The link.

Some pertinent info from the developers:

Most of the game dungeons will require you to spend several months to complete, and all of them feature multiple wings that cannot be completed without mechanical thieves, archaeologists, scholars, crafters, and beyond.

If you plan on going in with your min/max group of pure DPS builds and blasting your way through trying to mimic a 10 minute hard mode, you'll quickly find yourself flat on your ass. And you'll flat-out find yourself coming up against brick walls that you can't progress beyond until you have the proper group makeup to overcome puzzles and sections of the dungeon designed for specific skill sets.

Dungeons are roughly designed for 25% adventuring, 25% mechanical, 25% magical, and the other will be some suprises related to factions, crafting, and the like. Lack any one of those and you'll only ever see a portion of the zone. For progression, that means being unable to progress unless you have the proper skills within the party.

But yes, we're designing things so that everything is epic in scope. This isn't you wandering down to the lake to gather daffodils for your mum or sweetheart. This is:

*   Spending several game sessions preparing your caravan supplies
*    Ensuring you have a full compliment of crafting + adventure skills so you can remain self-reliant in the field, since you cannot recall back to town or fast travel in any way/shape/form
*    Spending several game sessions working your way overland, defending your caravan from attacks, as you work your way across the game world without a mini map and nothing more than vague directions about where the dungeon or ruin is located, exploring as you go along (all groups have an aggro radius attached to them and mobs in zones WILL seek you out and attack you even if you don't see them or think you are out of their range)
*    Resupplying at outposts along the way
*    Finally making it to the dungeon and having no map or any way of knowing what you will encounter within
*    Making sure you have supplies
*    Heading down into a dungeon that will take you a couple months or more to explore, across multiple game sessions, and your success/failure depends entirely upon how well-supplied your group is, how self-reliant they are, how relevant and talented are the members of your party
*    Working your way down only to find that you need more skill points to get past a certain door, so back tracking to clear another section of the dungeon while working on leveling up your skills and adventuring, then finding an extending bridge that can only be repaired by a skilled carpenter, which you have, but you are missing wood supplies, so you need to back out to the forest to harvest some wood, so you start to make your way out only to fall through a trap in the floor that your thief failed to detect, plunging half of your party down three levels and splitting the group up, and the only way to get down or back up is to have someone with a relevant climbing skill and/or supplies (better hope you brought some rope!), but then also discovering a separate section of the dungeon that you have to decide if you want to explore now or later and.....etc. etc. etc.

Comment: The one they showed they're thinking it will take 4-6 weeks to complete.

Response: That would be about the minimum length we want a dungeon to take to complete.

Hmm, I don't see much interest in solo.

The worst thing about mmos are the other people, and trying to find a group with the right mix sounds highly triggering (or should I say problematic?).

Still, good to see someone's trying something different with MMO.

Quote from: Sommerjon;850656The link.

Some pertinent info from the developers:

Most of the game dungeons will require you to spend several months to complete, and all of them feature multiple wings that cannot be completed without mechanical thieves, archaeologists, scholars, crafters, and beyond.

If you plan on going in with your min/max group of pure DPS builds and blasting your way through trying to mimic a 10 minute hard mode, you'll quickly find yourself flat on your ass. And you'll flat-out find yourself coming up against brick walls that you can't progress beyond until you have the proper group makeup to overcome puzzles and sections of the dungeon designed for specific skill sets.

Dungeons are roughly designed for 25% adventuring, 25% mechanical, 25% magical, and the other will be some suprises related to factions, crafting, and the like. Lack any one of those and you'll only ever see a portion of the zone. For progression, that means being unable to progress unless you have the proper skills within the party.

But yes, we're designing things so that everything is epic in scope. This isn't you wandering down to the lake to gather daffodils for your mum or sweetheart. This is:

*   Spending several game sessions preparing your caravan supplies
*    Ensuring you have a full compliment of crafting + adventure skills so you can remain self-reliant in the field, since you cannot recall back to town or fast travel in any way/shape/form
*    Spending several game sessions working your way overland, defending your caravan from attacks, as you work your way across the game world without a mini map and nothing more than vague directions about where the dungeon or ruin is located, exploring as you go along (all groups have an aggro radius attached to them and mobs in zones WILL seek you out and attack you even if you don't see them or think you are out of their range)
*    Resupplying at outposts along the way
*    Finally making it to the dungeon and having no map or any way of knowing what you will encounter within
*    Making sure you have supplies
*    Heading down into a dungeon that will take you a couple months or more to explore, across multiple game sessions, and your success/failure depends entirely upon how well-supplied your group is, how self-reliant they are, how relevant and talented are the members of your party
*    Working your way down only to find that you need more skill points to get past a certain door, so back tracking to clear another section of the dungeon while working on leveling up your skills and adventuring, then finding an extending bridge that can only be repaired by a skilled carpenter, which you have, but you are missing wood supplies, so you need to back out to the forest to harvest some wood, so you start to make your way out only to fall through a trap in the floor that your thief failed to detect, plunging half of your party down three levels and splitting the group up, and the only way to get down or back up is to have someone with a relevant climbing skill and/or supplies (better hope you brought some rope!), but then also discovering a separate section of the dungeon that you have to decide if you want to explore now or later and.....etc. etc. etc.

Comment: The one they showed they're thinking it will take 4-6 weeks to complete.

Response: That would be about the minimum length we want a dungeon to take to complete.

Thanks for linking back to us! If anyone has any questions, I try to regularly make the rounds of forums linking back to us and answer them as I have free time, so feel free!

Quote from: Doom;850797Hmm, I don't see much interest in solo.

The worst thing about mmos are the other people, and trying to find a group with the right mix sounds highly triggering (or should I say problematic?).

Still, good to see someone's trying something different with MMO.

Yep, we have zero interest in solo play. This is an MMORPG, not an RPG. RPGs are meant to be played alone, solo; MMORPGs are meant to be played in groups.

For us, the best things about MMMORPGs, and classic D&D campaigns, which our game is heavily based on, are the PEOPLE, the COMMUNITY. The reason we love MMORPGs is the social interaction and community, things which have been lost in recent generations of MMORPGs in favor of catering to the instant-gratification gamers who don't want to socialize or get along, but rather have their own single-serving gamespace.

D&D is best played alongside five or six or eight of your friends...even just three or four of them. D&D is almost never about ONE person sitting across from the DM having a single adventure. Sure, it can happen, but it's never as fun or as epic as when done alongside your friends.

Which is why our game is all about the group adventure. All of the overland content is for 2-4 players, up to 6-8, while the dungeons are for 8 players. Raids for more.

Zeus needed his fellow Olympians to overcome the Titans. Jason was nothing without the Argonauts. Captain Reynolds was nothing without the entire Serenity crew. Frodo was just a simple Hobbit without the strength of the Fellowship at his back. And while they all had their own small adventures on the side, the core of what made their journeys and stories so interesting and epic were the GROUP components, when they overcame the odds together, as a team.

So don't be afraid to get out there and roleplay, socialize, get to know your fellow gamers. EVERYONE starts off as Internet strangers at some point...but it only takes one simple "hi" to find a potential friend!

Very cool, unfortunately, your audience is a niche of a niche of a niche (hardcore mmo players from back in the day who also have time to spend these days, and the few new players who even know such play exists), which is totally fine, more power to you.

In a true sandbox, skill-based system, it would be possible to solo via a combination of stealth, skill, magic, etc.  sure, it would take you much longer to build in all those areas, and there will be some things a single person simply can't do, but it sounds like you're setting up Group and Raid content, which means you're not really Sandbox vs. Theme Park, you just have a different Theme.

Quote from: Renfail;856813Yep, we have zero interest in solo play. This is an MMORPG, not an RPG. RPGs are meant to be played alone, solo; MMORPGs are meant to be played in groups.

For us, the best things about MMMORPGs, and classic D&D campaigns, which our game is heavily based on, are the PEOPLE, the COMMUNITY. The reason we love MMORPGs is the social interaction and community, things which have been lost in recent generations of MMORPGs in favor of catering to the instant-gratification gamers who don't want to socialize or get along, but rather have their own single-serving gamespace.

D&D is best played alongside five or six or eight of your friends...even just three or four of them. D&D is almost never about ONE person sitting across from the DM having a single adventure. Sure, it can happen, but it's never as fun or as epic as when done alongside your friends.

Which is why our game is all about the group adventure. All of the overland content is for 2-4 players, up to 6-8, while the dungeons are for 8 players. Raids for more.

Zeus needed his fellow Olympians to overcome the Titans. Jason was nothing without the Argonauts. Captain Reynolds was nothing without the entire Serenity crew. Frodo was just a simple Hobbit without the strength of the Fellowship at his back. And while they all had their own small adventures on the side, the core of what made their journeys and stories so interesting and epic were the GROUP components, when they overcame the odds together, as a team.

So don't be afraid to get out there and roleplay, socialize, get to know your fellow gamers. EVERYONE starts off as Internet strangers at some point...but it only takes one simple "hi" to find a potential friend!

yes, D&D is best played that way.  however, you are not making a P&P RPG.  game after game, morg after morg is setting out with their own answer of how to get back to the roots of D&D--how to be classic, how to be appeal to the ideals of what started it all and tryign to find a way to impose the group dynamic.  the point that is always missed is...you are not making an RPG, you're making a mmorg.  

Don't get me wrong, i'm a big fan of mmorgs...or at least I used to be, until I got sick of being in a game that requires a group to get anything done.  I was reading the description of your game and I was so ready to try it til I got to the part about it requiring a large group.  Sorry, been there done that, so many times I cant even list them.

Do you realize how many people there are like me out there?  single players, pairs of friends, small groups of 3 or 4, who now have given up totally on mmorgs because without a guild or at least a group of 8 you cant get anywhere or do anything that matters.  The country is literally bursting with people like that, like me, like me and my buddy, who have stopped checking out mmorgs because every single one of them is obviously designed for large groups.

The mantra of classic fantasy revolves around groups is not even true.  Conan was one of the first fantasy characters.

Obviously you guys are already on a set course.  I'm not really posting this attempting to affect your game, but I wish someone..SOMEONE would make a game I could just log into and start exploring by myself or with small groups, like the old school online games that are the actual predecessors of mmorgs.  Kesmei, Drakkar, and the like.

mmorgs keep trying to get back to the roots of P&P RPGs.  When is one of them going to try to get back to the roots of mmorgs?

Quote from: CRKrueger;856872Very cool, unfortunately, your audience is a niche of a niche of a niche (hardcore mmo players from back in the day who also have time to spend these days, and the few new players who even know such play exists), which is totally fine, more power to you.

In a true sandbox, skill-based system, it would be possible to solo via a combination of stealth, skill, magic, etc.  sure, it would take you much longer to build in all those areas, and there will be some things a single person simply can't do, but it sounds like you're setting up Group and Raid content, which means you're not really Sandbox vs. Theme Park, you just have a different Theme.

As far as the audience goes, we know it. We'll be happy with 5k-10k subs. Very achievable.

Agree to disagree on what "sandbox mmorpg" means

Early EverQuest was built to be a fully group game. So is ours. Smart players found ways to use abilities in ways not conceptualized by designers, allowing them to trivialize content in certain areas, for certain classes.

We'll be keeping an eye on the latter to make sure we keep our game balanced.

You can hang out with 2-3 of your friends in the areas just outside of outposts, but ours is a world of constant danger. You can go anywhere, do anything, zero quest hubs, and go-at-your-own-pace/in-any-direction-you-choose, which makes us the sandbox, not themepark....but you won't find any solo content in the game.

Unless you want to drop back to a place that is below you in skill level, and even then, it's still going to be dangerous.

Frodo didn't set out from the Shire on his own. He went with three of his friends. And then, for the more dangerous parts of the journey, he grouped up with others, eventually fleshing out to the full Fellowship. And even in the depths of Mordor, he wasn't a solo adventurer; he was backed up by Sam, and there were others from his Fellowship who were, at the same time, working on things within the overall theme of the group to keep Sauron's eye off him, and focused elsewhere, so that he could destroy the ring.

Quote from: Ghost;856875yes, D&D is best played that way.  however, you are not making a P&P RPG.  game after game, morg after morg is setting out with their own answer of how to get back to the roots of D&D--how to be classic, how to be appeal to the ideals of what started it all and tryign to find a way to impose the group dynamic.  the point that is always missed is...you are not making an RPG, you're making a mmorg.  

Don't get me wrong, i'm a big fan of mmorgs...or at least I used to be, until I got sick of being in a game that requires a group to get anything done.  I was reading the description of your game and I was so ready to try it til I got to the part about it requiring a large group.  Sorry, been there done that, so many times I cant even list them.

Do you realize how many people there are like me out there?  single players, pairs of friends, small groups of 3 or 4, who now have given up totally on mmorgs because without a guild or at least a group of 8 you cant get anywhere or do anything that matters.  The country is literally bursting with people like that, like me, like me and my buddy, who have stopped checking out mmorgs because every single one of them is obviously designed for large groups.

The mantra of classic fantasy revolves around groups is not even true.  Conan was one of the first fantasy characters.

Obviously you guys are already on a set course.  I'm not really posting this attempting to affect your game, but I wish someone..SOMEONE would make a game I could just log into and start exploring by myself or with small groups, like the old school online games that are the actual predecessors of mmorgs.  Kesmei, Drakkar, and the like.

mmorgs keep trying to get back to the roots of P&P RPGs.  When is one of them going to try to get back to the roots of mmorgs?

You might be sick of group-based games, but we aren't. Neither are the fans who have joined us so far, and the community that is growing every day. There's a healthy population of us out there, players who didn't evolve with the industry; we are still here, looking for games that can offer us the old-school experience.

WoW, SWTOR, LOTRO, EQ, EQ2; everywhere you look, games are now homogenized single-player theme park adventures with some MMO components thrown in, watered down to cater to the "give me a game where I can solo" generation.

Great. There's plenty of games out there where you can wander around solo and be the Big Damn Hero. Games with required grouping? Pretty much only FFXIV.

Since no one wanted to develop a massive sandbox, group-based, PVE game, we took it upon ourselves. MMORPG.com has a great write-up on the overview of our game and the ideas behind it.

Conan was never just a solo adventurer. He almost always ended up relying on others to complete his missions, not to mention the Free Companies. John Carter of Mars? Same thing; amazing hero, but never went it alone. There were always the Tharks and others beyond. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, while renowned in their own rights, still banded together with others during their adventures. Jason was a mighty man, for sure, but without his Argonauts? Not so much. Even Zeus could not take down the Titans without the help of others.

And finally, on yourr ending sentence "mmorgs keep trying to get back to the roots of P&P RPGs.  When is one of them going to try to get back to the roots of mmorgs?"

The roots of MMORPGs can mostly be traced back to UO and EverQuest, the two most famous of the first generation games. We're blending the two. Both of those games were heavily reliant on group-based content where you could not adventure too far into the depths of the realm without a good group and community to back you up.

We're going back to the roots of the first generation of games. We chose to blend D&D with EverQuest and a bit of UO at the same time. EverQuest was a game that, in its prime, was all about needing other people to get things done. Sure, you could solo a bit here and there, but the bulk of the game's content required you to be teamed up with others.

For us, we thrive on companionship, comradarie, and teamwork. Our thrill comes from socialization, something that is completely lost in the modern generation of games where you can hop into a group finder and find people within 30 seconds without ever needing to talk to them, and after you run your 15 minute "hard mode" dungeon, you never see them again.

Which is why, in our game, there are no dungeon finders. No mini maps. No quest hubs. Instead, you'll have to actually interact with other players to find those who can join you on your adventure. Make a name for yourself. Have a reputation. Choose your own adventure. While there are quests, they are optional, and they are epic in nature. No "gather 15 bear hides" here. Instead, it's "kill the giant Frothkar in his fortress to the north", which requires you to gather seven other brave warriors and adventure your way across the realm as you work your way north to his fortress keep, and then into the depths.

In any case, we have vastly different views We're building the game for those who share our own viewpoint. It's a small group, but one that still exists and is thriving....just playing EMUs because no current developer is making a PVE, group-based game. It's all PvP games on the current horizon, or single-player titles with some MMO elements thrown in.

Quote from: Renfail;856966You might be sick of group-based games, but we aren't. Neither are the fans who have joined us so far, and the community that is growing every day. There's a healthy population of us out there, players who didn't evolve with the industry; we are still here, looking for games that can offer us the old-school experience.

WoW, SWTOR, LOTRO, EQ, EQ2; everywhere you look, games are now homogenized single-player theme park adventures with some MMO components thrown in, watered down to cater to the "give me a game where I can solo" generation.

Great. There's plenty of games out there where you can wander around solo and be the Big Damn Hero. Games with required grouping? Pretty much only FFXIV.

Since no one wanted to develop a massive sandbox, group-based, PVE game, we took it upon ourselves. MMORPG.com has a great write-up on the overview of our game and the ideas behind it.

Conan was never just a solo adventurer. He almost always ended up relying on others to complete his missions, not to mention the Free Companies. John Carter of Mars? Same thing; amazing hero, but never went it alone. There were always the Tharks and others beyond. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, while renowned in their own rights, still banded together with others during their adventures. Jason was a mighty man, for sure, but without his Argonauts? Not so much. Even Zeus could not take down the Titans without the help of others.

And finally, on yourr ending sentence "mmorgs keep trying to get back to the roots of P&P RPGs.  When is one of them going to try to get back to the roots of mmorgs?"

The roots of MMORPGs can mostly be traced back to UO and EverQuest, the two most famous of the first generation games. We're blending the two. Both of those games were heavily reliant on group-based content where you could not adventure too far into the depths of the realm without a good group and community to back you up.

We're going back to the roots of the first generation of games. We chose to blend D&D with EverQuest and a bit of UO at the same time. EverQuest was a game that, in its prime, was all about needing other people to get things done. Sure, you could solo a bit here and there, but the bulk of the game's content required you to be teamed up with others.

For us, we thrive on companionship, comradarie, and teamwork. Our thrill comes from socialization, something that is completely lost in the modern generation of games where you can hop into a group finder and find people within 30 seconds without ever needing to talk to them, and after you run your 15 minute "hard mode" dungeon, you never see them again.

Which is why, in our game, there are no dungeon finders. No mini maps. No quest hubs. Instead, you'll have to actually interact with other players to find those who can join you on your adventure. Make a name for yourself. Have a reputation. Choose your own adventure. While there are quests, they are optional, and they are epic in nature. No "gather 15 bear hides" here. Instead, it's "kill the giant Frothkar in his fortress to the north", which requires you to gather seven other brave warriors and adventure your way across the realm as you work your way north to his fortress keep, and then into the depths.

In any case, we have vastly different views We're building the game for those who share our own viewpoint. It's a small group, but one that still exists and is thriving....just playing EMUs because no current developer is making a PVE, group-based game. It's all PvP games on the current horizon, or single-player titles with some MMO elements thrown in.

But, it doesn't sound like you're intending to have some solo content, it sounds like you want none, which is just plain weird.  There's a difference between not liking grouping and not liking forced grouping just because someone said you have to.  WHy do I need seven fellow warriors to take on anybody, why not 3 or 5 or 12?  You're creating content focused on a single, narrow style of play, the antithesis of a sandbox.

If you've played UO and EQ, you know what would happen in a "real" sandbox, people would set up shop at outposts along the way, and after the first few group had gotten to the ruins, there would be a village sprung up where some people would spend their MMO time chopping down trees and making bows and spears.

You're taking a mighty big shot at the modern MMOs which is fine, they certainly deserve it, but it sounds like you're really no different, you just picked a different focus for your theme park and a different type of forced experience.

In your game, if I can't make a trapper/forester who carefully hunts the edge of civilization relying only on my own wits and skill, and bringing back needed supplies to support those adventuring parties, then you really have no business at all claiming you're invoking UO or EQ.

If UO and EQ to you is "First Generation", that may be part of the issue.

Don't get me wrong, practically everything about your game sounds like a dream MMO to me, but then when you make it sound like I can't step outside a village gate without a full expedition team, being involved in raiding going back to Shadows of Yserbius and Kingdom of Drakkar, the kind of logistics that requires on a daily scale, is more like a nightmare.

Still, more power to you, I may jump in just to see how far I can push the envelope.

BTW, how are you going to enforce the 8, 16, 24 or whatever caps or prevent multiple groups doing the exact same thing, instanced sandboxes, in other words, once my group decides to do "Quest for the Frost Giant's Castle" we get an instanced world isolated unto ourselves?

Quote from: Renfail;856966There's plenty of games out there where you can wander around solo and be the Big Damn Hero. Games with required grouping? Pretty much only FFXIV.

Yeah...actually, there isn't.  There's plenty of games I can build a big damn hero (as you patronizingly term it--a telltale clue to one of the problems) and I can "wander around solo" too.  None of that (unfortunately) is what I'm interested in.  What does NOT exist is a game that offers players the ability to do anything meaningful or interesting solo.

To get real gear, I must be in an uberguild.  To do the meaningful quests and dungeons, I must be in an uberguild.  You like to make it sound like your game will be different from these other games, and if you do what you're talking about, it will be--in terms of mechanics.  However, what will not be different is that it will absolutely require me to join an uberguild.  You can swear up and down that it won't but sorry, I know better.  In the real world, a game designed to require 8 person parties will mandate uberguilds.

I hope it works out for you.  I really do.  The whole, journey to the dungeon, no minimaps, all of that sounds very cool and it is needed.  I hope you dont have general chats or shouting either.  All youre trying to do sounds great.  

However, you are not listening or comprehending what I'm saying about a solo game or the roots of mmorgs.  If you think EQ was gen 1 then there's no conversation.  I am DYING to play in a sandbox mmorg designed with no maps, no chat, puzzles, no quest hubs, etc etc etc where I can tackle the game by myself or with a friend or two.  Guild Wars 2 is the closest thing I found but for whatever reason around 35th level I found that no matter where I went I was limping and that got very very old.

In games like these, simply the NEED to find mass amounts of people to get anything done will require a social hierarchy and that is uberguilds--a bad environment because it is founded with the knowledge that it is needed by the player and that brings a certain social dynamic which nobody who has played mmorgs needs explained to them.

If you were familiar with the actual 1st gen of mmorgs you would know that in those games, where lairs were an additional element to the game instead of the staple, guilds had a completely different dynamic.  What you were saying about building a personal reputation was much more important in those early games where guilds could not count on your need to be a part of them.  In those days, only certain players were even wanted in a guild.  Many players were not asked to join and those that were asked were asked in person, like in a conversation, or a series of conversations.  It was just a whole different social dynamic.

A lot of what you want to accomplish with your game can be done, but social incentivization is a very tricky business, and not programmable.  That's the real thing that mmorg designers have failed to grasp up to this point.  It's all about social incentivization.  When you incentivize behavior, you create a social paradigm and you pre-determine the outcome.  No matter what you do after that in terms of programming, your audience is already determined and they will follow the path of least resistance in order to get what they want.  Your horde of idealists looking for a return to P&P RPGs will stick for a while but in the end will be sickened by the inevitable tide console gamer kids looking to exploit your system.  And they absolute will not stop.  Ever.

Case study: LotRO.  Go back and look at their initial goals and compare them to your own.  Do you think the had a less committed fanbase than yours, or more committed?  I know the answer.  I was there.  Look what happened to the original design team.  Look where the game is now.

Mmorgs are a business, which I'm sure you know.  The first M in mmorg requires appeal to a large group to create revenue.  My whole point is, that me and and people like me represent a huge audience of gamers that are waiting for something.  We WANT what you want.  Old school, thought provoking, personal adventures, immersion, sandbox, no hubs, no chat channels, all of the stuff you're talking about.  We want to be able to--or actually have to--explore.  We want the game to be too smart and too hard for some players to be able to manage it.  We want some things to be too tough for one player to manage it.  And it's great if there are some things--LAIRS & DUNGEONS--with super tough stuff that require a group or require you to be much higher level.

When you take the step to require large groups for everything and make the game meaningless for small groups and solo play, you loose us.  By insinuating that players like me are puerile, greedy, shallow, and every other possible slander that I have heard over and over for year after year, you do not come off as clever, you come off as bland.  A clever fellow would grasp what I'm saying and turn it into the world's most successful mmorg.

Yeah, Conan had friends and allies.  So do I.  But both Conan and I insist on the right to determine when and why to travel with them.

I hope you succeed in what you're doing.  I just wish someone would actually listen to what so many of us actually want instead of projecting their own fictional versions of what we want or why we want it in order to justify doing something other than what we want.  

You arent into groups of 8 because you're a sociologist.  You are game producer who wants the m and thinks 8 person groups is the way to get the m, deluding yourself to the point where you say that if I want solo play there are plenty of other games like EQ where I can find that.  In reality your imposed group mentality is in practically every single product that you're up against and they're all better funded with huge customer bases and marketing campaigns.  

If only there were some untapped and/or dismissed group of mmorg players out there that you could appeal to...

Good luck with the game.  Even though I want something else, I hope it does well.

Quote from: Ghost;856992You arent into groups of 8 because you're a sociologist.  You are game producer who wants the m and thinks 8 person groups is the way to get the m, deluding yourself to the point where you say that if I want solo play there are plenty of other games like EQ where I can find that.  

Good luck with the game. Even though I want something else, I hope it does well.

Clearly, you haven't read up on anything regarding our game, or who we are. Take a few days, if you like, and research us a bit. I think you'll find that what you just described is the exact opposite of who we are (in terms of being in this for the money).

Luck has nothing to do with it Hard work and dedication wins the day, and so far, our community loves what we are doing, so we keep forging ahead, day in and day out.

Quote from: CRKrueger;856978But, it doesn't sound like you're intending to have some solo content, it sounds like you want none, which is just plain weird.  There's a difference between not liking grouping and not liking forced grouping just because someone said you have to.  WHy do I need seven fellow warriors to take on anybody, why not 3 or 5 or 12?  You're creating content focused on a single, narrow style of play, the antithesis of a sandbox.

If you've played UO and EQ, you know what would happen in a "real" sandbox, people would set up shop at outposts along the way, and after the first few group had gotten to the ruins, there would be a village sprung up where some people would spend their MMO time chopping down trees and making bows and spears.

You're taking a mighty big shot at the modern MMOs which is fine, they certainly deserve it, but it sounds like you're really no different, you just picked a different focus for your theme park and a different type of forced experience.

In your game, if I can't make a trapper/forester who carefully hunts the edge of civilization relying only on my own wits and skill, and bringing back needed supplies to support those adventuring parties, then you really have no business at all claiming you're invoking UO or EQ.

If UO and EQ to you is "First Generation", that may be part of the issue.

Don't get me wrong, practically everything about your game sounds like a dream MMO to me, but then when you make it sound like I can't step outside a village gate without a full expedition team, being involved in raiding going back to Shadows of Yserbius and Kingdom of Drakkar, the kind of logistics that requires on a daily scale, is more like a nightmare.

Still, more power to you, I may jump in just to see how far I can push the envelope.

BTW, how are you going to enforce the 8, 16, 24 or whatever caps or prevent multiple groups doing the exact same thing, instanced sandboxes, in other words, once my group decides to do "Quest for the Frost Giant's Castle" we get an instanced world isolated unto ourselves?

Agree to disagree on what Sandbox is

Kudos to Yserbius reference; I, too, played that back in the day. As well as MUDs. We could swing e-peens if you'd like to compare

UO and EverQuest are industry standard first generation MMOs; it's not a debatable opinion, it's a stated fact, as per the industry.

There is content for 2-4 players, content for 4-6 players, content for 8 players, and content for multi-group raids. We've got it all. Just nothing you can do on your own, other than craft a bit. Maybe explore some zones beneath you in terms of "level", but even then, we're using D&D style of hitpoints and AC, so just because you are higher-up doesn't mean you can't get swarmed and killed by a bunch of low-level monsters/NPCs.

As far as making sure everyone has access to content, without instancing things, you can read up on this blog post: https://sagaoflucimia.com/progression-encounters-open-world-versus-ensuring-equal-access

Sounds interesting but... I dunno. These MMO games all start with solo play and frankly most people want to do that most of the time.

I played UO for about a year and while I found a couple buddies I could trust I still did most of my adventuring alone. I played WoW for 7 years and while I had a dozen friends and was an officer in a large guild I again spent over half my time doing solo stuff: quests, farming, ganking, whatever. My friends weren't always online or had little time or were just in the mood to do other things most days. That's alright, I accepted that. I'm playing Guild Wars 2 now but while my top character is only level 20 I have yet to find much need for making friends. If I put more effort into it I might.

It sounds like in this game the player must have a stable group of trusted friends from day 1 or else he's SOL. That sounds way overly optimistic.

And the time... do I have it right? Days to pack your bags? Days of travel just to get to the dungeon entrance? Then a slow, slow crawl through it just to have a hope of completing it? And if the group doesn't have the right mix of skills... again you're SOL. I don't see any of that working large scale. Sure, in WoW every server had a couple mega-guilds which could do every raid in the first week of opening. The vast majority of players weren't in those guilds though. Most guilds, like mine, took weeks of repeated trying to get even half way through a raid instance.

As someone else said it sounds like this game is being designed for a niche of a niche: those expert players, the 1%, who join a game as a team and can conquer content rapidly. Maybe there is great need for a game like that. However I doubt such a model will ever be big, certainly not a WoW killer.

Quote from: Renfail;856998There is content for 2-4 players, content for 4-6 players, content for 8 players, and content for multi-group raids. We've got it all. Just nothing you can do on your own, other than craft a bit. Maybe explore some zones beneath you in terms of "level", but even then, we're using D&D style of hitpoints and AC, so just because you are higher-up doesn't mean you can't get swarmed and killed by a bunch of low-level monsters/NPCs.

One of the problems with the...
Flagged as 2-4 Player Encounter
Flagged as 4-6 Player Encounter
Flagged as 8 Player Encounter
...model is that one of the hallmarks of EQ was that playing smart got you somewhere.  Same with DAoC, a smart puller made all the difference, even with BaF code.  WoW destroyed that with "Elites".  I don't why those Halfling Druids in EQ would spend half an hour kiting a Hill Giant when they could have grouped up and killed ten in the same amount of time, but more power to 'em, there wasn't any artifice preventing it.

Quote from: Renfail;856998As far as making sure everyone has access to content, without instancing things, you can read up on this blog post: https://sagaoflucimia.com/progression-encounters-open-world-versus-ensuring-equal-access

Quote from: Renfail;856998That being said, the whole point of an open world is so that players interact with each other, work together to accomplish content, and join together as part of a community. We don't feel that competition for progression-based content falls in line with working together; instead, the whole concept of locking mobs down and blocking other players from accessing the content is ANTI community.

So while the vast majority of the world will be open, non-instanced, and players will need to cooperate and work together + play nice with other as far as respecting camps goes, any mobs related to actual progression of quest content and flagging will be reserved for the group/raid who is actually ON that questline and needs the content, thus keeping any sort of clock blocking from happening.

Your problem isn't going to be cockblocking, it's going to be orgies.  So Group A and Group B venture into the dungeon together.  First one Group activates the Frost Giant King so they get progression and both Groups pummel on it, so twice the number of characters is was designed for, making it easy, then once that's done, Group B does the same thing.  Feature or Bug?

Quote from: Renfail;856996Hard work and dedication wins the day...

Wish that were true.  Believe me.