Originally posted by DeSadeWhirlfist Call me cynical, but that game summary damn near looks like EVERY SINGLE game summary out there. Save yourself the heart ache and don't believe ANYTHING you read. Once you've actually put hands on the game then get excited. I'd love a game that brings EQ or aspects of EQ back, but we've been waiting for over 10 years for that to happen.
I'm cynical to a degree as well, and honestly didn't back the kickstarter because it was all words and not much substance. Since then they've made some progress and they've stuck to their guns on the tenets through all the discussions here and on their site and its already showing in the game they're creating. I feel its still good to support ideas that I like because if nothing else it shows people there are still those who like them.
I have to disagree with one thing though. I've followed every major and most minor releases in the last 2 decades, and I haven't seen any game summary and tenets that line up with what Pantheon has listed there. Maybe a few things here or there, but their emphasis on group play, keeping the game harder and immersion over convenience is something that no other modern, or even future game boasts other than Pantheon.
A lot of games try to promise the game will stay hard and won't difficulty won't be nerfed down the line. Sure enough when the sales are high but they're bleeding players, they all crumble and casualize their games to all hell. Happened to Tera, happened to Rift, happened to damn near every big mmo that released in the last decade.
The immersion over convenience won't even make it to release. Maybe make it to closed beta, but i guarantee you there will be plenty of convenience added in the game. As for the forced grouping. Gonna be fun to see this fail so hard to sustain any decent amount of numbers. It'll be one of the first things to go in the changes to keep/get new players shuffle they are undoubtedly going to go through.
Theres really nothing to be gained by casualizing a game created to be hardcore. It will only alienate the playerbase.
Neither Tera or Rift had anything in common with Pantheon, as both games were generic, shallow, rush-to-end-game, solo-friendly themeparks and basically the polar opposite of Pantheon.
Originally posted by DeSadeWhirlfist Call me cynical, but that game summary damn near looks like EVERY SINGLE game summary out there. Save yourself the heart ache and don't believe ANYTHING you read. Once you've actually put hands on the game then get excited. I'd love a game that brings EQ or aspects of EQ back, but we've been waiting for over 10 years for that to happen.
I'm cynical to a degree as well, and honestly didn't back the kickstarter because it was all words and not much substance. Since then they've made some progress and they've stuck to their guns on the tenets through all the discussions here and on their site and its already showing in the game they're creating. I feel its still good to support ideas that I like because if nothing else it shows people there are still those who like them.
I have to disagree with one thing though. I've followed every major and most minor releases in the last 2 decades, and I haven't seen any game summary and tenets that line up with what Pantheon has listed there. Maybe a few things here or there, but their emphasis on group play, keeping the game harder and immersion over convenience is something that no other modern, or even future game boasts other than Pantheon.
A lot of games try to promise the game will stay hard and won't difficulty won't be nerfed down the line. Sure enough when the sales are high but they're bleeding players, they all crumble and casualize their games to all hell. Happened to Tera, happened to Rift, happened to damn near every big mmo that released in the last decade.
The immersion over convenience won't even make it to release. Maybe make it to closed beta, but i guarantee you there will be plenty of convenience added in the game. As for the forced grouping. Gonna be fun to see this fail so hard to sustain any decent amount of numbers. It'll be one of the first things to go in the changes to keep/get new players shuffle they are undoubtedly going to go through.
I agree a lot of games do dumb down the content as the game ages and the noobie areas turn into almost ghost towns. Though I believe that is where games like EQ and Pantheon will differ due to the fact that in a lot of respects a noobie hunting ground could be a hunting ground for higher levels as well. We need to make sure that we keep all the cities important for different reasons so that they are serve a purpose for lower and higher level players. Whether to get spells, skills, or crafting components there needs to be a reason to visit these cities. Another reason to have money have weight to force people to hit up a city or town to unload their valuables, bank, etc.
We also need to think about the way expansions are handled. It seems almost every game creates expansions and adds on another island, new lands, or some outer space 25th dimension crap. What I would like to see instead of new land every time would be a living world where the expansion could be an invasion of Orcs that take over a sizable chunk of the main lands. There could even be a GM event where we could attempt to fight off the Orcs and save a piece of the city, though we lose in the end and the city is taken over. Then we have to band together to kill the Orc King in order to take the city back over again. The city could be in ruins from the war and could show that. Something for crafters would be to gather mats to help rebuild the city. They could be rewarded with small trinkets from the city or even just renown with the city or faction.
Either way I believe the larger you make the world and the quicker we are allowed to level the faster we will thin out our population and that can be mostly avoided with a little more creative thinking and story telling.
Originally posted by DeSadeWhirlfist Call me cynical, but that game summary damn near looks like EVERY SINGLE game summary out there. Save yourself the heart ache and don't believe ANYTHING you read. Once you've actually put hands on the game then get excited. I'd love a game that brings EQ or aspects of EQ back, but we've been waiting for over 10 years for that to happen.
I'm cynical to a degree as well, and honestly didn't back the kickstarter because it was all words and not much substance. Since then they've made some progress and they've stuck to their guns on the tenets through all the discussions here and on their site and its already showing in the game they're creating. I feel its still good to support ideas that I like because if nothing else it shows people there are still those who like them.
I have to disagree with one thing though. I've followed every major and most minor releases in the last 2 decades, and I haven't seen any game summary and tenets that line up with what Pantheon has listed there. Maybe a few things here or there, but their emphasis on group play, keeping the game harder and immersion over convenience is something that no other modern, or even future game boasts other than Pantheon.
A lot of games try to promise the game will stay hard and won't difficulty won't be nerfed down the line. Sure enough when the sales are high but they're bleeding players, they all crumble and casualize their games to all hell. Happened to Tera, happened to Rift, happened to damn near every big mmo that released in the last decade.
The immersion over convenience won't even make it to release. Maybe make it to closed beta, but i guarantee you there will be plenty of convenience added in the game. As for the forced grouping. Gonna be fun to see this fail so hard to sustain any decent amount of numbers. It'll be one of the first things to go in the changes to keep/get new players shuffle they are undoubtedly going to go through.
Theres really nothing to be gained by casualizing a game created to be hardcore. It will only alienate the playerbase.
Neither Tera or Rift had anything in common with Pantheon, as both games were generic, shallow, rush-to-end-game, solo-friendly themeparks and basically the polar opposite of Pantheon.
I gotta agree on rift. I played it for quite a while and it never seemed difficult to me. Advancement rate was on par with Wow and nowhere near the rate of early EQ, death was trivial, there wasn't much strategy to combat, etc.
After years of FFXI and watching my brother play EQOA, nothing has come close to those things, mostly because of the anti-social, super simplified, overly instanced, and all about the rush to endgame MMOs that exist now. This is one of the few game where i read the features out loud to some of my friends and we were all sort of shocked a game like this would ever exist again.
I know people have a thing against the dev and that the kickstarter failed, but im willing as hell to overlook stuff if we can get an actual Massively Multiplayer game again that doesnt treat us all like newbies and 12 year olds who need item levels and constant handholding.
Dependence. Restricting players to a single crafting profession is a viable first step to creating a functional economy based on supply and demand. Players can't do everything for themselves, and have to buy materials from other craftsmen. Of course, games tend to ruin this aspect by allowing alts. But a single character - single crafting profession at least pays homage to the idea that no one is independent.
I agree, this only works if you restrict players to a single character.
In EQ2, for example, I have 9 characters with tradeskills developed, one for each of the main professions. I started this at launch, when all tradeskills required items that could only be produced by another profession. My sage needed ink that only an alchemist could produce and paper produced by woodworkers.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. Benjamin Franklin
Gotta say this is the only game I'm really looking forward to right now. Most everything else is action PvP oriented which I just don't really care for.
I've been ckecking out landscape occasionally but I'm generally disappointed. It is progressing very slowly and doesn't really seem to have any game concept at all. Ok you can harvest and kill monsters and build a castle. But there really isn't any reason other than to just build it.
EQN seems to be getting worse and worse each day. Little info and if Landmark combat combined with what we have seen really tells me that EQN is gonna be a light weight game with console oriented combat. Much as I'd love to say that's the game, it is rapidly fading and expectations are falling.
So really this is the only game I'm aware of on the horizon with any depth and group oriented play. A game where classes are unique and matter. Vanguard had some great idea's but lacked polish. So far the info on this game sounds like a deeper magic/combat system. Knowing that it's building on Vanguard gets me excited to see what this will become.
Anyone agree? Or has everyone just become satisfied with classless action pvp gameplay?
This game for sure is a great promiss, but again, any mmo with Brad's name on top will have the same effect on me to be honest, so lets wait and hope the game can deliver all on that list.
Originally posted by svann Hopefully these guys learned their lesson with Vanguard and now have a better understanding of pre-release time management.
Svann - yea, brad says he learned an important lesson with Vanguard:
" We are being very mindful of performance and stop every month and optimize. One of the biggest mistakes with VG was getting all excited about the latest tech and then pushing it into the game. When unfortunate events forced us to release 6 months early, most people, even on decent gaming machines, couldn't play the game and players left, most of them before even hitting level 2 or 3. We cannot and will not make that mistake again. "
Dependence. Restricting players to a single crafting profession is a viable first step to creating a functional economy based on supply and demand. Players can't do everything for themselves, and have to buy materials from other craftsmen. Of course, games tend to ruin this aspect by allowing alts. But a single character - single crafting profession at least pays homage to the idea that no one is independent.
I agree, this only works if you restrict players to a single character.
In EQ2, for example, I have 9 characters with tradeskills developed, one for each of the main professions. I started this at launch, when all tradeskills required items that could only be produced by another profession. My sage needed ink that only an alchemist could produce and paper produced by woodworkers.
That depends on how crafting is structured in the game as a whole.
If crafting is moderately expensive to level (it should be) and there are patterns that are rare drops in higher level dungeons and raids (which would cost a fortune even if sold on the open market), then running a ton of crafting alts becomes less viable, and the number of people who can fully level that many crafting alts as well as collect all of the recipes for them is going to be small to the point that it won't have any noticeable impact on the economy. At some point, your main will advanced to the point where the crafting alts would need too much to remain viable.
EQ2 crafting is stupid easy to level, and the need for crafting alts in EQ2 is higher these days because the player base is so low. Up until 2011 or so, you didn't need crafting alts because you could just ask in Guild Chat and someone would craft those needed items for you and mail them to you. That's what guilds are for, that's what trade chat is for. People with that profession may give you a nice deal. That's all part of the economy. All you are referring to, is leveling characters to short cut the economy, but there are ways to curtail that through the design of the crafting system and loot tables.
Originally posted by Vutar The biggest problem I have with the game and the main reason I am not backing it yet is the horizontal character growth. Every game that tries this fails at it. Until I see something concrete about how they are approaching that while still giving players a reason to play the game, I won't back it. I do hope they find some solution to it though, the rest of the game sounds awesome...on paper.
Horizontal progression will exist in concert with vertical. Its not like Camelot Unchained where they relegate all progression to horizontal. Really, its not much different than EQ at higher levels. You had levels which inherently offered you a little more hp, mana, and access to stronger abilities, but experience was slower. During the leveling process, you sought to strengthen your character by way of acquiring new gear, reputation and also finding new spells and abilities.
Pantheon intends to build on that idea. They want player strength to come from more than just leveling up. Your armor, your resist gear, the abilities you have, and the choices you make will all enhance your character as much or more than simply gaining experience.
I think it sounds like a good balance, and a way to slow down leveling and bring back "the journey" that provides a more meaningful experience.
Most of what was on that Pantheon page was attractive, but there were also areas that concerned me.. Such as dual targeting? Why and How? Questing that is optional and meaningful? How do you make a quest meaningful without alienating anyone that refuses to do it? There were many areas that made me scratch my head.. I hope in time things will clear up a bit more..
Say rewards are exp, coin, faction and gear every mob and quest doesn't need to provide all four e.g. make quests mostly about coin, gear or faction and exp from mobs then - coin quests: if you don't need the coin then you don't need to do it - faction quests: if you don't want/need that particular faction then you don't need to do it - gear quests: for gear for a particular class or style e.g. a wizard doesn't need to do a sword quest
Most of what was on that Pantheon page was attractive, but there were also areas that concerned me.. Such as dual targeting? Why and How? Questing that is optional and meaningful? How do you make a quest meaningful without alienating anyone that refuses to do it? There were many areas that made me scratch my head.. I hope in time things will clear up a bit more..
Say rewards are exp, coin, faction and gear every mob and quest doesn't need to provide all four e.g. make quests mostly about coin, gear or faction and exp from mobs then - coin quests: if you don't need the coin then you don't need to do it - faction quests: if you don't want/need that particular faction then you don't need to do it - gear quests: for gear for a particular class or style e.g. a wizard doesn't need to do a sword quest
Dual Targeting - The How and the Why...
One target is your enemy being targeted (offensive target), while you will possibly know who that enemy is targeted.
Another target is your allie (defensive target), of which you can utilize in various ways. Even rescues, with which you may need to target an allie in order to execute the rescue, is part of this.
Plus I think this game will without doubt have a better market than its predecessors ever could of hoped for. MMORPGs have long since broken free from the shackles of obscurity and players have been looking for something uniquely different from WoW for a while now.
(TL:DR? - Just read through the bullet points and keep moving)
My concern with Mr. McQuaid and his games (plural) is that he keeps trying to recreate EQ (now sixteen years on). Looking at the path his subsequent games have followed leads me to believe that even if he succeeds in releasing THIS game it will only be a matter of time before:
A) He sells/incorporates it into a larger studio (Which he then follows up with how his 'vision' was bastardized) and the game follows a developmental arc far different than 'he intended'.
The game has a brief rise in popularity afforded to most new releases but fails to attract a sizable enough following to remain relevant for more than a few billing cycles (or months in F2P parlance).
C) The gaming community -AGAIN- rebels against the all-shared-world environment. (Games utilize instances for a reason, you know).
D) The concept of forced grouping (and by extension, RAID sized groupings) doesn't work quite as well in reality as it did on paper.
E) The Gaming community -AGAIN- rebels against the 'hardcore-gamer-centric' development style.
Okay, this can go on endlessly, but really - this is all based on the reality of gaming past as well as the current state of gaming as a whole (at least as I've witnessed it).
Bullet points expanded:
A) When Sony bought into (see: bought out) Verant and took over EQ, Mr. McQuaid was {paraphrasing} dismayed at the way his 'vision' of the game was 'distorted' (put gently). So, he made Vanguard... which was almost immediately sold to SOE... (you remember - the company that destroyed his 'vision' of the previous game?)
A lot of new releases enjoy the short term joy of 'The New Game' syndrome, but, in failing to meet the pre-release hype, fall by the wayside. Not surprisingly, (and going back a ways) EQ2 suffered this issue. Mr. Smedley all but flat out lied about what the game was going to be, and, as a result, in short order, World of Warcraft was the next best thing to Betty White (Followed by sliced bread). Gamers are alternately a forgiving and a fickle bunch. While WoW treated its customers like pay to beta players, it never (overtly) lied to them.
C) Mr. McQuaid seems to think that other players take pride and enjoyment in the success of people that are not, well, 'them'. As in Vanguard, the idea that players want to be forces to witness others gain the rewards they themselves wanted is in some way inspiring, or that the winner of said rewards will then support others in gaining equal praise is, well, a fallacy. In a (gaming) world of 'what's in it for me', this kind of thinking leads to early onset game death. (Did we learn NOTHING from Trials of Atlantis?!)
D) Following up on the 'What's in it for me' theme, the current min/max meta-/stat-based philosophy in gaming (as well as the antagonistic mood) makes the concept of 'forced' grouping... problematic, to be gentle. The second "M" in MMO is multiplayer. The "G" in MMORPG is 'game', not group. Forcing people to group to advance is a glaring failure waiting (probably not too long) to happen. Again, in min/max, meta-/stat-based gaming, if you don't follow the 'cookie cutter' version, you're doomed. Further, unless this game utilizes a mega-server, individual server populations will quickly becomes a major concern.
E) Again, harkening back to Trails of Atlantis, when will it become clear that the 'hardcore' concept is fine, as an overlay to the broader game base. The truly hardcore gaming community makes up a very small (but vocal) percentage of the total population. Unless the game is stand-alone (or capable of sustaining itself post release minus initial funding) catering to hardcore fans (while needing casual players for support) is a proven failed business model. A concept Mr. McQuaid should be well aware of.
While I don't wish failure for any of the developers for this game, I feel their inability to grasp the current gaming market dooms them none-the-less.
Meh.
I'm already addressed the issue of whether there are gamers out there that want a game like this, whether there are enough of them, etc., elsewhere.
But you did bring up another point that I want to address: In hindsight, I'm not sure we should have sold Verant to Sony. We could have stayed a smaller, independent company, and enjoyed the extreme success of EQ. With Vanguard, well, some bad things went down, some of which was beyond my control, some of which were definitely mistakes, but regardless, I was at the top, and I take responsibility. The point, however, was that if we didn't sell to SoE it's very likely Vanguard never would have been released. Sometimes situations force your hand. But the plan for Sigil was to remain an independent company.
So I guess what I'm getting at, in addition to stressing that I've learned a lot in the past 15+ years of making these games and am determined not to repeat mistakes made in the past, is that I truly am not about putting an MMO together and then selling it off. And that conviction has only grown. I want Visionary Realms to be around for a long time, and I want to not only create MMOs that last for years (Vanguard was online, what, 6-7 years, and EQ is still going), but I want to stick around and be part of the ongoing, post-launch development of Pantheon (and any other games we may end up developing). In fact, one of the biggest things that draws me to both wanting to play and create MMOs is the fact that they are not 'fire and forget'. They actually should never 'end'. The game should continue to expand, with new content, new ideas, etc. This separates MMOs from other genres, and it's a quality of this genre that I truly love and want to be part of.
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-------------------------------------------------------------- Brad McQuaid CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc. www.pantheonmmo.com --------------------------------------------------------------
D) The concept of forced grouping (and by extension, RAID sized groupings) doesn't work quite as well in reality as it did on paper.
D) Following up on the 'What's in it for me' theme, the current min/max meta-/stat-based philosophy in gaming (as well as the antagonistic mood) makes the concept of 'forced' grouping... problematic, to be gentle. The second "M" in MMO is multiplayer. The "G" in MMORPG is 'game', not group. Forcing people to group to advance is a glaring failure waiting (probably not too long) to happen. Again, in min/max, meta-/stat-based gaming, if you don't follow the 'cookie cutter' version, you're doomed. Further, unless this game utilizes a mega-server, individual server populations will quickly becomes a major concern.
D) I don't agree on this, sure M is Multiplayer and G is Game but the first M is Massive. It can be solo but also group experience. The thing in MMORPG for me is the community and achieving things in game together, this make's it a great game experience. I have played EQ for like 14 years, if grouping was not needed i am sure the game never turned out the way it had for me (Meeting lot of great people and friends because you needed to group up, and between rest times you talked about everything in life) You needed each other to do quest and then I am not even talking about guilds and raids. I remember that you could had only so many friends on your friends list in the beginning, I am sure that a lot of people run into that problem of having there friend list full(no Guildies) (there a hand full of games that maybe achieve that). Today MMORPG's are nothing more then Single player RPG's but then with a lot more people in it, you can pretty much do everything alone. Not everyone makes easy friends or are good at socializing, so if they can achieve something alone they will. But if they have to group up to achieve things they will do that, and they will talk and come out there comfort zones, and they become human. Example1: If you know that your not a good player but like to play games, you will have a hard time willing to join a group of players because your afraid to be called noob or doing things wrong in the group.(most games got dungeon runs for like 30 min where people not even say 1 word to each other). If you have to group up with people to achieve things, you will be able to learn from each other more, you socialize more and because of that you step out your comfort zone. besides if you make mistakes or playing not well it does not matter that much on just junk creeps for just experience. And this all contributes to your community, making friends and your gaming experience. Honestly game experience works the same as real life experience.
Does this work in the current meta of gaming? I do not know, but i do know that a lot of people are tired of all the MMORPG's games that coming out and having no socializing or community aspects, its all about solo play and sometime's doing things together(Dungeon/Raids). People buy the game and get burned out very fast, not because they don't like the game. It's simply because they do not have any fun in the game and there are no people they met in game that makes them return to the game.
Example 2: You are going to a Cafe where you can play pool/dart/playcards and drink. Sure sounds great right? but there is nobody... You can pool alone, you can play darts alone, drink alone, all stuff you like. But your alone I am sure you get burned out fast and go home since its no fun. Its the same with a game(at least for me) you have everything you like in the game, but you only see people running around you doing solo stuff because you don't need to group(and its not even rewarding most times). You like the game but your burned out fast because it ain't fun to be alone. And sure people will say then group up(since its a option) but then you can read above Example 1
And this is why i think that a strong aspect of needing to group is great for a MMORPG. And i do think that Brad also means this with strong aspect of grouping in Pantheon at least i hope so i really do believe its better for the community.
How amazing, even on january people here were bad mouthing brad and calling him thief, junkie what not and saying this is a failed project and scam but now people are saying "this is the game we are looking for". Some of us said that this game is most likely to come out than the prodigal EQNext, we were called "fanboi". And here it is, developing at a steady pace and acquiring expectation while EQNext nearly dead. Please, feel free to call us "fanboi" again.
Umm.. there is no game yet lol. Both this and EQN are nothing yet. Only difference is, EQN actually has the company and funding behind it. Can't say the same for Pantheon.
Umm.. there is no game yet lol. Both this and EQN are nothing yet. Only difference is, EQN actually has the company and funding behind it. Can't say the same for Pantheon.
Well, EQN got a budget but not much in the way of a team anymore, a lot of devs have been jumping ships there.
Pantheon got a team but not much funding.
I still give Pantheon a better chance unless Ill actually see a lot for from the EQN team soon.
My first impression of "Fall of the Risen" or "Awaken the Sleeping" or "Meals of the Hungry" is that the team should have actually hired a creative writer to the team long before they generated the name for this game. Rise of the Fallen sounds like a first draft name that they forgot change later. This name tells me that they have a 'that's good enough' attitude.
I feel really fooled. A guy failed at managing a game back in 2007, now he wants to make another one. That takes nothing away from the ideas that EverQuest, Vanguard and now Pantheon were based upon.
Here we are 8 years later and still no one else is making mmorpgs worth playing, so it really just boils down to people trying to back an idea they love, not necessarily show support for any developer in particular. We are tired of the same old crap from this genre and want to get the word out that there's still a sizable number of people that will play a game like Pantheon. It will be the success of such indie projects that will one day prove to game studios and investors that mmorpgs are still worth investing in.
Whether you like Pantheon or McQuaid is irrelevant. You are doing the genre a disservice by bashing a game solely based on the past mistakes of one of its developers.
"We are tired of the same old crap from this genre"
So the solution is to do even more of the same? You are right, we are tired of how things are going in this genre. Not because it's not like the good old days, but because the mmo genre hasn't taken it's next step in evolution like some expected. Most people want something new and fresh. Pantheon offers literally the exact opposite lol. Also, bashing Pantheon is not a disservice. It's nothing but an idea. Ideas are meant to be criticized.
Imo, you don't need forced grouping to create community(unless you're aiming for a toxic pvp one), players need common goals instead of the current trend in games where players are pitted against each other for pretty much everything from who gets first/last/most hits to whether you're part of the biggest baddest guild that is able to corner the market on rare goods/mats and thereby control other players gameplay.
Instead of guilds working against each other and ultimately causing nothing but drama and friction among their own faction, do away with guilds, keep friend lists and parties and create world events that everyone not only has a reason to participate in but also feels like their contribution is valued, heck make it so whoever participates in said events are able to share in the reward.
Umm.. there is no game yet lol. Both this and EQN are nothing yet. Only difference is, EQN actually has the company and funding behind it. Can't say the same for Pantheon.
Well, EQN got a budget but not much in the way of a team anymore, a lot of devs have been jumping ships there.
Pantheon got a team but not much funding.
I still give Pantheon a better chance unless Ill actually see a lot for from the EQN team soon.
You have a lot more faith in a free (pro-bono) small team of developers then I will ever. While EQN might not be exactly what they originally envisioned, I really doubt it's scrapped. Daybreak when they were still known as SoE have released and developed many games in their time. If I was making a bet. I would put all my eggs in the professional proven time and time again company basket. Not some small amateur team with a shoe string budget led by one industry veteran that has shown in the past that he can't really deliver on his promises. I do hope it does launch for people like you. You are always a nice guy and I enjoy reading your posts. I just doubt it will.
I feel really fooled. A guy failed at managing a game back in 2007, now he wants to make another one. That takes nothing away from the ideas that EverQuest, Vanguard and now Pantheon were based upon.
Here we are 8 years later and still no one else is making mmorpgs worth playing, so it really just boils down to people trying to back an idea they love, not necessarily show support for any developer in particular. We are tired of the same old crap from this genre and want to get the word out that there's still a sizable number of people that will play a game like Pantheon. It will be the success of such indie projects that will one day prove to game studios and investors that mmorpgs are still worth investing in.
Whether you like Pantheon or McQuaid is irrelevant. You are doing the genre a disservice by bashing a game solely based on the past mistakes of one of its developers.
"We are tired of the same old crap from this genre"
So the solution is to do even more of the same? You are right, we are tired of how things are going in this genre. Not because it's not like the good old days, but because the mmo genre hasn't taken it's next step in evolution like some expected. Most people want something new and fresh. Pantheon offers literally the exact opposite lol. Also, bashing Pantheon is not a disservice. It's nothing but an idea. Ideas are meant to be criticized.
Just because Pantheon is based on the foundational ideas of older games, doesn't mean it isn't moving forward. MMORPGs were founded on immersive virtual worlds, challenging content with high risk/high reward, interdependency and meaningful interaction. Starting with those building blocks in no way hinders designing bigger and better systems, features or worlds.
Comments
Theres really nothing to be gained by casualizing a game created to be hardcore. It will only alienate the playerbase.
Neither Tera or Rift had anything in common with Pantheon, as both games were generic, shallow, rush-to-end-game, solo-friendly themeparks and basically the polar opposite of Pantheon.
I agree a lot of games do dumb down the content as the game ages and the noobie areas turn into almost ghost towns. Though I believe that is where games like EQ and Pantheon will differ due to the fact that in a lot of respects a noobie hunting ground could be a hunting ground for higher levels as well. We need to make sure that we keep all the cities important for different reasons so that they are serve a purpose for lower and higher level players. Whether to get spells, skills, or crafting components there needs to be a reason to visit these cities. Another reason to have money have weight to force people to hit up a city or town to unload their valuables, bank, etc.
We also need to think about the way expansions are handled. It seems almost every game creates expansions and adds on another island, new lands, or some outer space 25th dimension crap. What I would like to see instead of new land every time would be a living world where the expansion could be an invasion of Orcs that take over a sizable chunk of the main lands. There could even be a GM event where we could attempt to fight off the Orcs and save a piece of the city, though we lose in the end and the city is taken over. Then we have to band together to kill the Orc King in order to take the city back over again. The city could be in ruins from the war and could show that. Something for crafters would be to gather mats to help rebuild the city. They could be rewarded with small trinkets from the city or even just renown with the city or faction.
Either way I believe the larger you make the world and the quicker we are allowed to level the faster we will thin out our population and that can be mostly avoided with a little more creative thinking and story telling.
I gotta agree on rift. I played it for quite a while and it never seemed difficult to me. Advancement rate was on par with Wow and nowhere near the rate of early EQ, death was trivial, there wasn't much strategy to combat, etc.
After years of FFXI and watching my brother play EQOA, nothing has come close to those things, mostly because of the anti-social, super simplified, overly instanced, and all about the rush to endgame MMOs that exist now. This is one of the few game where i read the features out loud to some of my friends and we were all sort of shocked a game like this would ever exist again.
I know people have a thing against the dev and that the kickstarter failed, but im willing as hell to overlook stuff if we can get an actual Massively Multiplayer game again that doesnt treat us all like newbies and 12 year olds who need item levels and constant handholding.
I agree, this only works if you restrict players to a single character.
In EQ2, for example, I have 9 characters with tradeskills developed, one for each of the main professions. I started this at launch, when all tradeskills required items that could only be produced by another profession. My sage needed ink that only an alchemist could produce and paper produced by woodworkers.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
Gotta say this is the only game I'm really looking forward to right now. Most everything else is action PvP oriented which I just don't really care for.
I've been ckecking out landscape occasionally but I'm generally disappointed. It is progressing very slowly and doesn't really seem to have any game concept at all. Ok you can harvest and kill monsters and build a castle. But there really isn't any reason other than to just build it.
EQN seems to be getting worse and worse each day. Little info and if Landmark combat combined with what we have seen really tells me that EQN is gonna be a light weight game with console oriented combat. Much as I'd love to say that's the game, it is rapidly fading and expectations are falling.
So really this is the only game I'm aware of on the horizon with any depth and group oriented play. A game where classes are unique and matter. Vanguard had some great idea's but lacked polish. So far the info on this game sounds like a deeper magic/combat system. Knowing that it's building on Vanguard gets me excited to see what this will become.
Anyone agree? Or has everyone just become satisfied with classless action pvp gameplay?
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Ethion
Svann - yea, brad says he learned an important lesson with Vanguard:
" We are being very mindful of performance and stop every month and optimize. One of the biggest mistakes with VG was getting all excited about the latest tech and then pushing it into the game. When unfortunate events forced us to release 6 months early, most people, even on decent gaming machines, couldn't play the game and players left, most of them before even hitting level 2 or 3. We cannot and will not make that mistake again. "
-source https://www.pantheonrotf.com/forums/topic/1712/pantheon-update-2-20-15
That depends on how crafting is structured in the game as a whole.
If crafting is moderately expensive to level (it should be) and there are patterns that are rare drops in higher level dungeons and raids (which would cost a fortune even if sold on the open market), then running a ton of crafting alts becomes less viable, and the number of people who can fully level that many crafting alts as well as collect all of the recipes for them is going to be small to the point that it won't have any noticeable impact on the economy. At some point, your main will advanced to the point where the crafting alts would need too much to remain viable.
EQ2 crafting is stupid easy to level, and the need for crafting alts in EQ2 is higher these days because the player base is so low. Up until 2011 or so, you didn't need crafting alts because you could just ask in Guild Chat and someone would craft those needed items for you and mail them to you. That's what guilds are for, that's what trade chat is for. People with that profession may give you a nice deal. That's all part of the economy. All you are referring to, is leveling characters to short cut the economy, but there are ways to curtail that through the design of the crafting system and loot tables.
Horizontal progression will exist in concert with vertical. Its not like Camelot Unchained where they relegate all progression to horizontal. Really, its not much different than EQ at higher levels. You had levels which inherently offered you a little more hp, mana, and access to stronger abilities, but experience was slower. During the leveling process, you sought to strengthen your character by way of acquiring new gear, reputation and also finding new spells and abilities.
Pantheon intends to build on that idea. They want player strength to come from more than just leveling up. Your armor, your resist gear, the abilities you have, and the choices you make will all enhance your character as much or more than simply gaining experience.
I think it sounds like a good balance, and a way to slow down leveling and bring back "the journey" that provides a more meaningful experience.
Say rewards are exp, coin, faction and gear every mob and quest doesn't need to provide all four e.g. make quests mostly about coin, gear or faction and exp from mobs then
- coin quests: if you don't need the coin then you don't need to do it
- faction quests: if you don't want/need that particular faction then you don't need to do it
- gear quests: for gear for a particular class or style e.g. a wizard doesn't need to do a sword quest
One target is your enemy being targeted (offensive target), while you will possibly know who that enemy is targeted.
Another target is your allie (defensive target), of which you can utilize in various ways. Even rescues, with which you may need to target an allie in order to execute the rescue, is part of this.
But you did bring up another point that I want to address: In hindsight, I'm not sure we should have sold Verant to Sony. We could have stayed a smaller, independent company, and enjoyed the extreme success of EQ. With Vanguard, well, some bad things went down, some of which was beyond my control, some of which were definitely mistakes, but regardless, I was at the top, and I take responsibility. The point, however, was that if we didn't sell to SoE it's very likely Vanguard never would have been released. Sometimes situations force your hand. But the plan for Sigil was to remain an independent company.
So I guess what I'm getting at, in addition to stressing that I've learned a lot in the past 15+ years of making these games and am determined not to repeat mistakes made in the past, is that I truly am not about putting an MMO together and then selling it off. And that conviction has only grown. I want Visionary Realms to be around for a long time, and I want to not only create MMOs that last for years (Vanguard was online, what, 6-7 years, and EQ is still going), but I want to stick around and be part of the ongoing, post-launch development of Pantheon (and any other games we may end up developing). In fact, one of the biggest things that draws me to both wanting to play and create MMOs is the fact that they are not 'fire and forget'. They actually should never 'end'. The game should continue to expand, with new content, new ideas, etc. This separates MMOs from other genres, and it's a quality of this genre that I truly love and want to be part of.
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Brad McQuaid
CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc.
www.pantheonmmo.com
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The thing in MMORPG for me is the community and achieving things in game together, this make's it a great game experience.
I have played EQ for like 14 years, if grouping was not needed i am sure the game never turned out the way it had for me (Meeting lot of great people and friends because you needed to group up, and between rest times you talked about everything in life)
You needed each other to do quest and then I am not even talking about guilds and raids.
I remember that you could had only so many friends on your friends list in the beginning, I am sure that a lot of people run into that problem of having there friend list full(no Guildies) (there a hand full of games that maybe achieve that).
Today MMORPG's are nothing more then Single player RPG's but then with a lot more people in it, you can pretty much do everything alone. Not everyone makes easy friends or are good at socializing, so if they can achieve something alone they will.
But if they have to group up to achieve things they will do that, and they will talk and come out there comfort zones, and they become human.
Example1: If you know that your not a good player but like to play games, you will have a hard time willing to join a group of players because your afraid to be called noob or doing things wrong in the group.(most games got dungeon runs for like 30 min where people not even say 1 word to each other).
If you have to group up with people to achieve things, you will be able to learn from each other more, you socialize more and because of that you step out your comfort zone. besides if you make mistakes or playing not well it does not matter that much on just junk creeps for just experience. And this all contributes to your community, making friends and your gaming experience.
Honestly game experience works the same as real life experience.
Does this work in the current meta of gaming? I do not know, but i do know that a lot of people are tired of all the MMORPG's games that coming out and having no socializing or community aspects, its all about solo play and sometime's doing things together(Dungeon/Raids).
People buy the game and get burned out very fast, not because they don't like the game. It's simply because they do not have any fun in the game and there are no people they met in game that makes them return to the game.
Example 2: You are going to a Cafe where you can play pool/dart/playcards and drink. Sure sounds great right? but there is nobody...
You can pool alone, you can play darts alone, drink alone, all stuff you like. But your alone I am sure you get burned out fast and go home since its no fun.
Its the same with a game(at least for me) you have everything you like in the game, but you only see people running around you doing solo stuff because you don't need to group(and its not even rewarding most times). You like the game but your burned out fast because it ain't fun to be alone. And sure people will say then group up(since its a option) but then you can read above Example 1
And this is why i think that a strong aspect of needing to group is great for a MMORPG.
And i do think that Brad also means this with strong aspect of grouping in Pantheon at least i hope so
(p.s. sorry for my English, not my main language)
Pantheon got a team but not much funding.
I still give Pantheon a better chance unless Ill actually see a lot for from the EQN team soon.
So the solution is to do even more of the same? You are right, we are tired of how things are going in this genre. Not because it's not like the good old days, but because the mmo genre hasn't taken it's next step in evolution like some expected. Most people want something new and fresh. Pantheon offers literally the exact opposite lol. Also, bashing Pantheon is not a disservice. It's nothing but an idea. Ideas are meant to be criticized.
Instead of guilds working against each other and ultimately causing nothing but drama and friction among their own faction, do away with guilds, keep friend lists and parties and create world events that everyone not only has a reason to participate in but also feels like their contribution is valued, heck make it so whoever participates in said events are able to share in the reward.
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