I'm sure many of you don't really know the reason why Everquest had all those insane timesinks in the first place. It's not for socialization or for Immersion reasons. It's all about the dollar bill yo!
Back when Everquest was in development it was the Era of AOL (ie America Online: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL) which was still in it's hayday. AOL used a subscription service where you paid each month for a specific set number of Hours of online time. If you used it all the time, you ended up using up your hours quickly and would end up needing to buy more hours before the month was over. AOL was making a killing with this sytem and at this time people totally accepted it and millions of people used AOL all the time.
At the beginning when Everquest was still being created, it was planned to use this system of paying per hour. So since they were expecting to make people pay for each hour of time they were online playing, they deliberately created the game to have lots of things that wasted your time and made you play for longer, thus spending more $$. As the game got closer to release, they realized that this type of per hour payment system wasn't as popular anymore and even AOL was getting a lot of flak for it. So they eventually decided to just have a monthly fee with no limit on how long you could actually play each month. So there wasn't really the same level of need for all the insane timesinks. But since they had already coded most of the game, most of those timesinks stayed too. They still needed you to keep coming back to pay month after month, so they still had to make things take you a long time to do, thus the week long respawns on Bosses and such. But the stuff that just wasted an hour of your time for no reason... well these things carried over from that origional plan.
There was an interview once with one of the Devs who helped create Everquest in those early days and he was asked a question about "If you could go back, is there anything you would have done different in creating Everquest." and he actually answered something like "I think we all agree that we shouldn't have created so many deliberate timesinks... so if I could go back I would have planned things out differently to avoid some of the things that obviously just waste your time for the sake of wasting your time."
I'm sorry I don't have actual sources for this interview or even who it was. I just remember reading it back when it happend back around when Kunark was coming out.
As for Pantheon and their plans. I really doubt they will do things to deliberately waste your play time, but I do think they will work hard to make sure you always have reasons to keep coming back month after month and fill their pockets. Which is understandable and I totally don't mind :-)
Thanks Goofy - I hope many other people understand that many things in EQ were there for reasons other than to make it a good game.
Ideally Pantheon will keep most of what *did* make it a good game and ditch most of what was there purely for economic reasons that no longer are relevant, or because the state of the art just didn't allow them to make or computers to handle the game they *really* would have loved back in 1999.
There is a fine line between a time sink which adds to the feeling of the world and a time sink that is just tedious.
If the main pro to a long boat ride is being able to leave the PC and gain wife faction/do errands, then the boat wait/ride is too long. The ideal length of time should promote the following:
A feeling of a large world and an epic journey - you are moving continents, it is a big deal that should be planned, not some spur of the moment 'why not?'
Enough time that whipping out the fishing rod and getting involved in small talk with others while waiting.
It should not be so long that:
Windowing out and starting a tv show or leaving the PC to go make dinner is the obvious solution to a long ass wait
People do not bother using the boat, instead it becomes a case of either finding someone to port, or not making the journey and doing something else instead until a porter is available.
If the wait falls into the bottom category it means that any intended socialisation will not happen - because either people are at the docks and afk, or no one is at the docks because just waiting for a porter is far more preferable. This also has a knock on effect of taking away that immersive 'big world' because you are either staring at an empty dock or a dock full of afkers rather than a living world of people eagerly awaiting the boat ride to exciting new land, or you yourself have tabbed out of game because there is nothing else to do and no one to talk to while waiting.
I think Vanilla WoW had a 5-10 minute wait for the boat and a journey of less than 5 mins. Pantheon could probably get away with another 5 mins on that if necessary, but any longer and I think it would be excessive to most
asteldian said:There is a fine line between a time sink which adds to the feeling of the world and a time sink that is just tedious.
This fine line will have as many definitions as there will be players, unfortunately VR will just have to pick one and stick to their guns.
Porygon said:The people that start crying wolf about the game becoming a WoW clone at the first request someone makes that might make the game slightly more interesting to them are just as bad as the people that actually want a WoW clone.
It's so funny, because those are the same people that preach how important socialization and community are, but are constantly alienating new people who make suggestions in how to improve the game.
Watching Netflix while playing doesn't mean you're a terrible person. It means the game has to many slow points where you don't need to pay attention. And yes, this can happen while in a group as well. And no, you would never be able to tell I was watching netflix.
I propose a different style of travel. If you need to have meaningful travel... fine. But similar to real world travel, the boat should have departure times. Maybe it leaves once an hour. But always at half passed the hour. Give the arrival AND departure times a + - 5 minutes window and you force socialization without needing to make players wait around for 45 minutes. You also create the meaningful travel from continent to continent because s player cannot drop what they ate doing and cross the ocean at the drop of a hat.
I am getting the feeling you are one of those people who watches Netflix while playing lol. I didn't say it made you a terrible person by the way. But it does mean you aren't very invested in the experience. I'm not going to argue with you about new players and how to attract them, but I will point out just how badly many of the WoW clones have failed over the years. I don't even disagree about making a better transit system for the boats/airships/trains/whatever. It doesn't have to be exactly like EQ where you wait for an hour for the boat then get dropped off into the ocean at the zone line just to have to wait again...my point is that the timesinks are not pointless they serve a purpose and should be in Pantheon. I think the OP really missed the boat. OK that was a terrible joke but hopefully you get what I'm sayin now.
I am looking forward to a more legacy vanilla EQ experience.
One thing I do hope they address is the raid boss contestation. One thing that sucked in EQ was that anyone on the east coast had a massive advantage over players on the west coast. Eastern guilds could organize much earlier when raid targets would spawn.
I'm all about competition, but not if the playing field is not level. IIRC, in EQ, they eventually started randomizing the spawns a bit, which helped a little, but then guilds simply started permanently parking a character in the zone to check for the spawns. Rather than instancing it all, or making it random, maybe a good solution would be to implement some sort of guild level cool down? If a guild kills the boss, perhaps add a 3-4 hour cool down after the time of the next spawn until they can attack it again?
Anyway, this is the one thing I would like to see done differently in this game. I hated being west coast and logging in to see our raid plans wiped (pun intended) to another earlier time zone guild.
The travel, questing, corpse retrieval stuff I cannot wait for. Make the game have real consequences and rewards that are commensurate with the level of risk involved! I love it!
Well so you guys know, the VP key quest in everquest is being revamped to randomly other location spawns and also they changed the timer from 96 minutes to less. I am not 100% the details but it slowed down the need for 3rd party clickers that auto click at a mili second.
This bag spawn was one of the most useless time syncs in EQ. it not only bottlenecked the game play but stopped players from enjoying EQ. Many people started to leave the game, changing guilds because of the consistant griefing by others to get this type of boring quest done.
It only took 20 -1 yr to get it done? why because TLP servers have exploited the game so deeply to blow past the timesyncs. So many issues now a days in the orginal quests.
Now not all quests and things are exactly out of classic either, it was very tough for people to get the RSkelly to spawn. Took me 1 week to get it the first time, where as it took me 1-2 hrs to get it this time.
Ill admit, you can push people to the point of using 3rd party tools to get past the boring time syncs... so do devs agree that some of it is bs?
As the devs have said, this won't be an mmorpg that 'holds your hand' through adventures and content. It's been a couple decades, but I am looking forward to a good game again.
So I'd say, expect gameplay that will take some perception, Time, and commitment.
Ziegfried said:I am getting the feeling you are one of those people who watches Netflix while playing lol. I didn't say it made you a terrible person by the way. But it does mean you aren't very invested in the experience.
You are correct. To me this is a video game and not an "immersive world". So I tend to do things that keep me entertained. So if I'm soloing I'll watch some tv, if it's a very casual group, I'll watch some TV. But if I'm doing anything that actually takes any sort of attention, that stuff gets paused (raiding,high level groups etc).
I like how most of the responses zero'd in on boats and boat rides. I also liked the suggestion someone made to make the boat a zone or adventure in and of itself. Along those lines, I thought of boats could be like a mini zone, a mini moving zone where:
1. There was gambling for certain boat-only items (or earning tokens flags to gamble on a different boat that if you won a certain amount you could get nifty/cosmetic items)
2. Deep sea fishing with a contest or trophies (stuffed fish)
3. both of the above could provide a quest like reward in the form of a new crafting recipe that is boat-only (you've gambled on 6 different games on 3 different boats! you might like this Archai colada!) or skill boost that is boat only (you've caught X pounds of Fish type Y! this is the secret to the Myr Lure item or quest)
In otherwords, make the time sink of traveling a choice that may be prefered over port, but still allowing organized groups or guilds that have places to go and monsters to raid the choice to use Druid/Wizzy ports.
- small boat trips could offer the same- but on a much smaller and cheesier/cheaper scale. Like an Ogre ferry river crossing where you have to bet on a flip of the coin or fight/thrown overboard OR catch a fish in the short journey to feed the Ogre ferry captain. if your skill was high you can chance catching the fish in the short time, if low perhaps the bet is better, if you are strong/leveled(newbie-revenge opportunity?), perhaps a fight!
I dont mind the key-type time sinks where you need to spend some time getting a key piece because it makes me spend some time there looking around, and also if the key piece does not drop it creates a choice of something I can do anytime and make pugs for key pieces if other groups are not available.
SilkyWhip said: Watching TV, Netflix, stream, YouTube etc... While playing a game is like listening to the radio while driving a car. It's not likely you're going to crash by checking your mirrors for a second. Pantheon should feel immersive enough to have plenty of things to explore and not /gems while you wait another hour for a placeholder. Chances are you can slide the keyboard back and do something else without your character exploding if you wanted to.
Yeah this is the heart of the matter, is the game actually engaging or are you just sitting around waiting all the time? I would hope developers could do better today than what was presented to us in the early EverQuest era and not just have time sinks just for the sake of taking more time. If you are able to watch movies while playing I would consider that a failure in a sense on the part of the devs if players are not engaged in the game enough to even pay 1/2 their attention to it.
Grimix said: Wow, it seems like eq's boat rides were boring.
I think that much of this talk of boat ride timesink is in regards to the boat ride from Freeport to Butcherblock Mountains. What they are not elaborating on is the fact that there was an entire zone called Ocean of Tears that the boat traveled through with various stops.
On the other side of the continent was the city of Qeynos (SonyEQ backwards for anyone who didn't know that), and it had a boat that went to Erudin's Crossing. When you got on this boat, it would leave the docks, travel for say 10-20 seconds or so and then you would 'Zone' into Erudin's Crossing and then the boat would sit there for a few minutes to give people's computers time to load the new zone and have you appear on the boat. It would then travel for say another 10-20 seconds and then arrive at the docks in Erudin's Crossing where you could disembark. Total trip time, maybe 5 minutes or so. Not a huge deal
With Freeport to Butcherblock Mountains, you get on the boat at Freeport and then it travels for 10-20 seconds until it hits the zoneline and you would 'Zone' into Ocean of Tears, it would wait the few minutes for everyone's computer to load and then would start traveling through Ocean of Tears zone, there would be like 2 or 3 stops on various Islands where people could get off and others could get on, and then eventually after like 15 minutes it would reach the other side of the zone and would hit the zoneline where you would 'zone' into Butcherblock Mountains, a few minutes more waiting for everyone's computer to load the new zone and then 10-20 seconds until it reaches the docks where you finally get off. Total trip time 20+ minutes. You can watch an entire episode of a half hour TV show (like Big Bang Theory) sans commercials.
Oh... and if I'm remembering correctly, there was only the 1 boat that made the trip back and forth. So if you were in freeport and just missed the boat, you had to wait for the entire round trip (~40 minutes) until the boat was back and then you'd still have the 20 minute boat ride. So that's an hour of time worst case.
Not to mention the fact that some peoples computers were insanely slow back then, and it might take them like 5 minutes to zone, and if the boat didn't wait long enough for you, then when you appeared in the new zone the boat wasn't there anymore and you dropped into the water as you watched the boat dissappear into the distance. Oh and swimming took stamina and when you ran out you would sink. And with no in game map at the beginning, you would have to know exactly which way on the compass to swim to make sure you made it to shore before you drowned. Then you would have to wait the 40 minutes for the round trip until the boat got back to you again. If you knew your computer was really slow, it was a good idea to have levitate on before you zoned so you didn't need to swim.
For those who only ever played p99 and not the origional game, I believe they sped up the boats a bit and now it's only 14 minutes each way (28 min round trip). The boats also go the opposite direction so the stops in Ocean of Tears are in the opposite order from classic.
Parascol said: Back in EQ we talked to each other during downtime. It was awesome.
Not trying to pull out a pin on the frag here but you do know EQ was one of the most anti social games around? Only a few really talked, even today it has gotten worse.
You had to know ppl, send tells to those ppl etc.. otherwise it was a stale conversation in large guilds.
I get it back in 99, we didnt know each other and guys like me really tried to meet people in open world. Meet some really cool people too... but as time went on, more and more stopped talking to people. I think it was a way for them to unwind with EQ.. While others got on to chat only, capped and maxed out.
I still wouldnt trade it for the world had fun meeting people even today. Its either that or facebook.... hmm ill stick with Pantheon thanks...
Discord is another great way to talk to people from your guild... In EQ i found 3 out of 3 guilds had discord just recently and 0 of them actually talked much to you in groups etc.. when raids came on... it was full silence rooms.
Just saying, the older i think we get the more we tend to just be alone and quite. Kids around, wifey haten on you, all the good stuff of Real Life. The youngersters they get it, join in the Pubg games and chat away foolishly.
Gawd getting old sucks..
Back in Classic EQ there was no voice chat like Discord. I remember in around Kunark days we got this voice chat program called Battle Chat or something like that (can't actually remember the full name... it did have Battle in the name though). There was no service for it though, you had to run the server on your own computer and then give your friends your IP to let them connect. So back then when we were all on dialup, you couldn't host more than say 5 or 6 people before your network speed started to suffer. My core group would use it, but when we were in raids we had to use typing again to communicate. Half the time I ended up being the one who typed everything since I was a very fast typist compared to most of my friends.
You wouldn't believe how fast I learned to type. As the raid leader I needed to be able to type out instructions in real time to the entire raid force, as well as often keeping a constant dialog going with guild officers over what the plans were and discussing loot awarding. Then I'd often have friends in /tell that I was chatting with. Then later they added cross server chat channels, and that meant even more conversations going that I was a part of. Once more and more voip type apps started appearing on the scene such as Ventrilo, Mumble, Teamspeak, Discord, etc... things became a lot easier and my fingers didn't need to pound those keys so quickly anymore. I still type pretty fast, but nothing like in my young days playing Everquest.
Crazzie said:Parascol said: Back in EQ we talked to each other during downtime. It was awesome.
Not trying to pull out a pin on the frag here but you do know EQ was one of the most anti social games around? Only a few really talked, even today it has gotten worse.
You had to know ppl, send tells to those ppl etc.. otherwise it was a stale conversation in large guilds.
I get it back in 99, we didnt know each other and guys like me really tried to meet people in open world. Meet some really cool people too... but as time went on, more and more stopped talking to people. I think it was a way for them to unwind with EQ.. While others got on to chat only, capped and maxed out.
I still wouldnt trade it for the world had fun meeting people even today. Its either that or facebook.... hmm ill stick with Pantheon thanks...
I'm not sure when you played, or what server, but my experience was very social from 99-2004. Sure, not every group, or every evening was pure social, but for the most part, people chatted to each other. A lot. I formed a lot of social bonds in the game. Our server had a community website. Our guild had a community website. People socialized both in game and out on a daily basis. I have yet to see a MMO with the same level of community that EQ achieved. That was one of the main reasons I played as long as I did.
I have been playing ESO for the past several months and 99% of the pugs I run have almost no social interaction. You just blow through the dungeon, get your boring loot and move on. MMO's these days feel like massively single player games. Sure, guilds do organize and there are some social aspects, but overall there just isn't the level of community that existed in EQ. I'm really looking forward to a MMO that slows things down a little. I'm really looking forward to saying LFG and meeting new people and new challenges. :)
Parascol said:Crazzie said:Parascol said: Back in EQ we talked to each other during downtime. It was awesome.
Not trying to pull out a pin on the frag here but you do know EQ was one of the most anti social games around? Only a few really talked, even today it has gotten worse.
You had to know ppl, send tells to those ppl etc.. otherwise it was a stale conversation in large guilds.
I get it back in 99, we didnt know each other and guys like me really tried to meet people in open world. Meet some really cool people too... but as time went on, more and more stopped talking to people. I think it was a way for them to unwind with EQ.. While others got on to chat only, capped and maxed out.
I still wouldnt trade it for the world had fun meeting people even today. Its either that or facebook.... hmm ill stick with Pantheon thanks...
I'm not sure when you played, or what server, but my experience was very social from 99-2004. Sure, not every group, or every evening was pure social, but for the most part, people chatted to each other. A lot. I formed a lot of social bonds in the game. Our server had a community website. Our guild had a community website. People socialized both in game and out on a daily basis. I have yet to see a MMO with the same level of community that EQ achieved. That was one of the main reasons I played as long as I did.
I have been playing ESO for the past several months and 99% of the pugs I run have almost no social interaction. You just blow through the dungeon, get your boring loot and move on. MMO's these days feel like massively single player games. Sure, guilds do organize and there are some social aspects, but overall there just isn't the level of community that existed in EQ. I'm really looking forward to a MMO that slows things down a little. I'm really looking forward to saying LFG and meeting new people and new challenges. :)
Agreeing with parascol here, I don't know which games you played or what is your "Social game standart" but back then, EQ was in the most social oriented game with UO, because it had a pace and a lot of interdependancy. When I played half-life maps and mod, be sure people were talking much less, as it was competitive, action oriented and breathless.
Flapp said:I have to disagree as well. Boats were just ONE way to cross the Oceans. They also went thru many islands on the way to the other side of the world.
The boats weren't an "asinine" time sink. They were an opportunity to AFK ( you could just listen for the bell signal that the boat was there if afk) if needed.
The docks were located in BB noobie area, and Oasis/SRO which was lev 8-20-ish plus Giants and Spectres. It was an opportunity to stop and offer buffs at the docks. Or time to socialize with Guild, group, friends, family or whatever else you wanted to do. (laundry, grab a coke, get some food, etc etc)
If you have some sort of disorder that requires a few minutes of down time be filled with Netflix, you likely won't play Pantheon very long anyways. You will be bored and onto the next game of the week in no time flat. You aren't interested in being social, or chillin and actually having a conversation with someone in the game.
When I see someone mention watching Netflix while playing, it makes me think of grouping some lazy mage that sets his pet to Guard here and sets it on Agressive so it attacks anything that moves, and then watches netflix while the rest of the group does all the work of leveling the lazy mage. (just an example, I have also seen tanks that literally do nothing but taunt once and auto attack. You know this because when the mob turns to run, the "tank" is just standing there while casters and other group members are killing the runner.)
This isn't wow. I don't want it to be wow. I (and most people interested in this game) are going to Pantheon for the SOCIAL aspect. Can't be social and also watch netflix because the boat is still 5 minutes away.
I absolutely understand what people are saying about being social while being forced to AFK for 5-10mins. But I am talking about over an hour if you just miss a boat. With that said, I would like to reiterate that I am currently playing P99 now and none of the social aspects that were mentioned by many arguments are applicable today even though the exact forced AFK mechanic exists now. As you mentioned, the boat system was just ONE way to travel, so the majority of people that could afford ports never use the boats BECAUSE THEY'RE A POINTLESS TIME SINK. If everyone was forced to use the boats, then most of these arguments would be applicable because there would be others around to chat with, but there are options, so that agrument is mute. And to further destroy the forced AFK to make people more social theory of making absolutely no sense... you can't be SOCIAL while AFK which is the argument that a lot of posts seem to have. "Forcing AFK is a great way to be social" Huh?! You are social when you are chattnig with other people in your group or coordinating events... not while sitting alone waiting for a 40-80mins boat, that then takes 20 mins to travel through at least two zones. I'm actually logged in right now... waiting for another boat - I see nobody to talk to and be "social" with (which is why I'm on a forum of a different game) even though there are over 1,000 people online right now; likely because a vast majority of the people are auctioning in EC, or actually being SOCIAL in their groups or in guild chat... not being FORCED to choose between going AFK or staring at a near-motionless screen for over an hour. Most of these arguments are counterintuitive to the actual mechanics currently being applied. The only arguments that I agree with are the ones that state that some people actually like that time to go AFK and do other things around the house (and I completely understand)... but don't try to argue that going AFK is a great way to be "social".
There is a difference between early day EQ social and current EQ social. In the early days people were overly social. So ya, the boats had like 20+ people using them to move between BB and FP because nobody had plat for ports. I feel that this is the EQ they are refering to when they mention timesink socialization.