This Week In MMO Ep117: Everquest Next, SWTOR's F2P Details, And More!

Written by: Mike Schaffnit (@MikeSchaffnit) | October 20, 2012 3:21 pm

34 Comments

On This Week In MMO, Gary Gannon is at SOE in Las Vegas, so Mike Schaffnit, Mike B, and Jason Winter sit down for a fire side chat about the latest and greatest MMO news. Topics on this weeks epsiode include:

Details directly from John Smedley on Everquest Next!
SWTOR’s Free-to-Play details
And a whole bunch of trailers

This Week In MMO Ep117: Everquest Next, SWTOR's F2P Details, And More!

1:22:33

World of Warcraft

Legendary Ep126:
Raiding Ra-Den Revelations!

This week the Legendary crew are talking patch 5.3, raiding, and more with World First raider Treckie!Read more »

17 comments
45:25

Guil Wars 2

GuildCast Ep70:
Blue Flowers

The Secret of Southsun update has arrived, a Guild Wars 2 expansion has been confirmed, and more.Read more »

24 comments
1:02

Star Wars: The Old Republic

New Character Customization Features Come To SWTOR

SWTOR adds many customization options and the ability to change your species, character name, legacy name, and guild name in Game Update 2.1.Read more »

11 comments

http://profile.yahoo.com/FPXO267IVAHL3MK4HRRNRQPNDA Bush Swanson, The American Dre

Everquest was a fantastic game, im really excited about everquest next. I hope that in the new one they add some features the first one didn’t, like boats and digging.
http://profile.yahoo.com/W76UOX2IDTRMMYTPASSJDLXLRM Bob

From those quotes I can only think that Smedley is drunk again.
donaldmratomic

Thanks for showing us the baby, Mike. Congrats.
http://twitter.com/OtherTyrande Shawna R. M.

Oh drunk Gary.

Adorable kid Mike!
http://www.facebook.com/kirzansix Mike Coulombe

I’m scared of EQ Next. As much as I want a fresh EQ… it’s going to be F2P. Look at SoE’s F2P models. They’re very old and not user-friendly. Shit, you didn’t even get the full game with a monthly sub in EQ2X, you needed to get the yearly sub to get absolutely everything for a while.
Depravity

The Swtor F2P model details feel like a bad joke delivered with a medieval spiked club to the testicles. If you ever thought Bioware (or EA – who the f. knows who’s running the show anyways) was competent, now you’ve got undiluted proof they’re clueless as fuck and seem to be a company on the verge of a mental breakdown (both in the public eye’s perception and internally as well).

The hordes of players that were planning to return to Swtor on F2P will never come back be. A complete wreck is prognosed in the following months, especially since their vision of an MMO is apparently focused on solo content and all the other shit (and there isn’t much) is basically staying sub-based. Unbe-fucking-lievable.

And I can’t wait for my sadistic nature to enjoy the next TOR show where Gary is gonna rain groin hammers on these decisions. Wooohoo.
kevin winger

LotRO seriously needs to update the character models and animations. They have not aged well and the animations have always been really bad. I’ve tried the game a half a dozen times and game play is solid but I just can’t get past the painful animations.
http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

Great show, really good to see MikeB back.

If I go back to SWTOR, figure I will finish up my stories and unlock PvP with any included cartel coins. Just don’t see it as a long term gameplay.

It was interesting to see the interaction between Mike Schaffnit and MikeB over Guild Wars 2 questing. Personally, I found the sweet spot in GW2 leveling was questing from level 1 to level 30 (maybe 40). After level 50 started to really bore of zerging Dynamic Events and World bosses and started really considering purchasing gems to buy mats and finish leveling through crafting. I didn’t learn until later, that grinding dungeons was a quick way to level as well. So, I can see why some folks develop a cynical edge to GW2 questing.
http://twitter.com/justQQing Brian Day

The end zone in gw2 around Arah ie (cursed shore) was the best no hearts to do just go find stuff to do i liked it sorry
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  I need to get back into GW2 and finish leveling up my Elementalist. I really do want to see the level 80 zones.
http://www.facebook.com/rasmus.nielsen.75491 Rasmus Nielsen

Considering the Hearts aren’t the main point of GW2…yeah…too many people don’t get the fact that Hearts weren’t the POINT
http://twitter.com/Aoewin Maxime Beaulieu

I never understood how doing same side quests in swtor is different then doing Outlands, Northrend and now Pandaria again and again.. Ive done Barrens, Ashenvale, etc a hundred of times.. this never been a complain for anyone. But for swtor, it is. I just cant get it. At least in swtor you have your story quests in same time, and some side quest you can go dark or light side. They definitly could have put 2 planets choice every time you have to go somewhere else to make the path from alts differents, but I dont see it as a big of a deal as you guys show it it.

Going back to level my 3rd caracter tru pandaria and then doing endless of dailies…
- St_Draco
  
  Maxime, the problems are familiarity, friends, and expectations. People will continue to do what is familiar to them. In WoW, everyone knows what to expect. It is comfortable. Not just the mechanics of the game but also the content. If they are given something too different they struggle, if it isn’t different enough they ask “why are they doing it?” When they ask this they look at the expectations. In WoW people know exactly what to expect and they understand exactly why they are doing it. In a new MMO they don’t know. Its a mystery and that mystery for many people isn’t enough of a driving force to do something that they either struggle with or have done before. In addition, a new game carries the expectation that it will do something “better”. Even if the game does it “better” it has to be better enough to overcome the familiarity issue. Finally there is friends. You have to ask yourself, why do you and your friends always seem to do the same things when you hang out? Because of the previous two reasons, familiarity and expectations, it allows you to just enjoy your friends company without learning or adapting getting in the way. Your focus is just on hanging out and not on figuring out a new thing. When WoW came out, it wasn’t nearly as big as it is now. It was new and it took several years for it reach its peak. How it grew was that enough people became familiar with it, to know what to expect that they could bring friends in and not have to struggle with learning something new.
  
  People are always going to criticize and complain about a new thing, especially something that they see as a threat to an established thing. It doesn’t matter if they are being hypocritical about their stance because what is familiar is often more important than logical evaluation.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  Interesting the hosts talked about this during the show. BW should have added a cash shop with xp bonuses.
  
  Blizzard offers several experience boost perks in the game, with guild perks and bind on account gear. I currently have my Undead Monk and Blood DK fully outfitted with BOA gear. My guild just finished the guild achievement that unlocks the BOA legs.
  
  Blizzard nerfs the leveling requirements of prior content for every expansion. SWTOR hasn’t had their first expansion yet.
  
  One of the few wins in Cata was the level 1-60 redesign, the low level questing content is good.
  
  Alot of players I talk to are level 60 to 80 through dungeons. Lore among others have commented the WoW dungeons are now lunchtime content, something you can complete when you have a spare 30 mins.
  
  Mists includes a new race and class, ensuring the leveling content is loaded with players.
  
  The bottom line is as other posters have mention, BW doesn’t know what the hell they are doing.
St_Draco

I think some people are too accustom to linear game play and the drive to get to the end that they missed out on what is fun in GW2 and as a result may not enjoy EQnext if it really wants to go to a more sandbox style of play. There isn’t really anything wrong with enjoying linear gameplay, heck 10M people enjoy it (i.e. WoW). I personally have enjoyed every aspect of GW2. My focus has been on just doing what ever and seeing what is out there to experience. Often I would find myself leveling and not even realizing it. The levels would sneak up on me and I usually don’t bother looking at my xp bar. My approach was always “Oh cool I can do that now!” instead of “I need to do this so I can do that.”
I had a funny little conversation with someone while I was watching Lore raid Galleon, a world boss in WoW. Someone in chat asked, “How can a fight like that be fun? They are just rez-zerging it and fighting the Alliance more than they are killing the boss. What’s the point? They are going to waste all this time and get so little a reward for it.” I responded that the fight was the point. Everyone was having fun and it didn’t seem to matter that the boss was a zergfest. Yeah they were interested in the reward, but that was what got them there. What kept them there and made the fight fun was just doing it. The “having fun” was the point and I think there are a number of “hardcore” MMO players out there that either don’t understand or miss this concept.

Regarding MikeS and MikeB’s conversation, MikeB nails it on the head. In addition, if you want to know if GW2 has had an impact and changed the way we play MMOs, all you have to do is look at how often people now say “so like GW2″. It use to be that people would say “so like WoW” when talking about a new MMO, not as much anymore. GW2 is becoming a new standard by which we judge MMOs. It isn’t replacing WoW, but rather adding itself as a point of reference (don’t get all buttclenched WoWFanboys).

Of course I expect that someone is going to try and twist that last paragraph into, “Yeah if you mean a new standard for fail”, or suck, or whatever troll comment.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  Oh I agree, I found the first 30 to 40 levels of gameplay in GW2 PVE to be some great gameplay and a lot of fun. If you can catch a WvW match (without the queue times) before it gets lopsided and out of hand is a blast as well.
  
  Personally, I found Mike B characterization to be completely wrong. I’m not sure he has played enough GW2 PVE to label someone opinion on GW2 questing as cynical.
  
  I can believe if someone has run enough hearts and dynamic events, that you start seeing the same quests mechanics over and over again. I can fully understand why players would run dungeons over and over again, if the dungeon was rewarding one or two levels per run. I can appreciate why many players purchased the crafting mats so they could level through crafting the last 20 or 30 levels.
  
  Once you have experienced the first 40 levels, you get a little tired of constant turnover on gear. I can see why players want to be max level in GW2, the level 80 gear looks fantastic, clearly Arenanets best work. Haven’t heard anyone rave about their level 40 helm. I was really tried of the grind at level 67 and could care less about gear I was replacing in a few levels.
  
  For me a significant let down was the meta boss The Shatter. The Guildcast hosts had hyped this as a epic boss encounter. I was sorely disappointed with five minutes before the boss spawn, 20 or more players log into GW2 characters, quickly killed the boss, looted the chest and log out again. I’m assuming waiting for the next respawn in three hours. I’m assuming they had this boss on farm and were working on alts while they waited for the next respawn.
  
  So maybe Mike B was right to label MikeS opinion as cynical, but many a player has good reason to be cynical after all the continued hype.
  
  I can fully understand the steams confusion for the Mists of Pandaria world boss fights, from the participants view it does look like a zergfest. The massive AOE damage and hard enrage timers, make this a up close and tight fight. The faction fighting and attempt to wipe the opposition makes for an interesting meta game.
  
  I found you comment about “like GW2″ to be right on the money. But, it not really about WoW or GW2, but more of an indictment of SWTOR. It really shows, if you release a modern MMO you better show how you are different from WoW and not another WoW clone. I would say the term “like GW2″ is more about showing how you are different from WoW and not an endorsement of the Arenanet game design decisions.
http://twitter.com/RealTrollScroll TrollScroll.com

It’s refreshing to hear the hosts disagree with each other and debate topics like the SW:TOR F2P model in this episode. Makes for a more intriguing show guys. Great episode.
http://twitter.com/cipero Matt Cipriano

Congrats on the little mikeB
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bergevin-Jr/1393526370 Jim Bergevin Jr

Because SWG and GW2 suck!

See what I did there? Players should start to understand that not everyone enjoys the same type of things when playing games. One gamer’s suck game is another gamer’s #1 all time favorite game.

While I agree that the B2P model should be the future of the MMO genre, and hopefully what we have seen in the last year seems to indicate that trend, there will still be a place for freemium and sub based games as well – just as there was a place for F2P and the original (and much superior) B2P game – GW1. Personally, the B2P model of GW1 was better than they implemented for GW2.
- Revanhavoc
  
  Objectively speaking, the only comparisons we can make between video game products that appeals to a particular genre are their quarterly financial reports.
  
  And when we make those comparisons using that information, a clear order of success emerges.
  
  So looking at that big picture, realistically the only big picture that matters, it becomes more logical to rank games.
  
  That is an objective analysis though, and I believe there is plenty of room for art to mean different things to different people – some might love it or hate it. I certainly agree “it sucked’ is pathetic support when trying to make a point.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bergevin-Jr/1393526370 Jim Bergevin Jr
    
    But even the financials may cannot tell the whole story – yes, they can tell us whether a game was a commercial success, but to use that to rank a game’s “betterness” when compared to others is just as useless as the “sucking” hyperbole. Objectively speaking, you can say one game is better technologically than another such as DA:O having “better” graphics and mechanics than BG simply because the advances in technology allowed for it.
    
    However, you can not objectively say that DA:O is a better game overall because it made more money than BG, any more than you can say WoW is objectively better than Eve, based on the money each brings in.
http://www.facebook.com/djlanders020 Dave Landers

Thank you Mike B. I am so sick of the cynicism and nitpicking by gamers.
http://www.facebook.com/djlanders020 Dave Landers

Everquest AA system was close to a “no level cap” system. Sort of.
Revanhavoc

Lol the other hosts didn’t notice Mike B.’s nice crack about how removing endgame from Mass Effect 3, by hypothetically offering it F2P like Swotor, could mean removing the ending from Mass Effect 3…In essence making the game better.

Mike B I gotta be honest, from what I’ve heard about some of the endgame in Swtor, it might be better removing it anyway!

I have 3 character I have been leveling on the free trial just in preparation for the F2P conversion this fall.

For those of you thinking of getting into SWTOR, you can carry over your characters from the Free Trial period (up to level 15 so you get to see origin & capital worlds) to the full game when it goes F2P.
http://www.facebook.com/jason.horton2 Jason Horton

Im glad mike B interjected on what Mike S was saying about how GW2 wasnt as revolutionary as people where saying. A-net said what the game would do different and it gives the content exactly as they said and it definitely is different from anything we’ve played before. No matter what its always going to be killing things, weather the games telling you to kill things or not your going to be killing monsters so to people saying its the same kill 10 mobs, i dont understand. Would you like mobs and combat to be taken out of the game so you dont ever have to kill 10 mobs? i dont know. I just dislike the whole ‘GW2 wasnt revolutionary’ banter these narrow minded people sprout everynow and then.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  It was kind of funny seeing MikeB use a personal attack when Mike S had something negative to say about GW2. Unless you think labeling someones option as cynical is not a personal attack.
  
  How you can say GW2 hearts and dynamic events are not quests, is beyond me.
  - Angel Rivera
    
    yes hearts and dynamics are sorta quests. but, is brilliant how Anet went about delivering it. for the events to happen wether im their or not making the world come alive. to participate w/o grouping with anyone. to have personal loot. not have to go to an npc to pick up a quest. and to have multiple options as to how to complete set “QUEST”. the key word here is dynamic and fun. i think of my wow days when i was waking up every morning to farm dailies for gold and want to crawl up on a fetal position and cry my self to sleep.
    
    and im not a gw fan boy by any means. but you got to give credit where credit is due.
  - http://www.facebook.com/jason.horton2 Jason Horton
    
    But its a heart? not a quest? i think its quite clearly defined and i dont know why people try to argue, A quest is given by someone and you go do it for them, a Heart is a general area that need multiple things fixed in order to fill the bar for completion. Why bother comparing them? its pointless and completely unnecessary. A dynamic event is simply more content thrown at you randomly, what your defining as a quest is saying no matter the content given to you or how its presented doesn’t matter because its still a ‘quest’ people are using the word ‘quest’ to describe doing certain content not what a quest actually is, which is just stupid and a ridiculous point to argue
    - Revanhavoc
      
      You are over-defining a word that shouldn’t be so complicated…Which is actually the ridiculous part. A heart or a dynamic event or a whatever games call them, it’s all part of the questing experience.
      
      It gets judged by the sum of all the parts, so argung semantics is pointless.
  - Revanhavoc
    
    I don’t think cynical was used as an insult in the context of their conversation. Furthermore, I don’t think calling an opinion cynical should be taken as an insult under any circumstances – it’s not a personal attack it’s an analysis of an opinion.
    
    I think we both agree the GW2 evolution vs. revolution debate should have been put to rest when even the Guildcast members conceded the game was an evolutionary step.
    
    What I think we don’t agree on is that oversimplifying GW2 dynamic events, and questing in general, as just simply another copy paste of other MMO’s “go here kill this” trope, is absolutely cynical. It’s actually unfair.
    
    And I’m not attacking Mike S. by saying he is a long time WoW player, part of a playerbase of enormously cynical MMO players simply because they have lived through it and seen it all. That’s not a negative - that’s just my take on a group of realistic, experienced players.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bergevin-Jr/1393526370 Jim Bergevin Jr
  
  Because being evolutionary or revolutionary implies that what it is now is better than what came before it. That is not necessarily the case, at least on an objective level. No matter how you wrap up and present the content, a quest is a quest, and nothing done in GW2 is anything that hasn’t already been seen in one form or another in games that preceeded it. Whether one likes the new presentation or not is purely a matter of playstyle and preference, and this is a very subjective thing. Did Anet succeed in making another great and enjoyable game? Yes (subjectively speaking). Is it superior to everything else out there right now? That is in the eye of the beholder, so to speak (again, subjectively). I personally feel the original GW to be a better game based on my playstyle and enjoyment of games.
http://twitter.com/erran86 Erin Fleming

baby Declan!!! <3
Lucas Ruiz

It would be great if you posted these on Youtube as well. I have fios and I can never watch without constant freezing.
DoctorOverlord

I wonder how well a high budget sandbox MMO will do. You constantly hear the MMO community saying they want that, but then you also hear the community constantly saying they want an MMO with capped or no progression. It will be interesting to see what Sony does.

I also really like how it was pointed out that every game on the planet can be broken down to some form of repetition. Humans like repetition. It’s how we learn and become comfortable with something and get better at it. The trick for game designers is when does repetition become boring. And the problem is the old MMOs took that natural habit and went overboard with it, taking a flying leap over mere repetition to absurd timesinks disguised as challenges.

And gratz to Mike B on the little one!

This Week In MMO Ep117: Everquest Next, SWTOR's F2P Details, And More!

Legendary Ep126:
Raiding Ra-Den Revelations!

GuildCast Ep70:
Blue Flowers

New Character Customization Features Come To SWTOR

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