Pan'Theon: Rise' of th'e Fal'Len - #1 Thread in MMO

Quaid_sl said:

In the eastern kingdoms death is a normal corpse run similar to WoW.

In the western night, a death means Permadeath. Sorta.

You have 8 gear slots. Almost all your abilities except the most basic (melee attack, kick, gate) come from gear that grants then (8 max). When you die, you become a beast until you collect 8 souls from other players. When you kill them, you may loot 1 of their items. Then you respawn At your starting city with 8 new abilities. Your banked items are untouched

Also, you are asymmetrically powerful when you are a beast

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Unless a player controlled beast gets slain and the player respawns as hero you will end up with an all beast players ponzi scheme in your game with all off them stuck at lf pc hero characters to slay, who in turn respawn as beast requiring another 8 pc heroes

That game sounds schitzophrenic enough to actually be fun.

Either you need to make the rules simple to understand and difficult to master, like Blizzard tries to do, and in this way you achieve the stability for a well ordered game. Or you need to make the rules a byzantine mess of complexity that no one, not even the ones that write the rules, can possibly understand, interpret, or predict how they will interact with each other. In this way you achieve a creative chaos which, if you have any luck, won't immediately crash down on itself and you'll get some emergent growth out of the muddled mess.

Dyvim_sl said:

Unless a player controlled beast gets slain and the player respawns as hero you will end up with an all beast players ponzi scheme in your game with all off them stuck at lf pc hero characters to slay, who in turn respawn as beast requiring another 8 pc heroes

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You're probably right, and I'm considering a couple options:

1. Put a /played time limit on how long you are a 'beast' to prevent people just looting 7/8 items and never re spawning.
2. Increase the items lootable from each PC kill... Maybe even to all 8. Then it becomes a choice. Do I just re spawn with whatever this guy had, or do I search around until my time is up and gather the best things I can?

This is stuff you'd have to see in action in a alpha/beta environment. It's hard to predict how players would react given this kind of situation.

zzeris_sl said:

There are a lot of options for this kind of environment. Maybe make it a collection game where you can accumulate gear but if you die, you lose it all and start back as a naked shit with just bank gear avail.You could have the limit set at 4 items and leave in 8 as an 'elite gamer' option. Throw in your beast type being a favored meal for certain beasts and not only do you have to contend with other players but with increased attention from beasts as well. Will you stop at 4 and consider yourself lucky, or try for platinum?

Also, beast mode could have significant drawbacks where you would never want to be one? Limit the number of beasts at one time, etc,etc. I really like this idea Quaid. I also really like the setting. When did you get so smart? Or just smart at all

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The world is what I'm most proud of. I'd post the lore, but even though I know my 'game' will never be made, I still have hopes for the stories behind it. The seven races are tied to the seven prismatic colours, which have further ties to the each race's 'elemental' characteristics (ex. Indigo = Steel, Yellow = Ether, Blue = Water etc). There is no sun in the sky, it is an orb of white light comprised of 7 prismatic coloured 'crystals' in the heavens that tie into most of the races ideas of life/creation & death/destruction. The 'beasts' (Goliaths) in the west are linked to the existence of a Black element, that is also tied to life/death duality... some pretty cool afterlife/rebirth undercurrents tied to the true nature of 'the universe' that exists in the game. I think I've struck a really good balance of high fantasy, innovation, approachability and familiarity.

Anyway, I have the luck of knowing a couple really passionate people IRL. I used to bartend and a couple of the dudes from Silicon Knights (Precursor Games) were regulars and loved talking gaming. They used to come in at a really dead time of day and we'd just shoot the shit. So I've been bouncing this idea around for a while. Not much to do with smarts heh.

The real anchor of the death system is the loot/progression system. No levels. No classes. 8 ability bar max. All abilities are tied to armour (8 slots + 2x weapon attacks), so you build your class from these items you seek out with abilities on them. Loot is fucking rare, and takes a good deal of effort to achieve. It might take you weeks of adventuring/crafting to create 'your build/class'. You DO NOT want to die, because then you will lose your build and have to get 8 (or however many you had. A player that only ever had 5 abilities will not be able to die, and then collect 8 as a Goliath and avoid the actual progression of filling the last 3 slots) new abilities that may not be the ones you want. As a Goliath you wont see the world how you see it as one of the Light races. You wont be able to tell that "Johnny772" has "Boots of Swift Running" because you wont be able to tell that it's Johnny772.

I think Quaid's "shooting the shit" game has more lore behind it than Pantheon. A pretty solid indicator of how hard they are working, especially now that the community is paying them back for all of their hard work.

zzeris_sl said:

Quaid, I really like it. Are the Goliaths something similar to the colossi in Shadow of the Colossus? Or would there be some Goliaths similar? That sounds like a somewhat close approximation and I loved that game. I love the gear based system. I remember spending massive amounts of time on EQ Atlas and other sites planning for gear runs and getting the layout of news areas mapped. It was fun planning things out and then finally seeing those areas.

I like the death/rebirth theme and it fits well. The Goliaths are really just a natural element of the cycle.

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That's pretty much exactly what it's like. Every PVE encounter in the west is raid-like, although, with the right gear builds the goal would be that a majority of them could be completed by an extremely competent and well geared duo. The further West you go, the less and less likely that becomes.

Oh and when you come back as a 'beast' when you die you don't become a Goliath... You're more like a exaggerated crystalline wraith of your actual self.

Anyway, I'm gonna stop hijacking... If this ever becomes more than a pipe dream you guys will be the first to know... But I'm a middle class new dad with a career that isn't in gaming soooo.... Ya

Should i ever hit the lottery ill buy your game idea Quaid.



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Only to put up a website with paywall to market the shit out of it by a subscription. Dunno if the game will ever get made that way, but ill end up even richer in the end. And that what all these designers strife for nowadays, no?

Brad's update on facebook:

Quick micro-sit-rep:

Wrapping up investment materials -- this next week should be busy in a good way.

Making a local build of the Pantheon client so I can log in and see Vu's latest environment work. I love how I can just grab the latest files and build a mac client, connect to our servers, walk around, and even fight mobs. So far I am very impressed with Unity.

Reviewed some of our first NPCs -- looking good!

Figuring out with Boogie2988 the best day/time for both of us to do a second interview next week.

TragedyAnn_sl said:

Brad's update on facebook:

Quick micro-sit-rep:

Wrapping up investment materials-- this next week should be busy in a good way.

Making a local build of the Pantheon client so I can log in and see Vu's latest environment work. I love how I can just grab the latest files and build a mac client, connect to our servers, walk around, and even fight mobs. So far I am very impressed with Unity.

Reviewed some of our first NPCs -- looking good!

Figuring out with Boogie2988 the best day/time for both of us to do a second interview next week.

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I'd donate to see these. I can only imagine what the "investment materials" he is creating look like. Does Word have a template for Angel Investor forms ?

Adebisi_sl said:

Will it be as pathetic as him begging for investors on Twitter?

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Anyone out there with a few million to blow?
#Godhelp
#fukt

Trollface_sl said:

unity is garbage right? why is brad so "excited" about unity?

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Quite the opposite from what guys like Denult are saying. It's an amazing engine from most accounts. What was being questioned is how well it will work for a MMO.

As for the twitter thing. I cringed myself when I read that, but Brad explained his reasoning and said it worked for him so who knows.

pharmakos_sl said:

so is this game out yet or what?

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Q3 20never

Why does all of Brad's talk of seeing the game and building a client and even fighting NPCs sound like a butt-hurt nerd who just got dumped and around his ex's friends talks up how great his weekend was because he was having so much fun and fun was totally had and man that fun stuff was fun!

That shit doesn't fly when it's some butt-hurt nerd trying to pretend he's not once again alone, and it's not working for me when Brad talks it up either. In real life, you can't really ask for screenshots... but here, we literally can, and my guess is they've still got jack shit for releasable material that isn't embarrassing.