I found this on EQ2's forums and found it interesting.


Well unintended but very interesting is the explosion started at Gamergod.com from an innocent article, well written and the catalist of this giant debate. Something I'm sure EQ2 players here know well.

Is Instancing a good or bad thing?

Here's some big opinions:

Original Article:
http://www.gamergod.com/article.php?article_id=2917 (http://www.gamergod.com/article.php?article_id=2917)
Brad McQuaid:
http://www.gamergod.com/article.php?article_id=2933 (http://www.gamergod.com/article.php?article_id=2933)
Raph Koster:
http://www.gamergod.com/article.php?article_id=2954 (http://www.gamergod.com/article.php?article_id=2954)
Lum the Mad:
http://www.gamergod.com/article.php?article_id=2956 (http://www.gamergod.com/article.php?article_id=2956)
The community:
http://www.gamergod.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6525 (http://www.gamergod.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6525)

What do you think? Has EQ2 Instance zones made your game more enjoyable or less?

http://www.gamergod.com

http://eq2.gamergod.com

"your one stop gaming site!"

The biggest "for" was the allusion to old-school D&D, that it was basicly you, a couple of your friends, and the GM. Instances are like that.

I'm in favor of some instanced content, and some "contested" content. But I was never fond of the cockblocking that gatekeeping contested content presented. As the number of events in the game continues to grow (and as populations continue to dwindle), it's less and less of a big deal. A guild coming up now doesn't have to worry about European Uberguild-X killing every Trakanon, Cazic Thule, Vindicator, Ylenak, and PoP god before they wake up or get off work.

I'm in favor of some instanced content, and some "contested" content. But I was never fond of the cockblocking that gatekeeping contested content presented.

Definitely agree with this position, seeing that the people who are paying subscription fees to play should not be denied the ability to see most of the game, and especially not so that some *Uber* guild can complete it's alt-equipping adventures.

Instances have allowed many to see parts of the game that they might not have had opportunity to otherwise. Those that have only limited time to play each week can still experience high-end content via instancing; it just might take a longer period before they get there, compared to the hard-core.

When the instancing started I actually liked EQ more so than before. I do however like a little bit of both for the fun factor. Instanced zones really ended a lot of competition but set a new competition...see how many times you can help guild mates through single instanced zones for some stupid ass part for progression. Nothing like burning out clerics and tanks during the early days of GOD and those stupid little trials that eventually became very trivial..only after many quit the game.

Monster Missions - to some extent, help reduce the "holy trinity" EQ problem. I dislike them, in general, but have been in the habbit of helping guildmates through things like 70.3 - because it's easier if someone knows what to do. [Yes, it's very easy, but easier still if someone spoon feeds it to you.]

Some instanced content is good. PoJ trials in early PoP would have been a LOT different if instancing is around. On the other hand, while it was boring waiting around in lines - look where you were... waist-deep in a pool of dedicated players. It's that feeling of 'community' that instancing can't compete with.

What I dislike is the trend of instancing being the default. This is a MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER online game. The more instanced content you have, the more disconnected you are with that 'big' world where you see everyone in passing. About the only place that happens anymore is PoK.

More and more I see the 'days of old' withering away. While zones like MPG and RSS are still popular for max-level players, Norrath is a big place and the playerbase is already too spread out. The last thing we need is for instancing (or heaven forbid, Monster Missions) to become the new 'default' for experience content.

While it might not have been fun to be clearing towards Oreen in BoT only to have Ezen leapfrog you and solo him with a charmed pet, instancing takes us away from what brought us to the EQ world - interacting with other people.

I think Jazya hit it right on the head.

I believe as time goes by, MMO's will have a few different types of people attracted to them. Some that want casual easier content will have games that are made for them. (WoW comes to mind.) That isnt a slam on those guys, as adults some people can only put X-amount of hours a week into a game. There should be games made so the content should be on par with the amount of play time available.

I like the emmersion aspect of the MMO's I want a linier game that everyone is a part of good and bad. Even though I probably wont play more than 20 hours a week I dont mind falling behind. The sense of community was SO much more back in the first several years of EQ. Sometimes you hated people sometimes they came to your rescue. I remember having TONS of names I knew instantly. I think the instancing thing has really eaten away at that. I played WoW and I couldnt tell you one single name I remember other than those that I played EQ with that also played WoW.

There are a lot of people out there that feel that since they pay the same $ amount a month they should be intitled to the same "rewards" I can empethize with that, however I dont agree with that. I remember when everyone on the server knew Sithgear.. because he had the good stuff. Or a bit later everyone knew Davan.. same reason. I dont like the idea of there being 100 top dog warriors. I liked looking at someone with the good stuff and thinking oh man someday maybe I will have that. Instancing in my mind makes it too easy to get the top gear. *Note* I said I wont be a hard core player in any game again, I just have too much RL to deal with to go there. So I wont be the guy with the top gear. But I still like the gear being damn hard to get.

Sadin you are right. It is nice to save someone and rescue them. Off topic a bit: EQ2 took that away. One of the aspects of the game I did not like. I cant walk up to group that is wiping and help them really. Being a cleric I am the rescue type too.

Instanced zones you only have to deal with the group at hand. When you are the in the land of "all" you can at some point or another be involved with someone IE. the all famous "trains". lol You can always learn about the character of the person behind the toon when there are situations brought about just being in the area of other people. A part of the game that makes it fun. Many things people talk about "the good days" usually some occurance that involved some dispute or event with people outside of their group. lol

I don't mind some instanced but to make it mostly that...no way.

I think both, seperate and mixed together, have thier place in the MMO genre.

Each of the three ends up breeding three distinctly different communities among players.

Completly contested spawns means that the playerbase tends to be closer together, in larger groups, as it benefits them to support one another so they even have the oppurtunity to advance.

There havn't been any large games recently that had a well formed hybrid experience(well, I know EQ might of, but I can't speak from experience as I havn't touched it since the end of PoP).
Ideally it should be a mixture that allows both a fond community element without fully alienating the casual community.

And fully instanced content, is geared towards the mass-market and the casual, who like to play on thier own terms, and it shows in the community. Fully instanced games tend to have very disparse communities because you can play through the entire game with your small circle of friends and never have to be exposed to outside elements.

All three have thier places in the gaming world, WoW is popular because it has mass-market appeal to many people who wouldn't play MMOs otherwise.
Games like FFXI have a more niche market appeal, but cater to the exceptionally "hardcore" players who like to compete for spawns and play 10hour sessions.
Vanguard is also supposedly going in this direction, though VSOH reminds me alot more of UO then anything else.

I think instanced content will be more prevalient in the future, simply because easier more convient content means more mass appeal, meaning more customers.

Contested spawns will still have thier niche market.

Neither is inheritley better then another, its totally a matter of your personal preferance and taste.

(Like I'm the type of gamer who likes to play everything on the hardest setting without so much as reading the manual for a clue as to what I'm doing, because I adore challenging myself. On the otherhand, someone like my brother, simply likes to get on, play for 30min to kill some time, and quit. Both have thier places in the world, and thier associated markets to cater to).

No to instancing above a small group "dungeon" level encounter.

The game was more exciting, the community never more "in touch" than it was when we had to deal with one another daily.

Fandros

I am all for non instanced zones as long as the boss mobs actually spawned more than once every 7 days and at very random times...especially key mobs needed for progression not necessarily uber loot dropping mobs. Waiting around for a mob that is needed for progression only to find out it spawned and was killed before the working (or school) player was home..fucking sucked balls.

Fully competative MMORPG content provides:
1> Content with high RvR is consumed first. But content with too-high RvR gets competed over, and it doesn't impact the game as much as if everyone could do this.

This means that "optimal content" doesn't dominate the game as much. A problem results when the "optimal content" is so much more optimal than the rest of the content that it becomes optimal to fight over or queue up for the "optimal content" rather than enjoy the game elsewhere.

This happens when the designers "misbalance" content and make the reward for some content way out of scale. jBoots where ridiculously powerful in original EQ. Getting through PoJ trials generated ridiculously better item and XP rewards.

When something like this happens with content competition, queues and hate between players form.

When something like this happens with no content competition, the content is used by many people at once, and a huge amount of rewards floods into the game in a short period of time. The Monster Mission tricks, doing the same easy Creator mission, doing the same easy LDoN mission, guilds staying in and farming Time for months upon months until they finally beat 2 expansions and the rewards become (finally) not worth the farming, etc.

So competative MMORPG design slows down the speed at which extremely "high reward" content changes the game, because the reward can only trickle into the game at a certain rate. Meanwhile, non-competative content reward flows into the game at a rate roughly purportional to how "high reward" the content is.

2> The joy of victory and the bitterness of defeat. Some people liked races and the like. Races where problably a good thing for many players -- the big problem was, with multi-day spawns the races reduced to timezone battles rather than races.

3> A world-feel. The other players are there competing with you, instead of somehow isolated. Also, I don't know of a way to eliminate content competition that isn't "game-like" as opposed to "world-like".


Point <1> can be delt with, to a certain extent, by giving content more dynamic rewards.

LDoN/DoN content should have extra bonus XP rewards for:
1> Doing an an adventure you haven't done recently.
2> Doing an adventure someone in your group hasn't done recently.
3> Doing an adventure that is less often played on your server.
4> Doing an adventure that is less often played across servers.
5> The same for "types of" adventures and "zones of" adventures (in LDoN)

or, equivilently, penalties for doing the same adventure often, or doing the same adventure that everyone else is doing on your server, or server-wide.

Content that is too rewarding then becomes less rewarding, while less rewarding content becomes more rewarding, as the reward changes based off player behaviour. This avoids the "let's repeat creator" all day syndrom.

2 and 3 are tricker without instance-like content (or vangaurd golden-mobs).

Point <1> can be delt with, to a certain extent, by giving content more dynamic rewards.

LDoN/DoN content should have extra bonus XP rewards for:
1> Doing an an adventure you haven't done recently.
2> Doing an adventure someone in your group hasn't done recently.
3> Doing an adventure that is less often played on your server.
4> Doing an adventure that is less often played across servers.
5> The same for "types of" adventures and "zones of" adventures (in LDoN)





These are good ideas and the first 2 I always wondered why SoE didn't implement. My god I can remember spending minutes at a time in groups where people would click through every single LDON offered until the collect X of this one would pop up.

Oh, absolutely. I think I've already mentioned how tired I am of people farming the SAME missions over and over. I often find myself stuck inbetween. I can't quite power-game any longer with my work/home schedule, but I'm not going to farm the lowest easy XP available to me either. So the people who finish every mission in the expansion get me for a few of them, then I find myself trying to drag people out of their little comfort zone to come with me to something challenging.

I have to say that I am not a fan of instancing. Personally if you want to play a game where you can do everything alone or with just a couple of people you should be playing something besides an MMORPG.

As noted in some of the posts above, having content available to most of the playerbase and finding a way around blocking content by killing mobs needed for advancement seem to be the two largest arguments in favor of instancing. We've all seen how frustrating it can be to people when their ability to advance in game isn't determined by how capable they are, but by their time zone or another group of players.

One adjustment that I've seen made is having "quest" mobs not drop any loot. While this is good for taking away some of the reasons to kill those mobs, I'm sure if the mobs were crucial for key access to a contested high level zone, we'd see guilds killing them to prevent advancement.

I think there is a happy medium of open content and instancing to be had, but I'm not sure any game has hit it as well as they could have. To be successful, games have to appeal to a wide audience so the player base is large and revenues are good. However, hand in hand with a large playerbase comes a diversity of thoughts regarding "how the game should be played." Some people want to play hardcore, some people will want a more casual game experience, but *all* of the people want access to *all* of the content.

Instancing doesn't have to mean shutting yourselves in a world within a world. For example, a mob could have a fast respawn time (say, four hours) *but* have a lockout so that if you've killed it you have to wait a week before killing it again. In that manner, the content is available to many groups of people but it can't be farmed. While not exactly a true instance, it seems a balance between the two extremes.

I honestly have to say the biggest thing I miss now a days in EQ is the thrill of the race!

guildie_01 "OMG AoW is up! Everyone to Kael ASAP!"
guildie_02 "I see 5 [insert other guild] in the zone, they might be OTM!"
5 mins later
/who all guild
.... 35 members
/Who all [insert other guild]
.... 30 members in the zone
guildie_01 "Buff up and lets rock!!"

It even had guilds trying hard targets with low numbers just attempting to kill X Mob before another guild got em. It really advanced players to play to the best of their abilities, but of course with that came cockblocking, arguing, and even guildwars! Now a days you can start the instance once you have a full raid force, dont have to race anyone, or attempt targets with low numbers, etc....

I also agree that more and more the game changes to instancing, the less and less I talk others outside the guild. I think if there was an even balance of both that would be nice, have some "static" content and some instanced content, requiring a little of each to advance.

If you want to make a guild wait 1 week between attempts at a "key mob", have it Death Touch anyone who re-engages the mob within a week. ("The Avatar of War says "I have already defeated you LAEYAKK." You take 300,000 points of damage.")

Then give it a 2 hour respawn.

Alot like instancing, but without the "pocket universe".

The race can be fun -- sadly, it reduces to "who is online first". Being in a time zone with

A> A large "gap" of time before it to build up spawns
and
B> Enough players to hit the targets

makes such a huge difference it isn't funny. The PST problem -- if you get off work at 5 pm PST, there is pretty much no chance that any long-respawn contested mob will be up. Someone who gets off work at 5 pm EST has a decent chance (the atlantic gap). Someone who gets off work at 5 pm GMT has a huge chance (the east-of-europe, west-of-korea gap). Someone who gets off at 5 pm Japan/Aus time has a ridiculously huge chance (the pacific gap).

One could tweak this by making mobs spawn chance purportional to the number of players online and active at that time (reducing the benefits that the large gaps before your time zone grant). So mobs would spawn when people where online, making races more likely and time-zone advantage less important.

It's not just about who can get there first tho. You have to be able to develop the tactics quick enough to accomplish said goals.

That and the race made the game imho.

Fandros

That is pretty much the crux of the issue. How do you balance the needs of people who think racing to a target is fun against those who think it is the worst thing ever?

The short answer is that you just can't do it.

personally thats what made eq fun, people who hated racing to stuff didnt play. i dont want to be in a guild with people who arent dedicated, its what community interweaving is, its what made us all so close to hate/love eachother.

People can be dedicated (want to see all of the content, have the best gear, play with skill, work well as a team, etc.) and simply not have the time to sink 45 hours into a game every week.

Someone said you could put in some code that would not allow a player to re-engage a previously killed mob for *lets call it a week* So that your guild can only kill said mob so often. Doing it this way allows other guilds the chance to kill the mob without a pocket universe.

While I agree that sounds good, but it only adresses half the problem. It would certainly make the competition for the mob less of a problem, but it would make the mob drops far less desirable (depending on how you look at it)

The mob was only supposed to spawn once a week, so 52 times a year (except for patches and what not) The mob drops Uber Item X. Making that item Super cool to have. When you see someone with that item,, you are jealous or envious. Your drive to win the encounter is stronger, your competitive nature kicks in.

By limiting the number of times ONE guild can kill the mob but not all guilds killing the mob, it makes the goal of having X amount of a certain item per server per year pointless. If every guild can kill AoW once every two hours and then wait a week, you can still have AoW die up to 10 times a week. So 10x the itemization from AoW is spread through the world.

I am not interested in having individual guild lines to the top of the content. In other words, the type of system described above would allow 10 guilds to be doing the same top end content. I understand that might be more fair, but I still think it takes away from the game. Having the game only able to support a few guilds at each level near the top brings about competition. Competition adds a dynamic to the community that should not be over looked. I realise it also brings frustration, but believe it or not frustration also adds a dynamic to the game that feeds the community.

I realise my logic doesnt work on some people and they are entitled to thier opinions. There will be a lot of people that see exactly what I call a negetive as a positive in thier opinion. These people feel they should all get what loot they want reguardless of who else got the loot. More is better kind of view. But IMHO, more is definately not better. survival of the fittest is best IMO. When you have 2 guilds at the top, and 5 guilds after them all competing to get items you open up a community situation. Greed, Jealousy, desire, frustration, are all part of the human condition. Keeping itemization lower fuels that and in turn fuels peoples competitive nature, witch fuels the community.

Instancing does exactly the oposite, it allows there to be 100 top geared Necros, or warriors per server with 1000 almost as well geared. Instead of 10 top necros or 5 top warriors per server with 100 in the ball park. Witch effectively kills all the above mentioned emotions of the human condition.

Dont get me wrong, I will never be a hard core player again. I will never be the "Top geared warrior" so to speak. But I definately believe nobody is entitled to every piece of every game simply because they play it. I cannot and will not understand the guy that plays 10 hours a week feeling he isnt getting his money's worth because he cant have the gear of the guy playing 100 hours a week. (I fit into the category of working class also. I work 60 hours a week, I will NOT be putting in huge play time and be able to keep my job) I wish I could be 16 living with mom playing video games all day every day, but I cant. That does NOT make me entitled to all the stuff that they are able to get though.

To me instancing is all about catering to the whinners. (dont get me wrong games need to find a way to not allow cock blocking, but I will take that negetive over the negetives associated with instancing any day) Instancing ruined EQ IMO, and the instancing I have been a part of in other games seems to work fine on the outside. But I have yet to see a game that is instance oriented have a community that is even vaguely close to what eq once had. I will concede that maybe those games had issues that were not instance related,, IE: dumbed down content, or not enough content. But somehow I feel the instancing is a major factor to them.

Khondor

The most narrow veiw one could take on this is: Are we playing a game or a poverty simulator? Of course, that view isn't fair.


The mob was only supposed to spawn once a week, so 52 times a year (except for patches and what not) The mob drops Uber Item X. Making that item Super cool to have. When you see someone with that item,, you are jealous or envious. Your drive to win the encounter is stronger, your competitive nature kicks in

They could also set the loot tables so that the first group of people to kill a mob gets server artifact gear that would only drop *once*. Hell, maybe even one piece for each archetype- but only the first time.

There are many ways to address the problem, but no one of them is going to please everyone.

Of course, the threads that have spawned in these forums are a testament to the interaction promoted by contested mobs.

If SSRA, VT, ToV, POP and EP, Veeshans, Seb, etc, were all instanced, this board and EQ would have never have had this amount of participation.

The most narrow veiw one could take on this is: Are we playing a game or a poverty simulator? Of course, that view isn't fair.

The above quote was in response to the following quote

The mob was only supposed to spawn once a week, so 52 times a year (except for patches and what not) The mob drops Uber Item X. Making that item Super cool to have. When you see someone with that item,, you are jealous or envious. Your drive to win the encounter is stronger, your competitive nature kicks in

I never once said the 52 times per year was the correct amount of times it "should" have spawned. What I said if you have read my entire post was, that 520 times per year was clearly too many times for it to spawn.. (IE: 52 BoC's on a server may or may not be too many, but 520 BoC's on a server per year is definately too many IMO.)

Your Further response to the above quote was : They could also set the loot tables so that the first group of people to kill a mob gets server artifact gear that would only drop *once*. Hell, maybe even one piece for each archetype- but only the first time.

isnt that taking my original msg just a wee bit far? I mean think about it.... expand my view on it so its not so narrow minded...


Call me narrow minded all you want, all I was saying is that using the previously mentioned "fix" (you would have to read my whole post to know what I am referring to) would devalue item drops. There by devalueing RvR, there by making the competition factor null and void, thereby lowering the effect on the +community side. (the effect on the -community side would be large, why even care that anyone has the BoC? looks like everyone has it!)

I think the more narrowminded view is the one that thinks "I" should have what ever "I" want, and "You" (being the game dev's) should not limit "my" chances at it by Limmiting the amount of opportunities "I" have to obtain it.

I also said in my post, that I believe others have a different opinion than my own. I stand by that and I dont mind hearing other opinions. But dont call me narrowminded when its clear that the more narrow minded view isnt coming from me.

Bylimet said Of course, the threads that have spawned in these forums are a testament to the interaction promoted by contested mobs.

If SSRA, VT, ToV, POP and EP, Veeshans, Seb, etc, were all instanced, this board and EQ would have never have had this amount of participation.



I could not have said it better.... +community comes from this. Notice since now most everything is instanced there is almost no real traffic on these msg boards anylonger.. coincidence? I think not... :-)

Well, has anyone noticed even the boards are a tad bit dry these days compared to just a few years ago? There are quite a few good posts on occasion, but almost none that were like they used to be. Don't have many of the good, fun posts that we used to have and debate over like the LS/CB thread and the buyza posts....Miss those days :(
As for EQ1, i don't really play it too much except evey now and then, so i'm not really that qualified to comment on the current state of the game. Personally, i think EQ has catered too much for the "I want it now" crowd, who want all the best stuff but don't want to work for it. Same goes for WoW imho.
(WoW is really fun for awhile, but it seems more like a single player game with a multiplayer element attached to it to me)
I mentioned in an earlier thread that we don't have that same feeling that we used to have in EQ. There was a time when you or your guild/group could walk into an area and you knew people looked up to you and ooohed and aaahed because you were the best or close to it. Now, with all the games trying to cater to everyone, it's pretty much made the experience stale and boring after awhile.
Although i did like doing the AoW of war with like 3 groups and winning. :p

I do have to agree with EvE online tho, It's a hard game to get started in, but gets alot better once you establish yourself.
Anyhow, just my 2 cp

I also said in my post, that I believe others have a different opinion than my own. I stand by that and I dont mind hearing other opinions. But dont call me narrowminded when its clear that the more narrow minded view isnt coming from me.
I never called you narrow minded, and I *did* read your whole post. What I meant when I said "is it a game or a poverty simulator" is that the most radical views on the issue seem to fall into those narrow lines- some feel that there should be an element of poverty in a game (only certain people can have the "best" gear) and others think that anyone should be able to enjoy all of the content in a game (the entitlement view). I also said that boiling the argument down in such a simple manner isn't really fair- there are more variables in play than just "I want to play the game my way!" and the best way to make both camps happy is to find a solution somewhere in the middle. Why?

We're not going to be able to find a common ground between people with dissenting opinions regarding instancing that will make both of the camps happy. Instead, we should try to find some way to find a solution both groups can enjoy (or, at the very least, tolerate). The original articles linked to some interesting ideas and thoughts regarding the whole issue, and the writers in those pieces have a lot more credibility than I do on the issue. However, even they seem to intimate that the two camps are perhaps, at their roots, exclusive to each other.

The rest of my post was simply expounding at ways to strike some kind of balance between the the entitlement camp and the rarity camp. Latching onto your idea of the "prestige" of certain items being what appeals to people, then my solution:
They could also set the loot tables so that the first group of people to kill a mob gets server artifact gear that would only drop *once*. Hell, maybe even one piece for each archetype- but only the first time.
would be the ultimate way to ensure that. It need not even be regular type of equipment. Perhaps certain unique kinds of steeds (a flying dragon mount, anyone?) or other nifty items would provide more "wow" power in such an example than a sword that will be outdated in an expansion or two.

You need a mix of both, especially in the higher end game. Open content is good for the smaller group things, building community. Without it in the highend though, unless you have an unrealistic amount of content, it all becomes who can cockblock, grief, and get on the earliest along become just as important as actually being able to kill the thing. Griefing and denying other people of the game's content shouldn't be encouraged. Put a few things out in the open, for people who have to have the race, and put the majority of raids in instances. And give some sort of reward for doing things 'first'. That way you can still have your races without worrying about catching up.

Oh boy yeah, wanting to try a raid boss, but not being able to because *insert uber guild here* had done it 300 times and wants to farm it for a few items, and will do anything it takes(honorable or not) to do so is real fun.

Uber item rarity should depend on difficulty+time investment. With enough content and item progression, I don't see why that would be a problem. Instead of the uber guild being stuck and farming gear they mostly don't need, doing their best to make sure no one else gets near them and takes away kill chances, they would move on to the next level, tier, whatever ya want to call it. See velious for a small example of that. Dwarf--->Giant/dragon--->NToV. You mostly geared up and moved on. The people who are good move on quicker. This is where WoW has one of its problems. It's like the end of an expansion every couple months, everyone geared the same way doing the same stuff. Having the rare stuff shouldn't mean "my guild can gather and run to a target the fastest", nor should it be "my guild got lucky with rare drops, "(legendary items in WoW) it should be "my guild can kill some badass shit." Developers just need to figure out another way to deal with the Epeen "I'm better than you" factor that is so important to some people.

WoW is an example of too much instancing. But that is only one of various factors dealing with its lessened community. The ease of leveling up is much more of a problem than that for example.

Putting in good world pvp would certainly help build community as well. See: Eve Online. People bitching because they were destroyed is a hell of a lot better than bitching because some jackass guild vultured something they were clearing for.

*edit* added a paragraph

I'm with all the people who say that instancing is bad for the community and game.

All the best times I had in EQ never involved an instanced zone. It was always VT, Ssra and ToV. The lack of role-playing in PoP (yeah... I'm seeing those Froglok Clerics killing Mithaniel Marr being practical) and the complete and utter break with the game background in GoD and later really killed the game for me.

The game switched from a 'good strategy, good players' methodology to a "If your tank has enough gear and the raid has enough Clerics, you're good' game. This was caused by the large jumps in gear stats between Vellious and Luclin, then the addition of augments in LDoN. When you go from gear having +35 hp at most on uber gear to upwards of 90-125hp per piece, it's going to break a lot of content, particularly the older content. The jump from Luclin to PoP was nearly as bad with gear, boosting from that 90-125hp per piece to upwards of 200hp per piece (same approximate numerical increase per piece).

This wasn't terminal, but when combined with instanced adventures and content that was pretty much ubers only (GoD and EPs), you ended up with large portions of the community separating itself completely from the rest of the community. This only got worse as more and more of the game content became either trivialized by easier content that granted better drops or instanced and resulting in people largely only associating with their guildies.

I don't think that this will be fixed by eliminating instances entirely, though it will help quite a bit. Some people hate the tiering of guilds, but it allows those who want to be 'ultra-uber' to do that and go after the highest end content and those who want to be more casual to do that. Guilds progress through content and compete with each-other. Someone who wants to take the step to the next level will join the 'next' guild in line or possibly the guild one step up from them. You know people in all the guilds that are at the same point in progression as you are and you are, guilds gain reputations, both good and bad, as do players. When everything separates, you don't see enough of other guilds to even know who the players are, let alone know whether they 'cock block' or 'leapfrog'. Of course, that fact means that they won't hesitate doing so in those few instances where it's possible because nobody cares what anyone else thinks.

The game switched from a 'good strategy, good players' methodology to a "If your tank has enough gear and the raid has enough Clerics, you're good' game.
Yes, and with modern scripted encounters, to a large degree it has shifted away from that again. Sure, having several solid tanks and a bunch of clerics is still important, but there's a LOT more to it these days.

I'd even go so far as to say that overall strategy and execution by the entire raid is more important than it ever has been.

Yes, and with modern scripted encounters, to a large degree it has shifted away from that again. Sure, having several solid tanks and a bunch of clerics is still important, but there's a LOT more to it these days.

I'd even go so far as to say that overall strategy and execution by the entire raid is more important than it ever has been.


You may be right. I generally have one metric for whether an encounter is designed well or not: If the tank dies (Cleric goes LD or whatever), is the raid a guaranteed wipe or will quick action by someone else be able to save the raid? IME, in EPs and further, once the tank died, things were pretty much over. Some people would say that this required more skill, I just say that it requires more paranoia.

Actually I have to say that there are few encounters that you can even do with different strategies nowadays because of the extreme DPS on the people taking the damage, which means that you have to use the 'required' strategy and the quality of your players (beyond being able to take care of the issue at hand) is relatively irrelevant.

Unfortunately, once the game got more and more instanced, looking back, the more it got like WoW (where tank death = raid wipe). Seb, LGuk, these were well designed dungeons. I liked the encounter scripts in EPs and even a little bit in lower-end PoP. But when all encounters are scripted... well, I guess I just like my dumb encounters like Aten Ha Ra, Emperor Ssra and the Dragons in NToV or even AoW/Tormax/Vindi in Kael. It took something to get to them, you had to know how to pull, your guild had to work together and if someone screwed up, you weren't on a CR automatically. There was the potential in any of those places where a single person screwing up (dying, etc...) could be fatal to the raid, but in every situation, someone stepping up and excelling (you know, those people who were always *on*) could save the day very easily.

There's no reason to say things like "All right, keep your eyes open" in modern raid encounters, it's more like "Remember, you screw up and we're running".

It is just my opinion, but from everything I've heard (yes, haven't played EQ since shortly after OoW came out), that's kinda how it's been going.

BTW, read some of Brad McQuaid's response and it hit me: OMG, he thinks everyone else are morons... he is going to overexplain everything to us as if we were children.

I sincerely hope that nobody else required that much explanation of the gaming (and MMOG) industry. I think my mom would have understood the industry and the genre (MMOs) after that much explanation. It's like he's explaining everything to his financial backers (who never know anything about the product that they're backing other than what the people who are doing the actual work tell them) instead of posting the information to actual gamers... then again, that was posted on his forums. Maybe he put it on there for the sake of Microsoft.

The greatest part was when he was numbering and labeling things that didn't need to be numbered and labeled. It's like he took a "building reports 101" class and now writes all his essays in a similar format by rote instead of because it's appropriate to the discussion.