WTF is wrong with you people, anyway? - Monday, October 21, 2002 - WintyreFraust | |
| You know, I’m just about tired of this. To visit the Asheron’s Call 2 message boards, you’d think that AC2 is the biggest pile of cow manure north of Anarchy Online’s release and south of Shadowbane’s promised release dates. How did so many online gamers become so utterly jaded that something so beautiful, glitch-free, and inventive could be so incessantly savaged by “the community”? Do people in this online festering sore of a “community” not have any sense of proportion, or any reasonableness left? What in the name of all that is MOG do these people want out of a game, for crying out loud? Are they looking for something to fill lives so devoid of anything substantial and meaningful that they expect the developers at Turbine to deliver their game from Mt. Sinai? Are they expecting an online game to be their best friend, their reason to live, their significant other? What? How can such negativity and criticism even be remotely justified? Compared even to Everquest 3 years after SOE had time to fine tune it, AC2 runs like a fine German clock. I downloaded the Beta, fired it up, and started playing. It was that simple. When I loaded the gold version of Shadows Of Luclin into my computer, it was like substituting Elmer’s glue for motor oil and firing up the engine. The difference is night and day. Then we get to graphics; AC2 had been working on its engine at about the same time, and using the same available technology, as EQ’s Shadow’s of Luclin graphics upgrade. Flat out, the graphics in AC2 are beyond merely superior; they are flabbergasting. You nay-sayers need to go outside and get some perspective, because if you’re not blown away by the fluidity, the inventiveness, the raw beauty of this world, then you’re simply blind and ignorant. Period. The fun and gorgeous subtleties of the new Dereth are ceaselessly entertaining. I expected to be disappointed at some point by the options in character advancement, because there was so much criticism about the lack of true variety. I was waiting to be disappointed (even as I tried to stop gawking at Avatars that were modeled by people that really understood how to utilize real anatomy, and how to create truly pleasing and diverse facial variations) by the skill trees or the crafting system, because of what I’d read by even some of the more reasonable of the “community” on various boards. My conclusion is: you guys aren’t only jaded, and you’re not just skeptics. You’ve passed a threshold where the only entertainment you get is by bashing whatever comes out, bashing whoever is supportive of those games, and bashing whomever doesn’t adopt your jaded cynicism. Lum the Mad - and the “communities” that have followed - have established an atmosphere that has not only legitimized criticism and negativity as meritable in and of themselves, but has established a communal system of accreditation that promotes ceaseless negativity and criticism without any kind of real, rational perspective. Sure, it’s okay to criticize, it’s even valuable, but that criticism needs grounding. It requires perspective. The community at large has it’s head so far up their own negative-loop, self-regurgitating critical buttocks that they can’t even appreciate the good stuff anymore. It’s too damn cool to find something wrong, then expand on it, and beat it to death, until in short order the game-du-jour has been processed down the gullet of the beast and everyone is satisfied that they are still in the “cool”, jaded crowd. How the hell do you people enjoy anything? Are you ever enthusiastic, or upbeat, about anything? There are people complaining that there’s not enough “fun” stuff to do in AC2. Compared to what, seminary school? Good grief, there are 9 different musical scores written for each musical instrument in the game - that’s 9 different orchestral arrangements, each instrument having a particular piece to play in each. My Lugian had a huge bass lute he was jamming with. There are 6 different dances, including “I’m a Little Teapot” and “The Moose”. You can even “gokart” .. that’s right, sit on your butt and scoot like a go-cart, and it’s absolutely hilarious. You can jump and dive off of any height, do backflips into the water .. and this isn’t enough “fun” stuff? There isn’t this much “fun stuff” in every other MMOG combined! You want more ease of keeping track of quests? How about a quest panel that gives you ALL the pertinent information so you can complete the quest. Crafting is a smooth, easy to understand system of drop-down menus and acquiring the right ingredient traits. Vault dungeons? Hey, you go in, lay a lick on the main boss, and you get the reward. You only get it once. Kill the main guy, and no, it’s not a three day wait until he is spawned by some GM doing his favorite guild a favor; he spawns 10 seconds later. Even if there’s a line, that’s a fast moving line, buddy. Join a fellowship after you get in, who cares? Everyone gets the reward at the end. No divvying up the phat lewt. I can be doing something productive in this game, or fun, immediately after logging in. I can whip out a musical instrument and start playing, or run down the road, kill a few things, and craft. I can jump around the various areas using the portal system. I can go off exploring and searching out new areas without worry because it’s not going to cost me my house and kids to die out in the middle of nowhere. You can’t imagine the relief of being able to see something, and just go check it out, without worry that it might just kill you. What kind of self-hating, loathesome game-player finds this kind of open fun and gimpless freedom a bad thing? Sure, they need to tweak the chat system, and fellowship looting. Big Firetruckin’ Deal. It’s three and a half years after Everquest’s release and they still don’t have right what AC2 has running smoothly even in Beta. This is second-generation MMORPG that delivers, and you people are too mired in frustration and angst to see it. You can’t even enjoy anything anymore unless you can go to a messageboard and rag on it. WTF is wrong with you people, anyway? Discuss here. | |
Of Macro's and EQ - Wednesday, October 16, 2002 - D 0ne | |
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- Wednesday, October 9, 2002 - D 0ne | |
| [Tue Aug 27 19:48:00 2002] Blixtev says, 'as you can guess I pulled you in here for pulling the 4th to final mob to the 1st mobs position through use of Z axis exploitation' [Tue Aug 27 19:48:35 2002] Blixtev says, 'There is ZERO way you could have pulled that mob their legit' [Tue Aug 27 19:49:16 2002] Henric says, 'are you aware that the original mob that spawns there casts Gflux that pushes you into that room?' [Tue Aug 27 19:49:31 2002] Blixtev says, 'And you are all given a 1 week suspension to show we do not tolerate guilds using these exploits' [Tue Aug 27 19:49:36 2002] Henric says, 'please' [Tue Aug 27 19:50:10 2002] You say, 'please, this is silly. There is precedent for this being considered kosher, and mitigating circumstances abound.' [Tue Aug 27 19:50:13 2002] Cazan says, 'the Dain pull that has been in for 18 months with no issues that everyone has used to kill 1 mlssssdffff666' [Tue Aug 27 19:50:16 2002] Blixtev says, 'the upforce on Flip was changed to prevent it from happening' [Tue Aug 27 19:50:32 2002] Henric says, 'it still happens' [Tue Aug 27 19:51:40 2002] Henric tells LoS-Officers:2, 'I actually don't knwo what to say.' [Tue Aug 27 19:51:45 2002] Henric tells LoS-Officers:2, 'I'm furious' [Tue Aug 27 19:51:50 2002] You say, 'blixtev, could you please explain how the Dain pull is ok to do that way, but mini aten is not?' [Tue Aug 27 19:52:00 2002] Reynaldo tells LoS-Officers:2, 'yep this is the most homosexual thing i've seen yet out of VI' [Tue Aug 27 19:52:12 2002] Blixtev says, 'your accts will all be suspended for a period of 7 to 10 days, if you have any questions you can email eqaccountstatus@soe.sony.com Do this especially if you do not unsuspend in 10 days' [Tue Aug 27 19:52:38 2002] Blixtev says, 'there is no content nor warders to prevent you from doing that to the Dain' [Tue Aug 27 19:52:44 2002] You say, 'could you please be reasonable? this kind of pull has been done forever by every guild on every server for Dain ' [Tue Aug 27 19:53:41 2002] Polonious says, 'do you live in europe by chance?' Hey - any games in beta need a high end raid guild to check our your content? Email me - tork@legacyofsteel.net! In case you fucking retards don't get it, check out the logs from your high end guilds - I'm not trying to brag, I'm pointing out an honest fact: raid guilds get you guys a lot of attention, a lot of free press and - summary for the financial fucks: $$$$$PROFIT$$$$$ - right Alan? I really can't express how angry I am right now, but I'm at ground zero for a real watershed event: it's time to go. It's never been more clear it's time for another game, you cocksuckers just aren't interested in making EQ better and we're the stupid hopeful fucking fools who continued to hold out when it's high past time for you fucks down in the Brain Trust to have pulled your head out of your asses and made a palatable product. Stop making content so utterly fucking gay we're forced to keep corpses to nurse keys and CoH spots - cut and paste probably seemed so leet when you were designing a zone, but hey guess what? It's fucking lame. It's fucking lame that you abandon zones (inner Acrylia, anyone?) and content because fixing them would require thought and effort - probably asking too much, I know - you guys are the same fucktards who thought a DT every 15 seconds for a 40 minute fight was acceptable to release. You don't even have the common decency to disable dead end quests and story lines so the intrepid players who refuse to break down and read the spoiler sites don't get the shaft after wasting God knows how many hours only to be greeted with a broken combine or sent scurrying around searching for non-existent items. Me personally, I'd be embarrassed to ship that kind of shit which so obviously screams, 'ONLY 22 MORE SHOPPING DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS!" with my name on it. The credits to this expansion read like a blacklist to future work in the industry. Here No one appears to be using this thread! Discuss. | |
PoP is going to be HARD! errr adjusting everythings hitpoints down! - Wednesday, October 9, 2002 - D 0ne | |
| Just like everyone else, we're people. People make mistakes. Some mistakes aren't that unbalancing and are safe to keep in the game and work around. Others can sometimes yield gameplay that turns out to be even more fun than developers even imagined, as ingenious adventurers discover unrealized potential in their abilities. Yet others, even the best-intentioned ones, can cause an entire style of gameplay to shift dramatically in a direction that no one particularly enjoys. Unfortunately, today, we need to address a number of the latter kind. For that, we sincerely apologize. It is absolutely our fault that certain abilities have been allowed to grow out of control. In our last letter, we stated that our goal for large scale battles in EverQuest was never one of endurance contests. We'd prefer to actively return to the type of battles that everyone feels are more fun - Battles that require tactics and skill, as opposed to attendance and endurance. Due to some specific abilities as they exist today in EverQuest, this unfortunately isn't possible. The mathematics simply cannot be made to work. In extreme cases such as that, the abilities themselves must be altered. It isn't possible, for example, to ever make another fast-action, do-or-die-quickly style encounter as long as Manaburn exists in its current form, unless it is targeted solely at an entire group of people who have this ability, as it will otherwise be trivial to those who do. Likewise, it isn't possible to create encounters that must be completed in a certain amount of time due to mana consumption, when Rods of Mystical Transvergence provide an essentially unlimited source of mana. Every challenging encounter must also be challenging for the massive raid of people who have infinite mana, and the encounter then becomes undoable to those who do not have the infinite supply. Hypothetically, the only alternative to changing abilities such as these would be to inflate every other class up to the same tier of relative power (be it damaging power, or mana regenerative power), then inflate the rest of the world to compensate for the sudden rash of new found power. Drastic, world-wide changes of that sort, however, are a guaranteed way to do more harm than good. The time has come to address these abilities. Fortunately, after doing so, EverQuest as a whole, and the encounters in Planes of Power, will be able to be tuned for forces who are interested in active participation in the game, as opposed to those forced to sit through yet another 45 minute encounter with a single NPC, as became the norm in Luclin. Manaburn. In addition to the problem described above, this ability was never intended to be a way for small bands of high level players to hold hostage the advancement of larger numbers of more appropriately leveled people. While this was not the universal case, it has unfortunately happened enough across most servers to where it became a large concern in recent months. The concept of someone looking to complete their epic quest via teamwork and overcoming the odds, only to have their attempts obstructed, in some cases, by small teams of players looking to profit financially from their power, quite frankly, is not a behavior that we wish the game to reinforce. In the next patch, Wizards who have purchased Manaburn will find that their ability points have been refunded. Please make sure that you have fewer than 25 pooled Ability points. At that point, they will be able to purchase a new Manaburn if they choose, which has most of the power of the old one. However, the new Manaburn leaves a temporary effect on its target when used that does not stack with other Manaburns. The delay that we will be tuning on the Test Server soon will allow a single target to be manaburned no more frequently than once every minute. Hopefully, this will bring the ability back in line with the original intent -- A powerful ability that allows a Wizard to do massive short-term damage, but not a method for a group of wizards to destroy powerful creatures with zero risk. Rods of Mystical Transvergence. The description above shows how this spell has perhaps singlehandedly altered the balance of the end-game encounter by turning it into an event where the largest challenge is setting up a timed rotation of Complete Healing. Once that is established, in many cases, the event is just as playable by leaving AutoAttack on, and wandering away to watch television. This does not make for stellar interactive content. We view Magicians as an excellent source of damage, especially with the many pet enhancements that have been made over the past year. To be honest, it is a more than a small shame that their full energies have been viewed as "needed" to be spent, full-time, purely on transferring their mana to others. Magicians are supposed to be the masters of elemental conjuration and highly respected as a damage-dealer, not the masters of mana transferrence. In the next update, Rods of Mystical Transvergence will be changed so that the spell summons an item that is still a valuable upgrade over the original Modulation Rod, yet does not provide an infinite amount of mana. The idea of sudden mana gain spells is only balanced if there is a net loss over time to counteract the rapid infusion. The initial version of the spell that we will be testing summons a Rod containing a single charge of 360 mana for 450 hit points, and can only be used by a person once each minute. In addition, the Rods themselves will be non-droppable, and spell will turn into a "target based summon," such that the Magician summons them directly onto the recipient, as opposed to having to hand them out manually or create a stockpile on the ground. Since there are definitely encounters in the game where this type of mana regeneration is mandatory for the encounter to be beaten by a reasonably sized force, a number of those encounters will likewise be re-tuned to shorten their duration, most frequently by lowering the hit points on the NPC in question. Again, our intent here is provide Magicians with a desirable secondary ability that would ideally be used before a battle, not an ability which essentially compels them to suddenly transform into a full-time support role, transferring their mana to others, as opposed to dealing damage. Complete Healing. The concept of any class getting their single best, most efficient primary ability at level 39, has never sat well with most people. In the days of characters having a maximum of 2000-4000 hit points, the spell was absolutely not imbalancing. However, as time went on and characters progressed, now doubling that amount of hit points, it becomes obvious that the spell must be scaled back slightly. This spell has, over time, become the defining cornerstone of the Cleric class. As such, it cannot be altered significantly. Taking that into account, and given that those with the most hit points in EverQuest have yet to hit the full 10,000 HP cap of this spell, the spell will remain nearly as useful as it is today, by being reclassified as a spell that heals for 7,500 hit points, down from its current cap of 10,000. This will allow it to continue to be used as it has been in the past, while allowing for more dynamic types of heals to be introduced in the future. Making this change will allow us to providing more entertaining high-end encounters that require more active involvement than setting up a Complete Healing "Rotation" or "Chain," then repeating the same motions until the Large Thing you are facing, eventually falls down. Monk Defense. Finally, the issue of defensive ability needs to be addressed with respect to Monks. Monks in EverQuest were originally intended to be a class with excellent offensive potential, both with and without equipment. This ability came at the expense of having only passable defensive abilities, partially in the form of an extremely small, restrictive selection of equipment from which to choose. This, of course, caused its own series of problems of how to adequately reward the person behind the character. It did not take long for universally equippable items (ALL/ALL items) to be considered by and large as "Monk Loot," as far back as before the launch of Kunark. Over time, Monks' defensive abilities had been tuned up to correct a perceived weakness. This, taken in combination with a few years of universally equippable, low-weight, high powered items entering the game, slowly transformed Monks into what is arguably the strongest defensive class in the game. Monks get hit less than any other class, and due to the tuning over time, no longer take appreciably more damage when they do get hit. This imbalance between the classes does need to be addressed in order for the Plate-wearing classes in the game to have their proper relative power. The Plate-wearing classes in the game take a serious penalty to their offensive abilities in order to defend as well as they can, and we cannot fix this problem solely by inflating their defensive abilities to compensate for this. Again, that type of change would harm EverQuest as a whole much more than altering the one class. Likewise, we have no desire to retroactively alter all of the equipment in the game that is contributing to this problem. Monk defense will be altered somewhat. It is no secret that in EverQuest, a character's Armor Class does not compare equally across different classes. (A Wizard with 1000 AC defends differently than a Warrior with 1000AC, for example.) It's not the most optimal system, for sure, but it is the one that many people have had much time to get used to. As such, Monk defense will be altered such that they may continue wearing the same equipment, however, they will get a decreased benefit to their overall ability to take damage. Again, we have no desire to make monks unable to take any type of punishment -- far from it. What we are primarily striving for is maintaining the defensive order of the Plate classes being able to take the most punishment, followed by the Chain classes and Monks. The latter being technically a Leather wearing class who will continue to make up the difference by being able to avoid more blows than the rest. In closing, we would like to again apologize for the amount of time that we've allowed these abilites to remain in their current state. With Planes of Power on the horizon, in order to make encounters that most people would consider "fun," these abilities and class attributes need to be brought back into line as sane upgrades and logical progressions, as opposed to their current manifestations. We appreciate the many well thought-out letters that have been sent in on these topics and more. As always, we thank you for playing EverQuest and look forward to seeing you soon in the Planes of Power. - The EverQuest Development Team Comments | |
Confessions of an MMOG Junkie - Monday, October 7, 2002 - WintyreFraust | |
| I used to really enjoy stand-alone, single-player games. I remember locking myself away and playing some dungeon game on my TI99-4A for entire weekends. I played Bard's Tale for an embarrassing number of hours. When Doom first came out, I played that as if my life depended on it. It was Fun, with the capital F intended. Heck, I enjoyed hours and hours of Super Mario and Ghosts & Goblins, played them over and over, beginning to end. Then I found MajorMUD, then EverQuest, and all that changed. For four and a half years, I played no computer games but MajorMUD, and EQ. MajorMUD, you must understand, was nothing but a text-based MOG, so it's not as if the graphics were keeping me fascinated. I guess I should have realized then what had happened, but I really didn't understand it until I quit EQ earlier this year, and played Baldur's Gate, Starcraft, Dungeon Siege, Morrowind, and Neverwinter Nights while waiting for some other online game to go live that I felt would be fun to play. Each of these games offered far, far better graphics, depth, fun, diversity, etc. than my TI99-4A game, or Bard's Tale. There was much more to do, see, and hear. They were each like Doom mixed with Bard's Tale; truly, you'd think the fun to be had would be immense. And while they were fun, they just weren't interesting. There was something missing from all of them. I actually spend my time playing a Yahtzee rip-off on the computer, instead of firing up Morrowind or NWN. After considering this a while, I think I understand what the problem is: after tasting the ability to build a character that exists in a massively multi-player virtual world, and have that character persist, and accumulate "power" and "wealth" and relationships in that realm, creating and building single-player game characters feels hollow and, well .. meaningless. There is just something far more satisfying about developing a character in a place where hundreds, or thousands, of other live people are doing the same thing, and where there is a feeling of an open-ended, continuing, consistent adventure there waiting for everyone. Even though the mechanics and design of EQ annoyed me to no end, and I found the company that ran it to be unethical and juvenile, the best part of that experience - and the hardest to leave behind (not including online friends and camaraderie) - was three years of creating a character that existed in a continuing world. What allowed me to give it up, really, was the fact that my character reached a point where bad game design severely curtailed any continued advancement, and also severely limited his interactive and adventuring ability. The game was also so horridly difficult that investing any time in alternate characters was a bleak proposition, so I was stuck at a point where my character couldn't really contribute (can't spend 6-12 hours online at a time several days a week for the high-end game), and couldn't really advance any further. He has been "played out", so to speak, to the limit of my ability to invest effort and time. Plus, computer problems and the horrid launch of Shadows of Luclin made it impossible to even log on and stay in the game - so I was able to just turn it off an leave. If I could have just logged in, though, and kept my character existing in Norrath, it would have been more essential fun than advancing characters through NWN or Morrowind, because of the massively multi-player aspect of where that character existed. I didn't realize that, however, until I canceled my account and started playing those other games. At the end of the day, in a stand alone game, it's just you and a bunch of coded graphics. In the MMOG, at the end of the day, your character exits in a persistent world populated by thousands of other people. Stuff goes on while you're gone. You meet new people all the time. There's nothing to compare that to in a non-MMO game. So, I am now officially a multiplayer junkie. Stand-alone, single-player games just don't do it for me. To enjoy playing any kind of character-oriented game, that character has to exist in a persistent online virtual world, or else the experience feels useless and hollow. I still enjoy other games - trivia games with the family, board games, non-character computer games like Pinball or Alchemy (even Starcraft)- but, my attitude towards character-based games is that it's just not meaningful (and, ick, yes, I realize how pathetic it is to use that word in relation to a computer game), and ultimately not satisfying, unless that character is going to be able to "live" in a virtual world populated by a lot of other live players. Asking me to go back to stand-alone games would be like asking me to go back to using the telephone to talk about interesting things, instead of being able to go into topical chatrooms or post on topical message boards; there isn't as much diversity, or the possibility at any given time that anything could happen; and that's really the"X"-factor; in a multi-user community format, the experience has an infinite potential - you never know what someone is going to do or say next. Anything might happen. In a stand-alone game, just the knowledge that there are no other real people "in there" with you makes it feel empty, boring, and ultimately uninteresting. I'm not content to explore the imagination of some small set of developers; I crave the diversity that a thousand other players bring to the table. And yes, a part of me isn't happy at all about this. I used to love developing characters in single-player games and exploring the content provided by the creator of the game; but, after experiencing the content (good, bad, funny, sickening, ridiculous, et cetera) that comes with thousands of other players sharing the world with you, there just isn't any character-development game that comes close to the sense of potential, or of adventure, or of meaningfulness (ick again) as an MMOG. Me being a good guy, or a jerk, doesn't mean anything in any sense of the word when I'm developing my character in a lifeless world. My character - how I behave - means something in an MMOG, for better or worse, and so developing it has some kind of value. Maybe it means little compared to real life behavior, but it still means more than your actions in a dead, single-person world. And that gives character development in an MMOG a substance - no matter how shallow - that no single-player character development game can ever offer. Discuss it here. | |
The truth about Shadowbane - Thursday, October 3, 2002 - Coke | |
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