Suppose you play Pantheon and reach max level. Suppose further that it takes you 9 months to accomplish that. [I am not advocating that 9 months should be the number - it's just a placeholder in my hypothetical]. And lastly, suppose 9 months is the average amount of time it takes to level a character to max [ignoring variances like class, player skill, and so on].
Now you have an accomplishment - a max level character which represents 9 months of in game effort.
Next comes an expansion, and my question related to it. Does the company keep things as they are, where it will also take new players 9 months on average to reach whatever max level was in the original game. Or, as WoW does, do you modify the game with every expansion so that people can quickly "catch up" to the players who went before? In that way every expansion is basically a reset.
Personally, I hate the reset approach. I want other players to have to expend more or less the same time and effort I (and others) spent for the same rewards - not just that it be handed to them.
Of course, the problem with doing that is attracting new players in the years to come. If you tell a prospective new player, "it's gonna take you 3 years to catch up, and when you do it will take 3 more years from there," well, it's hard to sell the game that way.
What do you guys think?
If they do, i'll stop playing immediately.
That was far and away the WORST thing about WoW. It is a 100% non starter for me, the moment it happens i will log out, cancel my sub, and they'll never see another cent from me.
"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."
I totally agree that the journey is the thing, rather than a dubious 'reached max level' accomplishment. The problem that has existed in every MMORPG game is that a person starting on day 1, and a friend starting on day 10 are on two independent 'journeys'. I want to play with my friend, but the difference in our starting dates affects the content and opportunities. One player has to 'wait' -- doing nothing while the other catches up. Waiting has never worked. The 20th level character waiting for the 5th level to catch up, starts a second character. When the original 5th level friend does catch up to the original 20th level, that player is now invested in their now 15th level second character. The two friends are never really able to play as equals in the game.
Adding new content doesn't change the fact that the two character journeys are different.
Very simple solution to that, EQ2 did it, it's called mentoring. You level down to your friend, and you play with them until they catch up. Problem solved.
"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."
Again I have to use World of Warcraft as the best example.
The key is Vanilla wow was LARGE and full of content. It took years before the first expansion. 6 starting areas, many choices to level to 60.
It's imperative that you have replay ability in the raw game first. This allows players to start over and not totally feel like they had done everything before.
Blizzard did the next step right too with the first expansion having more sideways progression with the introduction of two more starting zones and up to level 20. They also added 10 more levels at the end.
This was exactly how any expansion should be done..........Only later they began to screw up. Making the game easy was a major screw up, never do this !
This is not about WoW, it's about how an expansion should be done.
Wha?? WoW was screwed up from its first expansion. I replaced my raid loot with green quest items in the first week of The Burning Crusade. It was really a horrible implementation and led to my quitting the game.
Kunark and Velious were the best expansion I've seen. Items and locations from both the earlier expansion and the vanilla world were still populated and relevant. Even the old raids offered items that were highly sought after for the first 5 years of the game.
Ok I'll agree about replacing everything you worked hard to achieve. Adding levels is a tricky thing to implement.
But, The raw game has to be strong and full of content. If the raw game has nine months of content to began with, adding new starter areas and mid level content would be a good idea for an expansion.
Either give mentoring incentives strong enough to make people want to mentor new people, or make old content soloable. You cannot depend on new people finding high level friends to mentor them out of charity. It wont be enough.
Either give mentoring incentives strong enough to make people want to mentor new people, or make old content soloable. You cannot depend on new people finding high level friends to mentor them out of charity. It wont be enough.
They plan to have at least a limited mentoring system to help players create groups in earlier levels where there are less people. They also have the progeny system which will encourage people to replay early content.
Dullahan...while I can appreciate your fanaticism you say this game will have everthing. 5 guys working from a garage aren't going to get all that stuff in.
Dullahan...while I can appreciate your fanaticism you say this game will have everthing. 5 guys working from a garage aren't going to get all that stuff in.
Personally, I hate the reset approach. I want other players to have to expend more or less the same time and effort I (and others) spent for the same rewards - not just that it be handed to them.
You describe a problem. You describe how the problem was successfully solved. You do not like the solution.
I think retention of achievement could be best done by allowing players to trade in complete gear sets for small permanent bonuses for their character.
That way patches and expansions could reset gear progression when needed, but players who have spend months collecting now outdated gear would get something permanent that never gets outdated.
Since Pantheon is PvE centric game, small bonuses wouldn't imbalance it too much.
EDIT: That would also be an alternative way to remove gear from economy over making it BoP or BoE
Wha?? WoW was screwed up from its first expansion. I replaced my raid loot with green quest items in the first week of The Burning Crusade. It was really a horrible implementation and led to my quitting the game.
Kunark and Velious were the best expansion I've seen. Items and locations from both the earlier expansion and the vanilla world were still populated and relevant. Even the old raids offered items that were highly sought after for the first 5 years of the game.
First -- thanks -- Kunark and Velious were the expansions I worked on before leaving SoE.
I looked at WoW's timeline and while they added quite a bit of stuff via patches it looks like they waited 3 years before launching an official expansion? Am I right?
In any case, with Pantheon we plan on keeping the game updated and releasing expansions similar in size and scope and frequency as the first few EQ expansions. And there will be mentoring and other incentives for higher level players to assist (within reason and balance) lower level players.
I certainly see no need to implement some super-fast leveling mechanic after we launch an expansion so people can catch up to everyone else...... I can see if there perception that the 'real' or 'fun' game doesn't really start until the end game that players would complain that they can't access the expansion content right away. This obviously isn't applicable to Pantheon.
Also, one shouldn't assume that a major expansion is only adding content to the top, or increasing the level cap. Look at Kunark -- new race, new zones for 1-60, etc.
Post edited by Aradune on
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-------------------------------------------------------------- Brad McQuaid CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc. www.pantheonmmo.com --------------------------------------------------------------
Wha?? WoW was screwed up from its first expansion. I replaced my raid loot with green quest items in the first week of The Burning Crusade. It was really a horrible implementation and led to my quitting the game.
Kunark and Velious were the best expansion I've seen. Items and locations from both the earlier expansion and the vanilla world were still populated and relevant. Even the old raids offered items that were highly sought after for the first 5 years of the game.
First -- thanks -- Kunark and Velious were the expansions I worked on before leaving SoE.
I looked at WoW's timeline and while they added quite a bit of stuff via patches it looks like they waited 3 years before launching an official expansion? Am I right?
In any case, with Pantheon we plan on keeping the game updated and releasing expansions similar in size and scope and frequency as the first few EQ expansions. And there will be mentoring and other incentives for higher level players to assist (within reason and balance) lower level players.
I certainly see no need to implement some super-fast leveling mechanic after we launch an expansion so people can catch up to everyone else...... I can see if there perception that the 'real' or 'fun' game doesn't really start until the end game that players would complain that they can't access the expansion content right away. This obviously isn't applicable to Pantheon.
Also, one shouldn't assume that a major expansion is only adding content to the top, or increasing the level cap. Look at Kunkar -- new race, new zones for 1-50, etc.
One of the things I found magic about EQ was the level gaps. Having high level content in low level zones. Added fear and fun at lower levels and because higher level chars were always around. You got buffs and help. Really added to the community. Was also fun going back to these zones you have leveled in to do high level content. As you felt nostalgic, you felt good for helping lowbe's. I hope this game and its expansions have this element.
Comments
That was far and away the WORST thing about WoW. It is a 100% non starter for me, the moment it happens i will log out, cancel my sub, and they'll never see another cent from me.
"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
"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
Ok I'll agree about replacing everything you worked hard to achieve. Adding levels is a tricky thing to implement.
But, The raw game has to be strong and full of content. If the raw game has nine months of content to began with, adding new starter areas and mid level content would be a good idea for an expansion.
This keeps the low level population healthy.
Which of those 30+ people are the 5 in the garage?
My concern is that one employee on the Pantheon list self-identifes as "BlueEyedGator." Which I believe means the Florida Gators. Say it isn't so?
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
You describe how the problem was successfully solved.
You do not like the solution.
It's you, not the game.
/shrugs
That way patches and expansions could reset gear progression when needed, but players who have spend months collecting now outdated gear would get something permanent that never gets outdated.
Since Pantheon is PvE centric game, small bonuses wouldn't imbalance it too much.
EDIT: That would also be an alternative way to remove gear from economy over making it BoP or BoE
I looked at WoW's timeline and while they added quite a bit of stuff via patches it looks like they waited 3 years before launching an official expansion? Am I right?
http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_(World_of_Warcraft)
In any case, with Pantheon we plan on keeping the game updated and releasing expansions similar in size and scope and frequency as the first few EQ expansions. And there will be mentoring and other incentives for higher level players to assist (within reason and balance) lower level players.
I certainly see no need to implement some super-fast leveling mechanic after we launch an expansion so people can catch up to everyone else...... I can see if there perception that the 'real' or 'fun' game doesn't really start until the end game that players would complain that they can't access the expansion content right away. This obviously isn't applicable to Pantheon.
Also, one shouldn't assume that a major expansion is only adding content to the top, or increasing the level cap. Look at Kunark -- new race, new zones for 1-60, etc.
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Brad McQuaid
CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc.
www.pantheonmmo.com
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