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[Mephansteras]

Yes, the little girl is rescued by a single person (or group, depending on how nasty the monster is). The idea is that quests are constantly being generated by the game engine for the players in the game. Some stuff would be designed for groups or raids, some would be for small groups or individuals. So you save the little girl, then her parents tell you about the Lizardman raids down the road (a new quest that just got generated). You go down there and find out that there is a major raid going on, and you and every other person in the region has been directed to it. You fight lizardmen for a while, and get rewarded for how much you helped (in whatever capacity). Then some farmers ask you to recover livestock that the lizardmen stole during the raid. And so on. The idea is to have a world where what you do is heavily influenced by what you and everyone else has done, plus a bunch of game-mechanics level stuff to keep it all balanced and interesting.

[Shoku]

If there's a chance that the little girl dies or you don't recover the farmers livestock how do you keep the town from eventually be whittled down to nothing? Players aren't going to be too enthused about an infinite supply of slightly different little girls :/

[LegoLord]

Most people on WoW would most likely go "Graphics sucks!" when they see the screenshots or download the game.

This is even more amusing since WoW's graphics have not aged well, at all.

You haven't been keeping up with it's development at all, have you?  If you're going to trash talk something that's had dozens of patches and multiple expansions out, well, look into what's new.  Its graphics have become absolutely beautiful.  Even the giant mouth-in-the-floor boss (lovecraftian-type thing, forget what it's called) doesn't look that ugly.  I don't love looking at it or anything, but I don't mind it being on the screen either.

Not to mention the very reason why people who still play it are still hooked;  they are constantly trying to improve game balance playability.  Making significant progress used to take weeks; now only days (playing maybe 1-2 hours every other day).  Of course, I get this all from my brother's experience and my trial run on his account back when WoW was still starting.  The only reason I don't play it is lack of funds.  They've recently started implementing a way of choosing difficulty settings just by how you play; you even get rewards for playing "hard mode" in which you simply don't do anything to make a fight easier (for example, don't kill off the boss's little henchmen, go straight for the boss while his henchmen try to kill you).

Yeah, it'd be neat to see an MMO where you could really change the world. I wrote a white paper on it here at SOE last year. No idea if my ideas will ever see the light of day, of course, but I can dream.

I think LEGO is making an MMO where you can alter the world's format, at least to some extent.  I'm not too sure though; you need to sign up for something to get the most detailed info, something I'm not too motivated to do that yet.  It's still a work in progress, and while I have some skepticism, it could be interesting.

[Mephansteras]

Well, that goes into a whole different section of game balance techniques. But the general idea is that you have areas that are safer and those that are more dangerous. The game balances regions by sending resources from the safe areas to the more dangerous ones as needed.

Plus, it gives all sorts of interesting class-specific quests. Druids, for example, might have some plant growth spells to help farmers recover from a bad harvest or storm. Crafters could help rebuild buildings destroyed during raids, build defensive walls, and so on.

[Shoku]

Anybody ever play dark cloud? The catastrophe kind of sealed the world away then you restored it piece by piece. This almost sounds like a good idea for handling what happens when a bunch of players decide to wreck a place, either by actively destroying it or by making sure everyone fails at stuff if they aren't allowed to attack directly.

It seems like unless the quests were easy enough that people failed very rarely they'd end up with an awful lot of boring repair work. WoW already has enough of that without there constantly being more.


But anyway the constant quest generation idea kind of requires city size settlements- an outpost on the border of whateverland and somethingplace would realistically crumble pretty quickly as things went wrong- you certainly couldn't have a hundred different things going on at the same time even though there could be a hundred different players interested in the area at the same time.

Got a good way to keep players from having to run around until they found an area without so many other players in it?

[azazel]

You haven't been keeping up with it's development at all, have you?  If you're going to trash talk something that's had dozens of patches and multiple expansions out, well, look into what's new.  Its graphics have become absolutely beautiful.  Even the giant mouth-in-the-floor boss (lovecraftian-type thing, forget what it's called) doesn't look that ugly.  I don't love looking at it or anything, but I don't mind it being on the screen either.

Yeah, aged real well... compare:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

WoW is, and was, built for low-end systems. Thus, the graphics do not age well. Yes, the models look better now than when they were first released, but even with significant updates, it's still pretty... ugly (see the first screenshot, which is from Wrath of the Lich King). The last screenshot is Warhammer Online, on medium settings (from way back in beta when you couldn't get higher - I'm on my laptop atm so can't give you high res screenies)

Not to mention the very reason why people who still play it are still hooked;  they are constantly trying to improve game balance playability.

Of course they are - but that's not the reason people still play it. People continued to play SWG until long after any kind of "balancing" stopped being useful, and turned to annoying. Most people play MMOs for the social interactions, the game come second.

They've recently started implementing a way of choosing difficulty settings just by how you play; you even get rewards for playing "hard mode" in which you simply don't do anything to make a fight easier (for example, don't kill off the boss's little henchmen, go straight for the boss while his henchmen try to kill you).

Wow, that's so new! /sarcasm
DDO has had that since it launched, and I'm fairly certain that they weren't first with it, either.

edit: in case the forum messed up the images:
http://azaz.se/random/WE1.jpg <- Warhammer Online
http://community.ageofconan.com/conan/frontend/files/CONTENT/GCSiege.jpg <- AoC
http://z.about.com/d/internetgames/1/0/F/Z/lichking16.jpg <- WoW: WotLK

[LegoLord]

If that's ugly then you must be very picky.  Look, some people actually like the game, crazy though that may sound to someone with a mysterious vendetta against it.  Curiously enough, there are also a lot of people with low-end systems.

So that idea has been thought of before.  So?  That doesn't mean putting it in doesn't improve an already good game.  So what if it didn't have it from the start?  It has it now, and they are trying to improve on what other things they have.

Don't rain on other people's parade, dude.  It's no fun for us, and it makes you sound like a jerk.  If you don't like it, well fine, but don't trash it or the people who genuinely enjoy it because their personal tastes find it appealing for the very reasons you don't.

[azazel]

I wasn't! I only said that the graphics didn't age well, that's all. I don't care what people play, but when they try and defend a position with "the graphics are beautiful", I must be allowed to at least respond. I suppose that I came down a bit hard on whoever, but the only thing I said from the start was "the graphics didn't age well."

I'm not picky - I play DF, don't I? And, to be completely honest with you... I don't play it for the graphics.

[Shoku]

With WoW being for low end systems the graphics were never supposed to be fantastic.

Also your screenshots are biased. The composition in the Warhammer has a very large portion displaying a character model while with WoW screenshots you've focused more on showing large areas of landscape. I personally know about how well screenshots with similar compositions would stack up but that doesn't make the ones you've shown balanced comparisons.

And besides, that warhammer tree has corners as harsh as in that cat's leg and I'm willing to bet that the leaves on it rotate with your camera (a crime WoW isn't completely innocent of either but it's still a big difference.)


Edit: It's kind of creepy to see that they are basically using the same grass/wheat images.

[azazel]

Also your screenshots are biased. The composition in the Warhammer has a very large portion displaying a character model while with WoW screenshots you've focused more on showing large areas of landscape. I personally know about how well screenshots with similar compositions would stack up but that doesn't make the ones you've shown balanced comparisons.

Since a) I'm not at home and b) I don't play WoW any longer, I had to:
find screenshots. The Warhammer one is indeed mine, from way back in beta. The leaves, however, do not turn. And if I wanted to focus on landscapes, WAR would have WoW beat any day. It was not my intention to display more of something on one screenshot, I simply went with what I had available. Don't ask me to buy and install WotLK just to prove a point, please

Regardless, the graphics for WoW are fine - I wouldn't call them beautiful, but they get the job done. I have issues with some graphics in WAR and AoC, and LotR and so on, as well - regardless; they get the job done. That's what's important, my original joke got misunderstood, and when I get "they're beautiful and you don't know what you're talking about," I felt the need to defend myself.

Anyway. Why are we talking about this again?

[LegoLord]

You came off a bit strong.  That's alright though, that's cleared up now.

Has anyone else here who keeps up with LEGO events signed up for that LEGO universe newsletter?  Without doing that, it seems you aren't allowed much information about the development.

[Shoku]

Also your screenshots are biased. The composition in the Warhammer has a very large portion displaying a character model while with WoW screenshots you've focused more on showing large areas of landscape. I personally know about how well screenshots with similar compositions would stack up but that doesn't make the ones you've shown balanced comparisons.

Since a) I'm not at home and b) I don't play WoW any longer, I had to:
find screenshots. The Warhammer one is indeed mine, from way back in beta. The leaves, however, do not turn. And if I wanted to focus on landscapes, WAR would have WoW beat any day. It was not my intention to display more of something on one screenshot, I simply went with what I had available. Don't ask me to buy and install WotLK just to prove a point, please

Regardless, the graphics for WoW are fine - I wouldn't call them beautiful, but they get the job done. I have issues with some graphics in WAR and AoC, and LotR and so on, as well - regardless; they get the job done. That's what's important, my original joke got misunderstood, and when I get "they're beautiful and you don't know what you're talking about," I felt the need to defend myself.

Anyway. Why are we talking about this again?

Cuz we're opinionated and the topic became available. I wasn't asking for identical views, just now have a three fold difference in how much a character is displayed.

And we've known that WoW was a long ways short of pretty since before the game was even released

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The size of the step up in looks from WoW to Warhammer doesn't seem as big as the step up from Everquest to WoW but it is still at least a moderately big step up. I do like how much finer the little spikes n things you see on Warhammer characters which does seem to be a limitation WoW has sort of run intobut seeing as I haven't played the game we've about reached the limit of how much my opinion matters anyway.

[Lalandrathon]

The WoW one has the best graphics of those three in terms of artistic execution. The newer games of course utilize better technology, but that doesn't necessarily translate into a better visual experience. I'd say the WoW one ranks right about in the middle of the three. The Warhammer picture is definitely very pretty, but the detail contrast between the trees and the rocks is jarring. Due to my background, the leaves on the tree that are unattached from the stems and the grass clump/fog issue bug the crap out of me, but I doubt detract significantly from the overall visual experience.

Err, what were we discussing again?

[Dr. Johbson]

...and the like, but today I rolled a alt on a WoW RP server (Wyrmrest Accord), a female dwarf rogue named Urist, and ran her to Stormwind and started telling stories.

I started with a summary of the one-item-embark thread. Pick vs. Axe vs Anvil vs Bravery vs Kitten, to get the WoW universe semi-scottish Dwarf accent down,

Then I told the story of Boatmurdered...

Then I told a rather improvised story about dwarves building a glass tower to the sun, flooding the world with magma, and getting trapped to starve...

I was an incredible hit. The world is ready for more dwarfiness. :3



I was really shocked when no one NO ONE knew about Boatmurdered. ... These are people I respect! Hopefully I'll convert 'em into players.

Oh snap. I have to do this right now. Just to make sure I'm not on your server, which ones have you done this to? 

[Shoku]

Unless there are now more it would just be Wyrmrest Accord.