Comments on: Daily Blogroll 7/15 — Same quests, different day edition

By: Digital Lemonade Studios » Like a Virus … They Spread

Digital Lemonade Studios » Like a Virus … They Spread — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 04:58:33 +0000

[...] a reactive statement; that’s because it is. I just finished reading a post from a link on Tipa’s 7/15 blog roll over at Complete Heal about Vanguard’s about-face on its stance towards catering to the [...]

By: Like a Virus … They Spread

Like a Virus … They Spread — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:46:08 +0000

By: Dusty

Dusty — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:07:39 +0000

Not to put to fine a point on it..

(with apologies to They Might Be Giants… )

One little misconception I wanted to clear up wrt to the solo flag I was talking about in my post. I seem to have conveyed the idea that (1) the setting would be irreversable.. and (2) it was a completely mutually exclusive concept. Neither of these was what I intended. On the first point, I would want the flag to be non-trivial to change, becuase I want it to be a decision. But every MMO that has ever attempted to implement any decision that was completely irreversable has, at some point, come back and given you a way to change the decision. Believe me when I say I’ve learned from the lessons of Aldour versus Scryer. On the second point, I perhaps gave the impression that once you set the flag, you could only ever solo, or only ever group — and that too was not the intent of the design. By setting the flag, you essentially unlocked a small subset of content particular to your playstyle, that was exclusive. So raiders got high-end raid dungeons, and privateers got high-end solo dungeons, but everyone could still group or solo as they desired for the vast majority of the content in the rest of the game.

All of the comments about player decisions and exclusivity are still entirely valid, and it’s great discussion, but I wanted to make sure people were evaluating the concept in the right light, at least. :)

and thanks tons for the link Tipa. (by the way, I suspect your comment wrt to it turning much of the game into a ghost town would still be true. My biggest fear about such a concept is that it would be too popular, and no one would choose the harder, group content at all. Path of least resistence, and all that. )

Dusty

By: Saylah

Saylah — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:06:49 +0000

I’m a solo player mostly and I wouldn’t want a solo only flag. The idea of forcing strips the flexibility. Solo and group players alike want more options in games not less. All this talk about people moving to AB makes me think about re-subbing and seeing some of you folks in game.

By: Ramon

Ramon — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:17:55 +0000

They like to think of themselves as vulfweres, not kobolds, even though they look like kobolds. But shhh, don’t tell them!

By: wilhelm2451

wilhelm2451 — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:13:14 +0000

EQ2 character moves: Half the price? It was $50 per character before, so now it is $25? That still seems way too expensive to me to me. A month of play, $15, an automated character move, $25? But at least the price moved in the right direction.

And I always thought that MMOs could be characterized by the different stages of Frank Sinatra’s career. But maybe that is just me.

By: Tesh

Tesh — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:18:56 +0000

Spinks, there’s still indirect interaction, one draw of a “persistent world”. Social interaction need not be confined to group combat.

Still, that is a bit weird. Though, when I think about it, isn’t that more or less what SWTOR is doing with their heavy focus on scripted storytelling? Making a “solo only” MMO? If the storytelling itself is largely solo, but combat is still a group thing, could that be the best of both worlds, or an immersion backbreaker?

By: Aarkan

Aarkan — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:05:01 +0000

Warpstone Caverns in Dalaya is Acrylia Caverns. They’ve used a lot of the beautiful and fun Luclin zones that got dicked over on live for lower level areas in SoD so more people can see them.

Also, new hot zones? All ice zones? Isn’t it July?

By: Coldheat

Coldheat — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:48:58 +0000

Cool to see you moving to AB!! Look me up!!

By: Spinks

Spinks — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:01:30 +0000

eep, that idea of a solo flag that you could never reset … once set, you never ever again would have the option of grouping with anyone else ever and you actually get rewarded for that? That actually really scares me as a concept.

Put group content in? Fine. Put solo content in? Fine. But don’t ever EVER put anything in an MMO with the express intent of stopping people from mixing with others. And especially don’t reward it.