How much should the world of EQ Next change based on time of day?

The next round-table question was posted by SoE:

How much should the world of EQ Next change based on time of day?

Skip to actual points, rather than blabbing by scrolling to the green text.

Random Thoughts:

I started talking about the importance of day and night, but I quickly realized I don't have to justify day and night, because the nature of the question implies that there is a day and night.  The real question is, what happens over time?

Entrance to High Keep in EverQuest.  It has a date!

To convey a sense of realism in any game, day and night (ie: time) cycles are important, and correlate heavily with the atmosphere that players feel.  Night is dark, brings a sense of danger, and is associated with a heightened sense of "What was that?!"  Day time on the other hand is carefree, sense of exploration is heightened, and we tend to be more open to exploring our world.

The best analogy I can give to a conveyance of the importance of day and night comes from... Minecraft!  My god, they do an excellent job.  You spend your daylight hours hunting, finding resources, and generally exploring the world.  Your only fear is falling off a cliff or down a hole.  Come night, every non-elite player heads indoors, or into a well lit cave.  They lock the door, hunker down, and wait for the sun to come up.

You do this because the environment is changing, DRASTICALLY. The zombies bang on your door, the spiders skitter about outside, and you KNOW that if you go outside you WILL BE ATTACKED! Minecraft takes it to an extreme, but because it fits so well with the style of the game it's awesome.  I think EverQuest Next could learn from EverQuest and Minecraft, apply those learnings in a new way, to create a new SENSE OF ADVENTURE that grabs a hold and doesn't let go!

Let's explore that further down the rabbit hole...

In EverQuest, EQN Forum folks have touched on the fact that Werewolves would spawn at night, Kithicor would turn evil, light wisps would come out, ambient noise would change, and visibility would decrease.  EverQuest was, in the broadest sense, able to change with time by alternating between day and night.  Cycles completed every 72 minutes, with night quickly following day for those waiting for a particular night or day time spawn.

Indeed, the night was dark and full of terrors, and the day was full of adventure.  While it wasn't to the extremes of Minecraft with zombies coming out of the woodwork, it did instill a sense of fear in particular zones.  The sense and feeling of fear is important, for travel and adventure without risk should not be rewarded.

That being said, I believe night fits in well with some of the points I had previously mentioned on the blog during my discussion of fast travel.  Those points where:

Travel must:

1. Have an inherit risk that makes you think, "Is it worth it?" 
2. Require effort.
3. Be restricted.
4. Require knowledge or exploration.
5. Have a safe place.

To achieve those points, I believe the world of EverQuest Next should change over time.  Travel at night should be notably more dangerous than travel during the day.  Exploring (and travel) should require effort, be restricted, and have the potential to be safe.  By exploring during the day, sticking to trails, and avoiding scary places you have the ability to likely travel significant distances without being harassed.  By night, the same journey will likely see you dead or attacked, or the very least, AFRAID!

Duskwood screams, "Dangerous at night!"

So now that I've blabbed for way to long about random thoughts, here are my suggestions

AI interaction as a function of time of day

Suns up!  Time to hide in bushes and stab people!

EverQuest Next has the ability to implement an incredible AI system.  That system should take advantage of time.  NPCs should be able to:

• Go home at night
• Go to sleep
• Go find food for a meal
• Complete "questionable" activities in the dark
• Find travelers by the torches or campfires they carry in the dark
• Avoid travelers by avoiding the light (torches/campfires) they carry in the dark
• Move/attack under cover of darkness
• Set traps in the dark
• Avoid sunlight or moonlight, depending on NPC characteristics (Owl vs. Sea-Gull)

Let's play make-believe and pretend what I type is what actually occurs in EverQuest Next.

My friends and I had just completed a portion of a rally-call, we'd cut down some trees surrounding the new town of Qeynos so the goblins would have a rough time attacking without first being spotted.  The risk of them damaging the city is no longer relevant, and the chances of a siege are unlikely.

Because of a nearby population of werewolves, it's been unsafe to travel outside the walls at night. We'd need a much larger group of people to clear out those werewolves. The werewolves hunt in packs and pack a very mean punch.  Add to that that we didn't have any magical weapons in our group of three, we could barely hurt them!

We received news from our guild that suggested they'd uncovered a cave system that contained a unique beast.  We knew from some other guilds that these beasts leave quickly once they've been discovered.  Our group, being as rash as we are awesome, decided to travel to the cave system for fear of missing out on some uber loot. Prior to making our way outside the town we did what any prudent night time traveler would do, we casted invisibility on our entire group.

Everything was going well until Franz (ah.. that silly gnome) shot off a Blue_Firework while mis-clicking his Potion_of_Invisibility.  We heard the howls immediately, and knew there would be a group of werewolves on our location at any second!  They would be coming from everywhere, that firework was very visible!

With our cover blown, (we all know invisibility just helps you avoid detection, it doesn't actually make you invisible), our group dropped out of invisibility in favour of Jify's Selo's!  We high tailed it to the nearest guard shack, with the werewolves following closely behind.  Our hope was that the light from the guard shack would be enough to deter their attack, not so.  We had attracted so many werewolves that they had made the decision (as a group of werewolves) that they could overwhelm this guard shack and take us all on!  We ran inside, the guards could fend for themselves!

BANG BANG BANG on the walls/door as the werewolves quickly dispatched the nearby guards and tried to break their way into the shack.  With one more trick up our sleeves, Gify, our beloved Druid, began to succor (teleport) us to the nearby Druid grove.  The door gave way and in rushed 4 of the meanest werewolves I ever saw (thankfully the guards had dispatched three before hand)!  Franz (warrior) ran in and quickly intercepted them and Jify tried his best to keep the werewolves slowed with some soothing music.  With no more than a few seconds to spare Gify's port zapped us out of the guard shack and into the Druid grove (were we all know that we wouldn't be attacked by anything unless we attacked first).  

The unfortunate part... we were now 10 minutes in the wrong direction!  Serves us right for trying to travel at night, through a dangerous area, without a full group.

Long winded way for me to make a point that the AI system, from the information available, seems able to determine if it can kill something and respond to actions (ie: fire works).  I don't believe it would be a large stretch of the imagination for the AI to respond differently at night, making previously safe woods incredibly dangerous to unprepared or unskilled group at night.  You take a risk by traveling at night, and your group should know what they are doing.

This would bring another level of realism and depth to the game.

Don't make it silly

Don't do minecraft.  I don't want to see zombines insta-pop in the dark when it gets dark out.  I don't want to have to hide in my little house with 5 torches because any dark area of the game is a threat.  I do think that some monsters should come out in the night, and go back to hiding during the day.  I just think whatever you do has to make sense with the lore and the environment.

Are the werewolves inhabiting the woods only by night?  Where do they sleep/live during the day?  Maybe there is a suspicious logging camp, a hole in the side of a mountain, a secret cave under a river, a covered underground lair that they "dig" out of during the night.  Those werewolves better not be popping out of thin air at this stage in the evolution of video games.

Changes in difficulty should result in changes in reward.

Check out the article on Game Design and Risk vs. Reward

As I mention time and time again, risk deserves reward.  If I'm willing to brave the night in search of loot it should be risky and rewarding.  I shouldn't be able to find a mountain of treasure, but my guild should be able to uncover the lair of a sleeping beast at night, or see the fire-light of a ritualistic sacrifice on the side of the ocean.  My ability to find loot should increase, but my chance of dying (ie: risk) should also be increased.


Fear of dying

Why run?  It's not scary, I just don't want to die!

Lastly, but very importantly, night should instill some fear into the player.  If they are afraid to travel out into the night it's not because they are "scared" of spiders and zombies, it's because they do not want to die!  This isn't real life, people don't avoid things because they are scary, they avoid things (or are careful) because there is a consequence.  It just so happens that the consequence 99% of the time is death.

Jify out.

Smaller Races - Word Cloud

Alright, by request, here is a word cloud for the Small Races discussion.  Some clear winners, but same as before, the word "don't" is show as "DON", so there are likely lots of statements captured that sound similar to, "Don't put in ratonga!  PUT IN GNOMES!"

Jify out.

Lore Analysis

I'm analyzing the Lore post further, the results are below!

Quick notes:  It's not very accurate, because it's basically just a copy of the text, modified to remove non-descript words.  But the main reason it's not very accurate is because Mallas Scumlord posts about 35 times for every one post from someone else. lol

Also note that Don't (shown as DON) was a major word.  Likely to go along with something like, "DON"T DO CUT SCENES".

Update to the masses

Hey Folks!

I see you all viewing my blog, please post a comment!  I'd love to create some dialogue and chat about EverQuest Next, specifically my thoughts and how you think they are either wrong or right.  Let's debate!

Anonymous posting is enabled, go nuts!

Likewise, if you have a similar blog please let me know, I'd love to give a shout out!

What is your favorite way to consume the lore of EverQuest Next?

Alright Sony, let's do this!

Today's Round-table posted here.

The question:
What is your favorite way to consume the lore of EverQuest Next?

At the time of writing this, here is how everything stacks up:

This post, I'm going to do things a little differently.  I think by evaluation the options and pointing to glaring discrepancies and the "missing" options, Sony might be throwing a blind shoulder to me.  So, in an effort to draw some Sony attention to my blog I won't be saying that they missed critical options, or that their poll is one-sided and they've already made up their minds.

So, my thoughts:

Lore has always been a dangerous balancing act in any game.  Cut scenes add to games, but also take away from games.  When I watch a cut scene something is generally going on in an instance OR is bridging the gap between one part of an instance and another.

I'm an anti-instance kind of guy.  I think that when a cut-scene comes up my immersion into the game actually goes DOWN because I'm forced to watch the exact same re-count of an event every time I go through it.  Likewise, everyone that has ever gone through said event see's the same thing.  And no, it still counts as "the same" even if you get to select option A or option B, or if your party show up on the screen instead of Soandso's party.

EverQuest however, relied on a tactful, and perhaps lucky balance of introducing lore while not cramming it down our throats.  Allow me to explain.

Let's go back to that first critical moment that you started EverQuest, this one:

Classic EverQuest - Kelethin Starting Point

You were thrown into a magical world, and you had NO FREAKING CLUE what or who anything was.  You looked around and saw trees, and then you likely pressed a button and fell off to your death.

That death aside, you progressed through the game without much understanding of lore, aside from what you picked up while visiting your class trainer (or Guildmaster) and what you heard while running from bat to bat.  That was the beauty of it, you played the game and didn't worry about lore.  It wasn't required to progress.  No cut scenes, no books, no long quest dialogues (unless you wanted to!).

Flash forward, and you're fighting in Crushbone.  Some silly bard /shouts "Dvinn to zone".  Doesn't make any sense to you, because you're a newbie.  Boom, you're dead, and this silly dark-elf says something about the Indigo Brotherhood and runs off to kill another newbie.

 Fast forward some more, and you're across the world in Northern Ro, killing Derves with your buddies when some dude that looks JUST like D'vinn pops infront of you!  You're buddies go and check him out, you scream a word of warning, but it's not required.  D'vinn didn't agro them, but he's only KOS to you!

Then it dawns on you, killing all those Orcs was lowering my faction with the Indigo Brotherhood, that must be a group of these dark-elves!  Interesting stuff, but now from your own playing experience you now know there is an elite group of Dark Elves that are spread about the world grouping with various "bad guys" and slaying newbies.  You didn't need to read a book for it to happen, you EXPERIENCED IT, WITHOUT A CUT SCENE!

Most importantly, Dvinn and his buddy Dorn in North Ro didn't become "evil" to you because they were part of a cut-scene that said they are evil.  They became evil to you because they either slayed or wanted to slay you.  They didn't become part of some elite evil dark-elf group because the cut scene told you so, they were part of that group because you observed it!

To your friends, he's still some dark-skinned elf with a magical dagger fresh for the taking.  They don't know these things.  They haven't experienced them.  For all you know, they could be allies to the Indigo Brotherhood, hell-bent on slaying wood elves and making platinum.  The game has evolved differently for both you and your friends, and THAT is a key part of EverQuest, and it should be a KEY part of EverQuest Next.

Another path, let's say your lone ranger is about to quest out into the world, potentially to collect his Raincaller bow!  The undisputed awesome bow of the classic era.  You head over to Lesser Faydark, start exploring, and this lovely fellow pops by to say hello.

Yup, you're dead again!  And in EverQuest, death is pretty powerful stuff.  You know this horse means business and you want to make sure it doesn't get you again!  You ask questions, you research where it spawns, and that leads you to some powerful Lore.  

You see, Lesser Faydark used to be very safe, with the odd bandit running around.  Cazic Thule corrupted it, including the horsey you see above (actually a Unicorn).  To end the corruption, Firiona Vie broke off Equestrielle's horn, but the corrupted horsey remained to plague the forest.

I didn't have to watch a cut scene to tell me that, I found it by talking to fellow players that experienced the event and by research some stuff on the internet about what other people had EXPERIENCED.

What I'm trying to say is this:

Cut Scenes are not effective.  They are pretty and pampered ways to bridge gaps in content.

The best way to introduce Lore, is to have it AVAILABLE and let players experience it at their own pace.

To clarify, available means:

• Websites
• In-game Books
• Story Telling NPCs
• Quest NPCs
• etc.

Just look at the wealth of knowledge collected here, it's incredible: http://www.elitegamerslounge.com/home/lore/

Let players make their own experiences and their own decisions WITH Lore.  Don't use pre-determined experiences and decisions (movies, cut scenes, etc) to teach the lore.

Choosing 1, 2 or 3 is not a sandbox RPG, it's a choose your own adventure novel.  And you know what you need to make a novel?  Printed pages to flip to.  You aren't writing your own story, you're following one.

Final words:

I want lots of lore, everywhere, and it all has to be 100% optional content.  No required reading, no required cut scenes.  Make it part of the game, with all players exposed to it, but not all players required to participate in it.  Players will be inclined to immerse themselves in the lore, rather than have you force it down their throats.

There are many ways death could work in MMOs. What's your preference for EverQuest Next?

Darnit SoE, you did it again!

Let's weigh the options on our "Line of Penalties":

We can see that Option 1 through Option 5 give us a wide sampling across the board.  As always, we have the two extremes that are just there for reference, but, because no sane designer would pick an extreme, that axes out one of our options (option 1).  Option 5 isn't an extreme, it's just closer to it.

We have four options, that we can further break down into the following categories:

Option 2 - Group Penalty

Option 3 - Personal Penalty

Option 4 - Time Penalty

Option 5 - Slap on the wrist


Option 2 - Group Penalty

In my opinion, MMOs are about group play, group strategy, and group cooperation.  If you want to destroy that, you blame the group for someone's poor luck or skill.  If you got penalized for picking the fat kid in gym class you know what everyone would ALWAYS do, they'd pick the fat kid last.  When it comes to MMOs, if you can ONLY trust your most skilled group of friends you will quickly alienate people.

In GW2, group play really isn't encouraged.  It's all about playing by yourself and tagging onto someone else's quest, event, or luck.  If you want to do some group based activities, like a dungeon, you rely on an elite group of friends to successfully complete the dungeon without death and mental stress.  If you're looking for a terrible experience you'll invite a "PUG" to Arah.

I think people should have skill, but I don't think their lack of it should impact the group.  I think their lack of skill should slow down their ability to progress until they've proven they have sufficient skill to progress to the next tier of gameplay. Which brings us too...

Option 3 - Personal Penalty

You're terrible, and you pay the price.  I like it.

Keep in mind there are no levels in EverQuest Next, so de-levelings or "exp loss" aren't options.  What we are looking at is some sort of penalty that slows down a players ability to progress until they've sufficiently mastered their current tier of gameplay.

In EverQuest, this was the level.  If you ran into a "red con" you'd likely die, but if you played all day fighting easy "green cons" you'd never progress.  The game directed you towards challenging (and win-able) adventures, fights, quests and dungeons that where appropriate for your skill level.  If you died lots and lots, you de-leveled and the game would direct you towards easier content until you upped your gear or skill level.

The damaging of gear only serves as a light slap on the wrist in this aspect.  It stops you from "chain dying" to get something done, say, a raid mob or a dungeon boss.  It doesn't stop you from running higher level content, it just breaks your bank account in an effort to tell you to "use some strategy or get some skill".  I'm tired of gear damage and durability, we need something new.  Maybe you die and the priests in a nearby temple will resurrect you for a nominal fee or require you to find something in a spirit world before you can rez.

In EverQuest Next, I'm not sure what the penalty should be, but it should be personal.  Since reputation and lasting change is such a large driver, maybe it is the best penalty to propose.  Your death (or continual death) could lower your standing with factions of warriors, while raising your faction with "Newbie Friendly" factions.  Maybe if you died lots the "newbies" would take you in, and give you access to tutorials and simple beginner weapons (maybe that's how people start in the game).  As you progress in skill, the "newbie faction" recognizes you as a warrior, or a mage, or a priest, and decides you don't need help anymore.  Now you can do quests and access gear, challenges, or skills through these special advanced factions.  If you make a bunch of really bad choices and die a lot, now your reputation as a skillful warrior is tarnished and you are once again accepted as a "newbie".

One thing I want to stress is that:

DURABILITY IS NOT A HIGH PENALTY FOR DEATH, UNLESS MY ITEMS ARE PERMANENTLY DAMAGED OR REQUIRE SIGNIFICANT EFFORT TO REPAIR.

Option 4 - Time Penalty

We are over this.  We did this before, let's not do it again.  Wasting time just for the sake of wasting time is stupid, frustrating, and leads to rage quitting.  You might as well just give me a spawn timer that I can click after 5-10 minutes to instantly play again.

Time penalties should only be included if they are NOT used just for wasting time, but are used to balance content or restrict access.  As an example, in most PVP games (WoW, GW2) you cannot instantly pop up, you must wait for a graveyard or a timer to avoid using "death as a strategy".

Option 5 -  Slap on the wrist

Doesn't work.  Why die?  Why not just insta de-agro whatever killed me, heal me to full, and let me carry on.  I don't have much to say here other than a "slap on the wrist" or less is only sought after by folks that are typically unskilled and/or cannot tolerate failure (due to their personality).



Whatever the option, it should meet these criteria:

1. Discourage the use of death as a strategy.
• "Let's kill this mob, then die so we pop up at X."
• "Rush in, if you die, run back in.  Lather, rinse, repeat until boss is dead."
• "Just run to X point and die, you'll pop up where you need to go."
2. Guide players to appropriately challenging content for their skill level.
3. Give players a chance to review their death before diving back into the same content that killed them.
• Swivel camera from corpse, allows me to see the archer on the ledge behind me that killed me.
• Combat log says I was killed by "Lava", guess I'll avoid that next time.
• Chance to tell the group, "Guys, I found the solution, follow me next time."
4. Sense of danger, people shouldn't want to die. (EverQuest did this well)
5. Reward of the challenge should outweigh the risk of dying from said challenge (If I die 10 times to get a bat wing, I'm never going to try and get that bat wing again. *points at multiple quests in EQ that no one ever did*  We should reward risk!)

Thanks for listening, Jify out!