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New Interview with VR about Pantheon
Nanfoodle
Member LegendaryPosts: 10,617
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Perseverance definitely pays off, and Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen is a stellar example of this. The fantasy online rpg began with a rough start as its Kickstarter campaign was not successful. However, Visionary Realms powered on as interested gamers began supporting the game. In this era of online games where players are led by the hand through the game's content, Pantheon looks to the past in bringing challenge and the thrill of exploration back to gamers. Yet they are also taking advantage of all the innovations and technology that have occurred since mmo games crawled out of the proverbial MUD. Senior Game Designer Corey LeFever was kind enough to discuss with us the game's ongoing development as well as what players can expect. Let's dig deeper into the game's features and more in this exclusive Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen interview with Senior Game Designer Corey LeFever.
How pleased are you with the progress of the game? It seems that a dedicated group of developers and players have really poured their hearts and souls into the game. Do you think that this development path has helped to make the game stronger? What is the next development step you're looking to take?
We’re very satisfied with the progress we’ve been making, especially given the size and scope of our team. From my personal perspective, I sometimes temporarily forget that progress for what it is while we’re churning through a milestone, but when we sit down and playtest the latest updates, it really highlights our combined efforts.
We really have put a lot of our blood, sweat, and tears into this project, and we hope that comes across when our fans see the streams and public facing updates. It’s a rare opportunity to work on a project like this in the manner that we do, and we take that seriously.
As far as the next dev steps? We’re pretty focused on continuing on all fronts: systems, classes, new zones...you name it. Specifics to come as they’re ready!
How has player reaction been overall to your race/class combination choices? As an old-school pen-and-paper gamer (started playing AD&D, Star Frontiers, and many other tabletop rpgs back in 1981), I like having class restrictions based upon race as they pertain to both lore and abilities. Will other races/classes be added in the future?
Overall, the reaction has been good. It’s also pretty interesting. In a lot of ways, the discussions happening around the ‘net mirrored our internal discussions and debates about which races get which classes. Ultimately, though, we went with what best fit the narratives we want to explore.
Will we consider additional races, classes, and combos thereof in the future? Given the cosmology our Lore folks have whipped up, it’s a distinct possibility. We think it’s fair to say we may see more options down the road.
Comments
A lot of mmo games promise an immersive climate/weather system, but they usually end up just as window dressing. How much impact will the climate have upon characters in the game?
We’re still in the iteration process with Climates, so it’s hard to say definitively what the impact will be at this point. It’s our intent to strike a balance between it providing meaningful gameplay and not require folks to need to adjust to them *every* time they set foot out for adventure. We’ll be relying heavily on feedback to ensure we strike the right point there.
One of the core features being touted for the game is the advanced AI for NPCs, such as having different motivations and dispositions. What will be the practical effect of this within the game? Will one type of NPC be willing to stand their ground and hold the players in place while his compatriots flee to safety? Will an NPC be able to surrender (and perhaps offer a quest in compensation)?
Not only will some NPCs in Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen more readily stand their ground, others will flee for help, or fight more tenaciously, or disengage to cast from range among a myriad of other possibilities. As with anything we put in the game, we aim to make sure it will provide meaningful gameplay opportunities and some surprises. Surrendering though and providing a new content path or compensation? That hadn’t come up yet but that’s a great idea.
Your recent streams on Twitch have been very popular. Will streaming become a regular occurrence to showcase the ongoing development of the game? If you're able, what can players expect to see in upcoming streams?
We love the streams and would like to have more in the future -- we’re glad to hear that you’re enjoying them! We’ll continue to consider more streams when it makes sense to do so. We do have another planned very soon!
In an age where online gamers are catering to solo gameplay, Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen is going in the opposite direction. Why place such an importance upon needing allies for exploration and adventures? What systems are you putting into place to facilitate greater cooperation and camaraderie? Does this mean that players won't be able to acquire companions or hirelings to accompany them on quests?
MMOs to us are highly social games and the shared experience is really important to us. As gamers ourselves we think it’s cool to hear about your friend’s solo adventures, but we think it’s even better to be there with them creating your memories together. Through shared success -- and learning opportunities through our losses -- we form bonds and memories that last even years after we killed that particularly nasty dragon, plundered that distant tomb of the mad wizard, or saved Thronefast from...wait, getting ahead of myself there. *Ahem*
We’ll be exploring a variety of methods to get folks introduced to one another and grouping regularly. Class interdependency will encourage players to naturally seek one another out, but we are considering a few other methods. We’ll be happy to talk in greater detail about that when we have something to show.
Currently we have no plans for hirelings or companions to join in your adventures. Pets for some classes, such as the Summoner and Necromancer, sure. You’ll still want player characters though to flesh out your groups.
It seems that a great deal of importance is being placed upon exploration, which is a rarity in today's games, such as a player finding an NPC who can teach them a powerful spell. What other benefits can players earn from exploring the game's world?
In addition to seeking out rare or hidden abilities, you can expect that you’ll be rewarded by discovering rare or hidden crafting recipes or trainer, exotic harvesting areas (nodes, bodies of water to fish in, etc), and Multi-colored Mana Atmospheres to empower your abilities to name a few. Players who decide to engage in the Perception system in Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen will also find a strong emphasis on travel as they seek to uncover the secrets to Terminus’ past, present, and future.
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen looks to recapture the magic of old-school mmos but use the innovations of today. One old-school feature that we miss is live events. Will there ever be live events held in Pantheon that are run by the developers (or a team of chosen players)?
Most of us have fond memories of Live Events in many of the mmo games we played. We’ve had informal discussions about the sorts of things we might look for to help us identify what type of content and to what scale we’d like to provide through events. It’s fair to expect that type of content in Pantheon at some point.
We love that the game features a lot of classes that have their own identities. Does this mean that classes will not be forced into the "class balance" mold?
Maintaining identity is important, and each class will offer something unique for their role. We’re pretty confident that we’ll have enough horizontal progression and situational engagement that player classes won’t have to be tuned to perform at a given benchmark against each other in all or most situations.
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen is an open world. How will you address competition for resources/monster hunting/etc.? What about player housing?
Some competition for resources and raid bosses is desirable. After all, if some things are too abundant, they begin to lose value or impact. Where we’d be likely to design content in a way to prevent monopolization would be with regards to quest-related targets. That might include very minor instancing or having NPC spawns triggered by a variety of methods for those players on the appropriate step of a quest.
Player housing is something a number of us on the team would like to one day have, but that’s not likely to be within scope for our base launch game. In the event that we do incorporate housing, it will be with the open world in mind first.
You've stated that the game is looking at being subscription-based or buy-to-play without a cash shop. Does this mean that cosmetic items and other items will be obtainable solely in-game?
The current plan is that most items will be attainable solely in-game. A few exceptions currently exist through pledging towards the funding of the game.
As you can see in this Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen interview, there are a lot of interesting features that mmo players can look forward to, such as the AI for NPCs and the climate system. Mixing the best of old school features and new innovations should make for a compelling gameplay experience. Our thanks to Senior Game Designer Corey LeFever for answering our questions in this Pantheon interview.
That first question wanted me to reach in and slap that interviewer,what a retarded biased question to ask,please fire that interviewer.
That is like asking me how i feel about my own opinions..lol.
Most was standard BS questions but one caught mention caught my eye.
"Multi colored" atmospheres,yes i remember hearing something vague on this before,i also think it was an idea EQNext was using no?I just hope i don't see any colored air aka SWTOR rooms,that would piss me off and no colored ground either.To be honest why not just call it elemental areas influenced by the elements such as rain,sun,wind etc etc,why call it colored "atmospheres"?
It really tells me i am going to see colored fog lighting which if you know me by now,i HATE fog lighting.IMO if players are too stupid to see that it is raining and would therefor be a water influenced area,then god help them.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I've seen snow in games before. It has never done anything to affect what actions I do. I could see weather applying a penalty to all sorts of things, from movement speed to offensive/defensive skills to magic. No character decided to go inside an inn and wait out the storm. No one put on any extra or special clothing. The snow flurries did not appear to alter combat or slow it down in any way. I saw nothing like that. The character was simply watching the snow fall. Which didn't accumulate on the ground.
Unless there is something else besides the 2:40:00 mark to indicate something is going on, I can conclude that one of the Pantheon Differences (Atmospherics) is nothing more than eye candy, and has been done before.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
There will be certain extreme environments in the game to which you’ll need your character to become acclimated. There will be six at launch: Frigid, Scorching, Toxic, Anaerobic, Pressure, and Wind Shear. Each of those extreme climates will have tiers associated with them corresponding to how punishing they will be to the player. For example, you may be able to survive in a Tier 1 environment without any acclimation, but you would certainly experience some detrimental effects like a weapon or movement speed penalty. The higher the tier the more detrimental and severe the effects would be.
The process of becoming acclimated is carried out through equipment modification or special equipment allowing you to absorb resistances altering the physical composition of your body. Your character will have different slots like chest, legs, hands, arms, feet, etc. to which you apply these items. We will reveal more details as to how exactly this will work and how to change acclimatization as well. We want it to be seamless and also plan on having different environments within environments, such as the scorching environment found in the frigid environment of Amberfaet.
The process of acclimatization may be as simple as another EQ1-like skill that automatically increases over time, or some kind of quest/item grind. Implementation is going to be all-important on this, and they still have not shown any benefits of acclimatization, or the process, or the penalties for not being acclimated. The characters did not visit the 'hot' locale in the video and did not appear to show any kind of preparation to enter the 'Frigid' zone, but I'll have to search through that entire stream to see that, if it is there. A lazy or superficial implementation of this will make this 'feature' trivial. My best guess for now is that there will simply be 'buffs' to deal with each location.
For the record, 'Atmospheres' is an absolutely dreadful term for this concept. 'Climes' or 'Environs' or 'Locales' would be much clearer.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
If you remember, EQ1 had similar effects -- notably anaerobic (underwater and The Grey) and scorching (lava). The anaerobic environments were quite deadly -- once your breath ran out, you died in seconds. The lava was implemented considerably more poorly -- a good regen spell would keep you alive for the duration of the spell. Even swimming in lava without regen took a considerable time before most mid-level characters would be in trouble.
If that is the type of implementation that is going to be in Pantheon, I've seen it before. Maybe for you, that is good enough. For me, that seems a lazy way to give me exactly what I've had before; there's nothing new in that, certainly not new enough to warrant promoting this as a 'Pantheon Difference'.
Accepting whatever VR offers may get a game out quicker, but it establishes no standards as to what the community wants. If we, the players, simply accept the state of systems as they choose to implement them, and accept their FAQs and design documents as The Truth, we've done a disservice to the genre. Development times, especially for items where the developers say "we don't know yet", are the prime opportunity for people to look into the future and state our preferences. If the customers don't hold a company to higher standards, they will deliver a version of New Coke.
Despite popular opinion, I'm not anti-Pantheon; I'm anti-Pantheon as only a version of EQ1 with modern graphics. Sadly, the EQ rehash is the only thing I have seen demonstrated so far.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
PS. If you dont trust the FAQ and the Devs words I am not sure what else to tell you. Seems like an odd stance to take.
They then explain a particular atmosphere and an item in another stream. The "ring of anchors" allows them to survive in that same atmosphere.
+1