Should there be multiple starting areas?

Fans can make up all kinds of false claims no matter what the devs say.
You can believe whatever you want.

I understand your point 100% Dygz, as I was in a raiding guild in WoW. This line still made me chuckle a bit the last several hours....









I'm sorry man, but I haven't laughed this much in a long time

Ok, I'm having too much fun...






and finally...due to work piling up...

Like anti-gravity, wait. I think we need to rename anti-gravity , because wouldnt that make you fall up?

And that car-plane thing scares me lol

Nobody will steal it because they won't be sure they can drive it!

I agree with you but I also believe that especially with this video they have made it clear enough as to why they choose one starter area with tutorial only.

What I do think is best with this topic is to convince SoE that a tutorial is not necessary for all players. Many of us have been playing online games for longer than a decade by now or have enough years of experience to not need tutorial levels. Dave Georgeson claimed in the video there is a need for a tutorial, "it is a given it has to happen" he even said, and I think that is just not true. This MMO is not going to be vastly different from other MMOs we can't do without a tutorial. Most games or most programs boil down the same mechanics or at least rather similar. How many of us even read any of the tutorial pop-ups in games or feel we truly need those? I never read them. Heck, if one looks at how especially men are depicted in TV-shows as to never use manuals I don't see why there is an absolute need for it. Even if some men and women who need tutorials it being optional doesn't take anything away from anyone.

Another problem I have with the supposed need for a tutorial is that it completely goes against one of the cores of Next, namely the dynamic nature of the entire game. The game is not supposed to be static and yet a tutorial is. Why should someone who may start playing this game a year after release go through the same exact tutorial and thus the same exact story as everyone before him, if the world outside of the tutorial is not static? I think there is too much chance the story will not align with the state of the actual world after a bunch of Rallying Calls and the dynamic effect the Emergent AI may have on the world. I absolutely don't want to see the tutorial restrict anything in the game and I can already see it restrict even their Holy Grails.

I think the developers also need to ask themselves do we truly want to create a new type of MMO or do we want to deliver most of the same as other developers do. At SoE Live last year they made it appear they did dare to question the direction of previous iterations of Next and yet most of their responses to the videos have been about creating another "modern" MMO. What is setting Next apart from all other MMOs? Maybe the Emergent AI and destructibility of the world but that seems to be all that is truly different. I have said it before, with people hating me making that comparison but I believe it to be absolutely true, I believe the developers are making a Guild Wars 2.5. So much of what I hear from the developers sound eerily similar of what ArenaNet told us before the release of Guild Wars 2. However, this is not remotely the impression I got from SoE Live. Just changing a few minor things while still rewarding in the same way as is done in games like Guild Wars 2 you aren't revolutionary but evolutionary. The evolution towards the single player online game.

In short, the direction this game is headed to is not revolutionary but evolutionary. And I believe that is a huge shame and somewhat of a sham. I expected more from SoE. I have a friend who always talks highly of Everquest versus WoW, SoE versus Blizzard but all I am seeing is more of the same. If I wanted the same I wouldn't even be here. I am done with playing the same exact MMO in a new skin every other year. I am done with the demand for convenience from gamers who will still leave after at most three months while leaving yet another MMO in the dust. It is time developers look into making a game last instead of caving into the demand for convenience which only leads to players leaving in droves in a short amount of time because there is nothing to do.

I just don't see how a dev team could only associate a starting area with a tutorial. If the vast majority of the polled players recognize the difference between the two, why couldn't the devs? Why couldn't they just state "tutorial" instead of starting area? Did Dave actually means he prefers a really polished tutorial over multiple unpolished tutorials?

My homeland in every PnP RPG I have ever played was never a series of simple tasks the GM assigned me to show me the ropes of the game. EQ didn't have a tutorial at launch, and that game truly was a departure from every other fantasy genre game that had come before. I understand they are trying to appeal to a new audience - but WoW already got that "new player" audience. I'm not sure they are going to get as many truly new MMORPG players as they'll be getting disgruntled expats from other MMO's.

Make it quick, make it simple, make it separate and make it optional. Let me get right into the action, don't force me to learn how to open my bags

Shhhhhh. You're going to put all kinds of crazy ideas in my head....

But yes, I did hear it being explained as an alternate reality. The only... Hmm. ok, this is a bad way of putting it, but the only 'physical link' was supposed to be the underworld, the 'afterlife'. EQ1 EQ2 and EQN all share the same 'shadow realm'. I believe they did that with something particular in mind, maybe even some sort of crossover events, but exactly what, I am not sure. It seems a tenuous link, at best.

oh god, I hope not... Is this from the ebooks? This is the first I'm hearing about it. I enjoy game lore, but bad lore like this just kills it for me. I'd rather they just come out and say "we're not following the previous lore from EQ1/2 and instead we're doing our own thing with the same IP" than try to make up some lame "alternate reality shadow realm" boondoggle.

Viper, Banecat is correct. EQ1, EQ2 and EQN are all alternate realities (EQ2 at one time was part of EQ1's future, until they realized they could still produce another 10 expansions, so they came up with the alternate reality timelines). EQN though is a true departure from the lore. All three connect up in the Ethermere. It has to do with the Sleeper trying to not only destroy his own reality in EQ2, but all the known realities.

Why does a tutorial have to be static for more than 3 months at a time?
It's not possible for the tutorial to change along with the rallying call storylines?

Hmm.. okay. I didn't follow EQ2's lore enough to know they changed it. I remember EQ2 being the future Norrath of EQ1 after a major cataclysm. This was during pre-release and right after. I didn't follow that game much after that. Personally, I just pretend EQ2 didn't happen

Why put that much effort into something meant to be used only once by each player?
Resources could be better spent elsewhere. Would experienced players choose to replay a different tutorial when they could be actively playing the game?

To match the story. If the story portion changes with each new rallying call, it may not be used only once per player.
Again, depends on the specific concept of tutorial. Just as it depends on the specific concept of starting area.

Sometimes I think that MMOs are so constricted by current paradigms, and that like Ice Queens SOE should just let it go let it go because there is No day but today.

If separate from the game, no need to add it to storyline. Personally, I'd hope they would give us more than tutorials built into rallying calls. I'd rather build some doors

Most designs aren't necessary - it's up the devs' vision.
The EQNext devs appear to have starting area connected to the Rallying Call/server story since they've stated that newbies may start in a new area depending on the location of the new Rallying Call or the altered status and level of danger of the old starting area.
What that means in terms of tutorial we don't know, since it's unclear what the devs have in mind for a tutorial.

I hope the dev's get some glasses for that vision. Starting areas tagged to rallying calls is a good idea. Tutorials being included in that vision - maybe its time for a new brainstorming focus group.

So we begin our journey in one of the many starting areas.

We learn how to play.

A Rallying Call is eventually issued... The boundaries of a Rallying Call have not been mentioned, thus, to me, this means multiple main cities could be built at the same time in one Rallying Call, should the building of cities be the RC's main focus. I believe there will only be one RC per city at a given time, but you never know. It would be fun having multiple cities under construction at a time. You get to choose which city you want to help each time you're on, and it will force you to travel and enjoy your surroundings.

Based on actions by players in the surrounding areas, events are triggered, some potentially quite large. We know that through examples given, as we build Halas, enemies attempt to stop it's completion with a Siege. We know not of what happens while building Qeynos or any other city as of yet.

Not everyone will be there when a City is finally built, when the last enemy is slain in battle and the banner raised. It may occur when you're not home or as you sleep.

I, for one, would very much enjoy a main cities influence on their surroundings to depend on how many players contribute to that cities overall growth. Clearing out forests, defeating nearby enemies/monsters that would inhibit a cities from extending its boundaries beyond the city walls. Perhaps even one day extending the cities walls.

I am very much in the 'optional tutorial' camp. I do NOT want to replay the same starting sequence every time I decide to roll a new character (AND THAT WILL BE OFTEN) nor do I particularly care to 'learn the ropes' past maybe an OPTIONAL guided tour of the UI or any oddball features/tools that may be in the game.