EQ Next: Best of show at E3!

[OMGWTF420]

heard it all before, eqnext is vaporware

[Sirken]

how did EQNext show absolutely nothing, and win an award.

smells fishy

[Gadwen]

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

how did EQNext show absolutely nothing, and win an award.

smells fishy

Because the press that was invited to the private showing needs to show their gratitude and kiss SOE ass so they get invitations in the future.

[Alarti0001]

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

how did EQNext show absolutely nothing, and win an award.

smells fishy

They had a press showing. not a public showing.

[t0lkien]

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

Because the press that was invited to the private showing needs to show their gratitude and kiss SOE ass so they get invitations in the future.

This is actually pretty true. Games journalists are often fans as well, and get caught up in the hype and spin - and the coercion of exclusives in return for positive press. I don't trust any games sites, especially the bigger ones. Their bread and butter is dependent upon maintaining good relationships with the big companies. It's all pretty nepotistic.

However, it's going to be interesting to see what they saw that has them so pumped. I have a feeling they've been blown away by some sort of demo and/or preview footage that promises it's ingame but is actually specially scripted and modified for a focused press showing. Games companies do this all the time unfortunately. There have even been instances of builds being driven by programmers manually firing off scripts in response to the player's actions in the demo (remember the awesome boss fight in the D3 demo that never materialized in the final game?) We'll see though.

[kaleran]

Everything is conjecture, but the only thing that has me worried about EQNext is what the preview builds for EQ2 were. Back then they showed a world that basically looked like Oblivion/Skyrim, which individual animations for armor that 'fit' to the body. The final game didn't look anything like that.

I still played EQ2 for years tho. It just wasn't quite what they were showing in the early builds. But I still have faith in SOE's maturity. Their job with PS2 awards them that much from me.

[stormlord]

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

The irony is that if you give players what they say they want, you ruin the game. They *say* they want it easier, better, faster, more powerful, more convenient...but if you give it to them, they get bored and wander off.

Not true. All you gotta do is make them think you're making it easier, better, faster, more powerful and more convenient. Of course, with mudflation, you're limited somewhat in what you can do, but there're techniques they can use to reduce that effect. All they gotta do is understand player psychology.

People really do not fully consider the effect of declining populations, though. Companies panic when they start to lose popularity. As the numbers of incoming players go down and as mudflation wreaks havoc on the game, the quality goes down. The companies usually respond by giving the players easier access to the content and by copying what other games are doing. By copying what other games are doing they're ensuring that players who visit the game are less likely to feel like they're in unfamiliar territory. Essentially, games in decline will kill their own mother just to survive. And this is the ugly side, especially of big business.

Strangely, things are not always as they appear. Over the past 10-15 years I was led to believe that MMORPGs will only look more and more like WOW. They will degenerate and destroy all that's 'unnecessary' to the goal of addicting the player base. They'd become fancy slot machine games! Well, that's the feeling I HAD. However, I first played Wurm Online in July 2012. I gotta say that it impressed on me a feeling that surpasses Everquest 1. I first played Everquest 1 in March 1999. It burnt into my brain memorable moments. Even as I tried to play Ultima Online, I always felt drawn to Everquest 1 because of its 3d environment and more developed non-player world. But Wurm Online has created a sense of immersion I never felt in Everquest 1. That's mainly because the danger level in Wurm Online was higher, at least during my stay there, but it's more than that: everything in the world could be changed by the players. It truly feel like a breathing living world that slowly changed. It even had seasons. That moment when I stood on that hill, cold and frightened, in the clearcut and watched the stars and heard the wind is etched so permanently in my mind I will have to remember it for the rest of my life. NO moment in any other game has been so powerful. And I've had many similar moments in Wurm Online.

Wurm Online has a lot of grind because the skills aren't well fleshed out (and players like to grind, you know), but if you can stomach that part of it, this mmo sandbox is a beautiful gem.

Wurm Online is the spiritual successor to UO: Second Age and classic Everquest 1. But it too will grow old and degenerate. Even now I can see the "mudflation". I can see the age coming on.

No, immersion is not dead. It will be killed and resurrected forever, just as people die and children are born. I predict that in the future we will see game worlds far more complex and difficult than Everquest 1 was at its height. And I think that the line between 'game worlds' and 'worlds' is blurring too. It's hard to call these 'games'. They're more like fake realities than they're like games. You immerse in them and make another life. They're not there for you to have fun, they're there for you to create new unplanned experiences.

[Kope]

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

Bull, bull, bull. You are just repeating what the publishers are telling you. SoE is especially horrible with their F2P crap. When you watch game breaking bugs persist for weeks and 2 dozen new sweet cosmetic items roll out, you should really be happy that you can "play your way."

This all depends on how F2P is setup. How MMOs have generally set it up yes F2P is kinda ridiculous.

How F2P can work well? League of Legends. That system is brilliant. Yes the system can't be cut and pasted into EQN but it can be done similarly.

Look up Extra Credit's videos, they explain what to do and not to do in F2P quite well.

[Gadwen]

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

This all depends on how F2P is setup. How MMOs have generally set it up yes F2P is kinda ridiculous.

How F2P can work well? League of Legends. That system is brilliant. Yes the system can't be cut and pasted into EQN but it can be done similarly.

Look up Extra Credit's videos, they explain what to do and not to do in F2P quite well.

LoL and moba games in general are designed to facilitate new champs coming out every month, in fact it's a key feature and the only thing that keeps the game interesting long term. Skins are just that, skins. I don't hate F2P, and I don't hate the idea of micro transactions, but the way they are implemented...especially in MMORPGs.

"Cosmetic" items usually turn out to not be purely cosmetic, and it creates situations where if you want to play the high end game, you have to buy stuff from the shop with real cash to get there. This in itself wouldn't be terrible if the amount required to invest was reasonable, ie around the purchase price of the game + subscriptions. But that's not enough for them, they want you to sub, and buy expansions and buy stuff from the store if you really want to experience all the game has to offer. This...I will not do.

[Kope]

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

LoL and moba games in general are designed to facilitate new champs coming out every month, in fact it's a key feature and the only thing that keeps the game interesting long term.

I agree that the MOBA thing is all about the new champs being released, which is why I said they couldn't just cut + paste it in, but the skins are the real piece of work here.

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

Skins are just that, skins. I don't hate F2P, and I don't hate the idea of micro transactions, but the way they are implemented...especially in MMORPGs

"Cosmetic" items usually turn out to not be purely cosmetic, and it creates situations where if you want to play the high end game, you have to buy stuff from the shop with real cash to get there. This in itself wouldn't be terrible if the amount required to invest was reasonable, ie around the purchase price of the game + subscriptions. But that's not enough for them, they want you to sub, and buy expansions and buy stuff from the store if you really want to experience all the game has to offer. This...I will not do.

That's the thing though, Skins aren't anything but cosmetic. There are regular skins and then the Epic skins (or whatever they're called now). They don't add any power to the champs, they're purely aesthetical which is the entire reason I point to LoL as a good way to implement micro transactions.

Like I said before you can't just copy + paste what LoL does in an MMO, it just straight up won't work for anyone. What LoL does is allow people to purchase something with RL currency that they can easily purchase from just playing the game and building the in-game currency. Even when they purchase said item/champion it doesn't add power, it just unlocks an option (that even the champions are rotated free each week anyway).

The true trick of micro transactions is not allowing people to purchase power, but to purchase aesthetics and ease of play that they could have gotten in game, just with a little more elbow grease. People who buy LoL stuff know they don't HAVE to, to participate but do it for the ease and the option. This is where the win/win comes into play. The company can make money and the person knows exactly what they're getting and knows they don't have to buy it unless they really want to.

This is also where the sub comes in, LoL doesn't have subs. With MMOs and a proper micro transaction system in place you wouldn't need subs, but there will always be new expansions, and that's the MMO equivalent of new champions.