Come to Gaze Upon Me, Have You?

A lot of the criticisms I have about EQ2 are true of most/all other MMOs, too. I'm picking on EQ2 because:
1) It has the best technical foundation
2) SOE has more money/resources with which to improve it
3) SOE is "losing" right now, which means they will probably be more willing to try new things. Blizzard, on the other hand, has adopted the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality, which means that WoW will probably remain a stale EQ-Diablo hybrid that offers nothing new to the genre.
4) It's the only MMO I still play, so it's easier for me to comment on it

I think the main problem with MMOs is that the core gameplay is based on an increasingly obsolete genre.

Adventure games have a similar problem: fifteen years ago, click-on-every-pixel gameplay--found in titles like King's Quest--was standard fare. There wasn't anything out there that offered the same features (good graphics, good story) and was significantly more compelling in terms of gameplay mechanics. Nowadays, good graphics and a good story are found in titles across all genres, leaving the adventure genre with only niche appeal because its core gameplay is not inherently fun to most people.

EQ2 and nearly all other MMOs have their roots in CRPGs and MUDs. The basic gameplay mechanic in these genres is: push a button, and see the result of combat. It is about 10% strategy, 20% luck, and 70% foregone conclusion.

It is the last element that is most damning. In EQ2 and other games of its ilk, you almost always know the result of the upcoming battle ahead of time. The game encourages you, through faster experience rewards and the threat of penalties for dying, to fight only monsters you know you will beat. This design flaw leads to the phenomenon known as "grinding". Players will repeat the same boring actions for hours at time (sometimes over a period of months/years) because they want to improve their character quickly.

What makes the gameplay in the MMO genre increasingly niche is that it, like the CRPGs and MUDs it came from, relies almost solely on the appeal of character advancement, in the same way that the adventure genre relied on good story and graphics. It's still using the old roll-a-die-and-win-because-your-stats-are-good mechanic, which your average casual gamer doesn't find particularly appealing. Character advancement and persistent characters are still very appealing to the large majority of gamers; however, other genres have adopted the character advancement aspect of the game and have paired it with more popular game mechanics. For example, Deus Ex's character advancement system gives your character advantages, but the results of enemy encounters are not a foregone conclusion because success is largely dependent on user skill. Inevitably, there will be an online game that offers both skill-based gameplay (rather than stats-based) and persistent character advancement. (I've written up a concept for one, and I hope to make it someday.)

My EQ2 account is active. My WoW account is canceled. I could put up long entries criticizing WoW, but honestly it's not worth the effort. There are many good aspects of EQ2, one of which is that SOE is very active in trying to improve it. It's just that a lot of the improvements either don't really address the original problems, tackle relatively low-priority issues (e.g., new mail system), cater to people who are already happy with the game, or cause as many problems as they solve. I'm not going to list everything I like about EQ2, at least not right now. Once I get to the "offering solutions" and "cool ideas" phase, some of them will be mentioned as things to build on.

I am hoping by listing every problem of significance, and then going through and explaining them clearly and offering solutions, it will be easier to determine what improvements will best accomplish SOE's goals: attracting customers from other games, appealing to a wider range of customers, preventing existing subscribers from canceling accounts, etc. Right now it seems like they are flailing without a clear focus, mostly trying to emulate WoW's success (which I think is temporary) by imitating some of its features.

I'm going to start out with an overview of what's wrong with EQ2. I'll get into detail with each complaint in later entries, because I want to explain my reasoning for each complaint thoroughly. After that, I plan on suggesting solutions. If I still have enough motivation when that's done, I'll start throwing out the "cool ideas" for additions to the game.

Without further ado:

1. Interface - Boring look, lots of long lists due to poor organization (buy/sell in particular), too many numbers and words and not enough icons/pictures (skills, persona), some windows too big and clunky (esp. at lower resolution). Feels like a placeholder interface that was slapped together in a couple days.

2. Loot - item stats too similar to one another, not enough special/unique effects, not enough variety in "vendor junk" drops, no use for most "vendor junk" drops, too much restriction on what drops for solo/small groups, no special ("named") monsters for soloers to kill. Tiers for armor/weapons enforces the "this game is a set of rules you have to follow and memorize" feeling (rather than the "this game is an alternate reality" feeling that it probably should be aiming for). People play these games primarily for the persistent character aspect (certainly not for the enjoyable game mechanics), so it is critical for the loot system to be appealing.

3. Monsters - too many ordinary/boring monsters (e.g. life leeches). Too many small, unimposing monsters (e.g. life leeches). Not enough variety in monster animations. Not enough particle/special effects on monster models. Humanoid monsters need more texture variety/impressiveness in clothes/armor.

4. Level design - world is too monochromatic, especially in certain dungeons. All green or all brown. Too many invisible barriers ("this game feels like a set of rules" will be a common theme on this blog). World is excessively incontiguous (loads, islands, bells), feels like you are picking a zone off a menu rather than traversing a real world. Loading screens are a missed oppotunity to alleviate this a little. Not enough landmarks and special areas, both in normal zones and in dungeons. New instances are throwaway zones that look like an intern made them in a couple hours.

5. Tradeskills - game mechanics are terribly tedious and not even remotely fun, ever. If not for the benefit that it provides to the persistent character in the metagame, no one would ever choose to participate. Beyond the actual mechanics, quests and individuality of characters are poorly done.

6. Player art - Humans look like peasants instead of heroes. Not enough variety in armor looks.

7. Misc. art - Not enough variety in "autoattack" combat animations. Lower LODs need to be improved (especially since many people are near the lower end of the required hardware specs). Particle effects in combat are overdone. Effects should have a better visual correlation to the name of the power that triggered them, and elaborate effects should be reserved for special instances. Right now it's a veritable orgy of effects that usually adds little to the user experience. For melee characters, animations are a better way of increasing visual coolness than particle effects. Pet animations aren't done.

8. NPCs - no depth to NPCs. Almost all feel like props. Defeats the purpose of voiceover (which itself is more unintentionally amusing than impressive). Having 5 NPCs that feel like real people is better than having 50 of the current type.

9. Writing - sloppy and low quality, with few exceptions. Also helps defeat the purpose of voiceover. Spelling and grammar errors galore, in dialog, quest journal, books, etc. Frogloks mangle the King's English, not quite as badly as the Ultima series did, though. Having collectible books = good idea. Having poorly written collectible books and a visually unimpressive reading interface = waste of time. Very little freedom in choice of dialog responses (NWN was good with this) - adds to the feeling that your character's path is "on rails" and you just need to put in 4000 hours of work to get to the end.

10. Bugs - It's 4 months after release and the problem with invisible monsters is still there. That's a pretty aggravating bug that affects gameplay significantly, and it still hasn't been addressed. Releasing the game early was a bad decision, for many reasons--bugs, WoW was going to get far more people regardless, unrefined game mechanics, unbalanced game systems (which are now 10x harder to balance and refine because certain things you can't change much after release), etc.

11. Solo unfriendly - the game was designed to cater to guilds and groups. Now SOE is tripping over itself trying to do a 180 and be like WoW. Still, solo loot sucks, solo quests suck, solo instances suck, and tradeskilling, while able to be done solo now, sucks. There is very little in EQ2 that makes the solo player want to come back for more; they either get a guild or stop playing. The typical Diablo2/CRPG player doesn't want to have to interact regularly with other people in order to play the game in a fun way. That is why WoW is mass market and EQ and EQ2 are niche games.

12. Combat-centric - There's nothing fun or interesting to do in the game besides combat (harvesting can be fun in that sick "I'm unemployed and want to feel like I'm working" sort of way). Exploring not worthwhile because of limited landmass (particularly with restrictions on travel to the higher level zones), need for a group to explore dungeons, exp debt inevitability, not enough interesting things to see or do while exploring. And tradeskills suck (have I said this already?). There are many possibilities for improvement in this area, which I will discuss in the "cool ideas" phase.

I'm probably missing a few things that I had thought of earlier, but I'll just go back and put them in when I remember them.

Everquest II is not doing well.

There are several ways to tell when a game is not doing well:

1. A free trial appears on Fileplanet.
2. The price drops from $49.99 to $29.99 just 4 months after release. (Collector's Edition, originally $89.99 (!), is now $39.99.)
3. Everybody's playing the other game.
4. The publisher has to beg players to keep playing.

The first step in getting the game back on track is figuring out why people don't like it. The first step is NOT immediately copying everything people like about other games and shoehorning it into yours.

• Exhibit A (mimicks WoW's mail system almost to a fault)
• Exhibit B (similar to City of Heroes' Sidekick system)
• Exhibits C, D, and E (catering to solo players, like WoW. Making instanced zones a bigger part of the game, like WoW...and Anarchy Online before it. Making all items stick to you--"attuned"--once you use them, just like all items in WoW become "soulbound".)

So what is it that people don't like about EQ2? That's a long answer, and it deserves its own entry.

The traditional meaningless boast that precedes all MMO discussion.