If HJ was a GS grind...

[Cademus]

I'm super curious, if HJ was a grind on par with GS and thus 5 years + until cap with daily casual play. Will you play the game?

[Gan]

(Pictured removed by request) (Because I'm feeling like a nice guy tonight) (Perhaps its that big ass long island iced tea I had with dinner) :)
...

[GS-Phoenix]

I'm in favor of taking longer to cap. I think thats where WoW went wrong. Leveling is rewarding and when that stops it gets boring.

[Cademus]

You see what I realized is the vast majority of the MMO market do not like grinds. In fact, all the new MMOs are trying to make grinds shorter. I prefer grinds, only if there is PvP so I can impose my will on other people.... that kinda sounded creepy. :)

[Stanley Burrell]

If it were to theoretically resemble the GS economy... Tier? ...Then maybe a hint, dash, and sprinkle of extra $ for higher grade services, but not by a retarded degree of seperation.

Also, this (my vote'n'comment) is if HJ becomes more than existential.

[Cademus]

I think HJ will come out probably by the end of next year. The longer they delay the more obsolete their game becomes technologically etc.. Plus they need to shore up all those GS/DR players that left over the years and possibly get new graphical sensitive MMO players who are like 99% of the market now. ... Plus, they are gonna lose their investment on paying GMs, writers, programmers etc. if they abort.

[Alfster]

I'm in favor of taking longer to cap. I think thats where WoW went wrong. Leveling is rewarding and when that stops it gets boring.

I preferred the endgame of wow over the level grinding. Raiding at endgame was a ton of fun, BUT I stopped playing once they decided to make another expansion.

Basically, any raiding you do up until release will be wiped out in the first hour of the next expansion. Lots of waste time IMO.

[Dwarven Empath]

Gan that picture is...maybe, kinda, a little over the top.

Just one mans opinion.

Medi...

[Alfster]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v686/pottymouth30/emo_lawn.jpg

This better?

[Gan]

ROFL

(thats actually the first time I've used it, and the thought of playing another long grind MMO (visual even) conjured images of that)

Props to Sean2 for providing the image source.

[Warriorbird]

HJ in 2015!

[The Ponzzz]

The grind in FFXI killed the game for me. For me it was, get to level 10 or 11 with as many base jobs as I could, then go to the normal spot as my main job. Get to 30, do it over again for sub job. Do it again for quest job. Do it again for new sub job for quest job. Realize I like ninjas and do it again. Realize ninjas suck and do it again with Dragoon.

And then when I called Square to say, I R DONE w/j00, they gave me the worst pile of steaming rhino shit ever. Basically threatening me that if I'm not back in a month everything would be DELETED!!! That only sucks because I had a Kraken Club.

Anyways, if HJ had a grind similiar to GS I'd still give it a shot. If I could go from 0 - cap in a year, I wouldn't bother with the game.

[kgolfer]

I actually have never played another online game other then GS......so I am tainted, although I took a 3+ year break from GS.

I can say for me though, what keeps me with GS, is the ability to level/train, the large world/multiple hunting grounds, etc.

After all these years (10 or so) of playing GS, if I would of not had the ability to level/train my character or "capped" a character after a month or so, I would of probably quit.

[bgoodsoil]

same here. I've never played any of the other games either but I've seen friends play them. If I capped too fast I'd quit. One of the large draws of RPGs is building your character, it feels productive. And when you get to a certain level where it takes 3 weeks to level the game becomes less of a grind to me anyways. It seems pointless to spend all my time trying to level because it's going to take so long so I end up actually RPing. It's made me more patient. I think I'd prefer a graphical game too but the fact that I've been playing for years and still only level 40 makes me stay with GS. I'm mainly making this post in the hopes that somebody in development agrees with me and makes it a longer game.

[Asha]

When I played GS I roleplayed a character that was uber powerful but couldn't really RP this untill he'd capped.
So you can imagine how I just wanted to RP but couldnt till I capped and that completely nearly sent me insane.
3.5 years till I did it I think, and that was really really pounding it.
If it's a slog in HJ I won't be signing up. Who wants to be a piss weak character and who wants to spend a massive portion of their free time just getting somewhere noticable?

[CrystalTears]

I don't think it's a fair comparison (again) of WoW to GS as WoW (whether they want to admit to it or not) is all about end gaming. To raid, earn rep and more rewards and so forth. GS doesn't offer anything at cap.

I'd play if HJ were just a graphic version of GS. I'm not really up for another grind to level and end game for ages thing anymore. I'd like to see some kind of end game content, but nothing that someone would feel they would have to do in order to enjoy the game.

[Fallen]

So the question is, What would GS need to add to make endgame worth while? I know what I want, but I am interested to hear what the more disenchanted come up with.

[Skeeter]

WoW is 2 completely different games. Leveling and End game. Unfortunately some people do not enjoy the end game raiding and WoW loses it's luster.

Personally I don't enjoy leveling and GS is only leveling. Once you hit cap there is no end game content. Having to grind out 3.5 years of hunting like it's your job, just to cap is silly.

I really enjoyed the first char I took to 60 on WoW but the game lost interest each successive character.

GS on the other hand I played for 10 years and my highest char is 50 because the leveling took on the aspect of physical pain.

[CrystalTears]

Yeah if there was a happy medium of both, I'd be happy.

I liked leveling in WoW, but it just feels like, for me, too much pressure to finish as the fun stuff is at the end, but it's too time consuming and group oriented. I don't mind leveling, but I mind if I HAVE to rely on other people to do it. I'd like that to be the option not the requirement. I like now the luxury of playing for a little while and leaving at a moment's notice. I don't have the patience for it anymore.

I didn't mind leveling in GS, I just wish it didn't take as long as it did. But I liked hunting/resting and roleplaying.

How they design (and if ever release) HJ is what will make or break me playing another game like that or WoW. They just have to keep the pricing on the same level as other games. They really can't do the whole prime/premium/platinum thing, I just won't go for that. One game for everyone, one price for everyone. Expansions are a different story as you need to access it, but you can still enjoy it without it.

[Asha]

The clincher for me, will be if they make a graphics based mmorpg out of HJ which focuses strictly on RP like GS does.
Then if the leveling isn't as much of a trawl as GS, I'm on board.

I'm not asking for it to be cappable in like a year. But WoW with RP would be fucking incredible. Heh

[Artha]

If it takes more than a few months to cap, I'm not interested.

GS IS BORING DO NOT MAKE IT WITH GRAPHICS.

[Fallen]

If it has graphics, the RP will suffer just by the nature of the imagination factor gone.

[Latrinsorm]

I like the current idea of the GS endgame. I'd like it better if we didn't have mechanics dominated by level.

[GS-Phoenix]

My argument is in favor of long term because either way, long or short term caps, you still need post cap content, alternate goals (PvP rep), non-boring grinding, rerolls for different races, skillsets, factions, guilds, other skill goals such as crafting and on and on.

A system that stretches out the playability of a game is more appealing to me than one that is instant gratification.

[Warriorbird]

Screw capping. Skills based system.

[Deathravin]

I liked the FFXI system. It took you quite a while to get to max level (probably about 3x that of WOW and 1/10000000000000000th the time of Gemstone). But since you could be any job at any time, you never really felt like you were AT max level. You were doing end-game stuff, but could still go experience noobie stuff as a noobie. It was a capped skill based system - so at level 1 your skill cap might be 5... at level 20 it might be 90... etc. So you didn't automatically get those skillups, but you couldn't get the high skills without the level.

And skills carry over between jobs. So if you skilled up your edged weapons to 200 on level 75 warrior. If you switched to level 10 Paladin, it would be capped for level 10.

[GS-Phoenix]

Even with a skills systems you need to put a cap on it. Eventually.

FFXI was fun. Its the difference between long terms and short terms. Either way whats holding the player to the game?

[Deathravin]

Well what should be holding a player to a game is new content...

But something that really stuck in my head was this comment from a GM of HJ on this board: http://heroshall.com/forums/showthread.php?p=33709#post33709

People were talking back and forth about immersion. And somebody brought up DR, she said she had an item for months and months and accidently found some scripts in it... Or how she got trapped in a room and couldn't get out for 20 minutes... And just how its a world 'full of secrets'

then somebody asked:

How would you do this sort of 'surprise, look what you can do!' sort of thing into a graphical game?


Not tell you how to do it

That, I think, is really only part of it, however. I'll use FFXI for an example - if I get an item, I can go online and find out that the particular item is made by doing this or killing this mob, it has these properties, and these hidden properties. I can even go in and see how much it's selling on all the auction houses on all the servers and the action over the last 2 years on that item... That's ANY item... Anything what-so-ever... There are only so many items and in order to introduce another item, you have to put in an update or expansion - even then there are no mysteries because people just read the DAT files of the game and look it up...

In Gemstone there are millions of items, and (for the most part) once they're not being sold in a particular merchant anymore, they never come back... There are too many, with attributes so widly varied, to have a large database online to tell what each one does.

One example I can think of. Lets say somebody buys a stunning choker sold a few years ago at some random merchant... They put it on (*click*) and never take it off because they like it so much. One day a few years later they're running around and somebody wants to look at it... They try to take it off (STUN)... what was that?... try again (STUN!)... Where do you go to see how to take it off? What resource do you have? People that know is all, because there IS no database, there ISN'T anywhere with all the answers.

When I go to town I have to use the .guildx script to find the rogue guild the first time because there's no other way I can think of to find the damn thing, not even on any of Tsoran's maps...
If Tsin decided today to give up everything he had and close his accounts, dropping every single item in TSC. How would we know what everything does? You could wave an item and it turns you into an undead frog forever... Mystery is all we have.

[Deathravin]

I think HJ will be able to do that. I think that's why they had to make their own engine, none of the others could do this properly.

[Warriorbird]

I don't think HJ will exist.

[CrystalTears]

I love how people are so convinced of how awesome this engine is and the most evidence we have of HJ is a bunch of background artwork.

[Tea & Strumpets]

I don't think HJ will exist.

They'll probably send something clunking out into the market sometime in the next century. I think a few good GM's left Gemstone to go work on HJ, but Simutronics is just a horrible company with things like meeting timelines, paying employees, any sense of reliability, etc.

[Latrinsorm]

I love how people are so convinced of how awesome this engine is and the most evidence we have of HJ is a bunch of background artwork.Those BioWare guys seemed pretty convinced.

[Warriorbird]

The engine IS awesome. The customers illustrate that. It doesn't mean HJ will ever see a release. Whatley's a genius at getting money making residuals cheaply.