View Full Version : Vanguard Community Summit Info!
freonsmurf
10-10-04, 11:05 AM
There is so much info I couldnt put it all in the article. Feel free to ask any questions about the game, the event or the ppl that were there!
Read about it here (http://thesafehouse.org/kb.php?mode=article&k=35)
Jenner Blackblood
10-10-04, 12:00 PM
Here = http://thesafehouse.org/kb.php?mode=article&k=35
Sorry if this is in Sigil FAQ or anything like that, but did you see anything about PvP? Skimming through the FAQ i saw a mention of pvp, any videos or fighting that you did yourself against other players?
shehab aldean
10-10-04, 01:52 PM
thats soo much sweet it crossed over to the unbliveable section in my book
too good to be true
( it can , but damn it sound way too much good )
Sounds perfect, especially if their implementation is as good as they say its going to be.
edit: Edgie, I was thinking along those lines. It's like, "heres a perfect game". No comment if its actually going to be anything like this though.
Reminds me of the vision, personally. :hmph
I have not kept up with the news or what have you but...
When you call tech or billing support, you call will not be answered in India but by Microsoft employees.
I thought Microsoft outsourced their CS to India? I could be wrong.
---
The $50 shelf tag and $15 a month will be a thing of the past, the percentage of cost increase is still unknown but attempting to make the baddest game in the planet is not cheap.
Hrm.... I make less per year than a teacher. I doubt I will be able to afford it.
---
Not entirely sure this game is for me (for many reasons I also did not mention
). Good luck to the rest of you though.
Sounds a LOT like the vision to me. No instances? They really going to design zones so that bum rushing and camping won't be encouraged?
Trade system sounds a lot like Horizons. Anyway, I'm not hearing anything terribly exciting. WoW seems like it'll be the last great MMORPG in this mold. Vanguard sounds like more of the same, not evolutionary/revolutionary. I'm cynical, sorry. I also don't care for some of the Ex-Verant/SOE folks involved. But hey, it's got one thing going for it, it doesn't have the SOE logo on it. I'll probably give it the time of day.
Thanks for the huge writeup Freon...much appreciated!!
I'm sitting here trying to think about how much I would pay for the Vanguard Box and the sub.
First of all, if MS wants to charge $100 dollars for the Vanguard box, they can die in a fire, and Vanguard along with them. The box sales are the small potatoes compared to the subs, if they try and rake people over the coals for that extra dime when they pick up the game, it will never sell. People are ok with buying MMOs at $50 because it's the same price as any other game. With a free trial, if they decide they don't like it, it's just the same as a console game. Unless people are POSITIVE they are going to play Vanguard, no one is going to buy it off the shelves for more than $65 dollars.
As far as the monthly goes....it really depends. If MS mobilizes a whole CS division for Vanguard, if Sigil actually hires a team of people to live quests(something Sony didn't want to spend for), and if Vanguard really offers all the extra services they've been hinting at, I'll be willing to pay.....$25 a month. Anymore than that and they can forget it.
Like I said, I'm hopeful for Vanguard, but all this talk of "3rd generation costs", coupled with "Hi, pay me 300 dollars for Windows" Microsoft, makes me more than a little nervious.
freonsmurf
10-10-04, 06:34 PM
Sorry if this is in Sigil FAQ or anything like that, but did you see anything about PvP? Skimming through the FAQ i saw a mention of pvp, any videos or fighting that you did yourself against other players?
Ah yes, I forgot that. Pvp will be in the game, to what extent is unkown. It could simply be extended duels or a full blown pvp. PVE will always come first, if there is a question to include something for PVE or PVP, PVE will always come first. But there will be pvp servers and roleplay servers and etc at launch.
freonsmurf
10-10-04, 06:54 PM
I'm sitting here trying to think about how much I would pay for the Vanguard Box and the sub.
First of all, if MS wants to charge $100 dollars for the Vanguard box, they can die in a fire, and Vanguard along with them. The box sales are the small potatoes compared to the subs, if they try and rake people over the coals for that extra dime when they pick up the game, it will never sell. People are ok with buying MMOs at $50 because it's the same price as any other game. With a free trial, if they decide they don't like it, it's just the same as a console game. Unless people are POSITIVE they are going to play Vanguard, no one is going to buy it off the shelves for more than $65 dollars.
As far as the monthly goes....it really depends. If MS mobilizes a whole CS division for Vanguard, if Sigil actually hires a team of people to live quests(something Sony didn't want to spend for), and if Vanguard really offers all the extra services they've been hinting at, I'll be willing to pay.....$25 a month. Anymore than that and they can forget it.
Like I said, I'm hopeful for Vanguard, but all this talk of "3rd generation costs", coupled with "Hi, pay me 300 dollars for Windows" Microsoft, makes me more than a little nervious.
Doom3 has not had a problem selling thousands of boxes at $55. Hl2 will not have a problem selling millions of copies at $55. The price for the premium games is going to go up, thats the nature of the business. Movies tickets used to be $5 and now they are $12. A good video card used to be $120 and now its $500 dollars.
I wouldnt worry to much about it, you will be paying more games long before this sku goes to the shelves.
Elerion
10-10-04, 07:29 PM
Sounds like they are vastly overestimating what they can do, but we'll see. I'm a sceptic when it comes to MMORPGs.
freonsmurf
10-10-04, 09:04 PM
Honestly, Elerion I was just as skeptical as you were. I feel your pain and the folks at Sigil do as well. Hours before we saw the game I spoke with Jeff Butler, John Capozzi & Brad McQuaid about every game BUT Vanguard. I was suprised to find they felt exactly like the gamers they invited into their offices. For example, everyone loved City of Heroes but saw the limitations of the end game. The experience of falling in and out of love with Everquest was universal. Universal. Star Wars Galaxies!!! So much was done right yet lacking on the other hand. Anarchy had it all, the good & the bad.
Since Sigil games created EQ and still followed in the same steps every gamer here has travelled, you must have faith that they want the best game possible as much as you. The high hopes and "vast overesitmations" are what makes this a true next generations mmorpg. I literally saw 3% of the game, there is still so much work to do and alot of it is unknown.
Sigil is cooking a soup. We all know the chef, we all know the ingredients. I was given just a small taste, hmm hmm something good is cookin!
The trade system is nothing like Horizons. Zeus at GamerGod (http://www.gamergod.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=98) has a good piece on the tradeskills.
Back at the conference room we got back to talking. I grabbed on to Senior Game Designer John Capozzi and asked about many things:
Crafting will be revolutionary and like no other game before it. I know, we have all heard that tale before, but this time it's real! I'll explain. Crafters will choose to be one of 4 types of resource gatherers; Foreman: Enhances the team's ability to work together and perform at their peak gathering ability. Reaper: Deals damage to the object. Prospector: Identifies the resources. Gleaner: Extracts secondary resources.
Confused yet? Ok, I will explain.
Say you want to go gather resources, because you'd like to craft and work up your crafting skills and, well, make some super nice gear in the process.
Crafting will be sort of like combat with a tree, or rock, or whatever you are searching for. No, I don't mean a tree will grow feet and run around fighting you but, it may drop a branch on you if you don't have the skill to know what to do or it may break your axe if you are lacking skill to chop wood this hard. It may actually even cause you damage and, in some cases, kill you if you botch your effort to extract the item. You can gain some sort of negative experience, or loss of progress for this but you will be warned that you can't do this far before it happens. In other words if you keep attempting to force the issue, you may just get the item you want extracted but well you might also topple the tree over onto you. Crafting also has its own set of animations to keep things exciting and fun while you watch the progress.
Ok. Go ahead and gather some resources, but group together with some other crafters! Now you can gather higher tier resources as well as do it much more efficiently than if you were doing it alone. Yes, there are huge bonuses for groups of crafters working together! Not only that, but as you go out to get more resources (which will be more of an event than repetitive grind) you will have to find specific resources and they get harder to find as you get up to better items. They may be guarded by mobs, which means you may have to get those guys who keep asking you to make their weapon better or finish that house you promised them to come over and help kill the mobs in your way so your craft team can swoop in to get that giant tree down, chopped up and loaded onto the pack mule.
The biggest problem I have with this kind of glowing preview is that it is just that, a preview. I remember spending hours reading the FAQ for the original EQ which promised hundreds of features that never made it into the game or made it into the game three years later in a buggy or imcomplete form.
I just don't trust people saying: "This game is going to be awesome!!!" because if a company didn't say that, they wouldn't be a company.
I'm of the perma-skeptical pool. Until I see the game, I won't trust the hype. I liked some of the vision (the immersion of the world, and the PC-style NPC plots) but I also didn't like some of it (the stubborn refusal to make some concessions that would greatly enhance the enjoyment of the game (read: NPC's that binded you for the people who played at off-peak ours).
freonsmurf
10-10-04, 10:08 PM
There will be a response by the team to the fan reports, you can more at the Sigil Forums (http://www.vanguardsoh.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=7576).
nightfall
10-10-04, 10:52 PM
Skill system reminds me of UO. I liked UO...
I hope they don't try to go all Legends with the subscription fee. I trust Brad, Kendrick, et al to churn out a kickass game and I pray that the business folks don't ruin it. $15/month (adjust for future inflation, of course) is about the most I'm willing to pay for any online game. Maybe $20 if expansions are free and frequent, and the game is super-awesome.
Squink McPoke
10-11-04, 03:37 AM
Too much hype, too early on. I'll care more than I do now (not at all now) when there is a set in stone release date. Till then they can hype it up all they want and burn people out after a year and a half (roughly) of hearing about it. But not me.
The price is disturbing to me too. First of all, I don't particularly consider $50 a "small investment" (on top of $30 - $40 expansions), not to mention the fact that while $15 is acceptable, I'm not sure I would waste $20 a month on a simple MMORPG.
At any rate, until I see it, it's vaporware.
Lenilya
10-11-04, 07:46 AM
...but for the most part you will have to balanced groups. If a trap requires a rogue to disarm it, you group will not walk by and take 500 damage because they don’t have a rogue. They will die on the spot and continue to do so until they add a rogue to the group.
Because getting a group together and sitting around doing nothing for 2 hours trying to find X class was allways so fun in EQ... :banghead Stoopid stoopid stoopid....
On another note, I see no mention of the buying/selling system. Any info on that? Anything less than FFXI's Auction House just isn't gonna cut it. No way in hell could I go back to something like EQ's Bazaar in a 'true 3rd gen game'.
..I wonder what the Devs think of FFXI.. I noticed names of other games, but I don't want comparisons to games I used to play and quit. I want comparisons of what I'm playin now! Heck, the single best way for anyone over at Sigil to get my attention would to be 'Hey, remember XXX in XX game, remember how good that was? We want something like that, only better' instead of simply pointing out flaws. Any idiot can see whats wrong. Tell me what was RIGHT.
Tell me the reasons why I'm playing the games I'm playing. Hell, the level 20 Avatar battles in FFXI are the most fun I've had in a MMORPG, period. Solo content, even playing field for every character that attempts it due to level restrictions, minimum item level, ect. It's all there in one lovely event. The single most 'balanced' fight in online games, period.
Now I'd of course love to know what Sigil's stance is on those players that can't play for 8 hours a day/have a large friend base/ guild/ect. What of the 'log on for 30min a day' group? Anything for them that makes the game worth playing? Oh, wait, that's right, since someone invests 8hrs a day, they can get all the good content. Why? Why not just make even content that anyone can use, THEN ad on big epic uber fights/zones/quests for the hardcore players, instead of the other way around?
2cp
If they weren't able to get people into the instant conversion category after talking and showing some of their game I'd be worried. That's the way it always goes. To be honest I think they're promising a little too much, that alone makes me wary (EQ didn't exactly have everything it promised either).
The price is not so much worrying me, however in order for me to pay a higher price I also expect higher quality and even more importantly, more fun game that suits me. This higher quality and more fun suited to me is something I am highly skeptical Sigil will ever be able to deliver to me. Their idea of fun and my idea of fun seem to be so far apart from each other the distance is measured in lightyears. For a higher price I want a game good enough that I won't ever feel the need to have a second account so I can actually do things in said game.
Everyone says they've learned from past games. WoW learned from past games - apparently one of the lessons they learned was how to piss off European gamers to the point of not buying their ****. EQ2 has learned from EQ1, to the point of giving us 'more involved' tradeskills that sound as fun as playing platform jumping games to me. If Sigil didn't say they'd learned from past games I'd have been extremely surprised.
Concerning more and better GM support with more quests and events. Now if that promise does not sound familiar to players of MMOGs then I'm shocked. This is the one thing every single game promises. Every last one. Hell, even the ones that are already out will reorganize and say they're placing more emphasis on GM events. Like say how EQ has had more GM run quests... no honest... or so they say...
In the end the promises are not that different from what every other game that came before it has promised. What remains to be seen is what will actually be delivered, because I cannot think of a single game that has delivered all that was promised. And often what is delivered is done so in a way that makes what should be a plus into a minus. I remain skeptical, for I've eaten what these cooks have made in the past and I've little interest in repeating the food poisoning that followed the nice taste.
Something I think needs to be said.....especially about the comment that "I hope they don't try to make Vanguard like Legends EQ".
Legends EQ was a poorly implemented idea of what a full time MMO should be, with a real support staff, fresh content, and the like. It didn't do to well, but it was envisioned as what an MMO game should really be like.
In a way, Sigil's vision of Vanguard is much like EQ Legends, PREMIUM game play, at PREMIUM prices. I never signed up for Legends because I KNEW, no matter how sweet it was claimed to be, it was still just EQ with a couple better features, and that didn't justify the price tag. Especially when Legends wasn't maintained by Sony like they said it was going to be.
So, would I pay for the "Legends" experience in Vanguard? Only if it's done right. Legends was a problem because Sony was trying to run 2 tiers of the same game, differing in quality, at the same time. That was bound to fail. If Sigil launches with all this great stuff, and they manage to maintain it, the price will probably be justified.
But I am with you guys, I sure as HELL dont' see 50 dollars a month as small investment. My cable internet bill costs less than that per month. If Sigil wants to charge for Vanguard what Sony charged for Legends, that game had better end up giving me MORE to do than my internet connection, it had better make my ****ing toast, do the dishes, and give me a blowjob, because anything less and Sigil is going to be called price gouging, money grubbing whores for the price they charge.
Glip the Gnome
10-11-04, 11:00 AM
Just to quote Kendrick from the official forums:
Following The Safehouse thread about the summit, I've noticed some folks getting a little concerned about the price and subsciption fees of Vanguard.
We didn't mention anything concrete about the pricing of Vanguard, we just chatted about MMO pricing in general.
Anyway, skepticism is good. When the game comes out I’m sure you’ll all judge it for yourselves.
Nice of Kendrick to comment and all, but that does nothing to address our concerns. For me, I woke up yesterday and realized that Vanguard is going to be a huge game, with a lot of support. And I've seen the phrase "people will pay for quality" come up one too many times.
/shrug No they didn't say anything about pricing, but they fact we know it was discussed has stirred us into thinking. And as the range of things vanguard is going to do increases, as Sigil constantly tries to distinguish themselves a 3rd generation, a "new" kind of game than everything else that's come before it, I see the price getting higher..and higher...and higher. These are the guys that created the game that proved you could make millions off a persistent world. I'm pretty much expecting them to push profits as far as they can with what they feel is their "best" effort to date. I don't know if I'm ready to move into the world of games come with a price tag like other utilities, like cable. But it would seem they are slowing creeping that way whether I like it or not.
Doom3 has not had a problem selling thousands of boxes at $55. Hl2 will not have a problem selling millions of copies at $55. The price for the premium games is going to go up, thats the nature of the business. Movies tickets used to be $5 and now they are $12. A good video card used to be $120 and now its $500 dollars.
I wouldnt worry to much about it, you will be paying more games long before this sku goes to the shelves.
People pay $55 for Doom3 and HL2 because it's a one time shot. They're never going to have to pay that $55 again. If I'm forced to pay $55 right off the bat, and another $25 a month, thats $355 a year. Take this $355 a year, and add another $300 a year, plus expansions ($55 dollars each, say 5 or 6 times?). The math is mindblowing.
edit: This is just me playing with some figures. MMORPGS obviously come with a higher price over time then over games.
Caowyth
10-11-04, 12:37 PM
And frankly, if I could get my $55 back for Doom 3 I would.
A mediocre game and only 4-player multi support is not worth $55.
Half Life 2 might be worth the extra cost, due to the massive world of modding. I played CS for years after HL came out, for no additional cost. I'd be willing to pay $60-ish dollars for a good platform for future multiplayer fun.
The problem with paying money for MMO's, is that you tend to feel this way-
1) You pay the same box price as any other game for something you can't play without paying an additional subscription fee (Free months notwithstanding).
2) You pay a monthly fee. You expect this fee to cover the costs of servers, customer service, and fixing bugs. It usually seems to go towards the cost of making the next expansion, along with the majority of the devs needed to actually fix the bugs still present in the primary game.
3) An expansion comes out that costs $30+ dollars. You need this expansion to continue adventuring with your guild/friends.
4) You think that the fee for the expansion you just paid, plus the continuing subscription fees will cover the costs of servers, customer service, and fixing bugs in the original game + new expansion. It usually seems to go towards the cost of making the next expansion...
repeat 3 and 4 endlessly.
I remember when EQ first came out. We had a number of issues with bugs, broken skills/quests, etc. When we heard that Kunark was launching, the community went nuts because they weren't working on the problems currently existing in the game. We were assured at the time that they had two separate teams working on the game, one for Kunark, and one for the Live game.
4-5 months later we were told that they wouldn't be fixing issues until after Kunark came out because everyone was working on the expansion.
As much hope as I have for Vanguard, I see the same people are the ones working on this that managed over the Kunark launch.
Yeah, the only thing that comforts me is that MS is supposedly taking a hands off approach to Vanguard. I'm pretty sure Sony had quite a bit of impact on development of EQ. I don't think devs particularly like people pointing out where their game is broken and shitty. I really think Developers get caught between a rock and a hard place, players wanting both new content and old content fixed and balanced 100%, and publishers wanting sales at a steady rate with new content and new expansions to retain customers. I just hope Sigil doesn't over extend like they did in EQ.
shehab aldean
10-11-04, 01:21 PM
most GM events i saw after kurnak ( i joined 1 month before kurnak opened ) were either
A) GM trying to start an event ,he control some mobs , do like 10 minute in it , and a guild just kill him and screw the event
B) GM control some mob , go rampage and kill every n00b he can get his hand on
there were these rumors of events that went smoothly , and gm awarding people , bt that was never on my play time
Yeah like when they flooded West Commons with mid 30 werewolves. Oh, the fun of that for the lvl 10-14 folks in the zone at the time before it become flooded with lvl 50plus. Oh we talked about it over cocoa and smores for day....
If they want to charge more money then the game has to make me want to quit all my other subscription games. if they want to charge 40 bucks then fine, whatever but it better be the greatest game ever. I better not even want to think about purching a game while I play it.
Also I do think they are promising way too much just like every single MMO before it. Starting to think that they do this on purpose.
Well the game looks good, and sounds good. I know people will hate me but I actually liked "the vision" It made the game challenging, and more imersive, I swear when pop came out for eq, the game went from this huge world to a action game. Where I use to camp out at said dungeon for a week or two cause traveling back and forth was a pain, and I'd only do it to hall away my loot to store and vend the run back a few days later to collect for a few more days.
i want the transportation spells to be rare and valuable. I want just getting to a place to fight to be a journey (heck I wouldnt mind having to fight my way through a forrest for one of my game nights so I could actually adventure in the dungeon the next) and I'm hoping thats what they go for.
As for pricing, theres a limit on how much i'd pay to play it. I wouldnt pay legends subscription prices unless i'm seriously getting support quicker in game then it takes to call tech support, and cutom quests and events, and there better be some solo content as well.
Btw to the person talked about ff11, what the hecks the difference between building group encounters first then raid encounters, then the other way around? I mean it acomplishs the same thing the casual player wont ever do a raid encounter why does it matter what gets built first, Is it just a perception thing, Oh they tailor to raid encounters last....they like us casual gamers!
And yes i'm waiting for this to come out, I have 0 intrest in WoW it doesnt fit me, and I dont like Vanguard looks like the next best thing to me so far, but of course opinions might change when more and more info comes out for it
Biggwin
10-11-04, 07:00 PM
Sorry, but I hated the stupid downtime that travel was....
Biggwin
10-11-04, 07:04 PM
I should explain a bit. I loved the first trips to a lot of places and I have a ton of maps to show for it. But seriously after a few trips an hour of travel was BS just to get someplace to look for a group!
freonsmurf
10-11-04, 07:35 PM
About live GM events in other mmorpgs...
Concering WoW I asked Tigole (http://thesafehouse.org/kb.php?mode=article&k=36) and I quote...
Q: Any plans for roleplay servers or premium servers? How much interaction will GMs have in day-to-day play? Will we see them wandering the world? Will they be manually running special events? Will there be such events purely for theme and story instead of reward?
A: I'm not sure about role-play servers or premium servers. The GM's will serve primarily as customer service representatives. We plan to have special world events, but those will be automated by our content designers and not run by our GM staff.
WoW was one of the hot topics with all the invited gamers. Allakhazam brought up a great point concerning content, once you max an alliance character you have effectively beat that side. If you start another alliance character you have no choice but to follow the same linear path to max. The only way to get true variety is to switch to the Horde and play an entire different game.
I think this could change with the introduction of Hero classes and true end game content. I really wouldnt care about doing the same quests if the Epic class was my goal, but it is a great point. The hero stuf and the wow endgame is still yet to be seen.
Star Wars Galaxies had zero live content, all new content was introcuded during their various chapters. Each month they would release a new hologram quest and content, they chose to focus their staff on content and as we all know the gameplay quality drastically decreased. They just couldnt keep up.
City of Heroes follows the same path of focusing more on the free 90 day content than running live quests for players.
I remeber some of the great GM's I knew in early EQ, if they were given a more freedom instead of being restricted to moving corpses or resetting zones they could of added a lot more to the game. If they continue their trend of hiring veteran industry talent there could be some wild people hired as GM/DM's.
Pedric Cuf
10-12-04, 10:49 AM
Ok, here are my thoughts. First, I applaud Sigil for sticking with their ideas. Like some people, I actually enjoyed the Vision. I don't know for how long I would have kept enjoying it, but I loved the adventure of travelling from one place to another. I spent hours on the boats. I've watched an entire movie travelling from one place to another and I actually liked that. But as more and more content is added to more and more places, then it's no longer fun. I don't want to even think about EQ as is without the PoP books. I hope that Sigil can balance these things out.
However, if they are even talking about $50 a month fee, then I know this game is not for me. I have no doubts that they will supply a lot of content for that money. They will make an unparalleled environment in which GMs interract with PCs on a regular basis. I no longer have the time for a game that has enough content to warrant $50. I also don't have the money and no matter how good the game is, I still wouldn't have the money.
In summary, good luck to you, Sigil, but I just don't think this game will be for me. I'll be watching from the sidelines, though.
Slyy Daugg
10-13-04, 03:35 AM
bleh, instances feel so empty to me. I relish the days when people argued over spawns and got all upset about who was camping what, etc. THE WORLD WAS ALIVE!!!
SD
ShadowCross
10-13-04, 04:25 AM
I'm pretty sure Brad mentioned on the Sigil boards some time ago that he things some stuff is good instanced, but instances aren't the main focus - some might be instanced, most not.
um, where did you get that 50 dollar a month figure from?
honestly, I really think you guys are worrying about nothing.
I am quite sure that whatever Sigil/MS decides to price the box and monthlies at, that it will be equal with the rest of the market at the time of release.
I predict that monthly payments will be less than movie tickets for two. they arent STUPID, guys. I think Sigil understands that raising the price too high will cut off a significant portion of thier player base, aka people with too much time on thier hands like poor college students and people still living with thier parents.
SnibbsQ
10-13-04, 11:23 AM
Yea, really confused at where this 50 a month is coming from. The review said the box would cost more than 50, probably, and the monthly fee would be higher than most are now.
I'd anticipate that a $69.95 box and a $19.95/mo subscription fee would be acceptable for a 2006 release. If you play 2 hours a day that's $0.30/hr...most people would go for good entertainment at that price. Heck, even at $24.95/mo it's still $0.41/hr. More than the price, the thing that worries me is...If a trap requires a rogue to disarm it, you group will not walk by and take 500 damage because they don’t have a rogue. They will die on the spot and continue to do so until they add a rogue to the group.
If the game releases with that design, I probably won't play. One of the things I'm loving about WoW is that anyone can solo, any two players can duo, and any full group can raid. Sure, some combinations are much more efficient than others - but everything is valid. One long chain of quests culminates with going fighting through a huge mine, killing several "door guard" named bosses, raiding a bandit encampment, and killing the bandit leader. We did this with 4 people, and a rogue as the only tank. Sure, it took us several hours and we died a lot and the bosses took several tries before we found a strategy...but A) we could do it and B) it was FUN that way!
If we were stuck, sitting at zonein, asking in general chat for a Warrior or Paladin, unable to go in without them...we probably would've become very very frustrated, very very quickly.
Pedric Cuf
10-13-04, 01:04 PM
Amen berael. I know that was always one of the downsides of EQ. But you'd still be amazed at what you can pull off in that game with "wrong" classes if you're smart and brave enough. Some of the things we did in my guild were just crazy enough that they worked. Fear kiting wasn't just for necros. Root mez was sufficient. I don't remember what number it was, but we did General with far insufficient numbers/classes/levels. Everyone thought we were crazy and at the end there were like 3 people standing, but dammit, we killed the bastard.
Err...I kinda got off topic there. What I'm trying to say is that I really enjoy not having to hunt down a certain class. Sure, it's cool when you're that class and it's neat to give rogues something very specific that makes us appreciable to groups, but to make something like this completely impassible is probably not the best way to go about it. Hunting for players for a group has never been fun and never will be fun. =/
freonsmurf
10-13-04, 01:52 PM
I agree, LFG sucked. Late night with no enchanter or cleric meant no group and no fun.
I think I was more pissed that a group with a mage/bard or cleric could bypass anything that actually required a rogue. I enjoyed the challenge of pickup groups and wasn't really forced to LFG, but it always great to get a tell" Hey we need a rogue, where are you? You know any other rogues that aren't busy?"
From the sound of it from Kendrick, the casual and some of the group content can be done with a haphazard group but the raid content and some of the high end group content will require interdependence on other classes.
So two druids and a ranger should be able to level up and easily get medicore loot with the casual content, some of the better stuff if they try the lower end group content and maybe some of the higher end group content and none of the raid content.
Telurinon
10-14-04, 12:40 PM
A quest system that complicated means that they either have a) tons of quest designers or b) not many quests. I've seen little evidence of the former, so I'm guessing the later.
Pricing: I won't pay more for a game per month than I pay for internet access. In fact, I get annoyed at $14.95 that some games charge now -- $12.95 was a price point I felt comfortable with. When AO raised their rates, I cancelled the account. SWG's fee was a good part of the reason why I refused to stick around to see if it could turn into a good game.
Tradeskills: I like the concepts; I'd love to see how it all works.
Combat: What's the pacing like? Are all classes effective solo? How is the interface? CoH and WoW both have some very nice innovations in combat interface that Sigil could adapt and evolve into something even better.