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Raiding

AmatheAmathe Member LegendaryPosts: 7,630
What do we know about raid content for Pantheon? I briefly went looking and what I found was:

A. There will be raid content, albeit the focus will be on group encounters;
B.  Some or all of the raid zones will be open (non-instanced) and contested; and
C.  I read somewhere about being able to return to some benchmark? I may have that one wrong.

I'm having trouble reconciling B and C, which makes me think I am off on one of them.

Is there better info? Raid sizes, for example? Is anything known yet about what raiding will be like? 

If there is nothing more known, what do you want it to be like?

EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests

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Comments

  • CalmOceansCalmOceans Member UncommonPosts: 2,437
    edited January 2016
    I'm apprehensive when I read the word "contested raids". There are some open world raids in Everquest that worked, like Cipheron, Cyno, anything in Relic. But this was because they're low tier raids. All higher-end raids were instanced, and GM banned trouble makers and the game was mature enough that there were agreements between guilds.

    Prior to this, all old world raids were open world, and this resulted in unbelievable server drama. I'm not into PVP and griefing drama between guilds.

    Every classic EQ server has nasty server drama early on, until the server approaches expansions that allow for instanced content, one of the reasons I won't play on them. I'm not into PVP or server drama.

    When a new classic server opens, 2 things happen because content isn't instanced yet.

    either

    A: There is non-stop drama because guilds fight over naggy and vox
    B: There is non-stop drama because one guild has naggy and vox on lockdown

    Both these scenarios always end with many players leaving the server.
  • FelwitFelwit Member UncommonPosts: 20

    I cannot remember where, but I am fairly certain Kilsin has discussed open-world raiding with lockout mechanics as being one possibility they may use. If you kill an open-world boss, that character gets a lockout timer so they cannot interact with or possibly even see the boss for 3 days. Then they can respawn the boss every hour and not worry about people monopolizing the boss.

    They need to make sure the lockout timer applies to interaction with folks engaging the boss too, else you could make a healer that just heals folks there at the raid site, even though they are locked out.

  • SinistSinist Member RarePosts: 1,369
    edited January 2016
    Contested raids can work fine, but it depends on how they approach it. If they set clearly defined engagement rules and also establish rules to which define unacceptable behavior, AND punish offenders with SEVERE means, the "conflict" will be limited.

    A lot of EQs problems were exacerbated by poor content design (PoP is a perfect example of how not to design contested content).

    At the end of the day, contested content should be... "contested", but abusers should be banned with complete hostility by VR. If they have a no tolerance policy on abuse, and administer it with force, you can shut down offenders quickly.

    Imagine if Fires of Heaven was taken care of by such? They were massive abusers, unethical players, and a guild leader who was a child tantrum thrower. If the ban hammer would have been swift, and unforgiving to him and his guild, those occurrences would have been uncommon.

    I think there are ways with technology today though to avoid the conflicts we had in the past, but make no mistake, abuse needs to be hit upside the head with a massive bat rather than pussy footing with political touchy "feely" "investor worry" based management of the game or it is all pointless. Either VR serves gaming or it serves investors, after all.... the former is what they are selling this game on, it is only reasonable that this would be their focus.
    Post edited by Sinist on
  • DullahanDullahan Member EpicPosts: 4,536
    I'm apprehensive when I read the word "contested raids". There are some open world raids in Everquest that worked, like Cipheron, Cyno, anything in Relic. But this was because they're low tier raids. All higher-end raids were instanced, and GM banned trouble makers and the game was mature enough that there were agreements between guilds.

    Prior to this, all old world raids were open world, and this resulted in unbelievable server drama. I'm not into PVP and griefing drama between guilds.

    Every classic EQ server has nasty server drama early on, until the server approaches expansions that allow for instanced content, one of the reasons I won't play on them. I'm not into PVP or server drama.

    When a new classic server opens, 2 things happen because content isn't instanced yet.

    either

    A: There is non-stop drama because guilds fight over naggy and vox
    B: There is non-stop drama because one guild has naggy and vox on lockdown

    Both these scenarios always end with many players leaving the server.
    If they do it right, we should not see monopolization of spawns as it existed on live servers. There are too many ways to combat it. For instance, to track raid bosses in EQ, you simply kept timers and that led to multiple guilds of people showing up at the next spawn, arguing over who was there first and who had the right to engage. To combat the worst bottlenecks, they created spawn variance, but that just caused players to leave a character with track nearby or in visual range of the mob. The process of determining whether a raid target is up should therefore be more challenging and time consuming to reward the most diligent guilds while also providing a window for other guilds to pursue other alternatives.

    Addressing each of those issues, I would make sure 1) each spawn had variance of several days (on non-PvP servers), 2) the area around the boss would be extremely dangerous, preventing a single player or small force from running in and checking whether a boss was spawned, also preventing characters from camping in visual range of the mob, 3) the raid target would not show up on track and 4) every so often there would be server resets that would guarantee every raid boss in the world respawned, allowing multiple guilds a chance to down targets.

    These things would make locking down multiple bosses extremely problematic, as a guild would have to take a force in just to see if a mob was spawned.

    Ultimately, the most motivated guilds will get the most raid targets, but at least this system requires a guild to devote time and manpower to checking raid spawns, affording other guilds with the opportunity to check different spawns. Server reset days also provide a chance for less organized guilds to pick a target (just like patch day on EQ live servers).

    The truth about drama though, is that it didn't cause most players to "leave the server" in EQ. It was the nature of the game, and was accepted as such. People have to realize that, if they don't actually want competition in their MMO, they should avoid that aspect of the game or even consider the possibility that such a game is not being created for them.

    To me, the competition and drama was much of the reason EQ was so memorable. You had your allies, your true friends and your villains. Those politics are part of what made the world come to life.


  • MendelMendel Member LegendaryPosts: 5,609
    Dullahan said:
    <snip>

    Addressing each of those issues, I would make sure 1) each spawn had variance of several days (on non-PvP servers), 2) the area around the boss would be extremely dangerous, preventing a single player or small force from running in and checking whether a boss was spawned, also preventing characters from camping in visual range of the mob, 3) the raid target would not show up on track and 4) every so often there would be server resets that would guarantee every raid boss in the world respawned, allowing multiple guilds a chance to down targets.

    These things would make locking down multiple bosses extremely problematic, as a guild would have to take a force in just to see if a mob was spawned.
    I like this approach, @Dullahan.   Increasing the standard deviation on the spawn timer curve couldn't hurt either.

    Restricting the locations where people can log-out, automatically return to home if the character camps in a 'contested raid area'.  That would also prohibit some meta-game tactics where the raid has one character 'camped' in zone to facilitate recovery (drag corpses, rezzing, buffing, etc.).  It is a bit more extreme solution.  Some may not even acknowledge the meta-gaming issue as a problem to be resolved, but to me, that is as big an issue as many guilds use these out-of-game mechanics as a standard operating practices.

    Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.

  • SinistSinist Member RarePosts: 1,369
    edited January 2016
    Dullahan said:
    I'm apprehensive when I read the word "contested raids". There are some open world raids in Everquest that worked, like Cipheron, Cyno, anything in Relic. But this was because they're low tier raids. All higher-end raids were instanced, and GM banned trouble makers and the game was mature enough that there were agreements between guilds.

    Prior to this, all old world raids were open world, and this resulted in unbelievable server drama. I'm not into PVP and griefing drama between guilds.

    Every classic EQ server has nasty server drama early on, until the server approaches expansions that allow for instanced content, one of the reasons I won't play on them. I'm not into PVP or server drama.

    When a new classic server opens, 2 things happen because content isn't instanced yet.

    either

    A: There is non-stop drama because guilds fight over naggy and vox
    B: There is non-stop drama because one guild has naggy and vox on lockdown

    Both these scenarios always end with many players leaving the server.
    Addressing each of those issues, I would make sure 1) each spawn had variance of several days (on non-PvP servers), 2) the area around the boss would be extremely dangerous, preventing a single player or small force from running in and checking whether a boss was spawned, also preventing characters from camping in visual range of the mob, 3) the raid target would not show up on track and 4) every so often there would be server resets that would guarantee every raid boss in the world respawned, allowing multiple guilds a chance to down targets.
    So I am assuming you are planning on an entire zone being dedicated to only a raid force being able to enter in order to achieve this? So all trash in the area will be off limits to anyone unless they are in a raid as well?

    I mean, considering visual range in the game, how far you can see in games like EQ, how do you purpose to keep people from checking on such without making the entire area for large distances essentially "raid only enter"?

    At that point, wouldn't it not be better to just make it a "raid zone" and then make it like breaking Fear where only the committed of a raid group will be able to survive?
  • DullahanDullahan Member EpicPosts: 4,536
    Sinist said:
    Dullahan said:
    I'm apprehensive when I read the word "contested raids". There are some open world raids in Everquest that worked, like Cipheron, Cyno, anything in Relic. But this was because they're low tier raids. All higher-end raids were instanced, and GM banned trouble makers and the game was mature enough that there were agreements between guilds.

    Prior to this, all old world raids were open world, and this resulted in unbelievable server drama. I'm not into PVP and griefing drama between guilds.

    Every classic EQ server has nasty server drama early on, until the server approaches expansions that allow for instanced content, one of the reasons I won't play on them. I'm not into PVP or server drama.

    When a new classic server opens, 2 things happen because content isn't instanced yet.

    either

    A: There is non-stop drama because guilds fight over naggy and vox
    B: There is non-stop drama because one guild has naggy and vox on lockdown

    Both these scenarios always end with many players leaving the server.
    Addressing each of those issues, I would make sure 1) each spawn had variance of several days (on non-PvP servers), 2) the area around the boss would be extremely dangerous, preventing a single player or small force from running in and checking whether a boss was spawned, also preventing characters from camping in visual range of the mob, 3) the raid target would not show up on track and 4) every so often there would be server resets that would guarantee every raid boss in the world respawned, allowing multiple guilds a chance to down targets.
    So I am assuming you are planning on an entire zone being dedicated to only a raid force being able to enter in order to achieve this? So all trash in the area will be off limits to anyone unless they are in a raid as well?

    I mean, considering visual range in the game, how far you can see in games like EQ, how do you purpose to keep people from checking on such without making the entire area for large distances essentially "raid only enter"?

    At that point, wouldn't it not be better to just make it a "raid zone" and then make it like breaking Fear where only the committed of a raid group will be able to survive?
    Not at all. You could have raid zones, and raid content in normal zones. If you try to take this and apply it to every raid mob in EQ, of course there will be places that it wouldn't work (Venril Sathir for one). Its something that has to be considered in the design stage. 

    However, in a place like Sebilis with Trakanon (or outside of Naggy or Vox's Lair), imagine if the dragon was not trackable and all the content leading up to the lair (from the first Golems to Tolapumj) was raid caliber, without any safe spots in the lair itself. It would be an hour process just to find out if he was up. Even a large guild could only muster so many people for such expeditions, meanwhile allowing their competitors to check other places.


  • BenjolaBenjola Member UncommonPosts: 843
    Just by making the world raid bosses roamers and spawn at random locations and random times will fix some of the drama.
    Same goes for all nameds and even dungeon nameds.
    That's the best way to prevent excessive camping.
    Ancient Cyclops in south Ro and South Karana nameds like Quillmane are good examples, popular mobs but you couldn't claim camp because of the spawn system.
    For raids some additional measures might be needed of course and it's good to hear that devs are thinking about it.

    I care about your gaming 'problems' and teenage anxieties, just not today.

  • DullahanDullahan Member EpicPosts: 4,536
    Benjola said:
    Just by making the world raid bosses roamers and spawn at random locations and random times will fix some of the drama.
    Same goes for all nameds and even dungeon nameds.
    That's the best way to prevent excessive camping.
    Ancient Cyclops in south Ro and South Karana nameds like Quillmane are good examples, popular mobs but you couldn't claim camp because of the spawn system.
    For raids some additional measures might be needed of course and it's good to hear that devs are thinking about it.
    Some randomness helps, but its not always an option. Often there is a special throne room, lair or bottom/top of a dungeon where the boss should obviously be. In a lot of areas, you couldn't just drop a raid mob anywhere or it would disrupt everyone else.


  • KiyorisKiyoris Member RarePosts: 2,130
    You had guilds staying up all night..................and I mean all night, from dusk till dawn...........to get some spawns. I don't think anyone still wishes to do that.

    Ok, I like some difficulty in MMO, but I have a life too.
  • FelwitFelwit Member UncommonPosts: 20
    Dullahan said:
    ...
    However, in a place like Sebilis with Trakanon (or outside of Naggy or Vox's Lair), imagine if the dragon was not trackable and all the content leading up to the lair (from the first Golems to Tolapumj) was raid caliber, without any safe spots in the lair itself. It would be an hour process just to find out if he was up. Even a large guild could only muster so many people for such expeditions, meanwhile allowing their competitors to check other places.
    This would also make raiding for casuals quite frustrating. Hardcore guilds would be more apt to just take this in stride. Moreso, hardcore guilds would be more likely to just kill past casuals making their way to the boss.
  • DullahanDullahan Member EpicPosts: 4,536
    Felwit said:
    Dullahan said:
    ...
    However, in a place like Sebilis with Trakanon (or outside of Naggy or Vox's Lair), imagine if the dragon was not trackable and all the content leading up to the lair (from the first Golems to Tolapumj) was raid caliber, without any safe spots in the lair itself. It would be an hour process just to find out if he was up. Even a large guild could only muster so many people for such expeditions, meanwhile allowing their competitors to check other places.
    This would also make raiding for casuals quite frustrating. Hardcore guilds would be more apt to just take this in stride. Moreso, hardcore guilds would be more likely to just kill past casuals making their way to the boss.
    Maybe, but I doubt it. More than likely if a guild is already clearing the "raid" content, they'd be left alone. Creating that kind of animosity over a mob that might not even be up just isn't worth it.

    The alternative is playing the tracking game, something casuals have no chance of competing in.


  • KothosesKothoses Member UncommonPosts: 921
    edited February 2016
    Robokapp said:
    Kiyoris said:
    You had guilds staying up all night..................and I mean all night, from dusk till dawn...........to get some spawns. I don't think anyone still wishes to do that.

    Ok, I like some difficulty in MMO, but I have a life too.
    there were no old people back then and there are no teenagers now or...is there no dusk/dawn now and there was then or...maybe...

    LIFE was much quicker back then so you had more time to play games but with today's slowdown in daily life it takes increasingly longer to achieve the same goals in the time you were able to back then, leaving less time to dedicate to gaming.


    your argument reeks of "i'm selfish, MMO should cater to my old man lifestyle". 
    and your argument reeks of "I'm Selfish I dont want anyone who isnt prepared to live in my game to be able to see the content"


    There is a middle ground, but of the MANY many downsides to modern MMOS removal of spawn camp trains and the addition of instanced bosses is a good one.

    I still remember leveling my THF in FFXI.. that was the game that made me appreciate that some content belongs in an instance.   There are many things from old MMOs to harken back to, the feeling of being in a world, the lack of quest indicators, the sense of adventure the challenge, the grouping and social aspects.

    But spawn camping is not a mechanic I want to see return personally.
  • DullahanDullahan Member EpicPosts: 4,536
    People have to remember that the changes they are calling for fundamentally alter the game. If we want Pantheon to be like EQ, that means bringing things back that we may not find totally compatible with our current lifestyles.

    Does that mean no one else who is capable or willing to play a game more than us should be able to experience what we once had with EQ? I think not. Those kinds of changes take away from that exclusivity that made EverQuest as compelling, or dare I say as addictive, as it once was.


  • AmatheAmathe Member LegendaryPosts: 7,630
    I often find myself advocating for features in Pantheon because they are things that set EQ apart. But even as I say "I want this," I realize I will never have time to do most of it.

    But that's ok by me. Because although there was a lot of EQ content I never got to experience, all of the pieces to that game added up to something that was exciting to be a part of.

    Once you start removing pieces, you begin down a road that leads to EQII. And while that game has its own merits, it never, ever felt like EQ to me. I don't want that to happen again. 

    EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests

  • DullahanDullahan Member EpicPosts: 4,536
    Amathe said:
    I often find myself advocating for features in Pantheon because they are things that set EQ apart. But even as I say "I want this," I realize I will never have time to do most of it.

    But that's ok by me. Because although there was a lot of EQ content I never got to experience, all of the pieces to that game added up to something that was exciting to be a part of.

    Once you start removing pieces, you begin down a road that leads to EQII. And while that game has its own merits, it never, ever felt like EQ to me. I don't want that to happen again. 
    I played EQ hardcore for the first 3 years and yet there were many things I never saw or obtained. That is the difference between it and the modern MMO. If Pantheon is anything like it, chances are there will be even more I will never see or do in the world of Terminus, and yet I still want it to be that way. Its like theres something about not being able to easily accomplish something that makes it more compelling.


  • Raidan_EQRaidan_EQ Member UncommonPosts: 247
    Dullahan said:
    Amathe said:
    I often find myself advocating for features in Pantheon because they are things that set EQ apart. But even as I say "I want this," I realize I will never have time to do most of it.

    But that's ok by me. Because although there was a lot of EQ content I never got to experience, all of the pieces to that game added up to something that was exciting to be a part of.

    Once you start removing pieces, you begin down a road that leads to EQII. And while that game has its own merits, it never, ever felt like EQ to me. I don't want that to happen again. 
    I played EQ hardcore for the first 3 years and yet there were many things I never saw or obtained. That is the difference between it and the modern MMO. If Pantheon is anything like it, chances are there will be even more I will never see or do in the world of Terminus, and yet I still want it to be that way. Its like theres something about not being able to easily accomplish something that makes it more compelling.

    Agreed with both, and it's comparable to RL examples of overcoming challenges as well. 

    The challenges that are the most difficult are always the most rewarding, memorable, and satisfying whether it be career, education, relationship based or simply individual personal milestones.

    The reoccurring problem with most modern MMOs is the chase (journey) is gone, and you start right at the reward.  EQ had mastered the dangling carrot (chase) of having something that seemed attainable that was just out of my reach, but, if I did obtain it, it was all that much more rewarding because I had to earn it.

    And, it was much more realistic knowing that there was parts of the world I may never experience, or might not experience until much later - it forced me to delay gratification.

  • Kobin24Kobin24 Member UncommonPosts: 28
    Personally, I thought Vanguards approach to raiding was next to perfect.  First, you had APW.  They ended up having to make shards of APW because the lag was too great in one shard to have 100+ players in.  After a mob you had engaged was defeated you were locked out of that mob for X amount of time.  As guilds worked their way through APW, they would get to hubs they could then port to if they needed to avoid some of the previous mobs they had killed.  It would not be uncommon to wipe on trash mobs and you had to be strategic in your movements.  The beauty of APW is that the first set of bosses could be completed with high-end group gear, that means for the raiders outside of your group, they could often PUG the first few bosses or we would often hold ALT raids as well.  Overlands were contested, but they re-spawned within 24 hours to give the next few guilds a shot at it.  The community was great and often shared schedules of when which guilds would attempt which mobs.  Each wing of APW brought new challenges, each overland boss was hard in their own way, I really hope PROTF takes this kind of approach.
  • AeliousAelious Member RarePosts: 3,521

    I think the idea here is how it can work in today's setting, not necessarily what worked in the past because though the ages may be roughly the same, the mentality may not be. If you look at the forums for the recent TLE severs you do see this drama played out.

    I think spawn variance is a good idea but unless it's the intent to close out certain content to those who only have the greatest amount of time to play (spawn trackers and then a force large enough to take it down) there may need to be a kill tracker with a timer to engage it n time after. I assume that players are smart enough to figure out the most efficient way to do things for the most gain, especially the "hardcore" crowd that has a lot of time. You'd most likely see guilds composed of those who have the most time to play, theoretically closing out content no matter how variant the timers are.

    However, if you pair a variant timer with a "kill cooldown" timer this would seem to solve the problem. Those who were registered as tagging the boss would incur a timer if the boss died and would have to wait a certain amount of time before being a part of that encounter again. This would foster greater organization within guilds of who should go when and may even keep the encounter from becoming a faceroll zerg since loot would not be available to all.

  • SinistSinist Member RarePosts: 1,369
    I did the contested raids for quite a while in EQ and then I moved to Stormhammer (the legends server) where they had raid sign ups and rotations (guilds had to test they were able to handle a tier before they could get in a rotation). I personally have no desire to do the contested raids again, but if they considered having a similar system as they did on Stormhammer, I would be interested in that. It was kind of nice to be able to schedule your raid and not having to deal with all the crap that came with the contested raids.


  • AmatheAmathe Member LegendaryPosts: 7,630
    If you have a system where people can have in game sign ups and rotations (like on the Legends server), is that really much different than having instances?

    EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests

  • SinistSinist Member RarePosts: 1,369
    edited February 2016
    Amathe said:
    If you have a system where people can have in game sign ups and rotations (like on the Legends server), is that really much different than having instances?
    Absolutely.

    With raid instances, every guild gets their own special instance of encounters which means the number of items introduced to the world is directly related to the number of instances ran.

    With rotation schedules, the number of bosses killed doesn't increase. It is the same regardless. So, there is no increase of items into the game world.

    I thought it worked quite well when I played. All the cock blocking went away, all the fights, and poop socking disappeared leaving you with just rotation of guilds doing various tiers of content that they had qualified for.

    I realize this takes away from the whole "competition" thing some people like which is why something like this would be better fit for a rules specific server.

    Even so, there were servers in live where the guilds formed an alliance to achieve similar results. /shrug

    edit:

    Another thing to consider is that his solution may not work well until there is enough content to support it.

    The legends server was not released until I think after Velious or SoL If I remember right and that was a lot of tiers of raid mobs by that time which made having a rotation system work quite well. For Pantheon, such a solution may need to wait until it reaches a certain level of content.
  • DistopiaDistopia Member EpicPosts: 21,183
    Amathe said:
    I often find myself advocating for features in Pantheon because they are things that set EQ apart. But even as I say "I want this," I realize I will never have time to do most of it.

    But that's ok by me. Because although there was a lot of EQ content I never got to experience, all of the pieces to that game added up to something that was exciting to be a part of.

    Once you start removing pieces, you begin down a road that leads to EQII. And while that game has its own merits, it never, ever felt like EQ to me. I don't want that to happen again. 
    That's the only part that really worries me about such designs today, how many who had that kind of time then, have it now or spend it in such ways? I certainly couldn't put the time in I did in SWG or DAOC back in the day any longer, not on any kind of regular basis anyway.

     I would think this would be the case for many in this day and age, as we've all grown since then. SO if we can't play such a game, who will? The usual answer to this is, "they don't need huge numbers"... yet that isn't exactly the truth, they do need a lot of people playing to justify being an MMORPG. I'd go as far as to say any healthy MMORPG population is rather huge.. Without that healthy population such games suffer, the more community driven they are, the more they suffer. 

    While it's a different game, that wasn't well executed (seemingly) Pantheon is starting to look like Wildstar to me as far as interest goes. There just aren't many talking about it, much like it was for WS before it released. I hope that at least changes as more info comes out. Comparative to CU, Crowfall as well as a couple others (which of those Pantheon has more appeal to me), there just isn't a lot of people looking in this direction yet.   I wonder if that's because of the focus or something else. 


    For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson


  • SinistSinist Member RarePosts: 1,369
    Distopia said:
    Amathe said:
    I often find myself advocating for features in Pantheon because they are things that set EQ apart. But even as I say "I want this," I realize I will never have time to do most of it.

    But that's ok by me. Because although there was a lot of EQ content I never got to experience, all of the pieces to that game added up to something that was exciting to be a part of.

    Once you start removing pieces, you begin down a road that leads to EQII. And while that game has its own merits, it never, ever felt like EQ to me. I don't want that to happen again. 
    That's the only part that really worries me about such designs today, how many who had that kind of time then, have it now or spend it in such ways? I certainly couldn't put the time in I did in SWG or DAOC back in the day any longer, not on any kind of regular basis anyway.

     I would think this would be the case for many in this day and age, as we've all grown since then. SO if we can't play such a game, who will? The usual answer to this is, "they don't need huge numbers"... yet that isn't exactly the truth, they do need a lot of people playing to justify being an MMORPG. I'd go as far as to say any healthy MMORPG population is rather huge.. Without that healthy population such games suffer, the more community driven they are, the more they suffer. 

    While it's a different game, that wasn't well executed (seemingly) Pantheon is starting to look like Wildstar to me as far as interest goes. There just aren't many talking about it, much like it was for WS before it released. I hope that at least changes as more info comes out. Comparative to CU, Crowfall as well as a couple others (which of those Pantheon has more appeal to me), there just isn't a lot of people looking in this direction yet.   I wonder if that's because of the focus or something else. 



    Well, we know they are only making around 15-20% of the content for raiding with most of the focus on group game, so if the game is as hard and slow as it was in EQ, most of the people who don't have time to competitive raid won't even be at the end game anyway.

    Casual guilds will likely have to wait for new content to come out and spur the players who do have the time on into new goals. If content is released in a timely manner like it was in EQ, then you will likely find that there is a ton of content for you to experience while the top end guilds chasing the end game raids are off doing the latest content.

    Question is, can people wait or will the throw tantrums demanding they be able to do the latest content with all those who have massive amounts of time? This is where I see the "going down the mainstream path" problem come about. In EQ, those of us who had careers and families didn't have the time to put in for the whole contested raid content, so we took what we could get when it was available and this took time.

    As long as people are willing to accept such, then there shouldn't be an issue other than the other things brought up which are due to systems.

  • DullahanDullahan Member EpicPosts: 4,536
    This is entering into the realm of extreme conjecture, because there are so many unknowns. First, comparing this to Wildstar is like comparing an assembled car to a pile of parts. People weren't excited about Wildstar even in beta. Pantheon is just a framework with some screenshots and ideas at this point. Who is really going to get that excited about that outside of the biggest fans of those ideas. Ideas just aren't enough for most people.

    As far as how popular the game has to be, I'd say it doesn't have to be that popular to sustain it. If they had even 10 servers with 3k players on each, thats almost half a million a month. While that might seem like peanuts to a triple A studio, to a small indie crew with ~25 people, I'm guessing that would be more than enough to keep the lights on and fund further development. This is a lot of guesswork though.

    Personally, if they deliver the game they are advertising, I don't believe popularity will be an issue. The real question is how long, how much ($) and how well they deliver on this intended design.


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