EverQuest Landmark: Build an MMO! Alpha Edition

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The MMO HMO > EverQuest Landmark: Build an MMO! Alpha Edition

Kenny Rogers: Sep 7, 2007; Chapter One:
When I first saw Sparky, he reminded me of my favorite comb. He was missing a lot of teeth.

* Use CTS Mumble.
* Use /join EQNLGoons in game.
* CTS Mumble Goons are looking to land on Serenity/Pingo in general.
* Picks aren't bound, so ask goons to give you their old ones.
* Where you put your claim doesn't matter. It's easy to move from one Tier Island to another at the central Hub.
* Add this Twitter List to your Tweetdeck or whatever. It's got the bulk of the project VIPs on it, and it is the most timely source for information about updates, uptime, downtime, bugs, etc.

I sometimes stream.
Shinino streams when his poo poo's not all hosed up.
Al Borland's stream
Flarestar's stream

Kenny Rogers fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Feb 7, 2014

# ¿ Feb 5, 2014 06:39

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 15, 2024 05:25

Kenny Rogers: Sep 7, 2007; Chapter One:
When I first saw Sparky, he reminded me of my favorite comb. He was missing a lot of teeth.

Just now:

@DaveGeorgeson posted:

Well...we did a little sleuthing...and MANY people have more than one claim. Tsk, tsk. That's not going to fly. Forum post incoming.
To those with more than one claim: You have been warned. Pay heed, please.
https://forums.station.sony.com/eqnlandmark/index.php?threads/to-those-of-you-with-more-than-one-claim.11558/
There's about 330 of you with more than one claim.
We know who you are. We see all.

(Forum Post Text)
You're going to lose all of them but one.
At this stage in the test, you're only supposed to have one claim.
So take my advice. Consolidate your stuff to one claim right now. Not a bluff.
Not tonight, but the VERY next time that we outage the servers, we are going to reduce every player back down to one claim flag.
So if you want to control which claim you keep, then I advise you to Delete your extra claims and leave yourself with only one before we do the consolidation.
Otherwise, it will be random.
Your choice. One claim. That's all folks. No more until we officially allow it.

Kenny Rogers fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Feb 7, 2014

# ¿ Feb 5, 2014 07:35

Kenny Rogers: Sep 7, 2007; Chapter One:
When I first saw Sparky, he reminded me of my favorite comb. He was missing a lot of teeth.

blastron posted:

(from the previous thread:)

I totally agree that drop rates and such shouldn't be fine-tuned in an alpha, especially when more features are expected to go in that will change how the game is played. However, what can (and should) be done is a broad-stroke adjustment: if the general complaint is that it takes way too long to gather wood, crank up the gather rate until enough people stop complaining, then go back to implementing features.

What is particularly concerning to me is that I haven't heard any assurance from the devs that they're listening to our feedback and are planning on making changes. They're describing an "open" development process, but haven't actually given us a whole lot of information! Personally, I am very much repelled by the boring resource gathering grind, the stereotypical MMO progression of gathering tools (craft a copper pick so that you can gather materials to craft a bronze pick? really?), the hiding of the building user interface behind a tech tree, and the heavy use of RNG in the crafting system. I'm really hoping that these are all placeholder mechanics slapped on top of the claim and building systems in order to keep people playing by sticking them on a treadmill.

I've written up my thoughts (at length) on the alpha forums, as have other people with similar opinions, but there hasn't yet been a comment from an actual developer addressing (or even acknowledging) my concerns. I want some indication that I am not wasting my time (and money) helping alpha-test a game that I will ultimately be disappointed with.

e: On a reread, this post sounds pretty entitled, but I'm leaving it as-is because it's my honest opinion at the moment.

The Dev Tracker comes up with gems from time to time.
This is pretty transparent...

quote:

You guys are absolutely correct. The systems we have in the game right now are core systems, and not even all of them are in. Things that are considered core systems are harvesting, item creation, claim creation, building, items, item equipping, etc. These are the most basic components to get the game going. During alpha we will be testing out these mechanics to find things we like and things we don't like. Incidentally, this is the phase of development that is my favorite. This is where we go from cool ideas and lots of discussion to actually making the magic happen.

During this phase we will ask questions like:
Does mining feel good and is it interesting?
In some instances yes and in some instances no.
Is chopping down a tree fun?
Not really, except the tree explosion...
How big can our claims be?
Etc
After we answer these questions we will adjust these mechanics and make them feel great, give better feedback, adjust for technological requirements, etc.

After the core systems are thoroughly tested and played with, we will begin to layer on more advanced mechanics. Many of these advanced mechanics are already planned and many will be planned/ adjusted based on feedback we get while playing and while talking to you guys. We then prototype the more advanced systems, put them in and repeat the cycle of playtest, feedback, adjustment.

In fact, I had meetings all day today to discuss many of these new layers of advanced systems (we integrated a bunch of tester feedback, btw). We will be finishing up these documents and filling you guys in at some point soon!

I wanted to thank you for your thoughtful feedback and I am confident that what we bring to the table will be a pretty cool leap forward in the progression and even so, there will be more after that.

Thanks again!
Michael Mann
Lead Systems Designer
EverQuest Next Landmark

https://forums.station.sony.com/eqnlandmark/index.php?threads/layered-progression-versus-linear.11147/#post-162403

On Rubberbanding:

quote:

Part of the problem is that some clients are thinking that the zone geometry (used for physics modeling) isn't loaded, when in fact it is. The player model falls through the geometry and the "Save me, I'm under the world!" code I put in is kicking into gear, rubber-banding the player model back to just a few feet/meters above the "top" of the ground at the X,Z location the player was last at.

We haven't tracked down the cause of the problem, yet. There's two other engineers also looking into it with me.
Jason "Rykus" Crawford
Software Engineer, EverQuest Next Landmark team

Kenny Rogers fucked around with this message at 09:28 on Feb 5, 2014

# ¿ Feb 5, 2014 09:16

Kenny Rogers: Sep 7, 2007; Chapter One:
When I first saw Sparky, he reminded me of my favorite comb. He was missing a lot of teeth.

blastron posted:

I must have missed that, thanks for pointing it out.

e:

No, right, I get that, it's why I realized my post sounded really entitled right after I made it. I'm mostly just upset with myself for dropping a hundred bucks on something that I'm very disappointed with.

There is no need to be upset.

No, seriously. Contact Customer Service.
http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=33760

https://twitter.com/j_smedley/status/429325217563820033

# ¿ Feb 5, 2014 09:29

Kenny Rogers: Sep 7, 2007; Chapter One:
When I first saw Sparky, he reminded me of my favorite comb. He was missing a lot of teeth.

Yeah...brand new empty server, and by the time I got patched - a 3 in the morning - there were claims popping up faster than you could run to an open spot.

I'm out.

Calling Customer Service to get my monies back in the morning. Alpha's definitely not for me - not for $100, anyway.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2014 11:11

Kenny Rogers: Sep 7, 2007; Chapter One:
When I first saw Sparky, he reminded me of my favorite comb. He was missing a lot of teeth.

Alexander DeLarge posted:

Glad this game got its own thread. EQN and EQNL are two separate entities and should be treated as such.

Anyone taking bets on how long it is until the EQ:N thread sinks to the bottom and is archived?

# ¿ Feb 7, 2014 02:15

Kenny Rogers: Sep 7, 2007; Chapter One:
When I first saw Sparky, he reminded me of my favorite comb. He was missing a lot of teeth.

Last month I built this, I tossed my old 1TB drive in it for everything non-OS, and it's been *glorious*.
It'll support the 780/Titan and the highest spec i7's around right now, so I've got a couple upgrades available as the prices for those come down, too.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2014 16:10

Kenny Rogers: Sep 7, 2007; Chapter One:
When I first saw Sparky, he reminded me of my favorite comb. He was missing a lot of teeth.

Droid Washington posted:

So remember, only delete yourself at home.

I always only delete myself at home!

# ¿ Feb 8, 2014 05:13

Kenny Rogers: Sep 7, 2007; Chapter One:
When I first saw Sparky, he reminded me of my favorite comb. He was missing a lot of teeth.

PadreScout posted:

Has this alleged claim ..duplicate purge thing happened yet?

The claim I found the other night on Serenity/Pingo included a lovely house and some crafting stations that I can't delete.
I'm pretty sure it was a "not oldest" claim that some other person lost in the purge.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2014 03:39

Kenny Rogers: Sep 7, 2007; Chapter One:
When I first saw Sparky, he reminded me of my favorite comb. He was missing a lot of teeth.

I honestly have no idea what to do with the 4 Props the former owner of my claim left behind. They lost the claim because they had multiples, and this one wasn't the oldest claim they had.
So I've got a Forge, a Sawmill, a Workbench and a Door that I can use, but can't delete. I packed up my claim and the props stayed on the claim, just buried. So I redeployed, and...welp.

I /bug'ed it. No idea what else can be done.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2014 20:01

Kenny Rogers: Sep 7, 2007; Chapter One:
When I first saw Sparky, he reminded me of my favorite comb. He was missing a lot of teeth.

Obscurity posted:

Well, in regards to having little content..I pulled this from a stream just now:

He is a member of SOE/EQNL team that stopped by to chat in a Twitch stream.

I guess I'll base my buy in on how soon worthwhile features will be showing up.

Omeed isn't *just* a member of the EQNL team.
He's the BEST member of the team.

He has his own in-game emote (/onod) that comes from one of their livecasts where there was some discussion of the Iksar not wearing clothes - and therefore being 'naked Iksar'...or something. (Found it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYxZXszcM_s

Kenny Rogers fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Feb 12, 2014

# ¿ Feb 12, 2014 19:19

Kenny Rogers: Sep 7, 2007; Chapter One:
When I first saw Sparky, he reminded me of my favorite comb. He was missing a lot of teeth.

Phosphia posted:

Oh, would I want to move my claim to that area then? Mine is currently on the edge of the first one.

Not any moreso than you want to sell your house or move apartments so that you live right next to where you work. Just like life, it's easier in Landmark to find a nice neighborhood and commute to 'work'.

The central crystal lets you go to different Islands ('neighborhoods') to visit (or mine, etc. as the case may be.)

Also, the "appears on other tiers" thing works both ways. I've seen plenty of Silver and Topaz on Serenity/Pingo, which is a T3 Island.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2014 23:13

Kenny Rogers: Sep 7, 2007; Chapter One:
When I first saw Sparky, he reminded me of my favorite comb. He was missing a lot of teeth.

PLASTER and SANDSTONE!!

My design will work now!

# ¿ Feb 13, 2014 01:49

Kenny Rogers: Sep 7, 2007; Chapter One:
When I first saw Sparky, he reminded me of my favorite comb. He was missing a lot of teeth.

Loving Life Partner posted:

The minimums are something like 64 bit OS, 4 gigs of RAM, an i7 or i5 processor, and at least a 5000 generation Radeon or something or other GeForce.

I'm actually just under on all of them (except RAM)

(spec chat)

e: poo poo. Just woke up, missed that there was a second page of new posts.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2014 19:26

Kenny Rogers: Sep 7, 2007; Chapter One:
When I first saw Sparky, he reminded me of my favorite comb. He was missing a lot of teeth.

Subjunctive posted:

The ideal endgame of this is that the people who play the tools make content for the people who play the game. If you have a successful content production flow from players, then there can be lots of supply to satisfy themeparky demand.

Or so the story goes. Getting there probably requires giving players good procedural tools, like many "real" game designers get, to amplify the impact of the creative work they do. I don't know if that can work in the balance, given that there's been very little exploration of how to deal with adversarial designers wielding powerful tools, but EQL seems as good a place as any to find out.

The other thing this model needs is something to keep 'skinnerboxing' in check.
So far, every iteration of player creation tools has been implemented in a game with a strong "make the numbers go up" environment. So content creators game the system to provide the maximum "numbers going up" in the shortest possible time, and content consumers consume that content more than other (read: strong storytelling) content, which makes the "XP Race" content appear pegged to the top of the popular content lists.
If the hosting company places artificial limits on the XP/hour curve, then the system is re-gamed to the new limit. If the hosting company removes XP gain from player generated content, the player generated content is abandoned en masse.

It's a tricky tricky thing to find the right balance of "progression". I am really a huge fan of the way Trion implemented progression in Defiance, and the way Funcom implemented progression in The Secret World - granting that it was a very limited sort of implementation.
As you progress to harder enemies in Defiance, their HP/Damage numbers don't really get bigger - they do, but only by about 10% - the number of enemies you might face goes up somewhat, but the largest change is that the enemies get *smarter*. In the newbie zone, enemies are pretty much bullet sponges. They dodge, but otherwise will stand there and shoot at you standing in the open. Later on, they start to take cover. Later still, they start flanking your position, and flushing you out from your cover using grenades, etc.
In The Secret World, each "level" is divided into three progression bars. Each bar is 40k XP, and each "level" is 120k XP. FOREVER. Each time you level up, you get points to spend on *access* to new abilities - but you have a limited number of abilities you can equip at any given time. So "levelling up" is equivalent to gathering more flexibility, not power, for your character.

I think that a Sandbox World + Player Adventure Scripting Tools + "flat" leveling curve + "leveling" = "flexibility" would be the environment that would minimize the effects of "XP Race" content.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2014 03:01

Kenny Rogers: Sep 7, 2007; Chapter One:
When I first saw Sparky, he reminded me of my favorite comb. He was missing a lot of teeth.

Al Borland, you can come back now. =)

# ¿ Feb 20, 2014 02:12

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 15, 2024 05:25

Kenny Rogers: Sep 7, 2007; Chapter One:
When I first saw Sparky, he reminded me of my favorite comb. He was missing a lot of teeth.

HughGRect posted:

Maybe they will introduce some sort of passive crafting stations where you feed it ore before you log out, and when you log back in you have a bunch of processed materials.

Psh.

They tried that in SWG, and LOOK HOW THAT TURNED OUT! :arghfist:

If you're following the Twitter List mentioned (just after) the OP, you are already following him. :v:

Kenny Rogers fucked around with this message at 05:01 on Feb 21, 2014

# ¿ Feb 21, 2014 04:59

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The MMO HMO > EverQuest Landmark: Build an MMO! Alpha Edition