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Monday, May 29, 2006
Kranky Kraut
Did I ever mention that this blog is a honey trap? I get people to link to me or to comment here, and then I follow their link back to their own MMORPG blog. Made my life finding other people's blogs so much easier. :)
My latest find is the blog of Kranky Kraut. Not a big blog, but excellent compilation of leaked Vanguard beta information, among other things. I hope Kranky forgives me for linking to him, his first blog post complains about "circle jerks", blogs commenting on other blogs. :)
Do you remember when WoW wasn't out yet and all we had was this incredible hype leaked from the beta testers? It turns out Vanguard is just the opposite: all the beta tester leaks are either rather negative, or do a bad job of putting a positive spin on uninspiring game play aspects. The more I hear about Vanguard, the less I'm looking forward to it. I do believe that a "hardcore" MMORPG could be viable, if its quality is as good as the more casual friendly alternatives. Imagine WoW with 4 times as many xp needed for each level and a harsher death penalty, and you would have a more hardcore game which would still be very playable. Quality is not related to hardcoreness. Unfortunately in spite of all the promises from the Vanguard team, it seems that it doesn't score very high on the quality axis, so where exactly it is on the hardcore axis becomes irrelevant.
- posted by Tobold @ 4:13 PM Permanent Link
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All I want is a MMORPG that recreates EverQuest's "dungeon" experience. Putting together a group of nice people, spending some quality time hacking your way through a dungeon and calling it a night after having earned a good chunk of EXP and maybe a nice item.
I want EQ's huge, diverse dungeons that had a large level spread and could accomodate several groups of various level ranges. I liked how being able to venture deeper into places like Guk or Seb was part of the reward for leveling up. I liked that dungeons in EQ were player hubs because they were not instanced.
WoW's instances are nice but they're utterly linear. You enter Dead Mines at level 18 and work your way to the end boss and then you're done for good. The instances get old very quickly.
I don't mind grinding as long as it's a social experience. I don't even mind camping all that much as long as I'm with friends. Downtime is fine with me, as long as it's not excessive, because it gives me time to socialize.
What I dislike are these streamlined, linear dungeons that put you on rails at let you "finish" it in one session. It's not the same thing that I fell in love with back in 1999. Doing UBRS or DM for the millionth time is even more tedious and frustrating than camping the Frenzied Froglok for weeks. At least there was something like a community to interact with in Guk.
Give me a dungeon experience like in EQ1 and I'll be happy. That's what I was hoping for with regard to Vanguard and right now, I'm not entirely sure that Vanguard will deliver. I find the talk of "cookie-cutter" dungeons and bland content troubling.
I seriously don't care about their "3rd generation" gimmicks like diplomacy, EQ2-on-steriods crafting, boats, super-complex combat with 94875934 icons to click and all that crap.
I want great content and social gameplay. I want reasonably paced character advancement that doesn't make me outlevel zones in a few hours like WoW does. I want "back to the basics" instead of the contrived, complex game mechanics that Vanguard is apparently going for.
6.5 years after the release of EQ, I'm still looking for a game that even comes close to offering classic dungeon romps as good as EverQuest's. WoW has some really fun and unique instances but they're not the same thing.
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I want EQ's huge, diverse dungeons that had a large level spread and could accomodate several groups of various level ranges. I liked how being able to venture deeper into places like Guk or Seb was part of the reward for leveling up. I liked that dungeons in EQ were player hubs because they were not instanced.
WoW's instances are nice but they're utterly linear. You enter Dead Mines at level 18 and work your way to the end boss and then you're done for good. The instances get old very quickly.
I don't mind grinding as long as it's a social experience. I don't even mind camping all that much as long as I'm with friends. Downtime is fine with me, as long as it's not excessive, because it gives me time to socialize.
What I dislike are these streamlined, linear dungeons that put you on rails at let you "finish" it in one session. It's not the same thing that I fell in love with back in 1999. Doing UBRS or DM for the millionth time is even more tedious and frustrating than camping the Frenzied Froglok for weeks. At least there was something like a community to interact with in Guk.
Give me a dungeon experience like in EQ1 and I'll be happy. That's what I was hoping for with regard to Vanguard and right now, I'm not entirely sure that Vanguard will deliver. I find the talk of "cookie-cutter" dungeons and bland content troubling.
I seriously don't care about their "3rd generation" gimmicks like diplomacy, EQ2-on-steriods crafting, boats, super-complex combat with 94875934 icons to click and all that crap.
I want great content and social gameplay. I want reasonably paced character advancement that doesn't make me outlevel zones in a few hours like WoW does. I want "back to the basics" instead of the contrived, complex game mechanics that Vanguard is apparently going for.
6.5 years after the release of EQ, I'm still looking for a game that even comes close to offering classic dungeon romps as good as EverQuest's. WoW has some really fun and unique instances but they're not the same thing.
# posted by 
: 29/5/06 21:02
: 29/5/06 21:02<< Home
