Ok, we take pot-shots and argue all day long with one another, but I had a thought just now that I think future game makers really need to think about. It is something that I don't think Verant/SOE did at all. Maybe right now it's beginning to creep into their consciousness and enough people are making a stink about it it might be filtering in... maybe. I don't blame them, they were new, the industry was new, but this is something I hope the industry learns:

Who do you build the game for, casual players or hardcore gamers?

And then, when you decide, you stick to it. You don't try to build a game for both because I don't think you can satisfy both audiences.

I think any of the new games coming out, if they don't take this into consideration are either going to cater to one group over the other and there will be the sort of squabbling that currently goes on over EverQuest about who gets what content.

So decide who your target audience is and friggin' stick to it as the game matures!

I think the problem is two-fold.

Casual gamers are the ones who will stick with a game for years. I have friends who played EQ a few hours a week for 4 years and were just getting into the high 50ish range. And they enjoy the game, they enjoy hanging out with friends, etc. It's been tougher since PoP and several have quit because of flagging issues etc.

Hard core gamers will burn through all the content they can and then when a better game comes out, they'll switch to it. The problem is, in EQ's example, there hasn't been anything better come along yet. Contenders haven't taken off in such a way to make the hard core gamers switch, and Sony keeps releasing expansions to keep them playing EQ so they have more content to burn through.

I think the game designers need to make their games be able to cater to both crowds. It's a very fine line and EQ hasn't always succeeded, but for the most part they've done it fairly well. Look at all the low level content that is available and look at all the changes in the past year or so to help out people under 50. These help the casual gamer not get so frustrated that they quit playing. But the new high level content keeps the hard core people playing as well.

I have no doubt that the hard core gamers get the most attention from Sony, as they are the ones "pushing the envelope" so to speak and they are usually the most vocal of the two crowds. But I think it's safe to say that up until PoP there was quite a large crowd of casual gamers in EQ. I was one of them, only able to play ~10 hours per week the last year of my EQ life. PoP (along with a bunch of nerfs all at once) killed that desire to play more than the powergamer group ever did.

Pana doesn't want to play wif me anymore? :(

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Who do you build the game for, casual players or hardcore gamers? [/quote]

You can build it for either, but you'll still get both. :)

The more difficult question is:
How do you destinguish between casual and hardcore gamers?

I believe the majority of "casual" players in Everquest are lumped into that category mainly because they're in the 'middle class' population of characters who aren't involved in the highest-end content and aren't in guilds which focus their energies on raiding and high-level progression.

I think you might discover that a lot of these people, many of whom would even classify themselves as casual... actually play for 3+ hours per day, 6-7 days per week.

If your neighbor spent the <strong><em>same</em></strong> amount of time every day and every week building model cars, wouldn't you consider him/her a fairly hardcore enthusiast?

On a more socio-economic note, I believe many hardcore players would lose interest in being the 'upper class' of the game's population without the existence of their 'lower-' and 'middle class' counterparts. That isn't a criticism, really, just an aspect of human nature which is going to be reflected to some extent in any society, virtual or real.

~Firemynd

You can play in my garden, Stormy! I'm hardcore on gardening. :) Now don't read that wrong.

See, here's what I think. SOE puts in all these breakers for the hard-core folks. The incredible flagging requirements, the horrible key camps, etc. If they didn't PoP would have been consumed in a month by the raiders.

You put those same requirements in front of casuals and they aren't slowed down, they're stopped. Two different audiences, two entirely different needs. It's like there are two totally different games in EverQuest.

So now, 9 months after PoP comes out, who is out of content? The hardest of the hard cores are. There's a ton of content that casuals still can't consume because they aren't playing the same game hard cores are. Yet they have, many of them, been out of content for far longer than the hard-cores.

I'm not saying one is right the other is wrong. Everyone has their own priorities. But I don't feel like EQ has been doing justice to either end of the spectrum. I'm biased towards thinking the casual players have gotten the shortest end of the stick for the longest time, but I admit it might just be because i r 1.

I realize I just contradicted myself, but it makes sense kind of. Casuals have lots of content they can't access, so in that respect they're not out of content, but the content they can access is very old to casuals.

It's like saying, "I have pickles in my pantry". But they're up on the highest shelf, guarded by a 4-headed dog. Granted the pickles are there, but I can't get to them! Pickles in my pantry? Well, technically yes, but realistically I'd better not plan on putting them on the menu.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>On a more socio-economic note, I believe many hardcore players would lose interest in being the 'upper class' of the game's population without the existence of their 'lower-' and 'middle class' counterparts. That isn't a criticism, really, just an aspect of human nature which is going to be reflected to some extent in any society, virtual or real.[/quote]

If everyone is rich, then the definition of poor just gets moved. Poor means only being a millionaire as opposed to a billionaire. There will still be classes.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>How do you destinguish between casual and hardcore gamers?
[/quote]

You figure out what sort of time commitments your casual gamer is able to take versus your hardcore gamer. For instance, a casual gamer might be replacing TV with the game. That's probably an average of 3 hours a night, guessing because I haven't watched much TV in years! So you figure that your audience has to be able to progress playing a few nights a week, and maybe a few extra hours on the weekend.

Hardcore would be someone that is probably playing 5+ hours almost everynight and probably 10+ on the weekends. They'd almost certainly be guilded, in EQ, and doing large scale encounters involving lots of people working towards the same objective.

You can read almost any guild requirements like FoH or whatever and generally they have specific times they want you on, expected attendance and so on. Seems like a pretty good definition of hardcore. :)

I don't know, I think maybe Sony is aware of the difference. Yes, some of the hardcore gamers now being out of content because they barrelled through PoP and now are looking for the next big thing. Those of us, and I guess I classify myself as a casual gamer even though I play every day for several hours and sometimes ALL weekend, Sony is gradually opening up that content because we can't reach it any other way.

I believe they saw the problem with the casual gamer unable to play most of the content in PoP, now we can go to quite a few places that before required massive support to get flagged to get to.

I also believe that as time progresses, they will release a bit more and a bit more. The idea of giving the AA points for those who went through flagging was wonderful, and I see them doing even more in the future as more and more of the "hardcore" people get thru the upper content and cry for more. Us casuals will be able to get in with relatively easy quests or flagging will be dropped.

At least that's my perception.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>You can play in my garden, Stormy! I'm hardcore on gardening. [/quote]

Back on the short list to play in Pana's garden ! whee!



<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>You can read almost any guild requirements like FoH or whatever and generally they have specific times they want you on, expected attendance and so on. Seems like a pretty good definition of hardcore.[/quote]

We don't have a set amount of time that someone is required to play, in fact, I'd say we have more casual members then our "hardcore" raiders. We raid about 5 hours a night, but a new recruit is only asked to retain above a 50% raid attendance (even then they aren't kicked or denied recruitment). That's about 2 1/2 hours a night as a standard, but not required.

Gardening = euphemism for sex isn't it Panamah, ISN'T IT? Hehe. :p

I don't think it's a matter of what type of player you cater to as long as you cater to the player PERIOD. I think that was Verant's biggest mistake when they designed this game. All that vision crap can go out the window. It's ridiculous to make a game the way your warped mind thinks of an RPG when you obviously don't know what makes up an RPG. I still am of the belief that the first Verant programmers/designers that came up with the game actually were trying to get back at society for some imagined slight, hehe.

Verant was downright militant about making the game a certain way even though that way was wrong. Slowly but surely they have attempted to undo some of the early problems and basic design flaws but there's a lot that can't really be changed at this point. Even the druid class itself was a mistake in that it was made to be a utility class. Every class in a multiplayer game should have some sort of role in the great scheme of things. That was just one mistake of many.

Of course you're not going to make everyone happy, but you should at least target as many people as you can. I think Verant atempted to go down that path but because of the limit of their 'vision' they got lost along the way. Make sure the people that do play enjoy it and don't alienate any part of the player base if humanly possible. A perfect example would be the soloers.

Never made much sense why they have apparently tried to eliminate or severely curb that part of the player base. I'm sure someone could come up with reasons, like maybe financial considerations and such but there's one thing that game designers should learn from Everquest: make the game and let it go. That doesn't mean don't support it and add to it but for crying out loud let people play the way they want to. They paid for it and without them there wouldn't be a game. Don't use the game to serve some kind of ego trip by making your customers play ways they don't want to or can't just because you're a control freak or have a god complex. Future game designers out there heed that and you will have taken your first step to making a very good game. ;)

Well, someone decided that my comment about gardening was sexual and well, it went downhill from there! There's definitely birds and bees involved, fertilization and all that. :)

The best way to help casual gamers is to make no drop items occur on mobs that a casual gamer would kill over long durations. I guess elysian armor is probably one of the better examples of this. This armor can be soloed and is a reasonable upgrade but nothing as good as VT armor.

Now, just place this type of soloable/groupable equip in a variety of zones to prevent over crowding.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
You put those same requirements in front of casuals and they aren't slowed down, they're stopped.
[/quote]

Actually, if by casual you mean simply someone with less playtime, they are not stopped by any barrier I can see in PoP (In SoL, I'll happily concede the VT key is a pretty massive barrier to casual players, simply because of the time needed before any reward is seen).

The closest thing I could see would be the Saryn raid, which takes about 3 hours, but are there really that many people who can _never_ arrange to play EQ for 3 hours? Plenty of films are longer.

Remember, you didn't say slowed down, disadvantaged, or inconvenienced, you said stopped.

If, by casual, you mean someone who doesn't like raiding, then it is true there are plenty of raid zones (and, unfortunately, a few exp zones) they can't get into, but that's a bit like complaining about a non-golfer not being allowed on a golf course.

Soru

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Actually, if by casual you mean simply someone with less playtime, they are not stopped by any barrier I can see in PoP[/quote]

I don't think he meant stopped by time restrictions, but by people restrictions. A casual gamer is probably in a guild that can't do most of the flagging fights in PoP, and are left trying their luck mooching off of other people's raids.

But you have to consider numbers needed to raid harder targets, average attendance of your members at specific times, and most importantly competition.

You may be able to kill Rhags (easy enough targets and easy enough to get to in Ssra) but if you don't have a deep guild roster (with a fair amount of the "required" classes) your ability to hit that target decreases dramatically. Then add that it may not even matter because you're on PST time zone and all the Eropean guilds (no need to flame just a reality of how things work and my last guild was a European guild even though I live in PST) have ganked the targets.

It's bad enough for the casual and middle of the road player to wait to raid targets. And some of the time the targets are killed for simple cockblocking it pushes the less hardcore player further behind the power curve. That leads to discouragement. If you then try to ramp up the intensity then you're not casual anymore.

Now fast forward to today and the numbers that are required to raid some of these PoP mobs, the number of flags that are required to progress and the spawns are sometimes blowable or have a 3+ day respawn on them and you're starting to realize that what Panamah said about content NOT being available to the casual player being correct.

Now to answer the question. You can cater to both but it requires more content and content that is not linked to what the casual player needs and wants access to progress. Example, VP key. VP key is a great idea and I love the idea of a super long tough quest for the power gamer (just have to make the loot at the end of the rainbow worth it--like VT. Those keys suck ass but it is candy land once you get in there). However, poor Trak is perma killed forever and even if a guild were able to kill Trak they'll have no shot for a long time until the power gamers are done killing him. AND then they might just kill him to cockblock some other up and coming guild.

As much as the power gamers bitches and moans about VT key and time sinks, they need them (and that's why they are put in in the first place) or else they would consume content so fast they would have quit long ago. Just create quests that require lots of effort and is challenging (read: not going back into greenie areas killing 1000s of mobs to get that ultra rare drop, but doing or killing challenging things to get what you need). Then make sure the reward is above what the casual gamer can achieve in the <strong>short term</strong> so that the power gamer is always differentiated and you have catered to both.

This requires more work and more planning. It requires a solid integrated story line to make it interesting, but if it gets done then it will be the new 900lb gorilla that will be on the top of the mountain (like EQ is currently) for a long time to come.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> If, by casual, you mean someone who doesn't like raiding, then it is true there are plenty of raid zones (and, unfortunately, a few exp zones) they can't get into, but that's a bit like complaining about a non-golfer not being allowed on a golf course. [/quote]Oh come on. You know good and well PoP is nothing like previous expansions in both it's massive flag requirements and content difficulty. Anyone not in a very strong guild will struggle mightily to get past Tier 2-3, period. It has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not someone likes to raid, unless you're suggesting that the only people worthy of experiencing PoP content are ones who are willing to abandon current guild ties and relationships to join a Tier 1-2 guild to do so.

<img src="http://sun.he.net/~justin1/eq/sig4.jpg"/>
Magelo Profile (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=562742)

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
Who do you build the game for, casual players or hardcore gamers?
[/quote]

It is very possible to build a game which has content for both of them. Take a look at Kurnak, Velious or Luclin as an example. They all had tons of areas for the casual player or small guilds aswell as end game content for the "cutting edge" raiding guilds. PoP really was the first expansion aimed towards high end raiding guilds.

Now that they have the ability to "instance" zones it becomes even more possible to server each group. There is no longer a need for several raiding zones, just design 3 or 4 and make them all instances. The problem which brought about PoP was the growth of raiding guilds and the lack of content to support them. Instancing zones for the most part could solve that problem, thus allowing more room to design content for the casual player.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
You put those same requirements in front of casuals and they aren't slowed down, they're stopped.
[/quote]

Maybe in Luclin, if you dealing with the VT key but then even that should not stop a casual player as the majority of the parts can be gained in a single XP groups (heck, most I soloed for). I would agree that VT itself would break a casual player, spending hours fighting your way to each boss is a bit much.

Now in PoP, there are tons of things which can be done in less then two hours. If your motivated and organized. Casual players may not see the Plane of Time but if they meet the above two requirements and are given the chance at the apporiate mobs, could make it to the Elemental Planes.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
A casual gamer is probably in a guild that can't do most of the flagging fights in PoP, and are left trying their luck mooching off of other people's raids.
[/quote]

Joint raids, find another casual guild and tag team flagging mobs. Upon Tunare I have seen some small/mid sized guilds doing this. Together they defeat the mob, split the loot and each gets the flags they desired.

Bril

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
You may be able to kill Rhags (easy enough targets and easy enough to get to in Ssra)
[/quote]

True, rhags are an excellent example of why the lack of uber guild content in SoL hurted casual guilds and players. It's not as bad as Velious, which was the true casual gamer's nightmare, if you think anyone but the top 3 guilds would _ever_ have got a Tormax kill, you obviously weren't playing at the time.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
Now fast forward to today and the numbers that are required to raid some of these PoP mobs
[/quote]

Fast forward a bit more to tomorrow, when player power is increased further, and see how things work out then.

Soru

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>And then, when you decide, you stick to it. You don't try to build a game for both because I don't think you can satisfy both audiences.[/quote]

An interesting black-and-white perspective. But EQ, much like life, is in shades of grey.

But of course, anyone can gain AA points. So, unless you're trying to tell me these casual gamers all have max AA on all their characters, they haven't "consumed" all the content, and haven't "progressed" as far as they are able.

I'll repeat my challenge: if you are a casual gamer and don't know how to next advance, show me a magelo and I'll tell you what you can do.

I'd like to explain why casual guilds can't kill Saryrn in three hours. A casual guild is not made up of exactly the same type of players as a raiding guild, with only three hours. They are more likely to be level 60 with 3 AA, in Velious gear, and have one cleric, 7 druids, and no mages in a fifty person raid.

===================

Casual guilds don't mobilize very quickly. If there's a race to a mob between a raiding guild and a casual guild, guess who loses every time? It helps a lot that better gear and levels are available now so we can do things with fewer groups. Hooray. But that same change allows uber types to do old mobs with a single group... or even solo in a few cases! Guess who mobilizes faster, a casual-guild raid or a single group?

Even that assumes we will have a lot of people online and can pull them away from their xp groups when we need them. Often to get enough people together we schedule raids weeks ahead of time, gather forces at the scheduled time, and then kill whatever is up in our alotted three hours. It's really nice that a few groups of us can kill things that used to take huge raids. But the problem is that the ubers can one-group the same things... and they do! Uber guilds, or more likely regular old pickup XP groups, are essentially permacamping old content. Dragons, boss mobs throughout Luclin and Velious, rare spawns, and PoP minis in first tier zones are constantly down... in many cases we can find nothing better to raid than yard trash in Halls of Betrayal or Veksar or the like. Old mobs aren't quite as camped as before, you don't have to race quite as fast, but to this day the Kunark dragons, Fear minis, and other important epic mobs have never survived more than 24 hours, ever. Remember those predictions way back when that it would take three years to get epics for everyone because of the spawn rates? We're still living that. Sure there are some things that can't be single grouped so are up more often, such as Tunare or Vulak or maybe Shei Vinitras... but those same mobs are still too tough for us to do at all.

Net result: We're mostly in average Velious gear, with some leaning toward Kunark or Fear/Hate gear and others leaning toward Luclin gear. A few dozen of us have epics. Plus the PoP gear, tradeskill stuff, and tradables that are common enough to find their way to the bazaar of course. With PoP stuff being so good, trickle-down of tradable gear is probably a bigger source of upgrades for us than raiding. We've recently joined the server's NToV rotation so every two months or so we get that zone all to ourselves for three days. That's nice, but it'll be a long time before we get everyone geared up NToV style.

===================

My 'guild' is actually an alliance of ten small guilds. As an absolute maximum we've-been-planning-this-event-for-months raid, we get around 50 people, some are level 65 but the average level is 60. That's whatever people we can get, not a nice balance of clerics, warriors, and support classes.

The PoP barriers essentially stopped us. We can pass the execution trial and will probably get BoT flags. But we don't even dream of killing any of the gods, not even Aerin'dar or Grummus let alone Saryrn. We just don't have that big a force and odds are that two years from now we still won't. 50 people might be considered enough to do Saryrn in three hours, but not if they're level 60 and wearing mostly average Velious gear and short on clerics. If we increased levels and recruited a lot more people of the right classes, we wouldn't be casual any more. And gear improves slowly (as explained above). So we'll essentially skip most of PoP and see what future expansions have to offer.

Two new expansions:

EQ The Uber Lands : Geared towards uber content.

EQ The Casual Lands: Geared towards casual content.

Buy one or the other, or both...:lol:

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
Now in PoP, there are tons of things which can be done in less then two hours. If your motivated and organized. Casual players may not see the Plane of Time but if they meet the above two requirements and are given the chance at the apporiate mobs, could make it to the Elemental Planes.
[/quote]

In essence this is correct. The bugger is that last qualifier you have. "Given the chance at the appropriate mobs". This is what is blocking a large number of non-ubers right now.

I've always believed that any group of sufficiently skilled players can vist most all of the content in EQ (POP is different with the HUGE numbers required in Time). The problem right now is there are now maybe up to 50 guilds competing for the same content and said content is required to advance to the next stage of challenges. Its not so bad when only 4 guilds are in competition. Its been weeks since my guild has found any targets alive in our challenge level during the times we can play.

Casual players always look at their condition as some sort of imposed barrier. That's ridiculous. It's a style of play not a death sentence. I think definiton of casual needs to come into play here.

Casual players to me are ones that either choose to play less and with a more relaxed approach either by choice or because of RL constraints. That doesn't mean they can't do thigs like Grummus if they really want to.

Sylphan you said you couldn't do these encounters because of levels. Seems to me with that many allied guilds you should have the numbers. So why not gear up and go do those types of encounters? I think people are blowing gear a little out of proportion here anyway. My guild did mobs like AD and Grummus with basically NToV gear, and without huge numbers. I think these things are in your grasp you just don't want to put forth that much effort, which has been one of my biggest points all along about the whole uber vs. casual debate.

By the way, why can't you add more people and still be casual? Casual to me means by choice or RL constraints, so adding more people isn't going to change those aspects. I don't think you become an uber guild through numbers, you become one through skill, gear, etc. Of course there are lots of so-called uber guilds out there that are indeed based more on numbers than anything but that's not accurate. Casual to me = a state of mind and choice. You can keep that casual approach to the game AND add people to your guild as far as I'm concerned. Just because you add people doesn't mean you automatically lose your casual status.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Two new expansions:

EQ The Uber Lands : Geared towards uber content.

EQ The Casual Lands: Geared towards casual content.
[/quote]The problem here is if you made a "tough" expansion and it held uber loots, those who couldn't get to it would complain... and if you set equal loots for both of these expansions, those who could do the harder content would complain, then go farm the easier content for their twinks.

No matter how you stack it, it's a no win situation.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Actually, if by casual you mean simply someone with less playtime, they are not stopped by any barrier I can see in PoP (In SoL, I'll happily concede the VT key is a pretty massive barrier to casual players, simply because of the time needed before any reward is seen).

The closest thing I could see would be the Saryn raid, which takes about 3 hours, but are there really that many people who can _never_ arrange to play EQ for 3 hours? Plenty of films are longer.

Remember, you didn't say slowed down, disadvantaged, or inconvenienced, you said stopped.

If, by casual, you mean someone who doesn't like raiding, then it is true there are plenty of raid zones (and, unfortunately, a few exp zones) they can't get into, but that's a bit like complaining about a non-golfer not being allowed on a golf course. [/quote]

Very funny, Soru! I think you should get DG comedian of the year for that one. I'm still laughing.

How many guilds going to the Elemental planes want a bunch of casual players in the guild that only show up a few nights a week and on at later hours? That'd be a true joy! The reflagging you'd have to do would be crazy.

Autumn, a casual player can be one that plays weird hours, one that has short play times or simply one that doesn't want to make EverQuest a second job. You look at the requirements of just about any guild in the Elemental planes and you'll have the definition of everything a casual player is not. A casual player can't commit, or won't, to being online every night between certain hours. A casual player might or might not play 30+ hours a week. Except for a few, very rare cases, no guild is going to want to try to tackle things like VT and the Elemental planes with casual players. Can you imagine the burden of backflagging you'd have to do?

I was able to organize the Open Raids even without a guild. When I considered trying to do that to get to the Elemental planes, I decided it'd be almost impossible. Trying to get the same people to show up for the next raid, because they've got the right flags, would just be too difficult. I'd be running the same raids in Tier 1 for 8 months before I could move onto the Tier 2 raids. No thanks, not fun, game over, out-of-content.

I maintain, you can't take a game designed for hard-core gamers and try to fit casual players into it... and visa versa.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>If we increased levels and recruited a lot more people of the right classes, we wouldn't be casual any more.[/quote]

When my previous guild was doing HoT, we rarely hard a bard on. My friend had a level 60 bard. A single bard when no other bard is present is a significant force multiplier, much moreso than a single druid, with or without other druids, provided basic healing is covered. So, I got my friend's account info, and played his bard at the raid.

I prefer to play my druid, but I was willing to sacrifice a few conveniences to help the guild progress. I figured the faster we progressed, the better quality recruits we could get, and it'd be one big steamrolling progression.

Did it work? Yes and no. I got 2 characters decently geared up. But the hardcore vs casual thing tore the guild apart anyway. The casual players in the guild antagonized the hardcores for not doing enough with them, the hardcores felt the criticism was undeserved and greed-based and resented it.

So many people left the guild that we weren't able to kill the same stuff anymore. At this point I was as close as I'd ever be to retiring. I considered myself in the middle, embracing both the casual player's plight and the hardcore gamer's plight.

But, looking back, yeah, I was hardcore. I remember the arguments I had with casual players, bitching about how they wanted to be able to do the same things the hardcores were doing but didn't want to do the work of leveling up. The PoJ flags were a big point of contention, people wanted to be powered thru them at like level 55 and crap.

The problem with casual players is that they don't set goals properly. When I want something, I think about what needs to be done, and I do it. If there's something I can do that will make the task easier, I'll do that, too. If I don't think I can do it yet, I choose another goal, having faith that my power and my guild's power will grow. But I try to be patient and civil when I want something. Bitching works occaisionally but has the chance to fail catastrophically :P

Should we gear content to the uber or the casuals: you can't do both is a silly premise. There's plenty of content for casuals, they just pretend there isn't to get more bones thrown at them and more pity on their poor non-uber selves.

There's plenty of content for ubers too, I think. Nowadays, anyway.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
Who do you build the game for, casual players or hardcore gamers?
[/quote]

<strong>Whatever makes you the most money.</strong>

It is the timesinks blocking casual players (or hardcore turned casual, if you will) from playing with lifetime EQ friends that makes people like me retire.

Where are the good 'ole days when level 46 was the only requirement for playing with friends in new content? Now with flagging (or backflagging) and key sinks, playing with my friends has literally become impossible.

WyteNK, if your friends don't care enough to flag you, it's a sign you should maybe get new friends. Don't get pissy at the game for showing you how little the people you used to think were friends actually care about you.

You assume too much Madai.

I had friends willing to play my toon for flagging, tons who wanted to help with keys, and even one friend who offered to pay for my subscription fees.

I can't bring myself to burden others with SOE's timesinks. I think it's cruel, even if they offer or 'say' they want to. If I don't agree with the amount of time it takes out of my life, why would I agree with subjecting others to it?

I guess I just fundementally disagree with the current SOE philosophy of advancement. I shouldn't have to be "carried" through these things by others. That's more in line with comradary of war, not entertainment IMO. /shrug

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Well, someone decided that my comment about gardening was sexual and well, it went downhill from there! There's definitely birds and bees involved, fertilization and all that. [/quote]

I *KNEW* you wanted to take advantage of me in your garden!! (which is completely acceptable to me btw)

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>How many guilds going to the Elemental planes want a bunch of casual players in the guild that only show up a few nights a week and on at later hours? That'd be a true joy! The reflagging you'd have to do would be crazy.[/quote]

I'd say we have easily as many casuals as hardcore raiders (folks that show up to a raid 1-3 times a week if at all). Flagging sucks, but I like to have them there, they often bring a bit of fresh air to our crew of hardcore raiders. :) I guess this explains my enthusiasm for raiding, yet I end up not begrudging casuals anything, because a good many of the people I interact with in an EQ day are for the most part casual.

<strong>EQ The Uber Lands : Geared towards uber content.

EQ The Casual Lands: Geared towards casual content.

Buy one or the other, or both...</strong>


An uber-only game wouldn't have enough people in it to financially support it. You probably wouldn't have enough people to fill one server....and can you imagine the spawn fights with all of EQ's uberguilds on one server??

It's the casuals that provide the bulk of the money needed to keep the game running. To support the uber game, the designers of the uber game would have to add content designed at attracting the more casual players, which means you no longer have an uber-only game.

Or the uber players would switch to the casual game for a variety of reasons...the uber game designer goes bankrupt and the single server shuts down, or the ubers would have to have someone to be uber in comparison to.

You're not uber when everyone else is, too....:)

Yeah it was sorta sarcasm just to point out the issue.

Really its a catch 22, damned if you do, damned if you dont with Sony right now.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
I'd be running the same raids in Tier 1 for 8 months before I could move onto the Tier 2 raids.
[/quote]

If the average person in your guild/alliance made 10% of the raids (i.e. they raided once every 2 weeks, which sounds pretty casual to me), you'd be able to use the 85% rule after 10 or so kills. Less if you can schedule raids in advance (and on my server at least, you can pretty much count on Saryn, Bertox etc being up, only RZ is really contested of the flagging mobs).

This would be a problem for you if you were a hardcore player, and made all of those raids. The 10th time you raid the same place is pretty boring (although I remember plenty of people who were on the 25th or so open hate raid).

But if you are a casual player, then by definition you don't make all those raids, so you are unlikely to end up doing any given raid more than 2 or 3 times. If it takes 8 months, it takes 8 months, you are casual, you are not on a timeline. I'm a pretty casual player, and I spent over a year at the hate/fear/epic mobs level of raiding. Some of the people I was guilded with then are now doing Time, others are doing Ssra, most are with me just breaking into the elementals.

In other words, casual gamers don't have a problem with PoP, hardcore players in a casual guild have a problem (particularly if they are not in a leadership position, and so don't feel 'ownership' of the guild). Of course, the solution to that is in their hands.

soru

I have the new definition for the casual player:

<em>The casual player sets goals, erects artificial boundaries to those goals, calls those artificial boundaries "principles", then bitches to Sony that they aren't allowed to play the game in a manner according to their "principles".</em>

The "Principles" invented by casual players tend to cause discord and slow progression in guilds, knowingly or unknowingly. Principles must not only be justified as means, but also the ends they produce. If your principles dictate you should jump off a cliff, it's time to change your principles.

I see it is you who dont care enough about your friends. Here they are, willing to do extra work so they can enjoy the new content with you, but you invent this principle which leaves you behind. Part of the fun EQ offers is helping friends. You're DEPRIVING them of the fun they would have helping you!

One problem that will always be there even if you designed the casual wet dream game is that there is ALWAYS someone who can spend 2x-5x-20x more time in the game then your typical casual player.

Hell, even what we call "casual" players would be considered hardcore by most peoples standards. Playing 1-3hours per night? Most people play video games 1-3 hours a week if at all.

Anyways, you design the perfect casual game, everything can be done in 2 hour blocks of time. Along comes uber johnny and his 30 friends. They can play in 12 hour stretches. So every day they are advancing at a 6x faster rate then the design. Eventually, Johnny and friends will be ALOT farther along then the norm, maybe enough to actually effect the servers gameplay/economy/cyberchannel.

What do you do? Make it so that you can only exp/tradeskill/cyber for 2 hour blocks? Then what happens when Billy Casual gets 3 days off and wants to finish up "x" level/skill?

I pretty much agree with that Madai.

About artificial boundries though, many may be fabricated, but there is a real one to be sure. Real life time.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
The "Principles" invented by casual players tend to cause discord and slow progression in guilds
[/quote]

True, and I'd rather retire then slow the progression of my friends.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
I see it is you who dont care enough about your friends.
[/quote]

That's a blunt eye opener. It sounds a bit like you're calling me selfish (correct me if I'm wrong). I probably am, since <a href="http://pub149.ezboard.com/fthedruidsgrovefrm35.showMessage?topicID=24.topic" target="top">this</a> is how I see a better EQ.

I think I was selfish to try to make it work with 4 - 8 hours a week. I think it was unselfish of me to realize what was happening, and somewhat gracefully /bow out. We can keep in touch on the message boards.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
Part of the fun EQ offers is helping friends. You're DEPRIVING them of the fun they would have helping you!
[/quote]

Another good eye opener. Maybe I should have kept with it, even having turned into a casual player.

I think, though, that most of my friends would say many of the PoP progression back-flagging steps are not fun. In fact, I get the distinct impression that they are tedious and aggrevating.

<strong> Anyways, you design the perfect casual game, everything can be done in 2 hour blocks of time. Along comes uber johnny and his 30 friends. They can play in 12 hour stretches. So every day they are advancing at a 6x faster rate then the design. Eventually, Johnny and friends will be ALOT farther along then the norm, maybe enough to actually effect the servers gameplay/economy/cyberchannel.</strong>

What you COULD do, is implement diminishing returns. Simply add a "fatigue" stat to a character. During the first 2 hours, you're bright and fresh, and exp is 100%. As your character gets "tired", he learns more slowly, and his exp rate drops off. Say after 5 hours, he's making 0%, and he has to "sleep". You could still do tradeskills, chat, etc...just not exp.

If you HAD to keep playing, you could "wake up" an alt.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>What you COULD do, is implement diminishing returns. Simply add a "fatigue" stat to a character. During the first 2 hours, you're bright and fresh, and exp is 100%. As your character gets "tired", he learns more slowly, and his exp rate drops off. Say after 5 hours, he's making 0%, and he has to "sleep". You could still do tradeskills, chat, etc...just not exp.[/quote]

Dear God no... let's not make exp'ing anymore tedious and unfulfilling than it already is.

Bad Bric! Sony might be reading this /gasp ;)

We do get to things we really want with some significant effort. We got a lot of epics. We farmed HoT pretty good. We got into the NToV rotation. We're moving up.

Maybe we're wrong. Maybe we could get Aerin'Dar. But so far NToV looks like a hurdle, Ssra looks like a race, and PoP looks like an impassable wall. I'll reconsider PoP again because of your comments, but that's how it looks to us, and to many others.

I think everything would be fine is everyone would just try to be...not necessarily nice, but how bout just not an asshat toteing jerk?

Too many punks in game.

Or they could start charging by the hour... :) bazaar time not included!

Bric needs a hairshirt, to satisfy that masochistic impulse. Self-flagellation is alive and well in EQ....

Madai,

Let's redefine what casual is into the simplest definition based on how EQ works. Casual is any person that can not or will not sit and play for 4+ hours per play session at least 5 days per week.

Please do not confuse casual with meaning: undisciplined, unmotivated, unorganized, and lacking in intestinal fortitude. I run two independent businesses, have a wife and kid, and still have been able to level a 65 mage with 110 AA, a 59 level druid, and a 55 level enchanter in the past 3 years. I guarantee I have more organizational skills than 99.9% of all the guild leaders out there. I guarantee that I am by definition of what I've accomplished in real life a more motivated and disciplined (played professional tennis as well--satellite circuit--for a year) than 99% of the players in EQ.

It doesn't frigging matter. I can't sit my ass down for 4 hours per session 5 days a week in order to be part of a large raiding guild. It just isn't physically possible. So by definition I'm casual but I'm not a casual player by what I've done and still I'm trapped in EQ hell. Please elaborate how that game design is condusive to progression except for the people that have an excess amounts of time on their hands.

The one thing I really agree with what Alyssia has said is that levels and AA should come naturally as you progress through the story line Vs how we do it in a "grinding" fashion. When have you ever played D&D when you were a kid (maybe you still are and am sorry if I offend anyone but I'm an older fart now) and had the DM just send mobs in random fashion at you for 5 hours per session for 3 months straight? No, you progressed by moving through a story and a world that the DM created. It was a logical and natural progression. Levels and loot came as a direct result of passing through this story. That's how the games of the furture should be designed. They will just take more work and more content, but as the genre develops and people become for savey they will demand this.

Anyway the true answer is whatever makes the most money as someone said but in order to do that you must truly understand your target audience and wade through the vocal banter to ferrot out the truth, which isn't easy. What will make the most money is a game that has an indepth compelling story line (like a series of books) that allows the players to become part (and feel part) of that story. As a direct result they gain in power, both in levels, abilities, and items, which allows the story to progress more (i.e. future expansions to be created) where they can make more money and we can continue to progress and enjoy that progression without tedium--for both the hardcore and casual player.

I can never quit understand the power-gamer attitude of contempt for people that don't prioritize their lives around a game.

An excellent post Soulcraver; I think you nailed it.

<strong>Bad Bric! Sony might be reading this /gasp</strong>

/prostrate

I'm sorry! I got caught up in the whole "what if" game!

/hair_shirt

:D

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>The one thing I really agree with what Alyssia has said is that levels and AA should come naturally as you progress through the story line Vs how we do it in a "grinding" fashion. When have you ever played D&D when you were a kid (maybe you still are and am sorry if I offend anyone but I'm an older fart now) and had the DM just send mobs in random fashion at you for 5 hours per session for 3 months straight? No, you progressed by moving through a story and a world that the DM created. It was a logical and natural progression. Levels and loot came as a direct result of passing through this story. That's how the games of the furture should be designed. They will just take more work and more content, but as the genre develops and people become for savey they will demand this.[/quote]

That really is a great concept and I loved playing and DM'ing D&D back when I was a kid, but as a video game that concept is a single player game. It will not work for a mmorpg. A DM or a NWN scripter can control the actions of 5 or 50 people. EQ has 400,000 people from all over the planet playing 24/7 on all different schedules. How can you create a story line that allows 400k people to advance through at different speeds without running out of content? Atleast with the EQ style of game play you can always go sit in zone_01 and kill mobs or work on your tradeskills. Imagine a Tablebased DM trying to run a game for 1000 people playing at all different times and for different lengths. Plus, once the 1st person goes through the story, it will immediately be plastered across hundreds of websites spoiling it for any who care to look.

Fine, you might not look, but I sure as hell will and so will hundreds of thousands of others. There is no problem at all with wanting to re-live the joys of tablebased D&D on-line, but part of that joy came from the personal touch of the DM. MMOPRG's by their very nature are the opposite of that.

Could you make a game like this? Sure, but it's costs would be HIGH. People bitch at paying $40 for legends service and even that amount of money couldn't come close to paying for D&D as a mmorpg.

The best your really going to get is NWN, a game that has limited players per server and allows those Server hosts to have a great deal of control over their world and game.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
But so far NToV looks like a hurdle, Ssra looks like a race, and PoP looks like an impassable wall.
[/quote]

If Isaac Newton was an EQ player, he'd have said:

'If I have seen further, it is by standing on the corpses of giants'.

If NToV is a hurdle to you, then _currently_ most of PoP (i.e. everything except about a half dozen tier 1 minibosses like the PoI dragon) will be outside your reach.

But once you've done NToV for a bit, your improved gear, refined tactics and generally higher levels should give you a shot at behemoth and terris thule. With Ssra, other SoL and AoW loots, you can fight agnarr and bertox. And so on.

It's not a wall, it's a slope. You can choose to walk up it as far as you want, and then stop any time you think the exercise is not worthwhile.

soru

"Casual" vs "Uber" has always been a horrible way to categorize EQ players. This is a false dichotomy in the way most posters use it. "Casual" players can and frequently do spend MORE time playing then uber players, they just do not join large raiding guilds.

In reality, there are two completely different ways to qualify players. Casual vs. hardcore (which is really a function of time, and how intensely you play in that time); and raider vs. non-raider. It is a myopic conceit of the raider that they consider all non-raiders to be "casual" gamers. Hence you get condescending posts like Madai's in this thread...I think many raiders labor under the false impression that non-raiders, or "casuals" as they call them are just taking their sweet ass time getting to raiding levels and gear.

The problem with the current game design in eq is NOT that there is a pool of content reserved for hardcore players. The problem is that there is a (large) pool of content reserved to raiding players, and that this has fundamentally changed the way the game works on every level. As soon as SoE started going further and further down the road that requires 6+ groups to accomplish any goal, they fundamentally began to shift the game mechanic.

It is NOT the game that I began playing back in '99, not the game I played with under a dozen real life friends in the years since, and not a game I would ever have picked up if I had known the ultimate road they would have steered it down.

Panamah's post is dead on...eq is a game that suffers from multiple personalities now. It is trying to be a raiding game which requires you to join a huge guild to succeed, but it grew out of a game which encouraged groups of six or less people at one time. It is like a RTS game that morphed into a FPS after people had been playing it for years. Now it's doing a sort of crappy job at both, since it is trying to please two disparate groups of players.

I think a lot of raiders fail to realize many players such as myself have no wish to play the raiding game. Even when I do have big chunks of time in my schedule, I wish to play with my friends only. I hate pick up groups, and I dont want to join a guild full of people I do not know in real life. By the same token, I've heard many raiders hate "the grind" of getting a character up to raiding level. They do not like my single group dungeon crawl, levelling up with a group of friends; I do not like their raid game. They have to endure the drudgery of months getting a character to the levels where he can raid, I am denied an appropriate endgame.

Of course, I'm beyond all this now, since I no longer play!

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
It is NOT the game that I began playing back in '99, not the game I played with under a dozen real life friends in the years since,
[/quote]

You'll have to unpick this a bit for me, because I think you have some unstated assumptions, and I'd hate to assume the wrong thing about what you actually mean.

Would it be enough to add extra content that you do like, or will it be necessary to also remove or obselete the existing content that you don't like?

soru

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>It's not a wall, it's a slope. You can choose to walk up it as far as you want, and then stop any time you think the exercise is not worthwhile[/quote]

Exactly.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
It's not a wall, it's a slope. You can choose to walk up it as far as you want, and then stop any time you think the exercise is not worthwhile
[/quote]

And you can rest at any point along the way. "Ubers" run up the hill, those who believe they never can get to the top often are trying to get from step 1 to step 20 without doing the in between.

Like another poster said, do NTOV. Then the rest will be easier. Once I made a solid progression plan for my guild we've made steady progress and it is actually fun again. We don't raid 7 days a week, we don't have more than 5 groups on at once most often, but we do hit the steps in order and it works wonderfully.

Man, lots of people have reading comprehension difficulties and are quite frankly so unyielding in their opinion to try to win a debate that they will not look at facts.

Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's not a wall, it's a slope. You can choose to walk up it as far as you want, and then stop any time you think the exercise is not worthwhile
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Exactly.


For all intents and purposes that slope is 90 degrees for me and then in essence becomes unwalkable. Therefore, all the desire in the world will not allow me to walk up that surface. I and many others physically do not have the time to sit in front of a computer 4+ hours <strong>per</strong> session time. It is impossible. In this game that creates a "door" an "unwalkable slope". Whatever the hell you want to call it. Trying to come up with cute analogies that are non sequitor doesn't change that simple fact.

Tilien,

I said in the beginning that the game I proposed would take more planning, content, and in depth story development than anything seen. Would this cost more money to produce? Frankly, I'm not sure it would. You'd definitely have to pay a top notch story writer who would then work with developers to create a more integrated world. Rather than a bunch of disjointed zones with inconsistent story line that basically leads you just mass killing to gain exp and "Phat Loots". Your up front costs would be more but your back end costs could be less due to not having to go back and "fix" so many things. So I'm undecided, but even if it were more I don't think it would be that much more.

How do you run a game with 400,000 people simultaneously? First there are 400,000 active accounts with a lot of two boxing going on so the actual number of players is less but lets for your example say that there are 400,000 players. You'd do it just how you do it today. Have some creativity. The story lines for all games are solved by the people that race to do it. That's no mystery, but that is different than a paper and pencil game. However, that matters not in the on-line gaming world. If you want to go to a spoiler site and see how the story plot line progresses ahead of where you are that is your perogative. Just as you can today with spoiler sites.

There is so much you could do to make encounters more dynamic in feel yet require absolute minimal coding as to be laughable. Suffice to say it wouldn't take very much time or resources to change EQ into a more dynamic world with a few correctly placed "if" and "when"--and that is just to start. Tying quests to actual progression rather than just some side thing you do. And the ones you "have" to do if you want to progress (well progress within that expansion at the time) like VT key shouldn't just be killing thousands of mobs over and over again to get the rare drop from the rare spawn or just the "ultra" rare drop.

Most people have been imprinted into thinking that the way EQ is is how MMORPGs should be run forever, and as a result can't or won't think outside the box in anyway. I have NWN. It looked so promising but I didn't like it at all. I've said it many times I just hope I'm not too disappointed but the closest thing so far to what I'm describing is Mythica. But like I said I could think of a dozen ways off the top of my head to use the current EQ engine and make the game feel more dynamic and alive than it is right now.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I and many others physically do not have the time to sit in front of a computer 4+ hours per session time[/quote]

My reading comprehension is fine thanks. I dont have the kind of time to do 4 hour sessions ALL the time either but once every couple of weeks is more than enough if you're prepared to walk the slope slowly. If you can't spare one 4 hour session now and again then I'd suggest your time is too valuable to be playing at all.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>If you can't spare one 4 hour session now and again then I'd suggest your time is too valuable to be playing at all. [/quote]

There are logical reasons why mainstream films are released to have average lengths of 1.5 to 3 hours, not the least of which is the amount of time most people are willing to indulge themselves with one particular type of entertainment.

Because someone wouldn't sit through a 5-hour movie, you would suggest that their time is too valuable to watch any movies at all?

Everquest is a form of entertainment through which we can interact with others, hence the reason many of its subscribers are willing to spend more time in a session whenever their external circumstances permit. The fact remains, however, that EQ is a game, a leisure activity -- and regardless of how long some players are <em>willing</em> to spend, I think it is fair to criticize its producers for releasing any encounter or script which <em>requires</em> players to spend more than a few hours in a single session to advance.

The most unfortunate aspect of EQ is that its most desirable rewards tend to promote session lengths which psychologists and physicians would consider physically, emotionally, and mentally unhealthy for any activity -- especially one so sedentary as a computer game.

~Firemynd

The game = what you make of it. It hasn't become anything that different than what came out in '99. It had to evolve accomodate all the people that progressed, got better gear, higher levels, and so on. Too many of you are looking at it from just the PoP perspective. Yeah it might take being in a bigger guild to go through much of the content in PoP but that's kind of what it was designed for. I don't like PoP actually, but to sit and say the game has changed that much isn't quite accurate. It's the players that changed and SoE adjusted the game to accomodate them. It doesn't take raids to play the game or advance, that's a totally bogus assumption. There's still lots of content that does't take raids and other ways to advance your character, whether it be gear, AA's, levels. There's no doubt it would be a lot better game without all the time-sinks, bugs, terrible design choices, etc. but since it's probably never going to change on a grand scale it's all we have to work with.

You guys realise that most harcores I would be tempted to say 50% of them own 2+ accounts right?

I have 3....I play about 6 hours 6-7 days a week, they dont charge me by the hour. Casual players play about 3 hours a day 3 days a week. We both pay the same ammount per account.

Im willing to bet harcores are roughly 60% of the market. I also dont think the games would live long without the hardcores. When casual players see links in the game or look at EQ realted websites they see all that high end content they "might" be able to explore some day with their playtime.

In the end, I think the Hardcores keep the casual players playing.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Please do not confuse casual with meaning: undisciplined, unmotivated, unorganized, and lacking in intestinal fortitude. I run two independent businesses, have a wife and kid, and still have been able to level a 65 mage with 110 AA, a 59 level druid, and a 55 level enchanter in the past 3 years. I guarantee I have more organizational skills than 99.9% of all the guild leaders out there. I guarantee that I am by definition of what I've accomplished in real life a more motivated and disciplined (played professional tennis as well--satellite circuit--for a year) than 99% of the players in EQ.

It doesn't frigging matter. I can't sit my ass down for 4 hours per session 5 days a week in order to be part of a large raiding guild. It just isn't physically possible. So by definition I'm casual but I'm not a casual player by what I've done and still I'm trapped in EQ hell. Please elaborate how that game design is condusive to progression except for the people that have an excess amounts of time on their hands.[/quote]

I'm not a religious man (though I play one in Norrath ;) ), but AMEN.

We just recently had a similar argument on the Paladin board, and though you've stated the issue in a completely reasonable fashion, some people will just refuse to <strong>understand</strong> it.

I've tried demonstrating it by calculating the number of hours in a day that are spent BY NECESSITY doing different tasks to show the "grade" of the slope, but it doesn't matter.

It is ALWAYS possible for someone to become uber, if you're willing to make significant sacrafices. Some people are in positions where they don't need to do so. If you have a demanding job, real life friends, a significant other, children, etc. then, yes, you could still CHOOSE to be uber. Those things are "self imposed limits" that people put on themselves. Someone on the Paladin board commented that you could "juggle" those responsibities and still excel in EQ.

The very, very sad thing is that someone can say that without seeming to understand the implication. Yes, you can do very well at a computer game IF you are willing to give it priority over real life. That's not a profound statement. EQ involves very little talent (though there's some). It may be the bowling of professional sports - you don't need a lot of talent or physical skill to do well, just lots of time.

I'm a casual player who is extremely effecient when I play. I even 2-box, which some people would say puts me out of the category of "casual." (Whereas I would say that I 2-box because it makes me a more effecient casual player - more reward for time spent.) I play about 2 hours per day during the week on evenings when I can play. I play about 4-6 hours per day on the weekend, when I can play. I probably average 20 hours per week.

I'm level 65 with ~120 AA's (my birthdate is March 30, 1999), and my druid is level 60 with ~80 AA's. Level and AA are really quite separate from the casual vs. uber distinction. You can level to 65 and collect a lot of AA's if you play an hour or two a day.

It is a rare occasion when I am "able" (you can call it "willing" - I could "choose" to take a sick day from work or "choose" not to go out for dinner and a movie with my wife, etc.) to sit at my computer for 4 hours in a row. (Nevermind the fact that doing so isn't exactly fun - I've met VERY few people who truthfully enjoy raiding, but that could just be the circles I run in.)

I've done it, when people have asked for my help with things, but it's not even close to how I would choose to spend my time.

When I first played the game back in 1999-2000, I got completely hooked and so did my wife. We spent most of our waking time playing the game. We gave up most of our sleep (I mean like 2-3 hours a night) so that we could play. We stopped going out with our friends, we lost touch with our families. We could have been on 48 Hours!

We finally woke up in Spring 2000 and quit the game. Stayed away for about 2 years. Came back last summer - and we were nervous we'd start the same cycle. What quitting revealed to us that we couldn't see when we were so addicted was that our in game accomplishments had little to no real "meaning." Games are meant to be diversions from real life. Just the thought that someone would sit and play monopoly for hours and hours so they could say "i've won more games of monopoly than 90% of other people" is ludicrous, but it's something you see all the time in EQ.

Now we play EQ when we feel like it. If we're not having fun, we stop playing for the night. If we feel ambivalent about logging in, we don't log in, giving preference to "real life."

I'm quite comfortable with the idea that the people who are ABLE and WILLING to spend 4-6 hours chained to their computer will get "more" out of the game. They're going to be more powerful and see more of the game.

In my mind, EQ is really two different games and I play only one of them. I'm happy being there. The only times I encounter the "other game" are:

1. When ubers want to do something in an area that non-ubers are playing. I won't go into detail about how that tends to go.
2. On message boards. There are several people who are very uber here (and on my "home" board ;) ) and are reasonable, well spoken and don't have a shred of superior attitude. It is CLEAR from their posts that they are playing a different game than I am. More power to them!

The reason these threads always produce such ire, though, are that we speak in generalities. "Uber this" and "casual that." I think we usually have a shared DENOTATIVE meaning of the terms, but the connotations of the terms get under people's skins. We both use uber to @#%$ to the level of the game someone plays/their equipment AND their attitude, which is unfortunate. The same happens with "casual."

What's interesting is that early in EQ it was really just "power gamer" vs. "role player." That distinction has mutated a LOT. I would actually consider myself a power gamer (though I also RP) - I focus on stats, my ability to do my job in a group, etc.

If you read things from back in the first year of EQ (for example, from EQExpress), there was no such thing as "uber" because the game was still really ONE game - you had better equipment the more you played, but you didn't need to play for many hours in a row. (Camping for an item for 2 hours for 10 sessions gave you the same chance to get it as camping it for 20 hours did.) The first HINT of the distnction between "uber"/raiding and "casual"/non-raiding was the introduction fo the planes: a place where you might have to spend many hours breaking in and then many hours farming in order to hope for a good item.

Prior to that there were, at best, the dragons. That was raid content at the time, but the ability to fight them didn't depend on many hours of "gearing up" to get to their level (there wasn't a hell of a lot of "gearing up" you could do).

I have friends who are uber - some I've known since close to release. I have "friends" on message boards who are uber. If I felt that being uber were somehow bad, I wouldn't be friends with them.

Maybe you haven't read the other 20 posts I've done on this subject in the past 2 weeks. If you haven't then that's fine. Maybe you missed the fact that I have a level 65 toon with 110 AA that I've played for 3 years.

I have raided everything in Kunark and Velious (except for VP and ST, which it was deemed I didn't need or desrve a key for) I have raided everything in Luclin up to Emperor. I have killed MB, Gruumus, AD, and Xana. At my level if I want to progress I must sit and play 4+ hours at a time, because that's what is required from a raiding guild. You can not just raid every other week or twice a week. Raid guilds that are doing higher end stuff don't allow you to do that. Plus the fact if you were to do that you couldn't gain enough DKP to buy crap, and you'd be horribly behind the flag curve at some point.

At one point you go from being able to play a couple days a week for short periods of time, in a single group environment and progress. Then you need to get into a guild and do some raiding to increase your no drop item quality. Then when you decide you're going to compete for larger targets in velious like NToV, Tormax, AoW--Luclin in general, then you need to make a decision to increase your play time even more.

In PoP given flag requirements, size of the encounters, and the amount of ring event type encounters it forces you to make big time commitments. There is no other way around that.

Why the hell would I want to win an argument, given that I'm a logical person, if I didn't understand the logistics of what is behind the topic of what I'm discussing? I wish the dynamics were different but they aren't. The best I can do now is to buy or loot ornate armor (much of which has rather crappy stats--luckily they have focus4 effects), but that's my last upgrade cycle right now and I'm almost done with that.

Anyway enjoy the game you are all playing. That's the best we can all do. I was just hoping to clarify some things from a "casual" player's perspective that might finally hit home for some, but obviously that isn't possible.

Ornate armor doesn't have crappy stats. You sound like Alyssia, that's part of the problem right there. Sounds like you want elemental armor for an hour's worth of what you would call 'effort'.

Why can I at lvl 65 Still zone into ToV and raid?
Why can my lvl 52 Twinks zone into the Elemental Planes?
Why is it always easier every expansion for a casual player to advance?
Why is my guild forced to raid Plane of Time with no less than 50 people.


What EQ needs are Dungeon limits. Where players advance at the same difficulty levels, just some faster than others. Where you cannot advance to the next level until you reach the requirement for that level. Where the gear you "earn" can only be gained when you reach that difficulty level. This will still allow hardcores to advance FAST and casualy players to advance at their own pace.

Im saying add level requirements for all dungeons. Add points to gear, just like guilds use DKP for gear. You gain a certain number of points in gear, AA, and levels, you are forced to proceed to the next lvl. If you do not gain enough gear, lvl's, or aa, you are forced to stay at "your lvl of progression".

In this case players who play casually will be able to play together and players that play "hardcore" will be able to advance together. A place where you can bring back the 6 person group or 18 man raid and fight creatures that are tough for your lvl. Where exping is always advancing your character, where you cannot advance with "just exp", where you cannot advance by being "twinked".

A place where everyone gets what they earn and cannot expect more till they gain more.

Sound simple enough?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>You can not just raid every other week or twice a week. Raid guilds that are doing higher end stuff don't allow you to do that[/quote]

A massive generalisation, and a false one. My own guild is EP enabled and we have no attendance requirements whatsoever. In truth the only guilds that do tend to have attendance reqs are the ones that have finished Time, probably 1 per server.

83 Active members and here are the top 10 raid attendances by %(cut from our DKP program).

87
81
74
72
70
67
60
60
57
56

..and here are the bottom 10, remember this is active players only.

17
17
17
13
13
12
11
11
11
9


We average 33 raids per month, a fraction over 1 per day.
This means 2 raids per week will net you an attendance of 25%-ish and put you a little under middle on our table. Yes we have a problem backflagging the odd mob for one or two people but we took the slope gradually and thats what we expected, most of it can be done via the 85% rule.

Hardly hardcore, hardly lifechanging.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I was just hoping to clarify some things from a "casual" player's perspective that might finally hit home for some, but obviously that isn't possible.[/quote]

You are trying to prove you can't get there, I'm arguing that you can. I'm not failing to see your point I'm simply showing people that being in an EP guild isn't anything like the BS spouted on this board and requires nothing like the time the people who haven't done it claim it does. If I could give you access to our DKP program I would, obviously that isnt allowed but someone here may well be in a guild that would allow it so you wouldnt have to take my word for it.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
In PoP given flag requirements, size of the encounters, and the amount of ring event type encounters it forces you to make big time commitments. There is no other way around that.
[/quote]

If this was true, you'd be right.

It's not. Do you want logs posted of raids completed in less time? RPP histories showing people making 1 or 2 raids a week and getting loot? It used to be true (Sky raids took a whole weekend, clearing Hate took 6+ hours, etc), but things changed (first drastically downwards, so the typical raid took half an hour, and then gradually back upwards to the current 90 minutes to two hours average). You can see this by looking at the front page of an 8 hours a day guild, who will average 3 to 4 kills a day.

Now, it's certainly true that, given the time elapsed between PoP release and now, few once-a-week players will be in the elemental planes and none in Plane of Time. Simply because it takes a certain amount of total time, and 4 hours times ~30 weeks is not near enough to have done that yet.

And obviously there is some inefficiency to short sessions, probably 20 to 50% extra total time required.

But the bottom line is a typical PoP raid takes somewhat less time than an exp group, and somewhat more than soloing. The game system couldn't really help out much more, there could be various tweaks, but really individual and guild issues will dwarf any system changes.

soru

Bracer of Viscous Ooze (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=27874)

Wanderer's Sylvan Bracer (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=11280)

FT 2 is great, but otherwise the bracer is a downgrade. I lose hitpoints and mana going to ornate from Bracelet of Cruelty (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=62063). If you're hitting WIS and STA caps, Double Wrapped Wide Belt (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=11047) is a good deal better than ornate, besides the FT.


For the record, there's plenty of room for improvement before the ornate starts looking anything like the elemental bracer (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=11281).

Most *effects* on ornate armor are good. In many locations, the stats are actually lower than those on available alternatives.

Well the ornate shouldn't <strong>HAVE THE SAME STATS</strong>(for all the people with comprehension problems out there) as elemental anyway since it's a lot harder to get.

Romidar-

Well written, bravo. It sounds like you have your priorities in order and know what you want from the game, and know where your limits are. That is the absolute best method. I put in stupid amounts of time in EQ, but I love conquering new encounters, and killing Gods. It's the culmination of all my work, that I get to test my skills with others that I have been fighting beside for a long time, and when you see that God die for the first time... well it makes it all worth it.

When the time comes that I have to take on more responsibilities (such as a wife, kids, etc) then I too will go your route and only log on when nothing pressing happens. I have a full time job, but EQ is a good past-time when I have no other pressing matters :) And it saves money too !

<strong>Well the ornate shouldn't look anything like elemental anyway since it's a lot harder to get.</strong>


LOL...this statement more than anything confirms what I've been suspecting about this particular poster's mindset.....

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>LOL...this statement more than anything confirms what I've been suspecting about this particular poster's mindset..... [/quote]

Oh c'mon Scirocco :D Can you honestly say that isn't true? Elemental requires RZ kills PLUS all the kills that it takes to get to the Ornate armor dropping zones (BoT even being open to everyone which drops Ornate, if a bit rare). I'm not saying I agree with Autumn completely, or that I don't think Ornate stats shouldn't be a bit better. However, elemental armor IS harder to get, and to disagree with that on a basic level seems absurd :)

EDIT:
I have two elemental patterns, a bracer, and gloves: this is what it "cost" me.

dozens of Behemoth kills
dozens of Grummus kills
dozens of Hedge Maze runs
dozens of PoJ trial runs
dozens of Terris Thule kills
dozens of Aerin Dar kills
dozens of R(something) Dar kills
dozens of "save the chicks" trials
dozens of "villager" trials
6 or so MM kills
dozens of Carpin ring kills
6 or so Bertox rings
Saryn key (4 nameds in Torment)
10 or so Saryn kills
dozen or so Agnarr kills
5 RZ kills
dozens of each of the 5 Sol Ro minis
4 Sol Ro kills

I won't get into the gearing up that was necessary in VT and Ssra before we even raided deep into PoP. It was lots.

Quite a bit harder for me to get then it was for my 3 pieces of Ornate :)

Autumn10, after reading all that I have posted and you can still type this out you're a troll:

"Ornate armor doesn't have crappy stats. You sound like Alyssia, that's part of the problem right there. Sounds like you want elemental armor for an hour's worth of what you would call 'effort'."

Blah. I had an elaborate response to all the posts that quoted me but I just erased it. Doesn't matter.

If all this game was was being able to play 5 days a week for 2 hours at a time, at designated times, I and many others like me would be Time enabled. So there has to be something to what I'm saying.

Like I said GL. I begrudge no one on their accomplishments.

I look forward to the future of MMORPG who's progression is a bit different than what EQ's is right now.

Peace.....................

<strong>Oh c'mon Scirocco Can you honestly say that isn't true?</strong>


Storm, I think you missed my point. I wasn't focused on the difficulty. I agree with you that elemental armor is much more difficult to get than ornate. That's irrelevant.

I was focusing on the "shouldn't look like" language, which is just a rehash of the old "badge of uberness" and "unique appearance" arguments that came up when dyes were introduced (and that came up peripherially in other threads here on the LDoN issue).

The comment I quoted reveals that same mindset, is all I intended by that statement. Sorry to make you go through all the trouble of making that list (even though it really isn't the "cost" of your elemental armor pieces).

I'm a troll because I disagree with you Soulcraver? Ah, the defense of the people with no defense. So easy to claim someone's a troll to try and dismiss or otherwise invalidate what they say. Once again you show no desire to put forth an effort, even in your arguments.

Scirocco: by 'shouldn't look like' I meant it shouldn't have the same stats. Why would I make an issue of looks? Take the foot out of your mouth and brush up on your reading comprehension. You have confirmed nothing as usual and proven you indeed DO NOT know my mindset.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Storm, I think you missed my point. I wasn't focused on the difficulty. I agree with you that elemental armor is much more difficult to get than ornate. That's irrelevant.

I was focusing on the "shouldn't look like" language, which is just a rehash of the old "badge of uberness" and "unique appearance" arguments that came up when dyes were introduced (and that came up peripherially in other threads here on the LDoN issue).

The comment I quoted reveals that same mindset, is all I intended by that statement. Sorry to make you go through all the trouble of making that list (even though it really isn't the "cost" of your elemental armor pieces). [/quote]

I did miss your point, and I do see where you were going with it Master Ambigious :) I even tend to agree with your "badge of uberness" statement, as I was a big supporter of the dyes for customization purposes (love it!).

As for that being the cost of my elemental armor, it most certainly was. The reason I won the two items I did win thus far is because I was there for each of those first kills (and most of the repeat kills). My merit determines whether or not I win an item, and merit is gained by raiding, and consequently beating encounters that EP enabled us. Had I not shown, or had we not won the encounters, I would not have those two pieces.

If that makes sense.

<strong>Scirocco: by 'shouldn't look like' I meant it shouldn't have the same stats. Why would I make an issue of looks? Take the foot out of your mouth and brush up on your reading comprehension.</strong>


LOL....don't make this so easy!

People who write something other than what they mean have no cause to complain about the reading comprehension of those they mislead.

I meant what I said, I just worded in such a way that obviously you had trouble grasping the true meaning. I didn't know I had to be that exact every time. Why would I suddenly bring up the issue of looks when we were talking about the quality of ornate vs. elemental? Just figured it would be clear to most people. *shrug*

you're a frigging troll because you deflect, deny, omit... the facts that people say. WTF did I say I wanted a reward for an hour as you suggest when all along I've asked for suitable challenge for suitable reward.

That's why you're a troll because you want to incite emotions and reactions without taking into account what people are actually saying. YOu make up what you want, construe, twist... in order to get your point across.

I could give two ****s that you disagree with me. That is not or will never be the point in a well discussed/argued debate. but when someone deliberately or inanely omits, changes... what people say on a consistent basis then it is no longer a debate is a crap throwing contest.

Please lock these threads they solve nothing, except that they are being done on EVERY class board in EQ, which means that it is a bone of contention that the developers better get right soon.

paraphrased...
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
dozens of Behemoth kills, dozens of Grummus kills, dozens of Hedge Maze runs, dozens of PoJ trial runs, dozens of Terris Thule kills, dozens of Aerin Dar kills, dozens of R(something) Dar kills, dozens of "save the chicks" trials, dozens of "villager" trials, 6 or so MM kills, dozens of Carpin ring kills, 6 or so Bertox rings, Saryn key (4 nameds in Torment), 10 or so Saryn kills, dozen or so Agnarr kills, 5 RZ kills
dozens of each of the 5 Sol Ro minis, 4 Sol Ro kills
[/quote]

Wow.

I'm glad I quit before I sank more time into those flags.

"All I wanted was to play together with my longtime EQ friends"; that's my boat, as it were.

That line of progression sure made fulfilling my desire difficult while I was still playing, if not impossible.

...

This thread is quite intriguing to me now. So many good points.

It would be very interesting to see your positions if there were absolutely <strong><em>no</em></strong> blocking of content in EQ; to go wherever you want, whenever you want, to <em>try</em> to kill whatever you want. Level 1 or level 65, 0 AA's or 300.

EDIT:

Hrmmm, is there still a group of people making an EverQuest server clone? That would be fun for me now.

Remember when you could hex edit the EQ tutorial .exe to insert any zone name you wanted, just to explore the zone without any monsters? Hehehe, that was fun too. I got so lost in Hate.


- Wyte

It's people like you that are trying to omit, warp, or otherwise deflect comments and points Soulcraver. Also, the only people trying to incite anything here are posters like you that take my posts out of context or conveniently omit things I have said. Unlike you I have read everyone's posts thoroughly. If I still disagree that's my perogative. If I make assumptions based on what I have read that's my right too. If you don't like them that's your choice, but I have a right to make them and I think in most cases I have been dead on. You just don't like the fact I disagree with you so you have to resort to petty attacks and accusations of me being a troll. That's pretty sad.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
If all this game was was being able to play 5 days a week for 2 hours at a time, at designated times, I and many others like me would be Time enabled. So there has to be something to what I'm saying.

[/quote]

Just to be clear, time access some time in the future is not enough for you, you want it now, a month after those who play 4 times as much?

Good luck on finding a game that manages to bend the laws of arithmetic in that fashion.

soru

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> Ornate armor doesn't have crappy stats. You sound like Alyssia, that's part of the problem right there. Sounds like you want elemental armor for an hour's worth of what you would call 'effort'.

Well the ornate shouldn't HAVE THE SAME STATS(for all the people with comprehension problems out there) as elemental anyway since it's a lot harder to get.
[/quote]

Wanderer's Sylvan Bracer
+12 AC
+4 Str
+3 Sta
+2 Agi
+6 Wis
+2 Cha
+3 vsMg +5 vsPos +2 vsDis
+35 HP
+40 Mana
Flowing Thought II

Kerasha's Sylvan Bracer
+20 AC
+15 Str
+9 Sta
+14 Dex
+13 Wis
+130 HP
+135 Mana
Flowing Thought IV

I guess I'm failing to understand your point Autumn. The Elem bracer is well over twice as good as Ornate. TWICE as good. Is there a precedent for that in previous expansions? I really don't think most folks are advocating Elem-like stats for "an hour's worth of effort" but rather an upgrade path (a la Elysian) that is clearly inferior, but at least in the same ballpark. Should that level of items be out of reach of anyone not in an Elem guild?

<img src="http://sun.he.net/~justin1/eq/sig4.jpg"/>
Magelo Profile (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=562742)

I dont see what the problem with Ornate is... yeah some of the pieces are kind of unimpressive... but at this point it's easier to get than velious HoT stuff, and it's droppable.

If you wanted upgrades to Elysian, you went to VT or Ssra (or Burrower, etc.) If you want upgrades to Ornate, you go to the elementals (or VT, or Ssra, etc.) There are upgrade paths, Ornate isnt supposed to be the end all armour. Unfortunately SOE has structured it so that you need to be in a raiding guild to get the upgrades (or really really rich) but that is nothing at all new... it's been like that for 4 years.

To complain that PoP is game breaking in that regard is silly when it's been like that all along. At least some of the upgrades are droppable now and attainable by lucky tradeskillers.

Tia

I still have HoT mostly but you don't see me griping and bitching. Yes, that's right! For all you people that accuse me of being some uber tool I have HoT armor(except for the BP, that's ornate). I was perfectly happy with the ornate BP too because to me it was a BIG upgrade to my elysian. I have gotten by perfectly well with my HoT plus ornate BP and will continue to do so. I guess it's all in the perception, or maybe just the greed. :mad:

Ornate and BP rock imho, I wear both :) The rest of the pieces have GREAT effects on them, but the stats are about equal to the other droppable pieces of loot for those slots. (for an example, compare the droppable arms I'm currently wearing in my magelo with the Ornate Arms)

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I have 3....I play about 6 hours 6-7 days a week, they dont charge me by the hour. Casual players play about 3 hours a day 3 days a week. We both pay the same ammount per account.

Im willing to bet harcores are roughly 60% of the market. I also dont think the games would live long without the hardcores. When casual players see links in the game or look at EQ realted websites they see all that high end content they "might" be able to explore some day with their playtime.[/quote]

You're confusing casual with non-raider here. I used to play 50 hours a week, as did many of my friends, but none of us ever raided. You might be surprised how prevalent this type of play-style used to be. Which brings me to another posters point...

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>It hasn't become anything that different than what came out in '99...I don't like PoP actually, but to sit and say the game has changed that much isn't quite accurate. It's the players that changed and SoE adjusted the game to accomodate them. It doesn't take raids to play the game or advance, that's a totally bogus assumption.[/quote]

EQ has definitely changed since '99, I'm quite surprised anyone would state any differently. It's gone from being a single group/soloist game to a raid-based game. It's gone from being a game which allowed small guilds of real life friends to thrive, to one that requires you to join a large (and to my mind) impersonal guild in order to experience everything the game has to offer.

I disagree that it was the players who changed, and SoE adjusted to meet their demands...the flagging system and raids required in PoP coerced many players to quit their guilds, and fractured many long-standing guilds over the protest of thousands of players. SoE has deliberately designed content that REQUIRES raids to succeed. Is this something the playerbase wanted? A contentious point that will never be settled, but I suspect it was a decision that SoE has come to regret.

Are there things to do, even if you chose not to raid? Sure. Heck, you could probably spend a year just trade-skilling if you want to. But lets be honest, most people who play these sorts of games want their characters to get great gear and complete objectives for whatever reason (among other things). Players do not wish to play games in which they are forced to radically alter their playstyle in order to succeed.

Maybe I'm just obsessed with being a power-gamer, but prior to the raid-flation, I could be (at least in my own mind) a significant force in Norrath, even without joining a large guild. The name of the game has changed. At one point, it was maxxing your character level. Then it was taking part in a loosely organized raid that killed a dragon. Then it was completing epic quests. Then it was getting flagged for VP, beating bosses in Velious, etc etc. Success in EQ is now commonly defined as beating end-game boss mobs, beating Time or whatever. Originally, it was possible to "max out" your character even if did not belong to a guild. Now, you are pretty much required to join a raid guild. Small guilds are left in the lurch.

Now, before anyone responds with some tripe like 'Oh Mappy, you just want to get l33t gear by logging in'-no. I recognize EQ is now what it is. It is not going to fundamentally move away from a raid mentality this late in its development cycle. Once I realized that SoE could never move away from its decision to raidflate the game, I decided it was time for me to cancel my account.

EQ ceased to be a game designed to accomodate my playstyle. EQ ceased to be a single-group focused, traditional fantasy role-playing game and became something else. There is nothing WRONG with that, aside from the fact that it left players such as myself out in the cold.

Ditto, Mappy.

Which leads us back to the actual topic.

Can games be designed to accomodate both playstyles?

I'm thinking not. But then, why should they? There's going to be a lot of games hitting the market in the next year or two. I will probably steer clear of any that FoH goes to, fearing that they're going to drive developers into remaking the same mistakes SOE made taking the big, guild raiding thing to such extremes at the expense of folks like you and me, Mappy.

If EQ's goal was to create big, raiding guilds, and big raids, then it should have happened at level 1 and gone on from there. At least you wouldn't have such a paradigm shift when you hit high levels and the ceiling where you can't progress without shifting paradigms, leaving behind friends or getting disgusted and quitting.