Boogie Down Productions

[Crazyfingers]

In regards to endgame:

What is needed is a purpose to exist.
There comes a time in a chrs life when he feels he got enough xp and is rdy to do something with his toon finally.
The problem is, from an adv perespective, there is nothing to do.

I think many have a wrong or at least different interpretations of what endgame means. Maybe its not really the best word to use at all. Anikitos defined it pretty well here.
The best example I have is a character I played in UO 5-7? years ago. Leveled Alchemist and Poisoner to 100. Then traveled around the towns selling potions and deadly poisoned blades. Had to shop for the reagents, find a maker of high quality daggers, advertise my goods and build customer base. The traveling alchemist was the endgame. The leveling was just the path to get there.

U dont see this in horizons, most crafters arent merchants, they just want to level as many crafts to 100. Most dont care about selling goods, it a pain for them, a distraction from their monotonous treadmill. Dont believe me? Ask a high level crafter to make u something one or two tiers below their level. AE is only partially at blame for this. They need to give players the tools for better endgame. One simple thing for players that like to craft and sale their goods would be a character notepad. Where you could right down what services you offer, prices, etc. Then when someone clicks on your toon's notepad they can see what u have to offer.

The bigger blame is us. Since there really isnt any sort of competition for customers, most think thier claim to fame is bragging about how much coins they have and how fast they can make coins off the pawnbrokers. This isnt a endgame, healthy economy or anything remotely noble. Just garbage

Again if Horizons gave us the tools, this could be changed. If more rewards were givin for selling items to others, such as status for number of sales.

KneeHigh Shinkicker Master Merchant of Tools etc...

More would be advertising their products and interested in making lower level items for new players.
Pawnbrokers suck period.

This is just an example of my idea of endgame on the crafting side of things.

I truely believe Horizons through their financial difficulties and taking advice from elitist suggestions, have lost their creative juices.

I understand that this is a small company, im notasking them to reinvent the wheel, just add some simple things to make the wheel better (Two Bind Points).

Speak up folks, I know theres alot of creative people out there.

NimKhazad

[CeroBostwick]

Although I agree pawnbrokers suck and have never sold any of my goods to them to make coin (and for those that know me, this may explain why I am always poor) I take issue with thinking people don't make things "a couple tiers below them". I am by trade an Armorer, and there are many that can attest I am just as happy to make a suit of bronze as I am mithril; especially since I don't charge for any of my armors.

There are a great many others out there that are just as giving of themselves and their craft, so by no means do I claim to be different. Then again, I have always thought we had an exceptional player base overall, so it is no surprise to me; perhaps you have just asked the wrong folks for goods..[;)]

[Thorgat]

I like your post Crazyfingers very much. Endgame in the way of UO will not fit to Hz as the play base would scream and the whole design is made around soft-caps, I think. But people from UO raised that point already too at Horizonsempire, that in their eyes reaching the level cap means a kind of freedom they suddenly feel, no longer a need to level but suddenly time to RP.
While I can't really understand to feel a pressure to level on just because you CAN, I think too that more people stopping levelling from this group pressure or so to level might help the community to offer more player made entertainment. I made a post about this some time ago at tazoon about what reward types exist in my opinion and that horizons atm almost only allows rewards straight to a goal. Like leveling up, you do something for a direct payment, xp for example or tech ressource farming or such stuff. And most people get bored after some time with this type of reward, as its too repeatable. And than ask for a kind of endgame or so. In the end its only asking for some kind of special, not-direct reward thing, isn't it?

I think this all fits together basically, as more varying or unpredictable reward appears or the risk/outcome is less predictable, as more fun is a process. XP gain is not at all fun as the task and goal itself I'd say. Level up is fun because you gain something extra and it doesn't happen to often. Loot is normally a good reward as it is paying several things, collecting instinct, status to have rare stuff and its unpredictable = surprise moment. Of course that interferes with crafter goals but this blighted, decaying equippment could work - thought I'm worried from what I heard about the item duration that is likely to appear according to smeglors statement.

And the blight anchor attacks are a kind of side-wards reward thing too. At least I have nobody so far heard saying how much xp you get per anchor or such "business" stuff instead people in the game are excited when they spot them, rush to it, die several times but when they manage to get it down are happy they did.
Its a very good thing as the xp you might get nobody thinks about when gathering a group and instead it comes as a side effect of the fun you do.
If people are entertained like that, nobody ever would ask about an endgame, would they?
So I think its on the right way here to make people stop feeling the need for such a thing. But of course it needs to be tweaked further, keep unpredictable or surprising behavior if possible. And of course that fills in only an adventurer need in at least tier 3, but not a crafter one.

What I think is missing are other things like that, sidewards rewarded things that make you not think about leveling up while you do them but be completelly attached to what you do while you do. And that we have a major issue here with many MMORPGs I've played. They are all linear created, like you start at point a and than comes b and than c. You can spend your own time at those points but if you ever want to have something new or rewarding, you need to get on. Its an extremly long stretched but narrow playstyle those offer.
From my years at UO freeshard as a role player (of course we are a weird bunch of people, I know) I can say that: the engine those use, the technical capability to get on is often extremly bad. Fighting in UO in general is for example only fun because you have to make sure you stick at your enemy and use bandages and potions etc. often enough. So you are whole time in need to react to your enemy. But apart from that it is utterly simple and can't compete with anything in "modern" MMORPGs you would say, don't you think? But many play it and don't feel bored with UO itself - because it is very short but wide. And people have so many things to do (even with only being adventurer) that are equal to each other that variety allows to have a fresh feel for all of them. Of course its very boring to PG in UO too, to start the linear play style for direct gain. But its fortunatelly cut of very fast so people can't feel bored by that very long. As weird that might sound but that is why I think so many people still play UO and like it so much: variety to choose from and you are prohibited to threadmill from the skillcap.

Another thing I realized, was when I played at some freeshards that were only in beta. For those of you not familar with UO freeshards, it means no wipe or so and several never leave beta status for years, it means the normal stuff to play with a very limited engine supported game and figure out bugs or make suggestions.
But people really PLAY. And enjoy that thoroughly, for years often.
The point is, people don't play with the expectation that they suddenly get a bunch of feature or it gets better soon. They don't play by engine in the way people play the modern MMORPGs today.

But instead they play almost entirely from the engine stuff ONLY UO has.
Fluff stuff. Herd animals, take care for their feed, tame new ones, sell them, write books, make little quests, go on treasure hunt, plant seeds and make gardens, make food and beverage and run taverns, explore the world with all the stuff you need (camp fires or torches and sleeping bags and tents and hunt some food etc.) or have picknicks or whatever. Its the stuff most freeshards or used emu's offer as the basic thing.
People at those freeshards level extremly slow in average anyway. Its ment to need years to make a gm. And the class restrictions of what you are not allowed to do are horribly strict. So nothing for mass at all. But what is important in my eyes: several hundred or thousand people play this extreme style and still people don't get bored.
And no, it is not as simple to say "well, all masochists". :P
I think the reason is, all of it is sidewards reward.

You make a weapon to sell it to some person. That is the reward, feeling pride to have done so, get even some money and as side effect maybe level. But the point is the actual trade. Its something very different to have a peoples market/trading than a pawn or even consigner.
(I think consigner are a good thing, don't remove them of course, but they take away rewarding interaction of people instead its a parallel isolation of people standing in front of it. So I'd prefer to encourage the reward situation, make people willing to trade much more obvious as I suggested in suggestions forum some time ago, give their name a sign or special temporary title or so)

You run a tavern to see people gathering there and have interaction, be proud for the "full house" AND earn some money with what you sell - but you make what you sell or buy it not with the point to level but to have a good offer. A tavern is not ment to be an empty room with a food-npc only and if ever only full of completelly clear headed people, I'm glad furniture will change that. But beverage is desperatelly needed too. ;)

You get a wandering story teller because you take pride in the delight some show when you tell stories, this is entirely sidewards, absolutelly no direct gain to expect. Unfortunatelly 1) there is no room that fits nicely for a story telling, only empty ... hehe, yes, furniture, 2) in my eyes there is no char that looks like a story teller should look (old and bend and a robe with hood) but thats not so much a problem, much more a problem is 3) missing lore corner stones. I've played the role of story teller already a few times when I wasn't so busy RL, but its hard to create anything istaria-like when so few is known about the races or so you could hook it on. And making something about history wouldn't work as we don't know the history now and it could too well be completelly nonsense than. Its odd to be a story teller, a collector of lore, when you don't know your history well.

Than there are no pets, no fires, almost no ambience sound, no weather, no way to dive into this world and start to feel inspired to make your own story. For my game play that is very very hard. Because those things are what if you really want something to be named "end game" would be mine.

Hz is not designed to be a narrow game that almost relies entirely on direct reward as EQ. And it's not a wide game as UO so far. It is what we call in germany "not fish not meat" at the moment. That makes the feel of something missing so strong I think. You unite both kind of player but for noone you offer the "real" thing as those other, specialized do. Its not accusation, its just my kind of analyze I would do.
Of course I know UO has grown a long time and 2D is far from being 3D handling ressources, but that is where I see the biggest lack for horizons so far. I don't shake my head thinking "my, my, what a pitty thing did AE put on here". I'm far from that and believe it can grow from the technical base it has into what will be marvelous wide, sidewards-rewarding and by that eliminate any feel of people they would need a "endgame" anymore, as they just enjoy what they do whole time without most of the time think about level this or level that with task xyz.
But its still some way to go, I think thats for sure.
And because of that we have this "endgame" call, a thing as difuse and un-MMORG like as it could be.