@TLogan
Doesn't matter if WoW is still going...it's pratically a shell of its former self, hence they are making classic WoW for a reason and why it has gotten so much traction. I could say EQ is still running, doesn't make it a good game right now. Dungeon finder had the same effect that flying mounts had. People liked that it was convient and cool in the beginning, I know I did, but after years of playing many people, including myself, came the realization that these did more harm than good in the end and took alot of aspects of the game that many people enjoyed out of the game. So I would argue dungeon finder was not the main cause, but definetly a cause in the decline and the longevity of the game.
TLogan said: December 5th 2006 is when dungeon finder was added. 4-5 years later WoW reached it's peak playerbase. I know, I know dungeon finder is something almost nobody here wants, but to say it killed the socialization aspect is completely false. I would communicate and even get to know my "pug" dungeon finder group well if we were forced to talk to each other instead of steamroll through content.
this whole aspect of the game was removed with WoTLK and never went back, i agree with a tool to see who and what was LFG, but totally disagree with automated processes, you dont care what get, and its Hutchinsons' to the game and thus killing it pre-maturely, which is what happened to wow, the only reason people play wow is because wow is the only thing to play, its the closest thing to an MMO that there is, which again i say if you want that fast paced - instant grat - mindless grind, go play those games there are 100s and wow does it best, in respect to people who repsect ingrity/quality product dont implement this into pantheon, its watering down the whiskey.
GoofyWarriorGuy said:Tanix said: In fact, I think it should be HARD to replace a group member specifically because grouping in a dungeon is not some common easy thing, it is a difficult task.
I want to comment on this statement to just point out the 'why' VR makes dungeons a 'difficult task' as Tanix put it.
They are not making dungeons difficult simply because they want to make a very challenging game. The goal is not to make it difficult... making it difficult is how they reach their goal.
The real Goal VR is trying to achieve is to make a game where people socialize with each other and play together and make meaningful connections with other players. Making dungeons difficult is one of the ways they encourage players to reach out and get to know each other and form lasting friendships as they work to overcome these challenges.
In this latest VIP Developer Roundtable released April 6th 2019: at (15:35)
Ben Dean said: We are taking a look at the fundamental design and we are trying to provide the opportunity to get to know people.
He goes on to talk about other features of the game they are still discussing like tradeskills and auction type systems, with this same goal in mind. To help people to get to know each other and make friends and play together.
Both Chris Perkins and Brad McQuaid have used the same phrase: "Meaningful connections" many times in the various streams and interviews they have done.
This thread is all about Brad saying that he wants there to be systems in place to help keep people playing together even when one player needs to leave. He doesn't want the loss of one player to upset the real vision of the game, which is to keep people playing together with the friends (or potential friends) they are currently with.
So the question posed was... how do they keep the group adventuring by allowing that group to bring in a new player, without it being a feature that could be abused like many of you have pointed out that spells like Call of the Heroes were abused in the past.
Now Tanix obviously feels like this should be difficult, but Brad McQuaid really wants it to be doable for almost all groups in most situations. That doesn't mean it has to be a magic button that just brings the player to your group, but it does need to be something that almost everyone will be able to accomplish without causing the group to fail and fall apart.
Perhaps my previous idea of a 'swap player' feature is too 'magic buttony', but I did try to come up with a solution that would keep the group going, but with restrictions that tried to prevent ways people might try to abuse it for other purposes than it's intention of replacing a member who has to leave while your deep in a dungeon.
The problem is that the easier you make it for people to easily swap out groups, the easier you make it for people to lock down camps.
Have you ever played a game where there were contested camps? Did you play it during its peak?
Make it easy for people to quickly swap out players and you will develop perma-camps where instead of "groups" going to a camp, people will get in line to be added to an existing group. Nothing wrong with joining a group, but somehow I don't see "lasting" friendships being developed when your system is essentially a dungeon finder swap spell for players to join random groups who need another fill in.
One of the things that allowed us to build lasting relationships in EQ was due the fact that we stuck together, we coordinated play times, if a dungeon was packed, we as a group would go to another, or go find some area to group at. You won't get that with your system as the "individuals" in our groups will be going "later guys, a spot opened up in camp A", good luck on getting into another group.
It is through adversity, through struggle and sharing that with another that you develop bonds of friendship. That is the point of a long and difficult dungeon where you have to plan, coordinate and share in the successes and failures of grouping in such.
Tanix said:The problem is that the easier you make it for people to easily swap out groups, the easier you make it for people to lock down camps.
Have you ever played a game where there were contested camps? Did you play it during its peak?
Make it easy for people to quickly swap out players and you will develop perma-camps where instead of "groups" going to a camp, people will get in line to be added to an existing group. Nothing wrong with joining a group, but somehow I don't see "lasting" friendships being developed when your system is essentially a dungeon finder swap spell for players to join random groups who need another fill in.
One of the things that allowed us to build lasting relationships in EQ was due the fact that we stuck together, we coordinated play times, if a dungeon was packed, we as a group would go to another, or go find some area to group at. You won't get that with your system as the "individuals" in our groups will be going "later guys, a spot opened up in camp A", good luck on getting into another group.
It is through adversity, through struggle and sharing that with another that you develop bonds of friendship. That is the point of a long and difficult dungeon where you have to plan, coordinate and share in the successes and failures of grouping in such.
I think a popular catch-phrase that was tossed around recently was 'having some skin in the game.' Allowing people to swap out like that, at least in my opinion, will cheapen the experience overall because it removes what's required to actually get to and break [Today's Flavor Camp]. The rewards from those things were so satisfying, again, in my opinion, because everyone put in the time, sweat and tears to get to it in the first place.
I understand what's wanted and don't disagree with it in principle. It really sucks when your healer goes linkdead and you're way too deep to even drag the corpse of a replacement to your group. However, I think a mechanic like this would do more harm than good. Being able to hot-swap group members seems like it caters more to the instant gratification crowd, not the crowd that I've seen posting in these forums who are perfectly fine with trying, failing and trying again to get what they want.
Nephele said:During the March developer roundtable, Brad talked briefly about the scenario where a group is deep in a dungeon and then their enchanter (or someone else) has to log out. He mentioned that they want to set things up so that the group can bring in a replacement and keep going, and so that this kind of thing doesn't end the adventure for everyone else.
I finally got a chance to listen to the stream, and some of what I understood of Brads position on this concerns me.
To me this kind of thing (a player is leaving) is part of the game. Solving this problem is to me nothing more than an unexpected quest. Quest many of us look for.
Kill 10 rats....boring
Escort NPC-X up the same path we did last time...boring
We have just lost our Class-Y from our qroup... how are we going to overcome this new unique quest, in a new location than last time, that we haven't encountered before.
That's what we want for Quest isn't it? I think that Brad thinking that the Developers are responsible to save us from loss if we decide give up because we loose one player will be detrimental to the game overall. A Dungon, like a raid shouldn't be easy to complete. It should take you a few tries before the stars all align and you're blessed with a win!
Zorkon said:Nephele said:During the March developer roundtable, Brad talked briefly about the scenario where a group is deep in a dungeon and then their enchanter (or someone else) has to log out. He mentioned that they want to set things up so that the group can bring in a replacement and keep going, and so that this kind of thing doesn't end the adventure for everyone else.
I finally got a chance to listen to the stream, and some of what I understood of Brads position on this concerns me.
To me this kind of thing (a player is leaving) is part of the game. Solving this problem is to me nothing more than an unexpected quest. Quest many of us look for.
Kill 10 rats....boring
Escort NPC-X up the same path we did last time...boring
We have just lost our Class-Y from our qroup... how are we going to overcome this new unique quest, in a new location than last time, that we haven't encountered before.
That's what we want for Quest isn't it? I think that Brad thinking that the Developers are responsible to save us from loss if we decide give up because we loose one player will be detrimental to the game overall. A Dungon, like a raid shouldn't be easy to complete. It should take you a few tries before the stars all align and you're blessed with a win!
This is also how EQ developed "emergent play". Many times you would lose a key group member, maybe it was a healer, or an enchanter, tank, etc... If you were deep in a dungeon, sometimes you would try to see if you could get by with less than ideal makeup instead of forefitting the camp to the next group. There were many times where we used all kinds of off the wall approaches to keep playing. Sometimes it was a disaster, other times it worked well, but this was part of the process.
Iksar said:I didn't take away from the roundtable a sense they were leaning toward summons so much as just reiterating they want it to be easy to find replacements and meet new like-minded players with similar schedules.
I think a better answer would generally be dungeons with shortcut designs. One-way wells you can jump in to drop to lower levels or windstreams that push up floors, locked doors than can only be opened from one side that cut through entire areas, and things of that nature.
They don't even have to be hard placed all-access solutions either, IMO it would be better to have tons of class specific areas to shine. Castle/keep walls that you can have a rogue lower rope down to shortcut party members cutting massive areas of dungeon away, chasms/cliffs/pits that can be circumvented by a druid with vinewoven bridge, blocked passages/doorways that can be opened by warrior charges, and things like that.
I think Iksar has the right idea here. Give the classes the tools to overcome these replacement player escort quest. If the players can be creative enough to use them.
Zorkon said:Iksar said:I didn't take away from the roundtable a sense they were leaning toward summons so much as just reiterating they want it to be easy to find replacements and meet new like-minded players with similar schedules.
I think a better answer would generally be dungeons with shortcut designs. One-way wells you can jump in to drop to lower levels or windstreams that push up floors, locked doors than can only be opened from one side that cut through entire areas, and things of that nature.
They don't even have to be hard placed all-access solutions either, IMO it would be better to have tons of class specific areas to shine. Castle/keep walls that you can have a rogue lower rope down to shortcut party members cutting massive areas of dungeon away, chasms/cliffs/pits that can be circumvented by a druid with vinewoven bridge, blocked passages/doorways that can be opened by warrior charges, and things like that.
I think Iksar has the right idea here. Give the classes the tools to overcome these replacement player escort quest. If the players can be creative enough to use them.
I'm perfectly fine with these solutions. It also doesn't stop people from playing short handed or with sub par group make ups. Sometimes you may not be able to find the perfect class. However if you have a wait list for people to join you, and they've waited an hour, probably more, there is no reason to make them wait longer to get in the group. I think this game is open to some imporvements over EQ on ensuring the flow of gameplay has fewer interuptions.
EppE said:Zorkon said:Iksar said:I didn't take away from the roundtable a sense they were leaning toward summons so much as just reiterating they want it to be easy to find replacements and meet new like-minded players with similar schedules.
I think a better answer would generally be dungeons with shortcut designs. One-way wells you can jump in to drop to lower levels or windstreams that push up floors, locked doors than can only be opened from one side that cut through entire areas, and things of that nature.
They don't even have to be hard placed all-access solutions either, IMO it would be better to have tons of class specific areas to shine. Castle/keep walls that you can have a rogue lower rope down to shortcut party members cutting massive areas of dungeon away, chasms/cliffs/pits that can be circumvented by a druid with vinewoven bridge, blocked passages/doorways that can be opened by warrior charges, and things like that.
I think Iksar has the right idea here. Give the classes the tools to overcome these replacement player escort quest. If the players can be creative enough to use them.
I'm perfectly fine with these solutions. It also doesn't stop people from playing short handed or with sub par group make ups. Sometimes you may not be able to find the perfect class. However if you have a wait list for people to join you, and they've waited an hour, probably more, there is no reason to make them wait longer to get in the group. I think this game is open to some imporvements over EQ on ensuring the flow of gameplay has fewer interuptions.
Sub par groups were what allowed a lot of us to continue playing in EQ, it is also what produced emergent game play. The flow of game play was a number 1 priority for games like WoW and it ended with 15 min dungeon runs, dungeon finders, etc.. because people thought that if they couldn't be constantly playing exactly what they wanted at any given time, the game was a failure. You see the fact that people can fail and lose a camp due to a lost member as a bad thing. I see it as an oppurtunity for the group to find other means to work together. They may have to give up the camp, go to a lesser area. Maybe they move out and just kill trash mobs in an easier area of the dungeon? Maybe they head out of the dungeon and kill some mobs in an open zone area. Maybe they explore together, etc... the point is.. EQ isn't just about grinding a single camp.
I would say most of my experience in EQ was playing with a "sub par" group (so I was told), heck we were even told this in our guild raids. We however still were able to succeed, even with the types claiming you couldn't do that without xyz class, or without xyz gear, etc... we explored, we dealt with our situations and made our own paths based on what we had to work with. That was the spirit I remember in EQ, not having a constant influx of the ideal group, doing the perfect camp, in the zone we wanted in the time we wanted, etc... That wasn't the spirit of EQ and if you add these QoL features, you won't have that spirit any longer, you will have more of what we have today, maybe not as "bad", but really just a "classic" version of the modern games of today.
There has to be hardship, there has to be fails, down times, less than ideal groups, losing a camp, having a bad day, etc... if there isn't, it isn't a game, it is a themepark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl-IxcCNNBw here it is.
at 15 mins probably no TP lol
stellarmind said:i was listening to one of the vip shows and they said there definitely is going to be some type of lfg system. you know what that means dps.. you gonna be in que for awhile. rejoice healers, tanks, probably cc classes. you'll have much shorter que times.
Have you read this Blog from Brad yet?
Zorkon said:stellarmind said:i was listening to one of the vip shows and they said there definitely is going to be some type of lfg system. you know what that means dps.. you gonna be in que for awhile. rejoice healers, tanks, probably cc classes. you'll have much shorter que times.
Have you read this Blog from Brad yet?
nope i'm a potato but i'll jump into the oven. brb.
Tanix said:The problem is that the easier you make it for people to easily swap out groups, the easier you make it for people to lock down camps.
Have you ever played a game where there were contested camps? Did you play it during its peak?
Make it easy for people to quickly swap out players and you will develop perma-camps where instead of "groups" going to a camp, people will get in line to be added to an existing group. Nothing wrong with joining a group, but somehow I don't see "lasting" friendships being developed when your system is essentially a dungeon finder swap spell for players to join random groups who need another fill in.
One of the things that allowed us to build lasting relationships in EQ was due the fact that we stuck together, we coordinated play times, if a dungeon was packed, we as a group would go to another, or go find some area to group at. You won't get that with your system as the "individuals" in our groups will be going "later guys, a spot opened up in camp A", good luck on getting into another group.
It is through adversity, through struggle and sharing that with another that you develop bonds of friendship. That is the point of a long and difficult dungeon where you have to plan, coordinate and share in the successes and failures of grouping in such.
This.
stellarmind said:haha aradune said you guys have the alarmist disposition XD
*chuckles*
But thanks for the link. I would have missed taht.
Avaen said:Tanix said:The problem is that the easier you make it for people to easily swap out groups, the easier you make it for people to lock down camps.
Have you ever played a game where there were contested camps? Did you play it during its peak?
Make it easy for people to quickly swap out players and you will develop perma-camps where instead of "groups" going to a camp, people will get in line to be added to an existing group. Nothing wrong with joining a group, but somehow I don't see "lasting" friendships being developed when your system is essentially a dungeon finder swap spell for players to join random groups who need another fill in.
One of the things that allowed us to build lasting relationships in EQ was due the fact that we stuck together, we coordinated play times, if a dungeon was packed, we as a group would go to another, or go find some area to group at. You won't get that with your system as the "individuals" in our groups will be going "later guys, a spot opened up in camp A", good luck on getting into another group.
It is through adversity, through struggle and sharing that with another that you develop bonds of friendship. That is the point of a long and difficult dungeon where you have to plan, coordinate and share in the successes and failures of grouping in such.
This.
i'm okay with this since i'll be on a pvp server.
'you own what you take' -sejuani
Zorkon said:stellarmind said:i was listening to one of the vip shows and they said there definitely is going to be some type of lfg system. you know what that means dps.. you gonna be in que for awhile. rejoice healers, tanks, probably cc classes. you'll have much shorter que times.
Have you read this Blog from Brad yet?
Haven't read that yet, good stuff. I am really looking forward to what they have planned.
I liked how in eq1 in old seb. there were zone out locations in a few different places but just the one zone in..... that way you can leave at any moment but you still have to fight your way back to the camp.
I feel like if they institute anything it should be something similar to this. At least this allows for a zone by zone evaluation as to what should be placed where.