Soulbinders?

[stormlord]

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

The funny thing is, it never took "long" to find a bind from another player. Even on this server it doesn't take long. A friend of mine started playing yesterday and started an Erudite. When he asked me "hey, where the heck is everybody" I told him to get on the boat to Qeynos.

Once he got there, I warned him to get bound to the area there. He said there was no one above level 6 in the zone. I told him to ask anyway. He didn't understand why, but all it took was one message in OOC and a level 4 sent him a tell informing him that he has his main in the area and would gladly log him on to give him a bind.

Long story short, soulbinders never really had any purpose, except to dumb the game down for people that didn't want to be social.

So needing to wait half an hour or more doing nothing except using /ooc is smart? I've seen players sit around waiting for a bind (doing nothing) and then they died because they decided to kill a few mobs while waiting and had to run all the way back. You can't really blame them for that. You CAN blame the game. Generally, this isn't a problem when there're lots of players, but this server has 50% or less of the population that was on live and it will only get worse as more content is added and the population is increasingly top heavy. It quickly becomes an issue of waiting (aka doing nothing) as opposed to just "/shout Need bind!" THAT is a problem.

I think the problem here is that you're putting the blame on soulblinders when it's squarely on the one dimensional travel system EQ has. I mean, the travel system is just too boring and deserves most of the blame. I would trade it any day of the year for an inclusive system that makes you think. So give everyone the ability to bind themselves, or something similar, but make the players think about how the travel system works and allow them to change it so it suits their particular needs. The problem with EQ's system is that: a) it's exclusive (only casters can bind and melees can't bind where casters can) b) it's boring (not much detail, too straightforward) c) it doesn't involve players (we're not really allowed to change how it works).

Not everything that happens over the years is dumbing down. Sometimes the system was broken to begin with. Sometimes we put the blame on the wrong target. WE can be dumb and dumber too.

Why did EQ, initially, base its travel system on population? If the population goes down then the travel system suffers. If it goes up, it changes the dynamics as well. Anytime a system is exclusive it's pitting itself against unintended consequences. EQ literally set itself up for failure OR substantial changes in the future. This is before you even consider how stupidly boring the system is; uninspired, a pile of poo.

Can we make dumb classes and expect dumb players to play them? If you make a boring class and players complain then hopefully you learn something. If it happens again, maybe you're just dumb.

So maybe the people who developed it were the source of the dumbness. The perceived dumbing down over the years started with them. Not with dumb players that wanted dumber games.