Loral's Evil Halloween Agenda
by Loral on October 21, 2004
Next week I travel to New Orleans and join in the fun at this year's EQ Fan Faire. As I did with the guild summit in March, I write the direction I would like to see EQ travel. This article describes five areas for SOE to focus on and improve in the future.
Add and Improve Quests
Quests should be the cornerstone of Everquest. Currently, however, most progression comes from killing beasts and getting occasional rare drops. Many different types of events could spawn from quests, whether they are group hunts, raids, tasks, tradeskills, or soloing.
Add and update quests. Consider developing a new quest system similar to the task system. Update the Ro armor quests with valuable pieces. Add level 30 and 40 armor quests. Add a mid-level epic quests.
Everquest should include fun, powerful, and progressive quests at all levels. Quest completion should offer significant experience bonuses, character flags, equipment upgrades, augments, new spells, and new disciplines.
Build a new quest interface that uses the "find" trail, compass marking, and a log-book to keep track of quests players currently follow.
Quests should return to the center of the game, especially a game titled "Everquest".
Improve Grouping Options
Add a /groupinvite keyboard command to invite players from outside the zone into a group. Add "invite player" to the LFG window so one can send invites across the game. Allow players to invite another by pressing the "invite" box on the group window and typing in a name.
Improve the "Friends" window. Add a notes field for each friend. Add a way to track alternate characters of a single player. Add a way to forward tells from one character to another. Make the "Friends" window more like the guild tool so we can track friends online, view notes, send tells, and perhaps send messages to off line characters.
Add short-duration tasks for groups of two or more people working on a single task. Use the task system of Omens to give groups a short-duration quest tracking down evil bosses or hunting packs of loosed werewolves. Tie it in with an improved quest system so groups can get together, pick a quest, and accomplish it within 90 minutes for experience and progress towards new gear.
Find a way for high level and low level players to work together. Both should be challenged and both should receive an appropriate reward. With the large amount of both high level and low level players, if methods can be found for these groups to work together, far more groups will gather together, run off, and have fun. Gandalf and Frodo both grouped together and Frodo was totally g1mp.
Focus on 90 minute events.
While many Everquest players play for long periods of time, many cannot. Everquest should focus around 90 minute game sessions. Players should be able to progress in levels, AAs, and equipment in 90 minute intervals. Camping for extended periods of time should not be the only way to progress in equipment at higher levels.
LDON offers a 90 minute point-based loot system that lets players earn new gear in smaller play-sessions but longer periods of time. Use systems like this one to let players with limited time earn new equipment in other areas of Norrath.
Not every area or encounter should focus on 90 minutes, but many of them should. Everquest needs to fit in better with our busy lives.
Improve Encounter Variety
Add more variety to single-group encounters. Use instanced expeditions to tailor scripted encounters around groups. Find new challenges for players other than straight damage. Consider a lich that has very few hitpoints but many spells of protection that must be defeated before damaging the lich. Consider beasts that only cast spells instead of melee, but with devastating effects! Keep it fun, not frustrating. No more chain complete healing mobs or mobs that gate only to earn back 30% of their hitpoints.
Use the experience gained from building excellent raid encounters to build fun new single-group events. I understand the Muramite Provinground trials include events like this. Continue this great work and build it for players of all levels, not just the highest high-end players.
Make the Game Easier for New Players
Everquest is a very difficult game to learn for new players. Systems like the tutorial help but further refinements could help new players learn how to play and become slobbering addicts posting general substance-free negativity on the ranger forum in a few short months. Here are a few suggestions:
Add a newbie chat channel autojoined at character creation. Make it very easy for players to learn how to chat. Give them a message that tells them how to send information and what the chat is for.
Streamline the interface for skills, disciplines, AAs, and other hotbutton effects. Create a single window with all possible effects that we can drag over to our hotboxes. Auto-learn skills or notify players of new possible skills when they become available.
Add in an alternative to corpse recovery. Add an NPC that summons bodies to Shadowrest for a high level-based cost. Make the bodies he summons unressable to account for the easier corpse recovery. As an alternative, add it as a necromancer and shadowknight spell.
In Conclusion...
Flexibility is the strength of Everquest. Every year our world changes and every year it gets better. The requests above will help Everquest continue to grow into an enjoyable and ground-breaking game for both old and new players.
Loral Ciriclight
21 October 2004
loral@loralciriclight.com
Comment Posted by: Scott Adams on October 21, 2004 08:35 AM
Having quests being the central part of EQlive would be great but I can't see them changing the 5 years of rubbish that has built up.
The current quests demand you go to a 3rd party to site to find ones the that are
1) Doable
2) worthing doing, ie reward is something useful.
3) Not a long camping session on a ultra rare mob
How will they get around all the quests that are already flawed?
LDoN and tasks are a step in the right direction but are limited in scope. They need to totally revamp their entire questing system but I am afraid this will never happen.
Perhaps start putting out some sort of new quest giver NPCs that are clearly marked as part of a new system. And have them give quests that are appropriate for the level of the player asking.
I think basically EQlive is going to be the game for folks who like to raid and grind Xp and EQ2 will be become the game for those who like to do quests.
Comment Posted by: Loral on October 21, 2004 10:23 AM
Much like old zones aren't always retrofitted into new systems, old quests need not all change around a new quest system.
A new quest system with an easier interface, clearer direction, and greater progression could add a whole bunch of new quests. Some key older quests could be added to this system such as newbie armor quests, the ro armor quests, and some others.
Quests should be a core to EQ. We should always have a few quests we're working on and a clear direction of progression. Large quests like the Breakdown in Communication and Manual of the Planes quests shouldn't be focused only on raiders.
We can also think of quests differently. Shorter quests might be like expeditions and LDON adventures. You're given a mission, some time to complete it, and a place to go. Events and encounters could be built around quests given from our home cities or from other quest folks like the Grand Historians. Right now they just sort of send you out, but consider that they could give you a variety of missions.
Why doesn't the grand historian in Dranik's Scar tell you why you want to go to the firepits or the Murkgliders Hive. Why doesn't he offer you a reward for a task you must complete there? All of these things could be built around quests.
Comment Posted by: Toraen on October 21, 2004 10:38 AM
My biggest gripe with EQ right now, is that for 66+, if you want to get good xp, you have to xp in Omens... and in a few of the upper zones.
At 68, I went to earth to xp... and was kinda saddened by the fact that I was getting mostly 2% AA xp per kill. Walls of Slaughter is almost always 3%, and Muramite Proving Grounds is 4% and 5%.
I did a normal LDON the other day at 68, and it was a joke for xp. Worse than the xp used to be :) I did 2 Hard LDONs recently (one at 68, and one at 69)... the xp was 1% AA / kill. Hard LDONs were never "elemental xp" but were a pretty nice xp reward for those who could do them.
People go where loot and xp is. Currently it's Omens or nothing.
I recently saw posts about the Tier 1 OOW armor. Once again, Sony in all their glory, has decided to put Runes, and the rare parts to the quest armor, on the same mob. They were permacamped enough already, and now everyone and their twink will want them any more. One mob should not drop:
- Loot upgrades (some of them very nice)
- Spells (which almost everyone needs/wants)
- Quest components for gear that will be upgrades to many non-raiders, and everyone's twinks
It's stupid artificial bottlenecks.
Comment Posted by: on October 21, 2004 11:23 AM
How about this for the rare spawn thing?
If you are doing the quest, and the rare spawn is next on your to-do list in the quest interface that Loral proposed, you will get a /tell from the system when the rare mob spawns giving you the zone. When you enter the zone, you get an arrow pointing you at the place where the rare mob spawned.
This won't guarantee you get it... but it will give you a good shot and keep you from having to sit around "camping" it all the time.
They could also add a version of trivial loot code that makes the mob drop that item if the person who killed it had it next on their quest list.
Make sure the quest is not multi-questable and you have a winner, I think.
(some solution might need to be made to having people get their quest to that point and stopping, so that they always know when the rare mob spawns... and I can't think of one yet)
Comment Posted by: Marrgill on October 21, 2004 11:47 AM
More quests is a great idea. Scott Adams, they already have the basis of a decent quest system built in (the task system); they just need to develop content using it. They can eliminate the need to go to a third-party site like Allakhazam's by having the quest described like they are in the task system.
The tasks in Omens are really poor content, but only because the tasks themselves are dull and offer little reward. The task system has some promise if more compelling content were developed using it.
Comment Posted by: Marrgill on October 21, 2004 11:55 AM
/groupinvite is a great idea. They already kinda have this with the /dzAddPlayer command for expeditions; that command works across zones.
I don't know if we need 90-minute events per se if you could build some new quests that have some continuity in them. As long as people are making some sort of progress on a quest in the 90 minutes or so they're on in a given night, that's better than camping Muramite runes in a Dranik's Hollows expedition for 90 minutes and having absolutely nothing to show for your efforts but an unimpressive 4% XP and 100ish platinum.
I'm anxious to try the MPG trials myself, but from what I understand, they're designed for players with better gear than me (level 67 enchanter with 3K hp and 5K mana, no GoD/Omens spells).
There's already a newbie chat channel. It's called /ooc. The Gloomingdeep tutorial explains how to chat in /ooc.
Err, the game already notifies players when it is possible for them to train new skills or when they've learned a new skill. Necros and SKs can already summon newbie corpses (up to level 35) with low level spells. Umm, have you actually played a newbie character recently, Loral, because a lot of your suggestions are already implemented?
Comment Posted by: Zarros on October 21, 2004 12:13 PM
In a nutshell, the big downside with named-drop only loot is that only a limited number of players can "win", and in order to win they must directly compete with other players for access to the resource. It is axiomatic that the number of winners will be more than the number of losers, and it doesn't take a doctor psychology and human behavior to see that when a source can be effectively controlled by a few that it rapidly becomes frustrating for those on the "outside" as it were.
Put simply this model simply cannot survive as a sound game design principle where there is significant competition for MMO players to choose from. In the past EverQuest has gotten away with maintaining this model primarily because of the positive reinforcement it provides to the winners, and a lack of credible competition for those who are frustrated or dissatisfied to go to.
Given the unprecidented success of City of Heroes from Cryptic Studios, along with what we hear coming from the design and development teams and what has been witnessed in various betas, it is safe to assume that the trend among the newer games is to move towards a more distributed "point of origin" system and a smoother power gain and/or less of a power advantage for locking down specific origin points.
In other words, while newer games can and will continue to have "the best items" be "from named mobs" they will not be so dominantly the main source, and their game-power advantages over "regular loot" will not be so extreme. Its important that named mobs with the best loot exist as a carrot to entice players with what could be, but its also important to not alienate everyone but those who can win, or allow the power gain from those "best items" to produce too extreme a gap in power, which itself presents future design problems.
Comment Posted by: SP on October 21, 2004 12:27 PM
[quote] If you are doing the quest, and the rare spawn is next on your to-do list in the quest interface that Loral proposed, you will get a /tell from the system when the rare mob spawns giving you the zone. When you enter the zone, you get an arrow pointing you at the place where the rare mob spawned.
[/quote]
Then you have people that use the wonderful SEQ to track for them. Leave a char in a zone, and when it pops... computer makes a few sounds, and tells you where to find the mob. Along with its level, race, class, direction it points, and if anyone is near it. Also, the distance, and /loc of the mob is avail if you care.
just go load SEQ and you're good to go.
Comment Posted by: Ryland_bertox on October 21, 2004 12:45 PM
To help cut down on timesinks where peeps must camp a rare mob for a drop pertaining to an epic...they should create sub-quests that people can do and hand the completed sub-quest item(s) into a NPC which could trigger the rare mob they needed.
Comment Posted by: Loral on October 21, 2004 01:15 PM
"There's already a newbie chat channel. It's called /ooc. The Gloomingdeep tutorial explains how to chat in /ooc."
OOC won't let me help a new player when I am in the Ruined City of Dranik. I want a cross-zone perhaps cross-server newbie help channel that automatically subscribes new players and clearly explains how they use it.
"Err, the game already notifies players when it is possible for them to train new skills or when they've learned a new skill."
When you raise to the level to get dual wield, it doesn't tell you to go train it. You certainly don't get a notification when new disciplines become available. I've played for five years and I had no idea that my level 36 rogue missed out on a lot of disciplines. I also got lost as a level 5 berserker trying to get my disciplines to work.
"Necros and SKs can already summon newbie corpses (up to level 35) with low level spells."
Read again. I'm asking for spells or NPCs that summon your body to Shadowrest. People need easier ways to get out of bad Fear raids or if they get stuck in the bottom of Befallen. Punishment for dying needs to continue but some options should be available.
Yes, I have played many newbie classes and I'm not sure you understood what I asked for.
Comment Posted by: Aazzn on October 21, 2004 01:47 PM
For one thing, your rogue didn't miss out on low level disciplines for 5 years, the low level disciplines came in with the last melee balancing no more than 2 years ago, probably less. A cross server newbie channel would probably not be nearly as helpful as you think, as if they want text instructions on how to do things, maybe they should read the manual. Also you have it open so that people can tell them things like, "Hey to check how much exp you need to next level, type /ex."
Being able to do everything right away, and having it handed to you on a platter does not make a lasting player. Part of the reason i still play this game is the time invested in learning the nuances of the game, from pulling with a non traditional pulling class, to how to recognize how to ride just below the tanks agro.
Bottlenecks are good things as well, if you remove the bottlenecks from lower parts of the game, everyone will tear thru the content and get bored once they've all reached the end of what an expansion has to offer in a month. If you could loot 50hp items off orc pawns in gfay that would make lots of lvl 1 woodelfs happy. But what are they gonna do for the next 55 levels? Should everyone be able to just hit 55 and be able to do a /twinkme for a free set of armor that requires little to no work. Rare spawns are part of what gets you excited, if say you are stumbling thru a zone, and you see such and such ultrarare_mob01 is up don't you get excited about running to it or putting a group together to kill it? Or are you so anti-establishment that you dont' want to have to compete for anything and want it all handed to you? If you want easy loot go stand around like a beggar in MPG, half the stuff rots anyways you can probably pick up some EP quality of loot with the only requirement being that yer 65 and capable of walking there. OoW is a shitfest of easy loot for very little work. Runes should be more common i agree, but other loot isn't too hard to come by.
In summation, if you have problems with having to spend time to advance, having to learn to do more than press buttons as they refresh, actually make an effort to introduce yerself to people and group with people, or spend time exploring new places for: loot,exp or quest drops. Maybe you should go play a different game once you are bored with this one instead of posting drivel about how much it sucks that quests from 5 years ago don't net good drops anymore or give you a level every time you turn in 4 batwings.
Comment Posted by: Eloina on October 21, 2004 02:00 PM
It's not the time to advance. It's being locked into a very few zones in order to advance at a reasonable rate. I guess that SOE didn't learn a damned thing from PoP.
Comment Posted by: Teremar on October 21, 2004 02:06 PM
I have mixed feelings about more quests. Yes, it's nice to have a reason for killing mobs beyond "they give xp and loot." But SOE's record doesn't make me optimistic about what they'd actually put in for quests.
First off, the moment they start talking about how MANY quests there are, you know they're probably all junk. Realistically you just can't create 4,000 interesting quests. If you have that many they're all going to be cookie-cutter variations on a very limited number of themes. They're not quests, they're just tasks. Guided killing at best. No story. No immersion. Ever read the drivel that comes along with a LDoN adventure? My favorite was being sent to risk my life fighting the Rujarkian Orcs because their banners make nice home furnishing!
No, I take that back--my favorite still has to be the dragorn Grand Historian sending you into the caves to kill his own kind for no apparent reason.
So if SOE thinks they want to do more with quests, the first thing they need to do is hire someone who 1) actually cares about maintaining a fantasy environment (whoever decided to call the new epics 1.5 and 2.0 as if they were software ought to be fired), 2) can write, and 3) understands what players actually enjoy doing. Then they need to focus on creating a relatively small number of engaging quests, with plot, characters, and a sense of doing something meaningful in a consistent fantasy world.
And yes, camping needs to go. One of the few things I liked in SWG was that if you took a mission, the mobs you needed automatically spawned for you. EQ should do something similar. Add in delays if needed so people can't just race through quests, but camping a rare spawn is simply no fun.
Comment Posted by: on October 21, 2004 02:38 PM
I doubt they meant they wanted orc pawns in GFay to drop OoW gear, but rather, more mobs in OoW have better chances of dropping them instead of a few mobs that are almost always perma-camped.
Bottlenecks are NOT a good thing. That's stupid thinking. Making you work for something in a manner where you can make steady progress is fine, but making a deliberate bottleneck because "dammmit, they are going to take 6 months to get through this expansion no matter what!" is bad, just plain bad.
If the uber of the uberest get through an expansion in 2 weeks, who gives a flying rat's behind? The rest of us mere mortals, a large percentage of the playerbase, are going to take months to get through it. And will have more fun doing so and be less pissed about the expansion if we can make steady progress through it.
And about new skills, I created a new toon to play around with the tutorial when it went live, and in and out of that tutorial, when you level and have a new skill available, you get a line of text along with the "Welcome to level X" line telling you to go see your trainer about new skills.
Comment Posted by: bahlzaq on October 21, 2004 04:54 PM
I just wanted to comment generally on aazzn's post. I think that attitude is what makes games like this suck sometimes. The first thing you should do when you design a game is make every facet FUN, and then you should look at things like longevity. I agree you need longevity, but to let you advance at your own pace... and then all of the sudden throw and artificial time sink in front of you is poor design. Imagine if a single player game did this. You are playing through fallout, you have put in 10 hours and are now about half way through... you are going to fast so the game detects that and tells you "I'm sorry, you are going to fast. This is a 40 hour game experience. Therfore, you can't advance the story until you kill X, and X won't spawn until you have played 10 more hours. I suggest killing some more mutants until then... we can't have everyone running around in power armor now can we :) Have fun!!"
Logevity is key, and to make a game fun, I think the producers should shoot for an audience of reasonable gamers and shoot for a CONTENT related time frame for them not a BOTTLENECK related timeframe. But hey that's just me... and I play games to have fun... go figure.
The funny thing to me is that i think the fun really starts evaporating from teh game later on anyway because of what I will kindly call the "content" decision to make you kill 500 mobs per level that take 3 minutes to kill a piece. On top of that they have added artificial timesinks in for quests and gear advancment. It is just poor design. If you don't agree that is fine, but I don't think a game should be limited by either: 1) An effort outside of the "fun" game design to extend the life of the game, or 2) An artificial effort to limit advancement to some set number of players per server per time frame, be that loot, exp, titles, levels, or what have you. 3) where a major facet of game design is... "if they liked killing 10 orcs... they'll LOVE killing 1000 orcs!!!"
Now are these tough things to accomplish in a world of power gaming, massive consumption, and presistence?? yes, but that doesn't mean we should just accept poor design decisions as inevitable... if it wasn't hard we shouldn't pay them to build it.
-Bahlz
Comment Posted by: Zarros on October 21, 2004 06:05 PM
With the implementation of a "new quest engine" one could at the very least use the existing quests as scripts for the new ones, with updated loot tables, and structured in a way that extends them through active adventures instead of static camps.
To explain I'll use CoH as an example:
Your hero meets with their contact, who tells you that they have heard a rumor of trouble brewing among a particular villain group. They have gotten word of where they're hiding out, and gives your hero the address/coordinates. A message appears in your mission window telling you the zone you need to go to, and when in zone a waypoint appears on your compass telling you the direction to the mission entry point (so called "door missions" are in instanced areas.)
You, or possibly you and your group, proceed to the entrance point and zone in. At this point, its very similar to LDoN, but what happens inside the mission can vary. You might have a "defeat all" objective, obviously like the "Kill X" LDoNs.
You might have a "disarm the bombs" objective, you might have a "find the clues" objective (essentially the same thing as disarming the bombs - missions with a "find/disarm/destroy X number of objects" are actually quite common, and the needed items give off a soft humm and a pulsing glow to signify their importance), these are essentially variations on "collects".
You might have a "defeat the villain boss and his/her minions" mission which is like an assasination except the boss spawns from the get go and thats all you have to kill.
Sometimes missions can have multiple objectives, such as "find the clues, destroy the portal stones, and then defeat the head mage and his minions." Mission zones themselves are approximately the same size as LDoN zones, and a bit more varied than LDoN, but its obvious they too are built using some very common sorts of combinations. The nice thing is they aren't timed, and you can try them as many times as it takes to succeed, logging of or changing active current mission after its started causes it to reset. Lastly like expeditions, you can invite new people into the missions whenever you want. The missions themselves can take anywhere from 30-90 minutes to complete, averaging about 30-60 minutes typically.
When that mission is done, you return to the contact who then in turn gives you the next step of the mission "story arc" to work on. Not all missions are instanced like LDoN though. Some are "Kill X mobs in zone Y", and a group with multiple people working on the same mission is possible as its not drop-dependant, its kill-dependant, and being in the group that needs the kills is all that is needed. Other types are so-called "patrol" missions where you need to visit X number of spots in a zone and interact with an object, with waypoints set on the compass indicating the direction of the patrol checkpoint next in line.
Converting this to EQ, let's use the newbie armor quests as an example.
Start off with a newbie dark elf necromancer, and speak to the guildmaster in the necromancer guildhall. He directs you to speak with the quest-giver NPC on the third floor.
The NPC, with appropriate mocking/snearing dialogue (hey, he is an inkie after all!) informs you that you are nothing until you prove yourself, so you are sent out to go and kill 20 of the rats suddenly plaguing all of the starting cities.
Dutifully you go off and start your mighty rat-slaying campaign. Eventually you get your 20th rat-kill and get a message that this stage of the quest is done, and you must return to the quest giver. When you return, he mocks your efforts (duh, he's an inkie!) and very condescendingly agrees to give you your first piece of genuine newbie armor: a silk bracer. Don't you feel uber now?
He then tells you that you might actually be more valuable that wekk-old pond-scum, but you have to continue to demonstrate this. He wants you to go out and slay 50 random newbie monsters in the Nektulos forest. You of course sensibly agree and off you go. Once the newbie monsters are all slain (and if you group you can work this cooperatively with others) you get the message its time to return. Presto, second silk bracer.
Your third mission could be as simple as "deliver these letters" to one of the bridge guards, a dark elven NPC in the North Ro tunnel, and then to their contact in the Dismal Rage tunnels under East Freeport. Returning when done, you get your next piece.
Your fourth mission could be to gather a group and investigate rumors of a recently discovered base for the vile halfling druids seeking to corrupt the Nektulos forest. This leads to an instaced "outdoor dungeon" tailored for your level ala LDoN, and chock full of various evil halfling druids (ok, redundant I know) and their minions. Inside you learn your objective is simple "Wipe them out, all of them" as the future emperor says in Episode 1. When complete, its time to return and receive your fourth piece of armor.
Lather, rinse and repeat.
Now, given how fast newbie levels go by, and the number of pieces involved in giving a non-twinked newbie their armor, the quest rewards would have to come fairly quickly. This would not necessarily be the case for more advanced quests.
Using the cleric epic as an example:
1. The quest begins with the quest giver in Lake Rathe. They inform you of disturbing rumors concerning the goblins who live in the depths of the lake. You are directed to seek out an informant in another area of the lake who can tell you more.
2. A waypoint leads you to the aforementioned informant, who reveals that the aqua goblin king is massing to launch a terrible swathe of destruction, threatening all the civilized races from human to elf to ogre to dark elf. Fortunately, they have learned the location of a secret passage that leads to the king's palace/fortress. You are given the objective of killing the goblin king and retrieving his crown in hopes it will demoralize the goblins.
3. Following the newest waypoint, you arrive at the entrance for the instanced dungeon that represents the goblin's palace, and you and your group zone in. Inside is a typical LDoN-sized dungeon filled with various kinds of aqua-goblins and (like Veksar) is mostly above-water. A group could fight there way to the king, or they could move in stealthily and take him and his guards out. The "crown" is represented as a flag instead of an actual item, with killing the king being sufficient to get it.
4. Upon finishing that stage, the quest log indicates you need to return to the informant, this sets off the dialogue where you first learn of the Fennin Ro cultists. He vanishes gloating how the aqua goblins will now raze the surface lands to the ground, no longer held in check by their conservative king. Your quest log directs you to return to the original quest giver.
5. The original quest giver is alarmed at the news. They tell you the crown must be retrieved and returned to the superstitious goblins, but first the hidden base of the Fennin Ro cultist must be found. The quet giver has heard a rumor that a certain faction of goblins has been working with a human spellcaster, perhaps if their caves were raided they might reveal where he is at. This, in turn, leads to yet another LDoN-style instanced dungeon mission. Victory sends you back to the quest giver.
6. The next step is to defeat the first cultist and retrieve the crown, another instanced dungeon crawl.
7. The quest NPC directs you to speak with another member of their order in the hidden oasis island. This first contact relates rumors of a tie to the Fennin Ro cultists with the vile Sarnak. YOu must journey to Kunark and see out and slay 50 Sarnak in order to learn the location of where the representative of the cult has been meeting with the Sarnak king and queen.
8. Instead of raiding Chardok, you are directed to the "hidden royal outpost" of the Sarnak (yep, another instanced dungeon) to "find clues revealing the next stage of the Fennin Ro Cultists' plans" Retrieving 4 clues (done via object interaction and flags) is the objective.
9. Alarmed at what they've heard, the contact asks you to proceed to the "Catecombs underneath the Temple of Solusek Ro" to seek out the vile plasmatic priest.
And so on, forgive me for not repeating the entire quest.
Each stage of the quest would take approximately 45 minutes to an hour for a group to complete, not including travel time. Some groups will do so faster, others slower, and that's fine.
The point is that randomness of item drops and the need to sit in a static point for potentially hours (case in point, some clerics have camped Gimblox for over 24 hours, nevermind pre-trigger Ragefire), or the need to consult a third party spoiler site, the quest details are pretty clearly laid out and confer lore and backstory in the quest process.
It should be pretty obvious where I added "go crawl this instanced dungeon" to quest steps, but ultimately the *point* of the quests is to provide a framework and reason for going out and getting xp. Quest rewards of coin, items, or experience are largely secondary and while noticeable should not be the primary advantage, unless the item in question is the intended reward.
1. Take advantage of existing instancing and dungeon generation technology.
2. Removes the boredom/tedium/frustration of camping and replaces it with a more dynamic and exciting adventure-oriented approach.
3. Makes getting through the content the timesink, not waiting for the random spawn and whacking placeholders.
4. Eliminates the need for, and the advantage of, reading spoiler sites.
Would it be a lot of work? That I can't honestly say, but they *do* have the quest scripts and the mechanics of building a zone and its pathing rails is the primary challenge, and that itself can be shortcutted by taking existing dungeon maps with their pathing rules, and giving them a differant "skin" or "tileset" as deemed necessary. The interface itself is similar to the LDoN adventure system or the expedition system, so that can be recycled. The use of flags is supported and eliminates concerns of multiquesting. The missions can be attempted repeatedly and aren't on a timer meaning they can be retried until beaten.
No more would Rangers have to curse the drop rate of the emerald from Hate.
No more would Magicians have to hurl invectives at South Karana.
No more camping.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on October 21, 2004 06:18 PM
Longevity is important, but it should come from the game's depth, not from bottlenecks.
I also disagree with the idea that another system should be tacked on to the game without fixing the current content. That philosophy is just begging to create more disillusioned players.
In my opinion, there are four types of quests:
1. Simple tasks - deliver this, kill four of these and bring me X back, etc. These have been in game forever, and the new tasks are really just an extension of this with a journaling interface. These are "trash" quests, where most of the time the reward isn't worth it.
2. Multi-point tasks - like the above, but with multiple steps along the way. Again, the new tasks are basically the same thing, just with a new front-end. These are also often "trash" quests.
3. Story quests - these are long multi-point quests that guide the character through a predetermined storyline and sometimes involve scripted events. Usually the rewards are decent. Epics fall into this category.
4. Progressive quests - these are a sequence of individual quests which build on the previous ones and generally upgrade the same item each time. Usually these have very nice rewards, but the tendency to make them rely on tradeskills and the horrible way that tradeskill progression has been implemented (huge grind/money sink) makes people either cheat them or ignore them more often than not.
The problem with many of the "trash" quests is and always has been that the rewards were not perceived as useful given the time it took to do them. There's a very simple way to fix that, and it was implemented for GM events once before.
Instead of rewarding you with a sword, or a piece of armor, or whatever, the majority of quests should give you a token. The type of token that you get should reflect the difficulty of the quest.
You can then turn this token into an NPC somewhere, and in turn receive an item randomly determined from a pool of items, appropriate to your class, race, and to the difficulty of the quest (in lieu of your level).
Problem solved. Existing "trash" quests are now worth doing, and even though it slightly breaks character to go turn in a token, at this point it's not going to hurt the game very much.
All it would take is someone to review current quests, and rate them for difficulty, and a few hundred items to be added to the game. Heck, the devs could even go to sites like allakhazam's and read what players think of the quests.
Then, all they have to do is change the reward portion of the quest to generate a token instead of an item where appropriate.
Oh, and as far as originality of quests - There are some badly-written ones out there, but there are also a whole lot of ones that make sense, especially in Old Norrath. Everquest has a TON of lore, written by the original developers, those that came later, and finally even inferred and created by players to draw from. This massive amount of backstory and history is probably the game's single biggest strength and they ought to leverage it more. Pick almost any zone, outdoor or dungeon, and any student of EQ lore should be able to come up with at least half a dozen interesting quest plots revolving around it. SOE could even take player submissions for quest ideas, review them, and then adapt and implement some of the best ones at each patch, and not only would it improve the quality of the game, it would be a great tool for player retention.
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on October 22, 2004 03:55 AM
Quests, from any other company than SoE, sure, but not SoE.
If it is to have like the new epic encounters bugged, change wildly, with leaps of faith or going from trivial to quite tough, no thanks.
Or pay a milion to the guy who wrote the coldain ring quest to come back and do them maybe.
90 minutes sessions: sure. But you seem to forget that you allready earn xp during that time. That isn't worth nothing. Either you wish to water down EQ and kill its longevity or you are willing to put up with much worse XP to take into account that even doing trivial content it should somehow provide gear upgrade. Since the risk is very low and the only factor is time, it would require a lot of time and you would come back to rant about the time investment for casuals like... say, LDON.
While I guess SoE could think of RANDOM drops on different zones that would provide a very long quest to achieve that, I suspect it's gonna be a very ugly mess. Read the threads about Omens armor to get the idea.
Hint: don't ask to a company whose track record shows that they don't do well.
Comment Posted by: Dumbass on October 22, 2004 08:13 AM
Yay yet another pipedream article by Loral. Hello McFly! You do realize people have been suggesting Sony go back and revamp old content, particularly quests, for years and they haven't done so except for changing a zone here or there once in awhile like Cazic Thule (and it isn't very often or always for the better). Wake up, stop living in a dream world. They aren't going back to redo old content because they are only interested in making expansions so they can sell more boxes. Any person with a clue can see this if you can take off the fanboi blinders. After all 8 expansions in 5.5 years? Ultima Online is 2 years older and has less expansions.
As for make the game more newbie friendly, ahhh where have you been? They have made numerous changes to make it easier. Starting with more gear, starting with more food/drink, starting near your trainer, a better interface than the old original one, faster experience from levels 1-10, no corpses to go loot from 1-10, everyone gets access to PoK now for easy travel and of course the tutorial. I'm sure they could probably do more for the incredibly lazy or stupid who join EQ but in all honesty why bother? There are no more true newbies coming into EQ anymore and why should they when there are newer and better games out there to start with? Face it EQ is in it's slow decline and revitalizing newbie content or older content isn't going to stop that. Actually nothing will stop it, time goes on and people move on to newer and betetr things, no big deal.
By the way how is that drive to get 1 million subscribers going? LOL that was a pretty funny article considering even at it's peak (in 2003) EQ was just a smidgeon below half a million (about 470,000) according to Sony's own numbers. Pipedream.
Subscription numbers here:
http://pw1.netcom.com/~sirbruce/Subscriptions.html
Comment Posted by: Percrucem the Shadow Bard on October 22, 2004 09:59 AM
LOL, dude, I was in Muncie, IN a few weeks ago and there was this guy at Blockbuster that looked just like GEORGE MCFLY!! It was awesome. He even had the same friggin haircut hehe. I should've asked to get a picture... but wasn't drunk yet and dropping videos off didn't allow me the time for chit chat. ... soooo cool.
Comment Posted by: Marrgill on October 22, 2004 10:28 AM
Loral, Fear is not newbie-level content. What newbie zone is so difficult that a necromancer or SK can't summon a corpse for you if you ask them nicely (or offer to pay for the cheap coffin)?
I suggest you try making a newbie character and leveling it up. Last I did this -- this year, not five years ago -- I got notifications that I could train new skills -- yes, even Dual Wield -- whenever I leveled to a level where new skills were learned.
I'm not blaming you for not being aware of newbie changes like skill notifications upon leveling. SOE does a poor job announcing these changes, which is weird because you would think they would be patting themselves on the back in patch notes as often as they could every time they did something like this.
Comment Posted by: Marrgill on October 22, 2004 10:30 AM
One thing I agree with you on is that learning new disciplines isn't as friendly as learning new skills. Though the example you mentioned is really bad because all you have to do as a Berserker to get help on this is to hail the Berserker tome vendor -- the most obvious person to ask.
Comment Posted by: Quesci on October 22, 2004 02:29 PM
Zarros,
Your quest suggestions (based on CoH) sound an awful lot like EQ2. You should check it ot. As I was playing EQ2, I was very much reminded of City of Heroes (except CoH has a 3 mission limit).
Comment Posted by: on October 25, 2004 08:13 AM
"Zarros,
Your quest suggestions (based on CoH) sound an awful lot like EQ2. You should check it ot. As I was playing EQ2, I was very much reminded of City of Heroes (except CoH has a 3 mission limit)."
Except CoH shows you on the map where the contact is located, unlike EQ2 where you wonder all over the zone trying to find them. Nice to see some things about SOE never change.
Agreed you can have more then 3 quests, so what? You have no way of deleting the ones that are worthless to you if you didn't complete them in time. I feel really stupid running around killing level 8 MOBs as a level 18 just to clear up my Quest Journal. Just another boring timesink, par for the course for Sony though.
Comment Posted by: Loral on October 25, 2004 01:12 PM
If you hail any of a town's guard, you can type in the name of an NPC and the guard will direct you with the yellow "find" trail. Unfortunately this find doesn't seem to do partial names or names without the proper title. I still get lost a lot but if I was smart and remembered someone's title, I might find them easier. I'd prefer a list of names instead of a text box.
Comment Posted by: Naladini on October 25, 2004 10:17 PM
Just out of curiosity, will you be doing some EQ2 articles here on Mobhunter Loral?
Comment Posted by: on October 26, 2004 07:55 AM
"If you hail any of a town's guard, you can type in the name of an NPC and the guard will direct you with the yellow "find" trail"
That is true, that is a recent change. For those of us that are not at newbie level and out in the country that is pretty much useless now. Would have been nice if it had been implemented earlier on.
Comment Posted by: on October 26, 2004 09:31 AM
First day of release. You could ask the clockwork guards and they would lead you many places
Comment Posted by: Loral on October 26, 2004 11:25 AM
"That is true, that is a recent change. For those of us that are not at newbie level and out in the country that is pretty much useless now. Would have been nice if it had been implemented earlier on."
I meant this in EQ2. EQ2's not out yet so its a bit of a far cry to call it worthless.
Comment Posted by: Jerkyboy on October 26, 2004 11:34 AM
"Just out of curiosity, will you be doing some EQ2 articles here on Mobhunter Loral?"
If so I'm sure they'll be brilliant pieces of fanboism filled with singing the praises of "the best game ever that will reach 1 million susbscribers" while ignoring the glaring faults of the game, which can easily be seen now if one is in beta.
Comment Posted by: Loral on October 26, 2004 02:31 PM
I don't have plans to write about EQ2 except as it relates to Everquest. Its a big deal, to be sure, and I've played and enjoyed the beta.
I would still like to write about, comment on, and hopefully help Everquest take in the best of the best of all the MMOGs out there.
Comment Posted by: on October 26, 2004 04:47 PM
In other words, you would rather corrupt EQ into a new game instead of starting over with a new game that already has the stuff you want.
Comment Posted by: Kaz of Eci on October 27, 2004 09:21 AM
I would like quality brought up at the fan fair. The number of glitches in zones is starting to get a bit out of hand. The Fish in PC have not spawn'd in the correct location in well over a year. Deepest Guk adventures are a nightmare to target mobs in. I could go on, but I'm sure alot of you know what I am talking about. Just seems to me that SOE is too busy cranking the next moneymakin expansion and not worried about quality of the game. (BTW, I call 3 months till next expansion is anounced.)
-Kaz
Comment Posted by: Loral on October 27, 2004 09:42 AM
Thats far from a Nostradamus prediction. Every expansion since Planes of Power came out in six month intervals. Every announcement usually comes out three months after the previous expansion.
Most likely SOE will announce a new expansion in January.
The reason for all of the negativity with the Omens release announcement is that many people didn't like Gates. Omens doesn't have near the gaping problems that Gates had. Personally, I look forward to each expansion release because, with the exception of PoP and Gates, I have been very happy with every one. Even for those two I got far more than my $30.
It isn't realistic to expect SOE to fix every single bug across the whole game. The best they can do is fix the bugs that effect the game the most or are so easy that they can get them done in little time. If we go back to pathing problems in Skyfire they'd never come out with another expansion.
Comment Posted by: Zarros on October 27, 2004 09:54 AM
"In other words you'd rather corrupt EverQuest..."
One man's corruption is another man's correction.
One can like specific features of another game without liking the entire game, or simply prefer to remain with the community they've established. Regardless of whether or not you like EverQuest currently, a number of people don't or are dissatisfied with its limitations.
EQ1 currently is structured and its content designed in a way that makes it very difficult and often frustrating for a time-constrained player to advance. Some of those elements have been touched on, but in general the biggest overall problems are:
1. An absolute need for gear combined with fixed and monopolizable sources of it and those fixed resources having a low "production rate". This presents a progression obstacle that isn't environment based, but player-based, and is inappropriate in a PvE game.
2. The inequity among classes designed for a particular grouping role to fill that role combined with an inequity among classes within a grouping role in terms of their secondary abilities.
3. Advancement in levels and AA can be done one mob or quest at a time, since it is an incremental advancement. However advancement in levels is at best 1/2 character power, gear (mentioned above) is necessary and cannot be incrementally gained except in the LDoN expansion, which is now 2 expansions old and has no signs of being revisited.
4. Very little to do in-game other than "grind mobs" or "raid." Quests and "immersion" elements are lacking.
5. Progression is heavily tied to raiding historically, with elements of design that cause groups (friends or guilds) to need to do the same content repeatedly, often because of the aforementioned class/role inequities.
6. Outside of the "preferred" servers, the newbie-not-latest-expansion zones suffer from being badly underpopulated.
For a player of EQ that enjoys raiding, is already in a community/guild, and is generally at or ahead of the curve, these are not particularly severe issues, particularly if they also have ample time to play.
For some it is. People who are "powergamers trapped in a casual gamer's life" if you will, folks who want to progress and advance and be challenged aren't being challenged by the environment so much as they are their fellow players (who in turn have the advantage from longer play blocks) and/or who might want more "width" built into the game.
Comment Posted by: on October 27, 2004 01:34 PM
--------------
EQ1 currently is structured and its content designed in a way that makes it very difficult and often frustrating for a time-constrained player to advance.
==============
This has been the case since 1999, if you failed to understand this before you started to play, or after you got started, then you are blind or deliberatly obtuse.
If you continued to play the game despite it being a time intensive endeavour, the only person you can blame is yourself.
If you want a non time intensive game, then do your research and go play one of them.
Comment Posted by: Loral on October 27, 2004 01:46 PM
Good post, Zarros. Thank you.
I would like to point out that the gear problem you mention, while it is one I often see and often consider, only effects level 65 players or above. Below that good gear can be purchased in the bazaar at a low price and LDON gear offers a lot of benefit.
With instancing, gear isn't quite as monopolized as it once was. You can earn really nice gear in the MPG trials, Tipt, Vxed, and the Ikkinz trials from what I understand. Omens helped close the power gap that once existed but I worry that the gap will occur again soon.
I don't agree with 2, but we've talked about that before. I think every class is worthwile in a group and after grouping in groups that pick members based on general skills, not classes, I've had many successful hunts.
I agree with 3 but only at 65 or above. Below that, good gear can be purchased in the bazaar that meets and often exceeds what people are expected to have.
I agree with 4 and I hope that quests, tasks, expeditions (with goals), and LDON-style adventures can give people something fun to do instead of just sit, camp, and grind.
I agree with 5 but again only at the high end. I do believe, however, that a lot of development time goes into raids that only 15% of EQ players see.
6 is an interesting topic. We know that many old zones become underpopulated, but is that really a problem? Sure, we lose some nostalga and we have players who get lost in Greater Faydark (yes, this actually happened to a level 68 the other night), but I don't see underused zones as being a big problem.
I like your last statement but I don't think its as true today as it once was. Players have a lot of avenues of progression that can't be blocked by other players. A character can level from 1 to 70 using LDON, Expeditions, normal hunting, and tasks. They can go from 0 to 600 AAs in instanced zones if they choose to, although most people will hunt in overland zones like the rest of us. They can get good gear up through LDON / Ornate / Omens quest gear. They can get epic 1.5s. They can get spells up to level 68. That can all be done without anyone getting in their way.
I agree with a lot of what you said but Omens did fix a lot of the problems we had after PoP and GoD.
The slice of level 65+ non-raiders is thin, however, when compared to mid-level players and people who aren't playing yet.
Comment Posted by: Loral on October 27, 2004 01:52 PM
"This has been the case since 1999 [omitting snobbery insults]"
Actually, no. LDON changed this. I know people have many problems with LDON and many of those are valid, however LDON had some strengths that unfortunately we haven't seen since. These include:
- Adventures took between one and two hours with a fixed end.
- Players could earn good gear in 90 minute game sessions.
- Gear wasn't random. You knew what you would get.
- Groups earned loot equally instead of only one at a time.
- Recovery from death or defeat didn't take much time.
- Adventures supported levels 20 to 70 making an expansion that equally supported almost all EQ players.
LDON spoiled me. Even though I love Omens, I still love LDON more. I just wish SOE built future expansions using more of the philosophies of LDON.
Comment Posted by: Bahlzaq on October 27, 2004 03:09 PM
"This has been the case since 1999..."
You know what else was teh case in 99.
Magician pets tanked better or as good as most warriors.
Some classes were awesome soloers some were awesome groupers, few were both.
You honestly didn't care what your group makeup was, because if you were a power gamer you had a necro anyway.
It could take you four hours and 3 CRs to get from GFay to Erudin, because you didn't have the 20p a druid could demand for the port. During your trip you had to stop at each town and beg for a bind if you weren't lucky enough to have the spell... and the towns had enough people to actually let you beg someone.
The only raids were 2 dragons, and your only advancement opportunity post 50 was a reroll...
Nobody told anyone not to beg, because you had to for things like ports and binds... we just never thought to stand at the bank and beg for gear...
In your 40s you still "ate" a lot of deaths.
Sowers were like god and the JBOOTS camp had a waiting list 40 people long.
The average frog life expectancy in guk was about 30 seconds...
You spent so much time finding stuff to kill that the 6 minutes you waited for a repop didn't seem bad at all...
I only had one computer and for hours a day i stared at a screen with 12 ugly icons, and words like "True North" and "bind affinity" on it.
You were a big dick, but everyone on the internet didn't know it yet...
Comment Posted by: on October 27, 2004 03:52 PM
LDON turned EQ in the direction of becoming an action/arcade/console game where you can simply put your quarter in (or 1.5 hours) and have it spit out your goody goody adventure points.
Thankfully, they apparantly realized that is not what EQ is and have since avoided going further down that path (of becoming an arcade game).
Comment Posted by: Vatyrae on October 27, 2004 04:55 PM
/sigh I really wish they would just fix EQ1
And some of your ideas are good.
I love EQ but I got to tell you in all honest
truth after being in EQ2 beta.
Its horrible.Eye candy to be sure but its just.....bad.
Ill stick with EQ1 and hope against hope they work things out.
Comment Posted by: Loral on October 27, 2004 05:44 PM
"LDON turned EQ in the direction of becoming an action/arcade/console game where you can simply put your quarter in (or 1.5 hours) and have it spit out your goody goody adventure points.
Thankfully, they apparantly realized that is not what EQ is and have since avoided going further down that path (of becoming an arcade game)."
I don't want the WHOLE GAME to be like LDON, but I think LDON-style adventures add a new style of play to the basic four hour hunt we're all used to.
I just want to see them continue to follow through with the LDON style of play in addition to the typical hunts. Omens was close but the expedition system needed goals, 90 minute play sessions, and a point based loot system.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on October 27, 2004 06:12 PM
rofl Bahlzaq. That's a great list, and very true :)
The biggest thing that frustrates me lately when I think about EverQuest isn't any particular game system, or piece of content. There's a ton of stuff that people don't like for one reason or another and almost all of the opinions are valid ones. I have a list about a mile long as I'm sure others do.
But the thing that seriously tops my list is that Everquest just doesn't feel as immersive as it used to. Even with all the cool graphics upgrades and new expansions....the places I go just don't feel as real and believable, and the fights that I fight don't feel as meaningful. Quests are a means to an end now, rather than a very cool storyline to follow. Dungeons are important only for levels and specific loot, and not for the atmosphere, the challenge, or the setting. Even the thing that people love about LDONs (and I agree, it's great for time-limited players), using points to buy loot so you don't have to camp things, is a method of keeping score and really doesn't have any sort of immersiveness to it. It'd be one thing if, say, exploring the dungeons introduced you to new quests and new areas, but as it stands it's not any more immersive than the rest of the game.
The strength of Everquest for so long wasn't the graphics, or the mechanics, it was the level of immersion and the depth of the game. When I started, my character an adventurer in a very big, very dangerous, and very detailed world with literally dozens of different places I could go and things I could do and where every encounter I overcame meant something more than the progress of the experience bar.
I'd be willing to bet that the very few new players today don't really get the same feeling, or if they do it doesn't last more than a week after being exposed to other players.
So, if there's one thing that I would like to see done for this or any other MMORPG, it's to make that immersion factor paramount. People should advance because they are enjoying the content, not do the content only because they are trying to advance. I know people will argue that players will do what they want, but a game CAN be built to encourage one side or the other. Right now, EQ favors advancement over experiencing content, and that saddens me.
Comment Posted by: Bahlzaq on October 27, 2004 10:03 PM
What would fix eq is a server wipe on all servers.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on October 28, 2004 12:01 AM
I honestly don't think it would. It would frustrate a whole bunch of people yes, but the world is too well-known for it to really be a solution.
Those of us who have played the game for a long time and know zones inside and out would know exactly where to go and what to do to level up quickly. Gear wouldn't be a problem, there are a multitude of lowbie armor quests that are ignored today that would suddenly become viable, not to mention anyone tradeskill inclined could make a fortune selling leather, banded, fine plate, and so on.
It would be interesting to see who came out on top and how it changed the quality of players you meet at the high end for a while, but I don't really think it would make much difference in the long run, and it certainly wouldn't fix the immersion factor - if anything, it would be even more annoying to be crowded into tons of low-level content again with everyone freaking out and complaining about slow leveling even moreso than they do today. It still makes me laugh when I hear level 60ish people complain about how they haven't leveled in a week - it used to take us the better part of a week to go from level 11 to level 12, even if we knew what we were doing and were well-geared for the time.
And yes, it was uphill, both ways.
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on October 28, 2004 10:04 AM
Talaen nailed it.
"But the thing that seriously tops my list is that Everquest just doesn't feel as immersive as it used to."
That and the sense of purpose.
The bottom line is that different games have proven that quests, loot and tradeskills don't require such a low boredom threshold and total lack of imagination either in providing content or consuming it.
LDON is, was, allways will be, a mistake as a watered down shallow anti-immersive sorry excuse of an arcade version of the real Everquest.
It doesn't have to be that way. I'm perfectly ready to imagine that content should be designed for single groups to provide something meaningful to do but will never accept the mediocre job done with LDON as an acceptable solution.
Bean counting, point earning, phony wayfarers that don't have a thing to do in the whole Norrath's history, anti-heroic at its best, isn't something someone could honnestly wish for a game when one has played pre-kunark, velious, coldain ring quest and everything in between that were well rounded immersive lore-rich encounters, be it guk or nagafen or any other aspect of Norrath one could dream about. Gathering gaz-station points for the next loot-fix because that's the only thing that keep someone play is just... sad and in fact attracts people I really don't wish to share any in-game experience. If the game don't catter to them: all the better.
Those can go play a X-box game or whatever else they please without cheapening our real good piece of code that is Everquest.
Comment Posted by: Solistic on October 28, 2004 01:57 PM
Talaen, a lot of your points are true, But when you said, "the places I go just don't feel as real and believable, and the fights that I fight don't feel as meaningful. Quests are a means to an end now, rather than a very cool storyline to follow. Dungeons are important only for levels and specific loot, and not for the atmosphere, the challenge, or the setting."
Well I have been playing my Beast Lord a lot. I have leveled her from 10 through 30 mainly on the task system. About level 13 something happened and I decided I wanted to enjoy the game again. I turned my bstlord into a secret agent for Halas. I have become totally immersed into the Role-playing of the character. The tasks are orders given by Halas HQ and I am sent places to right the wrongs that are happening in Norrath. For example, several have taken me to Splitpaw Lair. There were rumors of a take over and enslavement of the peaceful Gnolls, I have been collecting the scrolls and notes dropped there to validate the claim. I have been taking screen shots of what been said by the Gnolls them selves. I usually repeat what I have found in "Guild Chat" and have been building a story around this character.
Several other people are now involved with my character and her duties, and not just in my guild. People I have met and talked to from PoK to the East karana's. I have done this in the Old Zones, Luclin and Loy zones. The atmosphere and wonder are still there. You just have to look for it.
I completely agree with you about LDON's. I have not taken this character on a single one, because there does not seem to be any feel of excitement, or wonder of adventure. Just grinding for xp for a short period of time.
As my character grows, I hope to do more of the old quests and tie them into my character's story plot. I now have 6 other people doing the same thing. I hope for more fun quests, which have a good plot to go with them, and a historical lore. What has been coming out seem shallow and not captivating.
I can play for only short periods of time, because of time constraints and physical issues. My time on line usually range from 45 min. to 1.5 hours. I want my time on line to be enjoyable. I am still playing so I must be doing something successful.
I have been asked in several ways to speedily raise my character to higher levels, and have turned them down. For example I have been told “Let go to Dreadlands and I will get your character high enough to go to the Planes and we can grind there.” Not for me. I would rather go find quests and complete those (no matter how long it takes) and enjoy myself while completing them. Kunark and Vellious have lots of quests that have substance and they are still there. Luclin has a lot and Loy has some also. I have found very little in the other expansions and even less in the newest expansions.
The task system is a great idea, but should be taken a lot farther. They are unrelated and do not seem to have the feeling of a story line or history happening. Also there are so few of them, that I constantly have to repeat the ones I have completed.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on October 28, 2004 06:20 PM
Sol, I think we really do agree on a lot of things.
I'm glad that you are able to make your own backstory in the game, as it were. There's a big school of thought among game developers and players that says that's exactly what players should do. Unfortunately though, players tend not to do what everyone thinks they should.
Now, I've played Everquest since 1999. For a long time I was able to look past the actions of other players and feel comfortable in the game because I personally was having fun exploring, like you are now. I've spent years working on old, half-broken quests that had "worthless" rewards just because I wanted to find out the story behind them. I used to log hours on various websites and forums just reading what other players had discovered.
I can even relate to you the entire history of the conflict between the Torn Ear and Split Paw clans of gnolls. I can tell you about how it's part of the larger ongoing struggle between the minions of Bertoxxulous and the followers of Rodcet Nife that's all over the Karanas, and how it ties in to Lord Grimrot's undead army, the Bloodsabres, the Dismal Rage, and so on. I can tell you whose side the Sabretooth gnolls from Blackburrow are on (you might be surprised), and I can tell you where the exiled Splitpaw gnolls are and what has befallen them.
I can talk with you about the history and lore of nearly every single zone in the game. I can tell you about GM events early on in the game's life (back when they had true game-altering plots) that I attended and enjoyed. I can tell you what almost every faction in the game represents, what the group's goals and motivations are, and why they're opposed to other groups.
I have learned so much about the backstory of Everquest over the last five years. And for a long time, that really made the game for me. And then one day I had a realization:
None of it really means anything at all in the greater scheme of things.
Knowing the history and lore of Norrath doesn't lead you to greater riches or hidden places or special quests. It doesn't give you any real advantage in fights or exploration. Because of this, 99% of the other players in the game simply, completely, ignore it.
So, I envy you for your ability to still explore and enjoy the lore the game has to offer. I still get excited when I find a new piece of lore, but after the initial reaction it all just sinks back into that hollow feeling of disappointment. Because ultimately, the lore doesn't matter in the greater context of the game. It's just scenery.
In the end, I find that I can only appreciate the scenery for so long before I need for there to be something more to it. And I have an amazingly high tolerance for scenery compared to most other players.
Anyway, say hi to Val for me. Seems like I never get to talk to her or you in game anymore :)
Talaen Nephele
Paladin of Tunare, Knight of the Silent Watch
Guildleader of Claws of the Phoenix
The Nameless
EAS 100/67/33
Comment Posted by: on October 29, 2004 07:52 AM
Excellent post Talaen, that pretty much describes what has happened to me in Everquest.
One day I woke up and realized that none of the lore or stories mattered. There is no hidden areas that the lore will lead you to, no hidden chests with maps, loot, etc...
I convinced myself early on that I could overlook many things in the game like all the window dressing in buildings that did nothing and that you couldn't interact with. I was so disappointed the first time I tried to open a chest in an Inn room and discovered that it was fake. Well after a few years I can no longer look past the fake worthless eye candy in the game.
Comment Posted by: on October 29, 2004 08:41 PM
the loot and plat is just as worthless or moreso than the lore and stories.
I bet you will remember the lore better than any loot you get.
Comment Posted by: on October 30, 2004 01:12 AM
Well I am really unhappy with EQ, I have not logged in to play for a week. I think I am going to quit. It is really not that much fun any more, I was playing just for a cheap distraction and a bit of social chat. I was going to buy a new computer and volenteer to be a guild, I can not stand OoW.
I went and bought a 4x4 truck insted. I will not buy any more EQ expantions. I have seen the ill effects of OoW. If you down load the free trigoloy or buy platinum you then get an update for content and NPCs you can not even use. The old world of Norrath has been lost forever now. I liked classic Everquest. ON the technical side my computer; cpu, memory and video card should not have to carry along content I can not use, I am really put off by the fact that there are so many NPCs in the old world zones I can not even chat with. OLD Norrath should not be hacked by the developement team. I know there are more NPCs and less MOBs in the old world and I think the development team has basicly hacked up there own game. Classic EQ is not fun to me any more with so many static NPCs wasting my CPU cycles. I like classic EQ and OoW was the death blow to me.
Development team should work for Greenpeace.
OLD NORRATH: Rest in Peace.
Comment Posted by: Loral on October 30, 2004 10:55 AM
Some excellent discussions, thank you.
I find roleplaying to be contagious. The more you do it, the more people do it around you. There are few stories as rich as the one you can write around yourself. One of the reasons I loved LDON is because of the story I was able to wrap around it myself. Vampires right outside of Felwithe? The lost city of Takish Hiz found? These are some excellent plot motivators for a high elf.
I found less of that with Gates and Omens because they are so far separated from Norrath. SOE knows this, I spoke to SOE's Keeper of Lore and she has a great handle on what people want and what they don't.
There are some basic defined principals to a good game and a good expansion but a lot of it depends on us. If we look at it with an open mind and seek what we enjoy the most we will get a lot more out of it than people who seek only numeric rewards. Do whats fun and ignore the rest. The world won't explode if you don't get +40 augments on everything.
Thanks for the good disussions.
Comment Posted by: Tobalus on October 30, 2004 11:57 AM
I thought the comment by Zarros on October 21, 2004 06:05 PM ("new quest engine") was brilliant. I retired from EQ a while back but if it was going to be more like this, I wouldn't have.
I'm hoping EQ2 will be more like this; certainly there would be no technical reason this system couldn't be implemented in EQ1 but to a certain extent it feels like SOE has lost interest in this.
Certainly the shoddy task system left me with a bad taste in my mouth and was the main reason I closed my 2 accounts... that and being in a time zone where it was difficult to raid and a game that pretty much requires it.
This sort of flagging system would make assembling the groups of the size needed for these activities more attractive; Perhaps someone's flag hisory could be available for perusal too, so that you could see that they were the defender of kelethin and smiter of Lord Grim?
Heck, making a charm that grows in stats at you complete every task needed for an epic of every class might be interesting, or at least several classes (no paladin/necro combinations unless they are formally rewriting the lore like they did witht he wayfarers). Or perhaps just an augment; or a staff like they did on the anniversary. Something anyhoo.
Comment Posted by: Loral on November 1, 2004 07:56 AM
"the loot and plat is just as worthless or moreso than the lore and stories.
I bet you will remember the lore better than any loot you get."
Well said. Progression is important to keep us interested but never forget that outside of the game it means nothing. People matter, tales of adventure matter, but fancy +300 hp breastplates won't be remembered in 5 years.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on November 1, 2004 12:46 PM
Very true, and I don't want to be misunderstood here. I don't mean to say that everything should tie into levels and loot in the end. I don't regret the time I've spent learning the lore of EQ and experiencing the stories. I only regret that it doesn't a) lead me to additional "exclusive" content and b) allow me to advance my character at a pace commensurate with the people who simply ignore the setting and spend their time mindlessly killing whatever is easiest and gives the "best" exp.
If someone wants to spend the time and energy to really learn about the game world, that knowledge should benefit them somehow. In a game like Everquest, it should literally "open doors" for them, allow them to see and do cool things which other folks who don't spend the time exploring can do. It doesn't necessarily have to make them "uber", but the quality of the reward should be commensurate with the effort they put in to get it. EQ has attempted to do this with quests but not only have they been abused by players, they've been abandoned and ignored in the ongoing development of the game, except for occasional token efforts with new expansions.
I think there's a lot of improvement that could be done on EQ's quest system, not just in terms of their rewards, but also in how the quest content leverages game lore, and in the mechanics of how quests are implemented, to keep them from becoming "stale" and trivialized because their details are posted on a dozen web sites.
Here's an example of one way that this could be done.
1. Take the existing body of lore related to an NPC group - say, the kobolds of Odus.
2. Write a dozen or so quests for each level range or difficulty range that require at least a general knowledge of this lore in order to solve
or even begin (don't worry about websites at this stage).
3. Insure that the rewards of the quests are appropriate to the force and time required to solve them. Use tokens if need be, especially for shorter quests.
4. To prevent the content from becoming stale so quickly, only allow players to begin one-third of the quests. Save the rest of the quests for implementation later on. So if you had 12 quests written, only put 4 of them in the game.
5. At a predetermined interval - say like, every few months, pull the old quests out and put new ones in their place. Since you already had some written in advance, this requires no additional development time to do. Simply swap them. Allow players to finish the old quests if they had already begun them, but anyone starting the quests gets the new ones.
6. Make a commitment to develop and add new quests to the pool at regular intervals (say every six months), and don't reuse quests you've already put in for the same area (although you could take the template and use it for a different area of game lore).
7. Make a commitment to revisit existing areas at regular intervals (perhaps once a year) and update them. Just as adventurers level up, the world changes too - keep the content fresh and you'll insure that it gets used.
8. If you decide to make a major change to a game NPC group - like burning their city to the ground and relocating them for example, rather than just having it all happen over the course of a patch you should provide as much foreshadowing and participation to the players IN GAME as possible. If there's a war brewing, then over time players should see things develop before the war breaks out. More soldiers in the streets, enemies closer to the city gates than before, and so on.
By doing all this, not only have you leveraged existing lore, but you have also created new lore, which can then be leveraged later for yet more. Done right, it gives players the feeling that the game world is constantly changing, keeps them logging in, and rewards them for truly taking part in the game world instead of merely using it as a backdrop for mindless monster hacking.
Comment Posted by: Bahlzaq on November 1, 2004 01:53 PM
Hey man, I think your goals are good, but your suggestions will not achieve the desired results. If the reward was good everyone would do them, and if the reward was bad you'd be talking about it being a slap in the face for all of the lore you learned. Most quests that I know of are at least in some way lore based(excluding the turn in "quests" which are really just a game mechanic, and not a quest at all)
I have been doing some of teh tasks in OOW and based on some of teh text in those, I can tell you that the designers see the same thing you do... there is just no way around it... for instance I killed some familiars in mistmoore and the text read something to the affect of "You didn't even know those poor beings whom you were forced to kill did you?"
It's maximum consumption, and it would be a waste of time for developers to do what you are suggesting. It wouldn't please anyone. It wouldn't add much to the life of the game, and there time can be better spent designing another OT full of monsters for us to kill at level 70.
Story in EQ is just like story in any other game. It is corollary to the main game, complementary in places, non existent in others, and I think that is the best you can hope for. There is nothing wrong with the idea that you should be rewarded for learning the "story" but if you don't think the story is its own reward then don't read it.
I personally think the quests are fine in EQ. I think the tasks could be fleshed out and better written, but they were clearly rushed... I do however like the execution of the tasks though.
The bottom line is that if you had to know "lore piece A" to get something good, everyone would know it by 10 PM on patch day, and I don't think your solution does anything to stop that, in fact I think it would cause a lot of grief, because of the time constraints your suggestion would implement.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on November 1, 2004 04:31 PM
"The bottom line is that if you had to know "lore piece A" to get something good, everyone would know it by 10 PM on patch day, and I don't think your solution does anything to stop that, in fact I think it would cause a lot of grief, because of the time constraints your suggestion would implement."
First, I think that it can be said for anything in the game, whether it's killing a monster or finishing a quest: If the reward is good for their race/class/level, anyone who can do it will do it.
So that argument is kind of moot. The designers have to take this into account - you can't create Uber_sword_032 and not expect that anyone who has a chance to get that sword is eventually going to try to get it.
The way to restrict items is to make them harder to get. By doing so you cut down on the list of people that will eventually have them. Most gamers understand this and don't have a problem with it except when they feel the requirements to get an item unfairly favor people with certain playstyles or lifestyles over others. That's the root of the entire raider vs. non-raider discussion.
It's one thing for someone to say "I can't finish this quest yet because I'm not high enough level". It's quite another thing to say "I can't finish this quest yet because I don't have a guild capable of doing that raid" or "I can't finish this quest yet because I can't stay online long enough to do the camp".
I personally have no problem at all with everyone knowing "Piece of Lore A". In fact, I'd like this. I don't really care whether someone finds it in game or reads it on a website when they're trying to figure out what their next gear upgrade is. The point is that they know it, think about it, and use it, and that makes the world more real in a sense. Ultimately, someone had to discover that lore the hard way before it got on that website, and that's what matters. There are things the developers can control and things they can't, and fansites are something they really can't control.
However, that same reason is why I think a system needs to be in place to change the world and the quests from time to time. Lore is a constant, but if it goes long enough without new lore being added or new quests being implemented, it loses a big part of its appeal. This is what has happened with EQ. The Crushbone Orcs have been trying to burn down Kelethin for five years in real time now, and nothing about that has ever, ever changed.
Credit where credit is due. I have been impressed with the quality of the writing in quite a few of the new "epic" quests. They tell a solid story and a well-thought out one at that. I have been less than impressed with their execution in some cases.
As far as the other quests in Omens, I have not been so impressed. The writing on the tasks was horrible in my opinion - they not only feel like generic templates, the quest for the various steps often doesn't fit together well at all. The execution isn't good either - some classes have it way too easy, and others much too hard.
Since quests are the primary vehicle for "using" lore in the game, they're important to the game and should be treated as such. If I were evaluating a quest, I would look at three areas:
1. Plotline - Does the quest leverage game lore? Is the storyline believable and engaging?
2. Rewards - Given the time and effort needed to complete the request, is the player going to feel like the reward was worth it?
3. Execution - How well is the quest implemented? Are there big timesinks or bottlenecks? Do encounters require so much force as to be undoable for average players?
I realize that my example/suggestions above cross over a little bit more into general world building - but like I said, quests are the primary means for "using" the lore in a game. While those may not be the best ways to do things, in my opinion they're certainly better than nothing.
At any rate, it's time to clear out and beat rush hour traffic :)
Comment Posted by: Bahlzaq on November 1, 2004 07:58 PM
Quests are important to you as a vehicle to use and learn lore, and that is fine, but I doubt you are in the majority. For what it is worth, I am right with you, however, you have to ask yourself what is more likely: 1) someone reading alla's about all the quests in crushbone... picking the one or two they want to do, then knocking them out in about 2 hours. Or 2) someone wondering around kelethin for those 2 hours and not even getting started on any quests, and then eventually finding a quest taking a few hours to figure it out an hour to execute, and then ending up with a reward they don't even want?
You started off saying lore was useless without loot/exp.. there was no point to it... I would say most people feel the same way about the quests you remember foundly... People play to ultimately advance... I think the main problem is that when it comes down to it, lore is window dressing and I would be way less interested in sinking 10 hours into a quest with awesome lore and crappy reward then the other way around... of course it is nice to have both, but in the grand scheme of things it is mostly valueless to the game's playability. IMO
Comment Posted by: Talaen on November 1, 2004 11:22 PM
Yeah, you've got a point there, and I mostly agree with it. But it swings both ways though - people just have different tolerances. As some folks have posted, having too much advancement and not enough "window dressing" can be just as big of a turn off.
I know that quests and lore can be implemented well because I've seen and played other games that have done it well. I'm still playing EQ because unfortunately, even though they did quests and lore well, they didn't do the other stuff quite as well - and ultimately either the gameplay (minus lore/quests) bored me, or the game simply folded.
Here's a game that did quests really well - Earth and Beyond. Their problem was the lack of an definable endgame (which became a necessity for MMORPGs after EQ's second year)and ultimately, their publisher being a money-grubbing corporation that takes good game studios and products and destroys them in the name of a higher profit margin (We like to complain about Sony sometimes, but at least they care about their games). A lot of their "trash" quests were template missions but even those were generally enjoyable. And the real quests were not only fun, they also got you involved in the backstory of the galaxy. To this day, the newbie experience in Earth and Beyond was the absolute best set of tutorial missions that I have ever experienced, and I'm sad the game folded, even though I stopped playing it a year before that happened.
It doesn't really bother me that someone can go to a website and read a quest spoiler, because ultimately it was somebody who likes to explore, like me, that found that quest in the first place and then submitted the writeup on it. And truthfully, what you're talking about is more a symptom of the age of the game than anything else. In 1999, people had just as much fun as they do now - and they didn't have nearly as many spoiler sites to look at as we do. At any rate, sites like Alla's or CastersRealm or EQAtlas don't really take anything away from the game for me - they're simply a way for the community to share information with each other and enhance everyone's gameplay. Hell, I bookmarked the First Fist of Light's page way back when because it was the best reference site for EQ lore that I could find at the time, and I -like- figuring that stuff out on my own.
The main reason I think quests and zones should be refreshed periodically is to keep the older areas of the game from becoming ghost towns - which has happened in more places than in EverQuest. Ultimately an underpopulated zone is just wasted hardware and database space, and therefore it's important to make an effort to keep people in it as the population ages. This is an area where EQ has really fallen through - for example, today I took my ranger to Dulak to try and solo (I failed miserably), and I was the only person in the zone for like 2 hours. And Dulak is pretty decent exp for groups of 40s. I've had the same experience at all levels all across the older portions of the game. Part of that is due to a thinning player population - and if anyone thinks the player population in EQ isn't thinning with CoH, WoW, the EQ2 beta, and everything else, you're either extremely unobservant or deluding yourself - but part of it is also because there's just not much reason for people to go to these places anymore.
Keeping the game fresh, by revamping/refreshing old zones, swapping out quests, and adding to the lore helps retain players, encourage loyalty in the face of increased competition, and satisfy people who don't quite fit the uber-achiever playstyle the game caters to. Doubt this? There are STILL text and graphical MUDs out there with thriving active player populations, and for the most part, periodic content refreshes in addition to ongoing expansion is how they've done it. EQ is a direct descendant of MUDs, and if you strip out the graphics, the design is nearly identical in most ways to a MUD - it stands to reason that the same techniques for player retention would work as well, or potentially better here.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. Email Mike at mike@mikeshea.net for more questions or comments.