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Ratt
12-09-2002, 05:50 PM
I'm going to kick off the pulpit with a fairly broad topic. On the WinSEQ thread, there was a fairly intricate debate about the future of gaming, but it was partially lost in some of the other topics going on in that thread, and I thought it deserved it's own topic.

In that thread, I postulated that gaming as we know it is going to change, before we see another phenomenon such as EverQuest.

I'm going to briefly recap some of my observations in the other thread. If you would like the whole effect, you can visit it here http://seq.sourceforge.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2523&perpage=15&pagenumber=2 .

EverQuest represents a paradigm shift in gaming, and specifically online gaming, which is a subset of general gaming. As I stated, I don't believe EverQuest itself is at fault for this, but it just happened to be in the right place at the right time. If Verant/EQ hadn't done it, another game would have.

I'm talking about the fact that there will never be another game like EverQuest, until we reach the next step of gaming, and that is real life, real time RPGs... Holodecks, or something to mimic real life as real as... life itself. IE - virtually indisinguishable from reality. The problem we are facing now is that computer graphics are very good. Are they real? No, of course not, but FMV in games has shown us that graphics that are too real actually detract from the game play experience. There needs to be an element of unreality in a game visually, or it's too unsettling or ridiculous for even the most avid gamer.

So that leaves us with an almost real, 2D world that we stare through our 15 - 25" window to another world. 3D monitors aren't the solution, although they may provide some interesting takes on current gaming design. Even with a 3D monitor, it's still a little mini world we are looking in on from the outside, the same as it's been since TV was first invented. The next step in that evolution is to put us INSIDE that mini world, so we are looking out and around and actually become part of it. In the meantime though, we are going to have to suffer through our limited senses of sight and sound... perhaps a bit of touch if you have a vibrating mouse or joystick or something. There's no sense of smell... you can't smell the decaying bodies in a dungeon. You cant' smell the dirt and leaves around you in forest. Sound is even trickier... yes, we have 5.1 DD sound, but I have yet to find a computer game that lives up to reality. In fact, I have only found a couple DVD's that even get close to Good, Quality sound. Sound is one of the most neglected aspects of gaming (and movies) and it's a real shame. A good sound track (I'm not talking about music) can make a medicore game into something stellar. So little attention is paid to sound, it's sickening, it's all about visual. Auditory stimulus is at leave 50% if not more of any current gaming experience, or at least it should be. I think part of the problem here is that most users have little tinny speakers for their computer, and thus wouldn't be able to take advantage of quality sound in a game anyway. But I'm digressing -- my point is that we are engaging only 2, maybe 3 of our five senses when we play games.

In the early days of radio, we engaged one, hearing. Then TV came along and we engaged two. We've engaged two for the past 50 years, and are only now starting to engage a third, touch. Those first three are the easiest, because they are the least sensetive sense we possess. To engage our other two, taste and smell is going to require vast new technologies, and is part of the reason we won't be seeing ground breaking new games anytime soon.

EverQuest was unique because it filled a gap, that of continuity. UO (And some of the lesser known games like M59, etc...) tried to fill this gap, but it was too shallow to do a very good job. EverQuest filled this niche nicely, with it's massive time sinks and volume of players... and having effects be lasting, simply because of the time investment in each character. Unlike UO, if you did something bad, chances are you wern't going to restart your character and macro it up in a couple days to the same level. EQ provided accountability in some limited fashions.

Immediate future games (Shadowbane, etc...) are going to build off of the lessons learned in EQ, but any EQ player will be able to pick up DAoC, AC, AC2, SB, etc... and feel right at home within a couple days. Can you say that when you first picked up EQ? I was an avid FPS player, as well as an avid UO player... but it took me a long, long time as those things go, to get a handle on EQ and feel totally confident. That's because it was a paradigm shift in progress. I couldn't save the game at a safe point. If I ran away from a monster, there's no guarentee it would still be there when I got back. There were lots of little things and some major things that made EQ different, and all the games coming out now are just more of the same stuff... dressed up a little nicer, with more manners, etc... but still the same.

I can't envision anything different at this point. What more can you do? Well, Raistlin had some thoughts from the other thread, and here they are. I'll respond to them below.


And quoting this I would have to say Ratt, that I completely disagree with your VERY WELL WRITTEN post about the future of gaming. I do not see the future of "Gaming" changing. I don't believe we need a holodeck to have a good game. What I am hearing however is a bunch of people who have been swindled into believeing that EQ is the best it can get. A bunch swindled into believing that the "Endgame" as you put it is the ONLY place to be. And in EQ it is. However, i'm going to ask you Ratt (and everyone reading this post) to go back to your last session of AD&D (now D&D). What level were you? 30s? 20s? even 10s? More likely you were between 1 and 10. And what character number was this for you? 20? 50? In all the time you've played the ORIGINAL RPGs did you ever get tired of progressing from level 1 to 10? Did you ever dread "starting over?" You talk of the initial levels you went through being like going through the Army. Jesus, what kind of massichists are we here? Gaming has always been and will always be about having fun. About doing something interesting. The problem with EQ is that interesting is defined as "getting together with 30 of your guild mates and attacking mega bad-ass mobs for phat leut." And thus the piss poor planing on Verant's part is revealed. The low end game is work because ITS NOT FUN. In reality, the beginning game is nothing more than YET ANOTHER timesink, it's the ULTIMATE timesink, it's the amount of time you have to spend before you can start having fun. There is NOTHING to do besides level. Why else is it described as "churning", "grinding", etc.?

We don't need holodecks, we don't need flashy uber graphics. All the flashy graphics in the world won't correct what you're feeling Ratt, or what the rest of us are feeling. We need to have fun. We need to have something to do. Verant created a game with HUNDREDS of possibilities in the character creation process, then did what every other RPG has done to date...gave everyone the same goal and only one way to meet that goal.

Contrast this with your table top RPG days under a good GM.

It'll only take one company with foresight. One company with brains. One company that thinks outside the very very small box that are RPGs today to blow this wide open. One company with enough sense to treat characters in an online world the same as we treat people in the real world and to treat the online world the same as we treat the real world to give you a game that will play and act like an RPG, not a pre-written storybook who's first 200 pages are given over to describing the castle the players start in.

I lament the fact that I don't have the money or the technical know how to build this game, but I wait with eger anticipation for that one company with vision to wake up and realize that entertaining the RPG masses is NOT rocket Science.

The face of gaming hasn't changed, you just realized that the game you were being fed as the here all end all be all of RPGs is in fact almost as bad as the rest of them out there.


He brings up some very good points... but the fundamental flaw in this is the fact that gaming and fun to me are not necessarily the same things to you. I actually only played D&D a few times... I was a bigger fan of GammaWorld, Albedo and Battletech :) But the principals were the same. The problem is, though, I thrive on competition. I want to be the best as I compete against others. Some people have called me a showman, and it's true. But that may not be why YOU play a game. To me, though, a game is about competition and winning. If there's no goal, there's no reason to play, for me.

So without a fundamentally different medium to play in, the games coming out now are just EQ clones with some tweaks here and there. I've been there, done that, don't need to do it again. I've won at EQ (as much as anyone can win) ... I know I could do it again in another game if I wanted to, but I've already proven to myself that I can DO that. What I haven't proven is if I can really BE that class... by waving my arms, jumping around, memorizing spells, pulling that 100lb bow, twisting, turning, etc...

That's why I say that the next step is a holodeck type device. Everything is is just more of the same old stuff. I already addressed the "low end game" part, but to summarize... does it suck? Yep. Sucks big time, but the problem is, if everyone could be in the endgame, then there's no sense of accomplishment. No sense of having overcome something that not *everyone* else can also overcome. The low end game is needed to give the end game meaning. I honestly don't know how that can really be overcome... you have to have things that people don't WANT to do as a rite of passage into the things people want to do, otherwise, everyone will naturally gravitate to doing what they want to do, every day, all day. It's the same with rich people... they are not signifigantly happier than poor people, each class of people report the same general level of happiness. Why? It's because it's the struggle of moving forward that's fulfilling, not actually being there. That's why the low end drugery is needed to make the end game what it is.

Now, when the game turns to something physical, such as lifting that 100lb sword, or memorzing arcane spells that you must speak, complex hand movements, the pain of pushing yourself to real, physical limits, that will provide a new gaming experience. When I can feel the soft ground, or rough cavern walls under my finger tips, and I can feel the hot breath and sharp fangs of that wolf trying to rip out my throat, that will be the test I measure myself against others. When I can feel the searing heat and smell the rotting meat from the dragons breath, just before it fries me to a cinder through excrutiating pain... then I will know that I am able to go beyond what "just anyone" can do, because I can endure those hardships to develop my skills and overcome the obsticals.

That is what EQ provided, because it hadn't been done before... but now that it's been done, all the games after it won't provide something so fundamentally new, and that will be their downfall, in so much as they, individually, will never be as popular and fanatical as the EQ fan base was at it's peak. There may be stepwise refinements along our path to a true virtual reality, some providing a flurry of new activity and wonder, a spark, but it won't have the lasting power that EQ has enjoyed, because it's not really new... just dressed up, tired old ideas.

Bring on the pain... beat me, whip me... make me work for the next gaming goal.

throx
12-09-2002, 09:03 PM
Everquest did for online gaming what Doom did for first person shooters and CnC did for RTS. Nothing has really gone beyond the original doom - sure they've gotten more freedom with level design and monster AI has become slightly better but it's still the same old thing over and over again. Wolf3D just wasn't quite immersive enough to get there (like UO). Similarly RTS games have just been extensions of resource gathering over and over again. It gets tiring.

Will there ever be another game as revolutionary or as singly popular as EQ - probably not. There will definitely be "best of breed" games that follow though, as we have Warcraft 3 and UT2003 today. I don't think it's a good reason to despair of gaming's future though - just as people continue to play and the battle for the customer dollar goes further the games become better and better. Some companies stand out above the rest: iD, Blizzard, etc. The question with EQ is what will Sony/Verant make of its future.

The next generation of gaming will come not with new senses to titillate (although that will definitely expand our horizons) but when a new gaming paradigm is developed. What it will be I really don't know - it all depends on where technology leads us for the next few years.

Personally I think the real key to a good RPG is monster AI. No game I've yet seen has decent monster AI that actually makes you think too hard about what you are doing. "Splitting" monsters should be exceedingly difficult. Monsters shouldn't sit at their spawn spot for indefinite periods of time. Monsters should spawn away from players (like I've heard happens in SWG). That sort of thing. I think good AI is the direction things will progress over the next 10 years of gaming, not towards the extra senses.

Wartrack
12-10-2002, 12:41 AM
The games will all innovate in some ways... In February the GeForceFX card will be released..... That card will be the biggest evolution yet.

A large change from textured polygons.... to cinema CG quality materials with depth of field.

EQ 2, built with this technology from the ground up, will likely be as revolutionary as the first.

Holodecks are a long way off, I plan on enjoying all the games and all the new technologies as they come.

tommorrow my new system arrives....

3.06ghz with HTT
1gb ddr
200gb w/8mb performance enhancing cache
Winxp pro

high_jeeves
12-10-2002, 01:09 AM
I dont have alot of input on this topic, but here is an interesting article that was linked to from slashdot yesterday, where the future of gaming is discussed (including many of the issues already discussed here and the other thread):

http://www.gamespy.com/futureofgaming/spector/

It is an interview with Warren Spector, studio head at Ion Storm. He has been involved at lots of games, including some commercially succesful, and arguably innovate ones. I had the opportunity to sit next to him at a local game developers luncheon, and he is an all around nice guy. He was very interesting to talk to over lunch.

--Jeeves

suseuser7341
12-10-2002, 06:12 AM
I think in that article the biggest challenge and chance for a new kind of genre defining game is slightly indicated.

Right now we are just consuming ready-made content. It might be more involving than TV, but you can not advance without following the path.
To me the next step that can hold people will be games that not only offer permanent Avatars, but a evolving enviroment. Once you kill something it will be dead. Leaving room for something new. Genetic codes filling the gap and neural networks controlling the living world. Right now it is cheating if you use gravity flux "to skip content". On the next generation of RPG the citizens will have learned their roof/floor is a weakness. The King will decide to stay in some sort of bunker instead of a open hall and new guards will be recruited using bows to fight players from above.

Concepts make games and our imagination is enough to make it real, once we get involved. Sorry Ratt, but to me Holodecks are just another step in display technologie. It is the combat and non combat AI that makes holodecks feel real.

Ratt
12-10-2002, 09:35 AM
Those are some good points brought up about AI, and I agree for the most part. The reason I didn't and don't think AI is going to be the next paradigm because it will be part of the stepwise refinement process and we'll be gradually broken into increasingly complex AI.

Each year, the AI gets a *little* better in games, and over time, it will produce a superior gaming experience, but it won't be a true paradigm shift, like full immersion gaming. Of course, maybe in some dark back room, someone is working on an AI to end all AI's, and they'll unveil it in a couple years and prove me wrong. Great, I hope that's the case.

Another issue I would put forth with truely competent AIs is... would you really want to play against one? You'd get your ass handed to you in about 20ms. A real AI with approaching human intelligence would trounce a real human. So it would have to be dumbed down fairly substantially, and trying to balance a smart/dumb system would make the current balancing activities in games look like pre-school games. In addition to that, you would know you are playing against the dumbed down version... because you suck too much to play against the full version, I don't know if I'd like that. I'm not sure how to handle a situation like that either.

flobee
12-10-2002, 09:56 AM
Another issue I would put forth with truely competent AIs is... would you really want to play against one? You'd get your ass handed to you in about 20ms. A real AI with approaching human intelligence would trounce a real human. So it would have to be dumbed down fairly substantially, and trying to balance a smart/dumb system would make the current balancing activities in games look like pre-school games. In addition to that, you would know you are playing against the dumbed down version... because you suck too much to play against the full version, I don't know if I'd like that. I'm not sure how to handle a situation like that either.

This is very prevalent in games like Warcraft and the such, if you turn the difficulty up and save a replay or 2, you can see how fast the computer can do things and how many things it can do at once. Humans don't have this option and to me it's unfair. Though we humans make up for the lack of speed with ingenuity. If the AI had the ingenuity of a human and the speed of a computer, no I wouldn't want to play against it because it wouldn't be fun. I'd rather see them lower the speed at which AI can do things such as building in Warcraft, and increase the intelligence of the AI. Though that is the whole point, if they could do that I'm sure it would have been done already.

suseuser7341
12-10-2002, 10:29 AM
Actually I think the tough part will be to create somewhat not dump as earthworm AI that is fast enough to match a human.
Computers are only fast using deterministic special tailored algorithms. If it is explicit allowed to make use of any flaw in that algorithm no whatever good algorithm could withstand the creativity of humans, no matter how fast it acts. This is where we are now and the only way for SOE to keep their AI competitive with the players is to forbid outsmarting the AI (actually I don't like the term AI in current games context because we are way too far away from any form of true intelligence)

However if you plan to come up with some intelligence that is smart enough to match humans for months it would be sooo slow it would be no fun to play against at the present moment.

Hobo
12-10-2002, 10:36 AM
Ratt it sounds to me as though your are saying the next gaming challenge for you, personally, will be some sort of Virtual Reality game. Most notably you look forward to the ability to feel something as you play it, as well as seeing and hearing it.

If this is what you are thinking, then I agree totally with you. In fact I think we're already seeing the infancy of VR technology within the gaming industry. Specifically the use of force feedback devices.

Admitedly the current crop of FF devices are very infantile but I personally believe they will eventually take off into the next level of gaming. They won't necessarily be FF devices but they will be something along the lines of the broader subject of VR devices.

However, in talking about these devices what we are really talking about are HARDWARE devices and not the software (games) themselves. So in order for the next level to be reached, we're going to need some very specific integration between software programmers and hardware programmers. In other words the guys that make the games will either have to be writing code for the specific use of certain VR hardware OR the guys that make the games will have to be the same guys that make the VR hardware. Although there is one other small (and still remote) possibility. That is the evolution of a VR hardware standard.

A VR hardware standard would be something similar to Windows but specifically aimed at the hardware end of the spectrum. Some sort of VR hardware that is modular and adaptive. Something that ALL game developers can use, similar to what DirectX does for software. This way they can develop game titles that eventually *everyone* can play because *everyone* has some form of BrandX VR Hardware, similar to how *everyone* has some form of Windows and DirectX. Of course this is just my imagination at this time, but I really believe the next big gaming revolution will start with some form of VR.

Any thoughts or comments? (I love this discussion BTW.) :)


Hobo



P.S. - Just for fun sake check out this URL: http://ivibe.com/

It's for a game seat *cusion* that provides force feedback types of "feelings". I have one of these units and I really like mine. It is EXCELLENT for use in race car and flight sims (especially WW2 fighter sims) but is kind of limited for use in games such as EQ. It provides "bumps" and "pressure" to your back and butt to simulate bullets hitting your aircraft, engine vibrations, turning sharp corners, etc., etc. Unfortunately because it mainly utilizes direct sound output from your soundcard it doesn't translate well into EQ types of encounters as you end up *feeling* the casting of spells (on anyone not just yourself) and any other sound related stuff. However, I think the system does take a tiny step in the right direction.

fgay trader
12-10-2002, 12:13 PM
Good points, everyone.

"The future of gaming" is a topic broad enough to encompas many topics. One of them is innovations in technology, such as better graphics or sound, which usually leads to discussions about more powerful computers, new CPU's and GPU's, up to Ratt's Holodecks :) But are bigger and better computers the answer to a better game?

What is it that makes for a "better" game anyway? What made Doom, Command & Conquer, and Everquest into such hits as they were in their time? After all, their genre of gaming was not new at the time: there was Wolf3d before Doom, Warcraft before C&C and UO before EQ. Was it only technology that set those games ahead? True, each one of them was more advanced than its predecessor, but I don't think anyone can say that Doom was just a Wolf3d on a better engine. Each of the games I mentioned brought something new in terms of content that appealed to gamers of that field. Doom brought us a much deeper engagement with its gloomy dungeons and scary monsters than Wolf ever hoped for. EQ gave us that unparalelled massive-multiplayer portion and mixed it with "in-your-face" feeling of involvement along with tons of content to explore and character development options.

Take First Person Shooters, as an example. Every FPS that came after Doom was more of the same: darker dungeons and scarier monsters only with better graphics. But that dirrection of FPS is slowly giving way to another concept: multiplayer. Quake's Team Fortress pit the players against each other instead of AI; Half-Life's CS introduced even more game types besides CTF and tried to incorporate voice; Tribes took a revolutionary step by taking players out of claustrophobic dungeons into an open field; Battlefield 1942 took away Tribes' jetpacks and put us on the WW2 arena and gave us more vehicles. Although each newer game looks better than the one before it, it's not just looks that make people want to play it, but new also features and concepts.

Most of the MMORPG's that are out there already or are coming out shortly try to ride on EQ's success but as Ratt said, people are burnt out, they don't want to go through "low level hell" in order to feel real accomplishment towards the end-game. But that's already been done, we've seen it and it doesn't impress us if they add a better graphics engine, or even a "smell" engine. Even in a Holodeck EQ would still be its old self with its design flaws and limitations and stupid AI.

Which brings me to another point: AI. The word "intelligence" implies something that today's games cannot possibly deliver. Predefined mob pathing, pre-scripted events, pre-programmed reactions, etc. does not make that mob intelligent. Even a cockroach is more intelligent than an Everquest mob. The game designers try to compensate this, they making monsters tougher to kill by giving them insane hitpoints or resists or abilities that require players to think up new ways of defeating it. But in the end that mob is still only as smart as the macro that drives it and will not learn when players use loopholes that weren't pre-programmed.

IMHO, the next logical step in MMORPG gaming is giving the players the greatest challenge: other players. PvP in EQ was broken from the get-go, as the game was never designed that way. The level difference, equipment, abilities, etc. were completely unbalancing PvP combat, thus requiring designers to place artificial limits on who can fight whom, which led to a myriad of problems that I don't feel like getting into right now. But for me personally and many friends from the "red" servers the most exciting and challenging time in EQ was player Vs. player combat. No mob or NPC can ever compare to the inginuity of a human being driving the other toon. I cannot relay the feeling of achievement when you see an entire zone of players bolt for their lives in the face of an invading Barbarian horde (my mid-level guild often raided elf-infested zones ;)). And you know, during those raids I WAS that elf-hating, peck-punting, ale-drinking, xenophobic Barbarian when 10 of us ran through GFay slaughtering everyone in sight or while defending the homelands. Now THAT was the immersion and roleplaying experience that I crave from other games.

But how can a game be designed that will work for every type of gamer: a hardcore powerleveller, a PvP-er, an avid roleplayer, a casual player or a complete newb? I do not think it can be. Those classes of gamers want completely different things from the time they invest in a game and when the game makers try to go for the common denominator, so to speak, they end up cutting features and imposing limitations to "level the playing field". That leaves people wanting more and turns them away to try the next thing. One way to please everyone is to make different games for every type of gamer there is, which is needless to say close to impossible. If I knew of another way, I'd be developing that game right now :) But I look forward to what other companies have to offer and will decide if that game or this one will work for me.

Bottom line is, we will have our 20" window for a very long time before we can have the holodeck-type immersion that Ratt is talking about. It's up to each one of us to try different windows and chose which electronic world satisfies our passions the most and what type of game we want to play.

Edit: spelling

Vlad
12-10-2002, 12:47 PM
Nice post(s).

A few comments on some things:

While sight and hearing, as senses, were the first two "conquered" by modern technology, I would consider interactivity (be it with AI or with another person) an equally important factor in gaming, a factor that until recently (last 6 or so years) was unavailable.

I would NOT call EQ a revolution in online gaming. It, simply put, was (and is) just like anyother RPG with the caveat that it has 1. more eyecandy, 2. A larger playerbase (but not players per server). I totally disagree that everyone is trying to "ride EQ's success" - many games were in concept/development before EQ was released. EQ simply became the most popular (it had to be someone). After Diablo and UO (in the days before powerful video cards), the only logical step was to transition from a 2D world to a 3D one. So no points for EQ there.

UO gets first dibs on being 1. First true MMORPG with a large numbers of players per server, 2. First PvP that was worth a damn: PvP in EQ, is, at best, laughable and a joke.

I say this as both an ex-UO player and a current EQ player. And I agree completely with what fgay trader said: The possibility of a "hardcore powerleveler, whiners, pvper, newbie, etc" all coexisting is impossible. We saw it in UO, and, in the end, the largest playerbase (yes, that would be whiners) won out.

Personally, I favor lawlessness in games, where players are allowed greater "free will" and reign over their environment. UO provided that (at least, initially) much to the chagrin of many players. The game presented risk - risk that you would die and lose your stuff, risk that you would be killed at the hands of another player, and risk that leaving the safety of the cities could get you killed. With the core element (danger) removed from the game, UO became as much of a joke as EQ is, risk-wise anyways.

The ethics mind-effects of online games is quite a topic, and I imagine any number of philosophers and pyschologists will, eventually, over analyze it to death. Lord knows what hell has been unleashed upon the Earth due to having a mixture of boys/girls in online games (the number of failed 'online relationships' is simply staggering). But I don't know if we want the thread to go there.

high_jeeves
12-10-2002, 01:37 PM
Personally, I favor lawlessness in games, where players are allowed greater "free will" and reign over their environment. UO provided that (at least, initially) much to the chagrin of many players. The game presented risk - risk that you would die and lose your stuff, risk that you would be killed at the hands of another player, and risk that leaving the safety of the cities could get you killed. With the core element (danger) removed from the game, UO became as much of a joke as EQ is, risk-wise anyways.


I would argue that lawless games will always fail. Law is an essential part of any society, be it virtual or not. The anonymity provided by the internet gives people the ability to have absolutely no morals or ethics. We saw this in UO, it is the reason they had to change the game so much, they were faced with losing large segments of player base if they didnt. UO was a predator/prey model, the prey (who you refer to as whiners) stopped having fun, and started to leave. Somebody at Origin was smart enough to see that if the prey leave (which is the majority of the player base), the predators will also stop having fun and leave. My experience with UO was that generally speaking, as soon as you stepped out of the city to do just about anything, the fun stopped.

I think the majority of online players do not like PVP, I think this is evidenced in the # of blue servers vs. pvp servers, as well as the popularity of low PVP games (EQ, AC) vs higher PVP games (AO, DAOC). The major problem with PVP is a lack of control, or long term punishment. You end up with PKs, griefers, etc... You will also find, I beleive, that the majority of casual gamers will never move to a PvP system. PvP, as it stands today, requires a significant time investment to be good at. Pretty much, those people that play more will be better (both the person, and the character). This leaves casual gamers at a severe disadvantage.

I think we will see the MMORPG genre split into 2 different styles of games, those that are PvP based (SB), and those that are primarily PvE based. They cater to two fairly different segments of gamers.

As for EQ not being groundbreaking.. i have to disagree.. 400,000+ people cant be wrong... That in itself is groundbreaking.

--Jeeves

RogueRacer
12-10-2002, 01:43 PM
In regards to VR games and when they are coming... I first played a VR game about 11 years ago. A group was touring with a few VR sets chained together in a game. I saw it at a Dave & Busters. The game I played was a Mech war type game where you wore a VR helmet and sat in a cockpit. The VR helmet had separate optics for each eye giving very good 3D. The turret of the mech moved side to side and up and down with movements of your head. They also had another version where you and another stood in rings and had a shoot out in a hostile environment. You held a gun in your hand that controlled the gun's movement in the game world. Again, you were wearing a VR helmet for immersive 3D images and sound.

It was a lot of fun and something that I expected to see migrating to arcades and then PCs. It's now many years later and I've yet to see it. No offense, Ratt, but I think you will be too old to physically perform by the time the VR that you are talking about is available. This leads to another point. How do children, out of shape people, handicapped individuals, women, etc. play in the game world that you are talking about? How does anyone but a star athelete swing that 15lb broadsword for an entire raid? Although I think it would be much better for the average gamer as far as helping them to keep in shape, I don't see it happening in the main stream. People play games to escape reality. Why would they play something that exposed their physical limitations?

EQ just managed to hit a combination of many of the "hot" things available when it came out. It had passable graphics. It had a huge game world. It had a massive chat system. It had interaction with hundreds of others without leaving your home. It had hot wood elf chicks. It had things that "hooked" you much in the way that games like Civ 3 hook you. They may end up being repetitive and eventually called time sinks, but they still hook you.

The problem with any MMORPG hitting the market now is that they are immediately far behind in game size and scope and player base. There is no way to get close to the size of EQ for an initial release. I agree that EQ is a phenomenon that the game world hadn't seen before. Then again, so were Pong, Space Invaders, Pac Man, Donkey Kong, Techmo Bowl, Space Quest, Sim City, Civilization, Doom, C&C, Warcraft, etc. The next thing will be different, but there will be a next thing. I think there is a lot of room for "next things" before we get to VR. I hope so, because none of us may be around to see holodecks.

Great discussion guys!

perlmonkey
12-10-2002, 01:54 PM
When a real-time, online game appears in which the story rules, it will make the next quantum step forward.

The problem is that, unlike a movie, we want a game to test *our* resources and make *us* be the main characters. When you have 400,000 people to tell a story to, and each one demands a different, but intersecting experience, you need to work just as hard on the story-engine as you do on the graphics engine.

I think everyone will agree that EverQuest's story engine is comprised of a huge pile of only loosely coordinated scripts that aren't very good at actually telling a story. Even those who treat EQ like a numbers game will be miffed if they log in one day to find that all of their stats are 10e+200 and they can't interact with anyone else in the game.

So, how do you build a good story engine? First thing that you don't do is lean on the computer think like a human. I think for now, the computer isn't going to be getting any smarter than Halo's AI for quite some time.

Ok, so what next? Well, SWG has one good idea: keep the quests general, and don't tie them to a particular location. Now take that another step. What is a quest? It's basically a story with the player as first-person. Take that concept and make it computer-controled. In EQ for example, there are a number of quests of the form, "go to this place, purchase this thing and bring it back to me". Well, why doesn't *every* merchant offer this sort of quest from time to time? It could be random, and have a reward appropriate to the difficulty. Why not?

To go any further down that road, you need to be able to affect the world. EverQuest's successor will be a game where some characters can change the world. Killing a "boss mob" should mean that it's dead (as with waking the sleeper). Casting earthquake in a city should have dire consequences (probably getting you kos with the natives).

I'm running out of gas on this one, but someday I'll collect my thoughts. Back in '88 I said I wanted to create an IP-based massively multiplayer game that would truely simulate a world (I called the game Mage, and I never finished it). When I saw EQ, I thought someone had finally done it, but there's still a lot of work to be done....

Ratt
12-10-2002, 01:56 PM
I'd like to touch on the PvP topic... I don't enjoy PvP myself, at least as I've seen it in games so far (FPS's not withstanding).

UO PvP sucked because it was so shallow. There was no real chance for creativity (all cheating aside) and 100 hp is not enough to try tricky tactics.

EQ PvP, as I'm sure we all agree, is laughable. Again, the problem arises that you can't get creative enough in current PvP games, and again, given the restraints of a keyboard and mouse, I don't think you can EVER get creative enough. I hope I'm wrong about that part...

But the real failing of PvP online is accountability. There MUST be a way to be held accountable for your actions... across characters, servers, etc... Your entire online life (as pertains to that game) MUST be affected by your actions (unless you can get away with it not affecting you, more on that in a moment).

The most obvious and easiest method to handle accountablity is to allow one character per account. Each time you kill someone, you are charged a fairly hefty fee to your REAL LIFE credit card. This puts a real consequence into your actions. Can you afford to be a crazy PK psychopath (that most PKers are) if you are charge $20 each time you kill someone?

Another way to handle it is to imprison, or put to death your character if you are caught "by the authorities" for murder in an online world. PKers would think twice about actually going down the grief road if they would effectively lose their character for 3 months while he rots in a virtual jail. If you cancle your account for that time, your jailtime is suspended as well... so you have to pony up 3 months of subscription fee for nothing, other than looking at a jail cell. Wee...

Put severe accountability in PvP, like there is in real life, and I would be all for PvP. Would it be worth it to bribe my way out of a jail sentence for $50? Yea, if someone pisssed me off bad enough...

This opens up another avenue, as well... the hypothetical game that has accountable PvP could and indeed should, have their own auction site for selling your wares and such for RL money, and take a portion of the proceeds. That will level the playing field a bit between the rich people that play, and can consquently PvP more than the "poor" people.

A slight skew on this is to make it costly with in game money to kill someone. How would you feel in EQ if you had to pay 1,000,000 plat each time you killed someone, or go to jail and pay your subscription for 3 months before you were let out? You'd probably think twice about it... but a guild could kill people on occasion, just not rampant killing.

It's all about the accountability for PvP, and so far, no game has even come close to real accountability, which is why all PvP is just grief players for the most part, and thus holds no interest for 99% of the population.

Ratt
12-10-2002, 02:05 PM
Double posting this puppy, sorry... but this was something I wanted to address.


No offense, Ratt, but I think you will be too old to physically perform by the time the VR that you are talking about is available. This leads to another point. How do children, out of shape people, handicapped individuals, women, etc. play in the game world that you are talking about? How does anyone but a star athelete swing that 15lb broadsword for an entire raid? Although I think it would be much better for the average gamer as far as helping them to keep in shape, I don't see it happening in the main stream. People play games to escape reality. Why would they play something that exposed their physical limitations?

You're right, I might be physically too old, but I hope not. The lure of a game world like that is that you can be someone else... you don't necessarily need to be the sword wielding hero. So you're big and fat and haven't excercised a day in your life... be a fryer providing comedic relief, etc... You see 'em all the time in movies ... a game can be built around that. By the time we have something available that's immersive, I think computers will be able to detect "funny" and "clever" and assing "combat points" of equal value to non-physical things that would help turn the tide of a battle. Heck, you could be a fat wizard who never gets out of his chair!

There's lots of things you could be beyond teh muscle bound hero. For me, personally, I wouldn't be wielding that 2H sword, I would probably gravitate towards a magic wielding class, or perhaps a more stealthy, subversive class like thieves or some such. There are lots of variations and tweaks that could be made to overcome physical limitations towards that end.

But it would be fun to get all Yoda on an Orc Pawns ass now and then, just to keep in shape. :)

fgay trader
12-10-2002, 02:29 PM
Originally posted by high_jeeves
I think the majority of online players do not like PVP, I think this is evidenced in the # of blue servers vs. pvp servers, as well as the popularity of low PVP games (EQ, AC) vs higher PVP games (AO, DAOC).
I agree that people tend not to like PvP, but that could be because a game hasn't been designed that implements it properly.

PvP in EQ is broken and even AO and DAoC fall short of their original goals when it comes to PvP. What exactly breaks PvP? Is it the levelling system? Overpowering equipment? Unreasonable death penalties? Probably all of the above. How do you fix that? Well, I'd start by abolishing the entire levelling route and introducing some other forms of character development that not necessairily effect how "strong" your toon is compared to others.


Originally posted by high_jeeves
The major problem with PVP is a lack of control, or long term punishment. You end up with PKs, griefers, etc... You will also find, I beleive, that the majority of casual gamers will never move to a PvP system. PvP, as it stands today, requires a significant time investment to be good at. Pretty much, those people that play more will be better (both the person, and the character). This leaves casual gamers at a severe disadvantage.
You have the same griefers in a PvE environment, they just find more inginious ways to ruin other people's fun. As for having a better character the more you play, the same holds true for the non-PvP game as well. MMORPG's tend to encourage powergamers, while casual players often get the shaft. Anyone who tried to level a non-soloable class in EQ knows what a pain and time sink it is. I do agree however, that you have a lot less control over your character's progression in a PvP world. But more often than not this encourages cooperation, teamwork and friendships even more so than a non-PvP environment would. A true PvP Guild becomes more than just a private chat channel, but a close group of friends who share the same ideas. It's a much better way to make people work together than making solo-levelling impossible.

wiz60
12-10-2002, 03:15 PM
This is a very interesting thread.

Most of the discussion has taken place around the technology and game play attributes of EQ.

I agree with one statement -

"There will never be another Everquest"

The reasons are not technological - in my opinion.

Everquest has a compelling social aspect to it that is being missed in these discussions. There has been a lot of crap and hype on TV about people killing themselves over EQ. Don't think for a minute I blame Sony for this - any more than I blame a car company for the actions of a drunk driver. But do you think frame rates, and game perspective and all that causes people to off themselves???

NO!!!


The game is a society in itself. The people strive for achievement to "keep up with the Jones's" - some of you no doubt do it in real-life too. Those of you who have one!!

The social dynamics will keep Everquest moving - and there are many - who may tire of it an leave - and I bet most of them will be very reluctant to ever invest time in a "new game" - once they wean themselves of EQ.

Now back to technology - sorry for this disparate view.

wimp
12-10-2002, 03:37 PM
I believe the next logical step has little to do with Technology. Although i'm sure AI will play a major role in games to come, I do not believe it is the answer either.

As stated before, AI will never equaly match a random human. It's just not fun when they beat you silly, and equaly not fun when they're too easy.

Although PVP has much to offer, the pray vs the preditor is to harsh to be any real fun. ...unless of corse it's a FPS.

I have another idea, taken in part from Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age. I think the next step is paying people to play oposite customers. Imagine the change in quality...

Even when Virtual Reality comes about, I imagine real people will be required to at least assist in the game world.

I'm thinking Never Winter Nights that is Massivly Multi-player, and some of the participants as well as the DM are payed.

Idealy, I just want to play DND with thousands of other people.

Raistlin
12-10-2002, 04:17 PM
Originally posted by fgay trader
Good points, everyone.

Which brings me to another point: AI. The word "intelligence" implies something that today's games cannot possibly deliver. Predefined mob pathing, pre-scripted events, pre-programmed reactions, etc. does not make that mob intelligent. Even a cockroach is more intelligent than an Everquest mob. The game designers try to compensate this, they making monsters tougher to kill by giving them insane hitpoints or resists or abilities that require players to think up new ways of defeating it. But in the end that mob is still only as smart as the macro that drives it and will not learn when players use loopholes that weren't pre-programmed.

*snip*

But how can a game be designed that will work for every type of gamer: a hardcore powerleveller, a PvP-er, an avid roleplayer, a casual player or a complete newb? I do not think it can be. Those classes of gamers want completely different things from the time they invest in a game and when the game makers try to go for the common denominator, so to speak, they end up cutting features and imposing limitations to "level the playing field". That leaves people wanting more and turns them away to try the next thing. One way to please everyone is to make different games for every type of gamer there is, which is needless to say close to impossible. If I knew of another way, I'd be developing that game right now :) But I look forward to what other companies have to offer and will decide if that game or this one will work for me.

Edit: spelling

See, and I see this and see an opportunity. There is absolutely no reason that mobs can't "learn" from players...there's no reason that you can't design a "world" in stead of a "zone".

I pose this. What would happen if instead of what you have now you were to setup a food chain of mobs. What would happen if instead of repoping a zone every 20 minutes you made the players figure out the balance. You want more rockhoppers to pop? What's above them on the food chain?

How about making a world instead of a zone? Take sanctus seru and katta castelium....people kill sanctus guards for katta faction, well, what the hell are those guards there for? You kill all the sanctus guards? Over run the zone with marus seru mobs, half an hour later, make marus seru a katta castellium protectorate and populate it with Katta mobs.

What's my point? Every computer gaming world to date has done the EXACT same thing. They've made us suspend our disbelief in their world by breaking it into manageable self contained, self absorbed zones. EQ does this somewhat, but every action could theoretically trigger actions across the entire world. Again, create a world, not a zone.

Another question was how could the world be created to cater to all types of gamers? Hell we had this one figured out in the MUD age. How about developing several ways to level? How about doing away with levels COMPLETELY (one of my big problems with all games) and do something more realistic more skills based. You have the socials who don't care about leveling, only doing things with friends, so give them things to do in the towns...bar fights, listening to bards play music or tell stories, allowing characters to own their own bars/inns/etc.

There are SEVERAL things that can be done to increase content and cater to ALL the different gamer types.

Right now, again, you look at EQ and say "Well, this is how games are designed, this is how they must work." I say there is no game designed at this point that even comes CLOSE to being a players game. It's a single story that everyone is involved in. The story of everquest would be titled "How <insert your name here> conquered <insert bad ass mob name here>" By and large, that's it. Everyone talks about the endgame. Can anyone point out to me where the endgame of an AD&D Campaign is? How bout Torg? BattleTech? StarWars? Can anyone out there pick up any gaming system developed for pencil and paper to date and point out to me where the "end game" is? You can't...because there isn't one.

And I leave you this last thought on this discussion. I forget who said we were not playing our game but verants, but they were absolutely correct. The MOMENT you create a goal that is as limited as kill mobs get items to kill more mobs, you rob yourself of the player's game. The largest problem of RPGs is that all your thinking has been Pre-done for you. It has already been determined what your goals should be. MMORPGs have been designed just like single player RPGs, your goals are pre-set, your tactics are pre-determined. Instead of developing a world where you have a choice in what to do, they have developed a game that says you MUST do x, y, and z before you can do A. It all comes down to choices, and everquest, just like all the other RPGs, give you very very few of them.

The death of the computer RPG has not been in technology, it's not been in lack of feeling, lack of will, or lack of want. It's simply piss poor design. The moment a manufacturer/developer thinks outside the baulders gate box is the moment you see something TRUELY spectacular.

--Raistlin

high_jeeves
12-10-2002, 04:38 PM
PvP in EQ is broken and even AO and DAoC fall short of their original goals when it comes to PvP. What exactly breaks PvP? Is it the levelling system? Overpowering equipment? Unreasonable death penalties? Probably all of the above. How do you fix that? Well, I'd start by abolishing the entire levelling route and introducing some other forms of character development that not necessairily effect how "strong" your toon is compared to others.


But what you seem to be talking about here becomes awful close to a MMOFPS.. (Massive Multiplayer Online First Person Shooter).. you want less leveling, less equipment, less death penalties. What is left that makes it an RPG? While these types of games may become popular (a huge world of UT2003, or some such), I think they have limited staying power. Character development, equipment gathering, fear of death, these are the things that make an RPG an RPG instead of an action/shooter game. Taking away time investment detaches the player from the character.



You have the same griefers in a PvE environment, they just find more inginious ways to ruin other people's fun. As for having a better character the more you play, the same holds true for the non-PvP game as well.


While both of these are true, I think we can all agree that it is significantly less. I cant think of the last time I had problems with a greifer on a PvP server.. certainly no time in the past year or so.. this may just be because I avoid the annoying zones (you know, the same ones where you have to turn off OOC because everyone it talking about how they are going to "camp" eachothers mothers and such...).

I think that character development should be tied to the amount you play. It almost has to be.. anything that you can do in an hour, i should be able to do 2x as much in 2 hours.. changing that will certainly ruin a game, because nobody will want to play for very long. There are alot of people that have /played much more than I have. Does that affect my game play on a PvP server tho? No, not at all. Does the fact that I have more /played time than other people affect them, no. So, while both of your points above are true, they are fairly insignificant in PvE.

--Jeeves

Hobo
12-10-2002, 09:48 PM
I thought of you as I read this press release today Ratt. The part about the economy and such really caught my attention. I'll have to check it out further I guess.

__________________________________________________ __

Project Entropia Goes Gold!

Gothenburg, Sweden - December 10, 2002 - Swedish interactive entertainment developer MindArk today announced the virtual universe Project Entropia is going gold on January 30th 2003. Project Entropia is Sweden's largest software project ever, and has been in development since 1997.

Project Entropia is a three-dimensional virtual universe on the Internet accessible from any computer with an Internet connection, anywhere in the world.

Project Entropia is an entertainment product aimed for global usage across culture, age and sex barriers. The main focus in the development has been to cater to the features desired by online gamers as well as for users engaged in society and community building - those with an interest in meeting other people for social interaction and adventure. Millions of users will be able to interact in the Project Entropia universe.

Project Entropia introduces unique features like a real economy where its currency, PED, is exchangeable with any major currency in the world. The software needed to enjoy Project Entropia is free to download, and this virtual universe is free to enter and spend time in.

"It is even possible to make a living in Project Entropia," says Chairman Benny Iggland. "This is being demonstrated by several of our commercial trial users. A market economy is rapidly evolving, with our users defining prices on various commodities and items available in the virtual universe. Project Entropia will also incorporate real world commodity trading in a three dimensional environment."

"Some 15 million USD have been invested in the development of Project Entropia to date and we expect to continue developing Project Entropia in the years to come for a sum of at least 5 million USD annually," says Managing Director Jan Welter Timkrans.

Even though the release date has been set for January 30th, 2003, it is possible for anyone who wants a head start to immediately enter the Project Entropia universe after downloading the software at www.project-entropia.com.

__________________________________________________ __



Hobo

someoneelse
12-12-2002, 02:00 AM
Anyone interested in Project Entropia should first read up on company towns in the history of the coal mining industry. Coal mine companies owned everything, and thus controled the cost of living (groceries, rent, everything). They also controlled how much you could earn. They made sure the the cost of living was just over what you could earn.

Even if a holo-suite like technology existed, it wouldn't by itself create a new paradigm in gaming. A good game design that can take advantage of that technology might. EQ, Doom, and C&C all had game in their genres before them. On the other hand, improved technology is an enabling feature: better 3d graphics for better immersion, the internet for massively multiplayer games, etc.

As others have mentioned here, dynamic content is part of the future. EQ has abundantly show that event though the world is huge, you can still run out of content. What end game guild, or even near end game, hasn't locked horns with another guild over a boss mob? If anything PoP has made this worse by reducing the level range of blue mobs.

Integrating dynamic content with an ongoing story, or just a background story is difficult.

RSB
12-12-2002, 07:21 AM
I find single player games largely boring for 2 reasons.
1) The AI is either not realistic or to predictable
2) I like interaction with other people

I view online games as a new social medium. Some people like bowling I like online games.

AI needs to progress from what they are doing now (which is alot of smoke and mirrors) to actual individual AI. Now we are quickly coming to this situation. Thinks that I'm talking about is like.
1) mobs having FoV and realistic eyesight. For example RtCW, an ok game in my opinion, the enimy in that at certian points seemed to have no problem picking you out in the tree line 500 meters away. Same with MoHAA
2) Hearing also needs to be realistic
3) Thought processes need to be individual and controlled by what they see, hear, feel etc.

I think we'll get to Near human AI before Holo decks
I'd think that something better than holodecks would be some NN interface. Both I see as far fetch in the near (15-20years) future.

Games are about roleplaying. Hey I want to be a race car driver, or I want to be a barbarian. But, unless I unstand you wrong ratt, if you want to play a barbarian with a 100 pound sword in a holodeck you better go work out for 6 months so you can lift it. It would be cool to be more immersed in the games but games are often about shedding our phyiscal limitations and doing stuff we can't do. That means playing basketball on a computergame shouldn't be me going into a holodeck and missing 9 out of 10 shots I through, hell I can do that on the court across the road from my place.

I don't think EQ was all the revolutionary, it just took things a bit further. As we move into the future the games will get bigger and bigger, more eye candy etc. Look as AO, Stunning looking game, HUGE world, crappy AI. EQ's AI is non exsistant. Mobs aren't smart, no tactics are used, closest you get to that is casters random spells they throw at you. The econimy of EQ is mediocer. Its purely the social interaction (big chat room) that keeps me playing. Quests are often stupid and many poorly implimented.

Will I play EQ2? Probably give it a go. SWG? definately its starting off HUGE and just getting bigger. Less limitations it seems.

about smell, be interesting to bring in games. They have dvd units that using base scents can produce a variety of oders to go along with what is being viewed but how many people would play a game where a battlefield smells like a real battlefield

Ratt being a end games person is fine for him. But me I'm a live now kind of person. If I die with 10 cents to my name I've won because I've enjoyed the entire journey of life not just the end game. I like to be competative is some aspects but I don't let it ruin my fun if I'm not the best. If I had to be the best at everything I did I would never have started learning the panio or bass, i would never go out dancing, I would never goto the gym, hell I'd curl up and die because there is always someone better than you out there. I'm happy with who I am. If I play a game, win or loose I'm there to have fun. I feel sorry for those that feel that HAVE to win because there must be a big void that you are trying to fill. Just my 2 cents (and I'm not saying ratt has some emotional void)

RSB

crcerror
12-12-2002, 10:46 AM
Here is what I wish to see (what I would consider advancement) graphics are gonna be damn impressive with the advent of N30 near cinema quality ..games are going to have to catchup and pass this level ...course graphics aren't everything I use to love to mud ...made me a fast sloppy typist and you had to read or you would die period. So graphics are in my opinion as good as they need to be ...course with 400 people in the bazaar I take that back ...processors will never ever be fast enough.
Things to currently improve gaming:
1) Sound - maybe if I wore a headset or had a 5 compent speaker set I would feel more involved but I think there is major room for improvement here. But imagine hearing a wolf howl when Sow was cast on you from behind you.
2) Feedback - tatical transducers for spell casting, attacks, bumps walls ..last time I levelled I had my speakers up really high and scared myself when I dinged even though I knew it was coming. Also thunder shaking stuff all over my desk. Bulding things into a real computer chair that actually had instructions sent to it from the game would be awesome.
3) Smells -well for me, while it would bring in realism, I think if I spend my whole life indoors I would never want to smell Swamp of No Hope or Inno Swamp.
4) Taste -no nothing Everquest or Sony makes will ever go in my mouth to make a game better.

Awesome topic though
CrC

Chutney
12-12-2002, 11:13 AM
This might veer slightly offtopic, but bear with me.

The future of gameing is such a huge topic, I don't think it can be addressed. As to the quote "There can never be another EQ" ... I say THANK GOD!

Over my years of playing EQ, I believe that it was never designed with players in mind ... players are merely the suckers who pay you. P.T. Barnum said "There is a sucker born every minute" ... EQ proves the point. I am not exempt from that ... for I, too, am a sucker.

It is really a genius business plan if you take a step back and look at it. A veritable "Field of Dreams" of the online community ... build it and "they" will come. Build a HUGE (for it's day) world full of conflict. Make advancement painfully slow. Add an in-game economy which screws players at every opportunity. Make players pay a huge price (exp ... which is really just time) for every mistake they, or anybody around them, makes. Add more time sinks ... Quests. Make the world such a harsh place that it encourages building groups. Add in a nice chat interface (i have yet to see another online game with one as good) & guilds. Design the end game require vast numbers of cooperating players. ... and charge $10/month for it.

What does that leave you? Basically environment in which the world is a harsh harsh place ... which encourages social interactions ... which builds friendships & comradarie in overcomeing common obstacles. IMHO, that reminds me a lot of the military. Genius. They have built one of the largest online support groups ... and THEY are common antagonist as well! Genius.

It also explains why they are so slothful about fixing anything. Anything that slows down or interrupts the leveling progress, helps them financially. They have no incentive to do so.

OK OK OK ... so where am I going with this rant? Here it is. The future of gameing is currently in the hands of corporations similar to Verant whose incentives are purely financial. We've already seen a lot of competition to EQ ... which haven't been nearly as popular. Why? PvP (the rallying call of most recent MMORPGs) is really nothing more than a search for exploits.

IMHO, the only real advancement in online gameing will be by the gamers and for the gamers. A game designed for the players instead of as a $$ crop. Technology wise this is possible now without all the next generation gadgets.

OK. I'm done. Let the flames begin.

high_jeeves
12-12-2002, 12:21 PM
Sorry Chutney, but I think that is a very niave approach. Corporations exist to make money. Making a long winded speech in order to say "Verant sucks because all they want to do is make money" is silly. Of course that is what they do. I dont buy any of the gripes about how terrible EQ is. Or how you hope there will never be another EQ. For some reason, 400,000+ people enjoy it. That by itself means that they are doing more things right than the other guys. Taking credit away from them for that because it isnt perfect is silly. Whining about something you are paying for (and probably have been for years) is fairly hypocrytical.

Are there problems in EQ? Sure.
Are there problems in every other game? Sure.
Is this ever going to change? No.
Are you still paying them? Yes.

They are doing something right then...

You say they are "slothful" about fixing bugs? Let me guess, you are not a programmer, or have never worked on a large project. Bugs cant all be fixed right away, some will never be fixed because the ROI just isnt there to fix them.



game designed for the players instead of as a $$ crop.


The problem here is, this just wont happen. The reason? It costs MILLIONS of dollars a month to run a game like this. That isnt going to change anytime in the near future (or probably far-future for that matter). It takes full time coders years and years to develop these projects. Companies dont survive by having happy players, they survive by having money. The two arent necessarily the same thing.

Until gamers start to write their own games, and pay their own hardware and bandwidth costs to host those games, they only have control of one thing: whether or not they play. If you think EQ is so horrible, stop supporting them, and their evil financial empire. Go write your own game.. give it away for free.. a decent game only takes a team of semi-experienced devs a few years to write.. I look forward to yours.

The argue that the future of gaming SHOULD be in the hands of corporations. They are the ones with the financial means to do research, spend time on development, artwork, R&D, and design to make and support excellent games. The opensource/public community does not have these resources (particularly in artwork and hardware/bandwidth).

--Jeeves

Chutney
12-12-2002, 01:46 PM
Excellent.

Sorry Chutney, but I think that is a very niave approach. Corporations exist to make money. Making a long winded speech in order to say "Verant sucks because all they want to do is make money" is silly.
I am a naive person. Idealistic, too. I don't contest that. My point was not as you quoted above, however. A point of my post was rather that Verant sucks because of the way in which they treat their players.

For some reason, 400,000+ people enjoy it. That by itself means that they are doing more things right than the other guys.
My beliefs as to why it is popular are stated in my previous post. Purely phychological. Genius plan. I admire the vision while simultaneously loathe them for implementing it.

You say they are "slothful" about fixing bugs? Let me guess, you are not a programmer, or have never worked on a large project. Bugs cant all be fixed right away, some will never be fixed because the ROI just isnt there to fix them.
Programmer by profession for more than 10 years (yes that was after graduating from a 4 year college with a degree in Computer Science) with work experience on a vast many projects of various sizes including Military planning projects (used by joint ops strategic planning), scientific supercollider data analysis projects (silly little place called fermilab), web application design (mostly financial analysis systems & news distribution) ... but this isn't a resume. I honestly believe that I am qualified to have a professional opinion ... and that is that VI is slothful, ineffecient, and has poor implementation in the best of cases. I've seen dogs who put more planning and forethought into sitting down than VI puts into some patches.

Companies dont survive by having happy players, they survive by having money.
Offtopic, but this reminds me of one of my favorite quotes ...

Our users will know fear and cower before our software. Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
- from the list, "Top 12 things likely to be overheard if you had a Klingon programmer in your company"

If you think EQ is so horrible, stop supporting them, and their evil financial empire. Go write your own game.. give it away for free.. a decent game only takes a team of semi-experienced devs a few years to write.. I look forward to yours.
EQ is pretty bad. I have had that opinion for quite some time. As for me writing my own, I really do have quite enough to do already.

The argue that the future of gaming SHOULD be in the hands of corporations.
I agree wholeheartedly that corporations should be the ones developing games, but instead of accepting the canned dog food that has been slapped on my plate, I dream of a company whose dream is satisfied players ... because I honestly believe that if that is ever achieved, the players and $$ will also come. That is MY field of dreams.

high_jeeves
12-12-2002, 02:13 PM
Well, i hate to derail this thread further, but here are some considerations:



honestly believe that I am qualified to have a professional opinion ... and that is that VI is slothful, ineffecient, and has poor implementation in the best of cases. I've seen dogs who put more planning and forethought into sitting down than VI puts into some patches.


I am also a developer, and have been for quite some time. And I disagree with your assertion here. I think given the game development talent pool, they do an excellent job. Compare them to other developers within their space (Game development). Take into account the fact that their most senior guys are getting paid half of what an equally qualified non-game developer makes. Take a look at other games in their specific market, AC, DAoC, AO (how many months did it take before AO was even remotely playable?). I think the guys at Verant do a pretty respectable job. I think you give them very little credit, when you have no idea what is involved.

I also dont want to jump on your resume, but have you ever worked on a large client/server project that has 24 hr uptime, the complexity level that we can assume their codebase has, and has 400,000 users that are very passionate? I have not, I doubt you have either, so the judgement of their patching abilites, and comparison of them to dogs sitting is a bit pretentious... you make an implicit assumption that you can do it better, when you have no idea what is involved.



I dream of a company whose dream is satisfied players


This just isnt very realistic. Every company has a dream of satisfied players. Every game is written by gamers. Nothing happens without money. Satisfied players != money. It costs more money to satisfy a player above a base level (the level EQ is at) than that person is willing to pay to be satisfied. If that werent the case, companies would jack up rates, and have more support for players. Look at legends as a prime example of this. Here is a server with more content, better support, and it costs more. There is ONE of those servers...

Lets say Verant decided they were going to really rock on bug fixing. They go hire a few more developers, but that eats into profits. So now they have to raise rates. How many people do they lose if they jack rates by 3 bucks? How does that compare to the people they lose if they continue at their current pricing scheme, and dont fix the old bugs? Its a business, the goal is to make money. Consumers are cheap, they will take a certain level of frustration before they will pay for hapiness. Consumers are also selfish, things that make them happy may be terrible for the game in the long run. Realization of this is what makes for a succesfull game, and company.

So, to try to bring this back around to the topic, and off of the "verant sucks, i can do it better" rant:

Corporations run games, games need to make money to stay around. That is always going to be a part of games in the future. I wonder if anyone else has a view as to how the business aspect of the gaming industry will affect game development in the future? Will competition increase, or decrease?

I think we are about to hit a point of a number of game companies disappearing, especially in the MMORPG space. These games require very large pools of cash to start and run. It is also much less likely that a single player will be actively playing multiple games at once (perhaps 2, maybe 3, but 4+?). Offline (or LAN) games have the advantage that you may own and play many recent ones at once, because the time commitment is low. With the 5+ new online games coming out soon, how many will capture enough players to maintain their costs, and pay for their initial capital output? What will the result of this be for the industry?

--Jeeves

quackrabbit
12-12-2002, 02:16 PM
I agree wholeheartedly that corporations should be the ones developing games, but instead of accepting the canned dog food that has been slapped on my plate, I dream of a company whose dream is satisfied players ... because I honestly believe that if that is ever achieved, the players and $$ will also come. That is MY field of dreams. If you would stop and look at EQ's churn (account retention) rate you will see the same thing that the exec's at Sony see: EQ players ARE happy.

If you're not happy then don't e-bay, but cancel your account instead.

The only way that the suits are going to be able to tell that people are no longer happy is when their pocketbooks run dry.

Quack

throx
12-12-2002, 02:20 PM
Programmer by profession for more than 10 years (yes that was after graduating from a 4 year college with a degree in Computer Science) with work experience on a vast many projects of various sizes including Military planning projects (used by joint ops strategic planning), scientific supercollider data analysis projects (silly little place called fermilab), web application design (mostly financial analysis systems & news distribution) ... but this isn't a resume. I honestly believe that I am qualified to have a professional opinion ... and that is that VI is slothful, ineffecient, and has poor implementation in the best of cases. I've seen dogs who put more planning and forethought into sitting down than VI puts into some patches.

Actually, given those previous jobs it sounds like you really have never worked on a large project which was the "bread and butter" of a company. I mean a project which was sold stand-alone for cash, had a well defined shipping date and if it missed that date then the company (or at least dev team) was all likely to be out of a job.

Having worked for public service development jobs (ie military and government), utility jobs (where the project wasn't the core business of the company) and real world off-the-shelf applications I can see where you get the misapprehension that Verant is sloppy etc.

Fact is, when you make promises that can't be broken at the risk of your job then silly little things like testing and bugs tend to come second to more important things like food on the table for your family. No amount of experience in government or utility jobs can really prepare you for that reality.

Having said all of that, I think Verant does cut corners occasionally but on the whole is pretty much on par for bugs in the product with every other commercial software develpor out there.

Chutney
12-12-2002, 03:10 PM
Back for more...


Well, i hate to derail this thread further, but here are some considerations:

To derail further requires an initial derailment.

I started to respond in full ... but realize that doing so would be pointless. It has gotten extremely offtopic now.

I would, however, like to make a few closing comments in this debate.

I have never in my entire life written or run EQ, however, I do not see how this preculdes me from an opinion about programming practices.

$3 * 400,000 = $1.2mil ... a month ... $144mil a year ... so if they paid 144 programmers $1 mil that'd break even on the bug fixing budget if they increased user cost by $3. hell. I say hire 1,440 programmers for $100k.

Yes VI charges more for services they deem "premium". Action, tho, is rarely a good substitute for justification. I think Nazi Germany proved that point well enough.

I never said I could do better. I did say that Verant sucks.

high_jeeves
12-12-2002, 03:27 PM
$3 * 400,000 = $1.2mil ... a month ... $144mil a year ... so if they paid 144 programmers $1 mil that'd break even on the bug fixing budget if they increased user cost by $3. hell. I say hire 1,440 programmers for $100k.


You are further proving that you arent familiar with the way large commercial projects work. Hiring additional programmers requires additional support staff (mangement, HR, office management, etc), it also includes addition building resources, computers, liscences, network resources, perks, etc. The cost of an employee is far greater than his salary. In addition, you arent counting in the revenue lost from the price hike (there is ALWAYS a loss of customers, when rates increase). Not to mention the press that is related to a price hike, and how that affects stock prices, existing deals, etc...



I have never in my entire life written or run EQ, however, I do not see how this preculdes me from an opinion about programming practices.


Not sure if you meant what you said here, you have NEVER run EQ? Then I would think that precludes you from most of this discussion.

The fact that you have never written something similar certainly makes it so that your opinion on programming practices is irrelevant. I can badmouth the practices of mechanical engineers all day long, i'm a trained engineer after all... but that doesnt make my opinion even remotely valid, since I have NO IDEA how they do their job, what their requirements are, what their timeline is, etc. Have you ever worked on any project that has full production releases every 2-3 weeks? I have, and it is a whole different world from 6-12 month projects. Everything works different, you cant even come close to comparing the two.



I never said I could do better. I did say that Verant sucks.


Then you are an ass. I hate to be blunt, but you are just whining at this point. "Verant sucks" is a childish comment with no backing. If they suck, and you cant do better, where does that leave you?



Yes VI charges more for services they deem "premium". Action, tho, is rarely a good substitute for justification. I think Nazi Germany proved that point well enough.


Ahh.. now they are like the Nazi's.. excellent.. I always stop discussion when some moron compares anything to the Nazi's... Do you play on legends? Do you have any idea what action they do, or do not take? Or is this just more anti-Verant crap? Are you the same kind of person that sits in a dark room all day complaining about how evil MS is (while using MS products)? If you dont like something, stop supporting it, until then, you are just a whiner... The whole concept of "YOU SUCK, here's my $14" is so hypocrytical that its laughable.. if you want improvement, then make them improve..

--Jeeves

Chutney
12-12-2002, 03:56 PM
Please use PM to hurl further insults at me AFTER mis-interpreting what I've written. No need cluttering this board.

wrongway
12-13-2002, 11:04 AM
/votes for Jeeves to be banned if thats a possibility.

Mr. Suspicious
12-13-2002, 11:34 AM
Ahhh.. thems idiots are chipping into the discussion.

Thanks for your enlightening contribution wrongway, I enjoyed reading your comments and I realy must say, it surely added a lot to the discussion.

wrongway
12-13-2002, 11:38 AM
It wasn't a contribution to a discussion, it was a comment on a flame fest, that should have never happened, and only happened because someone decides to make a personal attack out of a stated opinion. Yours was equally helpful Mr. Susupicious as all of your RTFM posts always are. I realize you have added a lot of content in the past, but I have not seen any posts by you in a long while that were actually helpful beyond RTFM.

Added thoughts:
At the point I commented there was no discussion left, and you had to further the personal insults as well. I have been a lurker here for a very long time, sir, and I'm not sure which is worse, the constant barrage of new questions from people who do not read or were using the wrong search words (which you flame them for as well), or your constant holier than thou elitest attitude. I remember a post a while back about making intelligent questions (actually a link to a post) and it said something about searching first, and trying to give all the information you could to help, but you take it beyond that. You pick apart everything anyone says and points out the flaw in it. I saw one person say something along the lines of: I searched for "this" and "this" and "that" and I found "this" but it didn't apply, any hints? YOU TORE THEM A NEW ASSHOLE FOR NOT SEARCHING. I'm sure you are a much better member of this community than me, perhaps I can learn from your examples o wise one.

More edit:
Whats wrong with voicing an opinion about something. We are a community a self governing group of people. If we do not make known our dislikes then we will never grow, and have our acceptable behaviors set. If we as a community accept his flames then we turn into monkly-business.com, or safehouse, or whever the flamefest whineboards are. If that happens then you can kiss logical reasonable discussion goodbye as I'm sure you know, and have done in the past with your attitude.

Mr. Suspicious
12-13-2002, 11:45 AM
In a Cinema near you soon: "Look who's Flaming"

wrongway
12-13-2002, 11:50 AM
Oh ok, now mine is a flame? Flaming is calling someone an idiot or moron, and not being logical and reasonable. Do you even read the posts or just skim them and post a witty one liner?

Edit:
You are right, I concede. Your overwhelming power has worn me down. I'm sorry I tried to bring some light on what I thought was a bad situation/happenstance. This is obviously how the community wants this board.

high_jeeves
12-13-2002, 12:21 PM
I'm dying to know how the two quotes below are part of a "logical reasonable discussion"? These are the only two comments I gave him personal flak for. They are irrelevant to the existing discussion, and generally insulting. I am Jewish, and lost about 80% of my family past 2 genrations to the Nazi's. Whenever some moron comes along and compares MS, Verant, or some other corporate entity to the Nazi's, I lose all respect for him. As soon as "XX sucks!" and "XX is like the Nazi's" come into the discussion, the logical and reasonable parts are already done with... the childish whining has begun..



Yes VI charges more for services they deem "premium". Action, tho, is rarely a good substitute for justification. I think Nazi Germany proved that point well enough.

I never said I could do better. I did say that Verant sucks.


--Jeeves

throx
12-13-2002, 12:30 PM
$3 * 400,000 = $1.2mil ... a month ... $144mil a year ... so if they paid 144 programmers $1 mil that'd break even on the bug fixing budget if they increased user cost by $3. hell. I say hire 1,440 programmers for $100k.

Except if they jumped the price another $3 they'd likely lose 10% or more of their installed base just from people who decide that 2nd account isn't worth keeping any more. That's a net loss and I don't think the 10% number is entirely unjustified either.

Bug fixing isn't as trivial an exercies as adding new developers either. In fact, adding a dozen or so new developers is the absolute best way I know to decrease productivity and introduce a whole slew of new bugs into a product. I'd guarantee bards would br broken for months if they tried this.

Read "The Mythical Man Month" for an interesting insight into adding developers to improve product dev times and quality.

wrongway
12-13-2002, 12:34 PM
He didn't say anything like Verant is like the nazis, and I personally agree with loathing about statements like "XX is thisbadthing". I just think that we can not start flame wars here. He has opinion (whether you or I like it) that XX sucks. Its not my position to flame him personally about it.

As for the nazi comment, you just went off and called him a moron after taking what he said the total wrongway. In my opinion thats as bad as blatantly saying xx sucks.

Take that back, perhaps I'm the one who misunderstood. I took what he said as "X isn't necessarily right. X was proven to possibly be a bad thing by Y (insert case of bad thing happening here)" Maybe I'm just being optimistic though. Then Mr. Suspicious just went and called me an idiot for voicing my opinion about flamefests, perhaps in not the most subtle of ways. And then he had the never to say I didn't add anything to the discussion (which had ended) and didn't add anything of any value himself.

wrongway
12-13-2002, 12:37 PM
Perhaps the increased revenue could have been used to Hire better quality assurance (not developers). Perhaps used it to delay the next expansion to get current features working better/cleaner. (lost new revenue offset by increased revenue from fees). I think his point was that the extra 14.4mil a year was a lot of money (perhaps only 5mil a year after lost accounts which I doubt). Some of that could have been reinvested into the game to make it more enjoyable and have less bugs/imbalances.

Edit numbers:
Not sure how 1.2 mil a month became 144 mil a year, shoulda been 14.4 mil right?

Another edit:

400k Subscribers X $13 a month is 5200k.
If they lost 10% subscribers it would be
360k Subscribers X (new price) $16 a month is 5760k

Is that right, or is my logic flawed? If they could only lose 10% and raise it $3/mo it would be a good thing to do.

high_jeeves
12-13-2002, 12:47 PM
The question you have to ask yourself, is why? Because they are losing lots of people? No, they arent. Because they want to attract new customers? I think they are pretty market satured at this point. So why? Give me a business case why they should improve CS, or fix old bugs... (not a "touchy-feely" reason.. an actual business reason). If they cant come up with a business case for better CS, or better QA, they arent going to do it. Expecting them to risk losing lots money for little or no gain is niave.

As for the nazi comparision: I dont care what the purpose or depth of the comparison was.. The use of the Nazi's as a sample case for a business decision has no place in an educated society. Wouldnt you expect an outrage is somebody said:

They pick on bards. You cant pick on people of one class. The KKK proved that.

Its just plain insulting, it minimized a real tradgedy, and maximized a perceived (and in this case, totally assumed, since he doesnt seem to play on legends) wrong by a company to their customers.

--Jeeves

wrongway
12-13-2002, 12:58 PM
I'm not saying it was a wise comparision, and it probably was used for shock value, but he didn't say Verant were like nazis like I thought you were saying. If you weren't saying that, then I apologize.

And yes your line about bards and the KKK I'm sure is outrageous (I know very little about the KKK or what it did), but it is a valid argument point, albeit unwise. I can't think of another well known doubleplusungood-thing that illustrates his point better than Nazi Germany did. But then again, I didn't follow his point terribly well, because again I am a self-centered kid who doesn't pay attention to the world around him, or the books I'm supposed to read.

Edit:
Added "like" in Verant were like nazis

/laugh Didn't answer part of your question
Its good business practice to keep people happy with your product, and with your business. Continual lack of CS and bug fixes will in the long run eat Verant up. I don't know about numbers, but I'm certain it has a noticeable affect. I've heard many people say they won't try another Verant/SOE game. Most of it is possibly talk, but bad press is bad press imho. In my limited knowledge of business, they have something called "Good-will" that has a monetary value placed on it. The next best thing (but not like me, sorry couldn't resist) could possibly take everquest out of the picture. That is of course assuming that Ratt isn't correct about there be nothing that is similiar to EQ being able to take it out.

Also, a lot of people are addicted, but the market is nowhere near saturated btw. 400k is not even .2 % of the US. In Korea they have like 40% of people on broadband and like 20% of people subscribe to one particular game don't remember the name of it. (Yes, that game is doing awesome)

high_jeeves
12-13-2002, 01:26 PM
they have something called "Good-will" that has a monetary value placed on it.


In my business experience, good will does have a monetary value. $0 is infact a monetary value, after all.



Its good business practice to keep people happy with your product, and with your business.


Only insofar as it affects sales. I dont think the number of people they lose to CS equates to the amount they would have to spend to improve it. Sure, lots of people say they will never play another Verant (now SOE), game... I dont really beleive it from all of them.. again, will enough never play a Verant game again to warrant the amount of money it would take to fix the problem?

I also think that more people have not had problems with CS than have. I have been playing since beta, and have had only one minor CS problem in that time. While I agree that their CS leaves something to be desired, is it bad enough, and effecting enough of the player base to really tick off that many people? And do those people quit, or do they ebay? Ebaying is not a loss of revenue for SOE..

--Jeeves

wrongway
12-13-2002, 01:40 PM
Regardless of your experience Goodwill does have a monetary value. It is legally able to be put on fincancial statements, and therefore affect the price to earnings ratios of stock. Regardless if it isn't sellable, it is a real number != 0. As for the theoritical Goodwill, it isn't touchy-feely, a LOT of people honest to goodness believe that Apex produces shitty DVD player's, and will not buy another one because of that. Long term its noticeable, in the last 3 or 4 years, no not for this game in this market, because there hasn't been any other option for a lot of people.

How much money would it take I guess is the question. You seem to think it would require a LOT of money to improve the game. There are trillion little bugs with the game (exaggeration) that 1 person working 40 hours a week could figure out, over time. I'm not talking big issues like bards or stacking. I'm talking small things like the zone line in CT being in the wrong spot, or ToFS having 6 mirrors one for each floor, but they all TP you to the same location. They have already done a lot to make the begining part of the game more fun like shar vahl quests, but if it was fun all the way up, I would wager more people would find replayability in it, other than kill huge raid mobs to get phat leut as someone put it.

high_jeeves
12-13-2002, 01:56 PM
There are trillion little bugs with the game (exaggeration) that 1 person working 40 hours a week could figure out, over time.


But, again, are those bugs woth fixing (financially)? Do they really improve the game, do 99% of the players even know they exist?

Also, the difference in branding between the consumer electronics market and the gaming market is huge. Sure, people see an Apex DVD player and a Sony DVD player, and they know that the Sony is going to be higher quality. Does the same hold true for gaming? I dont think so (atleast, not yet..). When you think about it, branding probably isnt as important in the gaming industry. The people who wrote EQ are totally different from those that are writing SWG.. sure, the high level management decisions are probably all made by the same set of people, but the details are totally fresh. I dont think this is the case between the 1999 and 2000 models of Apex DVD player.

I just have a hard time with the arguments about how bad their CS is.. they have 400,000+ customers, and rising... If its so bad, and so buggy, why would people be joining up and staying? If they spent time and money fixing these bugs, would that affect these numbers? I really dont think so, so why do it?

--Jeeves

baelang
12-13-2002, 02:34 PM
Originally posted by wrongway
Regardless of your experience Goodwill does have a monetary value. It is legally able to be put on fincancial statements, and therefore affect the price to earnings ratios of stock. Regardless if it isn't sellable, it is a real number != 0.

That is true, but the definition of "good will" in a fincancial sence is the ammount of money overpaid for something. it has nothing at all to do with "how much people like us" or "how much we do the right thing" or the common use definition(s) of good will.

wrongway
12-13-2002, 03:20 PM
It has a lot to do with how much people like us and such. Yes its what you overpaid for the company, but people overpay for the "name." Would you buy Coca-Cola, and not buy its "name" and try to market the product? No, if you were buying Coca-Cola you would pay a hell of a lot more because a lot of people think very highly of Coca-Cola. If everyone hated Coca-Cola you wouldn't pay extra for that. Yes there are cases when an unknown name is overpaid for, but I would theorize it isn't common.


the high level management decisions are probably all made by the same set of people, but the details are totally fresh.

Thats exactly what I mean. I think EQ is a great product, but mismanaged for the short-term gain of SoE, and the long term value of Verant as a game prodution company isn't being thought about. I for one have no faith in the ability of Verant to thoroughly test their own product, and work on fixing bugs that are known. But thats probably not the game designer/developers faults, its allocation of resources, which you seem to think would be misapplied in making people love Verant for their QA, problem free. If you have fewer bugs you have fewer needs for CS. I will agree to disagree here, about the monetary value of making people think you are good at fixing bugs.


I just have a hard time with the arguments about how bad their CS is.. they have 400,000+ customers, and rising... If its so bad, and so buggy, why would people be joining up and staying?

I'm not complaining about the CS, and never have, but when Chutney responded to that, he had some interesting psychological theories that you seem to have totally discarded, but perhaps they aren't valid. IDK.

throx
12-13-2002, 03:28 PM
You seem to think it would require a LOT of money to improve the game. There are trillion little bugs with the game (exaggeration) that 1 person working 40 hours a week could figure out, over time. I'm not talking big issues like bards or stacking. I'm talking small things like the zone line in CT being in the wrong spot, or ToFS having 6 mirrors one for each floor, but they all TP you to the same location.

Unless you've seen the code that is behind Everquest and the zone data file formats, you really can't say that any of these bugs would be easy or hard to fix. Like I said before, the risk of fixing any bug is the creation of 3 others and it's not something that you can just "get someone to work 40hrs a week on".

The fact is they probably get better ROI on getting someone to work 40hrs a week on the next expansion than they do having them fix trivial bugs.

Yeah - I got my math wrong before. I'm a tard.

wiz60
12-16-2002, 10:04 AM
I think I understand your point - but just to clarify.

Coca-Cola has an excellent reputation. That reputation is a function of "customer satisfaction".

If you were buying Coca-Cola - you would pay more than the book-value of the company. The excess amount is normally classified as "Good Will".

Normally corporate buyers pay this premium for the future revenue stream - not so much for happy customers. You could argue that one implies the other - and I would agree.

I think that the EQ property would be highly valued despite the grumblings of its playerbase. A saavy buyer would conclude that is inevitable. This is especially true considering the wide range of ages represented in the playerbase.

I predict that EQ will ultimately stabilize and start to decline. I also think that SWG and any follow on games will go nowhere. In the end - I think EQ will be milked forever. Expansions, facelifts, etc etc all trying to preserve the cash flow.

I think they need to invest some money in administrative technology to allow them to do a better job of supporting their playerbase with the same or fewer people.

Asbestos
12-16-2002, 11:42 AM
A very interesting read, even if a little off topic by now. One point that came to mind, while reading these last statements about customer service, is: Has there been a MMORPG that has had exceptional customer service? Maybe the reason people aren't as upset with the CS that Verant/Sony has provided is because they have no reason to expect any better. I feel like if any future company, or existing one for that matter, raises the bar then maybe it will make a difference in customer retention. I never played AO but heard in the beginning CS was non-existant, but since, it has improved. Is this the only thing that kept it from falling off the face of the earth? Customer Service may not play as big of a role in the future of gaming as improvements in technology/AI, but I feel any improvement over the current standard is welcome. But I agree with the above posts regarding bad CS. In the long run it will catch up with you, and adversely affect your bottom line.

gremlinz
12-17-2002, 03:17 PM
Originally posted by Raistlin


See, and I see this and see an opportunity. There is absolutely no reason that mobs can't "learn" from players...there's no reason that you can't design a "world" in stead of a "zone".

I pose this. What would happen if instead of what you have now you were to setup a food chain of mobs. What would happen if instead of repoping a zone every 20 minutes you made the players figure out the balance. You want more rockhoppers to pop? What's above them on the food chain?

How about making a world instead of a zone? Take sanctus seru and katta castelium....people kill sanctus guards for katta faction, well, what the hell are those guards there for? You kill all the sanctus guards? Over run the zone with marus seru mobs, half an hour later, make marus seru a katta castellium protectorate and populate it with Katta mobs.

What's my point? Every computer gaming world to date has done the EXACT same thing. They've made us suspend our disbelief in their world by breaking it into manageable self contained, self absorbed zones. EQ does this somewhat, but every action could theoretically trigger actions across the entire world. Again, create a world, not a zone.

Another question was how could the world be created to cater to all types of gamers? Hell we had this one figured out in the MUD age. How about developing several ways to level? How about doing away with levels COMPLETELY (one of my big problems with all games) and do something more realistic more skills based. You have the socials who don't care about leveling, only doing things with friends, so give them things to do in the towns...bar fights, listening to bards play music or tell stories, allowing characters to own their own bars/inns/etc.

There are SEVERAL things that can be done to increase content and cater to ALL the different gamer types.

Right now, again, you look at EQ and say "Well, this is how games are designed, this is how they must work." I say there is no game designed at this point that even comes CLOSE to being a players game. It's a single story that everyone is involved in. The story of everquest would be titled "How <insert your name here> conquered <insert bad ass mob name here>" By and large, that's it. Everyone talks about the endgame. Can anyone point out to me where the endgame of an AD&D Campaign is? How bout Torg? BattleTech? StarWars? Can anyone out there pick up any gaming system developed for pencil and paper to date and point out to me where the "end game" is? You can't...because there isn't one.

And I leave you this last thought on this discussion. I forget who said we were not playing our game but verants, but they were absolutely correct. The MOMENT you create a goal that is as limited as kill mobs get items to kill more mobs, you rob yourself of the player's game. The largest problem of RPGs is that all your thinking has been Pre-done for you. It has already been determined what your goals should be. MMORPGs have been designed just like single player RPGs, your goals are pre-set, your tactics are pre-determined. Instead of developing a world where you have a choice in what to do, they have developed a game that says you MUST do x, y, and z before you can do A. It all comes down to choices, and everquest, just like all the other RPGs, give you very very few of them.

The death of the computer RPG has not been in technology, it's not been in lack of feeling, lack of will, or lack of want. It's simply piss poor design. The moment a manufacturer/developer thinks outside the baulders gate box is the moment you see something TRUELY spectacular.

--Raistlin


one hundread percent agree. But for end game on DND yeah there is it is called the throne of bloodstone :)