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What is the Arc Client?
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More like DDO or Guild Wars, or something else?
Archived Post
Member Posts: 5,050,278 Bounty Hunter
It may be too early for the devs to release details, but I feel like I'm still not getting what they are going for with this game. I'll admit I'm new to this specific community, so maybe I just haven't been around long enough to know the answers to my following questions. but I read the IGN interview and the FAQ, and it seems pretty thin on hard facts so far.
I played the old cRPGs like Baldur's Gate, I played NWN and the expansions, and I built my own adventures with the toolset, ran campaigns as a DM and played the campaign multiplayer over the internet.
I've also played many MMOs, including D&D Online and Guild Wars, neither of which are your "typical" WoW-style games.
It sounds like this is set to be an online-only, persistent world version of NWN, except real-time only, without the tactical pause/plan style of combat.
But are there going to be taverns where I'll go to buy supplies and I'll see 20 or 100 other players from around the world? Will there be "quest hubs" like in WoW? Will all the dungeons and sewers be instanced, like Guild Wars?
Will items be restricted in availability, with common, rare, and epic loots that are bound to your toon? Or will I be able to use the Foundry to make a Monty Hall dungeon like I could in NWN where everyone can go to stock up on the phatest overpowered gear imaginable?
I played the old cRPGs like Baldur's Gate, I played NWN and the expansions, and I built my own adventures with the toolset, ran campaigns as a DM and played the campaign multiplayer over the internet.
I've also played many MMOs, including D&D Online and Guild Wars, neither of which are your "typical" WoW-style games.
It sounds like this is set to be an online-only, persistent world version of NWN, except real-time only, without the tactical pause/plan style of combat.
But are there going to be taverns where I'll go to buy supplies and I'll see 20 or 100 other players from around the world? Will there be "quest hubs" like in WoW? Will all the dungeons and sewers be instanced, like Guild Wars?
Will items be restricted in availability, with common, rare, and epic loots that are bound to your toon? Or will I be able to use the Foundry to make a Monty Hall dungeon like I could in NWN where everyone can go to stock up on the phatest overpowered gear imaginable?
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There is no answer yet to your first question. As far as the Foundry, you probably will not be able to choose what the rewards will be, or else as you mentioned you could simply get all the best gear. What is more likely is it will work like it does in Cryptic's other game (Star Trek Online) where NPCs drop the normal types of loot for their type and level, and the system/game itself may give you a level appropriate reward for completing a Foundry mission.
Here what I imagine:
(this might be more technical than some will like/understand)
When I modded for NWN there was a very user friendly chest which was leveled. there was the "high" chest for high end loot, the "mid" chest for mid and the "low" for starters. there was also a "unique" chest.
When the modder added these it pulled items from the loot-list that reflected the difficultly without the modder needing to specifically add to each and every chest.
With a simple script one could analyze the dungeon and determine the dungeon's overall challenge and only one type of chest was needed, a "difficulty-check" chest. If the script attached to the chest found the dungeon easy it would redirect the loot check to the easy list. If it found it insanely difficult perhaps it would redirect to the unique one.
Now in NWN the loot-check chest was actually a chest stocked by the DM but in NWN online perhaps the devs could stock the chest and have the script run so all the modder would need to do is place a chest. Even if they placed 100 chests the script would reflect this and adjust accordingly. If you placed 100 unique chests it would simply break down the total cost of the items you would hope to get a divide by 100. So instead of getting that awesome sword worth 10,000 GP you would instead end up with a 100 chests with 100GP in them and no swords.
Hope this makes sense.
I think your topic headline differs a bit from what you wrote in your text.
For me the topic stated a more important question to me.
That yes....this seems to be more D&DO and/or GW than NWN....
You make a good point about confusion in my headline. What I intended was to ask was "Will it be more like DDO, or like GW, or like Something Else", not "...more like (DDO / GW) or (something else)."
I can't tell if the "at first" comment is just wishful thinking on the part of the author, or if Cryptic said something to that effect. But if they aren't allowing loot customization up front, then my guess is that even if allowed later, it will be heavily restricted to prevent rampant twinking.
I'm not saying that's a bad thing, btw. I'm just wondering what direction things will take
Again, we'll just have to wait as more info flows out.
example:
1. Hey John, i have seen that assignment where we have to search for a princess that is captured in the tower.
2. Hey Mike, Thats good, let meet each other in the tavern.
E. both players go to the tavern.
1. Hey John are you in the tavern already?
2. Yes Mike, but i did not see you entering the tavern.
1. Erm John, i am in tavern_003 and you are in tavern_001. Please re-enter the tarvern in version 3.
I think that just sucks certainly where roleplaying is one of the key elements of the game. Its an easy and cheap way of pushing more people into common and large populated areas on one server. It is an ugly solution for a problem in graphics and dataloads.
I really really hope that this mistake will not be made here.
PS: this does not apply to the dungeons themselves which could be instanced for the group itself, but only on public area's.
I agree that this can be annoying from an immersion stand point. But i don't know that there's a way around it.
How would you feel immersion-wise to walk into a small tavern with 10 tables only to find 200 people in it, standing ear-to-ear?
Alternatively, how annoying is it to find that your friend is on a different server altogether and you can't play together at all?
Instanced common areas seems like the best solution anyone has come up with so far. Some handle it better than others. One of the better ways I've seen is where if you join a group, then the group leader gets an option to automatically transfer all the other members to his instance. That eliminates the guesswork and frustration to a large degree at least.
.. after 5yr's of playing im burned out but i still think the mechanics of the game are the best in the buss. i tried wow for like 3 minutes i hated it right off i tried guild wars hat:Ded how the char. move around DDO is the only game ive played that had every thing i liked in a game its just old now its time for a freash new dnd game and im hoping this is it!