Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Casual or Hardcore- The argument for including both

    • 752 posts
    September 13, 2018 9:54 PM PDT
    The problem these days are progression denials and we all know it. Any open world target will be locked down. This is going to be something that will need fixing. I feel like there is a better solution than instancing and most people agree with me. Lets find a way to allow x many people access without compromising the integrity of open world content.
    • 1315 posts
    September 14, 2018 6:43 AM PDT

    kreed99 said: The problem these days are progression denials and we all know it. Any open world target will be locked down. This is going to be something that will need fixing. I feel like there is a better solution than instancing and most people agree with me. Lets find a way to allow x many people access without compromising the integrity of open world content.

    @Kreed99

    I'm responding to both of your posts as I thought they were both good. I am also going to be a “time limited” hardcore player. When I am on I want to be making the most of my time either leveling, developing my craft, raiding, or advancing an important quest. I will not have a high tolerance for waiting around for things to happen. This includes grouping, trading and to a degree traveling though the actual travel can be something that is time consuming. (For example a 15 minute one way boat trip becomes a 30 minute round trip so if there is only one boat and you just miss it you will need to wait 30 minutes for it to return just to take you 15 minutes across the water, 6 boats will have one leaving every 5 minutes)

    As for the progression denial issue I would like to see raiding progression happen in two ways. First is natural spawns which is similar to old EQ. The second is a forced spawn triggered through sacrificing something that will take a long time to farm. You would not be able to trigger a forced spawn if the head boss was undefeated and mini bosses would respawn much faster if the boss was still alive.

    The spawn trigger would ideally be something that draws from a cross section of the player economy. It could include a certain number of rare drops, a certain number of crafted items from many of the professions, a special dropped item from another triggered mini raid encounter. I could actually see a story line basis that you need to defeat 6 triggerable mini bosses around the world to get all the keys to challenge the main raid, those mini triggers would be where most of the lower level crafted and dropped items would be consumed.

    This way trying, and failing, to defeat mini bosses needed to trigger the main raid will constantly keep a high consumption of different tiers of items rapidly accelerating the game economy. Then if the crafting process takes 5ish minutes per completed item then the raid guild will need to lean heavily on the greater population in order to raid on a schedule vs luck of the spawn.

     

    • 696 posts
    September 14, 2018 8:22 AM PDT

    Spluffen said:

    Watemper said:

    Guess we have two different ideas of what immersion is lol. I guess my immersion is more of an attachment and feeling you are apart of the world. Dark Souls, or WoW, never did that for me. 

    I mentioned Hyjal not because of classic but because that was the only time I remember complaining about the run because WoW held my hand for so long lol.

    No. Immersion is immersion. I don't know what has you immersed, though. Anyway, Dark Souls doesn't hold your hand at all to the point that EQ does, either. EQ has only one thing on both of those games (both of which I consider far superior to classic EQ) and that is that it has a grander vision. An ambitious game ahead of its time, severly crippled by the tech of the time. Both Dark Souls and classic WoW are systematically superior and in the case of Dark Souls even sublime. The latter is so good that in terms of RPGs I'd only put it in the league of Wizardry, Dragon Quest and Might and Magic. Of course completely subjective, just like whatever has one immersed.

    As to not seem like a negative nancy, my point is that handholding or not doesn't automatically translate into how immersive a game is. Realism might? Maybe? I find ARMA quite immersive. Of course it immerses me into something I'd rather not be immersed in. Immersion in games is a buzzword at best and tbh way too subjective to ever be constructive in a discussion.

    Right but immersion has several different ingrediants...Dark Souls only had a few imo.

    • 3852 posts
    September 14, 2018 8:36 AM PDT

    I can't think of higher praise than to compare a CRPG to Wizardry or Might and Magic. Even the first games in those series were ground breaking and immersive by the standards of the time, and they only got much better (with the possible exception of MM9). If Dark Souls is *that* good time to take a look.

    • 1120 posts
    September 14, 2018 11:56 AM PDT

    Raiders only return to previous tiers if there is a reason for it.  Once your guild got to plane of time the only reason you had to go back to T1 and T2 planes was for backflagging purposes.  Once you were clearing time. The only reason you needed to do elementals was for backflagging purposes.

    However.  If you were clearing potime you still wanted to be clearing VT because of the unique items in the zone.  

    If the game is created properly and the tiers of raiding are scaled properly you can effectively have 1, 2 or even 3 tiers of raiding can completely separate each other.  If I'm in T3 and I dont need anything in T1, there's no point in wasting my time killing t1 mobs.  Content denial doesn't matter if there's entire tiers of loot separating guilds.  Killing t1 mobs won't allow you into t3, so there's no point in trying to deny.  

    • 510 posts
    September 14, 2018 12:17 PM PDT

    I think the most difficult thing with this type of post is the very definition of what each of these is.  What IS casual?  What IS hardcore?  I understand that many people believe that someone that plays 18 hours straight is hardcore.  They log in, they have a goal, and at the end of the goal they want to be rewarded with VerySuperAwesomePrize #1.  I get that.  At the same time, a "casual" player may want the same reward but can't manage play sessions such as this due to timing issues etc. (think children, school, life).  But let's say they can play 3 hours at a time over the course of 6 days.  Now they HAVE played the same amount of time.  The amount of effort IS the same.  Why should they not be able to get the same reward?  I have seen "hardcore" players get furious over the fact that a casual player got the super loot due to RNG and situational timing.  I have been the hardcore player that never ever got the ONE item he wanted no matter how long I played trying to get it.  I have always pushed for the use of TIME as part of an algorythm that adjusts RNG based on EFFORT, where EFFORT is TimePlayed towards one specific goal or another.  Still, why should there be any difference between these two "play styles"?

    • 413 posts
    September 14, 2018 1:27 PM PDT

    It's all about what you want to do with your time. At times I want to login and chat with friends and just see whats going on, and stay laid back.  Do some crafting, harvesting and socialize.  If I login on the weekends and have extra time, it time for a nice dungeon crawl.

    The moment you label yourself casual or hardcore, your taking yourself way too serious. 


    This post was edited by Zevlin at September 14, 2018 1:29 PM PDT
    • 303 posts
    September 14, 2018 1:28 PM PDT

    Watemper said:

    Spluffen said:

    Watemper said:

    Guess we have two different ideas of what immersion is lol. I guess my immersion is more of an attachment and feeling you are apart of the world. Dark Souls, or WoW, never did that for me. 

    I mentioned Hyjal not because of classic but because that was the only time I remember complaining about the run because WoW held my hand for so long lol.

    No. Immersion is immersion. I don't know what has you immersed, though. Anyway, Dark Souls doesn't hold your hand at all to the point that EQ does, either. EQ has only one thing on both of those games (both of which I consider far superior to classic EQ) and that is that it has a grander vision. An ambitious game ahead of its time, severly crippled by the tech of the time. Both Dark Souls and classic WoW are systematically superior and in the case of Dark Souls even sublime. The latter is so good that in terms of RPGs I'd only put it in the league of Wizardry, Dragon Quest and Might and Magic. Of course completely subjective, just like whatever has one immersed.

    As to not seem like a negative nancy, my point is that handholding or not doesn't automatically translate into how immersive a game is. Realism might? Maybe? I find ARMA quite immersive. Of course it immerses me into something I'd rather not be immersed in. Immersion in games is a buzzword at best and tbh way too subjective to ever be constructive in a discussion.

    Right but immersion has several different ingrediants...Dark Souls only had a few imo.

    Still no. Immersion is immersion. Whatever immerses you is entirely subjective and 'imo' is applicable, indeed, but immersion is immersion. The ingredients for having one immersed are as varied as the human population and tbh are quite irrelevant.

    dorotea said:

    I can't think of higher praise than to compare a CRPG to Wizardry or Might and Magic. Even the first games in those series were ground breaking and immersive by the standards of the time, and they only got much better (with the possible exception of MM9). If Dark Souls is *that* good time to take a look.

    Play it. It is a real-time game, obviously, and very different in moment-to-moment gameplay to both of them. In terms of general appeal (theme, gameplay loop, difficulty and layout) then Dark Souls is much more similar to Wizardry (1-5) than it its to Might and Magic or Wiz 6-7.


    This post was edited by Spluffen at September 14, 2018 1:37 PM PDT
    • 945 posts
    September 14, 2018 1:44 PM PDT

    Nephretiti said:

    I think the most difficult thing with this type of post is the very definition of what each of these is.  What IS casual?  What IS hardcore?  I understand that many people believe that someone that plays 18 hours straight is hardcore.  They log in, they have a goal, and at the end of the goal they want to be rewarded with VerySuperAwesomePrize #1.  I get that.  At the same time, a "casual" player may want the same reward but can't manage play sessions such as this due to timing issues etc. (think children, school, life).  But let's say they can play 3 hours at a time over the course of 6 days.  Now they HAVE played the same amount of time.  The amount of effort IS the same.  Why should they not be able to get the same reward?  I have seen "hardcore" players get furious over the fact that a casual player got the super loot due to RNG and situational timing.  I have been the hardcore player that never ever got the ONE item he wanted no matter how long I played trying to get it.  I have always pushed for the use of TIME as part of an algorythm that adjusts RNG based on EFFORT, where EFFORT is TimePlayed towards one specific goal or another.  Still, why should there be any difference between these two "play styles"?

    This is very well said Neph.  We need the game to appeal to more than 1-2 point(s) of view.  You can't have an "MMORPG" unless you have a "Massive" number of players.  1,000 people isn't massive unless they're all max level, competing for the same/simlar content.  And with that said, there are several MMORPGs coming out around 2020 and most people play MMOs to play with their friends.  We need the game to appeal to more tahn 1-2 point(s) of view.  I know a lot of people hate different games for different reasons, but try to ask yourself "unbiasedly" why those games are successful/unsuccessful and then compare that to your point of view.  And then think of someone other than yourself.  Do you play different games depending on your moode, or maybe depending on how much time you have?  Why/why not?  Are you currently playing an MMO other than p99?  Why/why not?  If you answered Yes to playing a game other than p99 right now, do you think you're "hard core" enough to play PRotF?  (EQ live is currently the exact opposite of hardcore.)  If you think you are "hard core", try out Auld Lang Syne on p99 and let me know what you think.  If you can't hack it you may want to rethink your definition of hard core because there aren't going to be people max level and max geared farming equipment and selling it or knowing raid mechanics down to the exact seconds of events for at least quite some time after release; which will be up to those of us in these forums now to establish.  If everyone not currently on these forums quits after a few months not only will all be for naught the devs will be forced to change the game or pull a Vanguard (the game initially sold around 242,000 copies, while the number of active subscriptions was estimated to be around 130,000, to drop in the next months to about 40,000.).

    We need the game to appeal to more than 1-2 point(s) of view.

    • 1247 posts
    September 14, 2018 2:42 PM PDT

    @Darch What killed EQ and Vanguard was when SOE took over them. EQ decline started after SOE. Then the same thing happened with Vanguard after the SOE takeover. What's interesting is those games were at their best when some of the VR team was heavily involved in those games pre-SOE. Am so glad we are not be dealing with that corporation this time - will be good for all of us. Didn't SOE kill other games too? I thought I watched something on youtube regarding other games they destroyed. 

    • 409 posts
    September 14, 2018 3:20 PM PDT

    I really wish VR would close this topic. The game will be what it'll be. A niche game.. take it or leave it. I hate seeing arguments like this because all it'll do is influence the devs into making another WoW-Clone/modern casual (little time/playing) mmo... which we've seen time and time again. /yawn


    This post was edited by Nimryl at September 14, 2018 3:22 PM PDT
    • 413 posts
    September 14, 2018 4:08 PM PDT

    Syrif said:

    Didn't SOE kill other games too? I thought I watched something on youtube regarding other games they destroyed. 

    Was it when SOE sold PC gaming division and it became Daybreak Games?  They killed off EQnext and then Landmark.  Basically cleaned house. Yeah not playing their games again. P99 for me!  I am glad Fornite is so popular, means less revenue for H1Z1.  It is nice to have choices.


    This post was edited by Zevlin at September 14, 2018 4:10 PM PDT
    • 2752 posts
    September 14, 2018 4:37 PM PDT

    Syrif said:

    @Darch What killed EQ and Vanguard was when SOE took over them. EQ decline started after SOE. Then the same thing happened with Vanguard after the SOE takeover. What's interesting is those games were at their best when some of the VR team was heavily involved in those games pre-SOE. Am so glad we are not be dealing with that corporation this time - will be good for all of us. Didn't SOE kill other games too? I thought I watched something on youtube regarding other games they destroyed. 

    Pretty sure Sony was almost always a part of EQ: 

     

    "Sony Online Entertainment began with Sony Interactive Studios America (SISA), an internal game development studio of Sony, formed by 1995. In 1996, John Smedley was put in charge of SISA's development of an online role-playing video game. The game would evolve into the MMORPG EverQuest. Smedley hired programmers Brad McQuaid and Steve Clover, who had come to Smedley's attention through their work on the single-player role-playing game Warwizard.

    In April 1998, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) was formed by merging parts of Sony Online Ventures with Sony Pictures Entertainment. Within a matter of months after this change, Sony Interactive Studios America was renamed 989 Studios. Towards the end of 1998, 989 Studios shifted its strategy to making PlayStation games. The company's video game and online development branch spun off, initially named RedEye Interactive, and soon after renamed Verant Interactive.

    Verant Interactive launched EverQuest on March 16, 1999, through Sony with modest expectations. The game became successful. Sales continued rising at a steady rate until mid-2001 when growth slowed. As of 2004, Sony reported subscription numbers close to 450,000. In March 2000, Verant released EverQuest: The Ruins of Kunark, the first in a long list of expansion packs for EverQuest.

    In April 2000, Verant hired former Ultima Online developers Raph Koster and Rich Vogel. They formed an office in Austin, Texas, to develop Star Wars Galaxies for LucasArts. SOE acquired Verant in June 2000, and eventually promoted Brad McQuaid to be its Chief Creative Officer. In October 2001, McQuaid resigned and founded Sigil Games Online, drawing many of the original developers of EverQuest from SOE."

     

    As for Vanguard, it was mostly Microsoft that screwed them from what I've gathered. 

    • 1120 posts
    September 14, 2018 6:15 PM PDT

    Syrif said:

    @Darch What killed EQ and Vanguard was when SOE took over them. EQ decline started after SOE. Then the same thing happened with Vanguard after the SOE takeover. What's interesting is those games were at their best when some of the VR team was heavily involved in those games pre-SOE. Am so glad we are not be dealing with that corporation this time - will be good for all of us. Didn't SOE kill other games too? I thought I watched something on youtube regarding other games they destroyed. 

    You can't say this without knowing what the behind the scenes were.  After velious was released, blizzard announced World of Warcraft (luclin was already in development, and honestly wasnt a bad expansion).   Alot of the shift I'm sure was to counter what blizzard was doing.  Eq also has an absolutely ridiculous expansion schedule.  Which I personally think hurt it alot also.

    EQ didn't start to see a significant decline in membership until wow actually released.  Because in all honesty it's a better game.  Classic wow was challenging enough to be difficult without being severely punishing to new players like EQ was.  It also appeals to new mmo players better because eq had already had like what... 8 xpacs by then.

    People can say all they want that later expansions ruined everquest but the significant decline didn't happen until WoW.  I think it's a combination of that. Plus design choices... namely expansions that came out of nowhere (God and oow) rapid release of xpacs. Nearly 2 a year etc.

    • 1247 posts
    September 14, 2018 6:27 PM PDT

    @Iksar yes, exactly. To be fair - what happened to Verant Interactive and Sigil Games Online? SOE pretty much ruined and dissolved them before SOE's 'full control/takeover of these games.' Verant Interactive did Classic EQ (that includes Kunark and Velious - both released in 2000 and both pretty successful at that time). Brad left SOE in 2001 & Verant was dissolved within SOE. Then SOE acquired Vanguard from Sigil. Then the same descruction of Vanguard happened (as had happened with Everquest).. just downward spirals and the declining subs that you mentioned. I remember hearing there were other games that SOE ruined too.

    It's funny because I remember all of the threads about this wayy back in the day on the Classic forums. Funny that 18 years later hehe. Sorry to bring it up again - just wanted to clarify. Thanks for your thoughts Iksar. Anyway, SOE pretty much screwed Verant, Brad, Sigil, the EQ Classic community, and the Vanguard community - we haven't forgotten. I am glad SOE isn't around anymore. I think Pantheon will be a much better game in part because of this. Brad and VR are doing great things with Pantheon. This time without 'Big Brother.'   

    @porgyon Actually porygon, I can say this because I remember what we realized was happening then. This also happened to Vanguard after the WoW you mention. I always thought WoW seemed like an EZ mode of what an mmo can be - my opinion of course. Anyway, feel free to read my previous post @iksar if you want. Cheers. 


    This post was edited by VR-Mod1 at September 17, 2018 5:25 PM PDT
    • 752 posts
    September 14, 2018 7:21 PM PDT

    @Trasak

    To me the things you have thought about sound good. I experienced some of those with certain quests. I really really want more triggered content versus fully open world content. I think with triggered content we can not only avoid FTE mechanics by keeping things locked to the group/raid that spawns the content, but we can also trigger the content on our own terms. I fully understand lower level content being open world. But raid level, if we allow a triggering mechanic there devolves a sense of urgency. If it takes one night to farm triggers and then allows a group the opportunity to spawn boss x whenever i think that will help alleviate open world issues without messing with instancing. 

    • 2752 posts
    September 15, 2018 2:06 AM PDT

    Syrif said:

    @Iksar yes, exactly. To be fair - what happened to Verant Interactive and Sigil Games Online? SOE pretty much ruined and dissolved them before SOE's 'full control/takeover of these games.' Verant Interactive did Classic EQ (that includes Kunark and Velious - both released in 2000 and both pretty successful at that time). Brad left SOE in 2001 & Verant was dissolved within SOE. Then SOE acquired Vanguard from Sigil. Then the same descruction of Vanguard happened (as had happened with Everquest).. just downward spirals and the declining subs that you mentioned. I remember hearing there were other games that SOE ruined too.

    But you are still blaming Sony? Sony is responsible for EverQuest ever being funded or existing to begin with, the game was almost entirely made while working for Sony. First as Sony Interactive Studios America which was later renamed 989 Studios, and it wasn't until late 1998 (the game was basically ready to launch) when Verant spun off from there (with help from and almost fully financed by Sony) because Sony wanted to focus on Playstation 2. They were reacquired a little over a month after Kunark was released and Sony reorganized Verant into Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) with Smedley retaining control of the company... SOE didn't kill EQ, the vision changed slowly as the people making it moved on to other things. Brad got promotions and eventually found out he didn't enjoy not being hands-on so when he could he left.

     

    And SOE tried to save Vanguard, Microsoft was the real issue. Straight from Brad:

     

    We were working with Ed Fries and his group; he was in charge of games at Microsoft. They were fantastic. We became friends with these guys. We had the same vision. Something happened though. I'm not privy to it, but Ed Fries left Microsoft and so did just about everybody else who worked for him and who we interacted with.

    A new executive in charge of games came in. He had his own teams to work with external developers, and he assigned us to a team that had worked on Zoo Tycoon. They had never worked with an MMO before and they did not share the excitement of the first team. When we saw how much money Blizzard was putting into World of Warcraft and how much money Sony was putting into EverQuest 2, we knew we had to grow to ensure that we could put out something competitive with those big games.

    But the new team came along and said, "You guys are late and over budget." We didn't understand and it was downhill from there. They clearly didn't want to make a MMO. If they were going to be forced to make a MMO, they wanted it to be as much like World of Warcraft as possible. We weren't really in the mood to change our game like that. We didn't want to copy another game. It pretty quickly came to a head and they wanted to release Vanguard a year earlier than we believed we'd need. That would have been just a complete and utter disaster. Vanguard was in late alpha and in no condition to be released at all.

    ...I reached out to Smed and said, "Look, here's what we got. Here's what's going on. We need help." Sony came back and said, "We can fund you. We'll work something out with Microsoft." I don't know what happened, but Sony was able to get the publishing rights from Microsoft. Sony then came to us and said, "We can fund you for six more months but not the full year."

    ...When Smed came to me and said, "I know you need 12 months, Brad, but I can only give you six." I believed him because he's a friend. They did the best they could with the money they could put into it. It's a travesty that they couldn't put more into it so we could release it later, but I have no ill will towards Sony at all. In fact, it's quite the opposite. I'm super happy that they were even able to come in and do what they did. We were at least able to get the game out the door. If it wasn't for Sony and Smed, the game would never have even launched. Despite the problems, they came to our rescue. I will always remain grateful for that.

     

     

    X

    • 1247 posts
    September 15, 2018 5:12 AM PDT

    @Iksar Thanks, but I like to look at the full scope (Brad is awesome though). No offense, but a lot of people back then saw the stupid decisions and changes SOE made. I don’t know what else would have caused massive population loss - mind you WoW was out long before Vanguard. It‘s no wonder SOE failed and is no more. What I can say is SOE’s reputation of ruining games didn‘t start with me and I’ll leave it at that.

    Back on topic, what do you think of regional AH? Perhaps utilize them but with quite a bit more player interaction being required than what exists on other games. Then we get ‘casual and hardcore/old-school’ in reference to thread. 


    This post was edited by Syrif at September 15, 2018 6:17 AM PDT
    • 228 posts
    September 15, 2018 7:03 AM PDT

    Parascol said:

    I would agree that a griffon ride is much more immersive than a teleport where you just see a loading screen and appear at a different location.  I loved the griffon rides.  I also just like the player interdepdendence of porting in EQ, so not sure how to reconcile those things.  They are different games with their own distinct flavoring.

    Perhaps there is a way to make players feel like they are teleporting through space/time/whatever.

    The premise for the eternal means-of-travel discussion is that, at least at higher levels, you will constantly need to be somewhere far away from your current location in a fairly short time. I don't buy that. You may want to join your friends on another continent in 5 minutes, but that's not the same. Not being able to make it is just abother obstacle and does not have to be a show stopper. It may be a challenge for the game designers to ensure that everybody has a fair chance of finding something appealing to do in the vicinity, but that's their problem! :-)


    This post was edited by Jabir at September 15, 2018 7:04 AM PDT
    • 3852 posts
    September 15, 2018 9:52 AM PDT

    Most of us have said more than enough on the topic of fast travel - myself included. Repeating a position usually does not help the developers and these are development forums. So not one word in this post about whether fast travel is a good idea or a bad one.

    I will agree with the comment that if, and I repeat *if*, fast travel is provided, it is better to have something more immersive than a loading screen.

    Thus, if one is being moved from continent A to continent B, 5 minutes on a boat is a nice touch even if you cannot actually do anything on that boat.

    If one is being moved from town A to town B 5 minutes on a griffon is a nice touch even if one cannot control the griffon. Even if it is a pure cutscene and one cannot see the world below as it actually is as one flies over.

    While it can be called tedious, time wasting and unnecessary, I posit that requiring any means of fast travel (with the possible exception of teleportation by certain player classes) to take 5 or 10 minutes makes the world feel at least marginally larger than allowing it to be instant. I posit that the annoyance of being able to do nothing in-game for 5 or 10 minutes will at least marginally discourage use of this feature. Granted requiring 10 hours of travel to get from town A to town B would make the world seem a whole *lot* larger but the topic of this post is not whether to have fast travel but how it should work *if* we have it.


    This post was edited by dorotea at September 15, 2018 9:53 AM PDT
    • 945 posts
    September 17, 2018 6:05 AM PDT

    The post is comparing hardcore to casual and discussing if there should be a mix of both, or just be hardcore to cater to a restricted audience.  I "personally" feel that there needs to be a healthy mix in order to appeal to multiple people or the community will suffer.  As far as automated travel systems (griffon ride, ect), the devs have stated their interest in having a caravan system to have automated travel between certain points (I assume major cities) but you would have to discover the area in person first.  I think systems like this are a good blend of the hardcore and casual play since if you think being hardcore means that you have to walk everywhere you can still do that if you choose, meanwhile those that want to sit back and enjoy a small cutscene or watch the scenery as it passes by without having to mash keys for 20 mins to do the exact same thing manually can choose that option.  Regardless of the actual "size" of the game, it goes without saying that there will continue to be expansions (unless the game doesn't have enough subscribers to pay for it).

    We need the game to appeal to more than just the hardcore niche if we want this to last longer than a year or two.

    • 200 posts
    September 17, 2018 9:21 AM PDT
    I think it might help if you were interested in why exactly some people like the things that to you equal unnecessary tedium, while not automatically judging them to be ‘hardcore gamers who want to feel better than everyone else’. That attitude in itself is quite dismissive, ironically :).

    I’m a casual gamer and I have much less time on my hands these days. I disagree with your solutions tho, what to you seem problems, to me are immersive elements that make me feel like I’m part of an actual world. I wouldn’t say it’s hardcore vs casual but more journey vs destination centered focus. I want the journey, and I’m fine with it taking a long time.
    • 556 posts
    September 17, 2018 10:04 AM PDT

    So did not read through every page ... But will give my outlook on this post.

    @ OP

    Fast travel needs to be limited. Otherwise it becomes most of the  modern MMOs. None of us want that. If I can get accross the world in 10 minutes, they have failed. That's part of the design behind the game. Yes it can be tedious. It can be frustratingly annoying actually. But it makes you value the world and the consequences of the game. 

    So no porting to towns. Leave in wiz/druid ports, leave in run speed buffs, leave in mounts ... no to other types of fast travel. 

     

    You say no to quests involving rare mobs, yet that is exactly why those quests where so sought after. That is what made those items rare and valuable. No epic quest was easy to complete and it required a lot of investment to do during current content. But you want to totally break that for what reason? I want a mix for both casual and hardcore but I won't cut out hardcore people who want to invest their time into it just to make sure you can do everything you want in your 2 hours. That's an assinine request. If the quest requires a rare mob, learn the timer so you can plan your playtime to be online when it's in a spawn window or have a friend call you when it does spawn. There's plenty ways around these issues. 

     

    Graveyard I could get on board with if the cost is really high. That's one of those last resort type things and not the norm. Getting a corpse from deep in a dungeon without help isn't always possible so having that option would be good with me. 

     

    As for flags/keys, you need flags and keys for current content. They don't carry over into new content. So the point is moot. Either do the tasks to get to said content or dont, but don't ask that everyone be handed keys once new content is released. All you're trying to do there is circumvent the process in order to get to the loot. 

     

    Bottom line, this game is not going to be for everyone. If you only have 2 hours, plan your play times better to accomplish what you want. Do not ask for the game to be "dumbed down" simply for the sake of getting it done faster. No one on these forums will be kind to you with that type of request.

     

    Just my 2 cp

    • 3852 posts
    September 17, 2018 6:58 PM PDT

    If I can get accross the world in 10 minutes, they have failed.<

     

    Yet very shortly afterwards you support leaving in wizard and druid ports. Which take less than 10 minutes. What is the reasoning behind it wrecking the game if a NPC does it but if a player that you may need to pay does it all is well? I am not being sarcastic I am trying to figure out the rationale for the position taken so I can then agree or disagree.

    Is the reasoning that it is still bad but the enormous social interaction of paying a druid or wizard outweighs the harm of fast travel? You may mean that but I am guessing no.

    Is the reasoning that it was in EQ so it has to be good? Or at least there is a strong presumption that is is good. You may mean this but I am guessing no.

    Is the reasoning that destination points are very limited so what you meant was "if I can get across the world in less than 10 minutes other than to a handful of pre-set locations they have failed"? Since we don't know yet what destinations wizards and druids will get perhaps it is helpful in these threads if those that support wizard/druid teleports emphasize that it is the limited number of locations that is important not the fact that you have to pay someone to do it for  you. You may mean this - and I am guessing you are. 

    If so I agree that rapid travel should be limited to a small number of destinations, and it is good to let wizards and druids eventually get this ability. That leaves the debate narrowed to how many destinations and what types. Woot - progress!!


    This post was edited by dorotea at September 18, 2018 2:28 PM PDT
    • 556 posts
    September 18, 2018 10:04 AM PDT

    Even with ports in EQ, you still didn't get to many places in 10 minutes ... originally. Most locations for ports brought you near enough that a 10 minute run got you where you needed to be. I am speaking completely about getting to groups and such. Going to another city was usually pretty quick. Yet you still need to find someone to take the time to port you, which in itself could take you 10 minutes. As someone who played a druid, I ran anon majority of the time just so I wouldn't keep getting asked for ports. 

    The op suggested having ports to every dungeon casted by players and NPCs that port you to cities. That would take out a large majority of risk and adventure from the world.

    As for the number of available ports ... well that all depends on the size of the world. We won't be able to 'discuss' that much until late Alpha probably