Quote:
Originally Posted by Slick Willey
I asked this question before, and you didn't answer it. I TRULY am interested in your response, and I'm not trying to be a troll, so here's hoping you'll answer it this time:

What do you consider to be a "challenge" or "challenging gameplay" in a MMORPG?

Is it deep/complex combat mechanics that require a lot of skill to kill a given monster?

Does it mean to require creative thinking (i.e., "thinking outside of the box") to kill a given monster or to complete a quest?

OR, does it mean the following:

Challenging in that you will have to compete with other players to access content (i.e., racing players for static spawns).

Challenging in that a lot of the content is "group-based" so you will need to spend time finding a group to access that content.

Challenging in that, if you die, a "tougher" death penalty will be imposed, such as the potential for a long corpse recovery?

Challenging in that instead of performing a fairly repetitive task 1,000 times (killing 1,000 orcs) to level, you will have to kill 10,000 orcs to level.

You keep implying that Vanguard will be more challenging than WoW. Please tell us Brad just exactly how Vanguard will be more challenging than WoW, because I'd love to hear how a developer in the industry defines "challenge".


Is it deep/complex combat mechanics that require a lot of skill to kill a given monster?


Yes, for those people who want that. We want to support the casual, core, and hard core/raid gamer, with the majority of content and effort aimed at the core or average MMOG gamer.

Does it mean to require creative thinking (i.e., "thinking outside of the box") to kill a given monster or to complete a quest?


Absolutely that as well. Advanced AI, tactics, situational gear, and knowledge of the environment will be as key to success as your DPS

OR, does it mean the following:

Challenging in that you will have to compete with other players to access content (i.e., racing players for static spawns).


A little challenge is good. No challenge and you don’t get a sense of accomplishment, but too much and it’s just no fun. I don’t feel these games should be about entitlement – you need to earn things to feel proud of them, get that sense of accomplishment – it’s part of what makes these games ‘sticky’, along with exploration/new exciting content and community.

Challenging in that a lot of the content is "group-based" so you will need to spend time finding a group to access that content.

For many players yes. Working together as a team is part of human nature. We do it every day. There is rarely one person who can do it all, whether it’s in a game, in sports, in business, etc. And when you accomplish something as a team, you usually get an even greater sense of accomplishment because the experience was shared.

Now, making it mandatory to group, however, is taking it too far, hence again, Vanguard is a game in which you can solo – perhaps not as easily as, say, WoW, especially at the higher levels, but moreso than EQ 1. So we have a LOT of casual content made for solo players, small pick up groups, etc.

We also have a lot of mechanics going into the game to help pre-existing groups stay with each other, because spending part of your night trying to hook up with your buddies sucks. Additionally, we are working on some really neat LFG tools that don’t just help you find pick up groups, but allow you, at your discretion, to put in information about your play times, play style, level, class, and even personal information (I like football or I collect comics). A match making component, pretty much. The hope there is that while you might be looking for a pick up group, or you might not know anyone in the game and are looking for online friends, is that we can provide tools to help you not just meet your immediate needs/wants for a group, but also hook you up with people that you are more likely to be compatible with -- again, allowing you to enter when you play, what style of play you enjoy, and even personal things because we all know that part of community building is that ooc chat that occurs in-between fights or while traveling, etc. Some of my best RL friends I met back in the early 1990s playing MUDs, many of whom work with me today. These relationships are real, and supporting them in whatever way we can, fostering their development, etc. is paramount.

Challenging in that, if you die, a "tougher" death penalty will be imposed, such as the potential for a long corpse recovery?


It depends. We’ve put in a threat level system where the majority of mobs, if you wipe to them, you don’t have to do a corpse recovery; rather, you appear at an altar (the nearest one to where you died) and you can either go after your essence (it’s not really a corpse, because your items are still on you) to recover your experience loss, or you can have your corpse summoned to the altar but with the experience penalty. Currently, although we’re still tweaking it, again because we know there are all sorts of players out there, there are 6 threat levels a mob can have (not counting raid mobs). Dying to a 1-4 dot mob results in what I described above. Dying to a 5 dot mob means you pop up at the altar with no gear, but you can still pay an experience penalty to have your corpse summoned to the altar. Only on 6 dot mobs, which would be, say, the boss mob at in the depths of a dungeon or at the end of a difficult encounter route, do you need to do a more conventional CR. But again, even there, it’s not has harsh as, say, early EQ, because there are many soul bound containers in which you can store extra sets of items (which you’ll want to anyway for situational encounters – in Vanguard, at higher level and in doing more difficult encounters, you will need multiple sets of gear anyway, because some encounters will require major fire resistance, or magical resistance, or curse, disease, etc. gear. In other words, there won’t always be the ‘best item for your level – it will depend on the encounter). You also have banks, storage areas in your ship, and in your house, and people can also drag your corpse out too. We may also, if needed, put in corpse summoning expendable items that crafters can create if necessary.

So basically, again, we’ve covered all sorts of playstyles and have a truly dynamic death penalty and one that scales relative to how you play and what degree of risk vs. reward you are looking for in a game.

Challenging in that instead of performing a fairly repetitive task 1,000 times (killing 1,000 orcs) to level, you will have to kill 10,000 orcs to level.

Hrm. Our goal from day one was to eliminate or at least curb the grind, the tedium, the time sinks, etc. Our solution to this is to have you play the game, not sit in one spot killing the same mob over and over again to get experience and then also hopefully getting that rare spawn occasionally. Camping, while we won’t totally be able to eliminate it, is a serious enemy of ours and has been from day one. It’s one of the things that happened in EQ 1 because we messed up translating MUDs to MMOGs and we still regret it. We don’t believe that challenge has to equal tedium. We want people doing dungeons, moving around, *playing* the game as they level up. To do this, for many people, you need to make the path of least resistance, the path of most fun, otherwise some people will choose the more boring but efficient route to level up, missing out on the fun, missing out on seeing the world, etc. just to hit the maximum level.

So we created a massive world with tons of content and variety to encourage exploration. We didn’t go the instancing route so people would meet each other in dungeons and hopefully end up getting to know each other and having community build. We hope to promote a strong player driven economy where merchants bring goods from one end of the world to the other, again promoting community building. And we’ve set up our encounter system to discourage camping and even have encounter routes that essentially make it so you need to do the dungeon in order to get that special mob with the good lewtz to spawn. We’ve also made it such that special skills and abilities and spells can only be learned by watching mobs in dungeons so that just power leveling outside won’t result in a character that is as powerful as one who has actually experienced the world. There are also special crafting areas that you have to travel to in order to advance in that sphere, and people you have to meet and parlay with in various parts of the world in order to get better at the diplomacy sphere. Lastly, we’ve made some grand cities, and while they often go to waste in MMOGs, only used at first, or to quickly sell goods or pick up supplies, in Vanguard big cities like New Targenor or Aghram are actually the ‘dungeons’ for the Diplomat – it’s where he or she will be honing their skills, learning new abilities, and ‘leveling up’ so to speak. So while these capitol cities are truly amazing feats and incredible to look at due to their size and splendor, they also play a key role for one of our spheres, and likely some other spheres post-launch when we take owning your own house to the next level and implement city building with RTS elements and interdependencies and the like.

So all in all, we’ve put a lot of thought into this and it’s one of the most important things

You keep implying that Vanguard will be more challenging than WoW. Please tell us Brad just exactly how Vanguard will be more challenging than WoW, because I'd love to hear how a developer in the industry defines "challenge".

Well aside from all of the detail above, I think it’s about making things a little more challenging in terms of risk vs. reward for those who want that, but without the needless tedium and a great effort to reduce the grind and the time sinks. I think it’s about more depth, more to do (more ways to advance your character), a more interesting and immersive and vast world to explore, etc. It’s about freedom of choice and being inclusive and not exclusive. It’s about depth but easing you into that depth and not beating you over the head with it. It’s about a seamless world built from the ground up for longevity and being ready to take advantage of technology that doesn’t even exist yet. It’s about getting more of a sense of accomplishment because you worked a little harder, or you worked well as a team. It’s about community and memorable experiences you can talk about for months. It’s about offering a lot to do without having to accelerate the advancement curve so quickly that you only enjoy a dungeon once or twice before out leveling it. And so on
<div class="smallfont"> Last edited by Aradune Mithara : Today at 02:30 PM.

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