Lazarus Magni wrote...
Actually, no Superfly has made some thoughtful, and on topic contributions to this discussion, regardless of whether or not he agrees with my own particular idea. I respect him for actually having something meaningful to contribute. Nice try trying to start some beef though. It's people who only want to foccus on the bickering and the negatives, and those who constantly want to derail the core of the topic that I don't see as being constructive participants in this dialog, and question their intensions.
Regardless of how thoughtful and on topic Superfly's responses were, he is the only one that I can find who is opposed to the idea of being able to create custom campaigns and servers.
You said:
'I have to say though, although I have made my intentions perfectly clear (trying to spark a discussion about how we could have a next gen game akin to NWN 1, and how to preserve what is good about NWN 1, and yet provide a developer with incentive for producing such a game.) It’s those who are in opposition to this idea who have not made their intentions clear."
Superfly's comment that I mentioned is the antithesis of "preserving what is good about NWN 1" as far as I can tell, which is the ability to create custom content, right?
Lazarus Magni wrote...
Because I don't feel like perpetuating this endless argument with you, of which obviously neither of us is going to be persuaded by. If you think there are 100's of nwn 1 builds, and they are not that different from each other (which is true in some cases, but not the majority as you are trying to make it seem), than you don't know much about character building in NWN 1.
I'm open to being persuaded. I'm just looking for some evidence. I presented you with that guide to playing a Marksmanship Hunter in WoW and I have *never* seen anything remotely *close* to that in NWN. If you have, by all means please enlighten me, I'd be very interested in seeing it.
Squatting Monk wrote...
You could imagine any given class combination as lying somewhere on a sliding scale between the archetypes. Slide in direction A, get more A-ish. Slide in direction B, get more B-ish.
An MMO-style system is typically aimed at optimizing for a particular in-game role.
Indeed. And the harsh truth is that you can calculate what combination of fighter and rogue levels is optimal for a desired role in NWN. In addition, WoW picks points on the spectrum and saves "THIS will be a specialization." So the equivalent of a fighter/rogue mix that is dexterity based and dual-wielding in light-armor is very similar to the Combat specialization of a Rogue in NWN.
In addition, it is far easier to create hybrid Physical/Spellcasting characters because Blizzard can control *exactly* what tools the class has access to. A fighter 20/wizard 20 is generally a suboptimal spellcaster and subpar fighter. An Enhancement Shaman is a hybrid of spells and melee and is perfectly optimal.
Lazarus Magni wrote...
I am not calling anyone a name by voicing this opinion. I am mearly voicing my opinion which is I think that gaming model is a scam. And those that buy into it are marks (aka suckers), and sheep (aka, following the "popular" crowd, regardless of the true merits (or lack there of) of the endevor.)
P.S. Again, this is foccusing on the negatives of this thread, rather than actually adding constructive ideas towards the heart of the topic. AKA THE FUTURE OF MMO games. Apparently the future is bleak.
Yes, you are calling people a name when you call them a mark or a sucker. That's true whether you actually believe what you're saying or not.
P.S. The whole thread started off as being derogatory, so why are you surprised some of us are annoyed that you couldn't on positives and instead decided to insulted people
when you don't even know jack about WoW?Squatting Monk wrote...
The reason this thread got so negative is that it started out that way. Before you started asking for people's opinions on how online RPGs could be improved, you spent a coupla posts taking potshots at MMOs and the people who play them. You could've done this in a non-negative way, stating your opinion without making digs at people.
For instance, you could've said, "I don't care for the trends I see in MMOs. I think WoW and other MMOs focus too much on commercialization and not enough on building communities and getting people to create. I would prefer to see a model more like NWN, but perhaps where the developer could extend the life of the game by, say, offering paid hosting. I think that would be more fun and better for the continuing health of the online gaming community. Are there other ways online RPGs could be improved? Are they commercially viable? How can we encourage developers to adopt these strategies?" I don't think anyone would've been upset if you'd said something like that, and most of us (even the WoWers) would have enthusiastically agreed. Instead, you quickly made this into a "hate on MMOs" thread, then got mad when people objected to your statements.
This. Exactly this.
WebShaman wrote...
No, you are not listening or reasoning well here. You have a channel (WoW). It offers you different programs to "watch", if you will, but they are all based on one theme (WoW)!
The comparison is normally broken down like this :
TV = Computer (makes sense, right? One device = one device).
You could compare the Internet with your Cable programming (many, many different channels to choose from, etc, etc).
WoW is one form (one channel) of entertainment (much like NWN is). You have different shows, sure. But it is only one channel, among many, to choose from.
Let's talk themes outside of video games, then.
Is War a theme? If that's too broad, how about World War II?
Is Politics a theme? If that's too broad, how about White House Elections?
Is Medicine a theme? If that's too broad, how about the Emergency Room?
Do you consider any of those a theme? If not, what sort of thing would you consider to be a theme? Note: I don't care what you *think* about any of those topics (or rather, I do, but I'm not trying to turn this into a debate on them), I just care if you consider them a theme.
WebShaman wrote...
As for character developement, yadda yadda yadda. WoW doesn't come close to scratching the barrel that is NWN in complexity! When I include all the Community made content (ala PRC, for example), WoW is...what? Oh yeah, simple, really.
Just examine your Epic Character Builds. Lots of interesting things there, mostly just with the "standard" stuff. And yes, I can use custom content in this comparison, because we are comparing the complete game here.
In terms of character creation, WoW is certainly simple, because all you can choose at the start is your race, class, gender, and appearance. All of the important choices come much later and you can always undo a mistake relatively easily. I personally think that's better than having to have your entire build planned out from the get-go and you're screwed otherwise, but I can understand the latter is enjoyable to people. However, it seems more of a trap for new players than anything else (or a test to see if people can Google "What are the optimal starting stats/feats/etc for <class>?"
This is a worthwhile article:
Complexity versus Depth. Especially...
"Complexity can also be increased by adding choices. However, be careful when doing this, and do it slowly, as adding a choice can often invalidate others, leaving your game with less depth, but more complexity, than it previously had.
In some cases, you can increase complexity by
removing choices. If a particular strategy dominates two others, then removing that one strategy can increase depth while
simultaneously reducing complexity! In most cases, that’s a win-win."
In other words, if...
class A > class B
class B = class C
in terms of performance, you might as well not have class B and class C. Everyone will pick A, because it's simply better. Unless you want something sub-optimal for role-playing reasons or something, I guess.
Likewise, if you remove class A, you suddenly have TWO viable choices instead of just ONE.
WoW has 34 valid choices (or will, within a month when the 11th class is added). These things are within a percentage of two of each other, because otherwise people who care will always go with a certain choice. I would be very surprised if NWN, including as much custom content as you wanted, had 34 valid combinations.
My guess is that it would boil down to about at most a dozen builds which are clearly superior and everything else is inferior. Now, in NWN it is often viewed as acceptable to play something inferior, and if that's something you're content with and you would rather have more diversity at the cost of balance and valid end-game choices (and personally I think 34 choices is a hell of a lot), then yes, NWN's system is more complex and you'd enjoy it more.
WebShaman wrote...
As for...difficulty. I will not get into this type of debate, because I simply do not have the necessary info here. We would need someone like FunkySwerve here (or someone from another high level server - avlis 3, perhaps?) to do some comparisons.
I find it funny that you mention that one does not need certain things to accomplish certain tasks in WoW. I suspect this is not true because I hear the opposite from those I know who regularly play WoW. Without certain items, levels, builds, etc, it is not possible to do certain raids (so I have been told).
You absolutely need to be at max level, sure, for the actual raids. And you shouldn't expect to hit max level and immediately be ready to go toe to toe with the hardest boss in the game. But if you reasonably progress through content, get quest rewards, and do each dungeon a few times, you'll have the gear you need to continue forward. For example, when you first hit level 85 you should be able to do about 9k DPS. After getting some quest rewards and doing some dungeons, you'll be able to do like 11-12k. After doing the harder dungeons and getting your gear prepared (such as permanent enchants and gems), you'd be able to do 13-14k or so. So the difference between being a fresh 85 and one who is ready for raids is roughly 50% more DPS.
And no specific item is needed. Just some better items in general. You could raid without wearing a chestpiece if the rest of your gear was decent and gear is fairly interchangeable. Furthermore, if the rest of your players were good and had gear from the raid, the new 85 would be able to walk in and contribute if he knew what he was doing. He'd be doing 2/3 of the damage of other people (assuming equal skill), but he'd be a valuable contribution. He'd never be unable to hurt the boss because he didn't have certain gear or die instantly because he didn't have a certain item.
The reverse is true on Higher Ground, since you mentioned it. On Higher Ground, gear is far more important than anything else. Doing 2/3 of the proper damage doesn't matter, but not having a ring to give you 75% or more cold immunity (or a different damage type as needed) is essential. Otherwise, you literally just keep dying and cannot contribute, there's no skill involved if you don't have the gear. I found the whole thing very amusing because I've heard people complain that WoW is so gear-focused, while Higher Ground is far, far worse in that regard. In some of the runs I went on, I might as well not have been there or I simply had to stand back and do nothing but spam healing potions or I'd die. Other times I would literally be unable to do anything to the boss (or even minions) and again, I might as well have just gone AFK. If we aren't geared enough for a gear check boss in WoW, we die at like 5-10% of the boss's health or something. Not at 75% or more.
And I get that some people like being completely gear checked, having to have a bunch of different sets of gear, and playing ability mattering very little in comparison. Plenty of people enjoy Higher Ground. I didn't, and it helped reinforce that the importance of gear in WoW is usually grossly overestimated.
Side note: why do you think we'd need a high level server to compare it to? You can easily compare WoW to a level 10, 20, 30, 40, whatever server. There's nothing inherently special about WoW's level 85, in fact WoW level 60 is equivalent to DnD level 10 at most, I'd guess. Level 60s aren't kings or mighty archmages, they're regular or perhaps elite adventurers.
WebShaman wrote...
The fact that you say that the No. 1 Clan took 500 tries to defeat X Raid says volumes.
If you mean it says how difficult WoW at the upper echelons of the game, yes. If you think it means something about gear, then no.
It didn't take them over 500 tries to beat a raid. It took them over 500 tries to beat *ONE BOSS.* In fact, the fight had a berserk (aka the boss says "GAME OVER" and kills you) at the 15:00 mark, but the top world guild was running into it. This was occurring because they were progressing through the bosses so rapidly that they had basically gotten no gear from them. Remember that raids are meant to be progressed through over the course of months and in that time you'll kill the easier bosses many times. In this case, they had killed the previous bosses only a handful of times,so if Blizzard expected them to do a minimum of 30k DPS, they could only do 28-29k.
So what did Blizzard do? They EXTENDED the timer to 18:00. They didn't say "Oh, well, you clearly need more gear." They said "Look, this is about skill, and you guys are so amazing that you're defying our projections. We'll give you a ton of extra time on the boss fight, and if you somehow manage to pull it off and win despite being undergeared, major props to you."
When most guilds killed the boss, they got there able to do 33-35k DPS and had a much easier time. They never would have ran into the berserk, because it was never intended that ANYONE run into the berserk unless something went terribly wrong.
Heroic Ragnaros (the boss) was difficult because it was difficult. It required a ton of coordination and movement, careful planning and strategy, timing, and tremendous execution in an incredibly chaotic environment. Not because people didn't have a certain item and thus the boss was impossible.
WebShaman wrote...
I prefer D&D, yup. Nothing bothers me more than the WoW (DA) style magic systems all based on blah! Total blah for me.
Why is that, if I might ask?
WebShaman wrote...
First, you had the Hasbro disaster - you know, 4ed.
Again, why is that, if I might ask? I've never played "actual" DnD so I don't know the differences between editions (I do know NWN was based on 3rd edition). A few sentence summary would be wonderful (though if you feel like ranting about it, by all means go ahead).
Modifié par MagicalMaster, 31 août 2012 - 10:08 .
