I'm surprised by the criticism of the visuals. I thought it was the most impressive thing about it. Otherwise, it's... I mean, it's an MMO, that's all I can tell. Don't understand the celebration over what was shown, other than it being good to see that it exists.
Favorites: EQ, EVE | Playing: None. Mostly VR and strategy | Anticipating: CU, Pantheon
Truth be told, this isn't going to be a high octane AAA fighting system. I am thinking that if you are thinking anything other than Everquest or Vanguard inspired then you are thinking in the wrong way.
The animations and such will probably be a "little" better but they aren't going to be amazing I bet.
This game is about other things. Slow, planned out combat, strategy, working with a group.
To expect anything else is to be unrealistic on one hand as far as their resources (I imagine) and not really in the way they are creating combat. Again, think some sort of slow combat, probably like Vanguard in some ways.
Yea they stated in one of their podcast that they are not looking to do with "action combat" but more group oriented and strategy style approach much similiar to Everquest . They believe or had stated anyways that they believe this type of combat style takes away from the social aspect of grouping.
I'm hoping for some more interactive combat as well. Like in Vangard the warriors had chain abilities, blocks, counters. I thought that was a fun addition.
Truth be told, this isn't going to be a high octane AAA fighting system. I am thinking that if you are thinking anything other than Everquest or Vanguard inspired then you are thinking in the wrong way.
The animations and such will probably be a "little" better but they aren't going to be amazing I bet.
This game is about other things. Slow, planned out combat, strategy, working with a group.
To expect anything else is to be unrealistic on one hand as far as their resources (I imagine) and not really in the way they are creating combat. Again, think some sort of slow combat, probably like Vanguard in some ways.
Yea they stated in one of their podcast that they are not looking to do with "action combat" but more group oriented and strategy style approach much similiar to Everquest . They believe or had stated anyways that they believe this type of combat style takes away from the social aspect of grouping.
I totally agree with them.
This isn't a zero sum game. There are more options along the combat spectrum than slow and boring and "action". The pace can be faster while still using tab-target RNG style combat.
There was basically a single strategy. Pull a single mob, it looked like a lot of body pulling, if possible. Tank grabs aggro. DPS tries not to push the hate meter above the aggro meter. If multiples are pulled the enchanter mezzed. It was the same thing over and over: aggro, shutdown, dps, heals, sit.
It's alpha so hopefully they have other things in mind for mob AI to mix up combat to keep players on their toes.
They were level 7, doing level 7 content, with the limitations of level 7 items and abilities. They were also only playing 5 of the 12 classes the game will have available to them. They had basic attacks, ranged attacks to tag, and root and mez to work with. Lets keep things in perspective.
Yea they stated in one of their podcast that they are not looking to do with "action combat" but more group oriented and strategy style approach much similiar to Everquest . They believe or had stated anyways that they believe this type of combat style takes away from the social aspect of grouping.
I totally agree with them.
This isn't a zero sum game. There are more options along the combat spectrum than slow and boring and "action". The pace can be faster while still using tab-target RNG style combat.
There was basically a single strategy. Pull a single mob, it looked like a lot of body pulling, if possible. Tank grabs aggro. DPS tries not to push the hate meter above the aggro meter. If multiples are pulled the enchanter mezzed. It was the same thing over and over: aggro, shutdown, dps, heals, sit.
It's alpha so hopefully they have other things in mind for mob AI to mix up combat to keep players on their toes.
They were level 7, doing level 7 content, with the limitations of level 7 items and abilities. They were also only playing 5 of the 12 classes the game will have available to them. They had basic attacks, ranged attacks to tag, and root and mez to work with. Lets keep things in perspective.
This is what I posted in another thread when DrivenDawn said the same thing:
It might be a bit early in development to expect fleshed out tactics,
but in a slow leveling game I don't think expecting tactics at all
levels is unreasonable. The combat is billed as tactical then it should
be tactical.
Dude, its not about how early in development it is. It WAS LEVEL 7! L E V E L S E V E N.
Don't know how else to communicate this to you. Sure, the early level game will be improved upon, but at level 7 you don't have advanced content and dealing with those runes and a real aggro system again is already more complex than the games you are trying to compare Pantheon to at level seven.
Yea they stated in one of their podcast that they are not looking to do with "action combat" but more group oriented and strategy style approach much similiar to Everquest . They believe or had stated anyways that they believe this type of combat style takes away from the social aspect of grouping.
I totally agree with them.
This isn't a zero sum game. There are more options along the combat spectrum than slow and boring and "action". The pace can be faster while still using tab-target RNG style combat.
There was basically a single strategy. Pull a single mob, it looked like a lot of body pulling, if possible. Tank grabs aggro. DPS tries not to push the hate meter above the aggro meter. If multiples are pulled the enchanter mezzed. It was the same thing over and over: aggro, shutdown, dps, heals, sit.
It's alpha so hopefully they have other things in mind for mob AI to mix up combat to keep players on their toes.
They were level 7, doing level 7 content, with the limitations of level 7 items and abilities. They were also only playing 5 of the 12 classes the game will have available to them. They had basic attacks, ranged attacks to tag, and root and mez to work with. Lets keep things in perspective.
This is what I posted in another thread when DrivenDawn said the same thing:
It might be a bit early in development to expect fleshed out tactics,
but in a slow leveling game I don't think expecting tactics at all
levels is unreasonable. The combat is billed as tactical then it should
be tactical.
Dude, its not about how early in development it is. It WAS LEVEL 7! L E V E L S E V E N.
Don't know how else to communicate this to you. Sure, the early level game will be improved upon, but at level 7 you don't have advanced content and dealing with those runes and a real aggro system again is already more complex than the games you are trying to compare Pantheon to at level seven.
Comparing to other games is all in your mind, not mine. I'm not making a comparison. I'm just talking about how to make the design and combat better.
If anything it is you that has preconceived notions about design. What does level 7 have to do with combat being braindead and dumbed down? Nothing. Levels are supposed to come slowly. By level 7 players should have some familiarity with the basic mechanics of how to execute a skill.
There is no reason why, in a game billed as tactical combat, that the combat shouldn't be tactical at level 7. I even explained how and why that would work, but you didn't even read that short paragraph did you? You are so worried about defending your game that you're unable to engage in a rational discussion about the mechanics of combat. Trash talking other games and play styles isn't going to magically make your favorite game better. Asking questions and looking at ways to improve the experience could.
I read your paragraph and disagree with your approach. What you don't really understand is that the developers are making a game for a niche audience that expects a complete wipe if the puller screws up and aggros more than the group can handle. At level 7, that may be 5 or more mobs. Depends on the skill of the group. So.. it IS tactical in the sense that you need a good puller who is skilled enough to peel off a manageable amount of mobs. When the puller screws up, or if adds pop and you end up with more than you expected... a good group may be able to react with CC or kiting to take some of the load off the tanks and healers. A not-so-good group will probably wipe and learn from their mistakes. In vanilla EQ, things could get out of hand quickly and often did. What separated the really good players from the bad or mediocre ones was the ability to react and maintain control. It was skillful and tactical.
I don't like the idea of cutting less skillful users a break just for the hell of it because you want to be nice to them. If you screw up, chances are pretty high that you are going to wipe. They will learn. Just the same way all the classic mmo players did from those days. Pro Tip: Farm close to the zone line
You're entitled to your opinion of how the combat should be, but I don't think it's inline with what this game and the niche audience is going for.
There were tactics options available and they were forgiven for failing to implement proper tactics. That was a lousy 3 pull that they easily survived, and that wizard went and off-tanked the orc instead of using cc or getting the tank to get it off him or even focussing on what the rest of the group was killing so that at least 1 would die quicker. At L7 you expect to get away with sloppy play because noobs will be noobs. At higher levels they better do better. Thats really just the way early mmo games work. The only real other option is to make them wipe when they screw up tactics. Thats not nice to your new players tho.
They were actually lucky that they don't seemed to have resists on CC scaling with level, because it looked like root and mez landed 100% even on red con mobs. I imagine that will change and players will have to be even more creative/tactical/skilled.
The market is already flooded with graphics over gameplay MMO's, Pantheon is going for the opposite. The main thing that concerned me was the comment about being able to solo. If there's one thing the last 10 years has taught us it's that people will take the easiest path to max level. MMO gamers are smart enough to know levels>gear so even if you take a huge gear hit to solo to max, it's generally worth it in the end.
In other words if you can solo, everyone WILL solo. Let two classes solo "ok" and make everyone else group. Now if your 10 levels higher then the mobs then sure, it's fun to flex your muscles and plow lesser dungeons solo just as long as you aren't leveling this way.
Everyone *could* solo in EQ. It just wasn't anywhere close to as efficient as grouping. This is one of those things that you don't have to exclude soloers, you just don't cater to them.
Your last point isn't really true. There is a break point. If you're going to level at half the speed soloing than finding a group, most people except the truly antisocial, will find a group. For example lets say it would take you 4 hours of efficient soloing to make 20% of a level. However if you do it in a group it may only take 2 hours. Even if it takes you 30 minutes to put a group together, you're still way better off, and that's not even including the potential gear drops.
The issue is making grouping enough of an incentive XP wise. EQ did a good job with this, as even classes that were excellent soloers, like druids and necros, generally still preferred a group over soloing.
In EQ dungeons generally had a larger XP modifier than outside zone (it was nigh impossible to solo reliably in most dungeons), and grouping had an XP modifier.
So for example, if you had 6 people in your group, than your group would be getting (making a number up) 135% more xp than the mob would have given killed solo. Combine that with a dungeon having say a 25% xp modifier, and even when you account for splitting that XP 6 ways, you're still coming out way ahead. And again, that's not even accounting for gear.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
The world looked really nice. The character models and animations were fine for the stage of development. The animations as is don't really bother me. The combat does. The combat pace is really slow and would bore the hell out of me.
The slow pace of combat is again going back to EQ1 vanilla roots. Having to wait 2-3min between fights allowed for plenty opportunity for chatting and social bonding.
This is what the veteran players want, this is what they are delivering.
Yes it is niche, and it won't appeal to modern action combat gamer, and thats perfectly fine.
I think the slow pace of combat is probably what they're shooting for.
I'm a veteran player. It remains to be seen if this is what veteran players want or a few very vocal EQ fans want. Other veteran games had a faster, more engaging combat pace than this. Lineage and Asheron's Call as an example.
What did they really chat about in between combat sessions while sitting on the ground? In other veteran games we had great community and chatted all the time without very slow rote combat and between combat picnics.
We'll see though. It was just some feedback from a veteran player. If they're just going for the EQ crowd that's fine too.
i take it you never played EQ back in the day? if you got in a group in classic EQ all you did is sit in one spot and basically chat the whole time while your group was pulling mobs to you (unless you were the puller)
good groups would be fast paced with fast chain pulling but yeah, you had a lot of time to chat and get to know friends in game.
it was just another reason why you couldn't really solo. soloing was far slower and more boring, you could do it but it sucked.
it seems this game is for vet EQ1 players, other people might want to look elsewhere or adapt. you never know, get in a few groups in a game like this and meet friends and it might grow on you.
my concern is the health of the community and how they handle servers. they simply cannot have empty servers or that will kill this game faster than anything.
You can't make customers do anything. They will play the way they want, or they will find somewhere else to play. The reason EQ held so many in forced groups was there was no alternative.
Water will take the path of least resistance... even if that means a different river.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
The reason EQ held so many in forced groups was there was no alternative.
Right, except for Meridian 59, Ultima Online, Asheron's Call and
Lineage, there were no other alternatives for a prospective mmorpg
customer in 1999.
Exactly. No alternative.
Meridian was a spritely joke by the time EQ came out, and UO was a gank fest. AC came out only later in '99 and most players were already invested in EQ by then. While Lineage was a mostly Korean game much of its early life and wasn't very well known in the west.
Not to mention that AC and Lineage were (mostly in the case of AC) group only games as well, and UO was group only by default because of PvP. So changing didn't offer much of an alternative.
Sorry, but for the PvE MMO player EQ was all there was.
You might not find that kind of actual experience, 'from that period' type of knowledge in a Wikipedia search...
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
The world looked really nice. The character models and animations were fine for the stage of development. The animations as is don't really bother me. The combat does. The combat pace is really slow and would bore the hell out of me.
Agreed Torval except for the graphics. The graphics make me sleepy lol
You might not find that kind of actual experience, 'from that period' type of knowledge in a Wikipedia search...
Sigh. I played all of those, admittedly UO the least (hours vs weeks or months)... and EQ wasn't the "forced group" game people claim it was. Most people were just new to the genre and their memories of it were affected by their proficiency. I was playing graphical online multiplayer rpgs from 91, onward. I'm familiar with their nuances, thanks.
I hadn't even thought to wiki it. Do you want me to do that? I might find 5 other games, the names of which are on the tip of my tongue. They were mostly asian, though.
You might not find that kind of actual experience, 'from that period' type of knowledge in a Wikipedia search...
Sigh. I played all of those, admittedly UO the least (hours vs weeks or months)... and EQ wasn't the "forced group" game people claim it was. Most people were just new to the genre and their memories of it were affected by their proficiency. I was playing graphical online multiplayer rpgs from 91, onward. I'm familiar with their nuances, thanks.
'84 for for me, and '88 was when I began working in the industry for Simutronics on Gemstone 3. Been at it ever since...
I hadn't even thought to wiki it. Do you want me to do that? I might find 5 other games, the names of which are on the tip of my tongue. They were mostly asian, though.
I remember many games that you could add... Legends of Kesmai (tile-based) while it was in beta, the Realm, Neverwinter Nights on AOL, but I think you can find something thinner than a hair to split if you really wanted...
The bottom line was EQ was the AAA of its time, there wasn't much competition and what was there was pretty much group only (by default, not counting the incredibly inefficient corner cases I'm sure you're to bring up.) as well. If you were going to get a group the easiest to find was in EQ, and at the time getting a group was the only ticket to the show. If you didn't get a group then you were Kiting, a Necro, or a Cleric bashing skeletons for 10 hours a day or more. (Literally... 10 hours. if you had a life, you didn't play MMOs back then.)
Which by the way, is the worst thing to ever happen to MMOs. The days of reading about parents locking their children in a closet so they can play with their group?!? Glad it's dead and gone, and I hope that it never comes back. It was a life-sucking genre and the rose colored morons that want to bring that level of personal decay back into their lives have simply forgotten the bad aspects. Just get a smack habit, it's less self-destructive.
Post edited by Velocinox on
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Early EQ clerics didn't need to bash skeletons. Int gear increased spell damage, and since heals had a minimum value, you only wore much wis gear if you were primary heal for deep stuff like "bottom" sol b, lguk or planes. You didn't have to play 10 hours a day, people just did, and if they're neglecting people, they'd be neglecting people no matter what was their fixation.
I wouldn't exactly call muds graphical multiplayer online rpgs. Mostly they were text games, played through multi-port bbs, and, eh, some had ansi graphics I guess, but I was referring to the NWN you mentioned, which actually had a graphical engine. I played muds, too.
All junk display aside, I still don't think your rendition of early mmos is entirely accurate. Lineage may not have been popular "where you were" but it really wasn't primarily asiatic. It's just if people had to choose one isometric, the household name was Ultima. Really, in that era, any game was an outlandish success if it sold over 100k boxes. One being popular over the other really doesn't lead to the conclusion "one choice". It wasn't an accurate statement.
You didn't have to play 10 hours a day, people just did, and if they're neglecting people, they'd be neglecting people no matter what was their fixation.
You did if that's what your group did. You found a group and you leveled up with it. Maybe that got you into a guild but you typically ended up with some favorite players. And since it was so group oriented you were at the mercy of the most obsessive of the group. Sit out more than a few times and you fell behind and catch up wasn't possible unless you were the most obsessive one.
That's the difference. You may be OCD in your life, and game to an unhealthy degree, but in a group focused game you're pretty much locked into getting with a group that works for you and never letting go. So if you're not OCD and you want to have a life, well forget it, because you need to keep up with the most OCD in the group you like. So otherwise healthy individuals get trapped into the schedule of an unhealthy gamer.
Or... you end up in the group roulette that WoW became, (not as easy in EQ because there was no group finder.) and in the group roulette you ended up getting the people that were focused on speed running and premium ability. Which made people sick of that system too.
So in group focused games, you have a choice... Get with a group you like and give up your life to make sure you're ready when they are ready, and you keep up... OR group up with people you don't necessarily like so you can play the game... and that doesn't sound like good 'social fun' to me.
But this is all academic. Because what people of that era in MMOs really want is the past. And no matter what game is made, no matter to what parameters a game is held, it's not going to be the past, and it will never satisfy them like when it was all new and unfamiliar. It's just not going to happen, and the ones to suffer won't be the players jumping ship for the next dream of time travel back to their past. It will be the devs investing time, money and effort allowing these dreamers to chase an ephemeral phantom.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Hmm, well, you might be barking up the wrong tree with me on that subject. I prefer pugs because it adds random elements of problem solving. I like the chaos and the hassle, it's my favorite part of the metagame. Actually, much of what you described sounds like pack mentality.
The world looked really nice. The character models and animations were fine for the stage of development. The animations as is don't really bother me. The combat does. The combat pace is really slow and would bore the hell out of me.
Agreed Torval except for the graphics. The graphics make me sleepy lol
The graphics will be improved as the game comes further along in development.
You didn't have to play 10 hours a day, people just did, and if they're neglecting people, they'd be neglecting people no matter what was their fixation.
You did if that's what your group did. You found a group and you leveled up with it.
Funny, I never leveled any of my half a dozen characters that I hit cap with (on multiple servers) with the same group of people. I almost played with different people every day exclusively before reaching 50/60 and doing "end game" content. Neither did I play for 10 hours a day (Senior year of HS, college and PT jobs saw to that). Those were the best case scenarios for playing EQ outside of basement dwellers.
Yep, EQ was a game that emphasized grouping. Not sure wtf we are even discussing here. No one is "making" anyone buy Pantheon (or did they EQ), neither are they "making" those who do play in groups (nor did they in EQ). If someone does not have the time or desire to play in groups, there will be things to do solo. You won't level as fast, or accomplish as much, but the option will be there nevertheless.
The goal here is not to create another game where you briefly solo to cap, nor is it to make another boring asian grinder where you slowly solo to cap. Its to recreate the slower, yet more meaningful, social experience that hasn't existed since EverQuest. If you don't like it, that is fine. There will be more than enough people that do to keep the lights on at Visionary Realms.
You didn't have to play 10 hours a day, people just did, and if they're neglecting people, they'd be neglecting people no matter what was their fixation.
You did if that's what your group did. You found a group and you leveled up with it.
Funny, I never leveled any of my half a dozen characters that I hit cap with (on multiple servers) with the same group of people. I almost played with different people every day exclusively before reaching 50/60 and doing "end game" content. Neither did I play for 10 hours a day (Senior year of HS, college and PT jobs saw to that).
You leveled 6 characters to 60, at less than 10 hours a day/less than obsessive amount of time playing and you NEVER... EVER... grouped with the same person twice... NEVER. Did you end game? Did you raid? Where you playing solo and turns out today's games were actually made with YOU in mind?
Sorry, I find your claim to be less than credible. Especially if you did any raids. This is the wall of false agenda/nostalgia that hopeful old school devs are going to smack into when they realize nobody is playing their game.
The goal here is not to create another game where you briefly solo to cap, nor is it to make another boring asian grinder where you slowly solo to cap. Its to recreate the slower, yet more meaningful, social experience that hasn't existed since EverQuest.
You can buy a horse and build a buggy. You can ride it around in a ring or even on the street while you infuriate modern drivers. But, you're never going back to that feeling when your Pa handed you the reigns for the first time and you proudly rode down main street waving at all the other buggy riders as they congratulated you on your first time taking the reigns.
You Can't Go Home Again - Thomas Wolfe
Look it up, read it.
Learn.
There will be more than enough people that do to keep the lights on at Visionary Realms.
You say that as if it were fact. How desperately are you clinging to this statement? Because you might want to ease up on that grip before the possible failure crushes you.
[mod edit]
Post edited by Vaross on
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Comments
I totally agree with them.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Don't know how else to communicate this to you. Sure, the early level game will be improved upon, but at level 7 you don't have advanced content and dealing with those runes and a real aggro system again is already more complex than the games you are trying to compare Pantheon to at level seven.
I don't like the idea of cutting less skillful users a break just for the hell of it because you want to be nice to them. If you screw up, chances are pretty high that you are going to wipe. They will learn. Just the same way all the classic mmo players did from those days. Pro Tip: Farm close to the zone line
You're entitled to your opinion of how the combat should be, but I don't think it's inline with what this game and the niche audience is going for.
Everyone *could* solo in EQ. It just wasn't anywhere close to as efficient as grouping. This is one of those things that you don't have to exclude soloers, you just don't cater to them.
Your last point isn't really true. There is a break point. If you're going to level at half the speed soloing than finding a group, most people except the truly antisocial, will find a group. For example lets say it would take you 4 hours of efficient soloing to make 20% of a level. However if you do it in a group it may only take 2 hours. Even if it takes you 30 minutes to put a group together, you're still way better off, and that's not even including the potential gear drops.
The issue is making grouping enough of an incentive XP wise. EQ did a good job with this, as even classes that were excellent soloers, like druids and necros, generally still preferred a group over soloing.
In EQ dungeons generally had a larger XP modifier than outside zone (it was nigh impossible to solo reliably in most dungeons), and grouping had an XP modifier.
So for example, if you had 6 people in your group, than your group would be getting (making a number up) 135% more xp than the mob would have given killed solo. Combine that with a dungeon having say a 25% xp modifier, and even when you account for splitting that XP 6 ways, you're still coming out way ahead. And again, that's not even accounting for gear.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
good groups would be fast paced with fast chain pulling but yeah, you had a lot of time to chat and get to know friends in game.
it was just another reason why you couldn't really solo. soloing was far slower and more boring, you could do it but it sucked.
it seems this game is for vet EQ1 players, other people might want to look elsewhere or adapt. you never know, get in a few groups in a game like this and meet friends and it might grow on you.
my concern is the health of the community and how they handle servers. they simply cannot have empty servers or that will kill this game faster than anything.
JMO
Water will take the path of least resistance... even if that means a different river.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Meridian was a spritely joke by the time EQ came out, and UO was a gank fest. AC came out only later in '99 and most players were already invested in EQ by then. While Lineage was a mostly Korean game much of its early life and wasn't very well known in the west.
Not to mention that AC and Lineage were (mostly in the case of AC) group only games as well, and UO was group only by default because of PvP. So changing didn't offer much of an alternative.
Sorry, but for the PvE MMO player EQ was all there was.
You might not find that kind of actual experience, 'from that period' type of knowledge in a Wikipedia search...
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
I hadn't even thought to wiki it. Do you want me to do that? I might find 5 other games, the names of which are on the tip of my tongue. They were mostly asian, though.
Which by the way, is the worst thing to ever happen to MMOs. The days of reading about parents locking their children in a closet so they can play with their group?!? Glad it's dead and gone, and I hope that it never comes back. It was a life-sucking genre and the rose colored morons that want to bring that level of personal decay back into their lives have simply forgotten the bad aspects. Just get a smack habit, it's less self-destructive.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
I wouldn't exactly call muds graphical multiplayer online rpgs. Mostly they were text games, played through multi-port bbs, and, eh, some had ansi graphics I guess, but I was referring to the NWN you mentioned, which actually had a graphical engine. I played muds, too.
All junk display aside, I still don't think your rendition of early mmos is entirely accurate. Lineage may not have been popular "where you were" but it really wasn't primarily asiatic. It's just if people had to choose one isometric, the household name was Ultima. Really, in that era, any game was an outlandish success if it sold over 100k boxes. One being popular over the other really doesn't lead to the conclusion "one choice". It wasn't an accurate statement.
That's the difference. You may be OCD in your life, and game to an unhealthy degree, but in a group focused game you're pretty much locked into getting with a group that works for you and never letting go. So if you're not OCD and you want to have a life, well forget it, because you need to keep up with the most OCD in the group you like. So otherwise healthy individuals get trapped into the schedule of an unhealthy gamer.
Or... you end up in the group roulette that WoW became, (not as easy in EQ because there was no group finder.) and in the group roulette you ended up getting the people that were focused on speed running and premium ability. Which made people sick of that system too.
So in group focused games, you have a choice... Get with a group you like and give up your life to make sure you're ready when they are ready, and you keep up... OR group up with people you don't necessarily like so you can play the game... and that doesn't sound like good 'social fun' to me.
But this is all academic. Because what people of that era in MMOs really want is the past. And no matter what game is made, no matter to what parameters a game is held, it's not going to be the past, and it will never satisfy them like when it was all new and unfamiliar. It's just not going to happen, and the ones to suffer won't be the players jumping ship for the next dream of time travel back to their past. It will be the devs investing time, money and effort allowing these dreamers to chase an ephemeral phantom.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Yep, EQ was a game that emphasized grouping. Not sure wtf we are even discussing here. No one is "making" anyone buy Pantheon (or did they EQ), neither are they "making" those who do play in groups (nor did they in EQ). If someone does not have the time or desire to play in groups, there will be things to do solo. You won't level as fast, or accomplish as much, but the option will be there nevertheless.
The goal here is not to create another game where you briefly solo to cap, nor is it to make another boring asian grinder where you slowly solo to cap. Its to recreate the slower, yet more meaningful, social experience that hasn't existed since EverQuest. If you don't like it, that is fine. There will be more than enough people that do to keep the lights on at Visionary Realms.
Sorry, I find your claim to be less than credible. Especially if you did any raids. This is the wall of false agenda/nostalgia that hopeful old school devs are going to smack into when they realize nobody is playing their game. You can buy a horse and build a buggy. You can ride it around in a ring or even on the street while you infuriate modern drivers. But, you're never going back to that feeling when your Pa handed you the reigns for the first time and you proudly rode down main street waving at all the other buggy riders as they congratulated you on your first time taking the reigns.
You Can't Go Home Again - Thomas Wolfe
Look it up, read it.
Learn. You say that as if it were fact. How desperately are you clinging to this statement? Because you might want to ease up on that grip before the possible failure crushes you.
[mod edit]
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.