Probably a real dumb question
Dec. 12th, 2003 12:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tugrikWith today's purchase of Horizons this is the first time I've really played an MMORPG. Sure, I've been near them, but never played any seriously. Planetside is an FPS. My beta-testing of Evercrack way-long-ago was for a whole two weeks and I honestly didn't "get it". In the intervening time I've seen friends and friends-of-friends quite plainly lose their free time, jobs and even the occasional friendship to such addictions, so I've steered clear.
Horizons, as a game engine, is quite nice. I've only created one character so far and due to my chosen goals it's a character with many limitations: a dragon. The designers did a wonderful job with the customization, motions and visuals for the dragon races. I've been wanting to play a good 3D-engined system that has properly done quadrupeds for the longest time, and this is actually worth the money as far as meeting that want. The resulting blue mottle-scaled dragon I put together is decidedly Tuggish in nature. If they had let me build a wingless character, I would have, just to be properly weird about it.
I say 'limited' because if you play a dragon you are a bit separate from all the other races and how they play. They get umpteen million different classes, subclasses, crafts, spells... you name it. It's a very robust 'go after the Evercrack market' game. The dragons, though? Fighters with nothing but natural weapons, or dragon-magic making crafters. A huge bulk of the game's appeal to the average MMORPG'er is cut out when you're a dragon. Also, you start small so you can interact with the humans and elves and whatnot, but if you survive to grow up you're far too big to fit in their towns and other such places. You are separated just because of what you are. In a strange character-related way, this really appeals to me. The limits are made up for, of course, by simply getting to be a dragon. Fully grown you'll be able to blow away baddies that'd take a horde of human fighters... and while the little critters are scuttling around the huge worlds with their 'always run' key held on, you can simply fly. They need a map. You just get altitude and can see the lay of the land. Yes, this definitely appeals.
The dumb question, though: if you're not going into a game like this with a group of friends, what do you do for fun? So far it's just been one big technology demo to me. I don't know anybody on the server and so I've not experienced any of the 'society' side: no teaming up, no group quests, no sit-around-and-chat while in character. I've walked around, learned the interface (it's a bit tough at first), tried basic crafting and then beat up on various bugs and wildlife. Yes, it's an RPG'd combat system (you kind of sit back and make tactical choices while the characters slug it out according to stats and chance) but it does have nice tidbits like surprise and how you approach and engage. In groups this should be pretty nice.
What I can't get over so far is just how unwilling everybody is to talk to each other. Planetside has constant friendly (and occasionaly really pissed off) chatter -- and an urgency to work together that gets people squadded up and rolling. Mucks are friendly and chatty. Other games I play (single-player) have well defined goals and solid rewards at the ends of those goals. An MMORPG without your friends along, though... it just seems like (to quote![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tuftears) so much treadmilling. At first I assumed folks weren't talking because the game was new and we all had to level up a bit before the fun started. The rewards you get for that levelling up seems to be -- well, gateways into more levelling up. This so you can get into higher ended combat so you can get into more levelling up. Stab, slash, repeat.
I have one month of free play to use up. I'll replace my occasional few hours of Planetside with Horizons and see if it's worth sticking with. Hopefully things settle into place and real adventures happen that make me want to keep playing. A technology demo by itself isn't worth sticking around in.
So -- anybody who reads my LJ: are you playing? are you going to play? If so... want to hook up there and adventure together? The group dynamic should really help. If you're one of my dragon-friends, you owe it to yourself to give it at least a cursory try if you have the right (PC-only) hardware. Both flame-roasting critters (the battle-dragon class) and claw-raking up bits to craft dragon-magic items (dragon-crafter class) are satisfying to watch.
Horizons, as a game engine, is quite nice. I've only created one character so far and due to my chosen goals it's a character with many limitations: a dragon. The designers did a wonderful job with the customization, motions and visuals for the dragon races. I've been wanting to play a good 3D-engined system that has properly done quadrupeds for the longest time, and this is actually worth the money as far as meeting that want. The resulting blue mottle-scaled dragon I put together is decidedly Tuggish in nature. If they had let me build a wingless character, I would have, just to be properly weird about it.
I say 'limited' because if you play a dragon you are a bit separate from all the other races and how they play. They get umpteen million different classes, subclasses, crafts, spells... you name it. It's a very robust 'go after the Evercrack market' game. The dragons, though? Fighters with nothing but natural weapons, or dragon-magic making crafters. A huge bulk of the game's appeal to the average MMORPG'er is cut out when you're a dragon. Also, you start small so you can interact with the humans and elves and whatnot, but if you survive to grow up you're far too big to fit in their towns and other such places. You are separated just because of what you are. In a strange character-related way, this really appeals to me. The limits are made up for, of course, by simply getting to be a dragon. Fully grown you'll be able to blow away baddies that'd take a horde of human fighters... and while the little critters are scuttling around the huge worlds with their 'always run' key held on, you can simply fly. They need a map. You just get altitude and can see the lay of the land. Yes, this definitely appeals.
The dumb question, though: if you're not going into a game like this with a group of friends, what do you do for fun? So far it's just been one big technology demo to me. I don't know anybody on the server and so I've not experienced any of the 'society' side: no teaming up, no group quests, no sit-around-and-chat while in character. I've walked around, learned the interface (it's a bit tough at first), tried basic crafting and then beat up on various bugs and wildlife. Yes, it's an RPG'd combat system (you kind of sit back and make tactical choices while the characters slug it out according to stats and chance) but it does have nice tidbits like surprise and how you approach and engage. In groups this should be pretty nice.
What I can't get over so far is just how unwilling everybody is to talk to each other. Planetside has constant friendly (and occasionaly really pissed off) chatter -- and an urgency to work together that gets people squadded up and rolling. Mucks are friendly and chatty. Other games I play (single-player) have well defined goals and solid rewards at the ends of those goals. An MMORPG without your friends along, though... it just seems like (to quote
tuftears) so much treadmilling. At first I assumed folks weren't talking because the game was new and we all had to level up a bit before the fun started. The rewards you get for that levelling up seems to be -- well, gateways into more levelling up. This so you can get into higher ended combat so you can get into more levelling up. Stab, slash, repeat. I have one month of free play to use up. I'll replace my occasional few hours of Planetside with Horizons and see if it's worth sticking with. Hopefully things settle into place and real adventures happen that make me want to keep playing. A technology demo by itself isn't worth sticking around in.
So -- anybody who reads my LJ: are you playing? are you going to play? If so... want to hook up there and adventure together? The group dynamic should really help. If you're one of my dragon-friends, you owe it to yourself to give it at least a cursory try if you have the right (PC-only) hardware. Both flame-roasting critters (the battle-dragon class) and claw-raking up bits to craft dragon-magic items (dragon-crafter class) are satisfying to watch.
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no subject
Date: 2003-12-12 06:25 am (UTC)I beta-tested the thing for months, and really did enjoy it even when it was having major bug problems. What I /can't/ do right now is afford to buy the game itself-- I'm hoping to wait 'til the basic package comes down a bit in price, and then we'll see.
Hope you find some buddies to poke around with for your month, though, pointynose. :)
info! info!
Date: 2003-12-12 06:27 am (UTC)Such as, how many levels before a dragon can fly? How far did you get/what level did you get, and how much effort did you have to put into it to get there? Any big hints/tips?
Manythanks for any help you can give. :)
no subject
Date: 2003-12-12 06:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-12 07:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-12 07:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-12 07:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-12 07:39 am (UTC)During the beta, adult dragons were not implemented for the beta players. The exact numbers for what it takes to be an adult are not yet fully known to my knowledge. From what I have heard, it takes a combination of in-game play-time (you can't just start a dragon, then not play for three months and come back to find an adult), out of game time (you can't just start start a dragon and play 20 hours a day for two weeks and get an adult -- last number I heard was sixty days, but...), and in-game efforts (it's not clear at this moment if you need to get your hoard to a certain size first, be at a certain level, etc.) I have not yet found an official description of exactly what it takes...
I realllly hope they implement/put in spells and abilities to let the Dragons mimic the Spiritist class. During the beta, there was a Dragon Spiritist class (dragons used to have classes, which let them test out the various abilities before they merged them into the just the 'Dragon' class) -- I really enjoyed draining the life out of my opponents and using it to heal my allies. :)
no subject
Date: 2003-12-12 11:12 am (UTC)Dragon-spells would be cool, yes. :)
no subject
Date: 2003-12-12 08:39 am (UTC)It looks like fun but then you know how badly I did on Tribes and i never really even tried Planetside. With the one month trial for free I might just give it a shot. At least to see if I like it.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-14 01:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-12 08:51 am (UTC)However, I *love* to watch other people play. I could sit there for hours watching...
no subject
Date: 2003-12-12 09:07 am (UTC)I think you mostly get on the ol' random reward schedule of XP-hoarding. And start socializing with random people you're thrown together with by the needs of the game, maybe make some friends or at least quest partners. But mostly it's about getting addicted to that little 'you just gained a level' bell. Especially since it sounds like the design of the dragon class pushes you away from socializing.
At least that's what I gather from reading about Evercrack and its ilk. I've never played them; I know I could probably sink horribly into them and am somewhat glad they only come out for the Mac years later, if ever. I'm saved from temptation by technology issues.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-12 10:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-12 02:37 pm (UTC)And for dragons being limited in schools, it's not really a bad thing, you still have most of your abilities, they are just under one school instead of many. Like before they implimented that, dragon crafters were either scalecrafters or scholars. It was easy to raise scholar class, but hard to raise scalecrafting. Now you only have one school so you raise both abilities by doing scholar quests and such. I haven't done much combat yet, though i hear some of the dragon abilities are very good. It is a lot more limited though, dragons used to be able to cast most biped spells and now dragons can only cast dragon spells. Hopefully you can do biped spells once your an adult or ancient. I've also heard a rumor that ancient dragons will be able shapeshift to a biped form, in which case you'd still be able to enter buildings. But as was said, dragons couldn't age in beta so how to get to an adult and then ancient and their abilities are greatly unknown.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-12 02:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-13 11:14 pm (UTC)