Wow. What an incredible trip. Our final day of coverage begins as I think back at everything we have done and saw here at SOE Live.
We have breakfast with the director of the SOE game Dragon's Prophet, and got to give him feedback on the game. It is a fun game, worthy of holding us over until EQNext comes out, and looks to be a fun experience. He has been with SOE for about 12 years, and worked on everything from Clone Wars to Everquest Online Adventures, so he had a great pedigree of titles. It was fun just being able to sit down with him, share ideas, talk about games, and different ideas we had about MMOs and gameplay. I will keep what we talked about with him a secret, since it is a very cool thing, and we would love for him to run with the ball and get it implemented. Regardless to say, the gameplay idea we shared with him would change the game with MMOs forever, and truly bring these games to the next level.
We share because we're cool guys, and who knows, maybe SOE wants to work with cool guys like us someday. Yeah, we're like that.
EQNext is just 50 Shades of Awesome. It won't be out for another year or two, but the creator toolset portion will be out this winter. This is a smart strategy, the days of building gigabytes of pre-chewed content and stories and delivering them at launch died with the Star Wars Old Republic MMO, and Sony recognizes that. You can never build enough story and one-shot content to satisfy your players, they will burn through it in a couple months, and leave. That model does not work anymore. Instead, they are going the route of player-generated content, both before the game launches (with the toolset), and after launch with a changing, dynamic world.
It's a sound strategy, and exciting to support. There will always be games now to play and experience, plenty of stuff to do in Planetside 2, Dragon's Prophet, and the Everquest franchise. I support this because the focus here is clearly on the players, and not the company's story lines and canned experiences. The players here will be the ones creating the cool places in the world, creating the history together, and changing the game to be what they want it to be. George and I have always been about 'rolling your own experiences' in pen-and-paper games, and really, it is a great-great thing to see a company embrace player-created content, and be open to totally changing the history of the world based on what happens on the game's servers (yesterday, discussion panel). For this openness and welcoming of player-content, EQNext is our game.
There's a ton of other things happening here as well, and games from Everquest, EQ2, Planetside 2, and DC Heroes Online are getting small ways to incorporate player content. It's a sea change over here, and a welcome one to see. There's tons of expansion packs, new stuff to do, and cool little changes they are making in each game to improve things. Keep in mind, making changes in these games is a big project, and the company does the best with what it has to keep stuff cool and fun, even in games coming on 15 years old. We appreciate the support, and it is a great thing to support a company that doesn't abandon its games. Yeah, I know, SOE had some it shut down too, but for the ones still played by many people, it is a cool thing.
Nothing changes on the pen-and-paper front, and in fact, as we see more and more games move towards virtual dungeon masters and player-created content, PnP games are going to increasingly become obsolete. Think of the benefits of pen-and-paper games as being a series of goals that MMOs need to reach, and there still are a number of them out there that have not been reached yet, such as a referee, user-created adventures, user-created worlds, referee-controlled NPCs, referee-spawned monsters, adventures that can change mid-stream based on party actions, and a bunch of others. EQNext is knocking some of these milestones down, and I expect MMOs in general to start seeing these technical challenges as features to implement.
Think of that. We are now moving in a direction with MMOs that is towards replacing the human-referee entirely. I know there will still be things a human referee can do, but with advancement after advancement, the human referee will become obsolete, and in fact indistinguishable from a computer AI. This isn't far-fetched, it is just a normal progression of artificial intelligence, and in fact, expected. EQNext's user-generated content may start with structures, terrains, and props - but what's next? Monsters? World factions? Adventures? AI referees? There will be a time when the computer does a better job than a human referee, and that day is coming quicker than we think.
There are cool opportunities in here as well for the human referees, and SOE sees that too. We are getting tools for human referees to generate adventures in these games, and that is only the beginning. Someday, it may be possible for a player to 'jump out of body' and become a temporary referee in the game world for a group of players, spawning monsters, creating goals, and speaking as the NPCs We are heading towards that world too, with even more chances for creative people that want to tell stories to be able to do so through the game's tools. The combination of AI referees and human-created and managed MMO content is coming, and again, probably faster than we think.
Exciting stuff, and I do feel SOE Live this year was a glimpse into the future of gaming, both pen-and-paper and MMO. It was a special honor to attend, and also give the developers and execs here a taste of the SBRPG magic. What a fun, cool couple days this has been; I hope we could share with you a little look into this, and give you a glimpse into the crystal ball as well.
Showing posts with label event. Show all posts
Showing posts with label event. Show all posts
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Saturday, August 3, 2013
SOE Live: Day 3, part 2
...and then everything changes. Oh yes, another post today since so much is going on here.
Levels and the holy trinity are gone. EQNext is moving towards a more Minecraft or Terraria system of character power. Your crafted gear determines your stats and character power, levels are gone. Also, you collect and possibly tier-up your classes to increase and accumulate powers. It looks like character level in EQNext is gone. Spec-ing a character to be a tank or healer is gone. Everyone is DPS. What determines victory is likely gear power, the tier of your class powers, and a majority of it is player skill.
You will be able to re-spec your classes, and change yourself up. It is a dynamic system, and yes, while radically different, I suppose their answer to people that miss the old class-level combo is go play the infinite number of games that use that system. It is a radical, incredible departure from the norm, and they even brought the old AD&D Player's Handbook up on the screen to illustrate 'these are the old ways.'
Your character power is determined by what you collect, what you craft, and the time you put into yourself. They mentioned that a new player could tag along on a high-level raid on day 1 and still contribute. It is a flatter system for participation, but I suspect an incredibly deep one for the amount of time you can put into it and what you get out of it. I do suspect, like in Terraria, that an un-geared character will absolutely get one-shotted in the high-level areas. But like in Terraria, a twinked character with good gear, low ability power, and no player skill will suck just as hard.
Wow. Again, this is a team trying for a moon-shot of gaming. Minecraft and Terraria and their linear systems are the clear model here, along with the unique lore and faction systems that Everquest brings to the table. The emphasis on crafting for power is very cool, starting everyone off similar and keeping them there is also very cool - it is a radial departure from over 35+ years of level-based fantasy gaming.
How it works is you will have 4 primary abilities from your primary class, and then any 4 from your collected classes. There was some mention of tier-ing a class up, so I guess that is how the power of an ability works. How hit points are gained wasn't also revealed, but I suppose it could be almost entirely gear-based, since there are no character levels. I wouldn't mind playing a game like this, since it puts starting people on the sam ground, and makes crafting and collecting good gear a premium goal.
There clearly is a heavy emphasis of pen-and-paper games in the room. They want to create a MMO equivalent of the essential D&D experience, without the limitations of the D&D rules. Artificial numeric character qualities, such as level, seem to be purposefully being gotten rid of; in favor of the real, experience and collection based qualities. How this all works out remains to be seen, but it is an incredible goal if they can pull it off.
More coverage? Coming up:
http://www.destructoid.com/soe-live-everquest-next-shocker-two-eq-games-cometh-259254.phtml
Another fun note from today, the topic of roleplaying came up, and a player asked if their character could follow a deity. The designers said, 'that is up to you.' In essence, you, as a player make choices in the world, to steal or be honest; be trusting or untrustworthy, or any other number of hidden virtues the game tracks for your character. If your character's values align with the deity's values, or any other number of NPC groups - that group will be act favorable to you. In essence, you have to play the game according to the values your character holds dear. You can't brazenly steal from the villagers in game for loot and giggles, and then go 'roleplay' a kind and gentle follower of the love goddess. The love goddess' NPC will hate you, and you won't be welcome in the village. It's put up or shut up time for roleplayers, and that is a very cool thing.
This is getting closer and closer to the goal of having an invisible dungeon master working behind the scenes of the game to make it different, interactive, and a unique experience for every player - given the individual player's actions. They keep talking about some sort of AI story engine working behind the scenes that alters play depending on what is going on in the world, based on the actions of the population. Also, your individual reputation is tracked, and your actions have consequences - you can become the enemy to groups in the world, and your character can become kill-on-sight to any of the factions in the game. This is really, really close to a DM - and I suspect the designers are programming the game with this invisible DM in mind and working behind the scenes.
If the players do not help a village, and let it fall to the Orcs - a bunch of cool stuff happens. Villagers stop tending fields, and stop going out onto the streets. The level of fear increases, and shops could close. The village could become an abandoned ruins. All this can happen anywhere in the world, and the outcome is unique to every server. A truely dynamic game world run by an electronic DM? I think this team is very, very close. This game just may well be the first serious AI DM the world sees.
We had some great technical sessions today about the voxel engine, being able to flood caves by tunneling under a lake, the destructibility and physics of the world, how the voxels smooth out, particle effects, constructing walls and buildings realistically (dirt inside of a stone wall), and a heck of a lot of other stuff. The world is more real than any other MMO world I have seen, it's not just a shell of textured static polygons.
Again, so much comes to mind when you think about pen-and-paper games, it's going to take me a few days to sort my thoughts out. Level-less fantasy gaming? Gear-based power? Freely-respec-able characters? Collect-a-classes? Powering-up-classes? Just wow, this SOELive is a game designer's tour-De-force, just so many ideas coming out of this team it is just insane. For the EQNext team to put all of them in one game is remarkable, and I hope they are able to deliver.
If they can, it is not only a game-changer, but a world-changer for fantasy gamers.
Levels and the holy trinity are gone. EQNext is moving towards a more Minecraft or Terraria system of character power. Your crafted gear determines your stats and character power, levels are gone. Also, you collect and possibly tier-up your classes to increase and accumulate powers. It looks like character level in EQNext is gone. Spec-ing a character to be a tank or healer is gone. Everyone is DPS. What determines victory is likely gear power, the tier of your class powers, and a majority of it is player skill.
You will be able to re-spec your classes, and change yourself up. It is a dynamic system, and yes, while radically different, I suppose their answer to people that miss the old class-level combo is go play the infinite number of games that use that system. It is a radical, incredible departure from the norm, and they even brought the old AD&D Player's Handbook up on the screen to illustrate 'these are the old ways.'
Your character power is determined by what you collect, what you craft, and the time you put into yourself. They mentioned that a new player could tag along on a high-level raid on day 1 and still contribute. It is a flatter system for participation, but I suspect an incredibly deep one for the amount of time you can put into it and what you get out of it. I do suspect, like in Terraria, that an un-geared character will absolutely get one-shotted in the high-level areas. But like in Terraria, a twinked character with good gear, low ability power, and no player skill will suck just as hard.
Wow. Again, this is a team trying for a moon-shot of gaming. Minecraft and Terraria and their linear systems are the clear model here, along with the unique lore and faction systems that Everquest brings to the table. The emphasis on crafting for power is very cool, starting everyone off similar and keeping them there is also very cool - it is a radial departure from over 35+ years of level-based fantasy gaming.
How it works is you will have 4 primary abilities from your primary class, and then any 4 from your collected classes. There was some mention of tier-ing a class up, so I guess that is how the power of an ability works. How hit points are gained wasn't also revealed, but I suppose it could be almost entirely gear-based, since there are no character levels. I wouldn't mind playing a game like this, since it puts starting people on the sam ground, and makes crafting and collecting good gear a premium goal.
There clearly is a heavy emphasis of pen-and-paper games in the room. They want to create a MMO equivalent of the essential D&D experience, without the limitations of the D&D rules. Artificial numeric character qualities, such as level, seem to be purposefully being gotten rid of; in favor of the real, experience and collection based qualities. How this all works out remains to be seen, but it is an incredible goal if they can pull it off.
More coverage? Coming up:
http://www.destructoid.com/soe-live-everquest-next-shocker-two-eq-games-cometh-259254.phtml
Another fun note from today, the topic of roleplaying came up, and a player asked if their character could follow a deity. The designers said, 'that is up to you.' In essence, you, as a player make choices in the world, to steal or be honest; be trusting or untrustworthy, or any other number of hidden virtues the game tracks for your character. If your character's values align with the deity's values, or any other number of NPC groups - that group will be act favorable to you. In essence, you have to play the game according to the values your character holds dear. You can't brazenly steal from the villagers in game for loot and giggles, and then go 'roleplay' a kind and gentle follower of the love goddess. The love goddess' NPC will hate you, and you won't be welcome in the village. It's put up or shut up time for roleplayers, and that is a very cool thing.
This is getting closer and closer to the goal of having an invisible dungeon master working behind the scenes of the game to make it different, interactive, and a unique experience for every player - given the individual player's actions. They keep talking about some sort of AI story engine working behind the scenes that alters play depending on what is going on in the world, based on the actions of the population. Also, your individual reputation is tracked, and your actions have consequences - you can become the enemy to groups in the world, and your character can become kill-on-sight to any of the factions in the game. This is really, really close to a DM - and I suspect the designers are programming the game with this invisible DM in mind and working behind the scenes.
If the players do not help a village, and let it fall to the Orcs - a bunch of cool stuff happens. Villagers stop tending fields, and stop going out onto the streets. The level of fear increases, and shops could close. The village could become an abandoned ruins. All this can happen anywhere in the world, and the outcome is unique to every server. A truely dynamic game world run by an electronic DM? I think this team is very, very close. This game just may well be the first serious AI DM the world sees.
We had some great technical sessions today about the voxel engine, being able to flood caves by tunneling under a lake, the destructibility and physics of the world, how the voxels smooth out, particle effects, constructing walls and buildings realistically (dirt inside of a stone wall), and a heck of a lot of other stuff. The world is more real than any other MMO world I have seen, it's not just a shell of textured static polygons.
Again, so much comes to mind when you think about pen-and-paper games, it's going to take me a few days to sort my thoughts out. Level-less fantasy gaming? Gear-based power? Freely-respec-able characters? Collect-a-classes? Powering-up-classes? Just wow, this SOELive is a game designer's tour-De-force, just so many ideas coming out of this team it is just insane. For the EQNext team to put all of them in one game is remarkable, and I hope they are able to deliver.
If they can, it is not only a game-changer, but a world-changer for fantasy gamers.
SOE Live: Day 3, part 1
Wow, more incredible stuff today, discussions about the world, classes, lore, fiction, and the world reboot. Yes, Everquest is getting a lore-reboot. It is sort of a reboot-plus, where the designers can use the now-invalid future history to pull the storyline of the world from. They are not beholden to it, but it is there to serve as the backdrop, characters, factions, and content from which the future history will be written.
Of course, the history of each server will depend on what happens within the community, but major world events injected into the world will come from the new line of lore. I like this style of reboot, it doesn't throw too much away, while keeping things open enough that anything could happen. We still have the familiar, but what happens with this material could remain the same, change dramatically, or new stuff could be added to the world and things become fresh again.
We went to a writer's panel today featuring Maxwell Alexander Drake, a writer SOE contracted with to help write the lore and fiction for this new world. What's cool is that he is working directly with this developers and creating the written record of the game as development continues. Very cool stuff, and there will be a new line of novels and fiction to go along with the reboot. Yeah, this is a reboot done right.
This reminds me of the D&D4 '100 years later' relaunch of the Forgotten Realms, and how many gamers just hated it. I have always thought a reboot+ is what the world needed, not an advancement into the bolted-on D&D4 timeline and content. Really, the world of Faerun is defined by its cosmology, to wrench-in Eladrin and Dragonborn as party-crashers, and then rip out the planar cosmology and say "Faewild and Shadowfell are here!" just seems incredibly sloppy to me, and shows a lack of care for the creation. It hurts, since now Faerun seems like the old world with a coat of D&D4 on it, and I feel something needs to be done to fix this, honestly.
There is also more on the feedback SOE is getting from gamers, and a lot of MMO-players used to the old ways of doing things are coming out and saying negative things about the fragments of EQNext that they see. The freedom the game gives you, if they deliver on what they are promising, is immense - I mean really immense. Groups of players can change the world, and also work against each other. Every world, and its history, is different, since this is all a constructable/deconstructable sandbox. A lot of what's being said negatively seems like players wanting to go back to the safety and familiarity of the old ways, or back into the cave, as they say.
I have nothing wrong with the traditional MMO or pen-and-paper game, they are great, there are some that are well-designed and cool, but there seems to be a real desire to walk out of the light and back to the way things were done. I mean, EQNext's classes were talked about today, and they are a combination of class abilities, equipment abilities, and weapon abilties. You can multiclass two out of 40 collectible classes, and furthermore, the weapon you use and the gear you equip gives you further special abilities. You can be a paladin-mage type class, have air waking boots, and a sweep-attack halberd. You pick the abilities you want, get some through gear, and others through weapons. It is an innovative system, very cool, and something I wish we could see more of in pen-and-paper games.
Of course, the history of each server will depend on what happens within the community, but major world events injected into the world will come from the new line of lore. I like this style of reboot, it doesn't throw too much away, while keeping things open enough that anything could happen. We still have the familiar, but what happens with this material could remain the same, change dramatically, or new stuff could be added to the world and things become fresh again.
We went to a writer's panel today featuring Maxwell Alexander Drake, a writer SOE contracted with to help write the lore and fiction for this new world. What's cool is that he is working directly with this developers and creating the written record of the game as development continues. Very cool stuff, and there will be a new line of novels and fiction to go along with the reboot. Yeah, this is a reboot done right.
This reminds me of the D&D4 '100 years later' relaunch of the Forgotten Realms, and how many gamers just hated it. I have always thought a reboot+ is what the world needed, not an advancement into the bolted-on D&D4 timeline and content. Really, the world of Faerun is defined by its cosmology, to wrench-in Eladrin and Dragonborn as party-crashers, and then rip out the planar cosmology and say "Faewild and Shadowfell are here!" just seems incredibly sloppy to me, and shows a lack of care for the creation. It hurts, since now Faerun seems like the old world with a coat of D&D4 on it, and I feel something needs to be done to fix this, honestly.
There is also more on the feedback SOE is getting from gamers, and a lot of MMO-players used to the old ways of doing things are coming out and saying negative things about the fragments of EQNext that they see. The freedom the game gives you, if they deliver on what they are promising, is immense - I mean really immense. Groups of players can change the world, and also work against each other. Every world, and its history, is different, since this is all a constructable/deconstructable sandbox. A lot of what's being said negatively seems like players wanting to go back to the safety and familiarity of the old ways, or back into the cave, as they say.
I have nothing wrong with the traditional MMO or pen-and-paper game, they are great, there are some that are well-designed and cool, but there seems to be a real desire to walk out of the light and back to the way things were done. I mean, EQNext's classes were talked about today, and they are a combination of class abilities, equipment abilities, and weapon abilties. You can multiclass two out of 40 collectible classes, and furthermore, the weapon you use and the gear you equip gives you further special abilities. You can be a paladin-mage type class, have air waking boots, and a sweep-attack halberd. You pick the abilities you want, get some through gear, and others through weapons. It is an innovative system, very cool, and something I wish we could see more of in pen-and-paper games.
SOE Live: Day 2
Emergent game play is the big buzzword this year. SOE is taking the position that content created by the company is not going to sustain player interest. What SOE hopes takes its place is player-generated content, which are experiences players create inside the world, between each other.
But seriously wow. Yeah, this is the type of thinking pen-and-paper designers need to think of, getting on that whole next level of fun. Otherwise, we will be sitting here talking about the minor changes to D&D 3.752 or D&D 4.65. Worlds need to be shaken up over this, designers need to be pulled in and asked 'how do we compete?' Seriously. A shot has been fired across the bow of both MMOs and pen-and-paper games today. Nothing out there or in development in the PnP world answers this.
Pen-and-paper - step up. Otherwise, it's horse meet the automobile. Given the last 10 years of MMOs and how they have decimated PnP player bases, that statement is not far from the truth already.
Oh yeah, we got to meet Larry Elmore today too. Damn it, what an awesome day.
A good example of this is PvP, player-built houses and castles, player run events, and a world system that encourages players to compete and cooperate socially on various goals and quests. Another part of this is player submitted adventures and modules, and even 3d models and other assets.
...and then, everything changes in a moment. Check:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/08/02/everquest-next-is-real-and-its-amazing
http://kotaku.com/everquest-next-could-fix-everything-wrong-with-mmorpgs-1003801733
Yeah, we were there at the reveal. Let me get the negative side out of the way first, they are promising a heck of a lot. We all know how well that went for D&D4, but something gives me a little more faith in SoE this time.
They are leveraging the power of their fans, the die-hards, the players. The players are going to do a huge amount of work on this coming this winter, actually using the same tools the developers use, ones that will ship with the game, to create the world. The best-of-the-best will be vetted, voted, and added to the world - and I expect this to continue post-launch. There are content creation tools shipping with the game, that creators can use to build content, get it approved, and creators actually get income from sales. There is even a method if someone uses something you created to build something else, you get a royalty based on the percentage of what's yours.
Wow, this game is a mix of Minecraft, Everquest, Second Life, and something else that hasn't been invented yet. The world is never the same, it changes, cities rise and fall, the Orcs shift attention to different places, what was once a settled area is now a ruins - it kills every other static MMO in one fell swoop. The scope of what they are talking about has never been done before, but being here, up close to them, asking questions to them in panels, it seems like they know exactly what they are doing, and exactly what they can deliver. The game was running on PCs at the show, by the Devs, behind the curtains. It is live and it is real.
Okay, I am sure if you want to know more, hit the links and use the Google. Pen-and-paper wise, here was a fun swipe at D&D (and I suppose knocking the crown off D&D Next's similarly named head) of "we have all been playing something like Dungeons & Dragons for the past 35 years" - and then proceeded to cast D&D in that typical MMO light of static adventures, class-based-play, and so on. To an extent, it is true, D&D has become static and stale. The premier version of the game, Pathfinder, is based off a game system that's 13 years old. Yes, I know, tried and true; but been there, played that applies as well.
Things need to be shaken up, as game designers, watching the EQNext creative team play with their giant box of cool paints is mind-blowing, and makes you think of the possibilities you could build if you just broke yourself free from the tried-and-true D&D tropes. To an extent, D&D4 did not go far enough, and the motivation and execution lacked severely. It fell under a shelf of expansions and errata that made the game a mess. What this creative team did today was 'change the game' and yes, it applies and hits pen-and-paper games squarely in the jaw. I can't think of a reason why I would consider investing in a new pen-and-paper game compared to playing this. This isn't a game, it's participating in a shared history with thousands of players in a world that will never stay the same.
Yes, agreed, it sounds like a dream, and concerns duly noted. Half the criticisms I have read online are flat-out wrong, and we talked about these on the panels today. You will see them in the comments of the above stories, and yeah, many of those are misunderstandings due to a lack of knowledge. This is a skilled team and something cool, don't worry, they have thought of that too. The players in the panel have too.
...and then, everything changes in a moment. Check:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/08/02/everquest-next-is-real-and-its-amazing
http://kotaku.com/everquest-next-could-fix-everything-wrong-with-mmorpgs-1003801733
Yeah, we were there at the reveal. Let me get the negative side out of the way first, they are promising a heck of a lot. We all know how well that went for D&D4, but something gives me a little more faith in SoE this time.
They are leveraging the power of their fans, the die-hards, the players. The players are going to do a huge amount of work on this coming this winter, actually using the same tools the developers use, ones that will ship with the game, to create the world. The best-of-the-best will be vetted, voted, and added to the world - and I expect this to continue post-launch. There are content creation tools shipping with the game, that creators can use to build content, get it approved, and creators actually get income from sales. There is even a method if someone uses something you created to build something else, you get a royalty based on the percentage of what's yours.
Wow, this game is a mix of Minecraft, Everquest, Second Life, and something else that hasn't been invented yet. The world is never the same, it changes, cities rise and fall, the Orcs shift attention to different places, what was once a settled area is now a ruins - it kills every other static MMO in one fell swoop. The scope of what they are talking about has never been done before, but being here, up close to them, asking questions to them in panels, it seems like they know exactly what they are doing, and exactly what they can deliver. The game was running on PCs at the show, by the Devs, behind the curtains. It is live and it is real.
Okay, I am sure if you want to know more, hit the links and use the Google. Pen-and-paper wise, here was a fun swipe at D&D (and I suppose knocking the crown off D&D Next's similarly named head) of "we have all been playing something like Dungeons & Dragons for the past 35 years" - and then proceeded to cast D&D in that typical MMO light of static adventures, class-based-play, and so on. To an extent, it is true, D&D has become static and stale. The premier version of the game, Pathfinder, is based off a game system that's 13 years old. Yes, I know, tried and true; but been there, played that applies as well.
Things need to be shaken up, as game designers, watching the EQNext creative team play with their giant box of cool paints is mind-blowing, and makes you think of the possibilities you could build if you just broke yourself free from the tried-and-true D&D tropes. To an extent, D&D4 did not go far enough, and the motivation and execution lacked severely. It fell under a shelf of expansions and errata that made the game a mess. What this creative team did today was 'change the game' and yes, it applies and hits pen-and-paper games squarely in the jaw. I can't think of a reason why I would consider investing in a new pen-and-paper game compared to playing this. This isn't a game, it's participating in a shared history with thousands of players in a world that will never stay the same.
Yes, agreed, it sounds like a dream, and concerns duly noted. Half the criticisms I have read online are flat-out wrong, and we talked about these on the panels today. You will see them in the comments of the above stories, and yeah, many of those are misunderstandings due to a lack of knowledge. This is a skilled team and something cool, don't worry, they have thought of that too. The players in the panel have too.
But seriously wow. Yeah, this is the type of thinking pen-and-paper designers need to think of, getting on that whole next level of fun. Otherwise, we will be sitting here talking about the minor changes to D&D 3.752 or D&D 4.65. Worlds need to be shaken up over this, designers need to be pulled in and asked 'how do we compete?' Seriously. A shot has been fired across the bow of both MMOs and pen-and-paper games today. Nothing out there or in development in the PnP world answers this.
Pen-and-paper - step up. Otherwise, it's horse meet the automobile. Given the last 10 years of MMOs and how they have decimated PnP player bases, that statement is not far from the truth already.
Oh yeah, we got to meet Larry Elmore today too. Damn it, what an awesome day.
Friday, August 2, 2013
SOE Live: Day 1
Planetside 2 sure is the 800 lb. gorilla in the room, this convention is about 50% Planetside interest, with players from all over the world attending. By the time the keynote had rolled around to EQ1 and EQ2, we lost a good portion to the room to the PS2 tournaments and lack of interest. It is a strange shift I bet for those used to coming to the SOE conventions and having the MMO crowds be the focus of attention. Clearly, this year seems to be about Sony's mega-hit sci-fi shooter, and it feels like it is dominating the show.
EQ1 and EQ2 seem to be on longer-term support, with the focus being on recycling older content for the current high-level player base. We had a shocking moment where the air went out of the room when the EQ2 director said basically 'every player will be able to have a fully-geared level 85 character in the next expansion' - for free. No applause, and more of a stunned reaction it felt like. MMO players love their characters and cherish the investment of time put into them, so giving everybody a pocket high-level twink does a couple things: it introduces a population of low-skill players to high-level content, it devalues leveling a character the old fashioned way (since traditional character will not be raid equipped when they hit 85), and it puts a focus on new content only. Of all of those, people seem concerned about traditional leveling, and the mid-level zones may become wastelands without people to level through them.
Regarding EQ1, they introduced a dynamic mission-builder that auto-tunes a special zone to your party size and character level. This is only for the new expansion zones, and how much it auto-tunes is still undetermined. I doubt you could level from 1 to MAXLEVEL on auto-tuned content, this is still unclear. A lot of stuff comes into consideration, the needed level and gear to play these, level and challenge appropriate rewards, solo-ing, and a bunch of other stuff. It does seem, like EQ2, that most of the new content seems to be focused around maintaining the current high-level crowd than encouraging new and mid-level players to get up there and enjoy it. I wonder why a pocket-85 wasn't introduced in EQ1 when it was in EQ2.
Okay, let's consider pen-and-paper games. One thing Sony gets right is developing a game and supporting it. EQ1 is going on 15 years old, which in pen-and-paper years, comes out to a RPG like 45 years old. D&D has had this annoying history of throwing everything away, especially true in 3rd Ed, and EQ1 proves you can support a game as long as there is interest in it. Monopoly has been around a lot longer, and D&D culd be the same 'evergreen' game. If you have new ideas, build a new world with a new game.
Building a glorious persistent with lore and history is something Pathfinder gets right, and D&D fails at. D&D's rebooted 4th Ed. worlds were bitter pills to swallow and not well received (maybe Dark Sun was best out of all of them), and the 'roll your own' was a welcome change, but it seems we left Grayhawk and Faerun behind, or wallowing in unpopular changes. SOE and Everquest get this right, with a lore, current story lines, and history stretching as far back as the game itself. With pen-and-paper games, it's typical we reboot the worlds every time we get a new version, or alter them so badly they are unrecognizable or too heavy.
A fun thing said by the EQ2 director was 'we polled players and asked them, what parts of the game are annoying or not fun?' Man, I wish more pen-and-paper game designers asked that question. D&D Next has a great opportunity here to make things better, though I fear the gut reaction away from 4E may force the game back into the 2E/3E cave. Pathfinder fares even worse, because to hold the mantle of the spiritual successor to 3.5E, they have to adopt some of its worst rules, such as the skill system and complicated character stats. Innovation? Most pen-and-paper games fall way short here, and the things we saw today with some of the next-gen MMO games should put them to shame.
Really. MMOs are the enemy pen-and-paper game designers, since they play for the same crowd and attention. You tried to ape them with 4E with mixed results, and now the safe course is to hold onto 3E or go back to the tried-and-true class roles and rules (which I fear with D&DN). Where is our innovation? Where is the pen-and-paper game community's answer to Planetside 2? (Don't say Magic: The Gathering, although you could make a case there - more on this later.) Where is the long-term support for older games? Why do we need to throw so much away? Where are the new rules systems with exciting features, or will we be stuck with 3E derivatives for the next 10 years? Where is our long-term world support, with continuing stories?
Pen-and-paper companies throw to much away, and it's sad to say that MMO companies actually have better plans for support and retention. Product development too, you'd think with all that MMO companies have working against them, because PnP companies don't have to code game engines, make 3d models, build tons of content - that innovation would actually be on the PnP game side. It's not. We are stuck trying to repeat the success D&D had during it's golden years, and I am not sure if that can ever be replicated again. Computer game companies actually seem to be more innovative and willing to take risks, which is shocking, to say the least.
Maybe we are stuck to selling to the same crowd of D&D fans, it is shocking to see a ton of Planetside 2 fans here at SOE Live - but these fans are the new blood, important people to get into your world if you want your fantasy titles to thrive and survive. SOE has another game called Dragon's Prophet that looks geared towards new players as well, new rules, new goals, action-oriented combat - just cool new stuff. D&D doesn't have those new fans, it seems we are just selling the same thing to a dwindling group of players. Where are the PnP games that pull people in? Again, computer game companies are the ones attracting new players. PnP game companies need to figure out how to do that before they shrink to niche markets of older-and-older players.
Of course, you need to update your premiere franchise every-so-often, and tomorrow we get to see EQ Next. Will they innovate? Can they pull back the dwindling fantasy MMO interest with something exciting and fun? Can EQNext compete with Planetside 2? From the hardcore innovation and support I saw here, I am wondering if the pen-and-paper vs. MMO fight isn't just a one-sided affair. The most troubling part about all this is most of PnP's wounds are self-inflicted, and could be at least stemmed with proper support of existing editions and worlds, creating new games for new worlds, and marketing everything better.
There is a lot to think about, not all of it good news for PnP games; but really, I believe we need to change the PnP game for PnP RPGs to not only survive, but thrive.
EQ1 and EQ2 seem to be on longer-term support, with the focus being on recycling older content for the current high-level player base. We had a shocking moment where the air went out of the room when the EQ2 director said basically 'every player will be able to have a fully-geared level 85 character in the next expansion' - for free. No applause, and more of a stunned reaction it felt like. MMO players love their characters and cherish the investment of time put into them, so giving everybody a pocket high-level twink does a couple things: it introduces a population of low-skill players to high-level content, it devalues leveling a character the old fashioned way (since traditional character will not be raid equipped when they hit 85), and it puts a focus on new content only. Of all of those, people seem concerned about traditional leveling, and the mid-level zones may become wastelands without people to level through them.
Regarding EQ1, they introduced a dynamic mission-builder that auto-tunes a special zone to your party size and character level. This is only for the new expansion zones, and how much it auto-tunes is still undetermined. I doubt you could level from 1 to MAXLEVEL on auto-tuned content, this is still unclear. A lot of stuff comes into consideration, the needed level and gear to play these, level and challenge appropriate rewards, solo-ing, and a bunch of other stuff. It does seem, like EQ2, that most of the new content seems to be focused around maintaining the current high-level crowd than encouraging new and mid-level players to get up there and enjoy it. I wonder why a pocket-85 wasn't introduced in EQ1 when it was in EQ2.
Okay, let's consider pen-and-paper games. One thing Sony gets right is developing a game and supporting it. EQ1 is going on 15 years old, which in pen-and-paper years, comes out to a RPG like 45 years old. D&D has had this annoying history of throwing everything away, especially true in 3rd Ed, and EQ1 proves you can support a game as long as there is interest in it. Monopoly has been around a lot longer, and D&D culd be the same 'evergreen' game. If you have new ideas, build a new world with a new game.
Building a glorious persistent with lore and history is something Pathfinder gets right, and D&D fails at. D&D's rebooted 4th Ed. worlds were bitter pills to swallow and not well received (maybe Dark Sun was best out of all of them), and the 'roll your own' was a welcome change, but it seems we left Grayhawk and Faerun behind, or wallowing in unpopular changes. SOE and Everquest get this right, with a lore, current story lines, and history stretching as far back as the game itself. With pen-and-paper games, it's typical we reboot the worlds every time we get a new version, or alter them so badly they are unrecognizable or too heavy.
A fun thing said by the EQ2 director was 'we polled players and asked them, what parts of the game are annoying or not fun?' Man, I wish more pen-and-paper game designers asked that question. D&D Next has a great opportunity here to make things better, though I fear the gut reaction away from 4E may force the game back into the 2E/3E cave. Pathfinder fares even worse, because to hold the mantle of the spiritual successor to 3.5E, they have to adopt some of its worst rules, such as the skill system and complicated character stats. Innovation? Most pen-and-paper games fall way short here, and the things we saw today with some of the next-gen MMO games should put them to shame.
Really. MMOs are the enemy pen-and-paper game designers, since they play for the same crowd and attention. You tried to ape them with 4E with mixed results, and now the safe course is to hold onto 3E or go back to the tried-and-true class roles and rules (which I fear with D&DN). Where is our innovation? Where is the pen-and-paper game community's answer to Planetside 2? (Don't say Magic: The Gathering, although you could make a case there - more on this later.) Where is the long-term support for older games? Why do we need to throw so much away? Where are the new rules systems with exciting features, or will we be stuck with 3E derivatives for the next 10 years? Where is our long-term world support, with continuing stories?
Pen-and-paper companies throw to much away, and it's sad to say that MMO companies actually have better plans for support and retention. Product development too, you'd think with all that MMO companies have working against them, because PnP companies don't have to code game engines, make 3d models, build tons of content - that innovation would actually be on the PnP game side. It's not. We are stuck trying to repeat the success D&D had during it's golden years, and I am not sure if that can ever be replicated again. Computer game companies actually seem to be more innovative and willing to take risks, which is shocking, to say the least.
Maybe we are stuck to selling to the same crowd of D&D fans, it is shocking to see a ton of Planetside 2 fans here at SOE Live - but these fans are the new blood, important people to get into your world if you want your fantasy titles to thrive and survive. SOE has another game called Dragon's Prophet that looks geared towards new players as well, new rules, new goals, action-oriented combat - just cool new stuff. D&D doesn't have those new fans, it seems we are just selling the same thing to a dwindling group of players. Where are the PnP games that pull people in? Again, computer game companies are the ones attracting new players. PnP game companies need to figure out how to do that before they shrink to niche markets of older-and-older players.
Of course, you need to update your premiere franchise every-so-often, and tomorrow we get to see EQ Next. Will they innovate? Can they pull back the dwindling fantasy MMO interest with something exciting and fun? Can EQNext compete with Planetside 2? From the hardcore innovation and support I saw here, I am wondering if the pen-and-paper vs. MMO fight isn't just a one-sided affair. The most troubling part about all this is most of PnP's wounds are self-inflicted, and could be at least stemmed with proper support of existing editions and worlds, creating new games for new worlds, and marketing everything better.
There is a lot to think about, not all of it good news for PnP games; but really, I believe we need to change the PnP game for PnP RPGs to not only survive, but thrive.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
SOE Live: Day 0
Oh yeah, George and myself are down here at SoELive 2013, where we are having a blast, and tired from the trip. Getting together with gamers, either pen-and-paper or MMO is always a cool thing, and sharing ideas and creativity is always cool. You can feel the excitement rising here, with Friday's EQNext premiere and a whole host of seminars coming up that will take us through the weekend. There is a ton the experience and learn, everything from how to manage an MMO to setting up a successful Youtube channel, creating MMO quests, and a bunch of other very cool stuff that has lots of applications to the pen-and-paper world.
Come back for daily reports on what we did and saw, and we may fill you in on some very cool stuff. Tonight, it was all about chasing SoE peeps on Facebook around Planet Hollywood, getting a bite to eat, and getting some rest for the big days coming up. Oh, and yeah, getting the luggage into the room. I swear this hotel has the longest walk from your car to your room, and carrying 50 pounds of luggage is not fun at all. Especially when you are walking through a mall, and you don't want to drag your suitcase through a crowd, or clock some guy with a Samsonite when you turn a corner. The things we do for you guys I swear....
Come back for daily reports on what we did and saw, and we may fill you in on some very cool stuff. Tonight, it was all about chasing SoE peeps on Facebook around Planet Hollywood, getting a bite to eat, and getting some rest for the big days coming up. Oh, and yeah, getting the luggage into the room. I swear this hotel has the longest walk from your car to your room, and carrying 50 pounds of luggage is not fun at all. Especially when you are walking through a mall, and you don't want to drag your suitcase through a crowd, or clock some guy with a Samsonite when you turn a corner. The things we do for you guys I swear....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)