Stats/Levels?

[Scrote]

And another question - how will you handle stats? Will it a be a level-based game like EQ? A stats-based one like UO? Or something different? This I think is a fundamental aspect of any game and I'd love to hear how this is being dealt with. Thanks!

S'right,
Scrote

[Rolfe]

On the menu under the BRICK HOUSE TRADING CO. Logo, hit the game section. There's a Skill section under it that describes that in detail. It's a skill based system with a LOT of possibilities. I've never seen one quite like it.

[Scrote]

Guess I should've checked out your site more before posting. Stoopid Scrote!

Thanks!

S'right,
Scrote

[Lordosis]

"A Rich just slapped YOU for 23 damage..."

[Scrote]

aiiieee! Supressed memories of EQ rising ... must ... fight them ... bad ... memories ... !!

Why's it so easy for me to bash EQ? It's weird. I was hooked on it for a while and it was constantly in my mind for that period of time. It wasn't a nice addiction though, it wasn't rewarding in any way. The first couple of months were fun, simply cuz I get a kick out of exploring and for a long time I and a friend or two were the only people in a few of the zones we hung out in and that gave me a thrill too.

Now I really despise it. The blatant stupidity of the game frustrates me. Haven't played it in about a year or more, doubt I'll ever play it again. It's funny how it happened - one day I was travelling to my corpse, or waiting for something to spawn or something along those lines and it suddenly hit me. "Scrote", I said "this game is utterly crap. You're playing a graphical MUD. A BAD graphical MUD at that. Stop this nonsense!" So I did.

Not that I actually call myself "Scrote", but it fit into that little story.

Ah well.

"Time to die!" says a_scrote!

[Rolfe]

Rich and I BOTH know EXACTLY how you feel. I don't play Warcraft2 anymore very often, but I can't say that I have anything bad to say about it at all. Dragon Warrior took up loads of my time way back when; and I don't play it anymore either. Dragon Warrior is a great game and was well made. (Notice there's nothing bad about Dragon Warrior mentioned. See the pattern? K, now here comes the pattern breaker. Can you guess what it is?) Everquest is different though. (Ah, good guess). Everquest was fun for a while, and I played it more than I've ever played any game before. I was doing 50 hours a week last summer. But there's something dark about Everquest in a very real sense. It's a depressant. It soaks your free time up and after 5 or 6 hours, you start to realize that you haven't had any fun the past 5 or 6 hours and that you could have been spending time with your girlfriend or your family or just even outside in the sun or something. And you get a sick sensation in your stomach. You're not sure if the sickness is prompted by your realization that you've thrown away 6 hours of your life, or the fact that you forgot to eat breakfast and lunch cause you were playing Everquest. I don't know what they did or how they did it, but it's just not fun. It's scary. It's like a pleasant dream that you realize isn't a dream at all. It's actually a nightmare. It's meant to tranquilize and content you while your life, your love, your energy, your very will, are sapped away from you. I never felt like that playing Might & Magic. And the staff at Verant makes it worse. They don't perpetuate a fun playing environment. They perpetuate a gradeschool playground-like environment where players don't handle their own problems, they shout and ooc "KS KS KS" (which is the grade school equivelant of "cutter cutter cutter, RICH cut in line". And by shouting, they attempt to use negative buzz words that have been overused to the point where they no longer carry any more meaning than the words "poopoo head poopoo head poopoo head" in order to get everyone in the zone to gang up on that "KS". The sad thing is, everyone DOES gang up on that "KS" with no more factual information presented to them about the dispute other than the shout "KS". I say "Mindless Mindless Mindless". And if shouting doesn't work, you petition a GM and wait for an hour. Then the GM comes and changes everyone's names and bans anyone who ends up with an offensive new name and tells anyone left to "play nice". And you feel like you've just been robbed of $10 and 6 hours. And Verant has never made any secret of the fact that they just don't care what the hell the players think or want as long as you send your 10$. Of course, now that there are a dozen other MMORPGs coming out, Verant is suddenly the players best friend. Constantly making updates and fixes to the game. Some of the fixes they're suddenly making should have been done a year ago when they were first reported; but instead, they were working on 2 new emotes.

[Slitherrr]

Rich has slashed a Verant for 84 damage.
Rich has scored a Critical Hit!(84)

Seriously, man, three months of sitting in front of the computer, smacking that stupid Cubert over and over and over for the INT +3 earring he drops, running from Sand Giants in Oasis, constantly hearing the shouts of "bibs and pbc for trade, looking for rts give tells" and "train to zone!!!!!" echoing in my brain... I decided to give it up when my level 17 monk (feign death gave me the most enjoyment I had had in a looong time when I hit that level) died in Qeynos while I was bound in Freeport, and the only cleric capable of ressurection anywhere near the area turn off his /tells when my guildmates requested a res. Verant has slapped YOU for 69 damage! YOU have become better at observation!(-2) "Gee, Willy, you know, this game sucks, this game blows, and I wasted fifty bucks for a pretty box and a CD that's not even good enough to count as a coaster..."

And that's my rant.

[Lordosis]

You have become better at paying us $10 a month.(255)

Hehe, man those same phrases still echo on my head. I still log on from time to time and I just start laughing. "wtt pbb, give tell". "wtb sbh, wts rts bbc pgt, make offers". I agree with your rant, but I better not go off on my own because it will get me all riled up.

[Uncle Dukey]

I've personally never had the "privilege" of playing Everquest. Paying 50 bucks then 10 bucks a month to play something that looked rather mediocre wasn't attractive to me. What makes the game so attractive to people is it's the first massively online multiplayer RPG that is accessable to everyone. Being an online RPG, it most likely always places something just out of your reach like a magical item, spell, or level. Everyone strives to obtain that, wasting away hours of their time. The addiction factor is fed upon your need to improve your character. You always want to become more powerful, and to gain that extra edge. Even if you're not having much fun in the process, you'll still strive to obtain it, perhaps in what you hope will give you a sense of accomplishment. The cycle will repeat an endless amount of time, even moreso with the developer adding new content. Just look at Diablo2, everyone's on battle.net striving to improve their character and climb up the latter. Even if they've already become bored at level 50, they keep playing. Persistant Online RPGs just give you a world that encourages you to better yourself, and show off. That lure is most likely what keeps most going.

[Stafir]

How did this go from the skill system to everquest so fast? :P


Anyway...my personal take...the skill system seems to be nicely done...I take it the more you use a skill the better you are at it..which is nice. You guys ever play Faldon? They have a similar skill system (but they also have player levels..only it just affects your attributes...the attributes having some affect on how well you learn skills :P...and of course overall effectiveness on aiming, damage..mana..etc)


Anywho..as for Evercrack and its likes....never got it. I never see a point in buying software..then paying money to use the software. If they at least included a single player mode somewhere...or the software to run your own server..but noo.....

So while I think it looks decent..along with UO..I ain't gonna pay money to use software I bought. Games that give you the software for free and have you pay for the playing is better in my opinion..but thats just me.

Just my two bits.

[Lordosis]

That's exactly why we're not charging up front for Arcanity, because that would blow.

Hehe, everything turns to EQ one way or another. Like it or not, it was a revolutionary game if for no other reason than it brought MMORPGs to the masses, not just the die-hard gamers like us.

Faldon...... Was that the one that pretty much just one guy was making? It was isometric, but the graphics looked very much like the game was in alpha testing (which it was when I played it). If that was it, I never really got into the game, because I couldn't figure out what was going on. But one thins I will say is that the little patch program the guy wrote was pretty awesome. Is Faldon still around? Or maybe we're talking about different games.

[Rolfe]

Ya, Everquest charging me $10 a month didn't bug me too much. The fee seemed nominal when I was having fun at it. The only thing that bugged me when I bought the game was, "What if I don't like it?" I had heard good things about it from friends, but I couldn't believe there was no demo version to download or anything.

[Rai Azimon]

Yes, Rich Faldon is alive and you basically summed it up well. I don't know how long its been since you played but they have made a lot of improvements recently (for a free game ;) ) The skillsets in that game are so out of balance that it wouldn't matter what they did graphically to that game, it would still play out like a stone age game.

Rai Azimon

[Ruadin]

I'm proud to say that I'm among the few who played the beta, realized how poorly designed EverQuest was and decided not to play the game beyond beta. As a matter of fact I think I only put a couple of weeks into the beta before losing interest.

Here's some things I hope future MMOGs would avoid:

1) repetitiveness: I realize that you must kill stuff to advance, however spending a few hours a day whacking rats, snakes, beetles and skeletons isn't exactly what I'd call fun. As a matter of fact, the novelty wears off at about the 50th of those creatures that you have to kill for a lousy 1/20th of a bubble to fill up.

But if you really wanna know what irked the heck out of me as far as that goes, its the auto-attack "feature". How unimaginative can you get! Makes you want to throw your hands up in the air and yell "Look Ma! No hands!"
I'm sure most of us have memories from HS or college where we had Mr. Monotone for a professor. If its possible to start falling asleep in the middle of playing a MMOG, that's a true indication of how truly pathetic it is.

suggestions:
- allow for a bit more variety and control over combat
- allow for experience to be obtained by other means like successful skill/spell usage (at least until the skill/spell is mastered) and not just by killing a target.

If you ask me, the whole concept of experience needs to be reworked. I simply don't see how experience gained in combat, can help your blacksmithing skills and vice versa. There should be experience categories and even sub-categories beyond that. If I go around whacking everything I come across with my huge club, then I should gain experience towards training with that club and maybe some general combat skills like attack and defense... however I shouldn't be gaining experience towards my sword skills.

2) don't punish creativity
If players come up with ways to use skills/spells - which are NOT bugs or exploitations - in ways that were not previously forseen don't punish them for it. As an avid player myself, I love to explore and try things previously not thought of. My main goal in any MMOG is to explore and discover. I imagine many other players feel similarly.

3) don't make a game so ridiculously hard that its almost impossible to adventure alone
Most people don't care for groups. They just want to get online for a couple of hours, explore a little and then move on with their lives. These people likely already have social lives outside a MMOG and don't need to be forced to have one within if they don't want to. The developers shouldn't impose their vision of how the game should be played on the players.

4) don't forget that as complex a world that may finally result from development, its still just a game!
As mentioned earlier, the majority of people already have busy lives and want to get their fix off an MMOG for a couple of hours. If the game system is made so complex that it takes several hours to recover from a bad decision - that increases frustration levels and creates alot of negative sentiment towards the game. A good balance needs to exist between reality and playability. There should be a way for people to choose less reality in favor of a less frustrating experience. Perhaps when these people are ready they can make the transition to a more realistic experience of the game.

I'm not speaking for myself here since I've played MMOGs, muds in particular, since '91. However I've seen so many complaints in this area that I feel its VERY important for developers to take this into account. Some people, especially those who are trying an MMOG for the first time, require some baby-sitting. Some section of the game environment should cater to that need.

There's plenty of other things that I'm sure will come up in discussions through the course of the development of Arcanity, but these are some of the major points.

Aside from all the glaring problems with EQ mentioned here and in earlier posts, its biggest inadequacy is not necessarily with the game but with the disrespectful treatment of players by Verant staff. Nothing sums up Verant's sentiment towards its player-base better then a quote by Milo (who I believe is one of the content creators/developers for EQ). This was in response to a negative remark received from an EQ subscriber on the since-then-canceled "Ask Milo" message board. Even though its from memory so its not an exact quote, but it went something like this;

"Shut up and give me your $10 bucks a month little man, my Porsche needs some performance upgrades."

[Slitherrr]

Ooh, that's harsh, never heard that particular story. Hey, perhaps Arcanity should have an area not in-game that's an OOC environment for people to get used to the game functions and stuff. Like the EQ tutorial, but on-line, so they can interact with other newbies, with CM's, whatever.

[Lordosis]

Yeah, I read that. I think it was gas and not performance upgrades, hehe. What a jerk.

We're on the same page, Ruadin, on all these issues.

(1) There's no camping. There will be some repetitive killing at low levels I suspect, for the newbies to get used to the game, etc.

(2) Just the opposite, in fact. Rolfe is very adamant about allowing "exploits". Not cheating, but just little tricks that players find. Everytime I found one in EQ, I was afraid I'd be banned if I used it, AND PEOPLE WERE BANNED. It was insane. Of course, if you do find an "exploit", you probably want to only share it with your closest friends. Since once everybody knows about it, it's not special anymore, and we might even take it out.

(3) I was never much for grouping either. Rolfe and I got most of our experience in EQ kiting stuff in North Karana. Grouping seemed to get me killed so often that it wasn't worth it. Plus grouping meant camping, which I HATED.

(4) Our god system might allow for just that kind of thing. By worshiping certain gods, you may get certain advantages that don't directly pertain to stats and skills. I don't want to go into too much detail, since it's just in Rolfe's mind and my mind right now. But I think it will allow many things to be explained within the story of the game, that would otherwise be contrived and unexplainable phenomena.

Slitherr, that's not a bad idea. Of course, our first few thousand player will almost undoubtedly be experienced gamers. So I don't think it will be a problem at first.

[Dyson]

When it comes to advancement, I'd like to see more option open up at higher levels; ie, when you start dealing with things like Keep management, actions you take may give you large amounts of XP (ie, successfully defending your castle, adding people to the "resident" roster, making repairs, leading attacks on other castles or cities of monsters). This way, the high-levels have something to do for advancement rather then kill low-level things. One problem I noticed in UO was that the orc camps were nearly always empty- Grandmaster Fighters would wade in and clean them out with a dagger for practice. Since all the low-level monsters were dead, the newbies were left the Dragons and Wyverns...needless to say, advancement was hindered. I think even an "XP degradation" for some monsters might be enacted-
Maybe something like, after a player kills a goblin, slaughtering small animals like cats and sheep no longer give experience. After killing something really large, like a dragon, killing goblins no longer give XP (it's just not enough of a challenge to the character's skills; if you're 6 years old, fighting other 6 year olds may help you improve; if you're a 25-year-old, getting in a fight with a 6-year-old isn't even really a fight; it's just unfair. You certainly can't get any experience from it). Not that I fought a lot as a little kid, or pick on little kids in my adulthood. :) Just an example.
Does anyone have ideas on what might constitute good high-level advancement options? Here's a small list of mine:

Fighter (yes, I know there are no official classes, but bear with me)

Building a Keep [static XP award, ie, one lump some of XP when the building is finished being built]

Populating your Keep (getting people to sign on as "residents" of the keep; it's a safe log-out area and home base for them) [maintained XP award; ie, small amount every month based on how many residents you have]

Forming a Feif (getting people with houses and/or farms nearby the keep to sign on as your "subjects;" you're obligated to protect them) [maintained XP]

Aiding in a raid against a monster or rival player keep/city
(a "raid" is 4 or more people who start attacking the city within 1 minute of each other and sustain the raid until they either flee (again, at roughly the same time), defeat or drive away the city's residents, or are killed. [static minor XP award if defeated, static major XP award if victorious]

Successfully aiding in the defense of your Keep or Feif from a monstrous or player raid [static XP award, modified by how many residents you have]

If you're a resident, aiding in the defense of the Keep or Feif you live in pstatic XP award]

Priest:

Building a temple [static XP award]

Keeping the Faith Alive [maintained XP award every month dependant on how many worshippers came to the temple]

Furthering the influence of your God [minor XP awards based on how much you helped the interests of your God every month; ie, defeating monsters that your religion doesn't like, defending temples or members of your religion from attack, aiding in the building of other temples, etc]

Pursuing the Faith [maintained XP based on whether you're following your religion's tenets- ie, if you're of a god of healing, you get minor XP awards for healing people.]

Wizard:

Researching a new spell [static XP award]

Completing a magical item [static XP award]

Maintaining a ward or enchantment (example: your Guild Tower is warded against intruders teleporting in, you renew the Ward every few days before the duration expires) [maintained, compounding XP award based on how long the Ward's been in effect and how long you've been maintaining it without a gap.]

Discovering a magic Source (if these are to be used) [static and maintained XP awards; static upon discovery, maintained for as long as you hold it]

Forming a wizard's guild [static and maintained XP awards]

You get the idea. Thoughts? Comments?

...flames, even? :)