Shara Lee
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Posted - 2006.05.13 16:47:00 -
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Party Quests ala WoW? Tbh, I'm pretty disappointed with this game, while it's not bad as a soloable online game, the multiplayer pve part needs improvements.
When I started WoW, my first few hours was with a group of friends in Elwynn Forest, doing quests as a group - in two week, we tried to do the first dungeon, with a nice balanced group (tank / healer / support / dps x2). Fast forward for 12 months, we're a 50 players group raiding end-game instances 4 days a week @ 20.00 - 24.00 (plus offdays 20 man raids), and struggling on the last dungeon of the game (until next patch anyways).
Then we have eve. Called the best mmorpg by some, I was quite confused that you can't do missions together as a group, but once you've got something better than an Ibis, there is no need to do that at all. Sure, people "create" their own content with PvP, but that's quite lame compared to most real pvp games (and saves you the grind too), not to mention the combat, activate mods and uhm... wait? I had expected it to be more like FreeSpace II / Freelancer, the multiplayer party system in freelancer allowed some crazy ass stunts, like extremely underleveled mission running and distract and torpedo a frigate.
Biggest issues in eve:
- Universe is empty. Even with 25k concurrent people in one "unsharded world", which is just bs imo, when some people are like 5 hours of flying apart, 100+ people in 1 place is "omg omg lagness", while a zone on a single realm on WoW has much more activity. When was the last time, not on a stargate / station, that you ran into someone else?
- Questing with a party. So only one guy gets the standing, and the missions themself are waay too easy, and the npc's are too stupid to track 2 people at the same time. Not to mention that there is no need for it, it's not like you need a warrior to get the mob's attention or a priest to heal. Just put on some resistances and they won't even scratch you, or a rediculously overpowered gisti small shield booster.
- Questing itself. So this dude wants me to shoot some pirates? Sure. For the 100st time? Are you serious? For comparison, these are the missions in WoW for a newbie in one specific area. Also, after your first few hours, specific missions are given that can not be completed solo.
- Standing. One massive grind, and lots of interruptions too because this Khanid dude wants you to shoot Minmartar all the time -> 4 hrs wait. Either that or forfeit a large part of empire space.
- The interface. WoW is designed as a multiplayer game first, trading simulation second. Having a way to keep an eye on your fleet / raid is quite important - these screenshots shows my UI on our first raid boss kill.
I'd like to see some party required quests (and also for lower "level" players), but for that to work, a lot have to be fixed first. Reward system is on the drawing board, npc AI (from zero to intelligent... that might take a while and lots of hardware), comm system (LFG channel, or just plain /yell LFG [11+] Wanted: "Hogger" on a busy road), the interface, and more.
In the mean time, I'll just enjoy trading npc goods, some lvl3 grinding in a ferox until the skillpoints catch up with my wallet, and a few corp mining ops, but saying that I'm not impressed by eve is an understatement. I've always liked scifi stuff, and flying around in space has some strange attractiveness, combined with a working by players, for players economy, it's a good enough game.
WoW on the other hand needs some better market interface... and 5% auction house fee is wtf extortion, and more craftable items. I'd love to see the best parts of both games combined, imagine this in space (note: it was late and 2 were drunk :P), but it's not gonna happen anytime soon.
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