[MUD-Dev] [ssows] thinking about EQ2 - kill locking (fwd)

[Ken Snider]

Bart Simon <simonb at alcor.concordia.ca> wrote (in a forward):

> Just wanted to pick up on Lisa's comments about kill locking. I am
> dumbfounded by this feature - if there is any case for game
> designers contracting ethnographers for useability studies it is
> this.  In story after story player remarks about those lone ranger
> types who ride in save the day when they are just about to bite
> it. Players seek to build their reps and their game identities
> this way and these unplanned events are what make for the truely
> heroic episodes of the kind memories are made (absolutely right on
> Lisa).

This is precisely why the "yell for help" option "unlocks" the MOB,
allowing you to to "ride in and save the day", so to speak.

> Anyway, linked to kill locking is that all the strategizing for
> dealing with group aggro (pulling one, rooting another, mezzing a
> few - botching the job then pulling out the beautiful save) is
> gone because mobs are linked in a group and they all go at
> once... and really fast too.

I get the impression the OP hasn't actually *played* the
game. "crowd control" remains a very real skill, as you need to
control the agro and actions of all the MOBs in your
encounter. Nothing has changed in that sense (if you consider the EQ
non-locking paradigm, you'd pull MOBs, and control the "Adds" that
came along. The fact that you know in advance who the "adds" will be
does not negate the need to do something about them!)

The other points are still valid - with respect to "funneling"
gameplay into one ideology or another - however, in this case, the
basis of the direction of EQ2 seems to not jive with the reality of
how the game mechanics actually *work*.

--
Ken Snider
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