hope for EQnext is that the world should be vast. I mean, with such a powerful engine like Forgelight and their strong emphasis on 'seamlessness and massive', EQnext's Norrath should at least be the size of Just Cause 2's chain of islands.

Personally, really really fed up with such game directions like "a moderate-sized world with jam-packed objects, contents, and attention to detail everywhere." Rocks, pebbles, grass, flowers, objects, quests within every step.......aww just doesn't feel like a 'world' to me. Even with such a vast world, there always will be many conveniences and clever tricks to prevent players from waiting 30+ minutes just to meet with group members or to get a desirable quest.

A detailed night sky: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNCORT6JBAc

With constellations exclusive to Norrath (and useful to the astronomy social-profession).