Slashdot Mirror
Everquest 2 Launches
Though it's being drowned out by the Halo 2 news, Everquest 2 officially launches today. RPG Vault has a review available for perusal, GamerFeed has a hands on look, and if you're looking for crunchy, low fat coverage Gamespy has an interview with Heather Graham about her role in the game. If you're already tripping the light fantastic in Qeynos check out GamerGod's Qeynos Quest feature, or just cut out the middle man and look forward to the first content on Allakhazam. Finally, F13 provides usefully cynical commentary about the beta and launch of the game.
Despite the obligatory misleading text in the Slashdot header (patent pending)... The RPG vault article is NOT a review. Heck, they aren't even willing to call it a preview. Its a "first first impression piece" and very low on content.
Paid beta is a PERMANENT condition in MMORPGs.
;)
You should nkow that by now
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
Hey now, if there were 100 slashdot users, and usage drops 72% because of EQ2, then there are 28 users left over. Then WOW comes out, and it drops another 36%, that's just over 1/3 of those 28 users, so now it's down to 18 users.
See, it all makes sense. Unless he meant 36% of the original 100, which would be loony.
Beta has to be a permanent condition, it is hugely organic process in adaptation of the code to match the players.
The first release will, and can only be, a best guess to how the game will react under such continuous, and unpredictable user behaviour.
And while EQ1 may have been they game that ruled them all (for a while) EQ2 is hopefully going to be a major failure for SoE.
Why? Well in game play terms its a massive step backwards...locked encounters, limited number of classes (basically 4 with a bit of flavouring to make it look like more),poor options for solo play, no pvp etc. etc.
I couldnt help but feel that the game was designed by SoEs accounts and customer service departments with the sole purpose of minimising the main reasons for CS calls....Oh but it IS visually STUNNING and almost up there with morrowwind in the audio department, but even so I couldnt help but feel it was the most shallow gameplay experience I had in many years.
Part of the fun of online games is doing things for the first time. If you wait a year, yes you may avoid a few bugs but you will be missing out on the most interesting time of the game when everything is new and exciting.
Except that with SOE's tendency toward "supermodel" releases (they look pretty but have no content), you won't miss the opportunity to do all that new stuff until at *least* six months after launch.
You'll just not be sick of staring at the prettiness when you do finally jump in.
In other news, you can finally fly spacecraft in SWG, just 200% longer after release than originally stated...
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
Where it takes a real time year to get from level 1 to 50? (As opposed to a the month it should take)
;-) and I'm level 25 (almost 26!) which seems about right to me. If I get a solid block of a few hours and a good group, and I have a lot of rested exp saved up, I can get a level or so in one sitting... that feels about right. I make enough progress to feel like I got somewhere even when I can't dedicate a whole lot of time, but it's not so quick as to feel trivial when I get a new level. The pacing is really quite good as far as I'm concerned.
"Should" according to...?
A year is probably too long, but a month is way too short, for my satisfaction. I've been playing WoW for a couple months, very casually, because I have a four-month-old baby to take care of
Now, if you have no life, and play 40 hours a week in long uninterrupted blocks, you might make 50 in a month. But I wouldn't want to be you, if that was the case.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
Beta has to be a permanent condition, it is hugely organic process in adaptation of the code to match the players.
The first release will, and can only be, a best guess to how the game will react under such continuous, and unpredictable user behaviour.
Now, I'm the first to say that an MMOG is never finished; if it is, there's something wrong. I basically agree with your statement. BUT...
After being in the EQ Luclin beta, and playing on Test server for 2 years, and playing the last bit of beta and the first several months of release of SWG, and then playing a bit of the WoW beta, I've come to realize that you really, really, REALLY can do better than SOE at creating a game. Yes, it is possible to realize that people are going to exploit something and fix it in advance sometimes. Better yet, it is actually possible that, even when you *didn't* forsee an exploit, you can fix it RIGHT AWAY, rather than simply penalizing people randomly and capriciously for using it for months before breaking the exploited thing as to make it not useful to anyone.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
EQ2 is very similar to EQ.
That is by far the best review I have heard. It cuts the fore play and gets down to the heart of it. Though, you could have made it even easier and simply said GRIND.
MMORPGs have been absolutely disgusting in how they utterly ignore the potential that exists. Every single MMORPG, yes, even WoW, relies on the never ending quest to level up. I personally can't wait for the day when someone makes a serious MMORPG that doesn't subsist off people being obsessive and compulsive. I fucking hate leveling and practicing skills. The day they cut out these things is the day that MMORPGs open up to a massive new market of no OCD gamers.
The last guy said:
Insert some boring technical details about tweaks to EQ's basic level for the sake of leveling gameplay here.
Here is the problem with MMORPGs. They are currently about leveling. Period. They are the types of games where if you told someone that today your level will be frozen, they would quit their account on the spot. The entire point of the game is to get more levels. Obviously some people love this dumb crap and are more then happy to shell out 15 a month for it. Good for them. That said, the market for this kind of OCD game play is limited. You will never get me to play a game where the point of the game is to gain levels, get more spells and shits... so that you can gain more levels. That sounds like some sort of sick test you perform on rats, not humans. The fact that people can not conceive of a world without levels is utterly scary, and I hope that developers have equally as limited imaginations.
How do you build a world without levels? Simple, build a world based upon player skill, and offer a variety of player skill sets to pick from. Hell, just make a list of player skills and make it so that the game has games to accommodate them.
Twitch skills - Simple enough, make some combat based upon twitch skills. Acrobatic classes in particular would be very well suited for a 'twitchy' game play.
Tactical skills - Make it so that magic or some other element of combat is based upon tactics. Creating a complex magic system would go a long way to do this. Imagine if when a mage casts, every spell they cast results in good and bad side effects for many other spells.
Example: A mage starts by casting a spell that makes cold spells more likely to catastrophically fumble, and also has the side effect of making fire spells more powerful. He then starts to cast a fire spell that does damage to his opponent, but also leaves him weaker to cold spells. His opponent realizes what tactic is being used and so casts a spell that drastically delays the effect of fire spells from kicking in, giving him time to try and alter the effect into something more pleasant. Rinse and repeat. Instead of making it so that every spell is a boring +10 fire damage, all spells have massive draw backs. Two or three minutes of fighting like this and there could be a few dozen effects that both mages need to consider before spam casting at each other. They might even slow down, stop and think a little before casting. The game becomes far more tactical then just nuking the shit out of the other guy as fast as possible.
Puzzle Skills - Make the crafting system based on something like puzzle pirates or some other type of puzzle.
Social Skills - Create a complex political and leadership system. Throw in some sulk and dagger stuff in to give the twitch and tactical people some fun.
Strategic Skills - Have it so that leaders need to make complex overall decisions about resources and strategic defense and fighting. A person might rise through the social ranks to gain some grand strategic position. Hell, offer lower level strategic positions so that one guy can operate a local mine or what not. Make it so that there is actual depth to decisions, like a financial sim. Let people create trade guilds or other organizations of that nature.
Role playing skills - Throw the role players a bone and let them participate in a moderate in character senate or public debate.
PvP - Give the PvP people an outlet. Have actual wars. No, not those stupid free for alls of WoW and DAoC. Make it so that people can form marching lines. Combine strategy, tactics, and good old fashion twitching once the lines break apart.
Sneaking skills - Create a Thief life game to give the sneakers something to do.
My point? Levels are far from needed. You could build an action oriented MMORPG with all the fillings of a normal MMORPG, and do it completely without boring as shit levels. It doesn't have to be ATID, it could be exciting in wa