You'd be surprised what players will do when they have lots of love and no deadlines.
I am personally quite excited for the foundry and I really hope they pull it off. player generated content is the gift that keeps on giving... sometimes for better... sometimes for worse... sometimes for "ew omg what are those people doing?"
I am more excited about The Foundry than I am about playing the game.
You'd be surprised what players will do when they have lots of love and no deadlines.
I am personally quite excited for the foundry and I really hope they pull it off. player generated content is the gift that keeps on giving... sometimes for better... sometimes for worse... sometimes for "ew omg what are those people doing?"
That's where the rating comes in. Those omg levels will fall to the bottom of the list pretty quickly
That's where the rating comes in. Those omg levels will fall to the bottom of the list pretty quickly
In Second Life we segregated them geographically (the world was unbelievably massive) ...Adult content got its own continent. As in, a place where countries live. Huge amount of land, more than you could ever fully explore. Filled with people doing strange and obscene things that no upstanding gentlemen DnD players such as ourselves would ever partake in. But a rating system would be a welcome way of keeping the <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>-shaped player generated content to a minimum.
The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact.
That's where the rating comes in. Those omg levels will fall to the bottom of the list pretty quickly
I think that is wishful thinking. In my opinion there will be many many more people wanting the grind as fast as you can adventures giving them good ratings, than their will be people giving them bad ratings. There are more "I need to grind to max level as fast as possible" people out there than people who want interesting plot adventures by at least one order of magnitude in my opinion. I will admit I could be wrong and will be extremely pleasantly surprised if I am.
0
providenttMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited February 2013
You're right there are a lot of those people out there. Because of the demographic I believe there will be fewer of them in Neverwinter, but there will still be plenty. All we can hope is that they put restrictions on the Foundry so that an adventure needs X number or levels-worth of enemies or something. Basically I just hope there's a system that prevents it. It's all we can really do.
0
iamtruthseekerMember, Moonstars, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
In Second Life we segregated them geographically (the world was unbelievably massive) ...Adult content got its own continent. As in, a place where countries live. Huge amount of land, more than you could ever fully explore. Filled with people doing strange and obscene things that no upstanding gentlemen DnD players such as ourselves would ever partake in. But a rating system would be a welcome way of keeping the <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>-shaped player generated content to a minimum.
But if I see a sign that says "Welcome to Penisville," I'm turning around and going home
But if I see a sign that says "Welcome to Penisville," I'm turning around and going home
Dear lord, this. Having wandered into a "social" server in the old NWN days and being given a gimp mask and... well, lets just say they were inventive with their items. *shudder*
End game is different things to different people, but I do hope they skip the raiding model. There should be about 4-5 "raid content" areas like the dragon, should you wish, but another avenue (customization, new race unlocks, whatever) would be more enjoyable than running the same dungeon 20 times hoping for a purp drop.
Dear lord, this. Having wandered into a "social" server in the old NWN days and being given a gimp mask and... well, lets just say they were inventive with their items. *shudder*
End game is different things to different people, but I do hope they skip the raiding model. There should be about 4-5 "raid content" areas like the dragon, should you wish, but another avenue (customization, new race unlocks, whatever) would be more enjoyable than running the same dungeon 20 times hoping for a purp drop.
One thing STO has recently done, that I hope they do here:
Instead of hoping for random drops in STFs (the STO equivalent of "five-man dungeons" in most fantasy MMOs), you get Marks for doing them, which apply to a specific faction reputation. You spend those marks either on advancing your reputation with the faction, or on obtaining gear for the reputation level you currently enjoy. Thus, you can predict to an extent how long it will take you to get to the gear you want, and make decisions as to whether you take the lower-level gear (and delay your progression) or push the reputation to the max (and live with the gear you have).
No more random <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>-shoot; player choice rules. I think that would work well in NW. I have no idea if they're going to have it or not.
One downside to it is that there's no longer such thing as "unique" loot. The Expert-level STFs (STO's version of five-man heroics) give you a lot more marks, so they're worth doing to speed your progression, but you can eventually grind your way to any of the loot formerly restricted only to random drops on Elite STFs. So, if you're into bragging about past exploits and lucky die rolls, you won't like the system; but if you're into predictable effort and player decisions about tradeoffs in progression, it's wonderful.
It's a simple matter to also add a second reputation that uses marks that only drop from Elite content, if that's desired. Merely making the gear a cosmetic difference from the non-Elite high end gear would satisfy many of the objectors, though not all.
0
elewyndylMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
I wish end game to be kinda an accomplishment (exponential level curve), but not too much. A mix of balanced grinding and quest fun.
But i really want end game to be focused on instances (easy, medium and hard ones) where you have the chance to gear up decently and where only the best players have the best equipment.
Yeah agree! I hate Guild Wars 2 equal equal casual care bear mentality.
I'm good with weeklies, though. I think there should be some kind of incentive to log in, but it should be on weekly and monthly base.
Yeah sounds good. The weekly raid in WOW was good for me.
Well this game does not need to be so hardcore as WOW, but if you play 40 hours/week it should take many months to reach maximum power.
As for the FOUNDRY. Though Foundry you should get to max level and get pretty good items. However Foundry can be exploited and best items should only ge got from Cryptic made content. Of course Foundry is excellent in that way that if you want to do new adventures or want to roll another character.
Other endgame? Well PvP Battlegrounds. I wish support for big Battlegrounds like Alterac Valley in WOW 40 vs 40. However we can also have smaller Battlegrounds and I hope many PvP gameplay types are supported for example Capture The Flag.
0
lanessar13Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, SilverstarsPosts: 8Arc User
edited February 2013
@Syberghost: Sounds like a good system. I'd love that.
I've never been into the whole "I haz the only windsword on the server" mentality. I can see the attraction (and it would keep people busy), but making content which solely caters to that mentality (and the whole "Lensman" effect - next content! That sword you got is nothing compared to the bigger badder drops!) is a terrible strain on the dev team.
Now if UGC could be flagged as a raid (after suitable review)... wow. Dev team can just sink effort into better tools and more classes/races/game mechanics rather than a 50-level raid. Away we go.
@Syberghost: Sounds like a good system. I'd love that.
I've never been into the whole "I haz the only windsword on the server" mentality. I can see the attraction (and it would keep people busy), but making content which solely caters to that mentality (and the whole "Lensman" effect - next content! That sword you got is nothing compared to the bigger badder drops!) is a terrible strain on the dev team.
+5 million points for referencing "Lensman" for that instead of "Dragonball Z". Clear ether, chum!
There will be so much new content being added by us that you will never get bored
Volume does not equal quality. I remember reading a that in STO they have had half a million quests made in The Foundry and they were proud that about 200 of them were as good as the ones that their devs made. Mindless poorly written zero story quests are just junk to me. Just because there will be a lot does not mean people won't get bored.
Its not about loot collection its about challenging your character against tougher mobs, story lore and 5 man team work.
While this may be true for you and a relatively small number of other people, this game will need a great many players to keep earning enough money to be financially viable. The vast majority of MMO gamers are all about the loot collection and this game will need their money to keep afloat. Weather it is about collecting that unique looking item, getting a more powerful or the most powerful item, or something else loot related these peoples cash infusion will be needed or Neverwinter will just get shut down. Just because you don't like to do something or it means something different to you doesn't mean that there are not a whole lot me people out there that have money to burn that don't like it. No money no game.
There has to be a happy medium reached. Most of the people that are on these forums now are here because they love the idea of Neverwinter, the larger influx of people will only show up once open beta or release hit, and the vast majority of those people are going to constantly want the bigger better faster. To retain those peoples money there better be systems in place or I see NW being crushed by the corporate boot of "not financially viable" which I really don't want to see.
The truth is that if people would just grow up and stop looking at loot <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> players as impacting their fun in some way and just play the game the way they want to and ignore them, it wouldn't matter. If there was content that was aimed at those people they would play it you could ignore it and the game gets better because the money they bring in helps expand and enhance the game. Instead casual players, RPers, and story hounds vilify them, and it is my opinion that this is just base jealousy. Just ignore them and play the game you want to let them play the game they want to and everything will be fine. Unless the content for all walks is not there and the games dies because it is not making enough money....
0
lanessar13Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, SilverstarsPosts: 8Arc User
edited February 2013
Honestly, it's really hard to cater to the "loot <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> players". It requires a development-heavy model which makes new content difficult to produce (such as new classes, new races, new basic game mechanics, better tools for UGC) - because you're always trying to stay one step ahead of 10-20% of your players. That's right, it's NOT the majority.
I played WOW and several other raiding end-game type games. I was actually one of the best healers (and best-geared healers) on a heavy-pop US server, frequently called out-of-guild for raiding. It grew old quick, and aside from WOW, I've noticed that most "end-game" players really don't have much loyalty to the game they play unless new content is added as fast as they consume it (generally a few weeks, based on several iterations of WOW raiding I was a part of from TBC to WoTLK). Even WOW players went off to play another game whilst they waited for the next content to be added, once they got what they wanted.
I (having been one for a while) don't look down on those players, so if my post came across that way, I apologize. That, however, is the mentality (and the grammatical usage for a large portion of these players, even if they are just using a meme). I personally don't agree with that style of game development, and hope they don't go down that path. They can offer that path, but to cater to it, that will pause development on a large number of things that (with some intelligent thought) might be done to offer a richer end-game than the WOW-established "norm" of raids.
The thing is, this end-game model which you believe will make or break the game isn't necessarily the right model. WOW became popular for it, and most other games since have attempted to emulate this model. It's not the only way to make an end-game, though. It will require a far brighter mind than mine to come up with a better one, but I'm sure there is a better way out there. If this game discovers it, yay! I really hope they do, and change the whole genre for the better, break it out of the mold which has literally kept MMOs stagnant for years.
We'll have to see what happens, honestly. But just because you haven't played that better model yet, which keeps you going for years in a game without end-game raiding and phat lewts, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. WOW became the standard, and at some point, some game will break out of that trap. Let's see what happens. UGC just might be the solution.
Hopefully with user created content we will be blessed constantly with new things to do. I know as a creator of content in previous games of this ilk, there are some really talented people out there and I suspect the end game will reflect their desire to give the players plenty of adventures to embark on, for all level ranges.
This game has the potential to be a massive time sink for anyone who loves the genre. Bring it on!
There is a rumor floating around that I am working on a new foundry quest. It was started by me.
When you achieve something, your brain releases a chemical that makes you feel good. Just like training a puppy. Any good game gets your brain to do that, make you feel good, by making you feel you've achieved something.
So up to end game, each level is a reward for playing. End game content needs to be based around this, something to keep you interested, and something to achieve. Gear, its nice to have new, cool looking gear.
But it needs to be balanced, all max level characters should have the same ballpark stats regardless of their gear, but it should also be better enough than your current gear to make it worth it.
I'd like acquiring gear to be more obvious, so you know exactly what to do to get a full set of something. And be able to see what gear is available so you can choose what you'll work at.
For me, I think you should be able to choose a very long quest line for a full set of gear. So, be able to talk to a character and they will tell you what quests are available, and the rewards being a full set of maybe 5-6 sets of gear, but you can only choose 1 quest line. And it should take maybe a week to get it all?
So you've got quest for entertainment and to keep you interested. And you've got achievement with each piece you obtain.
But I'm not a game maker so don't ask me
Another option I thought of, is more like Zelda and Fable. Zelda - save some princes.. More character interaction, save an important person or town. And Fable - Recognition. And Status. Are you good or evil? What have you achieved? They could say "Isn't that the guy that rescued the King? or whatever. Just a thought...
Comments
I am more excited about The Foundry than I am about playing the game.
Foundry!
There will be so much new content being added by us that you will never get bored
That's where the rating comes in. Those omg levels will fall to the bottom of the list pretty quickly
In Second Life we segregated them geographically (the world was unbelievably massive) ...Adult content got its own continent. As in, a place where countries live. Huge amount of land, more than you could ever fully explore. Filled with people doing strange and obscene things that no upstanding gentlemen DnD players such as ourselves would ever partake in. But a rating system would be a welcome way of keeping the <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>-shaped player generated content to a minimum.
I think that is wishful thinking. In my opinion there will be many many more people wanting the grind as fast as you can adventures giving them good ratings, than their will be people giving them bad ratings. There are more "I need to grind to max level as fast as possible" people out there than people who want interesting plot adventures by at least one order of magnitude in my opinion. I will admit I could be wrong and will be extremely pleasantly surprised if I am.
But if I see a sign that says "Welcome to Penisville," I'm turning around and going home
Dear lord, this. Having wandered into a "social" server in the old NWN days and being given a gimp mask and... well, lets just say they were inventive with their items. *shudder*
End game is different things to different people, but I do hope they skip the raiding model. There should be about 4-5 "raid content" areas like the dragon, should you wish, but another avenue (customization, new race unlocks, whatever) would be more enjoyable than running the same dungeon 20 times hoping for a purp drop.
this is why end game wont matter.
Its not about loot collection its about challenging your character against tougher mobs, story lore and 5 man team work.
One thing STO has recently done, that I hope they do here:
Instead of hoping for random drops in STFs (the STO equivalent of "five-man dungeons" in most fantasy MMOs), you get Marks for doing them, which apply to a specific faction reputation. You spend those marks either on advancing your reputation with the faction, or on obtaining gear for the reputation level you currently enjoy. Thus, you can predict to an extent how long it will take you to get to the gear you want, and make decisions as to whether you take the lower-level gear (and delay your progression) or push the reputation to the max (and live with the gear you have).
No more random <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>-shoot; player choice rules. I think that would work well in NW. I have no idea if they're going to have it or not.
One downside to it is that there's no longer such thing as "unique" loot. The Expert-level STFs (STO's version of five-man heroics) give you a lot more marks, so they're worth doing to speed your progression, but you can eventually grind your way to any of the loot formerly restricted only to random drops on Elite STFs. So, if you're into bragging about past exploits and lucky die rolls, you won't like the system; but if you're into predictable effort and player decisions about tradeoffs in progression, it's wonderful.
It's a simple matter to also add a second reputation that uses marks that only drop from Elite content, if that's desired. Merely making the gear a cosmetic difference from the non-Elite high end gear would satisfy many of the objectors, though not all.
Yeah sounds good. The weekly raid in WOW was good for me.
Well this game does not need to be so hardcore as WOW, but if you play 40 hours/week it should take many months to reach maximum power.
As for the FOUNDRY. Though Foundry you should get to max level and get pretty good items. However Foundry can be exploited and best items should only ge got from Cryptic made content. Of course Foundry is excellent in that way that if you want to do new adventures or want to roll another character.
Other endgame? Well PvP Battlegrounds. I wish support for big Battlegrounds like Alterac Valley in WOW 40 vs 40. However we can also have smaller Battlegrounds and I hope many PvP gameplay types are supported for example Capture The Flag.
I've never been into the whole "I haz the only windsword on the server" mentality. I can see the attraction (and it would keep people busy), but making content which solely caters to that mentality (and the whole "Lensman" effect - next content! That sword you got is nothing compared to the bigger badder drops!) is a terrible strain on the dev team.
Now if UGC could be flagged as a raid (after suitable review)... wow. Dev team can just sink effort into better tools and more classes/races/game mechanics rather than a 50-level raid. Away we go.
+5 million points for referencing "Lensman" for that instead of "Dragonball Z". Clear ether, chum!
Volume does not equal quality. I remember reading a that in STO they have had half a million quests made in The Foundry and they were proud that about 200 of them were as good as the ones that their devs made. Mindless poorly written zero story quests are just junk to me. Just because there will be a lot does not mean people won't get bored.
While this may be true for you and a relatively small number of other people, this game will need a great many players to keep earning enough money to be financially viable. The vast majority of MMO gamers are all about the loot collection and this game will need their money to keep afloat. Weather it is about collecting that unique looking item, getting a more powerful or the most powerful item, or something else loot related these peoples cash infusion will be needed or Neverwinter will just get shut down. Just because you don't like to do something or it means something different to you doesn't mean that there are not a whole lot me people out there that have money to burn that don't like it. No money no game.
There has to be a happy medium reached. Most of the people that are on these forums now are here because they love the idea of Neverwinter, the larger influx of people will only show up once open beta or release hit, and the vast majority of those people are going to constantly want the bigger better faster. To retain those peoples money there better be systems in place or I see NW being crushed by the corporate boot of "not financially viable" which I really don't want to see.
The truth is that if people would just grow up and stop looking at loot <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> players as impacting their fun in some way and just play the game the way they want to and ignore them, it wouldn't matter. If there was content that was aimed at those people they would play it you could ignore it and the game gets better because the money they bring in helps expand and enhance the game. Instead casual players, RPers, and story hounds vilify them, and it is my opinion that this is just base jealousy. Just ignore them and play the game you want to let them play the game they want to and everything will be fine. Unless the content for all walks is not there and the games dies because it is not making enough money....
I played WOW and several other raiding end-game type games. I was actually one of the best healers (and best-geared healers) on a heavy-pop US server, frequently called out-of-guild for raiding. It grew old quick, and aside from WOW, I've noticed that most "end-game" players really don't have much loyalty to the game they play unless new content is added as fast as they consume it (generally a few weeks, based on several iterations of WOW raiding I was a part of from TBC to WoTLK). Even WOW players went off to play another game whilst they waited for the next content to be added, once they got what they wanted.
I (having been one for a while) don't look down on those players, so if my post came across that way, I apologize. That, however, is the mentality (and the grammatical usage for a large portion of these players, even if they are just using a meme). I personally don't agree with that style of game development, and hope they don't go down that path. They can offer that path, but to cater to it, that will pause development on a large number of things that (with some intelligent thought) might be done to offer a richer end-game than the WOW-established "norm" of raids.
The thing is, this end-game model which you believe will make or break the game isn't necessarily the right model. WOW became popular for it, and most other games since have attempted to emulate this model. It's not the only way to make an end-game, though. It will require a far brighter mind than mine to come up with a better one, but I'm sure there is a better way out there. If this game discovers it, yay! I really hope they do, and change the whole genre for the better, break it out of the mold which has literally kept MMOs stagnant for years.
We'll have to see what happens, honestly. But just because you haven't played that better model yet, which keeps you going for years in a game without end-game raiding and phat lewts, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. WOW became the standard, and at some point, some game will break out of that trap. Let's see what happens. UGC just might be the solution.
This game has the potential to be a massive time sink for anyone who loves the genre. Bring it on!
So up to end game, each level is a reward for playing. End game content needs to be based around this, something to keep you interested, and something to achieve. Gear, its nice to have new, cool looking gear.
But it needs to be balanced, all max level characters should have the same ballpark stats regardless of their gear, but it should also be better enough than your current gear to make it worth it.
I'd like acquiring gear to be more obvious, so you know exactly what to do to get a full set of something. And be able to see what gear is available so you can choose what you'll work at.
For me, I think you should be able to choose a very long quest line for a full set of gear. So, be able to talk to a character and they will tell you what quests are available, and the rewards being a full set of maybe 5-6 sets of gear, but you can only choose 1 quest line. And it should take maybe a week to get it all?
So you've got quest for entertainment and to keep you interested. And you've got achievement with each piece you obtain.
But I'm not a game maker so don't ask me
Another option I thought of, is more like Zelda and Fable. Zelda - save some princes.. More character interaction, save an important person or town. And Fable - Recognition. And Status. Are you good or evil? What have you achieved? They could say "Isn't that the guy that rescued the King? or whatever. Just a thought...