During Vanilla EQ, I remember thinking, "we all deal with how hard this game is because it's amazing - but we put up with this because it's the only option. I suspect the next MMO's will see a market opportunity by making it easier, and players will jump on that, and early ones will have to get easier to compete, and MMO's will continually get easier because of that." I think I was right.
A tradeoff of course was a lessening of community; and of excitement.
They became just 'queue for a quick dungeon with some strangers to grind for gear and faction.'
A tradeoff of course was a lessening of community; and of excitement.
They became just 'queue for a quick dungeon with some strangers to grind for gear and faction.'
They definitely did go that way, but you'll also notice that no MMO can be pay for subscription, and none seem to last very long. Basically, as it would appear, WoW killed the spirit of the MMO. They'll never have real appeal. It's not so much of difficulty, but simply a matter of being solo vs group oriented, and to get rid of the automatic group formation queues, especially cross server queues. Having a list of people looking for groups was good, having groups automatically formed took out a particularly important social function. Because so many easy options exist, it'll be hard for the ones that would have real long lasting appeal to exist.
While forming groups may have been difficult, they also formed bonds, and made the experience more enjoyable. You take that away, and people get bored. These games suck as solo games. Almost any single player game is far more enjoyable if you are alone.
Looks like Brad McQuaid is making a new MMO based on challenge creating community, just saw this today:
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/
Looks like they understand the problems I and a lot of others see in todays MMO's. Hopefully they can execute their vision, and get a good player base. If they succeed, I'll be interested.
It's not cheap - Pantheon's cheapest buy is $50 plus there will be a subscription. Garriot's game game Shroud of the Avatar isn't cheap, either - things like plots for $5,000.
That's what most the earlier MMO's cost. I don't know what you mean by the last thing that costs $5000, but $50 + subscription is fine.
What I mean by the last thing is that Shroud is selling a ton of in-game items including housing that can cost several thousand dollars.
Ah, well, I'm not into microtransactions. If they are only superficial, I can live with that. If they change the game play, that's a game breaker for me.
This brings back a memory for me, I had a War back then, ran him as fury (sword and board if I had to offtank though). Got two lifedrain axes from the last boss in old ZG (Hakkar?), threw lifedrain enchant on each after gathering the mats because I was a poors. With 4x lifedrain procs, could actually generate health while fighting 1v1s of equivalent level stuff, was pretty amazing back then.Nope, you don't remember correctly. Or more likely, you never knew how it worked.Don't worry, you were not the only one.
Fire resist gear did 2 things.
1) It reduces the chance you get hit by a fire spell. This worked in fixed amount, 0% chance to not get hit, 25%, 50% and 75% to not get hit.
2) When you do get hit, it reduces the amount of damage that got through. The amount was in proportion to how much FR you had.
So yes, even if you have 100 FR and the other rogue had 140 FR, and both would make it so that your chance to get hit by fire spells was 50%, the other rogue would still take less damage.
I've played a rogue in WoW. Doing high dps was the only thing that mattered. I've seen enough other rogues bragging about how high their dps was and how they really didn't need much FR gear. But you know what ? Killing bosses is all about all raid members learning how not to die. That's the only trick. Don't die. And I remember many many boss-fights, where in the end, when the boss was dead, I was standing and there were a whole bunch of rogues and warriors lying dead besides me. And when you look at the damage meters, I would always outdamage the rogues who didn't wear any or much FR gear. Because I had 100% dps-time, and the other melee died halfway the fight.
Ragnaros. But FR was also useful at Magmadar,Geddon and Golemagg. It would allow you much more dps-time.
In BWL at Broodlord Lashlayer I would be guaranteed to out-dps all other melee. Because higher FR would make you resist applications of the boss's debuf. And therefor you need to hide around the corner much less. And if you make a mistake: poof, dead.
Onyxia with FR gear would also be much easier. And much safer.
I loved AQ40. I was in a crappy guild. Very fun, but not with good results. At one point I joined the top Horde guild on the server. Still nothing special, but they were in AQ40 while most guilds couldn't get past the first 1-2 bosses in BWL. The reason they took me in was probably because I had farmed Nature Resist gear on my own. I went into 5-man dungeons and farmed level 40-60 NR-gear solo. (There was quite a bit in Maraudon). When I applied for that guild, I already had 200 NR. And even if that's all shitty gear, it would allow you to be effective in AQ40. WIth no NR-gear, you wouldn't stand a chance against Princess Huhuran.
I loved having a significant number of resist fights. In Vanilla. It would allow you to outsmart other players. Be prepared better. I would give you something to do: acquire more sets for raiding. I remember wandering around solo in BRD. Farming Dark Iron, smelting Dark Iron for guildies, etc. My FR-gear would allow me to solo the fire-elementals. (Remember those ?) Mobs that could easily wipe a 5-man group. But with the right gear, they would be easy.
Later, in TBC and WLK, the best resist gear all came from crafter gear that would require drops from raids. In other words: you could not gather that resist gear yourself, you had to wait for your guild to hand you the materials. That ended the fun of resist gear for me.
Great fun.
I spent a few years of my best gaming years playing WoW.
Too bad Blizzard totally messed it up.
If we were raiding, I'd actually just park through the non-loss of control aoe's, or throw-you-flying aoe's. With damaging ones, I'd drain fast enough to cap back off before the next aoe came through unless something was stacking, healers knew to just ignore me. Let me ignore a lot of the resist gear garbage fire everyone else had to go through. Good times.
Gryz
Golden Member
- Aug 28, 2010
- 1,551
- 203
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I played Vanguard.
Brad McQuaid was lucky to be at the right place at the right time. When he worked at Everquest. However, his later work showed he has no clue what he is doing. He's a liar. He's a conman. He should go find a job in finance, or shovel shit on a farm or something. He should not be let near a new game. Ever. Never trust a heroin junkie. Fuck Brad McQuaid.
While Vanguard was a hot mess (read up on it, it was released way, way early, not the standard rush, but massively early and it was junk), EQ was not and he was a huge part of it (for the time, yes comparing it to today it would not hold up) I don't agree, he has had some success. While i don't think he can succeed for the same reasons nobody is now. His vision is the closest to what we all think "we want" but when we get it most wont like it.Everybody wants more difficulty, more tailoring your characters (skill tree's, AA points, etc..) some real thinking needed to grow that character. People want to compare what they did with other and see what works. Cookie cutter characters make the game easy, and yes fun when you cant fill that one spot, but most would say its bad for the game. They dont want it so everybody has the same loot or stats.. That cool flaming skull sword needs to feel special for a few weeks when you walk around town and show it off, not hours like it is now. Brad may tend to error towards working damn hard ( to hard in some cases) for the cool stuff, but many want that effort rewarded, right up till they think its to hard, then they join the other side of the debate "to damn grindy". I have said it over and over there are 10% of the player base who will do the work, and 90% who will not, and making the game for the 10% will in the end mean its dead sooner. That is the simple reason WoW has held on as long as it has, the 90% can play it and move up the food chain and be close to the 10%, which the 10% hate and feel cheated as they did alot of work to get what they have. There is no way to satisfy both. When EQ came out it was it in 3D MMORPG, hard or easy, there where no other choices and it showed you that play style almost day one, 1 rat (gnoll) 2, scarry, and 3 owned you. You learned quick that gung ho balls flying was not going to get you anywhere. You learned grouping eliminated deaths and you could GRIND those levels quicker.. yes EQ was really a grind fest, but it was the only grindfest in town at the time and we had not see easier so we loved it. There was real feelings of accomplishment on many items.. NOBODY who hadn't camped Nejina (been so long is that correct name?) for the boots has any idea of commitment, 60-90 (or more) hour waits where not uncommon and a bathroom break could screw you. Who can do that today? ( hell i took work off to do mine!!!!). Balance for all players is almost impossible now, in the early days you had nothing to compare too, so you liked it or didnt. Now every MMORPG game as followed a close path with many different change ups so we have seen almost anything there is.. and nobody is making anything work long term, that in itself tells you how fickle we are now. I would guess something will come along that wil make a dent but it wont be like the games we see today, its got to do something we haven't seen to make it good again.. But back to Original topic, there are the Hardcore, and Brad is hardcore.. he might get a nitch game going, just maybe.. again I do agree i doubt it, but not because of Brad, but because we all say we want hard till we get it.
Paragraphs are your friend (it's hard to read a wall of text).
Anyway, I don't think "hard" is the right word. We don't necessarily want hard. We don't necessarily want to feel special, although that's cool too. What we do want, is a game that requires group play to progress. A game where you must socialize to create groups (no autogrouping). Cross server queues are terrible, because you cannot make friends with someone once the group is over.
Until WoW, MMO's were mostly group games. Even WoW required grouping to see much of the game, or get better gear, until WotLK. Once they stopped making every day grouping important, in a meaningful way, and require people to actually network with other people, the game felt hollow
They had a good balance up to BC, on the group/solo thing, but went out of whack after WotLK and every game has followed suit. That does pose a problem, as people seem to want an easy time when they are trying to get into a new MMO, but they don't get any strong social connections to make them want to stay longer than a few weeks.
Anyway, I don't think "hard" is the right word. We don't necessarily want hard. We don't necessarily want to feel special, although that's cool too. What we do want, is a game that requires group play to progress. A game where you must socialize to create groups (no autogrouping). Cross server queues are terrible, because you cannot make friends with someone once the group is over.
Until WoW, MMO's were mostly group games. Even WoW required grouping to see much of the game, or get better gear, until WotLK. Once they stopped making every day grouping important, in a meaningful way, and require people to actually network with other people, the game felt hollow
They had a good balance up to BC, on the group/solo thing, but went out of whack after WotLK and every game has followed suit. That does pose a problem, as people seem to want an easy time when they are trying to get into a new MMO, but they don't get any strong social connections to make them want to stay longer than a few weeks.
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