Neverwinter Nights - Capitalist Utopia

[duke o' york]

Can anyone give me directions to the House of the Setting Sun in Folderol please?

[duke o' york]

Not that anyone replied, but I managed to find it on my own.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph

There are different games for a different audience. There are games more for casual players. Such are the games I mentioned as "cheapo". Change that word with "easy", if you don't like it. And these games are easy, you can build a powerful character with little effort and in little time. And then there are "hardcore" games, which assemble players, who want to earn their rewards the hard way. Note, that you can play and enjoy a "cheapo" game as hardcore player as well - you just will develop several characters, as long as you can manage to bear the repetition without quitting. You are yourself an example for the latter type of player, at least as much as I know you.

For GW yes, my replayability came from playing through with all the classes, and PvP. (Edit: I would add that GW makes the path to the cap fast on purpose, and it works for the game)

For WoW though, whilst levelling is fast, the endgame raiding isn't easy. It sounds with EQ2 you didn't have the patience to reach this stage.

Basically the levelling stage isn't everything. Gear progression through raids isn't that fast in either WoW or EQ2. You can easily raid for 6 months (or even longer) before you have mostly top gear, and even then you'll still have possibilities for progression.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


There are different games for a different audience. There are games more for casual players. Such are the games I mentioned as "cheapo". Change that word with "easy", if you don't like it. And these games are easy, you can build a powerful character with little effort and in little time. And then there are "hardcore" games, which assemble players, who want to earn their rewards the hard way. Note, that you can play and enjoy a "cheapo" game as hardcore player as well - you just will develop several characters, as long as you can manage to bear the repetition without quitting. You are yourself an example for the latter type of player, at least as much as I know you.

I want to come back to this as I didn't get everything in earlier. I think your idea of 'easy' isn't entirely complete. There is a distinction between difficulty and necessary time input. GW is easy in that you can reach the cap fast, but is by no means easy to play well, at least if you set yourself a decent stretching goal of being able to play almost any build PvE and PvP, as I can.

In this respect GW is harder than any MMO I have ever played, seen, or read about.

And WoW, EQ, EQ2 (probably) all have tough raids as the endgame. The reason I prefer this to 'difficulty' based on an endless grind to a high cap is that it's actually testing skill and ability to work together to achieve a goal (which is what MMOs should do) rather than ability to stick with a game for a year, no matter what the game is like. Games like Lineage2 are thought hardcore, with very slow levelling. Reading about the gameplay it sounds positively awful.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by DrSpike
For WoW though, whilst levelling is fast, the endgame raiding isn't easy. It sounds with EQ2 you didn't have the patience to reach this stage.

I reached it once, with the original game. I hit the level cap (50 back then) in both adventuring and crafting and for some months spent my time doing 2-3 raids per week, mainly at weekends. The first expansion brought a cap increase to 60, which the bulk reached within 2-3 weeks. I had quit for GW and other games meanwhile and couldn't bring up enough interest to continue the game. I quit again when I reached 51 adventuring and 53 crafting. Not because it was hard, but because it was boring and there were other things that occupied my attention. The last expansion raised the bar to 70 and completed the trivialization of the game. For example death, which once stung pretty hard with enforced corpse runs, group XP debt and -10% equipment endurance, lost completely its meaning. Nobody gave his damnedest to avoid it anymore. It served for some as cheap transportation to the respawn point. That was the last nail in its coffin for me. The next expansion is already announced, but I won't even buy it.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by DrSpike
I want to come back to this as I didn't get everything in earlier. I think your idea of 'easy' isn't entirely complete. There is a distinction between difficulty and necessary time input. GW is easy in that you can reach the cap fast, but is by no means easy to play well, at least if you set yourself a decent stretching goal of being able to play almost any build PvE and PvP, as I can.

In this respect GW is harder than any MMO I have ever played, seen, or read about.

I understand that and positively mentioned it earlier. In this regard GW is different indeed.

And WoW, EQ, EQ2 (probably) all have tough raids as the endgame. The reason I prefer this to 'difficulty' based on an endless grind to a high cap is that it's actually testing skill and ability to work together to achieve a goal (which is what MMOs should do) rather than ability to stick with a game for a year, no matter what the game is like.

These raids are tough only for the first time. Once you (your guild) have learned the mob accordingly, what attacks it uses, what AOEs in what frequencies it fires and what special events occur (spawning of minions, selfhealing and alike) and you bring the appropriate resist gear, stick with the right strategy and have a good raid leader, they become - if not easy as cake - at least manageable and in most cases successful without many victims.

Playing MMOGs ain't rocket science and neither is raiding. Both are means of entertainment. And I will gladly use them as long as I deem them entertaining.

Games like Lineage2 are thought hardcore, with very slow levelling. Reading about the gameplay it sounds positively awful.

Well, I never bothered with Lineage 1/2, and am not even sure if I could if I wanted. I don't know anyone who plays it. It's more a USA/Korea/Japan thing I guess.

I am a Vanboi now (so some of the idjits at the FoH forums call us) and proud of it. And by no means I am alone with my opinion of what makes a good MMOG. I'm a part of a community. We're a vast minority and know this, but it does not worry us. We get a game tailored especially for our wishes, made by an old school MMOG enthusiast, who cares about quality more than about profit (at least so it looks). What more could we wish?

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph

These raids are tough only for the first time. Once you (your guild) have learned the mob accordingly, what attacks it uses, what AOEs in what frequencies it fires and what special events occur (spawning of minions, selfhealing and alike) and you bring the appropriate resist gear, stick with the right strategy and have a good raid leader, they become - if not easy as cake - at least manageable and in most cases successful without many victims.

Playing MMOGs ain't rocket science and neither is raiding. Both are means of entertainment. And I will gladly use them as long as I deem them entertaining.

Yes. I think you wrote off raiding too fast though. I'm loving it at the moment, and some fights are really neat and require all 40 players not to make mistakes and react well to circumstances.

[Harovan]

Nah, I got my share of it, not only in the end, but throughout the whole game. For me it's a nice addition, but by far not the main purpose of the game. And I didn't "write off raiding", I dissed the game as a whole.

[DaShi]

You can download the CEP 1.53 which should address the problems with the new patch until CEP 2.0 is released.

http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=hakpaks.Detail&id=6716

[ColdWizard]

Wizzy is back!

Found my way back onto Folderol and ran around some of the still familiar places around the gypsy camp. Killed some stuff with my dual wielded warhammers +40000 (yay! fire! *boom*)

I forget the neat stuff, like the commands to fall down, though

[DrSpike]

Where did the warhammer +40000 drop?

[duke o' york]

Maybe he forged it.

(This is just a mild whinge that crafting items doesn't work in Folderol because they haven't got a working forge yet. I have offered to do it as a summer project, but will need some ideas of what ingredients are required for special powers, and what limitations there should be on created weapons/armour. Also, I'll need to have a close study of relevant code to actually make the thing work properly. )

[DrSpike]

Crafting is teh suxxors anyway. I'd call it a good design decision.

[ColdWizard]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Where did the warhammer +40000 drop?

I think I bought them from that guy.

[duke o' york]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Crafting is teh suxxors anyway. I'd call it a good design decision.

You may have forgotten that this an RP server, not a powergaming server, and crafting their own weapons is an important part of many players' chartacters.
Yeah, the Warhammer 40k is powerful indeed.