Can I argue some, please?
You talk a lot about enjoyment of the game. Let me ask you a question.
Do the people playing "Monopoly" play for competition or for fun?
Imagine the shoe bought all properties at a 1% discount. Would
that make you want to be the shoe? What if that discount was 10% or 25%,
or higher? Eventually it won't be fun to be the hat, because the shoe
will almost always win.
EQ is a lot like this skewed Monopoly. The shoe is the unbalanced
class, and those that like the Hat or the Thimble want the shoe
balanced. This IS competition, and a lot of people that play, do so
for competition, and their fun comes from the competition, not from
the play. That is not a bad thing.
>
> From: silky@...
>
> Well, obviously you are competing - I do NOT compete. Period. Things like
> cheating, duping, kill stealing affect confidence in the game itself - in
> the game mechanics, etc. It's important to stop those things for confidence
> reasons, not necessarily because it has such world shattering effects (at
> least in EQ in it's current state)
>
Competition is not bad. Don't make it sound bad. There is cheating/duping
in single player (no competition) games, these have nothing to do with
competition.
> This is where the difference between play and competition comes in. I play
> to PLAY not compete. Competition by it's nature has a winner and loser -
> play does not. Does the first one to lvl 50 get a cookie that no one told
> me about?
>
Competition is one of the primary reasons some of us play the game. If
I want a game to play without competition I could play Tomb Raider 4.
Not competing with anyone there, I could spend hours upon hours trying
to figure out how to pull that lever, oh how boring, and I'm back to EQ.
(PS. TR4 isn't any better than 3, or 2 *sigh*)
EQ gives us that want/need competition the arena for it. We don't want
class balance for competition, we want class balance for diversity.
>
> Again, you are looking at this as a competition. So what if it's crowded? I
> hunt what I can, when I can - if someone else gets it, oh well. Mobs are
> good little trains - another is along every X min. like clockwork. If an
> area is so massively crowded that I can't move - I just log - or find
> somewhere else to hunt.
>
If you LOG you aren't playing EQ! That is not a solution to the crowded
problem. Verant wants you to play, not log because its crowded.
> I regularly visit areas that are WAY under my level. I also regularly save
> low level players from trains or certain death - I ENJOY doing that. Is my
> presence depriving them of the joy of death? Do you think my presence there
> is resented? If it is, I've never heard anyone remark on it.
>
I never do this. Occasionally I go back and kill Dvinn and Dorn, get
some revenge, but I never purpose go de-rail trains or heal. I don't
enjoy doing it. Don't hate me, don't even look worse on me because
of this. EQ is a game in every aspect, and play the game for your
own enjoyment. Not for what another person thinks should be your
enjoyment.
> If you let what another has affect YOUR enjoyment - that is a problem of
> yours you need to address.
Its not a problem! EQ is a game in every aspect, and play the game
for whatever reason you want to play the game. If someone tells you
that you would enjoy the game if you didn't compete as much, IGNORE
them. If you enjoy the competition (and many do), go for
competition, if bad Verant rules make the competition unbalanced, please
do let it be known.
When player X is super powerful and has the Dots and DD and wonderful
items AND a pet that is in itself more powerful than other classes of
its level, it causes problems.
My friend, the level 50 warrior cannot get a group, because a necro with
a pet is better, I cannot get a group, because the necro with the pet
is better. In fact, everyone is DE necros. Run for your lives!!! Thus
my enjoyment is NOT affectd by what Joe the Necro has, but by what The
Necro class in whole offers.
I am not jealous of any 1 person in the game, I am upset that an item I was
dying to get for 3 months is removed just before I hit the appropriate
level to get it.
>
> >Can you deny that when too many people are in Unrest, your
> >enjoyment of the game suffers? Do you think it suddenly
> >becomes that way once you exceed X number of people? Of
> >course not. As X increases from 0, the average enjoyment of
> >the players goes up (easier to break in), peaks, then starts
> >to go down. Being too high level, twinked, having equipment
> >unavailable to others, etc, can cause your contribution to X
> >to be greater than 1; meaning if things are at the downward
> >slope of the enjoyment curve, your presence is hurting them
> >more than their presence is hurting you.
Excellent! I was going to respond to just this analysis, but was
too lazy. This is exactly whats going on. I was in unrest the
other day and hardly no one was there. My group wanted to pull from
the second floor, but we couldn't because there was hardly no one else
pulling from the first or second floor. There is a nice range of
player count where Unrest is fun. Too few people, and I would
spend all my time killing greens for no xp, too many people, and
I would spend all my time opening up doors and looking at empty
closets.
Ludvaraman