Gamespy has an interview with Richard and Robert Garriot talking about what is ahead for MMORPG's.
It's a bit long (8 pages) but there is a bit mentioned about game systems such as "grind", some differences between Korean and US Gaming (a little about that) and toward the end, some talk about Lineage 2.
These days both brothers work for NCSoft, with Richard creating his next big MMOG (Tabula Rasa) while Robert serves as President and CEO of NCSoft's North American division.
I also thought that Richard had a hand in Lineage II's early development.
Robert, being the big honcho for North America, is the guy who you need to track down and camp on his lawn with any of your suggestions/complaints.
*** special note *** I am not saying your really should track him down and camp on his lawn! Clearly he is doing well and will have an extra bedroom or two... :p
What i find most interesting is the talk of removing the grind and making it more goal oriented, if this would be the path of Lineage III. You have gained another player in myself, that is if Lineage 3 has orcs :D
AFAIK the Garriots never have and never will really contribute to the Lineage franchise's development. That's all done by Korea. NCNA is just the publisher, so the Garriots have no real effect on the game's development....just some NA PR to get people to say "pretty garriot...pretty garriot"
What i find most interesting is the talk of removing the grind and making it more goal oriented, if this would be the path of Lineage III. You have gained another player in myself, that is if Lineage 3 has orcs :D
My only suggestion for Lineage III is... as L2 used the Unreal 2 engine, L3 must use the Unreal 3 engine... holy wow!
I believe they are.
An interesting thing I noted about the article was a reference to the first time he saw Lineage and he "clicked on a chest" and realized it wasn't really a chest... just a piece of the scenery.
I had the same thing happen to me and of course some dissapointment in my early time in the game when I realized that the farm over yonder was nothing but scenery.
I suppose there is a yearning for me to go back to my morrowidn roots and "discover that secret passage" over yonder that leads to something that is quit substantive but that could have been buried for so long.
After reading another set of articles by NC Soft's Head Guy (whose name I can't recall at the moment) I wouldn't be surprised if L3 incorporated some different types of gameplay. Especially because they do plan to run all 3 simultaneously.
Did I misinterpret something or did they suggest that American gamers are becoming more like Korean gamers and that they're warming up to grind-centric games?
If Lineage III maintains the same graphic style of L2 and changes the focus to be quest/goal oriented without the heavy focus on grinding, balances the classes around PVP then I'm willing to preorder now.
I don't think that's what they'll bring to market though. I think they were talking about Tabula Rasa and the other North American development games in the pipeline.
I like the grind more than quests... you can't really have dynamic quests in an mmorpg without instancing everything... and the more time you have to spend grinding the more fights there are in game... I would really like to know how many wars were started over because some guy was tired from lvling for 6 hours... a guy ks one mob... and the guy just couldn't take anymore and pk him... the more grind the more drama... so i cried...
Did I misinterpret something or did they suggest that American gamers are becoming more like Korean gamers and that they're warming up to grind-centric games?
I don't think so much of the grind, but the social pvp aspect of it all.
What i took from it that the 1st generation games focus on grinding, but the 2nd generation will be more goal focused.
I like the grind more than quests... you can't really have dynamic quests in an mmorpg without instancing everything... and the more time you have to spend grinding the more fights there are in game... I would really like to know how many wars were started over because some guy was tired from lvling for 6 hours... a guy ks one mob... and the guy just couldn't take anymore and pk him... the more grind the more drama... so i cried...
It all depends on what you mean by dynamic.
There are Dynamic Quests in WoW which aren't instanced. If they had a quest that would essentially start an assault by the Ol Mahum on Gludin for 10-15 minutes and would end when the Ol Mahum leader is defeated, it wouldn't need to be instanced. They'd just have to spawn town guards to keep the Ol Mahum from ever actually entering the town and setup the quest so that the leader doesn't spawn until so many Ol Mahum are killed by the person/party that triggered the quest. They could add all sorts of things like this to make the game seem more dynamic without being instanced.
Forgotten Temple... could require a key/map to unlock for a certain number of minutes (which could be earned from another quest) and allow passage down. There could be an XP reward for making it all the way through to the last room or a 1 time item reward.
That would be a dynamic goal-oriented game.
- Defeat the Ol Mahum
- Discover the Forgotten Temple
- Explore the Temple
- Assassinate the Langk Lizardmen Leader
- Destroy the Ant Queen
- Save/Escort a Caravan across the wastelands and fight off an ant attack
There's nothing stopping other players from interfering in the completion of these quests. So its no different from KS'ing so the potential to grief other players is still there.
These are just low level ideas. There's far more that could be done with the high level areas to make the game far more interesting and less focused on grind.
As far as the pvp is concerned... I don't need to grind for 6 hours for me to dislike someone and want to pk them. The fact that I have to grind for 6 hours and will lose those 6 hours if I die is what keeps me from pvp'ing in the first place. Not to mention that all fights are skewed in favor of certain classes.