New Design & Development: Paladin Smites!

[HeinorNY]

The more the 4E's design philosophy gets closer to WoW mehcanics, the better it will be as a game, and since it IS a game and not a mini-drama-theatre, I'm loving the news so far.

D&D4E FTW.

 

[Skaven_13]

Wrong.

Everquest was, and still is, a niche game. At it's highest, it never featured more than 750k active users. It was never prominently featured in several TV shows, unlike WoW (in fact, the South Park episode won an Emmy). It hasn't featured several commercials played on prominent networks. It doesn't have a world tournament for it's PvP. It doesn't have dozens of spin-off products, including novels, board games, card games, roleplaying games (it had one, but that seems to be inactive right now), comic books, action figures, collectible dioramas. It was never optioned for a movie, nor does it come up in the blogs of tons of industry luminaries (both videogame and normal RPG). Based on it's popularity alone, Blizzard was able to hold a rather large convention (twice!) that was bigger than the Everquest meets that Sony held (I live in San Diego, I've seen them).

Hell, in one month's time, WoW had a higher user base than EQ did at it's peak, and this was after 5 years of EQ being dominant.

So, no, Everquest never ever made it to the mainstream.

I'll agree to disagree with you on this, so that we don't derail this into an everquest vs wow thread. I'm not trying to say that everquest is better than wow. With how much popularity wow has now, I would agree that wow has definitely exceeded anything that everquest was. Everquest did have spin-off material though including toys, a simpsons spoof, and a film slated for 2009/2010. A lot of wow's popularity came from the fact that blizzard's warcraft rts games were insanely popular.

Also, remember that internet access has increased in the past 7 years, so people that might not have had access even 4 years ago, now use the internet for all sorts of things.

But, I'll go back to my original statement, a graphical interface and increased internet access brought the muds/mush systems into the mainstream. Personally, I don't play either.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Regardless of what the paladin in WOW is like, you've got your causality inverted. The early version WOW paladin you had experience with is an explicit homage to the cleric in D&D. The data flows from D&D to WOW, not the other way around.

Indeed. That's why I rolled a WoW paladin, since it looked close to the D&D cleric, which was obviously one of the two most powerful classes (I'd've rolled druid if I could've been ANYTHING that wasn't a NE on Alliance!).

I could only wish that my Crusader Strike would heal my allies or increase their avoidance.

Brad

 

[The Little Raven]

I'm not trying to say that everquest is better than wow.

I'm not trying to say the opposite is true. I'm merely saying that WoW has entered the mainstream because of it's popularity and the many references made to it by pop culture.

Everquest did have spin-off material though including toys, a simpsons spoof, and a film slated for 2009/2010.

Everquest had a number of other video games put out, and the Simpsons reference you speak of was a level in the latest Simpsons video game... not quite the same as being featured as the focus of an entire episode, nor having Captain Kirk (dressed as a Jedi, no less!) or Mr T do commercials for you. They have a few novels (4, I believe) and the roleplaying game. And that movie has been "in development" since EQ launched, and has no believable studio behind it.

That's a paltry penetration into the mainstream compared to WoW, which has more people aware of it than Everquest ever did.

A lot of wow's popularity came from the fact that blizzard's warcraft rts games were insanely popular.

Indeed. Diablo 2 was only beaten by Warcraft 3 which was only beaten by World of Warcraft. Blizzard makes some fine games.

But, I'll go back to my original statement, a graphical interface and increased internet access brought the muds/mush systems into the mainstream.

And again, I'll disagree. Up until WoW, MMOs were still considered to be nerd havens, for those people that would rather interact with people from their computer than in real life. And because of the amount of time you had to put into the game to achieve anything worthwhile, it was somewhat true. It wasn't until WoW came out with easier progression, a more appealing aesthetic, and casual gameplay that the cultural view of MMOs changed from "nerdfest" to something more.

 

[HeinorNY]

Explain to me why a paladin needs to buff party members in order to be considered a leader.

Because it does happen in real life.

In real life leaders give psychological "buffs" to everybody.
People that are motivated and with good morale work better and fight better, they can do almost everything more effectively.

But even the best and most dramatic role playing on the table can't motivate the dice, so we need mechanical buff to simulate the psychological motivation.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

*Shakes head sadly*

Roleplaying, where art thou? No offense meant, but this line of thought is precisely what is turning me off from the latest incarnations of D&D.

I kinda see your point. You could just rely on roleplaying for making a character feel like a leader.

But many (I am not saying all, and I am not willing to bet if it's actual the majority or a minority) people prefer to express their character abilities in game terms.
If a character was supposed to be a sailor before starting his adventurers career, he better has a few ranks in Profession (Sailor) (and maybe a host of other skills, depending on personal taste, group style and your compromise with the existing rules for skills and skill points).

If your character is a leader, he better have abilities that make him good at leading people - a high charisma score, a good diplomacy/leadership skill (the latter exists in other games, not D&D), and he should be able to guide his comrades in battle, too. The latter can be done by just having a clever player (coming up with good battle plans), but if a "non-leader-material" player wants to play a leader, he might not have the best plans. (But maybe another player has, and he suggests them and the group pretend the suggestion was actually from the leader type character or was agreed on by him). Or he has mechanical abilities that boost the other PCs, regardless of how bad the tactics he uses are actually.

There is, obviously, another camp, that might find mechanics for such things a restriction or unneccessary, because you could just play them out. And they are not wrong. That is a valid possibility.

The best would probably to combine both concepts, but if in doubt, personally (based on my personal experience with my group ) I go the "mechanical" route in a game system.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Because it does happen in real life.

In real life leaders give psychological "buffs" to everybody.
People that are motivated and with good morale work better and fight better, they can do almost everything more effectively.

Agreed. A lot of WW2 (and later conflict) accounts illustrate this handily.

 

[neceros]

Actually, the damaging of my enemies is only going to happen when facing undead, and that is because of how healing is considered positive energy and the fact that undead take damage from positive energy. Turn the enemies into any living opponent, and now you are healing your enemies as well.

Did I say that this is the one I prefer? No. Did I say it was even a good mechanic? No. In fact, it's a bad mechanic, but I prefer it over single ally healing.

I don't remember where, but I'm almost positive they've said they are getting rid of "positive" and "negative" damage and just using "Healing" and "Damage."

Although, "Healing" may still damage undead, as it may be.

Everquest was, and still is, a niche game. At it's highest, it never featured more than 750k active users. It was never prominently featured in several TV shows, unlike WoW (in fact, the South Park episode won an Emmy). It hasn't featured several commercials played on prominent networks. It doesn't have a world tournament for it's PvP. It doesn't have dozens of spin-off products, including novels, board games, card games, roleplaying games (it had one, but that seems to be inactive right now), comic books, action figures, collectible dioramas. It was never optioned for a movie, nor does it come up in the blogs of tons of industry luminaries (both videogame and normal RPG). Based on it's popularity alone, Blizzard was able to hold a rather large convention (twice!) that was bigger than the Everquest meets that Sony held (I live in San Diego, I've seen them).

So, no, Everquest never ever made it to the mainstream.

Actually, Everquest has been in movies before: The New Guy
Everquest Movie: http://movies.ign.com/articles/825/825306p1.html
EverQuest Theater Trailer: http://movies.station.sony.com:7000/patch/web/eq2/cg.wmv
EverQuest 2 features Christopher Lee, Heather Graham, and a myriad of other voice actors: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0428505/

Sure, at the time, MMOs weren't entirely as mainstream as other games, but WoW was developed entirely because EverQuest was so popular amongst gamers. Blizzard saw an oppertunity from Sony and decided to hit it.


Regardless, games in all forms take note on what works when creating balance. Yes, this is a role playing table top game, and I agree whole heartily that D&D should never be considered or resemble an MMO. However, MMOs, Computer RPGs, and especially video entertainment will always be a good source of ideas and uses when creating games, including RPGs.

It's not a bad thing -- it's the natural way of things. So long as you are allowed to play your character the way you want to play, and everyone at the table has fun doing what they like to do, whether that be roll play or role play, then what's the problem?

Even I have to choose to ignore some things I don't like in respect for the greater game.

 

[The Little Raven]

I don't remember where, but I'm almost positive they've said they are getting rid of "positive" and "negative" damage and just using "Healing" and "Damage."

Good. This means no more of that "Healing is conjuration of positive energy, while the opposite is not a conjuration of negative energy" nonsense.

 

[Abstraction]

I like how the Charisma mechanic mirrors the cleric choice in 3E. Do I want to be strong and a decent fighter? Or do I want to be Charismatic and lay the smack on undead? Only, of course, the Paladin doesn't have to hope for any specific type of enemy if he chooses the Charismatic route.