Zone overpopulation

[Grizzler]

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

I dont know I have seen the Hole being quite busy last couple of weeks, almost an lfg / pickup zone. I like this ! Also Najena heating up. Havent checked Dalnir but wouldnt be surprised this being busier. 2k pop is about right for the size of the map. More peeps the better.

The hole has been getting a lot busier. Especially when you notice that many camps used on other servers aren't used or known here.
Took my cleric and a group to Sword camp last night and we had a blast. No one was there and ton of mobs to kill. Even slab (known as town here?) and docks were open later into the night and Sword 2.
Such a under used zone which i find to be the best spot to be 50+ especially with the caster drops there that drop like candy. Loam encrusted is good stuff for the gearing up folks.
Really hoping folks start using it more, which seems to be happening, was a huge leveling zone on TLP servers.

[kotton05]

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

People should also read this - The Kunark Problem

http://www.afterlifeguild.org/Thott/kunark.php

Under rated post

[JayDee]

Kunark is probably the most robust of all three. Rich in solo, group and raid content. Plus the great lore and addition of a new race which gave people another purpose to level 1-60.

[Crede]

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

I dont know I have seen the Hole being quite busy last couple of weeks, almost an lfg / pickup zone. I like this ! Also Najena heating up. Havent checked Dalnir but wouldnt be surprised this being busier. 2k pop is about right for the size of the map. More peeps the better.

Dalnir is basically always dead. Main problem is it’s one of the farthest dungeons from a port. Cant use OT hammer at that level so running there from SF takes awhile. Shame though because first floor alone has tons of mobs for viable xp and relatively easy to zone out.

Trios are the sweet spot in eq and one solution to overpopulation. Takes a lot less time to assemble one and An optimized trio can basically xp anywhere at a much faster rate than full groups where everyone gets to play their class to its fullest potential. Duos are good xp but the good combinations are more limited and not quite as fun from a social perspective than 3. It’s funny when you get /rude’s from people when you don’t invite them to your 3 when you’re holding down an area just fine. Never understood why most groups feel the need have 6 every time and risk offending people by not inviting them.

[Tuurin]

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

People should also read this - The Kunark Problem

http://www.afterlifeguild.org/Thott/kunark.php

So the question is, was Thott wrong, or just over-simplifying? His point was that what has become known as grinding in MMOGs would burn out most players, but I don't think that has proven true (at least for the P99 fringe). In fact grinding is/was arguably the most compelling part of the EQ experience- grinding exp, faction, plat, LDON tokens, keys, AAs, etc. all became basic tropes of EQ and probably the most compelling part of what kept people coming back.

In my perspective, once things became LESS grindy, the game lost it's flair and became pretty blah. PoK books, easy leveling (Palud Cav), mercs, bazaar, /melody, etc. all made the game "easier" and required less repetition, grinding, etc. which made me more inclined to try something else. It sounds odd, but for me at least true.

Or perhaps Thott was right and most of the (normal) players were turned off by grinding exp or whatever and went for greener (WOW) pastures, and P99 is all that's left of the deviants who actually like repetitive content?

[kotton05]

replace deviants with autists and dam you hit the nail on the head.

If you guys are truely curious there is a series on YouTube called “Death of a Game” or something close. Check it out for EQ and other mmos from this time.

[Kika Maslyaka]

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

So the question is, was Thott wrong, or just over-simplifying? His point was that what has become known as grinding in MMOGs would burn out most players, but I don't think that has proven true (at least for the P99 fringe). In fact grinding is/was arguably the most compelling part of the EQ experience- grinding exp, faction, plat, LDON tokens, keys, AAs, etc. all became basic tropes of EQ and probably the most compelling part of what kept people coming back.

In my perspective, once things became LESS grindy, the game lost it's flair and became pretty blah. PoK books, easy leveling (Palud Cav), mercs, bazaar, /melody, etc. all made the game "easier" and required less repetition, grinding, etc. which made me more inclined to try something else. It sounds odd, but for me at least true.

Or perhaps Thott was right and most of the (normal) players were turned off by grinding exp or whatever and went for greener (WOW) pastures, and P99 is all that's left of the deviants who actually like repetitive content?

Personally what I take from Thott thoughts is that large level spread in various zones and dungeons was bad design. Karnor should not have allowed people to go 45-60 in the same zone. Past lev 50, zones should never had more than 2 level ranges, continuously pushing people forward and making room for new comers. Rather than having everyone from 45 to 58 pile up in the same camps. So its not about grind itself, but rather distribution of grind across many different zones rather than just 2-3. People not get tired of killing mobs. They get tired of killing exact same mobs in exact same room for 5 levels straight.

And I think there is a difference between making game less grindy vs dumbing it down. Paludal was great zone design wise, but insane ZEM made it bad. There was no need what so ever to devalue old zones like that. It wasn't made to make game less grindy, it was made to sell expansion. By contrast MOST of Luclin zones were undeveloped empty and pretty much useless square boxes. Only a handful of zones were actually well made considering all the innovation Technics were already available at that time.

Also, a lot of people hated LDON for being copy-paste, theme-less & mindless auto-runs. And I agree. What I do like about LDONs that you could do a dungeon from start to finish to get to the end goal/end boss without just having to sit in 1 room for 5 hours. While LDON was simplistic it was also a foundation of future dungeon design for next gen MMOs.

[Tuurin]

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

Personally what I take from Thott thoughts is that large level spread in various zones and dungeons was bad design. Karnor should not have allowed people to go 45-60 in the same zone. Past lev 50, zones should never had more than 2 level ranges, continuously pushing people forward and making room for new comers. Rather than having everyone from 45 to 58 pile up in the same camps. So its not about grind itself, but rather distribution of grind across many different zones rather than just 2-3. People not get tired of killing mobs. They get tired of killing exact same mobs in exact same room for 5 levels straight.

And I think there is a difference between making game less grindy vs dumbing it down. Paludal was great zone design wise, but insane ZEM made it bad. There was no need what so ever to devalue old zones like that. It wasn't made to make game less grindy, it was made to sell expansion. By contrast MOST of Luclin zones were undeveloped empty and pretty much useless square boxes. Only a handful of zones were actually well made considering all the innovation Technics were already available at that time.

Also, a lot of people hated LDON for being copy-paste, theme-less & mindless auto-runs. And I agree. What I do like about LDONs that you could do a dungeon from start to finish to get to the end goal/end boss without just having to sit in 1 room for 5 hours. While LDON was simplistic it was also a foundation of future dungeon design for next gen MMOs.

IDK- I think you could make the argument that while of course game designers always want to sell expansions, they equally valued keeping customers happy (and paying monthly subs). They didn't accidentally make PC and some of the other expansion newb zones with a high ZEM. That was done intentionally to give people a chance to quickly get through the early stages of leveling and get a new character up to the point where it'd be relevant with raids, higher level content etc. where the larger concentration of players were. No grinding needed. Hell, WoW took it to the next level with WOTLK and let you just spawn a DK at like level 50, right? No need to even bother with Levels 1-49.

[kotton05]

One thing EQ got right (at the start) was not making each xpack nullify the last. It eventually snow balled but dam can we get an MMO that has a baseline of content that gets expanded on w/o making the last one almost useless?

One day some basement dwelling savant will make a game that satisfies everything we’ve ever wanted. Doubt it will ever be a big market company. Just look at the lore and time it took to really make classic what it is.

[Kika Maslyaka]

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

IDK- I think you could make the argument that while of course game designers always want to sell expansions, they equally valued keeping customers happy (and paying monthly subs). They didn't accidentally make PC and some of the other expansion newb zones with a high ZEM. That was done intentionally to give people a chance to quickly get through the early stages of leveling and get a new character up to the point where it'd be relevant with raids, higher level content etc. where the larger concentration of players were. No grinding needed. Hell, WoW took it to the next level with WOTLK and let you just spawn a DK at like level 50, right? No need to even bother with Levels 1-49.

Well kind of yeah. Oh DK was worse offender than that during entire time-frame of WOTLK it was the most overpowered class ever, which Blizz refused to acknowledge (to this day btw), because they wanted to sell the expansion. What I am trying to say this wasn't a game design philosophy move to "we change the game-play because we believe it will be better this way", it was "how do we make the most money the easiest way possible"?
LORE wise starting DKs at 50 did made sense. DK being insanely imbalanced was cheap money grab.

Going back to Luclin, I see it as a lot of good ideas, and more than a lot of poor or even lazy implementations. SOE was pushing to get the expansion out ASAP which resulted half of the zones being super-crappy, while another half badly underdeveloped. End game was also non existent at release, and VT had to be re-itemized 6 months later because it was super crap.
And the end game only had 2 full raid zones and few single raid targets here and there. It actually had less raid content than Velious.
On casual player level, once you left Paludal - the 20-50 range were mostly poorly made and poorly placed zones that people were very disappointed with.
Or lets take Luclin version of class armor quests for 30+ range - they were placed in Twilight Sea, a 30-40 zone that was sandwiched between 3x 45+ zones on all sides. So you are lev 30 player looking to start these quest how the heck you suppose to get there? Or better yet WHY would even bother???
In short- Luclin brought us like 2 dozen zones, out of which people used:
1-20 Paludal
20-35 Echo's (tiny zone with like a dozen mobs that were over-camped 24/7 because of zem and cash loot)
and raids. And nothing in between.

People keep saying Bazaar ruined Luclin. Well no, empty and useless 20+ zones ruined Luclin. Placing far out of the way zones with poor design, and no good incentive to go there was a growing EQ problem. And Luclin was a pinnacle of this. Each next expansion SOE would try to fix this by creating NEW HUBS for specific new content, first with PoP (which was good expansion otherwise), then with LOY, and finally with LDON - level from 20 to 65 without ever leaving one zone.