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Thursday, March 02, 2006
WoW vs. EQ1
As an interesting side-line of the discussion on casual vs. hardcore content, people were discussing in the comments on whether three 4-hour raids per week are still casual. Of course there is no fixed line between casual and hardcore, but I wouldn't count anyone who is doing raids on a regular schedule as casual. That is more a question of organization and intent than of number of hours for me, casual playing is not knowing today how many hours you'll play tomorrow.
But I did understand the argument of "we played Everquest, raiding MC seems casual to us". In comparison with EQ1, the whole lot of WoW is casual.
I was thinking exactly the same when I tried to get ghost mushrooms yesterday. There is only one really good place to farm them, the Skull Rock cave in the Hinterlands, and as I found to my chagrin it is heavily camped. The mushrooms spawn slowly, and if there is more than 1 person looking for them, you really don't get very many of them. But I had learned camping and patience in EQ, and just stood still at some strategic point, waiting for the next spawn. While the other people after the same mushrooms jumped around me, turned PvP on when they were of the other faction and tried to get me to duel them (Do I look crazy enough to duel a priest or warlock in a cave full of mobs? I'd just get feared into a bunch of them.), and then often left long before me. It is hard to find anyone standing still for 5 minutes in WoW.
In Everquest even a mid-level quest might have you camp some NPC who spawns only every 8 hours (Dyllin Starshine for the Testament of Vanear), and the camps get longer at the higher levels. In World of Warcraft most players can't wait 10 minutes before getting bored and wandering off. Of course that makes the game much more dynamic, you move a lot more in search of your targets, instead of static camping. That doesn't mean that camping has outlived its usefulness. If you had Everquest as training, standing still for 10 minutes or more in WoW to wait for a respawn can still be a good strategy. And if the other people trying for the same thing as you don't have this EQ-based patience, you can often "outcamp" them.
Observing that the majority of WoW players can't stand still for 10 minutes, not having played the original Everquest, one has to question the design philosophy behind the upcoming Vanguard : Saga of Heroes. Brad McQuaid, who is responsible for both EQ1 and Vanguard, says that Vanguard will bring back the advantages of downtime and slow leveling progress. Bringing out a new shiny MMORPG two years after WoW, when you can expect lots of people having grown bored and looking for a new game, is principally a good idea. But if these people don't have the patience required for an old-style game with lots of downtime and slow rewards, they might be leaving a lot faster than Brad thought. The time the average player stays in a game is *not* proportional to the time it takes to level to the highest level, but proportional to the time it takes him to get bored.
- posted by Tobold @ 2:27 PM Permanent Link
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Yes casual really is not organizing raids on a regular schedule. But I guess i will keep using the "time-invested" measure stick, when it comes to decide casual or hardcore. I hate these labels, but we could not talk about this, without using them.
Its funny you mentioned Vanguard. I was rooting for McQuaid until i saw the advantages of WoWs MMO light philosophy. I can not imagine to go back to the old mechanics right now and i guess i am not the only one, who learned to like the new philosophy. I have no clue, who Sigil wants to cater to with Vanguard right now. With Microsoft backing it up, WoW having like what, 8 million and the end of the year (?) Vanguard will have a hard time to lure people into slow grinding worlds, wich need a pc, the majority wont have.
I do admit though, i miss the old EQ pickup groups, where you really met new players, who actually got a clue of what they did. But choosing between a more rewarding and more social game, or one wich does not suck way too much time out of me, i choose the second. Maybe one day someone will find the perfect mix, between both concepts. I still have the patience but not the time anymore. I bet most of the old EQ vets feel like that, and teaching the new folks patience will be hard :)
Its funny you mentioned Vanguard. I was rooting for McQuaid until i saw the advantages of WoWs MMO light philosophy. I can not imagine to go back to the old mechanics right now and i guess i am not the only one, who learned to like the new philosophy. I have no clue, who Sigil wants to cater to with Vanguard right now. With Microsoft backing it up, WoW having like what, 8 million and the end of the year (?) Vanguard will have a hard time to lure people into slow grinding worlds, wich need a pc, the majority wont have.
I do admit though, i miss the old EQ pickup groups, where you really met new players, who actually got a clue of what they did. But choosing between a more rewarding and more social game, or one wich does not suck way too much time out of me, i choose the second. Maybe one day someone will find the perfect mix, between both concepts. I still have the patience but not the time anymore. I bet most of the old EQ vets feel like that, and teaching the new folks patience will be hard :)
# posted by 
: 2/3/06 16:58
: 2/3/06 16:58
I give WoW credit for at least *trying* to find the perfect mix. If you look, you will find that even at lower levels, assembling a group of competent players to run a dungeon gives you much better rewards than solo questing. I just guess that Blizzard hadn't realized how much people prefer soloing, so the difference in rewards between solo play and group play is still a bit too small.
I enjoy WoW because I can do both, rewarding social play or soloing, at least until I reach level 60. And a lot of the level 60 unhappiness you hear so much about is the fact that this choice disappears at 60, with soloing not advancing you meta-level fast enough any more. When I see Blizzard's idea of soloing for epics at 60, e.g. the Field Duty quests in Silithus, I feel like crying. It seems 4 hours in a MC raid are roughly equivalent to 100 hours of solo grind. Neither of which is a good choice for casual players.
I enjoy WoW because I can do both, rewarding social play or soloing, at least until I reach level 60. And a lot of the level 60 unhappiness you hear so much about is the fact that this choice disappears at 60, with soloing not advancing you meta-level fast enough any more. When I see Blizzard's idea of soloing for epics at 60, e.g. the Field Duty quests in Silithus, I feel like crying. It seems 4 hours in a MC raid are roughly equivalent to 100 hours of solo grind. Neither of which is a good choice for casual players.
I would think that the Bind on Pickup technique Blizzard uses would make them more ready to offer solo casual gamers the chance to get some epic items via solo quest chains - that's not the case however. Epic items are still the domain of big raids.
It does look like they are moving towards making Epic items more accessible to people who prefer smaller groups however and that is a step in the right direction. The new high level armor sets that will come down the pike with 1.10 look promising.
WoW's Under Development Page
I honestly don't see how anyone can expect to go back to EQ1's grind and expect to come anywhere near WoW's success. A lot of the people in the gaming industry don't seem to be drawing common sense parallels between computer gaming and other more traditional forms of past-time entertainmnet. Think about things like poker, chess clubs, book-dsicussion clubs, bowling leagues etc. These people don't spend inordinate numbers of hours on their hobbies - that's why they are past-times - not jobs. There will always be a small minority of people who will spend way too much time on their hobbies, but for most people it needs to be more rewarding in smaller chunks of time.
It does look like they are moving towards making Epic items more accessible to people who prefer smaller groups however and that is a step in the right direction. The new high level armor sets that will come down the pike with 1.10 look promising.
WoW's Under Development Page
I honestly don't see how anyone can expect to go back to EQ1's grind and expect to come anywhere near WoW's success. A lot of the people in the gaming industry don't seem to be drawing common sense parallels between computer gaming and other more traditional forms of past-time entertainmnet. Think about things like poker, chess clubs, book-dsicussion clubs, bowling leagues etc. These people don't spend inordinate numbers of hours on their hobbies - that's why they are past-times - not jobs. There will always be a small minority of people who will spend way too much time on their hobbies, but for most people it needs to be more rewarding in smaller chunks of time.
# posted by : 2/3/06 18:11
: 2/3/06 18:11
Never having played EQ1, my grinding experience is limited to leveling up a 50 Mentalist in DAoC. The vast majority of my play time from 40 to 50 was finding a group at a camp and grinding with this group for hours on end. Mythic did add a few new end-game spawns but that only brought the total number of camps up from 2 to 5, with 3 of them being accessible only under server-wide conditions.
I don't think I could go back to that kind of environment. I like WoW's non-camping, pathing-style of group hunting and leveling. I also like having guaranteed bosses who you know will drop decent items. I think returning to a camping-only style would make me cry.
(Though of course I've 'camped' certain mob spawns in WoW, e.g. for Essence of Fire, Essence of Earth, Felcloth, Demonic Runes, etc.)
I don't think I could go back to that kind of environment. I like WoW's non-camping, pathing-style of group hunting and leveling. I also like having guaranteed bosses who you know will drop decent items. I think returning to a camping-only style would make me cry.
(Though of course I've 'camped' certain mob spawns in WoW, e.g. for Essence of Fire, Essence of Earth, Felcloth, Demonic Runes, etc.)
# posted by : 2/3/06 19:13
: 2/3/06 19:13
Woops - my bad. The guy I quoted in the Raph's Rants post was actually on my side - just being sarcastic. Trust me to miss the nuances!
Everyone else in that post is kissing his butt though.
Everyone else in that post is kissing his butt though.
# posted by : 2/3/06 19:44
: 2/3/06 19:44
Hey I even put this in the wrong comments section!
Trust me to miss the obvious as well!
Trust me to miss the obvious as well!
# posted by : 2/3/06 19:59
: 2/3/06 19:59
WoW is much less social than EQ1, you meet less people and make fewer friends even if you hop into a guild right away.
In EQ1 you hop to your favorite XP spot and grab a group. In WoW you work on quests, often by yourself, and occassionally team up with people. Most people aren't working on the same quests as you. If you have a quest that requires multiple people you're lucky to even find a few who want to work on it at the same time as you and god help you if you actualy want a balanced group for it.
The easiest way to get those harder quests done is to have a high level friend destroy it for you.
The quest system is great for solos/casuals but if you aren't careful you'll end up at 70 with a very, very small friends list and no idea how to play in a group.
Not the case in EQ. You actually learn your class as you go because with some exceptions, you are constantly grouped up.
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In EQ1 you hop to your favorite XP spot and grab a group. In WoW you work on quests, often by yourself, and occassionally team up with people. Most people aren't working on the same quests as you. If you have a quest that requires multiple people you're lucky to even find a few who want to work on it at the same time as you and god help you if you actualy want a balanced group for it.
The easiest way to get those harder quests done is to have a high level friend destroy it for you.
The quest system is great for solos/casuals but if you aren't careful you'll end up at 70 with a very, very small friends list and no idea how to play in a group.
Not the case in EQ. You actually learn your class as you go because with some exceptions, you are constantly grouped up.
# posted by : 13/8/07 17:36
: 13/8/07 17:36<< Home
