Brainstorming
- Thread starter ynnear
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jew_nose_it
Dalayan Master
This is good.
Also regarding the WoW thing about post max level advancement being gear only. That's because WoW has instanced dungeons and such that allow for a lot of raiding to go on in a short time, unlike SoD.
My original post asking not to make the game easier / reduce downtime was indeed referring to the casual, non-raiding part of the game. I haven't had a chance to raid, because, well I'm really busy in RL. I also thought this post was about attracting new players, who wouldn't be raiding right away. That being said, I don't agree with Zaela when he / she says that meditating for 2 to 5 minutes or 10 minutes, whatever, is time spent not playing the game. It is time spent playing the game. It's the Yin and Yang of life. Without any downtime, you can't really appreciate what uptime feels like. Without any death penalty, there is no fear of death and little appreciation for surviving. This is what I was talking about when I said classic EverQuest was 'so realistic'. You were afraid of dying, you had to use a light source at night, you had to sit and meditate before you cast a spell, running all the way across a continent - well, took a long time, as it should. WoW removed all of this - there is no real death penalty, no downtime, etc. That is why it is an empty game that caters to noobs.
oozu1234
Dalayan Adventurer
the aug drops off a random named that had a % to spawn after death of any mob in the zone. There was also an NPC in PoK that would give you a quest your could do only one time for the hotzone that would give u a sick ass piece of gear if you killed so many mobs or something idr.
darksabbath
Dalayan Master
When I played live, during my free 45 days like 6months back(?), the aug randomly dropped off any mob in the zone. I rotted lots of augs. And yes, the hotzone quest gave some nice xp/gear/augs for completion.
lithiumbat
Dalayan Beginner
What you have to keep in mind is that the majority of new players are not going to be after that classic EQ feel because many of them never experienced it. They are used to the PoK/Philters/(NPC)translocators, single player tasks, mounts, and bandoliers. They are essential features to how they know to play EQ. I doubt 95% of the people who started playing around the time PoP was being released were even aware that boats traveling between zones existed (and remember that was released almost 10 years ago). To them SoD is not just a change in content, but is a complete change in game mechanics. Classes which could easily solo in the absence of a group on live (even in the pre 2002 days) are so 'balanced' on SoD that playing one as a casual player is in general frivolous since finding a group can be such a chore (something about the early eq days that I do not miss).
Even the handful of us who started eq pre PoP got used to having a PoK for getting around, and the MoP is a weird compromise. Having to play solid snake to get from newport to athica is just silly (it doesn't add anything to the gameplay). As was pointed out, it has more potential to give the mindset to new players that the rest of the game has such equally irritating gameplay. (Personally the previous version of MoP where all you had to worry about was the chance of catching a portal disease was fine).
Alas, SoD is what it is because of the content. It is what differentiates it from live and other emus. Nonetheless SoD is still EverQuest, and that is fundamentally why people play it.
The difficultly for SoD though is the EQ audience that makes up the majority of potentially new players has changed in so many ways since the GoD expansion in terms of gameplay expectations.
darksabbath put it best
and a big part of that is going to be the familiar features they used to play the game. The use of a severely outdated client on SoD is a big negative for drawing in a new crowd. Whether it is due to issues in graphics engine (GoD was a horrible buggy expansion in this regard), or missing things that have become very basic features like bandoliers/potion belts, buff timers, etc...
There will always be a select crowd who argue that these features are not needed for whatever reason, but how many people actually use the spell book the way it was originally intended prior to the popup menu on the spell gems? The point is, if you were looking for an eqemu server, and logged in to find that this feature was missing it would give you more of a bad taste than than a good one.
The avid EQ players from 10 years ago are not the target group to draw new players from anymore. We are as outdated as the client software. The fact that eqemu was brought back into compatibility with a more recent client after so many years is evidence that there are still new emu players to be had, but they want to play using the client they are comfortable with. There really shouldn't be any reason for them to choose other servers over SoD.
If SoD 3.0 ever gets released, it will be a big selling point for new players if for nothing else than it will be a more familiar client to them. It will probably be met with resistance from a handful of current players (change always is), but if the goal is to bring in new players, then so be it.
Even the handful of us who started eq pre PoP got used to having a PoK for getting around, and the MoP is a weird compromise. Having to play solid snake to get from newport to athica is just silly (it doesn't add anything to the gameplay). As was pointed out, it has more potential to give the mindset to new players that the rest of the game has such equally irritating gameplay. (Personally the previous version of MoP where all you had to worry about was the chance of catching a portal disease was fine).
Alas, SoD is what it is because of the content. It is what differentiates it from live and other emus. Nonetheless SoD is still EverQuest, and that is fundamentally why people play it.
The difficultly for SoD though is the EQ audience that makes up the majority of potentially new players has changed in so many ways since the GoD expansion in terms of gameplay expectations.
darksabbath put it best
and a big part of that is going to be the familiar features they used to play the game. The use of a severely outdated client on SoD is a big negative for drawing in a new crowd. Whether it is due to issues in graphics engine (GoD was a horrible buggy expansion in this regard), or missing things that have become very basic features like bandoliers/potion belts, buff timers, etc...
There will always be a select crowd who argue that these features are not needed for whatever reason, but how many people actually use the spell book the way it was originally intended prior to the popup menu on the spell gems? The point is, if you were looking for an eqemu server, and logged in to find that this feature was missing it would give you more of a bad taste than than a good one.
The avid EQ players from 10 years ago are not the target group to draw new players from anymore. We are as outdated as the client software. The fact that eqemu was brought back into compatibility with a more recent client after so many years is evidence that there are still new emu players to be had, but they want to play using the client they are comfortable with. There really shouldn't be any reason for them to choose other servers over SoD.
If SoD 3.0 ever gets released, it will be a big selling point for new players if for nothing else than it will be a more familiar client to them. It will probably be met with resistance from a handful of current players (change always is), but if the goal is to bring in new players, then so be it.
Titanas
Dalayan Elder
Rusheeth
Dalayan Adventurer
Please consider my suggestion to make the MoP not dangerous to lowbies, I think it needs to be highlighted as a major turn off. Like someone puking at a party all over you shoes. Major turn off. Let them see the mobs, have the 'it notices you and screams at you and hates you get out of here omg' warning so they know it's dangerous. So you still keep the riff raff away but do not turn off new people.
Why is the MoP so crazy anyway (aside from lore reasons)? Why was it changed from the old incarnation - I wasn't playing at the time.
Why is the MoP so crazy anyway (aside from lore reasons)? Why was it changed from the old incarnation - I wasn't playing at the time.
Maybe we can play off of the same situation of the no DF before level 10, or instead of going KoS, it gives them portal bonds and leaves them for dead in the cruel enviroment. Or even multiple failures will kick them back to the origin zone, or Darkwoods.
I have to agree that the MoP can be menacing for new players to come into and try to get around in until they understand the pathing of the mobs and how to avoid them.
@lithiumbat - Idk, in my SoD experience it seems like I'm one of the very few players that actually experienced any of live AFTER PoP. Almost everyone I know in game either never played live at all or quit during PoP or soon after. I could probably count on one hand or not much more the number I've met that have any idea what I'm talking about when I mention MPG trials or anything like that. Doesn't really do much for the overall point, but just an observation I guess.
@theeverongoingmopdiscussion... - I see no reason not to have pre-lv10 MoP be far more new-player friendly, and even something like 10-20 slowly introduce the danger it's going to present. As far as reverting it back to how it was....no way. Now, you pay attention and don't have video card issues, you're fine. Before, you could be the end-all God-of-video-games and totally out of your control at random, Bam, there went half the buffs you just loaded for no good reason. Ok, we're finally ready to go kill stuff....well shit....the tank lost raego and emp.... yeah, screw the old mop...
@the whole downtime issue - tbh while I do think there are some things that it wouldn't hurt to tweak, I personally wouldn't ever want to see downtime removed in general. Although maybe the OP wasn't really talking about the raid game at all, from the raid game perspective, if I'm going constant for 2-6 hours or more straight, I personally prefer the downtime after a wipe or whatever to go fix something to eat, drop a deaux, etc. With the downtime removed I either don't get to do these things or I piss people off by them having to wait for me when I afk bio or when something bad happens because I ninja-afk to run to the kitchen or something. It's kind of a feature of the game I actually like.
Now a total separate side of this issue that I'm surprised nobody has really mentioned is for a large part, you have a lot of control over how much downtime you have on a wipe or whatev. Some of the downtimes I've witnessed since I've played on this server had zero to do with the game. I'd be willing to bet <almost> every guild on this server could half their downtime if they went about it right. Some could probably do much better than that. I've been on pugs, guested on a guild raid, raided with my own guilds where we'd have as long as a 30 minute recovery time, where if we did it right we could probably have cut it to 5 minutes tops.
As far as the original point of the thread about server population and new players, etc. I personally think there might be a slight level of undue panic right this moment due to one, summer starting and people playing less for a couple months, and two, Diablo 3 coming out right at the same time. I think a lot of the people that very recently poofed will wander back in. As far as server pop being an issue before all that, well, that seems to always be an argument as to whether or not that's really an issue.
While I don't think the game needs to become anymore solo or duo friendly, I wish there was some way to make it easier to find groups. There's a big dependance on a tank and main healer, so if you aren't one of those two, you very well might be sitting lfg for 2 or 3 hours doing next to nothing, and eventually the game wears thin. I wish there was maybe somehow content with mechanics that made it not so dependent on a tank or healer, so there could be something 6 of the 20 non tank/healers that are lfg could gather up and do, but I guess I wish there could magically be more devs.... and I don't have any ideas off the top of my head for those sorts of mechanics...
@theeverongoingmopdiscussion... - I see no reason not to have pre-lv10 MoP be far more new-player friendly, and even something like 10-20 slowly introduce the danger it's going to present. As far as reverting it back to how it was....no way. Now, you pay attention and don't have video card issues, you're fine. Before, you could be the end-all God-of-video-games and totally out of your control at random, Bam, there went half the buffs you just loaded for no good reason. Ok, we're finally ready to go kill stuff....well shit....the tank lost raego and emp.... yeah, screw the old mop...
@the whole downtime issue - tbh while I do think there are some things that it wouldn't hurt to tweak, I personally wouldn't ever want to see downtime removed in general. Although maybe the OP wasn't really talking about the raid game at all, from the raid game perspective, if I'm going constant for 2-6 hours or more straight, I personally prefer the downtime after a wipe or whatever to go fix something to eat, drop a deaux, etc. With the downtime removed I either don't get to do these things or I piss people off by them having to wait for me when I afk bio or when something bad happens because I ninja-afk to run to the kitchen or something. It's kind of a feature of the game I actually like.
Now a total separate side of this issue that I'm surprised nobody has really mentioned is for a large part, you have a lot of control over how much downtime you have on a wipe or whatev. Some of the downtimes I've witnessed since I've played on this server had zero to do with the game. I'd be willing to bet <almost> every guild on this server could half their downtime if they went about it right. Some could probably do much better than that. I've been on pugs, guested on a guild raid, raided with my own guilds where we'd have as long as a 30 minute recovery time, where if we did it right we could probably have cut it to 5 minutes tops.
As far as the original point of the thread about server population and new players, etc. I personally think there might be a slight level of undue panic right this moment due to one, summer starting and people playing less for a couple months, and two, Diablo 3 coming out right at the same time. I think a lot of the people that very recently poofed will wander back in. As far as server pop being an issue before all that, well, that seems to always be an argument as to whether or not that's really an issue.
While I don't think the game needs to become anymore solo or duo friendly, I wish there was some way to make it easier to find groups. There's a big dependance on a tank and main healer, so if you aren't one of those two, you very well might be sitting lfg for 2 or 3 hours doing next to nothing, and eventually the game wears thin. I wish there was maybe somehow content with mechanics that made it not so dependent on a tank or healer, so there could be something 6 of the 20 non tank/healers that are lfg could gather up and do, but I guess I wish there could magically be more devs.... and I don't have any ideas off the top of my head for those sorts of mechanics...
Tanking exp groups was really fun when ikisith was new. Blood quarry and citadel kind of lose their luster after you've filled 30 or 40 tomes and already filled your alt's adventure band exp up. I know there are other places to grab exp in this game but I don't really remember them. 90% of that time the healer was being boxed anyway. Its exponentially less fun to box tank and healer while your dps are just watching tv and eating nachos. I know some new zones are in the works that are supposed to knock our elf socks right off though.
lithiumbat
Dalayan Beginner
You make a probably very valid observation. I am not sure how much of the winter's roar population still plays SoD but for sure many of those players may not have played through or after PoP. I suppose it doesn't surprise me too much that there are so few people who played live past that expansion, however the point I would stress is that the majority of players who would fall into that category are not likely going to be the people who decide to take up EQ again starting from level 1 (not after 10 years of not playing). It is much more likely that someone who has played live (or another emu) in the past few years would decide to start playing again. If that emu wasn't SoD then they will have a different view on what it means to play EQ.
I completely agree that the population problem may not be a 'problem' in the sense that SoD isn't going to die unless it gets a rapidly growing playerbase. Though it does remain a question as to how much abuse the devs are willing to endure from the same group of players before it just gets too tiresome to be worth it. i.e. are they happy designing new content for the same few top tier guilds or does it make more sense to apply their effort in a way that attracts a more diverse group of individuals? SoD isn't developed to turn a profit, it is done at the expense of the developers time and hopefully gives them some manner of satisfaction.
However it is as you point out a problem in that finding groups can be a huge pita. Even as a healer class, at level 65 it can be hard to find groups when the majority of level 65s who are online are part of an active raiding guild, since even if they are not grouping with guildies, they are often going after content for which a casual Tier 1 healer couldn't efficiently keep up with.
"What you have to keep in mind is that the majority of new players are not going to be after that classic EQ feel because many of them never experienced it."
That is difficult for me to understand. I guess I assumed we were all playing SoD for the nostalgia and feeling that classic EQ had. It's certainly the reason I fell in love with this game. I have tried pretty much every other MMO on the market, and they're just too easy and too linear. Classic EQ and SoD have this way about them where they just slap you in the face sometimes, and you're like, Oh sh*t this just got real.
That is difficult for me to understand. I guess I assumed we were all playing SoD for the nostalgia and feeling that classic EQ had. It's certainly the reason I fell in love with this game. I have tried pretty much every other MMO on the market, and they're just too easy and too linear. Classic EQ and SoD have this way about them where they just slap you in the face sometimes, and you're like, Oh sh*t this just got real.
vistachiri
Dalayan Master
I'm not sure why you find it difficult to understand playing a game for the game and not for nostalgia reasons. It's free, and doesn't have the extremely onerous death penalty Eq classic had. Those are pretty big reasons for someone who didn't back in the day to try their hand at Everquest.
oozu1234
Dalayan Adventurer
yah know i don't mind the MoP cause its always been easy to run through. but i think a neato idea would be for anyone really if the athica wizards could temporarily protect your from harm for a pp amount. say at llv 1-10 its free. 11-64 is whatver and lvl 65 is like 100 -200 pp. The effect would make you completley invulnerable to everything but the kockbacks so maybe just melee damage. and would last a minute to two minutes
oozu1234
Dalayan Adventurer
alot of good ideas in this thread it may have slightly derailed from what YOU wanted but thats no reason to trash can an entire suggestion thread that has SOME good ideas.