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Pantheon early expectations
yila
Member UncommonPosts: 29
Hello all!
This morning I have been enjoying everyones positive and negative reviews on last nights Pantheon live stream. Most seems to be positive while others have been very quick to judge on the recent new gameplay. I wanted to write up something very quickly all from my phone so I apoligize for bad sentences and grammar right now lol.
First off I want to start off by saying great job to the staff of Visionary Realms for giving us the opportunity to see 2 HOURS OF pre alpha gameplay. This is something you never see. this is a huge milestone for the team considering they all code this game from their homes and not from a corporate office.
Graphics: they have said in the live stream that the graphics we saw are the last things on their minds at this point in time. Right now they are focused on strictly game play and making sure the game is fun for their target Audience (Vanguard Everquest Final fantasy XI). They will have much better graphics animations and UI moving forward. Watching the live stream chat on twitch, people were ready to donate allot of money now just to play with the current graphics and animations. Normally when I watch a live stream of over a thousand viewers, the chat can be very negative which was not the case. People were so overwhelmed with nostalga and hope for the future they have invested into Pantheon. Again this was only pre alpha and 2 hours of gameplay!
In the 2 hours of footage we only saw a small fraction of the zone. There was a moment when a player died, he had to run back to his party members which was faaaar away and no map to guide them back.
The Bard and necro will come post launch of Pantheon. There will be raid available at launch. There will be soloing available but limited.
With one door closing on Everquest Next, I feel another door is opening with Pantheon. I hope if you were a player on the fence with this game that the live stream was enough to just commit and donate already. Its time to get behind Brad McQuaid and his staff and let the past be the past. Being an older gamer and growing up on Everquest, I am incredibly stoked for the future of Pantheon.
Yila
Sent from the toilet on my galaxy S6
This morning I have been enjoying everyones positive and negative reviews on last nights Pantheon live stream. Most seems to be positive while others have been very quick to judge on the recent new gameplay. I wanted to write up something very quickly all from my phone so I apoligize for bad sentences and grammar right now lol.
First off I want to start off by saying great job to the staff of Visionary Realms for giving us the opportunity to see 2 HOURS OF pre alpha gameplay. This is something you never see. this is a huge milestone for the team considering they all code this game from their homes and not from a corporate office.
Graphics: they have said in the live stream that the graphics we saw are the last things on their minds at this point in time. Right now they are focused on strictly game play and making sure the game is fun for their target Audience (Vanguard Everquest Final fantasy XI). They will have much better graphics animations and UI moving forward. Watching the live stream chat on twitch, people were ready to donate allot of money now just to play with the current graphics and animations. Normally when I watch a live stream of over a thousand viewers, the chat can be very negative which was not the case. People were so overwhelmed with nostalga and hope for the future they have invested into Pantheon. Again this was only pre alpha and 2 hours of gameplay!
In the 2 hours of footage we only saw a small fraction of the zone. There was a moment when a player died, he had to run back to his party members which was faaaar away and no map to guide them back.
The Bard and necro will come post launch of Pantheon. There will be raid available at launch. There will be soloing available but limited.
With one door closing on Everquest Next, I feel another door is opening with Pantheon. I hope if you were a player on the fence with this game that the live stream was enough to just commit and donate already. Its time to get behind Brad McQuaid and his staff and let the past be the past. Being an older gamer and growing up on Everquest, I am incredibly stoked for the future of Pantheon.
Yila
Sent from the toilet on my galaxy S6
Post edited by yila on
Comments
I don't like Raids,imo they are never necessary and will alienate a lot of players all the time.
Sure you can get a large guild and organize one but not whenever you want and some players will simply not be able to make it and WILL feel extremely left out.I have a long history in this type of gaming and i have seen YES a lot of happy faces when and if all can make it but there is also a lot of discouraged players when they can't.
At least with group only content 4/5/6 man groups,it is much easier to get enough players together from all tine zones to do any content,IF the content allows it and Raids do not.
Even if you just look at last nights video,that was no raid,what if you could not do anything without a raid last night?Yes of course obviously i understand there are other things to do,i am talking specifically about alienating players from certain or some content.
The other point is that in gaming or guild type Raid content,it is a never ending forward movement,anyone that missed last weeks Raid content will miss out forever because next week is likely a higher level/tier raid.It is just a content idea that causes a lot of problem which is not needed when players just want to have fun,my point keep it to 6 man groups.
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I think it's better to slow down leveling and just improve the experience of leveling up. For example, make sure there're enough areas for players and it's quick enough for htem to organize. Make the content is good. Add stuff which some of the players like but isn't necessarily tied to HP or DPS. Roleplalying stuff, for example. Like bieng able to sit in chairs or for NPCs to talk to each other radnomly. When people hit cap--if they ever hit cap--they'll make an alt for a different experience. Hitting cap isn't the goal.
Make heavy use of horizontal progression. This means it doesn't just increase your level. It may only be useful in one area of the game. Maybe you know how to speak Elaugi and have the crafting expertise and can cause the fireworks over Neu Yeb almost at will. Maybe you're able to enter a strange zone which offers a different way to earn your gold, not a better or worse way. Maybe you have a sword which allows you to slaughter level 15 Xorb Fiends, but that's all it's good at and Xorb Fiends are mostly unimportant in the large scale of things. Maybe you know how to make a special form of ale which makes players not just drunk but poetic and reciting verses from famous writers. Maybe you have a robe which makes you invisible in a particular place but that's the only purpose it serves. Maybe you have a illusion from a quest which allows you to be a owl for 10 minutes out of every 30. It's useful in the Aviak dungeon because they sometimes mistake you as non-threatening.
I consider even the invisible walls and shortcuts in places to be horizontal progression. They're fun little things to learn make it funner. Everquest had some of that and those things are heart and soul.
I don't think any of this works in a modern game, but it might work in Pantheon. Why? Because players are more open minded about it.
If the destination is more improtant than the journey it has failed in my mind. Or maybe it just became something I don't favor.
Whatever occurs, I hope the old content stays meaningful and the focus isn't just on end game or on the high levels. Usually that's what happens when games get old because MMO's haven't figured out how to do horizontal progression. Or maybe players prefer vertical progression.
Nobody is forcing you to raid. They've already said raiding will be around 5-10% of the games content. So, basically you're just being petulant and selfish based on...? Jealousy? I don't know. I mean i really don't get that mentality. If you don't like doing something, don't do it.
It's like saying that a grocery store shouldn't carry oreos cus you're gluten free and since you can't have them, nobody should be able to, and that having them will "alienate" players. No, the only people who it will alienate are irrational people who operate on a me me me mindset 24/7
"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
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Up to this point I had about half an eye on Pantheon. I was never an EQ player, so the nostalgia button doesn't do anything for me. And I'm not sure the old school gameplay will really work for me. But I loved Vanguard, and what I saw on the stream impressed me. It's clearly not ready, but it's just as clearly come a LONG way.
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Hell I had several friends watch a few who played UO, EQ, or FFXI and even they were like.... Yea no thanks I am not doing corpse runs and EXP loss. But most of them did say if they have to spend any length of time learning a boss fight like in FFXI, EQ1, or even Vanilla WOW the death penalties will keep people from even being involved.
1 thing that I was EXTREMELY happy to see was the crowd control and if they encountered more then 1 mob at a time, things got hairy! I am glad that oh shit feeling is back in the game. About damn time.
Losing xp is exactly what the majority want. We want to know we need to be careful and not chew off more than we can handle.
To many games now have little to no repercussions for dying.
I have seen all the other brilliant ideas and no thanks for me...i want to know that if i die i will be penalized...it makes you try and get better as a player and make more informed decisions about who or what you are attacking.. Too many games just let you zerg content over and over with no real penalty for dying.
Oh here go repair your gear...slap on hand.....you should not have died you bad boy...
Eq actually made me think..shit do i really wanna try and kill this? Nowadays just run in and try...nothing to lose if you die.
Screw that.
I agree with you on this Hrimnir. However he does have a point about group content. Thats something that WOW did wrong which was to kill the smaller group content in favor of raids. Now I think the problem with people hating Raids is the Drama surrounding them because getting larger groups of people is a real pain in the ass. I know I was a raid leader back in the MC days and dealing with people was a pain in the ass and why I stopped wanting more than 10 people raids. You get so many different personalities in there and the raid would turn into a bitch.
Its much easier to find 4 to 10 or so like minded people who will keep the drama to a minimum than it is to get 39 or 19 other people. Again this is something WOW really screwed up
Now when it comes down to a me me me mindset. Yes there are a lot of people like that. But take me for example. I been bringing friends from game to game since I started MMOs. If we collectively dont like a design like for example corpse runs. We are not coming and from experience there are certain things like corpse runs that will make games like Pantheon ghost towns. That is not a ME ME ME deal its the truth; while you dont want a game for everyone if you pander to a very small market you will not make enough money to keep the likes on.
I get taking a step back and taking notes from old school. But we have to remember why there was changes sometimes. EQ1 and exp loss shut down to many teams and in a game where team balance is needed, Breaking up teams that take time to make. Again dumb move.