By decent, I'm betting he means content people put real effort and time into. Content that makes you feel like you're part of the game, like everything ties together and you really feel immersed in the experience. He means Truth&Zebs content. ;D
Going off of the other games, there are going to be a lot of different currencies, one of which possibly as a way to grind for Zen (like dilithium or Questionite). I'm not really sure though how many different types of it they had in D&D though so who knows what we might be getting stuck with. Sto just introduced two new ones specifically for grinding called reputation, so we might even see that in this game. Too much of a grind early on in a game might not sit well with players.
Going off of the other games, there are going to be a lot of different currencies, one of which possibly as a way to grind for Zen (like dilithium or Questionite). I'm not really sure though how many different types of it they had in D&D though so who knows what we might be getting stuck with. Sto just introduced two new ones specifically for grinding called reputation, so we might even see that in this game. Too much of a grind early on in a game might not sit well with players.
Yeah, I think there has been discussion of Astral Diamonds being the dilithium equivalent for NW. Other than that I know DnD has copper, silver, gold and plat pieces. There are other currencies used in various regions and from an RP standpoint I'd love to see those in game, but they need to be exchangeable easily.
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iamtruthseekerMember, Moonstars, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Yeah, I think there has been discussion of Astral Diamonds being the dilithium equivalent for NW. Other than that I know DnD has copper, silver, gold and plat pieces. There are other currencies used in various regions and from an RP standpoint I'd love to see those in game, but they need to be exchangeable easily.
It's official Astral Diamonds (or AD) will be the secondary currency. I haven't heard much about crafting, but the only other "worthy" secondary material worth a notable amount of coin used universally-residuum-likely is in that section of the game then.
Well, if you're only 22, hate to break it to you...but l33t has been around far longer, and I remember its inception and popularity.
LOL... you must remember Efnet then... that article...that website is totally inaccurate lol. Public access to the internet didn't come until the early 90s and there were no web pages until the 90s either It's on the internet though it must be true! lol Check it out the first web page.
I've been around a bit and I would have to say without a doubt this <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> originated on IRC back fairly close to when internet access became open to the public. I do think it's possible that it originated on BBS networks which people could connect to via dial-up... lot of pirates and hackers on BBSs back then (as well as artists and musicians). I don't think it was some secret speak either... we used to use it as a joke and generally made fun of it... and most of "us" were hackers and pirates... back in the day when you could ping attack people and kill their modem connection haha... ah sorry had to post on that one... brought back some memories lol
Edit: You know thinking about it... might have started with BBS scene... we used to identify ourselves by our telephone area code ....414!!! LOL hehe gotta be people out there that remember that <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>....the fun days.
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iamtruthseekerMember, Moonstars, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
LOL... you must remember Efnet then... that article...that website is totally inaccurate lol. Public access to the internet didn't come until the early 90s and there were no web pages until the 90s either It's on the internet though it must be true! lol Check it out the first web page.
I've been around a bit and I would have to say without a doubt this <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> originated on IRC back fairly close to when internet access became open to the public. I do think it's possible that it originated on BBS networks which people could connect to via dial-up... lot of pirates and hackers on BBSs back then (as well as artists and musicians). I don't think it was some secret speak either... we used to use it as a joke and generally made fun of it... and most of "us" were hackers and pirates... back in the day when you could ping attack people and kill their modem connection haha... ah sorry had to post on that one... brought back some memories lol
Edit: You know thinking about it... might have started with BBS scene... we used to identify ourselves by our telephone area code ....414!!! LOL hehe gotta be people out there that remember that <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>....the fun days.
Let's just say when being a courier on a BBS wasn't always something you talked about and warez was as rare as l33tspeak on BBS' that's when we spoke it. Yeah the WWW posers by the time they spoke it in what...'94, it was old news, but back in the early to late 80's...it had its underground pride.
But in the age of Wiki removing info about MUD's and MUSHes, most peole would go BBwhaaaaa, so I use popular references for people to "get it."
alsarothMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited November 2012
I agree that to any sypes of currencies should be avoided (DDO is a fine example of how not to do things), and other games as well. Keep it simple with three/four levels of basic currency and maybe a PvP currency.
"A rare display of intelligence, undoubtedly fleeting." - Edwin Odesseiron
"Let's just say when being a courier on a BBS wasn't always something you talked about and warez was as rare as l33tspeak on BBS' that's when we spoke it. Yeah the WWW posers by the time they spoke it in what...'94, it was old news, but back in the early to late 80's...it had its underground pride.
But in the age of Wiki removing info about MUD's and MUSHes, most peole would go BBwhaaaaa, so I use popular references for people to "get it."
Spoken from an old Co-Sysop I guess"
Yeah man I remember those days was an ASCII artist at the time...so long ago now I even forget which art group I was in haha gettin senile I guess lol.... AsH, Blade whichever... might have jumped from one to another can't recall anymore....yeah my little brother was best friends with the son of the guy that started ExecPC in his basement...just about 15 min from where I live in New Berlin, Wi. Yeah getting on the right boards was important if you needed expensive art apps lol... oh man I remember filling out applications to get on boards too haha...once IRC kicked in I was outta there in search of Lightwave and what was it called back then 3D Studio Max? hehe Then the apps were flowing...got a little spooky after some groups got popped first five years of IRC was a free for all though...Some of the original channels I started are still running lol... I won't even go on IRC anymore though because every time I did try to go talk with old pals I'd end up getting some damn virus just from logging on! I was like wtf?! Now were just a bunch of old <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> that talk once in a while on FB.... times have changed
They took the explanation of what MuD's and Mushes off wikipedia? I had a pal that was a MUD addict...I hated em needed some graphics!!! LLL UUU DDD wtf? hehe I used to put him on follow and just watch the text rip by totally confused about where we were lol
Remember SoftIce? hehe dunno if you ever did any actual hacking back then. hmm maybe this isn't appropriate for this forum haha
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iamtruthseekerMember, Moonstars, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
"Let's just say when being a courier on a BBS wasn't always something you talked about and warez was as rare as l33tspeak on BBS' that's when we spoke it. Yeah the WWW posers by the time they spoke it in what...'94, it was old news, but back in the early to late 80's...it had its underground pride.
But in the age of Wiki removing info about MUD's and MUSHes, most peole would go BBwhaaaaa, so I use popular references for people to "get it."
Spoken from an old Co-Sysop I guess"
Yeah man I remember those days was an ASCII artist at the time...so long ago now I even forget which art group I was in haha gettin senile I guess lol.... AsH, Blade whichever... might have jumped from one to another can't recall anymore....yeah my little brother was best friends with the son of the guy that started ExecPC in his basement...just about 15 min from where I live in New Berlin, Wi. Yeah getting on the right boards was important if you needed expensive art apps lol... oh man I remember filling out applications to get on boards too haha...once IRC kicked in I was outta there in search of Lightwave and what was it called back then 3D Studio Max? hehe Then the apps were flowing...got a little spooky after some groups got popped first five years of IRC was a free for all though...Some of the original channels I started are still running lol... I won't even go on IRC anymore though because every time I did try to go talk with old pals I'd end up getting some damn virus just from logging on! I was like wtf?! Now were just a bunch of old <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> that talk once in a while on FB.... times have changed
They took the explanation of what MuD's and Mushes off wikipedia? I had a pal that was a MUD addict...I hated em needed some graphics!!! LLL UUU DDD wtf? hehe I used to put him on follow and just watch the text rip by totally confused about where we were lol
Remember SoftIce? hehe dunno if you ever did any actual hacking back then. hmm maybe this isn't appropriate for this forum haha
If what isn't appropriate? I have no idea...gee, did my hat I don't wear anymor go gray then, I dunno...*whistles then goes off looking for a video toaster*
"If what isn't appropriate? I have no idea...gee, did my hat I don't wear anymor go gray then, I dunno...*whistles then goes off looking for a video toaster"
hahaha I was playing with blender today for some odd reason...dude that comment cracked me up...ah I needed that thanks man...lol ttyl
Used to be a guy that sat in one of my channels that works for Newtek in a rather high position.... guy has it made now...
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elewyndylMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Grinding isn't hardcore it is time consuming. I like end game content that is actually content, but I have no desire to repeat the same set of missions over and over again just to earn currency to buy new loot. Give me a game to play at end game, not the same dailies to grind over and over.
Dailies in WOW like Quests in outside world to earn simply more money were not fun. However crafting in WOW earns you much more money then dailies. I also liked doing same Dungeons and Raids many times in WOW.
Developers have said that you do have to many time certain Dungeons IF you want to get certain loot. There are randomloot drops. You can however buy also items from an Auction house, but then you need to give cash(likely ingame currency a lot). You can however get to max level doing lots of content and in time more and more user generated adventures will also be available.
Bottom line is this: Honestly I would suspect Neverwinter is less hardcore then WOW, but not even near so casual as Guild Wars 2. Remember old NWN1 and NWN2? You had to explore like 90% of the released content(not talking about future Foundry content) before your character was maxed.
Those players who expect no grind or little grind should play other games and likewise I really doubt it would be so hardcore as WOW though which is everlasting lootmill.
Dailies in WOW like Quests in outside world to earn simply more money were not fun. However crafting in WOW earns you much more money then dailies. I also liked doing same Dungeons and Raids many times in WOW.
Developers have said that you do have to many time certain Dungeons IF you want to get certain loot. There are randomloot drops. You can however buy also items from an Auction house, but then you need to give cash(likely ingame currency a lot). You can however get to max level doing lots of content and in time more and more user generated adventures will also be available.
Bottom line is this: Honestly I would suspect Neverwinter is less hardcore then WOW, but not even near so casual as Guild Wars 2. Remember old NWN1 and NWN2? You had to explore like 90% of the released content(not talking about future Foundry content) before your character was maxed.
Those players who expect no grind or little grind should play other games and likewise I really doubt it would be so hardcore as WOW though which is everlasting lootmill.
Again, grind =/= hardcore. And WoW by no means is hardcore, I remember spawn camping for days in EQ, and I don't consider that hardcore. Timesinks are not hardcore, they are simply timesinks. I don't doubt that there will be some grinding in NW, but I don't want entire systems built around grinding specific forms of currencies to be what the end game is about because there is no "game" in that there is just "end". I'd love to see them build an end game around doing Foundry missions, but I doubt it will happen. STO's Foundry has been down for days as the sort through it to kill the 2 minute daily mission loopholes.
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elewyndylMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Again, grind =/= hardcore. And WoW by no means is hardcore, I remember spawn camping for days in EQ, and I don't consider that hardcore. Timesinks are not hardcore, they are simply timesinks. I don't doubt that there will be some grinding in NW, but I don't want entire systems built around grinding specific forms of currencies to be what the end game is about because there is no "game" in that there is just "end". I'd love to see them build an end game around doing Foundry missions, but I doubt it will happen. STO's Foundry has been down for days as the sort through it to kill the 2 minute daily mission loopholes.
Sigh thats your definition of hardcore.
If you compare levelling time only then Everquest is certainly more hardcore then WOW. That said you never max your character in WOW they always release next tier of gear and those who play more get more powerful characters. Yes Everquest which can take years to max a character with is certainly hardcore.
Hardcore has NOTHING to do with skill. Lol if it would be about skill alone then I think Guild Wars 2 could be rated hardcore. Hardcore is a mixture about TIME commitment, but not only that it is how serious you are about the game how important it feels for you etc.
If we also talk about learning diffculty then I guess Eve Online could be regarded hardcore for it certainly takes very long time to learn and is not easy to learn.
I don't need a game like Everquest that could take years to max a character. I neither need EVE Online that would make an engineer feel stressed with the learning curve. The golden balance is that it takes a looooong time to max character though certainly not years like in Everquest. I would be pleased if you play 40 hours/week and it takes many months to max a character, but it does not need to take years.
Sigh thats your definition of hardcore. Hardcore has NOTHING to do with skill. Lol if it would be about skill alone then I think Guild Wars 2 could be rated harcore. Hardcore is a mixture about TIME commitment, but not only that it is how serious you are about the game how important it feels for you etc.
If we also talk about learning diffculty then I guess Eve Online could be regarded hardcore for it certainly takes very long time to learn and is not easy to learn.
I don't need a game like Everquest that could take years to max a character. I neither need EVE Online that would make an engineer feel stressed with the learning curve. The golden balance is that it takes a looooong time to max character though certainly not years like in Everquest. I would be pleased if you play 40 hours/week and it takes many months to max a character, but it does not need to take years.
Commitment to a game alone doesn't make you hardcore. I'm sorry, but most adults have responsibilities that keep them from being able to play 24/7 just because they don't shirk those responsibilities or even occasionally choose to seek out other forms of entertainment doesn't mean they are "casual". It means they have balance in their lives. These are the ones most likely to stay with a game for the long run because they don't get burnt out on it. Give them enough things to do and they'll keep coming back and playing for years. While the person who played non-stop since launch will only be around until they get bored.
This is a Cryptic game, I don't expect it to take more than a month or two to get to the level cap. But that really is moot. It is not about how long level cap takes or how many timesinks there are after level cap. What defines a games success is if the content on the road to the cap and/or after the cap is worth playing. If the game has the same 5-10 dailies to do over and over and over again it is going to fail. Look at SWTOR, a game supposed built on story, but once you finished the story there was nothing to do, but the same old dailies and that reality drove customers away in bunches.
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elewyndylMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Commitment to a game alone doesn't make you hardcore. I'm sorry, but most adults have responsibilities that keep them from being able to play 24/7 just because they don't shirk those responsibilities or even occasionally choose to seek out other forms of entertainment doesn't mean they are "casual". It means they have balance in their lives. These are the ones most likely to stay with a game for the long run because they don't get burnt out on it. Give them enough things to do and they'll keep coming back and playing for years. While the person who played non-stop since launch will only be around until they get bored.
This is a Cryptic game, I don't expect it to take more than a month or two to get to the level cap. But that really is moot. It is not about how long level cap takes or how many timesinks there are after level cap. What defines a games success is if the content on the road to the cap and/or after the cap is worth playing. If the game has the same 5-10 dailies to do over and over and over again it is going to fail. Look at SWTOR, a game supposed built on story, but once you finished the story there was nothing to do, but the same old dailies and that reality drove customers away in bunches.
While at this point it seems a mystery to me what you consider hardcore at least the above wish made some sense to me(expect I want 3 months at least to max character if you play 40 hours/week). I work full time. That said my brother works full time has family/kids so he certainly has less time to play.
I have not played SWTOR so it is impossible for me to judge that. I have played mainly Age of Conan and WOW if we talk about MMO.s
What are you worried about if you only consider the journey? There will be plenty of PvE to do from FOUNDRY released content.
That said the powerful rule the world might become true in PvP. Nothing has been shown from PvP and I am confident that while skill matter so does level and items also. They have only said PvP is supported in some form, but full Open World PvP is not supported.
If any other person reads this post also be calm this game will not be some PvP gank or slaughterhouse. PvP will with all logic be contained in some areas only likely specific PvP instances.
While at this point it seems a mystery to me what you consider hardcore at least the above wish made some sense to me. I work full time. That said my brother works full time has family/kids so he certainly has less time to play.
I have not played SWTOR so it is impossible for me to judge that. I have played mainly Age of Conan and WOW if we talk about MMO.s
What are you worried about if you only consider the journey? There will be plenty of PvE to do from FOUNDRY released content.
That said the powerful rule the world might become true in PvP. Nothing has been shown from PvP and I am confident that while skill matter so does level and items also. They have only said PvP is supported in some form, but full Open World PvP is not supported.
Hardcore is irrelevant is my point. What you or I define as hardcore has no bearing on what will actually make Cryptic/PWE money. What has bearing on what will make them money is what players are willing to stick around and pay money for, "hardcore" especially in a f2p shop based game makes no difference.
I'm concerned that NW will follow the path of many a recent game and devolve into a game where you simply login to do dailies. Yes the Foundry offers an opportunity for something more, but if the foundry doesn't reward a player in the way dailies do, then there is little incentive to participate. Furthermore, the foundry in STO has been down for several days now and the same is likely to happen in NW at times. What NW needs is to either have so many daily options that it never feels like a grind to do them or it needs to come up with a different end game approach.
As for PvP, I tend not to play PvP in these kinds of games, most recent games have relegated PvP to "boxing matches" in small instances. If I want to PvP I'll go for something like Darkfall or I'll check out Planetside 2. PvP in a mostly PvE MMO is usually not the best, the two have a hard time working because of balance issues.
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elewyndylMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
I'm concerned that NW will follow the path of many a recent game and devolve into a game where you simply login to do dailies. Yes the Foundry offers an opportunity for something more, but if the foundry doesn't reward a player in the way dailies do, then there is little incentive to participate. Furthermore, the foundry in STO has been down for several days now and the same is likely to happen in NW at times. What NW needs is to either have so many daily options that it never feels like a grind to do them or it needs to come up with a different end game approach.
As for PvP, I tend not to play PvP in these kinds of games, most recent games have relegated PvP to "boxing matches" in small instances. If I want to PvP I'll go for something like Darkfall or I'll check out Planetside 2. PvP in a mostly PvE MMO is usually not the best, the two have a hard time working because of balance issues.
Well a valid concern. In WOW thats what you do dayly Heroic Dungeon run and once/week weekly Raid. I don't believe this game will be so extreme in loot rewards as WOW.
This balancing loot is a sensitive thing. Developers has said that the loot system has not yet finally been decided...
Lets leave the PvP subject for a while since we really don't know anything about it but I liked both WOW PvP and also PvP in Unreal Tournament 2004. My favorite gaming mode was Capture the Flag that encouraged team work and not only skill to kill though you certainly can kill lots of opponents in that gaming mode, but there are 2 teams.
Well, some people will get to max level no matter how long it takes, assuming the game is fun. How long it takes to get to max level is really another topic altogether. Once they're at max level they're going to want something rewarding to do. What is rewarding?
Getting gear/power
Getting recognition
Looking cool
(I'm sure there are others.)
There are many ways to hand out gear. One of those ways, as varrvarr mentions, is the rep grind. You want points that you can spend with faction X, Y or Z? Do quests that are geared for faction rep with whichever one. Hopefully with the Foundry DMs will be able to link thier quests to a certain faction. Then instead of there being 8 or 10 dungeons or boring dailies that you'd run to get whatever currency with that faction, there would instead be 100 good-to-okay quests that you could run for faction rep.
In some games, like WoW, there are about five steps of faction standing that actually matter. (Neutral, honored, exhalted, etc) These five steps of faction standing do not stand up to the constant reinforcement that players need to stay motivated. Splitting up these five steps into 20 steps of faction standing I think would be more motivational. Rather than saying: "Well, I'm a little over a third of the way to rank 2 and I haven't unlocked anything at all yet." you'd be saying "I'm rank 4 now and I've unlocked a few mediocre things but I can't wait till rank 10 where there's something good." Every 10th of a rank you'd be getting some positive reinforcement to keep you motivated even though the amount of work is the same in both cases.
Another possible solution to avoid the faction rep grind in this case would be to make the currency tradable. Rather than racking up 1000 reputation points, maybe they could ask you to get 1000 marks of valor, and then being the incredibly rich and lazy guy you are you'll just go down to the local auction house and throw down a million plat for those marks of valor and then return 5 minutes later to faction X leader and get your hammer of awesomeness. This would not negate currency for faction X and would still allow those who don't mind the grind to just go ahead and grind it out. It would also allow the redistribution of wealth to newer players which would help keep the economy flowing and additionally it would allow Cryptic to take a cut of the transaction via the auction house, resulting in another money sink, which is very important. For the average player who really wanted to buy a hammer of awesomeness from faction X it would at least ease the grind a bit by allowing them to spend whatever they can afford from another currency.
Another way to get gear at end game is by doing difficult quests. In games like WoW this would be end-game dungeons and raiding. In WoW it seemed like there were about 6 or 8 end-game dungeons at any given point in the game as well as two to five raids. That meant that you'd be running those dungons over and over for whatever currency you needed, and probably hating every minute of it. And then you'd be doing raids weekly for basically the same reason.
Since foundry adventures scale to the level of the character or party, then effective EVERY adventure ever made is fair game as an end-game dungeon. Granted, the difficulty of the encounters do affect the loot given by the adventure. I'm guessing the length of the adventure and average difficulty have something to do with the end-of-adventure loot. So if you're at max level and trying to gear up then running an adventure with a few easy encounters isn't going to cut it.
For those who were out only to avoid the grind, I think there should be enough content at end game to avoid most of the grind.
A lot of people seem to want to do things as efficiently as possible, even if what they're doing is terribly grindy. Adventures will be built with end-game players in mind that are full of hordes of difficult yet boring encounters specifically so that the end-of-adventure loot will be epic. Some players may still find the "best" adventure for them given thier skill level and time restraints, while other people will see the hardest difficult adventure and think that it would be even better if they added "Just one more dragon". Theoretically these every one of these grinders could tune the difficulty of the end game to thier own specifications. And when they were grinding thier own dungeon and they managed to finally get better gear then they could adjust the difficulty accordingly. Maybe people will find that they can get epic gear in a dungeon filled with a zillion easy encounters.
PVP is another end-game activity, and rewards could be given out via that. I'm not a PVPer, so I won't try to discuss how that should be done.
The trick that the developers need to pull off is to balance these things (running difficult adventures,faction rep grinds,pvp,cash shop purchases,etc) so that it remains as fun/engaging as possible for as long as possible, all while keeping in mind that the whole point of keeping the players around is to somehow get them to spend more money and keep you in business. And the key to doing that is putting the ability to get those things into the Foundry. I think that if the Foundry is implemented correctly then the grind to get faction rep or gear wouldn't be nearly as bad as some previous MMOs.
On the other hand, if you're 100% against grinding, and you consider it grindy to do 100 different and new-to-you adventures at end game before you can buy your hammer of awesomeness then you're going to be disappointed. Also, if you're thinking that the only currency in the game will be money, then you'll be disappointed. Getting mountains of the same in-game cash that you've already dealt with for 60 levels seems to me to be a very poor motivating tool.
Keep in mind that some people enjoy the faction reputation grind and you can bet that the developers are going to implement some of it in order to keep those people around. And since it takes a long time, then those people will stay around for a long time and the developers will feel that they have succeeded, especially when they manage to sell some anti-grinding-potions-of-reputation-getting and then take that money and use it to eat food IRL or keep the servers up or whatever they do with it. They may have ten or more different factions that you can get reputation with. If you don't like doing it then don't focus on it. Do something else. Get your hammer of awesomeness another way. I really don't mind the reputation grind sometimes, but logging in just to do dailies (dungeons or quests) really does suck.
In the hardcore vs not-hardcore debate, I'd say that for the most part each player decides for themselves how hardcore a game is. I played WoW and was never hardcore. I didn't raid and I didn't PVP and I pretty much ignored anyone who did. Though, doing anything in EQ is more hardcore than almost anything in WoW. I'm not sure how you could be a casual EQ player. Want to walk from one town to the next? Hardcore. Fishing? Hardcore. Drinking? Hardcore. Not saying that making it hardcore made it more fun either. Also, agreed that hardcoreishness is irrelevant.
On the other hand, if you're 100% against grinding, and you consider it grindy to do 100 different and new-to-you adventures at end game before you can buy your hammer of awesomeness then you're going to be disappointed. Also, if you're thinking that the only currency in the game will be money, then you'll be disappointed. Getting mountains of the same in-game cash that you've already dealt with for 60 levels seems to me to be a very poor motivating tool.
I think this is the issue. If there are 100 different and new-to-me things to do at end game we don't have a problem. If you look at the Foundry in STO though, the reward for "end game" foundry is based off of a daily of doing three foundry missions. Now this devolved into people doing 3 1 second missions where you click on an item and boom you're done. The reward was a little over an 8th of your daily dilithium allotment. (one in game currency that could be traded for in game things or Zen, the shop currency). Now this is getting tweaked, that you can't do the 1 second missions (that's fine), what it'll eventually get tweaked to is unknown, but the concern is that the reward will no longer match the time input. Especially because the rewards that drop in most standard missions themselves are not valuable at end-game, you must purchase items with the various currencies at end-game to be prepared to do the raid content. You're no longer playing the content and being rewarded for it with useful items you're grinding content to get currency or specific drops. This is the problem with the Foundry and it is a conundrum, you don't want to allow it to be exploited and tweak out toons, but if the time vs. reward investment is not balance correctly the content becomes useless from a "rewards" perspective and since you are no longer advancing at end-game the only rewards possible are material.
If the foundry could be utilized in such away that I can obtain reasonable rewards in items or currencies (all of them or a trade-able form) then it solves the daily grind problem because no matter how many dailies a game puts in they get old, having the option to do the foundry instead alleviates this, but so far I haven't seen it work this way in STO. It is not a viable alternative to grinding the same dailies over and over again.
As I mentioned, most players want to do the one activity that will get them the best effort-to-reward ratio. If you could hop in and do three 1-second adventures and that was the best effort-to-reward ratio, but there were other things that could be done to get similar rewards for more effort, then you can bet that most players will get in just long enough to do those three 1-second adventures and that's all. Screw the other stuff; it isn't as efficient. It doesn't even really matter how fun the other stuff is.
And then when dailies are the ONLY way to advance, it is ten times as bad.
Dailies are the reason I don't want to play WoW anymore. I know there's a lot of stuff to do that I haven't done yet, but if I actually get into it I will hit that wall where dailies are the thing to do, and at that point I will be addicted and I don't want to go through that again. It'll come down to either doing your dailies or getting enough sleep and you do the dailies because otherwise you won't get that hammer of awesomeness in JUST fifteen days straight of doing the same <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>.
The whole point of dailies is to waste time. If I'm paying a monthly subscription then they can dangle a hammer of awesomeness out there with the promise that I'll get it if I just do two weeks worth of daily quests, then if I really want that hammer then they'll made a half of a month's worth of subscription out of it, billed monthly, and will have wasted a huge amount of my time. Neverwinter does not have a subscription system, as far as we are aware, so to put dailies in would be a mistake.
I would pray that they don't put dailies in Neverwinter. There's got to be a better way of getting these currencies. If they could add a coin or two to the end-of-adventure box for every encounter defeated in an adventure and then ask me to collect a thousand coins, that'd be way better IMHO than attaching them to ONLY dailies.
As I mentioned, most players want to do the one activity that will get them the best effort-to-reward ratio. If you could hop in and do three 1-second adventures and that was the best effort-to-reward ratio, but there were other things that could be done to get similar rewards for more effort, then you can bet that most players will get in just long enough to do those three 1-second adventures and that's all. Screw the other stuff; it isn't as efficient. It doesn't even really matter how fun the other stuff is.
And then when dailies are the ONLY way to advance, it is ten times as bad.
Dailies are the reason I don't want to play WoW anymore. I know there's a lot of stuff to do that I haven't done yet, but if I actually get into it I will hit that wall where dailies are the thing to do, and at that point I will be addicted and I don't want to go through that again. It'll come down to either doing your dailies or getting enough sleep and you do the dailies because otherwise you won't get that hammer of awesomeness in JUST fifteen days straight of doing the same <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>.
The whole point of dailies is to waste time. If I'm paying a monthly subscription then they can dangle a hammer of awesomeness out there with the promise that I'll get it if I just do two weeks worth of daily quests, then if I really want that hammer then they'll made a half of a month's worth of subscription out of it, billed monthly, and will have wasted a huge amount of my time. Neverwinter does not have a subscription system, as far as we are aware, so to put dailies in would be a mistake.
I would pray that they don't put dailies in Neverwinter. There's got to be a better way of getting these currencies. If they could add a coin or two to the end-of-adventure box for every encounter defeated in an adventure and then ask me to collect a thousand coins, that'd be way better IMHO than attaching them to ONLY dailies.
I wholeheartedly agree. Give me a little bit of the end game currencies in the foundry and I'll play it nearly non-stop, but tell me the only way to get end-game currencies from the foundry is through a daily then I'm either turned off by it or I look for the fasted way to be done with the daily, because then I have other dailies to do. I'm being rewarded for my completion of a task through a daily not for my time spent in the foundry.
Let's talk faction rep grinds again. In many games faction rep grinds come from killing enemies of the faction you're trying to grind. What I would love to see in NW and the foundry is this. If I do a foundry mission that has me fight Shadovar I should gain rep with the Thayan faction and vice versa. Now there might be some problems with this from a story standpoint for the individual foundry mission perspective, but as long as the reward is separate from the mission itself than I am willing to deal with those continutity issues. So let's say I take a foundry mission that tells me the Shadovar are infighting and I have been asked to take out a rebel Shadovar enclave, this might not seem like something the Thayan's would reward me for, but the way I figure it, is if the Thayans want X number of Shadovar heads for a small token they are not going to be picky about where I got them.
Reward me for my individual time spent in the foundry and not for X missions or X hours. This reward needs to include end game rewards like end game currencies or reputations. Otherwise those at max level have no real reason to spend time in the foundry other than to find the fastest way to get their dailies done.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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iamtruthseekerMember, Moonstars, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited November 2012
Just a reminder:
There *is* no faction rep and there are no facions to join. When discussing "working with" factions, this means doing missions in the mai quest line chains or side quest line chains as thematicly "working for" them. This way, you can work with groups like the Harpers or the Dead Rats. But no, we have gotten neither any rep development promises, nor even any mention of this being wish-listed even. If they planned on usng this for end game, then they would mention they are working on it or looking into it.
Personally, I'll be spending more of my time in the Foundry, I think. I want to make many quests in which you forget about the grind or physical reward at the end. RPGs were meant to be escapism, not a daily job. If I can hear people say, "My friends and I had a good time with that adventure. I would recommend it again," that beats out any reward, no matter how big or small. From a player standpoint, my goal is to have fun with the escapism (i.e. an RPG), not get rewards faster than the other guy so I can beat him up.
I just hope there are other people that can remember what "roleplaying elements" are when the game releases.
Personally, I'll be spending more of my time in the Foundry, I think. I want to make many quests in which you forget about the grind or physical reward at the end. RPGs were meant to be escapism, not a daily job. If I can hear people say, "My friends and I had a good time with that adventure. I would recommend it again," that beats out any reward, no matter how big or small. From a player standpoint, my goal is to have fun with the escapism (i.e. an RPG), not get rewards faster than the other guy so I can beat him up.
I just hope there are other people that can remember what "roleplaying elements" are when the game releases.
You know some of the best content I've played in STO is foundry content, but I don't think it is too much to ask that the foundry be a legitimate alternative to the grinding, just because I'm playing player made content doesn't mean I shouldn't benefit from it too, even if at a slower pace than the grinders.
You know some of the best content I've played in STO is foundry content, but I don't think it is too much to ask that the foundry be a legitimate alternative to the grinding, just because I'm playing player made content doesn't mean I shouldn't benefit from it too, even if at a slower pace than the grinders.
I agree completely. I look forward to a plethora of new ongoing content and updates. It also depends on each person's definition of "benefit". Seeing someone else that understands and can implement correct D&D lore into their quests flawlessly would be phenomenal!
In the case of constant grinders out there, I ask, "What's your hurry?"
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elewyndylMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
You know some of the best content I've played in STO is foundry content, but I don't think it is too much to ask that the foundry be a legitimate alternative to the grinding, just because I'm playing player made content doesn't mean I shouldn't benefit from it too, even if at a slower pace than the grinders.
I think it has been said that you can get to max level doing FOUNDRY content at least in future. It has NOT been confirmed exactly how the loot will be done. In fact that is still undecided. We do know there are also random loot drops though....
Whine whine dailies. Right sorry it was horrible to you. Doing dayly Heroic Dungeon Run was NOT horrible to me in WOW. It was random selected which Dungeon it would be.
Now WOW approach do this same dungeon a 100+ times is a bit extreme even for my taste. However I like the gear tier system that enables you to enter new content areas. I seriously loath Guild Wars 2 mentality all should be accessed easily. Likewise sure you can enter high level areas with your low level character in Open World but you could be easily slaughtered by higher level enemies then as should be! Developers has said that you do want to earn loot to access higher level areas. There you go, but I still think it is not WOW everlasting loot system. I would be ok if I play 40 hours/week and it takes me 3-6 months to get to max my character and access all Cryptic main campaign areas.
I think it has been said that you can get to max level doing FOUNDRY content at least in future. It has NOT been confirmed exactly how the loot will be done. In fact that is still undecided. We do know there are also random loot drops though....
Whine whine dailies. Right sorry it was horrible to you. Doing dayly Heroic Dungeon Run was NOT horrible to me in WOW. It was random selected which Dungeon it would be.
Now WOW approach do this same dungeon a 100+ times is a bit extreme even for my taste. However I like the gear tier system that enables you to enter new content areas. I seriously loath Guild Wars 2 mentality all should be accessed easily. Likewise sure you can enter high level areas with your low level character in Open World but you could be easily slaughtered by higher level enemies then as should be! Developers has said that you do want to earn loot to access higher level areas. There you go, but I still think it is not WOW everlasting loot system. I would be ok if I play 40 hours/week and it takes me 3-6 months to get to max my character and access all Cryptic main campaign areas.
I don't think you quite understand me, you're still stuck on comparing this to WoW, when you need to be looking at STO or CO game designs. The foundry can be used to level up, but as an end-game option it has limited reward for playing it.
It is all well and good to play content for play sake in a game that doesn't have gear, faction or currency grinds at end-game, but to force people into playing the same 5-20 dailies over and over again is just plain poor game design. It might work for some of the Asian grind-fests, but it won't attract most westerners.
As for time it takes to reach max level I really don't care if the path there is not about grinding, but having played, CoH, CO and STO history has taught me that Cryptic doesn't design games that take more than 3 months for casual players to max out it. Maybe NW will be different, but I doubt it. So given this information, I want to see an end-game design that isn't based on grinding the same damn dailies over and over again. What's the point of having the foundry if it becomes worthless to game advancement at end-game?
As for time it takes to reach max level I really don't care if the path there is not about grinding, but having played, CoH, CO and STO history has taught me that Cryptic doesn't design games that take more than 3 months for casual players to max out it. Maybe NW will be different, but I doubt it. So given this information, I want to see an end-game design that isn't based on grinding the same damn dailies over and over again. What's the point of having the foundry if it becomes worthless to game advancement at end-game?
What do you suggest, then? This is their forum, and as far as I know, devs are aware of the community's suggestions for improvements.
But in the end, there IS a limit to how much stuff you can do in a game. You will eventually have completed everything if you spend enough time at it. What's left after everything is done? The Foundry is the answer to that, in my opinion. Take it upon yourself to CREATE more innovative ideas and end-game content instead of sitting there with your hands open like everyone owes you something. The game is free!
I understand that not everyone has the same altruistic view as me, though. But really, if you have a sudden epiphany, please share with all of us on how to improve upon the standards we know today as "dailies".
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elewyndylMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
I don't think you quite understand me, you're still stuck on comparing this to WoW, when you need to be looking at STO or CO game designs. The foundry can be used to level up, but as an end-game option it has limited reward for playing it.
It is all well and good to play content for play sake in a game that doesn't have gear, faction or currency grinds at end-game, but to force people into playing the same 5-20 dailies over and over again is just plain poor game design. It might work for some of the Asian grind-fests, but it won't attract most westerners.
As for time it takes to reach max level I really don't care if the path there is not about grinding, but having played, CoH, CO and STO history has taught me that Cryptic doesn't design games that take more than 3 months for casual players to max out it. Maybe NW will be different, but I doubt it. So given this information, I want to see an end-game design that isn't based on grinding the same damn dailies over and over again. What's the point of having the foundry if it becomes worthless to game advancement at end-game?
Well the difference here is that I don't have experience of STO and CO game designs. I have many years experience from WOW which kept me happy playing it. Now I am not saying WOW is perfect and eventually I got bored on it and I am currently not playing WOW.
I do have experience of Baldurs Gate games and Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2. In all those game there was no fast get to max level like in Guild Wars 2 where you easily can do that in less then 2 weeks.
I did try DDO immediately when it became free, but at least back then it felt pretty impossible to advance in DDO if you did not pay. You mentioned Everquest. Well in DDO you got so little exp/loot so if you did not pay that you could have a competition with DDO free version(when it became free back then) and Everquest which would be slower advancment. I played like 40 hours DDO one week and I was not even near level 2.
I don't need to maximixe character process to take years, but 3-6 months would not disturb me.
Comments
Yeah, I think there has been discussion of Astral Diamonds being the dilithium equivalent for NW. Other than that I know DnD has copper, silver, gold and plat pieces. There are other currencies used in various regions and from an RP standpoint I'd love to see those in game, but they need to be exchangeable easily.
It's official Astral Diamonds (or AD) will be the secondary currency. I haven't heard much about crafting, but the only other "worthy" secondary material worth a notable amount of coin used universally-residuum-likely is in that section of the game then.
LOL... you must remember Efnet then... that article...that website is totally inaccurate lol. Public access to the internet didn't come until the early 90s and there were no web pages until the 90s either
Check it out the first web page.
I've been around a bit and I would have to say without a doubt this <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> originated on IRC back fairly close to when internet access became open to the public. I do think it's possible that it originated on BBS networks which people could connect to via dial-up... lot of pirates and hackers on BBSs back then (as well as artists and musicians). I don't think it was some secret speak either... we used to use it as a joke and generally made fun of it... and most of "us" were hackers and pirates... back in the day when you could ping attack people and kill their modem connection haha... ah sorry had to post on that one... brought back some memories lol
Edit: You know thinking about it... might have started with BBS scene... we used to identify ourselves by our telephone area code ....414!!! LOL hehe gotta be people out there that remember that <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>....the fun days.
Let's just say when being a courier on a BBS wasn't always something you talked about and warez was as rare as l33tspeak on BBS' that's when we spoke it. Yeah the WWW posers by the time they spoke it in what...'94, it was old news, but back in the early to late 80's...it had its underground pride.
But in the age of Wiki removing info about MUD's and MUSHes, most peole would go BBwhaaaaa, so I use popular references for people to "get it."
Spoken from an old Co-Sysop I guess
But in the age of Wiki removing info about MUD's and MUSHes, most peole would go BBwhaaaaa, so I use popular references for people to "get it."
Spoken from an old Co-Sysop I guess"
Yeah man I remember those days was an ASCII artist at the time...so long ago now I even forget which art group I was in haha gettin senile I guess lol.... AsH, Blade whichever... might have jumped from one to another can't recall anymore....yeah my little brother was best friends with the son of the guy that started ExecPC in his basement...just about 15 min from where I live in New Berlin, Wi. Yeah getting on the right boards was important if you needed expensive art apps lol... oh man I remember filling out applications to get on boards too haha...once IRC kicked in I was outta there in search of Lightwave and what was it called back then 3D Studio Max? hehe Then the apps were flowing...got a little spooky after some groups got popped first five years of IRC was a free for all though...Some of the original channels I started are still running lol... I won't even go on IRC anymore though because every time I did try to go talk with old pals I'd end up getting some damn virus just from logging on! I was like wtf?! Now were just a bunch of old <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> that talk once in a while on FB.... times have changed
They took the explanation of what MuD's and Mushes off wikipedia? I had a pal that was a MUD addict...I hated em needed some graphics!!! LLL UUU DDD wtf? hehe I used to put him on follow and just watch the text rip by totally confused about where we were lol
Remember SoftIce? hehe dunno if you ever did any actual hacking back then. hmm maybe this isn't appropriate for this forum haha
If what isn't appropriate? I have no idea...gee, did my hat I don't wear anymor go gray then, I dunno...*whistles then goes off looking for a video toaster*
hahaha I was playing with blender today for some odd reason...dude that comment cracked me up...ah I needed that thanks man...lol ttyl
Used to be a guy that sat in one of my channels that works for Newtek in a rather high position.... guy has it made now...
Dailies in WOW like Quests in outside world to earn simply more money were not fun. However crafting in WOW earns you much more money then dailies. I also liked doing same Dungeons and Raids many times in WOW.
Developers have said that you do have to many time certain Dungeons IF you want to get certain loot. There are randomloot drops. You can however buy also items from an Auction house, but then you need to give cash(likely ingame currency a lot). You can however get to max level doing lots of content and in time more and more user generated adventures will also be available.
Bottom line is this:
Honestly I would suspect Neverwinter is less hardcore then WOW, but not even near so casual as Guild Wars 2. Remember old NWN1 and NWN2? You had to explore like 90% of the released content(not talking about future Foundry content) before your character was maxed.
Those players who expect no grind or little grind should play other games and likewise I really doubt it would be so hardcore as WOW though which is everlasting lootmill.
Again, grind =/= hardcore. And WoW by no means is hardcore, I remember spawn camping for days in EQ, and I don't consider that hardcore. Timesinks are not hardcore, they are simply timesinks. I don't doubt that there will be some grinding in NW, but I don't want entire systems built around grinding specific forms of currencies to be what the end game is about because there is no "game" in that there is just "end". I'd love to see them build an end game around doing Foundry missions, but I doubt it will happen. STO's Foundry has been down for days as the sort through it to kill the 2 minute daily mission loopholes.
If you compare levelling time only then Everquest is certainly more hardcore then WOW. That said you never max your character in WOW they always release next tier of gear and those who play more get more powerful characters. Yes Everquest which can take years to max a character with is certainly hardcore.
Hardcore has NOTHING to do with skill. Lol if it would be about skill alone then I think Guild Wars 2 could be rated hardcore. Hardcore is a mixture about TIME commitment, but not only that it is how serious you are about the game how important it feels for you etc.
If we also talk about learning diffculty then I guess Eve Online could be regarded hardcore for it certainly takes very long time to learn and is not easy to learn.
I don't need a game like Everquest that could take years to max a character. I neither need EVE Online that would make an engineer feel stressed with the learning curve. The golden balance is that it takes a looooong time to max character though certainly not years like in Everquest. I would be pleased if you play 40 hours/week and it takes many months to max a character, but it does not need to take years.
Commitment to a game alone doesn't make you hardcore. I'm sorry, but most adults have responsibilities that keep them from being able to play 24/7 just because they don't shirk those responsibilities or even occasionally choose to seek out other forms of entertainment doesn't mean they are "casual". It means they have balance in their lives. These are the ones most likely to stay with a game for the long run because they don't get burnt out on it. Give them enough things to do and they'll keep coming back and playing for years. While the person who played non-stop since launch will only be around until they get bored.
This is a Cryptic game, I don't expect it to take more than a month or two to get to the level cap. But that really is moot. It is not about how long level cap takes or how many timesinks there are after level cap. What defines a games success is if the content on the road to the cap and/or after the cap is worth playing. If the game has the same 5-10 dailies to do over and over and over again it is going to fail. Look at SWTOR, a game supposed built on story, but once you finished the story there was nothing to do, but the same old dailies and that reality drove customers away in bunches.
I have not played SWTOR so it is impossible for me to judge that. I have played mainly Age of Conan and WOW if we talk about MMO.s
What are you worried about if you only consider the journey? There will be plenty of PvE to do from FOUNDRY released content.
That said the powerful rule the world might become true in PvP. Nothing has been shown from PvP and I am confident that while skill matter so does level and items also. They have only said PvP is supported in some form, but full Open World PvP is not supported.
If any other person reads this post also be calm this game will not be some PvP gank or slaughterhouse. PvP will with all logic be contained in some areas only likely specific PvP instances.
Hardcore is irrelevant is my point. What you or I define as hardcore has no bearing on what will actually make Cryptic/PWE money. What has bearing on what will make them money is what players are willing to stick around and pay money for, "hardcore" especially in a f2p shop based game makes no difference.
I'm concerned that NW will follow the path of many a recent game and devolve into a game where you simply login to do dailies. Yes the Foundry offers an opportunity for something more, but if the foundry doesn't reward a player in the way dailies do, then there is little incentive to participate. Furthermore, the foundry in STO has been down for several days now and the same is likely to happen in NW at times. What NW needs is to either have so many daily options that it never feels like a grind to do them or it needs to come up with a different end game approach.
As for PvP, I tend not to play PvP in these kinds of games, most recent games have relegated PvP to "boxing matches" in small instances. If I want to PvP I'll go for something like Darkfall or I'll check out Planetside 2. PvP in a mostly PvE MMO is usually not the best, the two have a hard time working because of balance issues.
This balancing loot is a sensitive thing. Developers has said that the loot system has not yet finally been decided...
Lets leave the PvP subject for a while since we really don't know anything about it but I liked both WOW PvP and also PvP in Unreal Tournament 2004. My favorite gaming mode was Capture the Flag that encouraged team work and not only skill to kill though you certainly can kill lots of opponents in that gaming mode, but there are 2 teams.
Well, some people will get to max level no matter how long it takes, assuming the game is fun. How long it takes to get to max level is really another topic altogether. Once they're at max level they're going to want something rewarding to do. What is rewarding?
Getting gear/power
Getting recognition
Looking cool
(I'm sure there are others.)
There are many ways to hand out gear. One of those ways, as varrvarr mentions, is the rep grind. You want points that you can spend with faction X, Y or Z? Do quests that are geared for faction rep with whichever one. Hopefully with the Foundry DMs will be able to link thier quests to a certain faction. Then instead of there being 8 or 10 dungeons or boring dailies that you'd run to get whatever currency with that faction, there would instead be 100 good-to-okay quests that you could run for faction rep.
In some games, like WoW, there are about five steps of faction standing that actually matter. (Neutral, honored, exhalted, etc) These five steps of faction standing do not stand up to the constant reinforcement that players need to stay motivated. Splitting up these five steps into 20 steps of faction standing I think would be more motivational. Rather than saying: "Well, I'm a little over a third of the way to rank 2 and I haven't unlocked anything at all yet." you'd be saying "I'm rank 4 now and I've unlocked a few mediocre things but I can't wait till rank 10 where there's something good." Every 10th of a rank you'd be getting some positive reinforcement to keep you motivated even though the amount of work is the same in both cases.
Another possible solution to avoid the faction rep grind in this case would be to make the currency tradable. Rather than racking up 1000 reputation points, maybe they could ask you to get 1000 marks of valor, and then being the incredibly rich and lazy guy you are you'll just go down to the local auction house and throw down a million plat for those marks of valor and then return 5 minutes later to faction X leader and get your hammer of awesomeness. This would not negate currency for faction X and would still allow those who don't mind the grind to just go ahead and grind it out. It would also allow the redistribution of wealth to newer players which would help keep the economy flowing and additionally it would allow Cryptic to take a cut of the transaction via the auction house, resulting in another money sink, which is very important. For the average player who really wanted to buy a hammer of awesomeness from faction X it would at least ease the grind a bit by allowing them to spend whatever they can afford from another currency.
Another way to get gear at end game is by doing difficult quests. In games like WoW this would be end-game dungeons and raiding. In WoW it seemed like there were about 6 or 8 end-game dungeons at any given point in the game as well as two to five raids. That meant that you'd be running those dungons over and over for whatever currency you needed, and probably hating every minute of it. And then you'd be doing raids weekly for basically the same reason.
Since foundry adventures scale to the level of the character or party, then effective EVERY adventure ever made is fair game as an end-game dungeon. Granted, the difficulty of the encounters do affect the loot given by the adventure. I'm guessing the length of the adventure and average difficulty have something to do with the end-of-adventure loot. So if you're at max level and trying to gear up then running an adventure with a few easy encounters isn't going to cut it.
For those who were out only to avoid the grind, I think there should be enough content at end game to avoid most of the grind.
A lot of people seem to want to do things as efficiently as possible, even if what they're doing is terribly grindy. Adventures will be built with end-game players in mind that are full of hordes of difficult yet boring encounters specifically so that the end-of-adventure loot will be epic. Some players may still find the "best" adventure for them given thier skill level and time restraints, while other people will see the hardest difficult adventure and think that it would be even better if they added "Just one more dragon". Theoretically these every one of these grinders could tune the difficulty of the end game to thier own specifications. And when they were grinding thier own dungeon and they managed to finally get better gear then they could adjust the difficulty accordingly. Maybe people will find that they can get epic gear in a dungeon filled with a zillion easy encounters.
PVP is another end-game activity, and rewards could be given out via that. I'm not a PVPer, so I won't try to discuss how that should be done.
The trick that the developers need to pull off is to balance these things (running difficult adventures,faction rep grinds,pvp,cash shop purchases,etc) so that it remains as fun/engaging as possible for as long as possible, all while keeping in mind that the whole point of keeping the players around is to somehow get them to spend more money and keep you in business. And the key to doing that is putting the ability to get those things into the Foundry. I think that if the Foundry is implemented correctly then the grind to get faction rep or gear wouldn't be nearly as bad as some previous MMOs.
On the other hand, if you're 100% against grinding, and you consider it grindy to do 100 different and new-to-you adventures at end game before you can buy your hammer of awesomeness then you're going to be disappointed. Also, if you're thinking that the only currency in the game will be money, then you'll be disappointed. Getting mountains of the same in-game cash that you've already dealt with for 60 levels seems to me to be a very poor motivating tool.
Keep in mind that some people enjoy the faction reputation grind and you can bet that the developers are going to implement some of it in order to keep those people around. And since it takes a long time, then those people will stay around for a long time and the developers will feel that they have succeeded, especially when they manage to sell some anti-grinding-potions-of-reputation-getting and then take that money and use it to eat food IRL or keep the servers up or whatever they do with it. They may have ten or more different factions that you can get reputation with. If you don't like doing it then don't focus on it. Do something else. Get your hammer of awesomeness another way. I really don't mind the reputation grind sometimes, but logging in just to do dailies (dungeons or quests) really does suck.
In the hardcore vs not-hardcore debate, I'd say that for the most part each player decides for themselves how hardcore a game is. I played WoW and was never hardcore. I didn't raid and I didn't PVP and I pretty much ignored anyone who did. Though, doing anything in EQ is more hardcore than almost anything in WoW. I'm not sure how you could be a casual EQ player. Want to walk from one town to the next? Hardcore. Fishing? Hardcore. Drinking? Hardcore. Not saying that making it hardcore made it more fun either. Also, agreed that hardcoreishness is irrelevant.
I think this is the issue. If there are 100 different and new-to-me things to do at end game we don't have a problem. If you look at the Foundry in STO though, the reward for "end game" foundry is based off of a daily of doing three foundry missions. Now this devolved into people doing 3 1 second missions where you click on an item and boom you're done. The reward was a little over an 8th of your daily dilithium allotment. (one in game currency that could be traded for in game things or Zen, the shop currency). Now this is getting tweaked, that you can't do the 1 second missions (that's fine), what it'll eventually get tweaked to is unknown, but the concern is that the reward will no longer match the time input. Especially because the rewards that drop in most standard missions themselves are not valuable at end-game, you must purchase items with the various currencies at end-game to be prepared to do the raid content. You're no longer playing the content and being rewarded for it with useful items you're grinding content to get currency or specific drops. This is the problem with the Foundry and it is a conundrum, you don't want to allow it to be exploited and tweak out toons, but if the time vs. reward investment is not balance correctly the content becomes useless from a "rewards" perspective and since you are no longer advancing at end-game the only rewards possible are material.
If the foundry could be utilized in such away that I can obtain reasonable rewards in items or currencies (all of them or a trade-able form) then it solves the daily grind problem because no matter how many dailies a game puts in they get old, having the option to do the foundry instead alleviates this, but so far I haven't seen it work this way in STO. It is not a viable alternative to grinding the same dailies over and over again.
As I mentioned, most players want to do the one activity that will get them the best effort-to-reward ratio. If you could hop in and do three 1-second adventures and that was the best effort-to-reward ratio, but there were other things that could be done to get similar rewards for more effort, then you can bet that most players will get in just long enough to do those three 1-second adventures and that's all. Screw the other stuff; it isn't as efficient. It doesn't even really matter how fun the other stuff is.
And then when dailies are the ONLY way to advance, it is ten times as bad.
Dailies are the reason I don't want to play WoW anymore. I know there's a lot of stuff to do that I haven't done yet, but if I actually get into it I will hit that wall where dailies are the thing to do, and at that point I will be addicted and I don't want to go through that again. It'll come down to either doing your dailies or getting enough sleep and you do the dailies because otherwise you won't get that hammer of awesomeness in JUST fifteen days straight of doing the same <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>.
The whole point of dailies is to waste time. If I'm paying a monthly subscription then they can dangle a hammer of awesomeness out there with the promise that I'll get it if I just do two weeks worth of daily quests, then if I really want that hammer then they'll made a half of a month's worth of subscription out of it, billed monthly, and will have wasted a huge amount of my time. Neverwinter does not have a subscription system, as far as we are aware, so to put dailies in would be a mistake.
I would pray that they don't put dailies in Neverwinter. There's got to be a better way of getting these currencies. If they could add a coin or two to the end-of-adventure box for every encounter defeated in an adventure and then ask me to collect a thousand coins, that'd be way better IMHO than attaching them to ONLY dailies.
I wholeheartedly agree. Give me a little bit of the end game currencies in the foundry and I'll play it nearly non-stop, but tell me the only way to get end-game currencies from the foundry is through a daily then I'm either turned off by it or I look for the fasted way to be done with the daily, because then I have other dailies to do. I'm being rewarded for my completion of a task through a daily not for my time spent in the foundry.
Let's talk faction rep grinds again. In many games faction rep grinds come from killing enemies of the faction you're trying to grind. What I would love to see in NW and the foundry is this. If I do a foundry mission that has me fight Shadovar I should gain rep with the Thayan faction and vice versa. Now there might be some problems with this from a story standpoint for the individual foundry mission perspective, but as long as the reward is separate from the mission itself than I am willing to deal with those continutity issues. So let's say I take a foundry mission that tells me the Shadovar are infighting and I have been asked to take out a rebel Shadovar enclave, this might not seem like something the Thayan's would reward me for, but the way I figure it, is if the Thayans want X number of Shadovar heads for a small token they are not going to be picky about where I got them.
Reward me for my individual time spent in the foundry and not for X missions or X hours. This reward needs to include end game rewards like end game currencies or reputations. Otherwise those at max level have no real reason to spend time in the foundry other than to find the fastest way to get their dailies done.
There *is* no faction rep and there are no facions to join. When discussing "working with" factions, this means doing missions in the mai quest line chains or side quest line chains as thematicly "working for" them. This way, you can work with groups like the Harpers or the Dead Rats. But no, we have gotten neither any rep development promises, nor even any mention of this being wish-listed even. If they planned on usng this for end game, then they would mention they are working on it or looking into it.
I just hope there are other people that can remember what "roleplaying elements" are when the game releases.
You know some of the best content I've played in STO is foundry content, but I don't think it is too much to ask that the foundry be a legitimate alternative to the grinding, just because I'm playing player made content doesn't mean I shouldn't benefit from it too, even if at a slower pace than the grinders.
I agree completely. I look forward to a plethora of new ongoing content and updates. It also depends on each person's definition of "benefit". Seeing someone else that understands and can implement correct D&D lore into their quests flawlessly would be phenomenal!
In the case of constant grinders out there, I ask, "What's your hurry?"
I think it has been said that you can get to max level doing FOUNDRY content at least in future. It has NOT been confirmed exactly how the loot will be done. In fact that is still undecided. We do know there are also random loot drops though....
Whine whine dailies. Right sorry it was horrible to you. Doing dayly Heroic Dungeon Run was NOT horrible to me in WOW. It was random selected which Dungeon it would be.
Now WOW approach do this same dungeon a 100+ times is a bit extreme even for my taste. However I like the gear tier system that enables you to enter new content areas. I seriously loath Guild Wars 2 mentality all should be accessed easily. Likewise sure you can enter high level areas with your low level character in Open World but you could be easily slaughtered by higher level enemies then as should be! Developers has said that you do want to earn loot to access higher level areas. There you go, but I still think it is not WOW everlasting loot system. I would be ok if I play 40 hours/week and it takes me 3-6 months to get to max my character and access all Cryptic main campaign areas.
I don't think you quite understand me, you're still stuck on comparing this to WoW, when you need to be looking at STO or CO game designs. The foundry can be used to level up, but as an end-game option it has limited reward for playing it.
It is all well and good to play content for play sake in a game that doesn't have gear, faction or currency grinds at end-game, but to force people into playing the same 5-20 dailies over and over again is just plain poor game design. It might work for some of the Asian grind-fests, but it won't attract most westerners.
As for time it takes to reach max level I really don't care if the path there is not about grinding, but having played, CoH, CO and STO history has taught me that Cryptic doesn't design games that take more than 3 months for casual players to max out it. Maybe NW will be different, but I doubt it. So given this information, I want to see an end-game design that isn't based on grinding the same damn dailies over and over again. What's the point of having the foundry if it becomes worthless to game advancement at end-game?
What do you suggest, then? This is their forum, and as far as I know, devs are aware of the community's suggestions for improvements.
But in the end, there IS a limit to how much stuff you can do in a game. You will eventually have completed everything if you spend enough time at it. What's left after everything is done? The Foundry is the answer to that, in my opinion. Take it upon yourself to CREATE more innovative ideas and end-game content instead of sitting there with your hands open like everyone owes you something. The game is free!
I understand that not everyone has the same altruistic view as me, though. But really, if you have a sudden epiphany, please share with all of us on how to improve upon the standards we know today as "dailies".
I do have experience of Baldurs Gate games and Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2. In all those game there was no fast get to max level like in Guild Wars 2 where you easily can do that in less then 2 weeks.
I did try DDO immediately when it became free, but at least back then it felt pretty impossible to advance in DDO if you did not pay. You mentioned Everquest. Well in DDO you got so little exp/loot so if you did not pay that you could have a competition with DDO free version(when it became free back then) and Everquest which would be slower advancment. I played like 40 hours DDO one week and I was not even near level 2.
I don't need to maximixe character process to take years, but 3-6 months would not disturb me.