PREFACE: NERDS AND CUSTOMS
I woke up Thursday morning, 4:00 am, because that’s what time I had to get up to catch the ferry. I woke up, and into the lonely dark of my bachelor existence I groaned: “I’m dying!”
Really. Dying. My brain was trying to kill me. It felt like some sadist in the night kept jabbing me in the throat, and my head had warped time and space becoming a naked singularity of mucus. Literally, it was mind boggling in its mathematical complexities.
And I thought to myself: “dude, there’s no way you can go to San Diego. Sleep in. Call Cindy. Moan ‘sick’.”
At least, that was my thought, when you’re sick though, thoughts tend to take a long ass time forming, and by the time the thought had finished, I blinked, looked around and said: “what the hell am I doing in an airport?”
So, for good or ill (no pun intended), dull wits, and brain oozing out my ears, I found myself at the customs agent, who inquired my purpose behind going to the US. Now, I mention this, only because of one of my previous, somewhat less than stellar, experiences with entering into the US.
We went through the rigmarole as is to be expected. Him with his. “Purpose and destination?” (otherwise known as: “don’t make me break out the rubber glove!”)
And then it hit me. There, I had a border epiphany. If customs is like a lock, I found the skeleton key. I said: “I’m going to a fan thing.”
“A fan thing?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s that?” he raised an eyebrow.
“I’m a nerd.”
And BAM. Just like that. Like a flash of lightning, he turned from customs agent trying to anally search criminals, to dude who is infinitely sorry for my self-proclaimed geekdom. Seriously, he just nodded a sad, piteous nod, that said: “poor geek, will never get laid” and I was on my way.
It was gold baby. Pure gold. It was better than saying I was going to Disneyland! It was like an instant free pass. Apparently anybody who admits to being a nerd at customs? Well. Let’s just say you’re not a threat. Hell. You’re probably scared of the female gender. Probably not exactly going to wreak mass terror inducing havoc… unless, of course, a girl tries to talk to you.
At least that seemed to be his general thought pattern. Now me, I don’t generally think of myself in those terms, but if it’s a sacrifice I have to make at customs, well, hot damn. You better believe I’ll be doing it.
After that, my trip was pretty straight forward, airport, to airport, some weird ass lady in Seattle talking to me about buying a urinal and finding out it was used… uh? San Diego. Taxi to the hotel. You know the score.
When I arrived at the hotel I saw nobody I recognized hanging around. So, like a faithful Canadian with a dull mind, I set up camp in the bar and was somewhere around twelve drinks by seven o’clock, which worked well because dinner was at eight.
THE CINDY QUOTIENT:
I was ten minutes late for dinner (blame a nap) and pleasantly, uh, how shall we say it, let’s go with ‘pleasantly sophisticated’. Otherwise known as: ‘spending most of my time trying to remember how to walk’.
As soon as I entered the dining room, I was greeted by the fact that I was fashionably late, and was the last one to arrive. Staggering in, I was enveloped in a big hug by Cindy.
This is where I need to pause in my pointless tale, and give a bit of tribute to Cindy Bowens.
She continually manages to baffle me. Baffle me because she’s in a perpetual state of positivity (I know that’s not a word, bear with me). Never have I met somebody so competent with community management. I mean, you and I, us, let’s be honest. We’re a nuisance. We enjoy whining, bitching, ranting, drama, arguing, rambling. We can never be pleased (at least not as a whole). In fact, in all the time I’ve been a part of the community, I feel that more often than not, we’re just a focused group of troublemakers.
Now, I believe this really is felt by a lot of community mangers. Cindy though? Yeah, she still receives flak, yet, she exists in a continual love fest. Seriously. I thinks she loves us. I keep expecting her to snap someday, keep expecting to go up to her say: “hi Cindy!” and have her knee me where it hurts, screaming: “FAN THIS!” (possibly with expletives tacked onto the end of that).
That’s what I keep expecting. Yet, time and time again, all we get is Cindy love. Seriously. Hot Cindy love. Okay, maybe not hot, but really, she treats us, despite our bastardly qualities, like this big happy family. I don’t know how she does it. Don’t know how she doesn’t snap. Hell knows I would.
Either way, thanks Cindy. Best Community Manager by far. It’s noon right now, which is as good a time for drinking as any, this one’s to you!
LAST SUPPER:
After reassuring Cindy that I had actually made it across the border, it was time for dinner. This is when the two days really began. I quickly got to say hi to the Devs who were there (Brad, Jeff, David Gilbertson, I believe Bill Fisher, Michelle Butler and some others). At which point I sat down at a table.
In my immediate vicinity I had, David Gilbertson, Lead Art Dude, to whom I exist in code name only, as ‘anyuzer’, Woody of GUComics, I think Shelby of Okrates, and some other guys whose faces I lost in the haze of the night.
Over dinner, I didn’t really do much talking about Vanguard. I sat there, listened to a bit of conversation, worked on drinking more, and ate the most bizarre salad I’d ever stumbled across (can you imagine? Salad? At a gathering for obsessive compulsive game junkies?)
The night went pretty smoothly though, if not somewhat uneventful. I mingled in my patented way, which involved me sitting in a corner nursing a beer, snarling at anybody who tried to come close. At some point in time, between the liquor and salsa music which was a lot like getting beaned in the ‘happy place’ with a maraca, I had a chance to talk to Brad.
Brad.
Otherwise known as: ‘The McQuaid’.
Okay, I just made that up, c’mon though, go with me on this. I need a bit of dramatic tension. The thing is, Brad and Jeff in particular, always leave me open mouthed in awe.
Sitting there with Brad on the couch, Salsa music torturing us with its latinesque groove, I really got to shake my head in disbelief, for what must be the tenth or thirteenth time. When I first met him a year or so ago, I described him as knowing what he wanted. Being driven to success. Driven to the best.
That remains true, but there’s more.
The man loves games. Jeff is the same way, and so is most of the team, but you really see that manifested in the two men largely involved in running the show. It’s as if as children they were soaked in a vat of ‘gaming’, until they became super saturated with it.
Ladies and gentlemen, they sweat gaming.
It oozes out of their pores. When they blink, they blink gaming. I think, if you measure Jeff’s blinks, you might get Morse code for: “Anarchy Online Kicks Your Ass Biyotch”. And I don’t even think he knows he’s doing it.
It’s not just about MMOGs either—though they know everything about the industry in intimate detail—it’s about all games. Talk racing with Brad. Talk X-Men Legends with Jeff. Talk old school. Breakout a bit of Ogre Battle, SNES era or something. These guys know about it. Get it. And if they don’t, then they’re interested in it. Observant. Curious to know what it is that triggered the positive response in you.
Understand it and are involved in it at a level I both respect and envy.
I sat there, and spent a lot of time just watching them (I’m not a stalker I swear…) but they would sit and listen to everybody and their experiences. Wanted to know what people liked and disliked about the industry. People’s experiences with MMOGs and gaming. What had led us up to the point of being there talking to them interested in their game.
Their brains are silent databases of information. Everything said to them is entered in, and while they might not say right there whether or not they agree or disagree, all information is checked against everything else they have learned until they can glean even the smallest speck of value from it.
Now that says something. I’ve had the chance to spend a bit of time in the industry. Not a lot. A bit. Enough though where I’ve had some experience with devs and other industry related reps. A lot of them are cool, and some of them are even into gaming, but for the most part they don’t breathe gaming.
The Sigil team breathes it to a near frightening level of intensity, and, when dealing with the building of a virtual world, it’s reassuring. It’s good to know that everything I’ve thought about, all of my checks and balances, they’ve thought about. Now, maybe we’ve come to different conclusions about it but there is nothing more discouraging then going up to a developer of an MMOG and saying something like: “so what do you think about the value of virtual economies, and how important do you think that is to overall player retention and more importantly, player immersion?” and have them reply wittily with: “huh? Like, camping is bad.”
I don’t want to hear: “huh”. And I don’t want to even begin to hear your thoughts on camping if you haven’t been able to ascend to a higher level of analysis, and understanding on how such things affects players, and what triggers it reproduces in players.
Brad. Jeff. Lawrence. Capozzi. Elam. They’ve thought about it.
It’s important to them.
Now, don’t worry, this article isn’t going to be like my previous Vanguard related rambles were I get into a bunch of pansy ass esoteric feelings and how the game made me ‘feel’. Hell no. That’s for nancy boys. This time I’m delivering the goods (at least some of them). But, it’s important I start with this because while you, the gamer, might not be able to see it just by reading articles and websites, I want to communicate with you, as somebody who is pretty involved in this stuff, one of the most reassuring things to me personally is recognizing that these guys are not like ‘those’ guys.
There is a fundamental difference, and that difference is something that I believe will be seen manifested in the game. Sitting on the couch, Salsa music giving me a real urge for tacos, talking to Brad, reminded me, despite not talking of anything that would be any interest to you guys, that there is more to this team than just a bunch of guys who are in it to make a quick buck.
And, while it’s not what you’re looking for, if there’s one thing I could let you guys walk away from reading with this would be that knowledge.
Okay, okay, now it’s time… drumroll please.
VANGUARD: ATTACH A CAMERA TO MY NADS, I'M GONNA CLIMB A MOUNTAIN The first night over, I slept and was up early the next morning to once again mingle with my cohorts, have breakfast, and get shipped off on a bus to the Sigil studio to spend the day hanging out with the rest of the team, etc.
That was an enjoyable experience. Sat with Leonai_Art, of Online Gaming Radio, who is both cool and good looking. No complaints here.
The ride took about forty-five minutes or so from downtown San Diego to the offices, and once we were there, we got herded inside. Now, this was the same building I had originally considered myself getting mugged at way back in July ’03, except back then when I wandered in, there were like twenty people working there. Cindy’s desk was in the middle of the massive main room, and there were boxes of graphics cards and stuff scattered around. People kind of met and mingled in the open center of the room and it only took me like twenty minutes to meet everybody once.
This time?
Try fifty three people in the same building (I think that’s the number now). I don’t know half of them, Cindy has been promoted to the ‘broom closet’ which is an office with a small desk surrounded by literally a fortress of cardboard boxes. It was as if she was preparing for some epic siege, you know, just in case. The main room, once wide open and free as a bird is now a maze of small walls giving people whatever privacy they can manage in the cramped conditions to get some work done.
This meant that our visit had to be far more supervised and controlled. IE. We got maneuvered into the main conference room where they hold meetings, and then groups of devs got to come in and meet us.
But I’m getting ahead of myself, while that’s cool and all, and an important part of the tale, first thing that happened was we ended up in the conference room with Brad, Jeff and a few others. More importantly, we ended up in a conference room with three live computers running Vanguard.
Running. Vanguard.
Sit down they said. A lot isn’t functional, but, you know, play a bit. Get a feel for it.
Uh? Okay?
Of course, I didn’t say uh okay, it was more like: ‘dibs on computer one, screw the rest of you!” (I didn’t put that into words either, but that was my general thought process).
So, I sat down, got situated, and then began to go through my mental checks and balances. The game basically wasn’t playable. Not really. And I would make a fairly secure guess that, even at that point in time, there was a far more functional build elsewhere with all the fancy mechanics being run through by the designers.
Understandably though, there is a lot they don’t want to release, and so the build we got to play with was a ‘feel build’. In other words, basic combat, a functional UI, though entirely a placeholder UI and, well, a camera.
A camera attached to legs. Why, perhaps it was a groin cam even.
Either way, I was very pleased with the opportunity to feel the game out, and so as soon as I sat down I went through every available menu. Again, the menus were bare, but there was a list of the standard ones that were to be expected. A travel journal. Status. Inventory. A Tome of Knowledge, which, for the melee character we got to play with was where all of his special abilities lay. And some other ones. Nothing that really jumped out as necessarily different than the other MMOGs we’re familiar with.
Under, I believe the status screen, were your expected stats (I can’t remember all of them). As well as the ability to change yourself from ‘adventurer’ mode to ‘crafter’ mode. Mathematically the game definitely had a very familiar feel. A sort of EQish, D&Dish, family feel. Where there were definitely differences, but not where you would find yourself learning a system entirely from the ground up. At least that was what the numbers suggested to me.
This is kind of interesting as lately we’ve seen some of the newer games taking a different approach. Cutting out stats. Using different names. Usually this isn’t a complaint of mine though, as the purpose behind the new games is to simplify, and usually they succeed.
That said, the way I see it, the original EverQuest never confused me in the first place. My only complaint about the EverQuest statistics system was it never felt as if the statistics were balanced. For example, as a Necro, you focused on capping your INT, then worked on HP. Getting DEX gear never really made you feel as if you got more casts off, CHA didn’t help with fear. The same sort of thing applied universally. Each class had a few core stats to focus on, and to play the class well, everybody focused on the same stats.
I expect we won’t see the same statistic dilution in Vanguard. I expect the statistics will actually be applicable in different situations, really forcing players to decide how they’re going to specialize on a near situational basis. Either way, it’s a moot point, the system that I got a glance at felt good and familiar.
Yeah, people brand new to RPGs/MMOGs? They might stumble a little bit at the beginning, but I’m a firm believe that you shouldn’t create something for the lowest common denominator. I prefer to believe that you should build a system which allows for depth, and players will be attracted to the fact that they have to rise to the occasion and really learn the ins and outs of the game (remember, this is often good for community as well, as it creates a discussion point for players).
After I had run through the menus, I wheel rolled the camera out, to take a look at my character in third person view. He looked good. I felt superior to the EQII models I’ve seen, though he was fairly threadbare and generic. On the other hand, I got a chance later on to check out some of the other character models on one of the artist’s computers.
Uh. Yeah. Kick ass. Seriously. I can’t wait to see Character Generation.
But hey, you guys wanted my experience uncensored right? Cool. Moving on.
At this point, I felt it was finally time to try the very basic combat they had implemented. This is how it went, first of all, as I wanted to really recreate my first EverQuest experience, I tracked down a guy who appeared to be an elvish guildmaster.
Then I broke into an offensive stance, hit attack, and he proceeded to give me the hardcore one two. Which made me laugh. And that resulted in my very first Vanguard corpse retrieval (sweet, sweet, bliss).
Upon retrieving my corpse (with the help of Jeff), I toyed with combat a bit more. This is the way it worked. There were three stances available to us at the time. Offensive/Neutral/Defensive. In my tome of knowledge, I believe there were different moves available to me under each stance.
Now, once again, this wasn’t exactly a combat demo. Combat was vaguely ‘functional’ but its purpose was not to show us the innovative means of combat the game would be featuring. Understanding this, I was pleased with my ability to beat down a caterpillar thing. I tried going through the stances, and am pretty sure a number (damage output/damage taken) difference was made, but didn’t spend a lot of time paying attention to it, as, well, you know, the combat isn’t really in the game yet anyways, so anything I saw now, is totally non relevant.
I felt I had gone over the basics and was satisfied with what I saw. Well, that’s really an understatement. I felt the game at a very, very basic level was ‘good’. I got the chance to see that an excellent foundation has been laid, so now it’s obviously a question about what they build on top of that.
Again, I’ll also say that I do believe there is a lot more laying dormant behind the scenes to be seen, right now, but simply was not available for us hoodlums to ramble on about when we returned from the offices.
Anyways, happy, my basic checklist gone over, I did the one thing I had been waiting for. Hell, I’d been shivering for. Eager. Giddy even. I pressed the forward key, said: “screw this default area!” and ran off into the sunset.
This was the coolest part of my time playing. Seriously, I saw a hill, said: “yeah baby! What’s over it?” and I ran over it. And, what would you know? Over it, there was a small village and a guard tower on a further hill. I quickly checked out the unpopulated village (pretty models, mmmmm) then ran to the guard tower. The guard tower was a cool, I opened the doors up, climbed the stairs, jumped and wound my way to the top. From the guard tower, far in the distance, I saw a ridge.
Hot damn, said I. It’s ridge time baby. So I ran forward to the ridge. I climbed the ridge. Over the ridge the terrain was slowly changing. Brad assured me that the world was still being populated with ‘cool’ (not his exact words, but the gist) and that points of interest, and landmarks would be everywhere upon release time.
Either way, me, I was pleased. Pleased, because far in the distance I saw another villagy thing. I visited it, climbed another hill, then on the horizon I saw a glorious mountain ridge rising out at me. Challenging me.
Needing to be conquered.
Yes.
And I wanted to be the one to conquer it.
Griffons and crawly monsters stood in my path. I dodged around them (though agro wasn’t turned on I believe) and made my way slowly but surely to the base of the mountains. And, in glorious scale, rising to what seemed the clouds, the mountains thrust up before me (no innuendo intended, dirty perverts).
So, determined in my quest, I climbed those mountains. Nay. I scaled the bastards. Winding my way up, further up, higher, higher. The summit in the distance called to me. I inched my way to the side (geometry demanding), made my way to a ridge, then worked my way to the peak.
(As a note, I had special GM run speed helping me out on my journey).
On top of the peak, clouds my crown, cliff faces below, the world seemed open to me, and dammit, I wanted more…
I wanted villages with people. Wanted tombs and dungeons. Wanted a quest sending me to the summit. I wanted horses. Wanted to be watching the skies for hunting griffons and drakes.
The world made me want, and I appreciated it.
SIGIL GAMES ONLINE: BENDING ME OVER AND 'TOOLING' ME
But, back to the actual, you know, ‘stuff’.
After this, I sacrificed my spot on the computer and got a tour of the art department. Alas, Keith Parkinson wasn’t there (he was sick I believe), so I didn’t find myself getting arrested as I attempted to make sweet love to his newest canvas.
To be honest though, the art side of things doesn’t interest me that much. Well, it interests me, but the depth of knowledge I have on it is: “ooooh, purdy”. So I really didn’t get much from the art department tour apart from the fact that they’re still kicking ass and taking names.
After that, we ended up back in the conference room. The lore people came in, went out (they were cool). Then came the programmers. This debonair group was led by Ryan Elam, who I had the pleasure of meeting way back when, July 03 ish. Along with him came quite a few faces I didn’t recognize, and, yes, Amanda Poe.
Amanda.
You know. She who worked on EQoA? More importantly, EQoA pathing, AI, and some of the other features of the game. Now she’s plying her expertise on Vanguard?
I’ve made a few reference points about this in past, way, bygone updates, but I’ll reiterate. One of my happiest Vanguard moments was checking the team list, and seeing the Poes involved on the project.
Specifically Amanda, though Lawrence always leaves me damned impressed as well (I’ll get to that later when I get into the design discussion). I do have a good reason for this I swear. I played a Necro primarily to the high levels in EverQuest. I played a Necro, and every single day of my fucking EverQuest experience I cursed at my pet, and more specifically, his dumbass: “let’s train the dungeon and ass rape the Necro for fun” pathing.
After that, and after playing some other MMOGs, I gave EQoA a try. As usual, I played a Necro as a main. Seriously, out of all the MMOGs I’ve ever played, even including new MMOGs such as SWG, or WoW, no game has matched EQoA in its level of AI/Pathing/gameplay smoothness.
None.
Which explains why, upon turning to her, sitting in a chair about a two feet away from me, my first, ultra, James Bond, smooth words were: “you worked on EQoA! YOU RULE” at which point I fell to my knees and prostrated myself before her…
Okay, maybe I didn’t drop to the floor, but I did say the first part.
Nice thing about this was, me being a creepy Canadian wank aside, I did get a chance to chat with her briefly about AI/pathing, etc. We didn’t get into Vanguard details, though she did certainly help my peasant self glean a greater understanding of the challenges involved in her department of programming.
Naturally, it’s hard for me to communicate with you something as simple as: “gameplay/pathing/AI should all be very smooth”, but that’s how I feel about it which is certainly reassuring for me. It’s just one of those things nobody ever talks about it pre-release, and nobody ever cares about it. They all want to know about new ‘innovative’ features. What is going to make them feel the ‘magic’.
Well, I just want to say, maybe it’s not something that blows your mind, and is often overlooked, but there’s nothing less magical than having your pet warp through the floor of a dungeon, or be hanging out by a wall and find yourself receiving the royal bitch smitings from a creature who seems to have the ability to magically hit you from a locked room that just happens to be near you.
So yeah, for a brief second, appreciate what sort of quality will be added to Vanguard simply by the fact that they have, you know, a crack team of programmers who are amongst the best and most experienced in the industry working for them.
After all, good or bad, these guys are the foundation layers. They’re pouring the concrete, and theory aside, a game with a strong foundation and poor design will still probably be more enjoyable than a game with a poor foundation and excellent design (intentions).
Obviously, for the perfect marriage, both are required, but it’s always helpful to look at all areas of the project, and be happy that I can place my faith in people whose games I’ve played in the past, and been pleased with work they were directly involved with.
Though, on the other hand, until everything is fleshed out, and people are going through the rounds in beta, I’ll be the first to admit it’s an ‘educated prediction’ and not a ‘sure thing’. After all. You guys are skeptics. So am I. We’ve seen enough stuff go bad in the past despite good teams. Anything is possible right?
Every game is a mix of complex variables. It’s nice to fill in the knowns, but there are always variables that can end up turning out a big ass algebraic style mess. Sure. And moving on.
Aside from getting to bug Amanda, I also got to listen to the programmers sort of talk. As they talked, there was a certain theme they adhered to. A sort of key word that seemed to get thrown around again and again (and was also spoken about by the designers).
‘Tools’
Lots and lots of tools.
Basically this was what I got from what was said. The depth and ability of a game is largely dependant on the tools used to build it. How flexible it ends up being, what can be done within the engine, how quickly it can be done, etc. All require tools.
Part of how Vanguard is planning to be a “third generation” MMOG, is on the premise that they are building phenomenal tools that allow them flexibility unlike any ever witnessed before in an MMOG. I’m not talking simply about world manipulation flexibility either, but flexibility on a design level. The ability to have the world act in a far more dynamic, and deep way than MMOGs in the past.
So, where EverQuest weather never really felt like it affected your gameplay, with the appropriate tools, the Vanguard team will be able to add a new level of complexity into their world. Situational complexity. Geographical complexity. Environmental complexity.
Of course, to do that, to have the design team realize their dreams in this regard, tools must be built for these purposes. And. Apparently, if I read between the lines of the words I heard correctly, they’ve built those tools.
Hell, I think they’ve got tools for everything.
They probably even have a tool for kicking my ass. They’re just that damn prolific.
This was first communicated a bit by the programmers, but then, largely, by the design team…
SGO: THEY'VE HIRED NOSTRADAMUS AND HE FORESEES AN ASS KICKING IN YOUR FUTURE
The design team group, consisting of a bunch of people I’d met in the past, was definitely led primarily by John Capozzi, once known as the surly guy, and Lawrence Poe, whose impressive work I’m sure you’re all familiar with. These guys filed in, pretty orderly, got comfortable, and the most interesting part of the day began. You see, a lot of the other groups, upon hearing a question, rebutted with: “you’ll have to ask the design team.”
Now, perhaps they were just shutting people up at the time knowing that the design team, near to last group of the day, wouldn’t have anybody to shoulder the responsibility off on, but either way the result was the same. A bunch of sweaty wanks (us), with a bunch of inane questions that had been building up for several cramped hours.
And so people began firing questions.
What about crafting? Huh? Huh? What about spells? What about banks? How will harvesting work? Raiding? Grouping? Griffons? Spells? Combat? Boats? Ocean combat? Cannons? Inventory management? Camping? Loot systems? Guild management?
C’mon, what about it, huh? Tell me. Tell me.
And, well, they did.
At least, to the best of their ability. Admittedly, Capozzi, the eternal picture of zen relaxation was forced to smile, and reply with, more than once: “sorry, can’t talk about that right now.” But a lot of things were said. Of which, I’ll briefly skim over to the best of my memory.
Crafting will, if implemented as they suggest, be the first time I’ve ever been excited over crafting. To a vague degree it seems to share the EQII idea of more interactive crafting, though they didn’t get into that, but what was more important to me, was the fact that they are really combining crafting with adventuring.
In other words, crafting will literally be an adventure. No longer a passive activity. Imagine, crafting in a mine with a group, experiencing a critical failure and suffering a cave in.
Will it happen? I don’t know, it was suggested that level of dynamism may be a possibility. Or, imagine wanting to adventure to a dungeon atop a rock spire in the distance. The rockspire on which your group sits is being pelted by defending archers in the distance, before you can cross and engage the archers though, the rope bridge needs to be repaired.
Or, to have a special, legendary Ancient Oak Spirit Tree (or something) grow in a shadowy valley surrounded by mountains, and while the resource it may produce might be exceptionally special and rare, one person alone cannot extract it. No. You need an entire crafting group to extract said resources.
These resources of course, aren’t going to be only used for the usual weapons/armor/jewelery, but for reinforced boats, maybe to further exploration for your guild into another dungeon, or to reach a new part of the world to explore. Or perhaps for better harvesting tools. Who knows. Reinforced caravans or something…
Okay, they didn’t confirm all of this stuff to be exact, the examples are mine, but the over arching theory of it possibly existing was indeed covered.
In other words, Vanguard wants to make the experience of crafting truly an adventure. They want to make crafting exciting. A part of me refuses to believe they will succeed. After all, crafting usually blows. The most fun I’ve ever had with crafting was in WoW, and that was still only slightly above sticking my hand in a thickness planer.
On the other hand, hearing them talk about it was the first time I’ve actually felt excited about any crafting system ever.
Inventory Management is shaping up to be a very important part of Vanguard. With the mechanic implemented, where players will be switching between adventurer and crafter, they will desire an entirely separate set of gear. The conundrum comes in the fact that while you might even be able to have both sets of gear on you, you probably wouldn’t be able to haul any sweet resources out with you (little less orgasm inducing loot).
To me this suggests a few things, so I’ll ramble on about what most definitely was not confirmed to me, but what I suspect through simple analysis and logic.
One is weight being a large factor. Remember early EQ? When, as a caster, you could carry like four sticks and a fire beetle eye, fifteen copper, and had your ass moving sluggishly across the landscape?
I expect we’ll see the same sort of thing, but to a far more strategic degree. As in, when they want to force players to make a decision on how they approach a situation, they will tailor the weight of items to suit that need. The key to this working of course will only be seen fully by how well it is controlled in the high levels, and whether it becomes redundant. Either way, I definitely predict weight management will be a part of players future.
Next of course is slot management. Remember when (in EQ) you did a newbie quest, got your two slot heavy ass fire beetle eye carrying box and it was uber? Remember when a backpack made you drool, because of how much depth it added to your carrying capacity?
Well, they did suggest that mounts would probably have more of a use than simple transportation. This definitely gives me the feeling and forces me to speculate that available space and how players will manage it is going to be an important part of playing the game.
At the same time, it seems they are very strong in their priorities. They aren’t looking to annoy players, but definitely to add depth to the gameplay, and give players the ability to make choices which affect whatever ‘adventure’ they’re about to embark on. Part of the key to playing Vanguard well will be having foresight in where you’re going, what you’re doing and what you should take with you.
Of course, this is all speculation on my part.
I’m doing my best to read between the lines though. Perhaps I’m spewing fanciful bullshit, but at the same time, the design team appears to have approached every aspect of the game with two primary thoughts in mind. Depth and Foresight.
Foresight. Foresight. Foresight.
The fatal flaw EverQuest suffered from. Nobody ever planned for expansions. Nobody even knew what an expansion was. So it was pretty damn hard to be able to imagine players soloing dragons in the far distant future.
This design team? This time around?
Foresight baby. They’re looking into the future, and they’re coming well prepared.
Again, to me, this suggests that we’ll be seeing things like inventory management, but we will not be seeing it simply made redundant with the first expansion and a deluge of weightless bags, but instead used far into the game’s future.
And this seems to be heavily noticeably when they talk about things such as raiding and grouping. The design team surprised me by defining a ‘group’ in Vanguard as something different than we’ve seen in the past. They defined a group as “one player or more”. As in, one player is a “group of one”. While upon first glance that may appear somewhat redundant, more semantics than anything, from my point of view on a design level it’s an interesting distinction (though it still probably is just semantics).
If one person is a group, it’s suggesting that every encounter, no matter what type of encounter it is (creature or resource) will be treated as a group encounter. Therefore, the system in place will be dynamic enough to react to the sort of groups thrown at it, even if it’s a player playing solo.
This isn’t exactly revolutionary, but it certainly is interesting.
On the same note, it was suggested that we would indeed be seeing a sort of ‘smart’ encounter system in place, where encounters would be able to react to the sort of force being thrown against it. So, in a raiding example, perhaps a dragon meant to be killed by twenty four people wouldn’t ‘notice’ the twenty four people sneaking up on it, but if sixty people tried to bum rush it, it might ‘call its guards’ (remember, these are words from the mouth of me, who, is, the furthest thing from official).
Point being, a system like this would also be able to tailor itself to things such as player levels, number of players, etc, allowing for a large range of content to be put in for a massive range of different organizations of players, all without instancing. So we will see raids available for every level range. See encounters tailored for different numbers of players, without necessarily having a ‘raid cap’ only allowing so many players to participate in the raid. Again, this sort of thing suggests to me, while perhaps not innovation entirely, certainly a large amount of flexibility and foresight in fixing the problems in the past, which had the potential to be very good but were executed poorly.
I like it. I like it a lot.
Now. As for innovation. Well. Apparently, reading between the lines once again, it exists, and it exists in spades. Here’s how it went though. The designers sat there, a knowing smile on their somewhat grizzled visages, and said: “when we started this project, we were told to imagine the things we always dreamed of seeing in one of these games. And so we did. And we were surprised to find out, when we started going over the checklist, we could realize a lot of our dreams. We could make them happen…”
And then my group started shooting crazy ideas at them, and they would just reply with: “that would be cool wouldn’t it?” and then smile. Now, I don’t know what that means exactly. Perhaps they’re just perverts, though, from my point of view it looked like what is actually going to make Vanguard Third Generation is indeed a level of interactivity and dynamism never before seen in an MMOG.
An example of this was their city of New Targonor. Admittedly, when I first saw it in concept way back when, then in reality at E3 ’04, I said: “cool, a human starting city.” After all, what else are cities for, right?
No. They don’t want us to think of New Targonor like Freeport or Qeynos. They said: “think Waterdeep” (Forgotten Realms Mega-City of plotting and intrigue for the uninitiated). They said: “think an adventure around every corner”. Every single building in the massive city is fully realized. Enterable. There is a dungeon sized sewer labyrinth beneath it. A keep in the progress of being built.
Players won’t go to New Targonor simply to gather. They’ll go there to adventure.
Is it innovation? I’m not entirely sure at this point. It made me wet my pants though, so it’s not a bad start. Here’s the thing, it’s entirely possible that I’m an idiot. In fact, beyond possible, it’s probably a certainty, nevertheless, the Sigil guys, when talking, somehow managed to stick their ghostly hands into my melon and really shake up my imagination.
When they do that, when they start talking about repairing bridges, building boats, overthrowing wizards, watching armies march, getting lost in the intrigue of a labyrinth like city, climbing mountains and exploring new horizons… when they start talking about it, I want to say: “you’re lying. You’re fucking lying. It’s not possible dammit. We’re not going to see player caravans transporting their good across the landscape. We’re not going to see pirate coves, wizard towers a kilometer high. We’re not going to do quests which take us venturing across massive unexplored continents. It’s not going to happen. We’re going to see EverQuest 2.0, and it will be like EverQuest, but prettier…”
Then they smile and say: “Yeah, that stuff would be cool wouldn’t it? A fully realized world would be cool? A fully realized world every bit as engaging as that of the Forgotten Realms world, or Krynn of the Dragonlance series. That would be nifty, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it be neat to fly a griffon? Wouldn’t it be neat to participate in high seas trading? Wouldn’t it be neat to overthrow kings and warlords, align yourself with factions which vie for control of tombs, dungeons, and lands? Wouldn’t it be neat to find yourself standing atop a chasm which is a kilometer deep, peer deep down it, and know that you have to find out what’s down there? Wouldn’t it be neat to see flying castles in the skies, and dragons, and, and… wouldn’t that be cool?”
Dare to dream is basically what they’re saying. Dare to dream.
Me? I don’t know. I’m jaded and a cynic, but I’m also an idealist somewhere. I can’t say I’d exactly be having the same reaction if I’d never had a chance to talk to the team. Never had a chance to see the game.
The thing is, I believe somebody has to take the type of world first explored with EverQuest, and really take it further. I played World of Warcraft. I hate to say it, WoW didn’t take EQ further… it made EQ better. It identified the problems it felt its demographic had with current day EQ and it took steps to fix those problems. But honestly, I played WoW and I never felt any more dynamism, or interaction with the world than I did in EQ. Crafting was still crafting, but, like, less inane. Adventuring was still adventuring, but, like, less broken. Questing was still questing, except, like, more straightforward.
World of Warcraft is a new model of EverQuest. From my understanding, Vanguard is looking to be a time warp ahead of EverQuest. In other words.
EQ = 72 ‘Vette
WoW = 79 ‘Vette
Vanguard = 05 ‘Vette
That’s what was communicated to me. Perhaps they are all built on the same foundation, which is certainly a MUDish, D&Dlike foundation. On the other hand, there’s not really a comparison. The only question is, will Vanguard be an ’05 corvette, or will it be an ‘88 corvette…
I don’t need to explain the analogy further do I?
Alright, continuing on.
DUNGEON CRAWL: THERE'S LIKE, THIS WIZARD, WITH A BIG TOWER, MAYBE HE'S COMPENSATING FOR SOMETHING?
After the design gurus departed, leaving me and my brain appropriately high off the future of their implications, they proceeded to load up two, as of yet unrevealed dungeons for us and the city of New Targ (for short).
The city looked great. And was huge. And magnificent. Yay.
I don’t want to talk about that though, already covered it. No, I want to get into what I saw in the dungeon design for everybody who has every loved a good dungeon crawl. The first dungeon Jeff Butler showed us was an Egyptian styled one. It was a tomb of some sort, sandstone styled walls, nifty hieroglyphs/runes/language of some sort, lost in a sprawl of sweltering desert. The design looked fantastic to put it bluntly.
One of the most pleasing things I found about the design was, not only was it massive, complex, plenty of room for people and enemies, Jeff, wandering around with no enemies, got lost. He, who is heavily involved with the game, got lost.
I love it. To me, nothing says: “dungeon” better than getting lost. EverQuest got my ass lost in all of its dungeons. Guk. Najena. Sebilis. All of them. There is not a single dungeon I can think of in EverQuest that I didn’t get totally lost in. Whereas, I never got lost in a single World of Warcraft dungeon. Not one.
For me though, in a non instanced game, there is little more pleasing than learning a dungeon off by heart. Really figuring it out to the most intimate details where its pitfalls and secret passages have been etched into your brain. Why? No, not because I’m a sadist.
Because, there’s nothing better than getting a group together and saying: “follow me” or, when you receive a strange tell from somebody asking where you are, saying: “we’re in the Dark Room of Ghoul Death” and them saying: “woah, I’ve heard about that but never been there!”
I like that stuff. To me, knowledge is a very fulfilling player reward. When greater knowledge of the game increases your value as a player, it’s a good feeling. It makes you want to play more, it motivates you.
And this is a problem the instanced dungeons of World of Warcraft certainly ran into. Since you were supposed to ‘do’ a dungeon, to a very large degree they were at least vaguely linear taking you from beginning to end. Deadminds. Gnomerawhatever. Yeah, not all of them were like that, but too many in my opinion. Which on some levels makes sense of course. If you don’t need to share with other players, people will only get mad if they can only really do a quarter of the dungeon at a time, are forced to zone out, then start at the beginning to do another quarter of the dungeon.
Fair enough.
For me though, give me a sprawling labyrinth. Give me something where learning its ins and outs really matters. The Egyptian dungeon we were shown? It definitely had that sort of design in mind, and I was impressed. If players like those sort of dungeons, ones with a lot of mystery, depth, hidden passages and places to go where you’ve never been before… from the dungeon design I’ve seen so far, Vanguard is tailoring their content for you.
Which brings us to the next major dungeon, as of yet, unreleased to the public.
The wizards tower. Pause for a second, and once more, imagine. Yeah, it’s a bit feely, a bit airy fairy, but you have to remember what this looked like. We’re sitting there, and Jeff, at the computer says: “to scale (as in proper ratio), this tower, which is a high level, epic encounter tower, is a kilometer high.”
A kilometer high. You can go so high up, the clouds pass by you. Plus, it is everything a wizards tower should be. Stained glass windows. Magical beams of funky energy. Stone staircases that unfold when switched. Elevators that take you further and further up.
If you like fantasy stuff, chances are you’ve read a book with a Wizards tower and thought: “Cool”. This is the first tower I’ve ever seen in 3D creation that matched the sort of thing I’ve mentally conjured up.
Is it innovative? Is it enough to get you, the cynic to play?
Maybe, maybe not. Me? I used to love jumping off of high things in EQ. Best part of Plane of Sky was jumping the hell off. A kilometer high wizard's tower for me is like a wet dream come true.
Honestly, I’ll admit something here, the world of Vanguard has inspired me. If I have to grind the hell out of my days and nights, killing damn rats and bats and elephants, just for the chance to explore the massive terrain they’ve built, points of interest, structures and all, I probably will.
Yes, I’m always looking for a better game. Better mechanics. Better whatever.
On the other hand, the magic of MMOGs for me was realized in making me feel as if I was in a ‘persistent world’. Key word. World. No amount of mechanics are going to simply be able to capture the feel of a ‘world’ for me. Yes, they’ll make my experience better, and largely decide whether I will or will not play a game… vice versa though, if you can give me a world that demands in the depths of my weak human consciousness that I explore over the next hill. Explore over the next hill. Explore the next river. Explore the next castle. Explore the next village. Explore the mountain pass.
Well, I’m hooked.
As a comparison, World of Warcraft didn’t do an abysmal job at this by any means. In fact, they did the best job of this so far. Of course, I did feel, the world wasn’t really filled up with anything interesting except the major points of note. The major cities. Major dungeons. Specific zone ‘action areas’. So in Duskwood it was the graveyard. In Wetlands there was the dark dwarves (whatever they were called) encampment, the sunken ships to the left of the little down, and the excavation site in the mountains…
Every zone, from my count, had, friendly village aside, two to five ‘areas of action’. Which wasn’t bad. The game was massive after all. Of course, that said, when I was playing it, in three weeks I had been to every open zone on both continents.
And, the things I saw in those journeys never once made me blink in awe. Sometimes I certainly said: “Cool” but I was never motivated to travel beyond any given area. This definitely has something to do with both the style of graphics used, and the scale of the world’s ‘z’ axis.
All in all, I felt Vanguard has, in preview form at least, produced a more engaging world. Though, credit where credit is due, WoW is in beta now, and we know the world intimately, whereas we can only wait and see how full of content the Vanguard world will end up being.
Which makes all twenty pages of this article somewhat insubstantial in form. Moving on.
QUESTING: CAN YOU FIND THE REWARD IN MY PANTS?
After we finished drooling at the fancy dungeons, we got a chance to see some of the tightly controlled quests in actions. Can’t remember precisely who showed them to us, but two guys came up, booted up a special build, ran to an elf guy and started a quest.
There isn’t a lot to say here except that the quest system is looking good. Again, we know for sure that the attempt being made by Vanguard is to add a level of dynamism and interactivity not yet seen in any other MMOG.
I hate to use it as a comparison again, but World of Warcraft comes to mind in this light. WoW was the first game so far to have a quest system where it was possible to fulfill your quest objectives in different ways… At least, so people told me. That said, not once did I ever experience this in my forty five levels of playing. If anything, all I saw is that the quest objectives were very simple and very straightforward, how you achieved those goals had nothing to do with a dynamic system.
For example, a quest in Stranglethorn Vale required you to board a pirate ship, make your way to the bottom and pick up a scroll. Well, the obvious way would be to fight your way to the bottom. The easy way was to use an seeing eye thing in to find the boat with the scroll. Get a friend to make themselves invincible (with some spell or item, I can’t remember) and run to the bottom, training everything with them, while you, the person who needs the scroll follows close behind, trained by nothing. They die, you grab scroll. Since there is no real death penalty, you both get off nice and easy by just swimming up to the boat and ressing yourself.
Oooh. Dynamic.
Still, it certainly wasn’t the traditional way to fulfill the quest objective, and perhaps a rogue could’ve snuck his way in or something…
I’m guessing at this point, much later in the game since when I last played, far better quests, possibly with more dynamism, have been added in, but either way, I’ll give you the run down of the quest we were shown.
Guy says his son was captured by poachers. They want a ransom for him. He can’t afford the ransom, so gives you their ransom note with all the information about them and what they want on it.
You read the ransom note. Now what?
Do you pay them the money? Hell no. So you track them down. You see they are guarding an encampment. You could certainly probably brute force your way in… or, perhaps if you were a rogue you could sneak your way in. Weak and alone though, you go kill a wandering poacher. He has a uniform on him. You don it. You can now walk around the camp unhindered (they’re not that smart).
You talk to the kidnapped, he can’t go with you though because he’s still being watched. So you lure another poacher away, do him in, steal his garb, give it to the elf and you’re off.
Okay. So it’s not exactly a Fable level of interactivity, more like Metal Gear Solid. On the other hand, the fact that I believe it had at minimum three different options of being completed isn’t bad. Now, it would be cool of course if faction eventually mattered, perhaps a skill such as diplomacy, maybe charisma, or perhaps if you had underworld contacts which would ‘pull some strings’ for you, but that’s neither here nor there.
The end result of how many ways to complete these quests is still unknown, on the other hand, I do like where they’re going with the quests. It seems like it will be fun to me assuming they put tools such as that to good use, and we don’t get three quests with all these neat options of completion, and the rest are all completely linear.
At the same time, part of a reasonable concern for you Vanguard onlookers, should definitely be: “will there be enough quests?” World of Warcraft smartly made the move of giving enough quests, even repetitive ones, where the grind of a long experience camp really was never an issue. You were simply doing different quests all the time, which, while the grind still existed in full, was masked by giving players small objectives to always reach (Go kill 5 tigers! Go kill 5 panthers! Go kill five raptors! Go kill 5 great tigers! Etc) And admittedly, it worked out for the best, whereas another game might have a great quest system and stunningly deep quests, if you’re only questing for an hour or two, and grinding for a marathon of 74, then chances are you might choose a quantity of quality approach instead.
It’s impossible to say at this moment, exactly how many quests Vanguard will or won’t have. There’s no question though that the Vanguard team is very, very aware of what a ‘full’ world feels like. They understand content and content creation to a very fundamental level, and know how important it is to players, and more importantly player retention, which eases any concern I might’ve otherwise had on the issue.
MISC WANKAGE:
And, to cover a few more things I learned at the office, have remembered as an after thought, and want to add.
PvP? Well, Brad has always claimed to be a huge fan of different server rule sets. This was further made concrete by the designers explaining that for all of the decisions they made, they took into account things such as PvP. It was also said though that they felt what made a great PvP game, was an amazing PvE world where you got to kill each other as well.
Personally, I agree.
Either way though, I’d say, in my opinion I believe there will be a PvP server. How much time are they going to dedicate to it? I don’t think anybody knows. They are building a world, not an FPS fest. Personally, I hope to see them implement three or four PvP servers with varying rulesets for faction/team/games/etc but believe that the only way that will be successful at all is if, as suggested, they have a kick ass PvE game backing it up.
Guild management. They love guilds. I don’t know what else can be said. They have plans for robust tools to allow for increased functionality, organization and management. I’m not sure if we can ask for a lot more. Personally I doubt we’ll be seeing guild tagged items or anything soon though for those of you have had that on your mind, but it wasn’t talked about so beats the hell out of me. You never know.
Loot-centricity. Another concern people tend to have. It’s weird, but I think they’re taking a different approach to the entire thing, and I think we’ll have to wait and see how it works out. I think equipment is still going to be vitally important, but I do believe they want to make it so that, once again, it’s a real experience acquiring, and more importantly, a good one. So whether it’s special crafted gear, quested items, or dungeon drops, it seems like they’re not worrying so much about players ‘needing’ items to feel useful, but making players simply love playing the game, and items being a reward for exploring and playing the game.
On the other hand, I think they know, as well as I do, and you do, any game with items will have people bitching about how the items are too hard to get. I don’t think they’re worried about this, as the people who voice those sort of concerns will never be helped, and certainly are not looking out for what’s best for the game, and really don’t understand why MMOGs attract the people they do.
Mounts. Yes. At an early level even. Of course, there will be more to it than that. But from my understanding players will receive ways to traverse the world more efficiently at an early enough level where they are not frustrated by its size and their seeming insignificance.
Situational Emphasis. They really want situations to change a players experience. As in, some casters might be more powerful in certain types of weather. Or, weapons such as blunt objects might be better against undead, but to be really good with it you’d have to specialize in it, which would be done by using the weapon all the time. This of course would make you less effective with other weapons, but skill migration would be available, where if you felt you wanted to be better at using a spear to kill dragons instead of blunt against undead and ice creatures, you could focus on that and eventually rise up in it, while you might atrophy your blunt skill (something like that).
Death penalty. Don’t know. Didn’t ask. Some form of Corpse Retrieval so far anyways.
Item decay. Again, didn’t ask. Might be mentioned on their boards or their FAQ, can’t remember.
I swear… I think that’s it. We covered a lot okay?
THE OFFICE TRIP GIST:
Well, after rambling for literally, a small novella, I think it’s time I summarize a bit.
We know Vanguard, graphically, depending on preference, is looking exceptionally good. We know, the team involved is also well in the process of creating the most in depth and immersive MMOG world to date. We know that, love them or hate them, the people working on the game are very much involved in analyzing the industry, raising the bar and moving it forward.
We know that they are also planning for the future, taking into account expansions, etc. We know that they are dreaming big, and have the support to at least make an attempt to realize those dreams. We know they are planning for large degrees of innovation, but are not releasing details yet to the public. We know they have tools which definitely allow for a greater scale of interactivity.
Now for what we don’t know. We don’t know hard details on their mechanics (spell system, death penalty, leveling, classes, etc). We don’t know exactly how they’re planning to innovate (only that they are indeed planning to). We don’t know a release date. And, if you’re a skeptic you could say: “we don’t know if they’ll deliver.”
I think, for those of you who haven’t seen the game, those things are valid enough. Honestly, I don’t think the Sigil team really would complain about it either. After all, they know they’re promising big and have to deliver. They also know for the meantime the best thing they can do is keep expectations low, even if people remain skeptics, and work on the actual game itself. It’s hard to disagree with that sort of philosophy.
I mean, haven’t we all been complaining about companies in the past continually doing the opposite? Releasing too much? Confirming too much? Promising too much? Then bending you over on release date screaming: “whose yo daddy!”
It’s sort of moot either way. Time is going to tell. The fact is this, if you’re interested in MMOGs, then this is one of the ones you have to be keeping an eye on. They have experience, the goals, the team and the publisher. Is it getting you excited like SWG might’ve? Or like WoW did? Maybe. Maybe not.
For me, if a friend says: “dude, any cool MMOGs in development?” my answer will be simple: “Yeah, Vanguard. Check it out.”
THE CONCERN: REQUIREMENT OF KEEPING MY JADED AND CYNICAL LICENSE
In the past, I’ve returned with these feely articles of how I liked Vanguard and, as didn’t surprise me, people complained. I was a Vanguard fanboi. I sucked monkey wang… wait, I’m not sure what that last insult applied too.
Point being, people didn’t like me saying all positive stuff. I’ve been through the loops, kicked in the nuts by these games enough, if I don’t have any concerns whatsoever, then, well, people who read my crap think I’m lying. And if I’m lying, then I’m a sell out.
Well, I told you back then, when I had concerns I’d voice them. And sure enough, just for you guys an interesting mechanical concern of mine did come up. I can’t say it’s valid or not, but it’s interesting and one I can imagine a lot of you relating with.
It has to do with the encounter system and player flexibility.
You see, they’ve suggested that they’ll be able to tailor encounter in such a way that they can control to a very specific degree how players are forced to approach it. Now, I’ll quickly recount that what I’ve enjoyed about the most about Ultima Online, EverQuest and World of Warcraft was my ability to rise above situations as a player. In other words, do crazy ass shit that I was never meant to do. This allowed for a personal feeling of skill and yes, even accomplishment. Soloing Plane of Fear? Yeah, maybe it was never intended, but it was fun and not many people could do it.
Or, in World of Warcraft, duoing an elite dungeon that was three to five levels above us? Yes, smart playing, and that was fulfilling. The concern I have with the encounter system in Vanguard (or how I perceive it) is how it may be stifle players creativity as they try to think outside of the box.
If a dungeon is designed as a ‘group’ dungeon, and three people going in are going to be beat down because the encounter system sees them as not the proper group for the dungeon, and not beat down because they suck, then I feel that is ironing out players desire to increase their skill, and rise above what was intended for them to do.
I always felt, one of the reasons EverQuest did so well was because of all the creative things players came up with to work around the systems the designers put in place. Yeah, maybe feign death wasn’t designed for pulling, but it worked didn’t it? And it created basically an entire role for monks.
Another example of this sort of thing, while in a more negative light, was Necros soloing Guk pre-Kunark. This pissed people off, and yes, I can understand why. On the flip side of the coin though, the Necros that did it? They were damn good. It’s not like it was an easy thing to do. The same thing applies to small groups of people figuring out how to accomplish epic tasks later on in the game.
Now, if the encounter system reads what sort of numbers are being thrown against it, and can react accordingly to make it impossible to do (impossible for one player to take out a named mob per se) will players react well to that?
I don’t know. For me, it is a concern. World of Warcraft allowed for personal flexibility and I enjoyed it. They set the encounters up, and however the players wanted to approach them was up to them. The encounters didn’t change because you were really good at your class and didn’t bring enough players.
Of course, playing Devil’s Advocate on myself, I’m totally against such things as high levels farming low level content. I’m against zerg rushing encounters to trivialize them. So for situations such as those, the design sounds very appealing to me.
I can’t predict how it will turn out, especially considering how few details I actually have. Hell, perhaps I’ve made most of the encounter system up in my head, and their implementation of players vs mobs will work on a completely different mechanical foundation.
I’m not sure, but this is a global concern of mine regarding all MMOGs. I want the ability to, as a player, think outside of the box. If a game is so tightly designed where I’m just going through the motions already predestined for me, doing exactly the things somebody else has planned for me to do, then I might as well be playing a console RPG.
That's my concern.
Well, that about wraps up the trip except for a few highlights coming up. Huge thanks goes out to Brad McQuaid, Jeff Butler, Cindy Bowens and the entire Sigil team. Also, to all of the community representatives, who, as usual were far more professional and useful than me and to those who recommended my name for invitation.