What the heck is the draw with this game? Everything I've seen looks like amateur hour at the developer improv. Yes, yes - it's alpha (still pre-alpha?) - but my God: I'm just not seeing any reason for this level of hype.
In a word: nostalgia
Here's another word: gameplay.
Even PacMan has gameplay
I know its hard for you to wrap your head around, but people want the gameplay (among many other things) of early MMORPGs with the technical and graphical improvements of a modern game.
Nostalgia is irrelevant.
Who wants that? What large, cohesive unit of people desires that kind of game?
I've been around since the earliest MMORPGs, and there's no way in hell that I want to go back to UO's top-down cluster, or EQ's clunky interface or stupidly long travel times.
Come now, who doesn't like a clunky interface. I'm almost certain that is one of the top 3 reason people are backing this game. They better deliver or I'm out.
I know it's hard for you to wrap your head around, but most people don't want that.
Some people THINK they want to relive the past - but MOST of those will quickly change their minds once they realise what it really means to go back in time.
Nostalgia is highly relevant.
Also, Pantheon is NOT a "modern" game in terms of graphical improvements. Let's not kid ourselves that much. Well, ok, for an indie game - it looks average, but that's about it.
Just because Pantheon's proposed gameplay style is making a return from older games, it doesn't mean the gamer wants to relive the past. It means he/she prefers that style and wants that brought into the new age as no current market titles offer it.
It's not difficult to understand, it's not nostalgia, it's about wanting completely different gameplay that's not currently offered.
Pantheon will never be a huge success (millions of subs). Luckily it wont need to be to make the team enough money to live comfortable lives, and maybe as importantly to be proud of their work in the process.
The pride stems from them staying true to their ideas, concepts, dreams. Exactly this also means that they will be able to, hopefully, stay passionate in what they do, making it a creative process not guided by men in suits and their wonderful business models that sufficate anything that aint tailored towards the broad public.
To be a fairly profitable business also reaching into the near future, they will have to stay true to their ideals. By staying true to their ideals I mean for them to completely ignore (potentially mock) the new crowd of players that urge for shallow games, like for instance what World of Warcraft (the prime behemoth of examples) has turned into today - fact.
What is for sure is that if the team start to carter to the impatient, selfintitled, victimized, short attentionspan crowd it will go downhill very fast because they, the Patheon team, simply wont be able to compete with the wallets of the men in suits massproducing the shallow content that the masses crave. It simply is'nt even an option for them to go down this rute.
What is wrong in hoping for a game where you have to think and learn?, where you have to work together?and where there is consequenses to your actions? to have everything handed to you is meaningless. Being at a birthdayparty a couple of times a year is great fun, having to go to one each day would make my guts twist and turn. If there was no pain there would be no pleasure - it is logical.
I just want freedom. BDO offers quite a bit of it and the main reason I can look past some of the smaller faults in the game. I think Vanguard was ok but really was too quest based with not enough other stuff to do. The world design was good but the game was far from finished. I'm hoping for this game to be a bit more like EQ.
I like how people say it is just nostalgia when I list specific things from EQ that don't really exist in the genre anymore (As I did in an earlier post in the thread).
People say we don't know what we want. Well, I've supported almost every sandboxy/open world type game that has come out. Hell, I played Darkfall UW for years and don't really like PvP...because it offered freedom in a virtual type world. I play EQ progression servers and the updated EQ.
Do the naysayers really think the genre needs more linear quest hub themeparks?
Who wants that? What large, cohesive unit of people desires that kind of game?
I've been around since the earliest MMORPGs, and there's no way in hell that I want to go back to UO's top-down cluster, or EQ's clunky interface or stupidly long travel times. What I want is a modern sandbox... or, in the least, a well-designed AAA sandpark. And this doesn't look like either of those things - just a really clumsy hack-and-slash slog.
Youre implying Pantheon will have any of this? Better yet are you saying thats what players miss and want out of it? That the nostalgia they miss is a clunky interface and traveling in an empty low poly world for excessively long times?
Maybe its the easy slog through 20-60 levels of mind numbing, hand guided, solo leveling content thats been increasingly getting worse in games since around 2004.
Maybe players looking forward to this game are more "nostalgic" about a game that doesnt treat players like brain dead monkeys who cant find a quest objective without a golden mark on the map than they are of a "UO top-down cluster." Just because the last games to do that are decades old doesnt mean anyone wants or expects Pantheon or SoL to be like that.
Granted, it's probably not fair to judge it (from either direction) at this juncture, given its state of development, but nor do I see any reason to perpetuate the kind of frenzy that is surrounding this particular game. What footage is available is utterly unimpressive - if they cut a mighty sculpture out of that raw block of marble, so be it... but it hasn't happened yet.
I dont know if its possible but Im starting to think VR should maybe focus on pretty-ing up the game a little first, for promotional sake. It makes sense for other studios who are already fully funded to worry about aesthetics later but for a game like Pantheon which needs more funding, I think its just hurting it in the long run.
What players *think* they want and what they say they want and what they actually want are often different things.
It will be interesting to see many mmorpg vets get exactly what they were saying in forums for years with Pantheon and then realize it's not what they really want anymore.
It's gonna be epic heh
I think even the doubters will end up enjoying Pantheon much to their dismay.
Oh I am sure that will happen too, but IMO to a much lesser extent.
People forget that not having as much free time and having more adult responsibility makes a world of difference in what game you like
EQ1 vanilla required an enormous time investment, I am sure Pantheon will be similar, and that right there will ultimately be the wakeup call for many vets - as in realizing how faster more convinient gameplay is more suitable to their current lifestyle which us very different from 16 years ago.
I will be playing Pantheon for sure - heck I have 2 maxed out characters in P99
Ya, its a shame there aren't any other people like our younger selves to take our place. Oh wait.
Now its your turn to tell me how this game will never appeal to people of that age.
EQ1 vanilla required an enormous time investment, I am sure Pantheon will be similar, and that right there will ultimately be the wakeup call for many vets - as in realizing how faster more convinient gameplay is more suitable to their current lifestyle which us very different from 16 years ago.
Not trying to argue with you Kano, but I've been seeing this point a lot. Was everyone who played EQ back in 1999 under the age of 21?
I'd be interested to see what the actual demographics of EQ players were at its height. Personally I knew 4 people over 40 (with kids) who played regularly and were successful in-game. I was 14 when I started playing in 1999 and honestly I would expect to have more opportunity to play now that I'm not sharing a single computer with a brother and father who also play, and a dial up internet connection with a mom who wanted to use the phone. If the average American still watches 4 hours of TV a day, they could probably spend that time in-game too.
Also, this concept of "Time Investment" is interesting. Are we talking about the time to get to max level? The time to become a skilled player? The time to maintain friendships? The time to participate in raiding? What's the time investment required to start having fun and enjoying the game?
Hopefully there will be many viable ways to play Pantheon. Players might just enjoy logging in for a few hours a week, joining a pickup group, and killing some mobs. Maybe doing a dungeon crawl on the weekend. Outside of the requirements to be present on Raids for opportunities to get loot, there doesn't seem to be a lot of pressure in how often or how long you play.
According to this half-ass google search, in 2001 the average age of EQ players was 25.6
To me that says college-graduated young professionals, either living on their own and making decent money for the first time, or living in their parents basement. Generally single without kids.
Those people probably do have more responsibility now with more demanding jobs, relationships, and kids. Still, I don't think it's impossible for that crowd to play and enjoy Pantheon. The most common average playtime was 10 - 20 hours. That's 2h/night with extra time on the weekend.
And like Dullahan said, the younger demographic still exists. Convincing them that instant-gratification is ultimately less rewarding than EQ-style gameplay will be the challenge.
According to this half-ass google search, in 2001 the average age of EQ players was 25.6
To me that says college-graduated young professionals, either living on their own and making decent money for the first time, or living in their parents basement. Generally single without kids.
Those people probably do have more responsibility now with more demanding jobs, relationships, and kids. Still, I don't think it's impossible for that crowd to play and enjoy Pantheon. The most common average playtime was 10 - 20 hours. That's 2h/night with extra time on the weekend.
And like Dullahan said, the younger demographic still exists. Convincing them that instant-gratification is ultimately less rewarding than EQ-style gameplay will be the challenge.
I disagree, I think it can be done. One of my kids is a complete WoW geek and also plays SWTOR and played EQ2 and DDO for a while, and he's 12. Used to call him daddy's little gold farmer. The other thing to remember is that these kids have been brought up on games like clash of clans, candy crush, etc. which are, ultimately, brutal to play and quite unrewarding past the first hour or two. So I think that younger people would be interested in the game, the question is whether or not the game is interested in the kids. There seems to be a prevailing sentiment of exclusivity surrounding the game. There are people like @Dullahan who seem genuinely interested in promoting the game, but there seem to be far more who put up this super aggressive, defensive posture who seem hell-bent on protecting the integrity of the game instead of trusting that Brad will deliver the game that he wants to, rather than selling out. Personally, I see the community as being the biggest challenge for Pantheon. What people remember so fondly about early MMOs is the community, but from what I've seen so far, I don't think it measures up.
The other thing to remember is that these kids have been brought up on games like clash of clans, candy crush, etc. which are, ultimately, brutal to play and quite unrewarding past the first hour or two. So I think that younger people would be interested in the game,
So because you think these games are brutal to play and unrewarding past a certain point that "the kids" these days agree and want something else?
My company has a department that's pretty much 20 somethings and they have the shortest attention spans I have ever seen.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
The other thing to remember is that these kids have been brought up on games like clash of clans, candy crush, etc. which are, ultimately, brutal to play and quite unrewarding past the first hour or two. So I think that younger people would be interested in the game,
So because you think these games are brutal to play and unrewarding past a certain point that "the kids" these days agree and want something else?
My company has a department that's pretty much 20 somethings and they have the shortest attention spans I have ever seen.
Lol, no. I'm just saying that I don't think that the slow-paced gameplay is, necessarily, an issue. Shit, my kids play Minecraft and Roblox which I simply don't understand at times. Like Prison servers on Minecraft? I just don't get how that's fun.
So the real question is whether Pantheon can make something that's actually fun to play. If they're selling to a younger generation, though, don't ask me what's fun, because I don't "get it".
The other thing to remember is that these kids have been brought up on games like clash of clans, candy crush, etc. which are, ultimately, brutal to play and quite unrewarding past the first hour or two. So I think that younger people would be interested in the game,
So because you think these games are brutal to play and unrewarding past a certain point that "the kids" these days agree and want something else?
My company has a department that's pretty much 20 somethings and they have the shortest attention spans I have ever seen.
Lol, no. I'm just saying that I don't think that the slow-paced gameplay is, necessarily, an issue. Shit, my kids play Minecraft and Roblox which I simply don't understand at times. Like Prison servers on Minecraft? I just don't get how that's fun.
So the real question is whether Pantheon can make something that's actually fun to play. If they're selling to a younger generation, though, don't ask me what's fun, because I don't "get it".
ah I see. yeah, they creep me out sometimes ...
I hate being told "well, you NEED to be on social media".
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
The other thing to remember is that these kids have been brought up on games like clash of clans, candy crush, etc. which are, ultimately, brutal to play and quite unrewarding past the first hour or two. So I think that younger people would be interested in the game,
So because you think these games are brutal to play and unrewarding past a certain point that "the kids" these days agree and want something else?
My company has a department that's pretty much 20 somethings and they have the shortest attention spans I have ever seen.
Lol, no. I'm just saying that I don't think that the slow-paced gameplay is, necessarily, an issue. Shit, my kids play Minecraft and Roblox which I simply don't understand at times. Like Prison servers on Minecraft? I just don't get how that's fun.
So the real question is whether Pantheon can make something that's actually fun to play. If they're selling to a younger generation, though, don't ask me what's fun, because I don't "get it".
ah I see. yeah, they creep me out sometimes ...
I hate being told "well, you NEED to be on social media".
My 15 year-old niece got an achievement in Snapchat the other day. Like 115,000 snapchat things or whatever. Didn't really freak me out until I realized that Snapchat has only been around for 4 years. So even if she Snapchatted every day for those 4 years since launch, that would come out to like 70 snapchats a day. So we're talking like one every 15 minutes of your waking hours? Oh! What's scarier is that's not even that impressive, apparently. "God! Please kill me before I need to rely on my kids to care for me."
I feel your enthusiasm OP, I too believe this game will be more successful than what most people are thinking. The younger generation of gamer's have never had a difficult group dependent game to play. And when Pantheon releases they'll get to experience what some of us did with EQ. Its the group dependency that hooks you and keeps you coming back for more. In today's MMO's everyone is a bunny hopping DPS drone, (zerg, zerg, zerg, rush, rush, rush) and it gets boring really quick. With Pantheon you'll have a specific job to fill in your group and if you can't do that job well your group will suffer. Things will actually matter, and this will drive the addiction (I'm actually needed and I need to improve). Slower combat will bring back players communicating with each other. Slow XP gain will make it mean something again to be a high level player, rare items actually being rare and hard to get will bring back their worth as well. Newer gamer's want old school mechanics they just don't know it yet
In a nutshell: Today's gamer's have never played a group dependent (D&D) game like this, all they have are dumbed down quest hub marathons to zerg and chase after. Pantheon will be the "savior" in the sense that it'll be taking MMO's back to their roots, but with todays graphics and slicker UI.
What players *think* they want and what they say they want and what they actually want are often different things.
It will be interesting to see many mmorpg vets get exactly what they were saying in forums for years with Pantheon and then realize it's not what they really want anymore.
It's gonna be epic heh
I think even the doubters will end up enjoying Pantheon much to their dismay.
Oh I am sure that will happen too, but IMO to a much lesser extent.
People forget that not having as much free time and having more adult responsibility makes a world of difference in what game you like
EQ1 vanilla required an enormous time investment, I am sure Pantheon will be similar, and that right there will ultimately be the wakeup call for many vets - as in realizing how faster more convinient gameplay is more suitable to their current lifestyle which us very different from 16 years ago.
I will be playing Pantheon for sure - heck I have 2 maxed out characters in P99
Ya, its a shame there aren't any other people like our younger selves to take our place. Oh wait.
Now its your turn to tell me how this game will never appeal to people of that age.
To be honest, I really don't see it having the same effect on the new generation like EQ/UO did with us. The early MMORPG's where such a homerun to us because they brought the magic and dream of pen and paper RPGs with friends do a digital world and expanded our reach. It wasn't the gameplay that was spectacular, but rather the ability to play a game in a fashion we enjoy on table tops.
The younger gamers are not about that drive anymore...well not for the time of gaming we group up with. The premise has changed with the technology. I point you to Pokemon Go for the newer and the type of MMO they love. That game is an absolute hit... it's live and in person, it's interactive and competitive, it's local and instant... and completely a 180 from what Pantheon is bringing to the table.
What players *think* they want and what they say they want and what they actually want are often different things.
It will be interesting to see many mmorpg vets get exactly what they were saying in forums for years with Pantheon and then realize it's not what they really want anymore.
It's gonna be epic heh
I think even the doubters will end up enjoying Pantheon much to their dismay.
Oh I am sure that will happen too, but IMO to a much lesser extent.
People forget that not having as much free time and having more adult responsibility makes a world of difference in what game you like
EQ1 vanilla required an enormous time investment, I am sure Pantheon will be similar, and that right there will ultimately be the wakeup call for many vets - as in realizing how faster more convinient gameplay is more suitable to their current lifestyle which us very different from 16 years ago.
I will be playing Pantheon for sure - heck I have 2 maxed out characters in P99
Ya, its a shame there aren't any other people like our younger selves to take our place. Oh wait.
Now its your turn to tell me how this game will never appeal to people of that age.
To be honest, I really don't see it having the same effect on the new generation like EQ/UO did with us. The early MMORPG's where such a homerun to us because they brought the magic and dream of pen and paper RPGs with friends do a digital world and expanded our reach. It wasn't the gameplay that was spectacular, but rather the ability to play a game in a fashion we enjoy on table tops.
The younger gamers are not about that drive anymore...well not for the time of gaming we group up with. The premise has changed with the technology. I point you to Pokemon Go for the newer and the type of MMO they love. That game is an absolute hit... it's live and in person, it's interactive and competitive, it's local and instant... and completely a 180 from what Pantheon is bringing to the table.
Face it, Pantheon is for us old timers...
I think old timers will love it but I think their is a market for new blood as well. So many vapid games, IMO if done right this game could capture a solid number of new gamers as well, just because they are sick of shallow cash grabbing games that play the long game. Time a game was made for a set of gamers and does not bend to the masses all to make one set of gamers happy.
I believe it will be like a good movie or show. If Pantheon can "hook" the new bloods within the first 10 levels or so I think they will be full on addicted like we were in EQ.
Now there could be endless arguments on the best way to do that, but, I think its simple. Make it challenging and make the gains seem meaningful. Make the player become attached to the character and the world within the first 10 levels. If Pantheon does that, I have no doubt they'll retain newer players.
I really do not know if it will save the genre. But for me personally it might very well save me from hating the genre. Let's face it. Most MMOs are waayyy too easy and gameplay is often a secondary thought in modern MMOs.
Everyone has different tastes. For me, I like complicated systems and difficult gameplay. For example I do not know of many games out today that have the complicated class interdependence that EQ had/has. I still keep going back to EQ (playing it as I write this) even though the graphics are very dated and make your eyes bleed.
The ONLY other games out there I can think of with such complicated gameplay systems is Eve Online and Magicka:Wizard Wars.
World of Warcraft used to hold my attention but now I cannot stand the game. They completely dumbed it down. The removal of the skill trees was the final straw for me. Plus now it isn't even a social game at all. People, when they do socialize, are often little curmudgeons. It is log in, click a button to find a raid or group, and then you get a loading screen to a dungeon where there is hardly any challenge at all. It has been reduced to daily grinds of the same dungeons. The world immersion is dead. WoW is just plain boring...
Hell I would be happy if they just re-skinned EQ but that isn't going to happen. In fact, I seriously think Daybreak may eventually face bankruptcy and EQ might go away forever.
So for me, I am really holding out for Pantheon because frankly everything else sucks that I have come across.
EQ1 vanilla required an enormous time investment, I am sure Pantheon will be similar, and that right there will ultimately be the wakeup call for many vets - as in realizing how faster more convinient gameplay is more suitable to their current lifestyle which us very different from 16 years ago.
Not trying to argue with you Kano, but I've been seeing this point a lot. Was everyone who played EQ back in 1999 under the age of 21?
I'd be interested to see what the actual demographics of EQ players were at its height. Personally I knew 4 people over 40 (with kids) who played regularly and were successful in-game. I was 14 when I started playing in 1999 and honestly I would expect to have more opportunity to play now that I'm not sharing a single computer with a brother and father who also play, and a dial up internet connection with a mom who wanted to use the phone. If the average American still watches 4 hours of TV a day, they could probably spend that time in-game too.
Also, this concept of "Time Investment" is interesting. Are we talking about the time to get to max level? The time to become a skilled player? The time to maintain friendships? The time to participate in raiding? What's the time investment required to start having fun and enjoying the game?
Hopefully there will be many viable ways to play Pantheon. Players might just enjoy logging in for a few hours a week, joining a pickup group, and killing some mobs. Maybe doing a dungeon crawl on the weekend. Outside of the requirements to be present on Raids for opportunities to get loot, there doesn't seem to be a lot of pressure in how often or how long you play.
As one of the people over forty in 1999, I can assure you I have more time to play MMORPGS today than I did then. I am hoping Pantheon turns out well and if it does I will be playing it more than thirty hours a week.
If Pantheon manages to be a tactically interesting game that requires community, it could certainly make me and my friends play it. Unless it makes a lot more money than the f2p games out there no one in the industry will notice.
I think my biggest concern with Pantheon is it will get watered down into just another pointless themepark like most games these days... I have no confidence they will stick to their vision. If they do, that'd be amazing... but....
I agree. The OP doesn't understand this isn't generational. This isn't about people who played Daoc and Everquest and Asheron's Call versus the people who played modern MMO's. This is about mainstream MMO players versus niche MMO players. The OP either needs to come to this essential truth or remain deluded.
A few things the OP missed I will bring up. The first is not every player who tried Daoc and EQ and AC and AO--back in the day--liked them. Some quit. Many played yet hated some of the gameplay. Some for love, others because there weren't a lot of 3d MMO's like today. When later MMO's like WoW and DDO and Guild Wars and LOTRO and AOC were released these same players found a welcome relief. Secondly the gaming audience was smaller back then. Not as many people owned a PC AND had internet AND liked RPGs/gaming in 1999. They tended to be more niche precisely because they were a smaller audience. As the market grew and more people entered the fold, it became more mainstream. It has been growing ever since, expanding to consoles and even mobile users. People are playing MMO's on their phones! This all has resulted in MMO's watering down not because of generational differences, but because of audience size and failed companies attempting to cash in by cloning the big MMO's. (In 1999, an RPG selling 2 million copies was a supernatural hit. Now it might sell >15 million and play on different platforms. Same for MMO's. EQ had peak 500k subscribers. WoW smashed that when it hit 4 million subscribers in 9 months--incredible.)
The problem for Pantheon is how to set itself apart from the rest of the niche MMO's. There're many! I play Wurm ONline for example, but therre're hundreds of them. There're MUDs, old MMO's which're emulated, old MMO's, amateur free MMO's, browser MMO's and so on. How is Pantheon going to gain their attention?
If it sells itself as a callback to EQ it's risking everything on the premise EQers will show up. If it appeals to mainstream gamers, its odds are better, but still not good. Thigns just arne't good for new MMO's because there're so many out there! It's not dead! The OP says it's dead, but this is far, FAR from the truth! It's ALIVE. Therer'e more people playing MMO's now than ever, substantially more! How does a MMO stand out? That's the trick. I've said ti before, but WoW will kill itself by mudflating. Technlogy and new ideas will catch up. New MMO"s will offer things not easily available in old MMO's.
The key is standing out. One of the reasons I played Wurm Online was because it stood out to me. I could have tried Mortal Online or Xsyon, but not many other MMO's could compare. There were just a handful. Now there're dozens of sandbox MMO's. The competition is tighter. Sometimes it's good for a MMO to recognize its niche nature. Don't compete with something huge if you don't have the budget. Pantheon needs to find its nature and stick to it. Embrace it. Hope for the best.
(Keep in mind many of the MMO's out there are completley free.)
If Pantheon manages to be a tactically interesting game that requires community, it could certainly make me and my friends play it. Unless it makes a lot more money than the f2p games out there no one in the industry will notice.
I think my biggest concern with Pantheon is it will get watered down into just another pointless themepark like most games these days... I have no confidence they will stick to their vision. If they do, that'd be amazing... but....
I agree. The OP doesn't understand this isn't generational. This isn't about people who played Daoc and Everquest and Asheron's Call versus the people who played modern MMO's. This is about mainstream MMO players versus niche MMO players. The OP either needs to come to this essential truth or remain deluded.
A few things the OP missed I will bring up. The first is not every player who tried Daoc and EQ and AC and AO--back in the day--liked them. Some quit. Many played yet hated some of the gameplay. Some for love, others because there weren't a lot of 3d MMO's like EQ in 1999. When WoW and DDO and Guild Wars and LOTRO and AOC were released these same players found a welcome relief. Secondly the gaming audience was smaller back then. Not as many people owned a PC AND had internet AND liked RPGs/gaming in 1999. They tended to be more niche precisely because they were a smaller audience. As the market grew and more people entered the fold, it became more mainstream. It has been growing ever since, expanding to consoles and even mobile users. People are playing MMO's on their phones! This all has resulted in MMO's watering down not because of generational differences, but because of audience size.
The problem for Pantheon is how to set itself apart from the rest of the niche MMO's. There're many! I play Wurm ONline for example, but therre're hundreds of them. There're MUDs, old MMO's which're emulated, old MMO's, amateur free MMO's, browser MMO's and so on. How is Pantheon going to gain their attention?
If it sells itself as a callback to EQ it's risking everything on the premise EQers will show up. If it appeals to mainstream gamers, its odds are better, but still not good. Thigns just arne't good for new MMO's because there're so many out there! It's not dead! The OP says it's dead, but this is far, FAR from the truth! It's ALIVE. Therer'e more people playing MMO's now than ever, substantially more! How does a MMO stand out? That's the trick. I've said ti before, but WoW will kill itself by mudflating. Technlogy and new ideas will catch up. New MMO"s will offer things not easily available in old MMO's.
The key is standing out. One of the reasons I played Wurm Online was because it stood out to me. I could have tried Mortal Online or Xsyon, but not many other MMO's could compare. There were just a handful. Now there're dozens of sandbox MMO's. The competition is tighter. Sometimes it's good for a MMO to recognize its niche nature. Don't compete with something huge if you don't have the budget. Pantheon needs to find its nature and stick to it. Embrace it. Hope for the best.
I agree with most of what you're saying except the use of MMO which needs to be a bit more clear. It is true that more people are playing MMOs but the same or less are actually playing MMORPGs, big difference. You have mobas, mmofps, ccgs, etc etc which can house a big community of players. The appeal to MMORPGs in the past as you said is that it filled a big social aspect of the online world since it was one of the few things at the time to have a social field and provide activities.
Pantheon can't sell itself as an EQ successor or whatever mainly because there's Project 99 and EQ + sub EQ etc etc still around. Although I'm excited to see the progress of this game, it honestly will need to have quite a few modernized elements if it wants to survive. Going back to what you said though, its hard determining what those things are since you have so many things coming out on at the very least a weekly basis that offer alterations to their competition.
I think people say the genre is mainly dead because it is over-saturated. The only thing honestly keeping wow at the "top" of the mmorpg genre is how well it sells the game, not the actual elements of it. PR and such were what made the game do so well, not the actual game itself tbh. Even though it was good as well, a vast majority of the player base was always casual.
If it sells itself as a callback to EQ it's risking everything on the premise EQers will show up. If it appeals to mainstream gamers, its odds are better, but still not good. Thigns just arne't good for new MMO's because there're so many out there! It's not dead! The OP says it's dead, but this is far, FAR from the truth! It's ALIVE. Therer'e more people playing MMO's now than ever, substantially more!
I agree with your post in general. Pantheon does need to stand out and it cannot do so as a mainstream game. Even the games that have 100s of millions are failing or struggling.
However, the mmo genre isn't doing nearly as well as you describe. There are only a handful of mmos doing well today just like there were a handful of mmos doing well 10 years ago. Particularly in the west, there has been a tragic lack of growth in the industry. In fact, the handful of mmos today are struggling to retain even the playerbase of mmos around the turn of the century. Considering the number of people with internet and gaming pcs is dramatically higher, the numbers we're seeing don't reflect well on the genre at all.
If it sells itself as a callback to EQ it's risking everything on the premise EQers will show up. If it appeals to mainstream gamers, its odds are better, but still not good. Thigns just arne't good for new MMO's because there're so many out there! It's not dead! The OP says it's dead, but this is far, FAR from the truth! It's ALIVE. Therer'e more people playing MMO's now than ever, substantially more!
I agree with your post in general. Pantheon does need to stand out and it cannot do so as a mainstream game. Even the games that have 100s of millions are failing or struggling.
However, the mmo genre isn't doing nearly as well as you describe. There are only a handful of mmos doing well today just like there were a handful of mmos doing well 10 years ago. Particularly in the west, there has been a tragic lack of growth in the industry. In fact, the handful of mmos today are struggling to retain even the playerbase of mmos around the turn of the century. Considering the number of people with internet and gaming pcs is dramatically higher, the numbers we're seeing don't reflect well on the genre at all.
For a long time, I've had the theory that the number of MMORPG players is pretty finite, an indefinite number but relatively constant. The first generation (Pre-WoW) had about a million players, post WoW, this number seemed to jump to around 8 million players, and has dropped to dwindled since then. My guesstimate of the current population is around 6 million players. Note: I don't equate players with accounts, as individual players can own multiple accounts in multiple and even the same game.
I definitely agree that the technological improvements have increased the game playing community overall, but that growth really hasn't translated to the MMORPG genre. Not even popular IPs like LotR and Star Wars have brought hoards of new individuals into the fold, like WoW did with their RTS fans.
I've been pretty vocal about the dangers I see for the glut of niche games in development, Pantheon in particular. To attract players beyond those already playing other MMORPGs, these games will need to have some element that attracts new players from the larger base of semi-serious players playing more mainstream titles. No MMORPG is likely to attract the ultra-casual players, people that play Solitaire (by far the largest segment under Gamers). It may be a fair statement that players willing to pay money to play a game are already in the genre they favor, RTS, FPS, strategy, solo games or whatever.
The games being developed to recapture niche markets are essentially going to have to capture their market from the existing MMORPG players will mean taking customers from Blizzard. That hasn't historically been an easy thing to do.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Comments
I'm gonna use the words of wisdom from our common friend
Have fun!
It's not difficult to understand, it's not nostalgia, it's about wanting completely different gameplay that's not currently offered.
The pride stems from them staying true to their ideas, concepts, dreams. Exactly this also means that they will be able to, hopefully, stay passionate in what they do, making it a creative process not guided by men in suits and their wonderful business models that sufficate anything that aint tailored towards the broad public.
To be a fairly profitable business also reaching into the near future, they will have to stay true to their ideals. By staying true to their ideals I mean for them to completely ignore (potentially mock) the new crowd of players that urge for shallow games, like for instance what World of Warcraft (the prime behemoth of examples) has turned into today - fact.
What is for sure is that if the team start to carter to the impatient, selfintitled, victimized, short attentionspan crowd it will go downhill very fast because they, the Patheon team, simply wont be able to compete with the wallets of the men in suits massproducing the shallow content that the masses crave. It simply is'nt even an option for them to go down this rute.
What is wrong in hoping for a game where you have to think and learn?, where you have to work together?and where there is consequenses to your actions? to have everything handed to you is meaningless. Being at a birthdayparty a couple of times a year is great fun, having to go to one each day would make my guts twist and turn. If there was no pain there would be no pleasure - it is logical.
You can actually have the best of both worlds - if only you keep your eyes open and your mind flexible.
I like how people say it is just nostalgia when I list specific things from EQ that don't really exist in the genre anymore (As I did in an earlier post in the thread).
People say we don't know what we want. Well, I've supported almost every sandboxy/open world type game that has come out. Hell, I played Darkfall UW for years and don't really like PvP...because it offered freedom in a virtual type world. I play EQ progression servers and the updated EQ.
Do the naysayers really think the genre needs more linear quest hub themeparks?
Youre implying Pantheon will have any of this? Better yet are you saying thats what players miss and want out of it? That the nostalgia they miss is a clunky interface and traveling in an empty low poly world for excessively long times? Maybe its the easy slog through 20-60 levels of mind numbing, hand guided, solo leveling content thats been increasingly getting worse in games since around 2004.
Maybe players looking forward to this game are more "nostalgic" about a game that doesnt treat players like brain dead monkeys who cant find a quest objective without a golden mark on the map than they are of a "UO top-down cluster." Just because the last games to do that are decades old doesnt mean anyone wants or expects Pantheon or SoL to be like that.
I dont know if its possible but Im starting to think VR should maybe focus on pretty-ing up the game a little first, for promotional sake. It makes sense for other studios who are already fully funded to worry about aesthetics later but for a game like Pantheon which needs more funding, I think its just hurting it in the long run.
Now its your turn to tell me how this game will never appeal to people of that age.
I'd be interested to see what the actual demographics of EQ players were at its height. Personally I knew 4 people over 40 (with kids) who played regularly and were successful in-game. I was 14 when I started playing in 1999 and honestly I would expect to have more opportunity to play now that I'm not sharing a single computer with a brother and father who also play, and a dial up internet connection with a mom who wanted to use the phone. If the average American still watches 4 hours of TV a day, they could probably spend that time in-game too.
Also, this concept of "Time Investment" is interesting. Are we talking about the time to get to max level? The time to become a skilled player? The time to maintain friendships? The time to participate in raiding? What's the time investment required to start having fun and enjoying the game?
Hopefully there will be many viable ways to play Pantheon. Players might just enjoy logging in for a few hours a week, joining a pickup group, and killing some mobs. Maybe doing a dungeon crawl on the weekend. Outside of the requirements to be present on Raids for opportunities to get loot, there doesn't seem to be a lot of pressure in how often or how long you play.
According to this half-ass google search, in 2001 the average age of EQ players was 25.6
To me that says college-graduated young professionals, either living on their own and making decent money for the first time, or living in their parents basement. Generally single without kids.
Those people probably do have more responsibility now with more demanding jobs, relationships, and kids. Still, I don't think it's impossible for that crowd to play and enjoy Pantheon. The most common average playtime was 10 - 20 hours. That's 2h/night with extra time on the weekend.
And like Dullahan said, the younger demographic still exists. Convincing them that instant-gratification is ultimately less rewarding than EQ-style gameplay will be the challenge.
I disagree, I think it can be done. One of my kids is a complete WoW geek and also plays SWTOR and played EQ2 and DDO for a while, and he's 12. Used to call him daddy's little gold farmer. The other thing to remember is that these kids have been brought up on games like clash of clans, candy crush, etc. which are, ultimately, brutal to play and quite unrewarding past the first hour or two. So I think that younger people would be interested in the game, the question is whether or not the game is interested in the kids. There seems to be a prevailing sentiment of exclusivity surrounding the game. There are people like @Dullahan who seem genuinely interested in promoting the game, but there seem to be far more who put up this super aggressive, defensive posture who seem hell-bent on protecting the integrity of the game instead of trusting that Brad will deliver the game that he wants to, rather than selling out. Personally, I see the community as being the biggest challenge for Pantheon. What people remember so fondly about early MMOs is the community, but from what I've seen so far, I don't think it measures up.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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My company has a department that's pretty much 20 somethings and they have the shortest attention spans I have ever seen.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Lol, no. I'm just saying that I don't think that the slow-paced gameplay is, necessarily, an issue. Shit, my kids play Minecraft and Roblox which I simply don't understand at times. Like Prison servers on Minecraft? I just don't get how that's fun.
So the real question is whether Pantheon can make something that's actually fun to play. If they're selling to a younger generation, though, don't ask me what's fun, because I don't "get it".
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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I hate being told "well, you NEED to be on social media".
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
My 15 year-old niece got an achievement in Snapchat the other day. Like 115,000 snapchat things or whatever. Didn't really freak me out until I realized that Snapchat has only been around for 4 years. So even if she Snapchatted every day for those 4 years since launch, that would come out to like 70 snapchats a day. So we're talking like one every 15 minutes of your waking hours? Oh! What's scarier is that's not even that impressive, apparently. "God! Please kill me before I need to rely on my kids to care for me."
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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In a nutshell: Today's gamer's have never played a group dependent (D&D) game like this, all they have are dumbed down quest hub marathons to zerg and chase after. Pantheon will be the "savior" in the sense that it'll be taking MMO's back to their roots, but with todays graphics and slicker UI.
The younger gamers are not about that drive anymore...well not for the time of gaming we group up with. The premise has changed with the technology. I point you to Pokemon Go for the newer and the type of MMO they love. That game is an absolute hit... it's live and in person, it's interactive and competitive, it's local and instant... and completely a 180 from what Pantheon is bringing to the table.
Face it, Pantheon is for us old timers...
Now there could be endless arguments on the best way to do that, but, I think its simple. Make it challenging and make the gains seem meaningful. Make the player become attached to the character and the world within the first 10 levels. If Pantheon does that, I have no doubt they'll retain newer players.
Everyone has different tastes. For me, I like complicated systems and difficult gameplay. For example I do not know of many games out today that have the complicated class interdependence that EQ had/has. I still keep going back to EQ (playing it as I write this) even though the graphics are very dated and make your eyes bleed.
The ONLY other games out there I can think of with such complicated gameplay systems is Eve Online and Magicka:Wizard Wars.
World of Warcraft used to hold my attention but now I cannot stand the game. They completely dumbed it down. The removal of the skill trees was the final straw for me. Plus now it isn't even a social game at all. People, when they do socialize, are often little curmudgeons. It is log in, click a button to find a raid or group, and then you get a loading screen to a dungeon where there is hardly any challenge at all. It has been reduced to daily grinds of the same dungeons. The world immersion is dead. WoW is just plain boring...
Hell I would be happy if they just re-skinned EQ but that isn't going to happen. In fact, I seriously think Daybreak may eventually face bankruptcy and EQ might go away forever.
So for me, I am really holding out for Pantheon because frankly everything else sucks that I have come across.
A few things the OP missed I will bring up. The first is not every player who tried Daoc and EQ and AC and AO--back in the day--liked them. Some quit. Many played yet hated some of the gameplay. Some for love, others because there weren't a lot of 3d MMO's like today. When later MMO's like WoW and DDO and Guild Wars and LOTRO and AOC were released these same players found a welcome relief. Secondly the gaming audience was smaller back then. Not as many people owned a PC AND had internet AND liked RPGs/gaming in 1999. They tended to be more niche precisely because they were a smaller audience. As the market grew and more people entered the fold, it became more mainstream. It has been growing ever since, expanding to consoles and even mobile users. People are playing MMO's on their phones! This all has resulted in MMO's watering down not because of generational differences, but because of audience size and failed companies attempting to cash in by cloning the big MMO's. (In 1999, an RPG selling 2 million copies was a supernatural hit. Now it might sell >15 million and play on different platforms. Same for MMO's. EQ had peak 500k subscribers. WoW smashed that when it hit 4 million subscribers in 9 months--incredible.)
The problem for Pantheon is how to set itself apart from the rest of the niche MMO's. There're many! I play Wurm ONline for example, but therre're hundreds of them. There're MUDs, old MMO's which're emulated, old MMO's, amateur free MMO's, browser MMO's and so on. How is Pantheon going to gain their attention?
If it sells itself as a callback to EQ it's risking everything on the premise EQers will show up. If it appeals to mainstream gamers, its odds are better, but still not good. Thigns just arne't good for new MMO's because there're so many out there! It's not dead! The OP says it's dead, but this is far, FAR from the truth! It's ALIVE. Therer'e more people playing MMO's now than ever, substantially more! How does a MMO stand out? That's the trick. I've said ti before, but WoW will kill itself by mudflating. Technlogy and new ideas will catch up. New MMO"s will offer things not easily available in old MMO's.
The key is standing out. One of the reasons I played Wurm Online was because it stood out to me. I could have tried Mortal Online or Xsyon, but not many other MMO's could compare. There were just a handful. Now there're dozens of sandbox MMO's. The competition is tighter. Sometimes it's good for a MMO to recognize its niche nature. Don't compete with something huge if you don't have the budget. Pantheon needs to find its nature and stick to it. Embrace it. Hope for the best.
(Keep in mind many of the MMO's out there are completley free.)
Pantheon can't sell itself as an EQ successor or whatever mainly because there's Project 99 and EQ + sub EQ etc etc still around. Although I'm excited to see the progress of this game, it honestly will need to have quite a few modernized elements if it wants to survive. Going back to what you said though, its hard determining what those things are since you have so many things coming out on at the very least a weekly basis that offer alterations to their competition.
I think people say the genre is mainly dead because it is over-saturated. The only thing honestly keeping wow at the "top" of the mmorpg genre is how well it sells the game, not the actual elements of it. PR and such were what made the game do so well, not the actual game itself tbh. Even though it was good as well, a vast majority of the player base was always casual.
However, the mmo genre isn't doing nearly as well as you describe. There are only a handful of mmos doing well today just like there were a handful of mmos doing well 10 years ago. Particularly in the west, there has been a tragic lack of growth in the industry. In fact, the handful of mmos today are struggling to retain even the playerbase of mmos around the turn of the century. Considering the number of people with internet and gaming pcs is dramatically higher, the numbers we're seeing don't reflect well on the genre at all.
I definitely agree that the technological improvements have increased the game playing community overall, but that growth really hasn't translated to the MMORPG genre. Not even popular IPs like LotR and Star Wars have brought hoards of new individuals into the fold, like WoW did with their RTS fans.
I've been pretty vocal about the dangers I see for the glut of niche games in development, Pantheon in particular. To attract players beyond those already playing other MMORPGs, these games will need to have some element that attracts new players from the larger base of semi-serious players playing more mainstream titles. No MMORPG is likely to attract the ultra-casual players, people that play Solitaire (by far the largest segment under Gamers). It may be a fair statement that players willing to pay money to play a game are already in the genre they favor, RTS, FPS, strategy, solo games or whatever.
The games being developed to recapture niche markets are essentially going to have to capture their market from the existing MMORPG players will mean taking customers from Blizzard. That hasn't historically been an easy thing to do.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.