Originally posted by Paragus1

It may not necessarily be a "Losers" server.   There are a lot of reasons for moving even if you are in good shape.   My clan is leaning more towards moving and we have a hamlet.   I have some of my guild who live in the western part of the USA, and they get pings of around 200ish, while people in Europe are getting pings of around 50 (so I hear).  Also for prime time in NA, say around 7PM - Midnight, most of the EU people are asleep.   It would be much easier to find PvP during my prime time if everyone else was from my general region of the world.

But if you have both NA and EU players in the same guild, wouldn't you be able to defend your city/hamlet more "around the clock", so to speak? Wouldn't that be a good thing?

 I remember actually having alot of fun in beta, running around with a shotty and knicking back big bugs. It was kinda fast paced, and alltogether fun. What killed it was in the landscape design and the dungeon design, personally.

Sad to see it die. The combat had potential in my opinion. It was just sadly "over-WoW-ified".

I actually agree with the travel. My biggest problem with easy travel is that it makes the world smaller. The longer travel takes, the bigger the world felt. A big sinner on this account is WoW.

To be honest, I have never like gamplay related arguments for the sake of "realism". Realism is a nice bonus, but gameplay should come first.  Obvisously, having super-realistic weight limitations would be stupid. But I see no harm in moving closer to a more realistic approach. There's a lot of good gameplay mechanics that come into play, taking into consideration the rest of the game is designed around it. One thing that would be required is that more exotic loot is farther and farther away from storage/vendors. Another thing is soft-cap it, so that when it reaches a certain overload, your character get speed and/or stamina debuff. 

A further idea could be to have the backpack reflect the shape of it. For example all items over a certain length would have to be tied to the exterior of the backpack. So weapons and armour have a strict cap. This might reduce PvP looting in a good way.

Oh indeed? Happy times indeed. Thanks for the info.

Yeah I am from Norway and I can play. I will have to use proxy when I move back to San Francisco though.

Originally posted by WSIMike

Originally posted by Shadowhand

Well cool post :) But...not to be an ass or anything but Final Fantasy XI was released Oct 28th 2003...so that would make it 5 years old correct? I could be wrong.....

 

Why would asking that make you an ass?

Unless... you were asking in some negative context... as if "the game is old"?

See, this is the beauty of MMORPGs...

MMOs are designed to last, ideally, for years.

That FFXI is still going strong after 6+ years (including JP release), with an active, loyal community and no signs of slowing down from SE is a *good* thing. Not a bad thing.

It seems every time you turn around. SE is implementing some new content into the game, a new game system, new HNMs (raid bosses, basically), new quests, missions, etc. etc. And they do this all within the context of the 75 levels already in the game... They don't do the usual "oh... we'll add more content by increasing the level cap and give them all 10 more levels to grind" that other MMOs fall back on, sometimes as often as every expansion.

So... in response to your question... Yep... FFXI is 6+ years old, is going 500k players strong year after year, and shows no signs of slowing.

I never played the game, but still: an excellent answer. 

 In all fairness, it's not stealing. I mean: NO; I wouldn't steal a car, but I would sure copy it if I could. Though, I still agree that setting up big, private servers might hurt the industry. 

Well I'm totally in the nostalgia sector here. Really nice reading up on those good ol' boss fights. There was a lot of good fights imo.

Favorites for 5 man is:

Van Cleef. Just because it was my first taste of a boss (yes, WoW was my first MMOG). Then again, the whole deadmine instance is great to me just because of this factor.

High Inquisitor Whitemane! Such a great fight, compared to the others at the time. And for some reason I love clearing up to the fight. Again, the instance itself was soooo good. And the loot she had! Daum. Such awesomeness. I had both her hammer and her chapeu (I was a priest).

Then there's Princess Theradras. Still remember the first time I got afflicted by that bunny-jump effect. In retrospec, I think the boss was perfecty tweaked for PUGs of those time. People hadn't quite gotten used to scripted fights, and had some problem co-operating, but still managed to get the concept more and more. I don't think I could count the amount of times me and the PUG barely made it.

The troll rush event!! Being a priest on that boss/event is just so much FUN. Throw a heal here, run up to another as fast as you can, heal him, throw some pains here and there. All in all, a very fun fight.

Ok. Over to lvl 60 instances.

I really like the Rend encounter. Then again, I like the whole UBRS instance. I did it alot to farm the dragonrider boots, so I have alot of stories from that place. I mean, General Drakkisath is awesome as well. When the instance was new and hard, it really forced PUGs to start working with strategies. As a guy who pugged alot, I think its a great encounter.

I love Onyxia of course. It was my first raiding love. A big nostalgia bomb as well as a lovely fight. She had three phases, and the raiding-group really had to co-operate with eachother. The encounter required timing, vigilance, placement and you didn't have to equip epics to do it. It was at that time you could farm for blues for raiding, so you could really fine tune your gear, by farming 5-man instance. Also, this was the first time I experienced the fun of a guild, howlilg and shouting and talking on Ventrilo. The roaring form the commanders, and the MASSIVE howling when the beast died.

Baron Geddon! Hehe. Just gotta love that bomb gimmick of his. All the commotion that caused. I love this fight just because of how he could stir up a fight on Vent.

I love Ragnaros of course as well. The most epic time I have ever experienced in any game is when we downed him. (And how we shouted when we downed him :P ) The encounter was so great. As a combination of Shadow Priest and healer (yeah, I was one of those), it required me to run around alot.

Oh and last from my oldies list, is Razorgore. Remember how uptil then most fights always had gimmicks, but really wheren't that advanced? To wonder it took so long for guilds to down this bastard. This was the first taste of an encounter where you really had to run around and be on your toes, and be creative with your strategies. And as a Shadow Priest/Healer, it was so much fun, as I had to heal people all the while slowing down mobs that passed me with Mind Flay, as to help the guys that kited them.

After that and a few attempts at Vaelstrasz, I had to quit because my school started demanding alot of time. When I hear how much fun my friends had at the other bosses later on, I feel kinda sad. Oh well, was still alot of fun though.

So that's my list of most favourite encounters (though in reality I could've added ALOT more). Was fun venting the nostalgia.

 Hehe. Thanks for the lulz.   

oooh. the fancy, sucking bloom filter. The nice touch of white glow around the letters. And I see you found out about the emboss layerstyle, how neat. Ah, and different fonts even! Surely, this peace solidly shows your comptence with PS!

err... sorryy about that. but really, I think you are overdoing it with the effects. this look like a sig or the splash screen crackers like to make. It just looks like its your first time in PS, and you're having way to much fun wih the fancy effects. 

My idea would perhaps be to minimize stuff. Fix up the composition. What's her(his?) face doing up there right under the frame? As of now the whole composition has too much "weiht" on top. Try to push the whole image down. My brutal opinion though is thaht I think you should start over.

 I dont quite know about that. Just design the game around the permadeath.

If leveling up is easy enough, people wont mind it. And since everyone have to be reduced to "noobs" all the time, there will always be an even amount of activity throughout the zones for different levels. That's a good thing in my book. At the same time, with something as harsh as permdeath, you can actually have a limitless cap on levels, which in my opinion is one of the cooler aspects of PD. If a guy gets overpowered, people will gang up on him.

Anyways, what the designers have to do, is to take away the players from the current RPG mindset. They should get attached to their kinship instead. Everytime you level up again is a new and constant challenge, since there will be people after you (griefers and nemesises etc etc). Make the thrill of the game to reach new records, staying alive the most, trying to do the most amount of content before dying. 

So by applying the right sort of mindset, a fast enough leveling system, having the kinship share a "bankaccount" I think it would work. And because of the risk, everything will feel 100% more exhilirating, and since leveling up again is a breeze, it wont feel that frustrating. Or hell, what about just taking AWAY levels/skill levels? The permadeath factor should give an ample amount of fun by itself, AND take away all the frustration of dying. Progress will be more about the amount of achievements before suffering death. (achievements are: dungeon running, amount of PvP kills, fortress captures, amount of stuff made with professions and gear (that dont make you TOO OP'd, since then it would just be an indirect way of leveling).

Though I prefer character advancement over the long run, I am still pro PD if it is applied in the right way. Frustration and mindset of achievement and progress is key I believe.

 I'm not even sure if I quite got it, to be honest. 

I think the best - and simplest - way of implementing permadeath, is by using kinship, where your kin inherits a xx% amount of his parents skills. Nice and simple. And also, leveling up your character again is really easy. Just a matter of days. The hard part doesn't lie in the skillgains, but advancement through PvP and PvE content.

That has always been my take on permadeath though.

 Ah, interesting thread. Let me keep the ball rolling here.

So let us take this a slight step further.

There's a school of wizardy called Powe Circles. The first thing a player learns is how to set up a power circle. When activated, the wizard will take his cane and scrape it in the ground with the butt end to produce a circle around him. The ability is over... but it does nothing. However, the player may insert different runes into his circles, in a radiating pattern.  

Anyway, these runes are all induvidually cast upon the circle. Some may be instant, and some may have 10 sec casts. So in the gameplay, the player is supposed to defend himself and fence of the opponent (or have his friends do it)  while drawing the power circle. Think it could result in an interesting gameplay situations. 

So when a practitioner inputs these runes, the resulting spell is read in the order the player places them on the circle. Somewhat like with stanzas in Ryzom. Let me illutrate.

First the player places out "Rune of Missile".

Only thing this does, is to create a ball non potent energy. No damage and small range, instant, but slow traveling speed, if the engine was to support such options.  Also, a +1 Ciritical Mass (CM for short) is added to the spell effect. Inside this CM, a modifier is hidden that tells what outcomes may result from different degrees of Crirical happenstances. It's important that this is hidden, since we want the players to experiment and feel like true wizards.

Then our hero casts a "Rune of Fire Damage".

It adds 100 fire damage (lets pretend this is much, but not alot) dmg and faster traveling speed, but 2+ to cast time. It gives +3 CM.

Hero casts "Rune of Splash"

Adds a splash on single target missile with 5yrd range. +5 CM

Hero casts "Rune of Ice damage"

Adds 50 dmg. If the spell is a splash at this point in the "spellchain splash", it adds 30 dmg.  +4 CM

Hero casts "Rune of Frostrange"

Adds a greater range of either X or Y, depending if its a splash or a single target spell. Also target become frozen for 2 sec. +14 CM.

To activate the spell, the caster, or a party member with an appropriate spell, the player casts a specific ablility within the circle.

Our heros spell does the following: He casts a fireball at the target, dealing 100 dmg, 2 sec cast time, medium traveling speed, average range. When it hits the target, it splashes, and does 50 ice-dmg to his friends surrounding him, and freezez them to the ground for 2 sec. Total risk is 27 CM. Thats a medium to high risk (crowd control should obviously be expensive). 

Oh, and if the hero does something weird with the power circle, like having the runes in an orer that just doesn't make sense, it 100% guaranteed Critical Mass efffect.

Dunno. Just something that might spice it up but also balance. Good damage, adaptability and crowd control VS high risk, tricky casting, sloooow cast time if you add all the runes and the circle and circle activation together, and - of course - not knowing what will happen. Runes can, and should, have all kind of hidden modifiers. Even entire runes people can't decipher, so they have to use their own intellect.

 signed and duble signed. lets cross our fingers that Acclaim changes their mind.

Originally posted by Jetrpg

Originally posted by Darkz0r

Typo found:

"The Swrodmaster's mastery paths are as follows:"

And no, my eyes are not used to reading like a normal person.

 

Cool class, but I bet it will fail like most "elven" dodge based tank classes games have to offer. :O

I bet you'll fail at being an elven swordmaster in RL.

  ditto. I'll NEVER be an elven swordmaster. ;_;

The universe is endless; thus, it was never created, therefore, it will - and can -  never be destroyed. (link the theories about Big Bang and Big Crash together)

Damn. I hope they don't screw this up. Because if they don't, I'm so totally byeing a subscription for that game! ;)

I am still confused as to what I read. And every concept is an answer to a problem, a question, a goal, a need for somthing.

I just dont comprehend what I just read.

I feel like a noob here, but what did I just read? What was the problem - what did you solve? Really, this was confusing for me. :/ Were I supposed to read something from your previous posts or something, since you mention tha in your start?