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Awesome update to the Pantheon Atlas
sludgebeard
Member RarePosts: 788
http://www.pantheonmmo.com/images/atlas-hi-res.jpg
As a fan of fantasy art in general, and unique sounding places to visit that appear straight on the worlds map, this map really gets me stoked to travel and adventure in this world.
Side Note: I would reccomend zooming in all the way on the image to get the detail of each tile area's.
So far my favorite places listed on the map are:
"Thronefast (Avendyr's Seat)"
"Tower of the Reckless Magician"
"Skargol"
"The Broken Maw"
What do you guys think of the new map? Anything else interesting you noticed while looking at the map?
As a fan of fantasy art in general, and unique sounding places to visit that appear straight on the worlds map, this map really gets me stoked to travel and adventure in this world.
Side Note: I would reccomend zooming in all the way on the image to get the detail of each tile area's.
So far my favorite places listed on the map are:
"Thronefast (Avendyr's Seat)"
"Tower of the Reckless Magician"
"Skargol"
"The Broken Maw"
What do you guys think of the new map? Anything else interesting you noticed while looking at the map?
Comments
Thronefast - Humans
Faerthale - Elves
Wild's End - Halflings
Syronai's Rest - Dark Myr
Broken Maw - Ogres
Skargol - Skar
Whether or not I have them right, we'd still be missing 3 races (Archai, Dwarves, and Gnomes). This might mean there's another continent they haven't released yet.
Everything looks great, can't wait to see more.
The Archai live in "Su'Roa", which is neighbor to the Gnomes, and is "rich of crystals and ores".
The Dwarves live in the fortress "Khadassa", which is apparently icy.
The Gnomes live in "Skyhold", which is a floating city.
*eyes the ship leaving Ru'Lun port*
Does this mean we will have ship travel? Like in Vanguard?
It looks like the Halflings will be filling the role of Wood Elves/Kelethin from EQ. They remind me more of George RR Martin's Children of the Forest than Tolkien's Hobbits. That's probably pretty clear from the lore too... I should read it.
I am so good, I backstabbed your face!
That is a big concern of mine as well. In any game that has meaningful travel, you could see how much it ruined the game once they put in the fast travel. A player should take a lot of time and effort to see the game. In EQ, that was part of the adventure and mystery as there were some zones where it was unreasonable (or foolhardy, which was exciting in itself) to be able to see them until you were high enough level due to the danger of crossing the numerous zones that led to it. Then how long did it take before you were able to explore past Kael Drakkel, through Wakening Lands, Skyshrine, Colbalt Scar, Sirens Grotto on into Eastern Wastes due to the various faction gates.
Between the factions, the levels and danger, environment restrictions (underwater breathing, airless areas in SoL, etc...), the size of zones and various requirements to get to them, EQ felt like a dangerous and exciting world to explore.
Sure, certain classes could obtain spells to get to some areas, but those spells had to be collected in the zones in the first place and even then, you still had to find someone willing to port you if you weren't one of those classes.
A common mistake I see in games today (after watching MMO after MMO do this) is that they mistake game play elements as "convenience" features. Travel is not a "convenience", nor is bag space, difficult conditions, requirements, being able to solo, having things easily pointed out (ie quests), having to look for a group, search for a rare mob/item, recover a corpse from a death, etc... those are game play features and removing them ends with the games we have today, to which everyone is standing around complaining about how lack luster games are today.
It is these subtle things like travel, waiting on a boat, etc... that puts into perspective the world.
As for the map, it looks like a good start to some great adventuring!
I will never understand people who bash fast travel. Whats it about running for half an hour through a world that you've seen countless times before thats so appealing ? IMHO its just really boring.
I think either the levelup areas should be connected, or the levelup should be really, really slow. Much, much slower than in Vanguard. The cracks there did maxlevel characters in less than a week.
Also, there will be mechanisms for fast-travel, they just won't be instantly available with no human interaction. Higher level players will rarely, if ever, walk somewhere. Their group members will port them to their intended destination, or they can simply offer to pay someone for a port. Plus there will most likely be run speed spells (SoW) and mounts that turn your 30 minute run into 15 minutes.
The reason some of us dislike fast travel is because it trivializes the world. If every location is only 1 minute and a couple of button clicks away, the world might as well be a list of rooms you select from a UI. To really feel immersed in a world you need to have the right perspective, and that can be achieved through non-instant travel. This same argument could be made for a harsher death penalty, but I digress.
So before we get too far off topic: How about that unnamed castle with the tentacles in the moat? I'm looking forward to exploring that!
Because fast travel makes the world much smaller. It removes the danger, the planning, the exploration, and risk. I don't see how it is boring, I mean... some of the most exciting times I had playing EQ was the wonder at where I was, where I was going, what lay behind the next hill there and what dangers I might have to avoid to get past it.
Travel is a subtle element of play that made the game a world and not some arcade simulator for quick play entertainment. There was accomplishment in finding and moving to certain zones. This took time, skill, and caution. Not only that, but being a group game, you usually made friends with people and planned grouping times with each other. It was not uncommon to log out in an area that you and your group traveled to so that you could group the next evening.
In EQ we were explorers. Each time new content came out (pre-PoP with its fast travel hub), we didn't just pop into a teleport and shoot off to the zone of our choice. You had to explore the content. In Velious, we grouped up and heading out. The travel was part of the game. In fact that is how we discovered many things in the game. We would be moving as a group and someone would notice something in the distance and we would head off that way.
I remember playing on Test server in EQ at the release of Kunark. I remember heading over on a boat with friends to The Overthere, we continued to travel up into Warsilks woods and it was a dense forest we got lost in. While stumbling around, we came across a small cave entrance which happened to go in deeper and led to the eventual dungeon Dalnir. We had to explore across multiple zones over hours of searching, running into one danger to the next, enjoying each others company, etc... We were a band of adventures truly, not an arcade avatar we smashed buttons and won prizes for.
See, the travel seems like it is just an inconvenience, but without it, there is no group effort of exploration, there is no risk of death and figuring out where the heck your corpse was as a group. There is no "Group" play. What you get with fast travel is instant access to any content and players "meet up" rather than explore together. There is no effort, no planning, and no class interdependence for classes who do have fast travel.
This is an important point. EQ was not all about combat. Classes had numerous skills that were for non-combat elements. Be in underwater breathing, night vision, run speed spells, levitation spells, feign death, etc... all of these tools were used for exploring the world. What fast travel does is remove that need for exploration. All those utility spells that were tools designed for the a world, were removed and what you ended up with is games today which are all about running as fast as one can from one combat to the next. If that is all you are doing, there is no need for all those interesting spells and to be honest, if that is the goal, there is no need for Pantheon, as there are already numerous games out there attending to that design.
Before fasttravel in Vanguard, thats exactly what was happening. You wanted to go to the same level area of a different continent ... sure, possible, but prepare for an epic travel.
Thats Diablo 2, but not even remotely Vanguard.
Getting back to town quickly was possible if you had a mage with evac, but there was no shortcut for getting back. Well I guess you could have a healer with call, but then the healer had to stay behind - and this trick only worked in certain dungeons and you still would have to get close to the area before it worked, plus the healer had to stay behind.
Depending upon your target area and the speed of your mount, you still had to travel, I dunno, on average probably one chunks, so I guess on average terrain and with average mounts about five minutes, for more remote destinations 10 or 15 minutes.
Having a flying mount, a real one like a Wyven, was very time saving, as was getting all the magic items that would speed up your travel times on a mount. Especially since the highlevel areas havent been that well connected anyway.
Despite fast travel, Vanguard never felt small.
Ah. Inventory management, my favorite pastime ! ... not.
The main reason one had to return to base was repairs though. Fortunately for highlevel players there have been repairs and even magic traders you could just pop, but they havent been easy to get a hold on.
That was the point though. This was a feature. No easy travel, if you wanted to go to some other area, you had to plan for it. This could mean needing a group to go with you if it was very dangerous, getting utility buffs, maybe even finding someone with a spell that could get your close to where you were looking to go. It could mean planning for what time you would be heading through a zone (ie is it Kithcore at night where mobs are level 40+, but during the day they are low level?).
Did you have enough food, water, spell components, etc... Do you know the way? Will you get lost as you travel?
That "epic travel" was the point. It made getting somewhere meaningful.
Yep, you had to have tools available, which made classes important who had them. This is class interdependence, a reliance on other classes for more than just combat. The thing about games like Vanguard (before SoE started mainstreaming it) and EQ was that the game was more than just combat, it was about the world and the choices/consequences that existed in it. Everything was a choice, a pro/con and it built the importance such. It was a game of risk/reward.
Again, a game feature. Games aren't about eating pie and cake and everyday is sunshine every moment of play. A game has the player weight pros and cons, risks and rewards in everything they do.
Think about it a moment as to the levels of game play something as simple as inventory management brings.
Space management itself requires selection as to what is most valuable to keep. This also adds the element of seeking bigger and better increases in carrying capability. Add weight to the mix and you create a pro/con system for races/classes. The fighter has the strength to carry more, the weak mage does not. This adds more options for various tools such as magic bags with weight reduction, increased space, etc...
This whole process also affects the process of money acquisition. People then have to choose what is worth keeping rather than hording every drop because their pockets are an infinite storage locker.
Travel, inventory management, and many other features mainstream games take for granted are key features to these types of games. When people long for the days of old school gaming, it is the risk/reward, the difficulties, etc... that they remember as that made the journey in the game all the more rewarding. Games today do not provide this, everything is handed to you. You don't manage your inventory, you don't manage you travel, you simply rush off to place to place to kill and loot. That is not what Pantheon is about, that was not what EQ was about and that was not what Vanguard was about. Vanguard changed quite drastically in SoE's hands. When many talk about the slow degradation of Vanguard, they talk about the convenience changes made to the game by SoE over the years.
I am the one you need to know
I'm the Map!
I'm the Map!
I'm the Map!
If there is a place you got to get
I can get you there I bet
I'm the Map!
I'm the Map!
I'm the Map!
I'm the Map!
I'm the Map!
I'm the Map!
I'm the Map!
I'm the Map!
I'm the Map!
I'm the Map!
I'm the Map!
I'm the Map!
Whelp, that song will be stuck in my head all day. Thanks:)
The only means of "fast travel" that should be in the game should be Druid & Wizard portals. Bring back boats. I don't have the time I used to but I still love a game having this in it because it makes it require any sort of effort to accomplish stuff. I could log into any current MMO and max out/gear up incredibly quick with absolutely NO sense of accomplishment. I think they should follow in the footsteps of EQ honestly. The world felt "dangerous" because you had to explore and find your way through each area. Kithicor at night anyone? Talking about worrisome. Bring back zones that changed based on day/night cycle.
You had to learn the ins and outs of each zone by traveling. With quick travel, zones are trumped and become too small, no dangerous feeling to the world. They should have run speed buffs similar to the Druids "SoW" or Shaman or anyone who could cast a run speed buff. Do away with mounts and put more emphasis on play effects like that Druid SoW buffs. I miss the days of seeing in chat "paying for SoW" or "paying for clarity" Make players matter again. Too much is put on passive type items like mounts or flying mounts or quick travel shit. Put it back on the player. Itll bring players close again
They should make buffs more important and more powerful how they were in EQ. You "felt" the effects of buffs in that game. Nowadays buffs are meaningless and don't really feel the effect of them. A haste buff in EQ was like night and day in EQ(granted there wasn't an abundance of active abilities in the game but still), a run speed buff was night and day, Bards run speed song was incredible! Their haste songs, their mana regen songs,etc, Enchanters haste buffs or mana regen buffs buffs were felt and noticeable. Shaman stat buffs were amazing and could tell a huge difference. Effects in the game had more oomph behind them and it made the game and world feel more magical. Bring that back. Make them important or make them feel how they were. There was so much that was done right for games not to take from it. Instead games take the quickest way to both a dollar and quickest way to gear. Put the worlds back in these game worlds.
Obviously, those who cheat online are the ones the ruin their game, but there can be a certain level of adaption the game can take to achieve variability for those who do not apply such methods. That is, there are many things that can be applied to the zones to create randomness. It could be roaming camps, mysterious events triggered by environments, time, situation, and random flow which would continuously change elements within an area.
Combine that with old EQ style requirements of travel and exploration and it would make repeat travel through the zone unique, interesting, dangerous, and volatile.
The point is, make it so each transition through the zone is "unknown". Make it so the party may have no issues, some issues, or down right end of the world issues upon transition between certain zones. Make travel DANGROUS, RISKY, something that people worry about when they think about going from one place to another. That is what made these games exciting.
There are plenty of lobby games out there already. For the rest of us, there will be Pantheon.
One of my first experiences as a new player (to mmos in general) in Vanguard was, at a low level, grouping with someone who later mentioned they had a boat. he offered our group a ride after we were done questing and, since not many people had one at that point we all jumped at the chance. I had to leave soon after so I logged off.
The next day when I logged back in I apparently did so at the place he last despawned that boat. And apparently he travelled far the previous night. Anyone who played Vanguard in the early days before fast travel may know what kind of adventure lay before a level 20 dark elf who woke up one morning in the North of Thestra. On a team PVP server.
That experience was one of the most memorable I've had in mmorpgs and one of the reasons I am looking forward to Pantheon.