Contested content: yea or nay?

That's why I think first kills of X don't/won't mean as much since that mob could never spawn again. EQ was EQ. EQN is EQN. Those that are clinging to the problems of EQ that they loved i think will be disappointed that they can't spawn camp everything.

Being an old school EQ raider from way back who now has full time grown up job and responsibilities, this question was very difficult for me.

I really enjoyed logging into EQ knowing my guild planned to do something exciting, but not knowing what that might be. It depended on what was up and what we could get to first. We were one of 3 top guilds on our server and our guild leaders had worked out compromises with the others. I understand that is less likely to happen these days. However, there was plenty of content to go around so we never suffered from a lack of exciting things to do. That may have been killing a dragon or avatar or it may have been a 10th ring war for someone. Contested content doesn't just mean top guilds fighting over the right to slay dragon x, it also means that more casual players can often watch from a safe distance, which can be a lot of fun.

I have played modern MMOs with instances or non-contested content and I have to say, I hate it. I hate that it's repeatable, I hate that it's always available, and I hate that it's invisible to the rest of the world. That content might as well be a mini game within the game for all the difference it makes in the world.

I have also played modern MMOs with open world content that was cooperative, like Rift and Warhammer Online. I found that kind of inclusivity to be conducive to making friends and alliances, but it watered down the rewards.

I voted for a good mix because I understand that some instancing can be valuable to creating a personal gameplay experience, but I don't want to sit in a major city and use a random dungeon finder to port me instantly from dungeon to dungeon over and over again.

I'd like to see guilds and groups of people rewarded for exploring the world. If my guild goes raiding, we should either have to happen upon some procedurally generated raid content based upon the fact that we have x number of people wreaking havoc in a particular area or we've dug too deep in the world and just happened upon a lost temple that won't be there next week.

I'd also like open world events that players can trigger, much like that 10th ring war in EQ1.

LOL

Actually taking these round tables at face value. Have you even listened to anything they have said in the panels, interviews, and round table responses? Or just reading the polls, the options, and seeing the numbers? Come on man..wake up.

I play GW2 now also and hate the mass zerging.

Their dungeons are drab and annoying. Some you can skip like half the content. I would rather have instanced with good content then 3 guilds showing up in Woods of Zerg and lagging the hell out of the zone while they all fight each other and train each other (most of the time this takes out players in the zone doing their own thing).

That sounds like an amazingly awful system for a raid. I can't even imagine having that in a guild. It would be incredibly difficult to get a DKP, suicide kings, officer loot council or -any- kind of loot system going if it's just based on some arbitrary contribution system instead of the loot system the guild agrees upon. That, and I was never a fan of 'Everyone wins!' style of play.

your right Mallas especially with using the word "could" depending on quest lines.

I think this whole round table though tells us one thing that has yet to be said and that is, raids will be in game. If my guessing here is right there will be some type of respawns on mobs just not sure of how that plays into it all. Once they give more info on raiding the whole idea of contested content may take on a new light.. only time will tell I guess.

I was there in EQ Classic and for the first 2 expansions also. You are just experiencing classic nostalgia. .. because that was all you knew back then. Had a game like WoW with instanced content came out before EQ, you would think much differently about wasting hours setting up groups, hours getting corpses, hours waiting, waiting, waiting, dying to a bug, losing 3 hours of grinding.. it goes on.

And it's not like instanced content means all that content is consumed and irrelevant within weeks.

WoW vanilla had instanced dungeons and raids.. but did you see the content consumed immediately? It took months and months of grouping / dungeons just to get ready for WoW raids.. and only a very small portion of WoW players even experienced vanilla raiding. Even the 1st WoW expansion.. only like 1% of the population ever seen the end game raids. ONE PERCENT. (I read a statistic on that awhile back..)

Maybe today's wow = kill end game raid a day after maxing your level.. but not vanilla or even 2nd expansion.

I would like to see the EQN dungeons / raids be extremely difficult. Not stupid hard where you give up over failed mechanics, but require a long long road of collecting gear and maxing out before you could even complete it. That is a rewarding journey.

Well, if that is what they are talking about, Instancing vs. "Static" World, well... from all descriptions of the game we have received so far would indicate that the "Static World" is anything but static and Instances would be the real static element.

Non-instanced content does promote competition, as you say, but it also promotes cooperation. Instanced content is pretty much asocial and doesn't promote either competition or cooperation. Instanced content should be reserved for required/semi-require content and everything else should remain outside of instances.

I gave it some thought before I said anything, but... I don't know; think about what they said about taking down a Dragon. "Bring more people." At first many people took that as meaning simply Zerg based combat. However, "Bring more people" wouldn't work if bringing more meant they don't get credit as they are hitting a contested (Tagged) mob, so why would the "more people" show up?

We also don't have static spawns now, so camping or fighting over (contested) loot isn't really a possibility either.

I'll wait for voting till I see what they are really talking about.

If they mean Orcs or mobs controlling an area and causing content be "contested"; I like that.
If they mean resource nodes are a first come first serve "contest" then YES!

I remember the good old days back in EQ1 when we would have to make a break for Veeshan's Temple before another guild wiped out all of the dragons in there. Although it was a rush and was fun trying to compete like that, it was also frustrating how long it took for the content to repopulate. It was extremely rewarding though if you made it there and downed the dragons. I think in todays gaming community people will feel like contested content to that extreme will ruin their end game experience. End game content, in my opinion, is the most important content of the game. Why you might ask? It's the most important because if the game gets stagnant at max level and after you have multiple alts at the max level, if there isn't enough content to hold you over until reset then you go looking for other games or just quit playing the one you are currently on. This ties into the whole contested or not thing. If you have to wait a week to try and clear contested content because others got there first just to find out that it happens again next week, it will make people want to leave. I really really miss Everquest. I tried to get back into it, but it is so old and the graphics and controls are so bad compared to what is currently available that I just can't get back into it. I am hoping EQ Next brings back my thirst for Everquest. Hopefully the developers pay close attention to the controls and their ease of use. SWTOR has a good system in place for character control and ability control.

The polls in general have been really poorly worded, and I wish they would take the time to think about how people would take them. *shrug* This looks like it's obviously PvE to me, because most of these don't make sense for PvP, and yet some people seem confused about the question.

I don't see drama as a bad thing. It builds character in the community. People end up understanding that they're part of a bigger living system. If they rage quit, then that's their problem.

You are fixated on "achievement" being the act of just being somewhere. That's not it. Achievement happens when you earn something tangible that stays with you, making your character unique.

If the game provides enough content then there will always be side-projects you can tackle.

And yeah on the instancing, that is true and also unfortunate. Instancing excels at disconnecting and isolating players from the living world.

I assume there will be certain static raid mobs but those MAY be in instances. But after their alluded to crafting being something huge in the game. I have a feeling almost nothing will be static.

Yeah, I agree with you. It is not clear. I will hold off voting, until I am sure what they are talking about.

People, do you realize that there *WONT BE STATIC SPAWNS?*

You can't wake up at 3 am, because there won't be someone waiting for 7 hours at the same spot. Mobs are *NOT* going to be in the same place, they will be moving around.

Please don't take something out of the game because of a simple wish for convenience.

Ever played SWG? Mobs would be ANYWHERE between certain locations and we had to HUNT for them. There was no staying and waiting for hours. They didn't drop loot either... they dropped stuff to CRAFT items.

When I think of "contested content", I think more of: You have to turn in a quest to so-and-so in a small camp in the karanas..but they have been run out by a band of orcs, you must clear that area to complete said quest.

However, it can been seen in a PVP type of play style but I don't think thats what they are talking about here. If they are, then I would restrict it to certain locations and/or servers. There has to be some type of contested content. It makes the play style a lot more fun.

The old "i want that too" stuff.
Pro: Contested Content makes the most and the most entertaining pickup groups.
Having to wait for a mob - can be fun for an evening or a lunchbreak.
Con: OMFG i DO remember camping for certain mobs for a whole week and when they finally popup some *curse* person comes along and whooof you wait again because someone just managed to intercept.

Additionally a "contested" system where many folks can try to get a mob down and according to hintcounter / damage counter there is an "evenly" spread loottable (which again would be interesting to balance on healers..).

So concluded: Yes, please both of it and design it thus so that we are able to enjoy at least a bit of the "hard works results" on the contested ones.

I think having everything as a chance of being contested content is very important to a sandbox game. Since the world and even the inhabitants are so dynamic, people won't be able to camp in the area the entire time waiting for the content to repsawn. All of the content should be out in the open wandering the world, waiting to be discovered. Even if the content can be contested for, the dynamics help to reduce some of the strife.

The idea should be similar to "first come first served" where whoever is either lucky enough or willing enough to try and find content, should have the first crack at it. IF another group of people happens to discover it before the content is gone, they should also have a chance at it.

The separate groups can and should interact with each other, possibly resulting in conflict or perhaps a deal could be struck; this is very very important to a sandbox game. We NEED to be able to interact with each other, even if it results in conflict. If we have PvP servers then it will probably result in a battle but for the PvE servers we will have to find a different resolution.

If the developers decide to introduce a lot of contested content again, I suggest implementing mechanics or systems that help promote or resolve conflicts over contested content possibly in a diplomatic way.

How would that work in a world where there are no static spawns, no static Raid bosses and no static camp spots for loot? Guilds can't set up and plan to hold a spawn location nor could they technically plan for "Server firsts" as the AI drives the spawns randomly..? Right?

I'm not disagreeing as I agree and miss those things; but I don't think that's what they were asking when applying what they have said so far about how the game works.

So far it seems they've gone out of their way to make it more difficult and go back towards EQI, going off of the panels and interviews. They're not trying to chase casuals away but they're definitely trying to bring back some of the old school feel. They've already said that a normal map won't work in their game, we're bringing back true night where you're going to need a light to see in a lot of places, we don't have exclamation points over NPCs and such again.. These are all things that are taking us back to the way MMOs used to be. *shrug* I would be absolutely -astounded- if they ended up going with a contribution system where 'everyone gets something'. It's not their style at all, and not at all the impression I've gotten from videos, panels, interviews and such.

I expect we'll see more contested content than anything, because they've said they don't like instances.