Contested content: yea or nay?

I'm not actually looking for a quote. I'm questioning your phrasing. When you say "EQN doesn't have...." I raise an eyebrow because the game doesn't actually exist yet. It doesn't have..OR not have....ANYTHING. I don't care if everyone on the SOE Development team has SAID that EQN will have or won't have a certain feature. Until I see implementation it's just jaws flapping. Just because they're SOE doesn't mean every word they say is set in stone. As I'm sure even they will admit, what they think is a great idea and the only way to go may ultimately end up undoable, or just a bad idea once put in context with other decisions.

If you want to say "Devs have said it won't have..." then I'll shut up and go about my business

That's right. I'm talking about the game design as it currently stands.
That's really all we have to talk about.

It's not just what the devs have said, it's also what the devs have shown.

I don't recall suggesting you should shut up.
You get to espouse whatever perspective you wish.

We don't know the game design as it currently stands, because its not out yet.

I'm definitely not trying to be a jerk but I've read and listened to everything I can find on EQNext since SOE live and have not seen this. In what interview did they say this?


not trying to double post, the sever timed out apparently

IGN Interview in Aug.
I linked it in this thread a few days ago.
It's a Terry Michaels quote.
http://m.ign.com/articles/2013/08/09/everquest-next-wants-to-make-you-care-about-other-players

I'm definitely not trying to be a jerk but I've read and listened to everything I can find on EQNext since SOE live and have not seen this. In what interview did they say this?

We know quite a bit about the game design as it currently stands.
We don't know how much might change by game release - if the game actually releases.

If you're talking about who gets credit for the kill that is about the worst system I think ever created. I don't want to constantly be wondering if I'm going to get credit for the mob I'm fighting because some shmuck decides to jump in and kill-steal.

First to tag should own the mob. If other people can help kill it or buff the player, fine (I really don't care much either way on that - pros and cons on each side). How do you propose "whoever is doing the most damage" can lock the mob, when that may change from moment to moment?

First to tag encourages competition, but lets a group know that their opponent is the mob(s) they are fighting - not all the other groups gathered round ready to pile on a sudden surge of DPS once the mobs are all focused on you.

It's kinda funny how often the devs say things that are the polar opposite of Talthion's ideas. Again, EQN doesn't have tagging anyways.

"We're not going to restrict things to an individual."
---Dave

Talthion ideas mostly represent the desire to play a challenging game that will survive far into the future. By catering to the weak and lazy the game will turn out to be another fluff MMO that will struggle to keep a strong player base. I don't agree with all of Talthions post but I agree with the intent.

I have very high hopes for EQNext. Not necessary the game itself but the ideas it will bring to the genre as a whole. Sooner or later a MMO will have the balls to make a game challenging enough that it will explode in popularity compared to other current MMOs.

Don't worry I am sure we will have an MMO where we can quickly travel all over the place, barely speak to anyone, share loot with everyone, never have to worry about losing gear and never have to worry about crafters or competition. We won't have any pvp or any competition and there will only be one bad guy and we can share everything. There will be a giant inventory and we will all share the same equipment so everyone can be happy. When you die in this new MMO you actually get rewarded with gold as well. This prevents a negative feedback loop!

You have a whistle which can call any npc or animal in the game which always drops the best loot. Players have the option to not choose this so its great!

The new matchmaking system will be amazing as well, not only does it match you with exactly the people you need, it skips the middle man and takes you straight to the final boss, giving you the option to kill it and see the final death scene where your characters do the finishing blow.

There is no open world, just waypoints on a map that takes you to pretty areas, however they are just in the way. All instances in the game are "personal" with only match making to see other players and PCs.

There are no crafters, all crafters are npcs who love to play the market and fetch and even do quests for you. You don't have to do anything, just tell the npcs to and they do it for you.

Maybe someone over in Landmark will build it for you

Pathetic, isn't it?

The world will contort and bend itself over to the max, for everyone.

Because this way, players will be instantly gratified!!!!!

Theme park!!! Who cares about world persistence!?!?!?!?!?

Y A Y !!!!!!!!!

Lol, pretty much the best post I've read on these forums yet. I actually lol'd at the part about the NPC or animal will always drop the best loot, but "players will have the option not to choose this". It's so freaking true. This new generation of gamer wants everything so easy mode, and to pacify the group of us that want an actual challenge, the supposed solution is always "an option to not have XX" or "a server with a harder rule set". It's absolutely pathetic what MMOs have become these days. How about just an entire game that's actually challenging, and if you want to play it, you can just nut up and deal with having a fun, challenging game where you actually feel a sense of accomplishment when you succeed?

Some day it will happen. It might be EQN, it might not be. But some day it will happen again.

I can remember playing games when the lvl caps were raised every 6 months or so. One game we had to wait nearly 18 months for the final cap raise. Every day friends and I spent hours on the same map killing the same mobs for that entire 18 months while we waited. If we died we dropped gear out of our inventory and broke our armour/weapons usually beyond being viable to repair. We kept playing because we had built a community and we all worked together to keep ourselves motivated.

Players mourn the past and forget that they are the ones responsible for the changes. They were the ones on the forums screaming because their gear was broken etc. I remember lots of things about old games Ive played that I absolutely loved but I also remember things such as *ruined gear Id spent major hours getting* being ruined and I don't remember those times happily. I'm all for a game being made that I have to take years to actually get to max lvl, I'm so sick of these games where I cap in a few weeks and get bored. I want a game where I log in every day and my guild members greet me like I'm part of the family and they have missed me. I want a game which can't be soloed but doesn't necessarily have to be completed in full parties. I would also like to take years to be able to complete my character, as previously stated I'm over these games that are 6 week wonders.

Sadly I know that won't happen because gaming companies are businesses and need to appeal to the broadest player base possible. So pretty much how they package the game Im pretty sure it will be a theme park game wearing a disguise.

I'm all for contested content because it brings a lot of thrill value to the game however there also needs to be mechanisms in place so that the content can't be controlled by minorities.

I disagree with this. One of the reasons that most love those types of games is because their high most prized moments was all that more special because of the lows they suffered through the game.

With no risk the reward is pretty meaningless and has no special thrill.

Some people who don't get it are going to think this is absolutely pathetic, but....

I played EQ like a fiend, 75% on my main, which I started my first day, for 6-7 years. I played the game with NO interest in end game. I never reached level cap. Ever. Every time I got within a level or two, they'd add an expansion and raise the cap. Which was always FINE with me.

I LIKE a game where progression is slow, where it's much more about what you're doing at any given time and NOT about who has the "best gear" or who has done the greatest progression. EQ used to be that. I hope EQN will be again. That's why I'm here.

If the game is another "Grind for 3 weeks and level cap, THEN start doing the only content anyone cares about"....well, I'd rather just do crossword puzzles or something.

How about people realizing that:
Time Sink != Challenge.
Death Penalty != Challenge.
Slow Travel != Challenge.

You know what does equal Challenge? Challenge.
Challenge = Challenge.

Challenge can come from travel - a maze where you actually get turned around. Withering Lands in EQ 2 is actually good at this. Or a place that's just plain hard to figure out how to get to. WoW had some places like this where you had to use your 'mountaineering' skills to figure out how to climb up there. It was much easier to do in MUD's, but it can be done in an MMO with some creativity. Running an hour through zones where nothing can hurt you to get where you need to be is not challenging, unless you consider you vs. insomnia to be an epic battle.

The main place that challenge comes in is combat - and here is where some of the 'old skool' or self proclaimed 'hardcore' confuse me. Simple, slow combat based on autoattack and the occasional spell is not challenging. Fast paced, decision oriented, multiple ablilities to choose from at any time and mobs that are more than just 'tank and spank' is challenging.

Scripts are a step in the right direction, but once they get figured out the challenge mostly goes away. Until we get real adaptive (not emergent) AI controlling combat though it's probably the best we're going to get. The sort of combat where you could have no death penalty, revive at that spot (not saying that's a great idea), and still not be able to kill the thing after a dozen tries where equally geared and levelled players or groups have succeeded because you, the player(s), aren't good enough.

That is Challenge.

Let the downvoting commence (I'm seriously considering whether or not I should join in the downvoting crusades to to be sure the picture devs get reading these threads is more balanced).

I am more than happy to run the most challenging content out there. What I don't want is part of that challenge to be racing other players. My group/raid should be able to prep and discuss strats and not rushing into something just to get there first.

As usual, you're wrong about pretty much everything.

Shockingly enough, I'm not necessarily the biggest advocate of things simply being a time sink for the sake of being a time sink, but to flat out say that time sinks can't be challenging is just plain wrong. Take crafting in EQ1 for example. To get max level for smithing or tailoring (for the first few years at least), it was the world's most gigantic time sink. It took literally months of non-stop farming to acquire the necessary materials to reach max level, and even then, most people had characters that were many years old and still didn't reach it. It wasn't a challenge in the sense you might be thinking about, but purely being willing to dedicate the sheer quantity of time, money, and effort needed to reach max level in those crafts was absolutely a challenge in its own right. I'm not even saying their crafting system was amazing, but it was absolutely a challenge. I enjoyed it specifically BECAUSE the time sink aspect of it turned off the vast majority of gamers, so I was one of the few who actually dedicated themselves to it and when I did hit max level the sense of accomplishment was immense.

Again, wrong. You might not see the specific penalty as being the challenge, but if you look at the bigger picture it most certainly is. To put it differently, a harsh death penalty makes the overall game more challenging and affects many other aspects within the game. With no death penalty (or something as trivial as WoW has, which is essentially nothing), there's no sense of danger, no fear of death, and you can be careless with your actions. Need to cross a dangerous zone to get somewhere else? No worries, just hop on your horse and run through everything and hope you make it. If you don't, no worries, try again. Unsure of whether or not you can take down that mob that's a higher level than you? Well, with no death penalty why not give it a shot? If you fail, no worries, you've lost nothing.

Now, with a harsh death penalty on the other hand, you're going to second guess those actions instead. Need to cross that zone? Well, for SURE you're going to need to be more careful to avoid mobs (a challenge), maybe you're even going to need to successfully use a specific skill such as sneaking to get where you need to go (a challenge), or maybe you're even going to need to make a tough character decision about whether to take a skill like sneaking versus something else beneficial, making character development a challenge.

You see, most of us who are in favor of at least a semi-harsh death penalty aren't just masochists that enjoy failure. No, rather, we understand that a harsh death penalty can lead to such a more meaningful game overall. The fear of death and the necessity of avoiding it permeates basically every element of an MMO.

Sigh, wrong. Or at least, it doesn't have to mean no challenge. If the options are a) click a stone and instantly teleport half way around the world or b) pay for a horse ride with absolutely zero interaction and nothing meaningful to do while you go afk for a half hour while you wait to arrive at your destination, then sure, that's not a challenge.

But why does slow travel need to be that way? What if instead there were caravans that went from town to town that could hold, say, 5 or 6 people. You could take the caravan solo if you wanted to, or you could split the cost between other adventurers to make it a better deal (social interaction). Then, when on the caravan, perhaps a group of brigands attacks and you need to defend the caravan or face the consequence of having paid for the caravan and not being able to use it for the rest of your journey. Or maybe the caravan has a possibility of breaking down mid journey, and requires you to run out into the woods quick to chop a tree and fasten a new axel before you can continue. Then, while in the woods, you stumble on some fissure that has opened up in the ground that might lead to some random adventure. You could choose to ignore it and just fix the axel to continue on your journey, or maybe you want to just abandon the caravan and go explore the new content you just discovered. Maybe you even have other adventurers in your caravan that you want to party up with right away to go explore what you just found as well before others discover it first.

This is just one quick set of ideas that took me 2 minutes to think up. There are millions of possible things that could happen during "slow travel", including nothing at all. The point being though, it doesn't need to be a boring time sink where you just afk. Stuff can happen. Slow travel can be content itself. Fast travel cannot.

And where are you getting the idea that people want simple autoattack combat with the occasional spell? How does that equate to someone being "old skool" or "hardcore"? Are you just making stuff up now?

Those of us who have played the "old skool" MMOs who want something "hardcore" aren't looking for boring autoattack combat and nothing else. I can't speak for everyone of course, but that also doesn't mean I want hyper ADD cluster****combat either. You play wow in a party or raid, and you don't even know what the eff is happening because abilities are getting spammed so damn frequently. Abilities don't feel significant or meaningful. In MMOs these days, party combat is a collective faceroll of abilities with everything happening at once until whatever you're attacking dies. You don't really need to have a clue what your groupmates are even doing or what their abilities actually even do, you just trust that they are facerolling appropriately. Heck, you hardly even need to know what your OWN abilities even do. Just spam them frequently enough and you'll be ok. I
want to need to know what my group mates are doing. I want it necessary to care what they are doing and understand how it could affect my own actions and vice versa. I want the successful players to actually be better players; those who put in the time and effort to learn the intricacies of the game and have a well rounded knowledge pool.

I fully admit that I want combat slowed down, but that doesn't mean it's going to be more boring. I just want my decisions to be more meaningful and actually matter. For my first couple years of EQ1, I played an Enchanter. The decisions of an enchanter in a group were literally the difference between massive success or catastrophic failure. One wrong spell and your party was wiped. THAT was a challenge. And when you were low on mana, getting adds, casting every last spell the very second you regened enough mana to cast it, barely hanging on and you succeeded anyways, it was exhilarating.

Risk vs reward. Low lows, but high highs. An actual sense of accomplishment when you succeed.

That is challenge, and that's what we want.

This is particularly relevant with the "emergent AI". I am skeptical if it can actually be done after the let down of GW2's "dynamic world" BUT If they can actually pull it off and create a dynamic world then any trip down a road could potentially lead to an unexpected tough fight.