[Uteunayr]

Originally Posted by Grimfan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yeah, I do think that having her there made me want to play the game further than I had in previous beta tests. I think I only have about 60 hours in the game, both times that I got past the first two newbie areas I got to about level 15. The experience opens up dramatically and it would be easy to miss a whole lot, and that's where I feel like it doesn't hold your hand as much, and that's where I feel the game starts to gain a lot of charm as well.

I also did my first dungeon experience with the game. It was a pretty excellent one even though two of us did not have clear roles in the group and we just ran with it (I was a DPSy two handed tank and he was a more healing focus two handed tank). We ended up completing the dungeon without too much trouble even though we had a couple of deaths. We were different classes though, he was a Templar and I was a Dragon Knight, and although I had some support abilities I felt I was actually a worse tank than him which is interesting because I was playing the "fighter catch all" as you say. Although, I could have been a better tank than him potentially if I had put more perks into my armor passives.

The idea I'm getting at is that we both felt unique to me. We both took different routes to our characters and we could not have been any more different and I actually thought everyone in the group was the same way, very different. My girlfriend was playing a dual wielding nightblade with light armor that operated more like a mage than a melee fighter, and the last member was a mage that was both split between conjuration and dark magic and was a pretty competent ranged damage dealer. She had to switch to a resto staff for the last boss though to help out in healing.

I don't know how far you got though, but if you got to your capital city and you felt the game didn't open up any then it probably isn't for you, you're correct. Once I started unlocking new skill trees from different guilds and closing anchors randomly and finding public dungeons and quests that were not apparent on my map I was pretty excited. The crafting station was actually under a house that did not even have a quest attached to it or a map icon, we just randomly encountered it, and I could see myself going back there to craft that gear when I had the time.

But you see, the problem is anytime a game has a narrative to it as a MMO, it is offering a very specific experience. Even when it branches out, I didn't feel it branched out much more than WoW does. You reach Orgrimmar, and then you can go to a wide range of different locations to explore/level and progress. The number of places you could go became so difficult to know (due to the number), they ended up putting in (during cataclysm) a board that would tell you what areas are more or less appropriate for your level/range to help guide people through the options they have. But regardless of this, you're being fed a narrative that isn't yours.

That's why EQ, DAoC, and SWG are games I point to repeatedly here, as they are games that do not offer you a narrative. You make your story. You make your journey. You make your quests. You make your adventure. Your epic is your own.

So I play WoW, I play ESO, I play TSW, and everything I do, everyone has walked the same path. Some may not have explored it as much, delved into the lore as much, but that's the "WoW" narrative that you're delivered. That bothers me tremendously.

Games like EQ, DAoC, SWG, you're dropped into a huge world, and... now what? Who are you? Are you a great hero that will rise to kill Innoruuk? Are you someone who will one day kill your own god to rip his eye out? Are you an imperial or a rebel? Are you righteous or evil? These are things you decide for yourself when your character is not predetermined or treated in a specific way by a game narrative. When you drop into World of Warcraft, however, you're a peon-esque dude, you get a few quests, you work your way up into being the great hero, and now everyone even raids to kill the ultimate boss of the game. But that's not your narrative. That's the game's narrative. You are being told who you are. Why the heck would the Horde ever accept my character given the way I want my character to be? In EverQuest, guards will hate me if I act the way I want to act. In WoW, you're not getting your guards to hate you, ever.

It's just bothersome, because MMOs have succumbed to trying to deliver a game story, rather than putting the story out there, and letting you explore it. That's what MMOs were about. Story isn't shoved in your face in life. Story is nebulous, it's floating out there, it's in the background. You need to seek it out and find it. Puzzle it.

Originally Posted by Grimfan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

...and I personally didn't get to liking the game until my first 20 hour weekend session, and then this last one was much more improved than that one and I ended up spending 25 or 26 hours in it and enjoyed all of them.

Most games are over by 20 hours in. If it takes a game 20 hours to get good, I have issues. After the 5th to 6th hour of the game being not-good, I get pissed because I am wasting time. But for the sake of giving the game a fair shot, and MMOs are time intensive, I keep going. But my attitude is bad. Nothing changed, and it just felt increasingly more just like what leveling a toon in WoW is like.

Originally Posted by Grimfan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Sorry if I offended you earlier about your previous post, I couldn't really read it and it was frustrating.

Like I said earlier, I am not emotionally invested. This is a conversation over the internet. I wasn't offended. I made a mistake, and I corrected it. There's nothing personal or offensive about correcting an error. If an academic finds someone pointing out their errors as offensive, they are more likely to get eaten alive, since pretty much everything we do is pointing out other people's errors.

Originally Posted by Grimfan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You have great points, and I agree with you on MMO design. I think that, actually, Brad McQuaid's new game probably has the most potential to make an MMO that is more like what we all want. Sadly I don't think EverQuest Next is going to do it, but EQNext could honestly be the next World of Warcraft, so who knows. Content generated on the fly, destructible terrain, advanced AI... Brad's MMO could honestly be a relic by the time it comes out in the world that EQNext is going to be in.

EverQuest Next is one that I approach with skepticism as SoE has burned all of us too many times. However, the idea of a truly fully voxel created world, dynamically adjusting AI, and a new style of game play all sounds good. I am most likely going to buy it just for the sake of supporting an innovative game design to hopefully help encourage other game creators to break out of the WoW Paradigm.

Originally Posted by Grimfan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I have also played pretty much every MMO that has ever come out, so I know your frustration. I just see a lot of potential in ESO, and I'll probably be disappointed to be perfectly honest. I have 377 hours in Skyrim as of writing this and have been working on another playthrough, so I also understand you wanting the MMO to be a lot more like an Elder Scrolls game as well, but I do think that it has a lot of potential to be a great game.

It has potential, but they have to change some very fundamental issues. When Bethesda goes for a talent based progression system for their characters, and their level system of quest grinding, it jabs at the fundamental TES experience. Now, if there was no alternative, I would accept it, and say "Well, they did what they could.", but the fact that a game like SWG has been out, and has shown a progression system that can give a fundamentally TES experience in a MMO setting... And yet they do not use it, instead favoring a bland standard progression system, I am bothered. It is lazy in my eyes. Regardless of if you agree with me or disagree with me about ESO, I don't think anyone can say that the current system in ESO is more TES like than would be a SWG + Skyrim style progression system. It would make the game feel more like TES, enough that I would enjoy the play style of the game enough to look past the game play being a quest grind. I could ignore the quest grind if I enjoyed the play style enough. I did with WoW, as I loved playing a Protection Warrior so much, it was simply fun, I could ignore hating quest structures. But when they completely revamped the class, I ended up quitting.

I am rambling now, so I am cutting myself off before getting onto a rant of my hatred for Blizzard and Ghostcrawler for what they did to Protection Warrior.