Interview with Scott Adams
by Loral on October 08, 2004
This week I am honored to introduce Scott Adams. Scott agreed to sit down with Mobhunter for a short interview. Scott is a long-time Everquest player and a major icon in the computer gaming community. Let us begin the questions:
Mobhunter: For those who have yet to figure out the gnomish technology of "Google" could you please introduce yourself and your background?
Scott Adams: I am credited with starting the Personal Computer Gaming industry in 1978 with the publication of Adventureland. I am also called the father of computer gaming. (Should be grandfather now, hehe) My company Adenture International was in business til aprox 1985 publishing primarily computer games for the micro computers of that era.
I had actually been writing computer games before this. I remember writing computer games at a radar station I worked at and using the radar monitors to play the games on. I later had a homebrew system my brother build from CPU bit slices that I wrote a simple arcade style shooter for. I had to entirely hand assemble and link it. Later I had a Sphere computer (kit computer) which I wrote an elaborate arcade tank war game complete with home made controllers. It won Sphere's first annual "What do I use my Sphere Computer for" contest. With the advent of "appliance" computers (that is what we homebrewers called them back then) such as TRS-80 and Apple I saw my chance to write for a larger audience.
I understand I have inspired many of today's game designers and programmers. I still get allot of fan mail from the nice folks who tell me that my games were the reason they got into computers as a career. I am always happy to hear from folks like that and have made many new friends over the years because of it.
Mobhunter: How do you feel about the direction computer games took since you started the field?
Scott Adams: I am actually very happy with modern day computer games. One of the reasons I started my writing computer games was there were none around to play. Now there is a wonderful surfeit of great games. I watch them evolve over the years from the simple single man generated effort to the small team built games to the industrial strength mega efforts of today.
Mobhunter: How long have you played EQ?
Scott Adams: I started playing EQ in April 2001. I had heard about the game before when it launched but had the impression it was some sort of glorified chat room with folks pretending they were medieval people. Sort of like a Medieval reenactment world. Certainly nothing a real computer game player would ever be interested in.
Then a friend of mine told me he played and what it was really about. I decided to give a try and rolled up a halfling druid. I was instantly hooked.
Mobhunter: What characters, classes, and levels do you play?
Scott Adams: I have played almost all the classes and characters. My highest char is only 48 and is a druid. I have allot of 30-40 level characters as I would roll them up and play them to see how well they fit into my hydra.
You can see my current set and my others here:
http://www.msadams.com/magelo.htm
Mobhunter: Could you explain your Hydra?
Scott Adams: I play 5 chars at one time. I use 5 discreet computers to do this. My center machine I run my Paladin. On my left is my enchanter, to my right is my druid. These machines are all on the same desktop. On a rolling cart to my left is my Bard and another cart on my right has my cleric.
I have many in game macros setup to assist me. For example when I bring in a mob I hit the 5 key on my setups. This will then do the assist the puller and start whatever normal attack its. The cleric will do a celestial heal and the bard will auto follow the puller to get in place then assist and melee attack.
My bard uses a keyboard macro to allow him twist 3-4 songs at time, normally he is using amplify and a manna song.
I remapped the F1-F8 keys to be the spell gems, so I can instantly fire off spells as needed on any of my characters. My 1-0 keys are all mapped to the normal hotkeys. I have an emergency bail out on the 8 key on all my chars. The druid has a Crucible of Escape and this on the 8 key, the other casters all have gate on 8.
I also use a 4rd party utility called EQ Watcher www.eqwatcher.com which reads the log files out loud. I have my own custom scripts I have written for it so I can be kept informed at all times what is going on my other chars. This one utility more than anything else makes my hydra MX5 possible!
http://www.msadams.com/EQWatcher/
Mobhunter: What other MMOGs do you play and what do you think of them?
Scott Adams: I have played all the major MOGS and many of the minors ones too. Dark Age of Camelot, Anarchy Online, Neocron, Eve, Underlight, A Tale in the Desert are some examples of the MOGs I have played. Right now the only two I am playing are EQ and City of Heroes.
CoH is a MOG lite. Basically a pure fighting game with nothing added to get in the way of the fast furious battles. I have currently been in CoH since its launch this April.
Of all the MOGs I play EQ is the only one that I keep coming back to, I usually play a MOG for 2 to 4 months then return to EQ.
I am also beta testing EQ2 and will be in that big time when it launches. I won't play a hydra there. I also do not play a hydra in CoH, the game is way to fast and furious to really allow it.
Mobhunter: What are some of the things you like about EQ?
Scott Adams: Big world and lots of utility spells. The co-operative aspect of the game where it is you and friends against a hostile environment. The abilities you get at higher levels to teleport around quickly. The excitement of the drops and not knowing what may turn up.
I love the bazaar system and all the updates they did recently to improve it. No other game has anything even close to this. A one stop shopping mall is SO much better than tiny shops scattered over the whole game world.
Mobhunter: What sorts of things would you like to see improved in the existing EQ world?
Scott Adams: Quests. You really have no way to know if a quest is doable or not, what the reward might be and if it is worth even trying, maybe times the reward is simply not even usable. I, like many others, use the 3rd party web sites to determine which quests are even worth bothering with. This really stinks.
Content for non raiders. I don't raid and don't want to, but I want to see interesting sites and fight interesting mobs.
In game email. Some way to communicate with EQ only friends. My other mogs have this feature and it makes a big difference.
Sidekicking. This feature in City of Heroes allows one to play their friends no matter their levels. You can either choose to raise some else level to you or decrease yours to theirs. This alone would make an incredible difference in EQ to allow folks to join up.
Improved graphics. The current Luclin era character models certainly need work as do most of the old world zones.
Group oriented task system. The OOW task system should be expanded to allow groups to get them together and all reap the rewards. This is then like an outdoor LDoN spread across Norrath. Would be great fun. Currently I do tasks with my hydra but not all members of the hydra can always get the same tasks.
The ability to do LFG across zones. CoH just put that in and its a phenomenal idea. This way folks can invite others no matter where they are currently looking for group!
Mobhunter: Thank you for your time Scott! You can read more about Scott Adams at his website and download some of Scott's Grand Adventures.
Interview conducted by Loral Ciriclight
7 October 2004
loral@loralciriclight.com
Comment Posted by: Talaen on October 8, 2004 10:03 AM
Great interview! Thanks Loral and Scott :)
My initiation to online games was in a MUD that held multiplayers to be evil incarnate. Because of that, I don't think I will ever be comfortable running more than one character at a time. I can understand why other people do it in EQ though and the setup Scott has sounds amazing. I'm glad that upcoming games like EQ2 are going to be involving enough so as to help cut down on this though. Maybe I'm a little bit of a purist when it comes to that.
One minor thing - and maybe Scott just hasn't seen it since it doesn't get much publicity. But LoY did add the /lfg window and it is global. So if you turn on lfg, you'll show up to anyone looking at the window no matter what zone you're in - even if you're anonymous or roleplay. I think the interface could be improved a bit, and I tend to run into problems trying to get the level ranges set where I want them when i'm looking for group members, but it's there and it does work... when people use it. Usually I notice a lot more people /ooc'ing that they want a group than I see in the /lfg window.
Comment Posted by: on October 8, 2004 11:02 AM
I think he is referring to being able to actually *INVITE* someone across a different zone, something that is never been possible in EQ.
In EQ not only do they have to be in the same zone, you have to be able to get them on your target.
In planetside however, you can /invite playername from anywhere in the gameworld (obviously only if they are on your team).
Comment Posted by: on October 8, 2004 11:04 AM
Sad that the self-proclaimed father of the computer gaming industry has to cheat at EQ.
Comment Posted by: Loral on October 8, 2004 11:16 AM
If you're referring to EQ Watcher, SOE already stated that such devices (basically vocal log readers) are not cheating. They do not act upon the information they give, they simply vocalize things you only normally read. Scott still has to act upon it himself.
This isn't the same as Macroquest.
Comment Posted by: on October 8, 2004 11:31 AM
I think he means the 5 boxing
Comment Posted by: Ogulbuk on October 8, 2004 11:32 AM
I was planing to propose this for an article here, but since this guy decided to mention the sidekick then i will just post it here on the comments. I have had this lying on my desktop for a week now:
MMORPGs and Friends
So, why do people not leave their current MMORPG even when they hate it? Because of friends. Friends can make or break a game. A MOG can be the best game ever, but if you log in and cant find a good group of friends in a reasonable amount of time, you will just quit the game. The same goes around, you may play the worst MOG ever, but if you have good friend you enjoy to play the game with, you WILL stay, even if the game starts crashing every hour for 3 months.
I played EverQuest for almost 5 years. I left the game very often, but always went back. My issue was that I play casually and the friends I made out leveled me quickly. I had to find new guilds every 2 months, and meet people, fight with potential bad players and so on. I loved the game, but every time I felt I lost my friend to higher levels I would get disappointed and try out the latest new MOG out there. But this also happened on those other MOGs and I ended coming back to EverQuest, only to repeat the cycle. Never I played any other game than EQ for longer than 2 months because of this.
My latest game, though, seems to have solved this entirely: City of Heroes. It is not that the game is good or anything like that, actually I know for sure most MMORPG fans will hate the game, but it has a feature I just cant help but love, a system that should be implemented on EVERY MMORPG, it is called the Sidekick system.
Basically, with this system, you pick up a character that is lower lvl than you and you offer him to be his mentor, this character will become sort of a disciple (sidekick in super hero terms). Now that he is your disciple he will become slightly lower lvl than you are automatically.
There are restrictions, of course, mainly your character is not as effective as the real thing, this due to that even if he is now higher lvl he still has no access to spells and skills that are higher level than his real level. Also if he gets too far from you he automatically looses the effects of being a disciple. His original powers, though, perform much more higher than they did, the general idea being he will be useful, although bellow average. More so the bigger the level difference is. This character is still restricted from some areas, like the planes in EQ where you need to be X level or higher to enter. The character earns experience just as if he was killing things of his proper level, meaning if he is lvl 10 and now performs at lvl 35 and fights a lvl 35 enemy, he will get xp as if he was fighting a lvl 10 enemy.
With all the restrictions in place, truth is you will never look for a random low level player to perform as your main tank by making him your disciple, he is weaker than normal after all, although he may perform ok on a normal LDON mission.
So, if he is performing weaker than before, and can’t go to special areas, and will just get the same xp as if fighting his proper level, why bother? Well because it keeps friends together. Yester night I played with my guild and I realized this is the main reason I keep playing, because since I was lvl 10 I have kept my same friends even if they out level me or I out level them. MOGs are about building a community, establishing a group of friends, and then enjoying the world together.
The reason I bring this here is because I would like to see something like this implemented in EverQuest, and maybe on EQ2 and other MORPGs out there. I know I would still play EQ instead of CoH if I had not been forced to renounce to my friends so many times in the past.
Comment Posted by: Scott Adams on October 8, 2004 11:41 AM
I agree Ogulbuk 100%. I have a very heated discussion going on in another BBS about this.
I totally think it is the one major thing that can be added to EQlive to make it more fun at present!
I hope no one seriously thinks I cheat at Everquest. All the 3rd party utils I use are "blessed" as ok by SOE. I really wish they were built in so that everyone could easily take advantage of them.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on October 8, 2004 11:52 AM
EQ2 was originally doing something like that with the fellowship system, but that seems to have been cut? I wonder why.
Comment Posted by: on October 8, 2004 01:37 PM
Boxing is cheating, in the sense that you are completely shortcutting all the *DESIGNED IN* gameplay checks and balances.
You can surely invite people to your 'hydra', but the fact remains that unless you invite FIVE people to your hydra, you are eliminating any opportunity for a real player to be playing with you and meeting new friends. And conversely, when someone boxes in their group, and your LFG, it takes away from YOUR opportunity to join the group and meet potential new friends etc.
The game was designed with specific restrictions on abilities etc, and boxing basically eliminates a great part of those restrictions.
So yes, in a very real way, you are cheating. Cheating yourself, and cheating others.
Comment Posted by: on October 8, 2004 01:51 PM
I find the opposition to boxing amusing. If you don't LIKE something someone else does, that's one thing. To try and demonize others behavior on made-up moral or ethical grounds is another.
I think that trying to elevate your personal dislikes to the level of immorality or unethical behavior is a far worse sin than boxing. In fact, adding to the Bible is specifically forbidden by the text itself. Boxing multiple characters is notably absent from the text.
Comment Posted by: on October 8, 2004 04:04 PM
It's common sense that cheating is bad. No one has to vilify or demonize it any more than it already does by itself.
One form of cheating is 'taking the easy way out' or doing something outside the context of the rules or established process.
By boxing you eliminate or reduce the need/desire, and designed-in goal, to interact with others players.
It makes the game easier, heck thats the basis for just about any cheat... no one cheats to make the game harder.
Comment Posted by: Thaedson on October 8, 2004 05:08 PM
I don't get the whole Hydra is cheating thing.... its a game, play it the way you like it. Quite frankly I would like to see some of the more "content-driven " events in game. Content meaning quests, themes, missions, etc..
Comment Posted by: MrNukem on October 8, 2004 06:00 PM
For those of us who enjoy retro items here is a copy of a Catalog from Adventure International from 1981. I grew up on Scott Adam's games starting in 1980 or on my TRS-80.
Comment Posted by: rob on October 8, 2004 06:09 PM
If playing multiple characters is by Design, Immoral becuase your not interacting with other people, then the logical progression of that, is that soloing is evil, not raiding is evil, not being in a guild is evil...
that argument against multiboxing does not hold water.
Comment Posted by: on October 8, 2004 07:03 PM
Soloing isn't 'evil', but its hardly a primary goal of a mmog... its a byproduct of certain classes or abilities being powerful... whether or not that they are too powerful is entirely dependant on the game world.
You don't have to raid in order to interact and group with others within the gameworld, nor must you be in a guild to group and interact with others.
Your 'logical progression' is not very logical.
Comment Posted by: on October 8, 2004 08:21 PM
Doing something the easy way is cheating? So I suppose then that if the boats were brought back and the gnomes and PoP stones were left in, you would forgo those transportation methods and take the boats to get from one continent to another? How silly is that? If the game and the game company allow a method of gameplay and you choose to use it, just because it is easier doesn't make it a cheat. Get over yourself.
Comment Posted by: Rob on October 8, 2004 08:23 PM
But, its just as logical as your insistance that 2 boxing is cheating, based on the fact the game is designed for multi-player interaction. The game is "designed" to make money for SOE and its stockholders.
Having a real life is cheating, by your logic, as it interferes with the time you could spend enriching other players game time by grouping with them. Its just a bit ridiculous to accuse someone of cheating over something that you dislike. If it violates the EULA, its cheating, thats it. At worst, you can argue its a case of bad manners.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on October 8, 2004 09:07 PM
I don't consider boxing, or even a hydra such as Scott's to be any more cheating than someone killing a Kunark dragon with a single group, or using a minor exploit such as aggroing a turn-in NPC and pulling them out of harm's way, to complete a quest with far less than the amount of people the quest was designed for.
I don't agree with any of those things, but if we're going to go on a witchhunt, ask yourself when the last time you played in the spirit of the game was. When was the last time you took a shortcut on a quest, or paid attention to your faction ratings? When was the last time you killed a city guard for experience, or got a temperance for your level 10 character. When was the last time you took platinum from your main and bought a bunch of gear for your alt? How about the last time you got powerleveled, or did it for someone else?
If boxing is cheating, then so are those things.
At this point I think the argument is sort of moot. The game lets you do it, it's not specifically against the EULA, and I've never heard of a GM suspending accounts for it. You can agree or disagree with what they do, but let's face it - if we're going to start calling "cheat", then let's first make sure we ourselves are innocent of any sins.
If you want to do something about so-called cheating, make it a point to only play within the spirit of the game, and set a good example. That's about the best you can accomplish.
Comment Posted by: Naladini on October 8, 2004 11:55 PM
"I don't agree with any of those things, but if we're going to go on a witchhunt, ask yourself when the last time you played in the spirit of the game was. When was the last time you took a shortcut on a quest, or paid attention to your faction ratings? When was the last time you killed a city guard for experience, or got a temperance for your level 10 character. When was the last time you took platinum from your main and bought a bunch of gear for your alt? How about the last time you got powerleveled, or did it for someone else?"
Adding another big one to your list:
When was the last time you heard of a guild sharing account info so everyone could get flagged, even if they weren't online at the time of a raid? :)
Comment Posted by: Ogulbuk on October 9, 2004 12:08 AM
ACK!!! Scott Adams, the father of gaming, agreed 100% with me!!!
/faints
Comment Posted by: MMShaman on October 9, 2004 01:19 AM
So if taking the easy way is cheating, I suppose that looking up quest information, mob loot tables, and zone strategy on the various web sites is also cheating. I guess I'm a cheater then. ;)
Great interview btw
Comment Posted by: CM on October 9, 2004 03:06 PM
Wow. Was 2 boxing just referred to as a 'Sin'? You've gotta be kidding me. I think ya'll need to take a step back a re-evaluate. We're talking about a game here. If that's how he chooses to enjoy the game then so be it. As far as cheating, that's just silly. Everquest was built with the adventurer in mind, but it was also built as a HUGE time sink. A lot of the mundane tasks in EQ were put there just for that purpose. Why? To keep you playing and to keep you paying. Multi-boxing does not get around this. You still have to pay for each extra account. For those without the resources or the know-how to 5 box (myself included) don't be so blantently jealous. Be happy with whatcha got.
Comment Posted by: Quesci on October 9, 2004 04:37 PM
"I use 5 discreet computers to do this."
I hope you mean 5 "discrete" computers. Although if multi-boxing is an exploit I can see why you might want them to be discreet as well.
Comment Posted by: Some Guy on October 9, 2004 05:53 PM
Why would multiboxing be an exploit when Sony specifically mentioned it as a benefit of purchasing a second account when they sent out free serial codes in their promotion last year?
Does no one remember that?
Comment Posted by: Scott Adams on October 9, 2004 07:49 PM
LOL Yes 5 discrete computers. HEHE I do have a hard tyme with speeling and I am not very discreet about it!
ROFL good catch!
:)
Comment Posted by: Tarzel on October 11, 2004 12:50 AM
Scott,
Thanks for getting it all started. Grats on the hydra - sounds cool, challenging, and fun.
How do you think SOE will help EQ players transition to EQII without losing their friendships they have built in EQ? I would consider starting over at level 1 in a new world if I was sure my friends from Norrath would be there.
Are better graphics that my not run well on my current computer worth leaving EQ? Will I need to buy a top of the line gamming system to play EQII with the models turned on?
As a game designer, why not just swap out the hardware used for EQ, and upgrade EQ with the new models in EQII?
Loral,
Great article / interview.
Haters,
Attacking a person because he plays differently is rude. It is not against the EULA. Thus, legal. You may not like it you may disagree, but attacking a person, because of your dislikes is wrong.
Comment Posted by: on October 11, 2004 08:01 AM
"glad that upcoming games like EQ2 are going to be involving enough so as to help cut down on this though"
You gotta be joking right??
Comment Posted by: Striken on October 11, 2004 02:15 PM
I think nothing portrays how watered down, simple, and easy EQ is now that people can play 5 accounts. I am greatly saddened by how much the game has changed for the worse. The game should be challenging enough and engaging enough that ONE character is enough. The fact that the game has been dumbed down so much, and that you now need 2-3 times the numbers to do high end stuff cant be a coincidence....
I dont want to seem like a conspiracy theorist, but it seems very logical from a corprate positition to create a game with this equation; You make it so you require 100+ "characters" to win the high-end encounters, but reduce the difficulty of playing each "character" enough that each PLAYER can run 3-5 accounts....
I remember raiding all the POP content, we had 80 people in zone, with about 30 players... Half the people were standing around doing nothing (watching TEEVO or sleeping), the other half were yelling at the first half to wake up and pay attention. The bosses died, loot was bid on, and everyone ran to the next target....
No skill, just numbers. We complain about it, but never do anything about it. Sony makes money over it, and we buy another account to kill the next uber-mob... A true win/win scenario, no?
Comment Posted by: Loral on October 11, 2004 02:43 PM
Raids went from 72 people (never 100) down to 54, so your theory doesn't really seem to work.
I'm sure Scott would agree that not every one of the six is played to the fullest. Personally, I don't see how people two-box. I'm a pretty busy guy.
Comment Posted by: on October 11, 2004 03:10 PM
Loral, if you think you are bussy now, try plaing City of Heroes. Your fingers will bleed :P
There is no auto attack there, mainly because every melee attack is treatd as a melee range spell. That includes provoke and everything else you can think off.
"glad that upcoming games like EQ2 are going to be involving enough so as to help cut down on this though"
You dont know how right you are, but your reasons are unfair. Right now the game is boring, you just hit auto attack and lay back, maybe hit 1 or 2 a lot of times to throw that taunt or kick or arrow.
EQ2 promises to be similar to CoH in that every attack will be decided by you, or at least that is how some interview i read sounded like. Lets see how the final product turns out like.
##Loral: the preview button does not work, it eats the end of lines and cramps everything toghether.
Comment Posted by: Striken on October 11, 2004 04:14 PM
Not to nitpick, but The Rathe fights were 100+
Then they lowered the difficulty. Remember Furor threating to have his entire guild quit because you needed X people to get into Time but then the trials limited you to Y number of people?
Its easy to take one line from a paragraph totally out of context and rip it to shreds Loral, it happens to you all the time. (no insult intended, its childish to do this) But the overall point was that originally, you couldnt 3-5 box in EQ, it was too hard to play one class alone.
Even though the numbers have gotten bigger, more damage, higher HP's, more mana; the amount of skill has gone down just as quick. And I think that being able to play 3+ characters shows this.
Before anyone says that there isnt any skill in EQ, yer right, there isnt anymore. The game USED to require skill though, back in the day, when we had to walk up hill, both ways, to get to Guk..
All the Best
Comment Posted by: Talaen on October 11, 2004 04:40 PM
/agree Striken.
I think part of the blame lies with the age of the game itself. So much of EQ's core gameplay used to be intutitive - you had to figure out what to do. Now, it's relatively easy to find a guide some helpful player wrote that tells you which abilities to use in a given situation, what songs to twist on your bard, and so on. Once gameplay gets distilled down to a rote procedure, it's only natural that people start inventing ways to automate the procedure.
Part of it is also due to the double-edged sword of autoattack. Autoattack was necessary (and arguably still is) in games in order to combat network latency. Not everyone has a broadband connection, and even those that do have a host of potential things that could go wrong on the internet between them and SOE's servers. Since these things are completely out of the control of both the company hosting the game and the person playing it, the only real workable solution is to build things into the game to compensate for them.
The downside to this is that because the system automates the basic attack, the game becomes much easier for any player to play, regardless of their connection. This is especially a problem in EQ, because pretty much ALL melee combat relies on the default attack rather than on special abilities.
New games, including EQ2, are addressing these problems by de-emphasizing a basic attack and making combat a series of manually triggered special attacks and manuevers. This makes the game more involving, and if done well, less prone to automation. The downside is that players with poor connections will suffer. Different games are going to different lengths with this, some have eliminated an autoattack altogether, while others have only lessened its importance slightly. Unfortunately, until bandwidth requirements for games are no longer an issue for players, I don't think we'll ever be completely free of this issue, regardless of what game we're playing.
EQ2 specifically has made it difficult (though not impossible) to multi-box. First, the system requirements are high enough that at this point, running multiple instances of the game on one computer is tough (as a side note, this used to be the case with EQ as well if you think about it). Second, the style of play they're using in combat, along with systems like the combat wheel, make it so that combat is much more an interactive experience for any given class. This means that while yes, you could run two (or more) accounts at the same time, your effectiveness with the secondary character(s) would be extremely limited. This is a disincentive to multi-box.
I asked my guild what their opinion was on this, and overall the response was that they want gameplay to be engaging and fun, and they thought that having more things to do in a fight than just hit autoattack and press a few buttons was a good thing. However, they also all said that they will be extremely unhappy if they end up waiting an average of 3 hours most nights to find a group, or if their groups are crippled because of a lack of certain classes, like clerics, and that there better be some solo content - because if they have to deal with that they might as well just play EQ1 and continue to multibox.
The bad part of running more than one account is that it cuts down on the amount of interaction you need/have with other players. It makes you more self-sufficient in ways that the game really wasn't originally set up to allow, and it gives you an advantage over players who only have or can afford one account. The good side of it is that it lets you enjoy the game (sans some of the interaction) without having to basically hang out in the chat room until you can get people together to do it. Ultimately, all MMOs are going to have to answer the question of forced interaction vs. the time-limited player. Until they do, there will always be some debate about whether multi-boxing is "right" or not.
Comment Posted by: Scott Adams on October 11, 2004 05:17 PM
/agree Talaen
I play City of Heroes and only play one char at a time there. I am in EQ2 beta and also only play one char there.
EQ is more forgiving on the group dynamics as things tend to happen much slower. It is not dumbed down as I have been doing this for years. It is simply the nature of combat.
Ask most clerics what they do. med, stand, heal, sit, repeat.
One thing I did not like in EQ was a group support member I was constantly sitting in a group wating for the puller. Not being much of a conversationalist I had nothing to do. Thus was born my hydra.
Blame it on being ADHD (not really) but you get the idea. I simply enjoy lots of things happening. Play 5 chars at once sort of guarantees it!
Btw I made a video this weekend of me playing my hdra. It is not up on the web yet but if anyone wants the link when I place it let me know in an email. I won't be putting it on my web page as I don't want to drag down my bandwidth.
Scott
Comment Posted by: Marrgill on October 11, 2004 06:24 PM
Boxing is not cheating. After all, each box is still just playing the game as it was intended. If you're scripting one or more of the boxes, then, yes, you're cheating, but if you're actually playing each box manually, you're not.
Comment Posted by: on October 12, 2004 11:43 AM
if your bored in camp, why not try a more involving class, like say a bard or monk puller eh?
Comment Posted by: Scott Adams on October 13, 2004 08:53 AM
I have placed a link to a movie of me playing my hydra on my web page in the links section.
Comment Posted by: Ogulbuk on October 13, 2004 09:37 AM
Just wanted to note that the reason for auto atack is NOT network constrains.
If you see, only melee classes suffer this, all casters are very active, they dont have enough variety on their attacks, though, but they do activate each one manualy. Bards also are the most hardcore, using one song per second. I used to twist 4 songs AND chat at the same time.
Maybe that is why i liked bards.
With melee they just where not smart enough. They added swords, autoattack, and kick/bash as actives. They just had no originality there. I blame this purely on design and never on network constrains.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on October 13, 2004 09:48 AM
Ogulbuk, ask any SOE developer and they'll tell you the primary reason for autoattack was indeed to help defeat latency. They've posted it hundreds of times now in various discussions about this and other games.
As a side note, apparently the devs think that bards are too hard to play with manual twisting - that's why you can automate it on the test server now.
Comment Posted by: Ogulbuk on October 13, 2004 11:23 AM
Honestly, they can say it. I still dont think the same idea behind would easily fit melee attacks, practicaly making attack short range spells.
If spells also went on auto attack i would had believed it.
If you have lag issues then you simply allow the player to prepare the next attack while executing the current one, and you set a progress bar just as with spells.
Yes, had they allowed you to hit every single common attack at the speed eq attacks would had caused problems, but that does not means you have to. You could instead make harder hiting slower attacks.
Also, i just played this game for a few weeks, but Asheron's Call had a system with a slider where you executed the hit yourself, and over that if you hit the attack at the right time (based on the slider) you'd do extra damage. This from a game that was released almost at the same time as EQ.
Comment Posted by: Ogulbuk on October 13, 2004 11:25 AM
Also, as for bard song auto twist... yewk.
Now i surely wont ever be going back to EQ, I loved twisting...
But as posted by some one here, EQ is every day becoming less about skill and more about numbers (numbers meaning loot, meaning hours of camping, meaning boring)
Comment Posted by: on October 14, 2004 12:35 AM
FYI I 2 box in the EQ2 beta and it is as trivial if not more so then it was in Everquest. Don't believe everything you have read between the lines. Wait till you play the actual game and see for yourself.
Comment Posted by: Ogulbuk on October 14, 2004 08:52 AM
So, EQ2 does relly a lot on autoatack too?
Comment Posted by: Ragvar on October 15, 2004 12:12 PM
Mr. Adams,
Way to go Hydra dude! I personally am amazed that a Human can coordinate five machines at once. You must have phenomenal concentration! Thank you for the great interview.
Comment Posted by: on October 23, 2004 07:23 PM
its sad he has to create his own groups to play the game which is missing the point of a multiplayer game.this guy is the father of gaming? I dont think so
Comment Posted by: on October 23, 2004 07:26 PM
sad the father of gaming cheats and eliminates the whole point of an mmo by creating mini loot hording groups of his own characters.sad!
Comment Posted by: Scott Adams on November 11, 2004 12:52 PM
See http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=Newbie&message.id=7981
I have renounced hydra hood.
Comment Posted by: on January 6, 2005 10:30 PM
Great interview. I two boxed in EQ and the main reasons were the ability to power level other accounts with my druid and the difficulty of finding groups. I see you renounced the Hydra, Scott, but you've actually given me a challenge. I heard there is a utility that lets you run 4 eq accounts on one screen. I no longer play EQ but I'm hopeful that Loral's evil agenda will one day come to pass. I miss the political layers of Vallon Zek in the early days and WoW is an extremely antisocial game by comparison. Rambling, I know.
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Comment Posted by: Ogna on March 8, 2005 11:56 AM
As someone who has accauly seen the hydra in action, i can tell you that it is easy to sit back and call "cheat" but untill you try and play 5 computers i wouldint say anything.
Comment Posted by: Scott Adams on March 28, 2005 05:55 PM
Just for the record I am back to my old ways. I currently play a 3 headed hydra in EQ2.
Great fun!
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