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

Whew, that's a big question and could involve just about anything with the game. Too much for specifics, but I will try to answer generally.

We have a solid vision for what we want Pantheon to be, and I'm sure you've read the high level descriptions of the game, like it's group oriented, the challenge is coming back, working together as a team is key, items will be very important, travel will hopefully be meaningful and you won't be teleporing all over... non-global banks, etc. and a focus on a player driven economy. Classes and races should mean something. Most items will be tradable or sellable. We're going to have huge dungeons, but places where it's safe to log off for the evening, so you can continue deeper the next day with your friends. Less player cities and therefore more dungeons... dungeons aren't just underground, but could be overland, could be a whole city filled with NPCs that is very faction heavy, where you need to work to get your factions to the point where the inhabitants will work with you or give you quests.

We're not trying to make a game that appeals to everyone all of the time, but have instead defined our target audience, and even if that means the game is 'niche', then so be it. By keeping the team lean and mean, we don't need massive funding to make a great game. We want a long alpha and beta, giving us plenty of time to tune the game and make it both challenging and fun. Your appearance will refelct the items you earned that you are wearing -- you can't just play dress-up. If you see a player walk into town all decked out with killer items, you can safely assume he worked for those items.

We're probably going to have fewer levels, but introduce the idea of a tier, where to level up it takes more than experience, but also accomplishing various tasks, so you can't just sit there and power level all day in one spot -- you'll need to explore, travel, and *play* the game. There will be camping in some cases, because we know some people like that, but then other mobs will move around or appear in different areas, so camping on one place is not always the answer -- you will need to move around and 'do' a dungeon.

There's the idea of situational gear, so that there shouldn't be, say, one best sword for a mid-level Crusader. It really depends on where he is, what he is fighting, etc. So a region can have climates, where it's super hot and you need to wear fire resistance gear there, but another area might be totally different and so you'll want to wear other gear.... lots of inventory management where you can define 'outfits' that consist of the items you want to wear and wield in certain situations or climates. We want to use physics and make climates or regions actually affect gameplay and tactics. For example, there will be a lot of underwater content, where physics and tactics will be different... think Ender's Game, where they had to learn different tactics in a 3d environment, where there was no 'up' or 'down'... or think Star Trek 2: the wrath of Khan, when they are in the nebula looking for each other, and Kirk attacks from upward, confusing Khan who was more used to fighting in a 2d setup.

The game will have lots of quests, epic quests, etc., but it is not quest hub driven like VG... in terms of quests it's more like early EQ 1. No quest bangs above NPC heads -- you'll need to talk with NPCs to find out what's up. Twinking is doable, but there will also be lots of reasons not to twink, like fantastic long term buffs you can get by sacrificing your items at a temple. Likely there will be multiple colors of mana (think Magic: the Gathering, kind of). So a cleric or healer might normally accumulate White Mana, and the vast majority of his prayers will use White Mana, but then he discoveres a rare prayer that requires both White and Green mana... he then must locate an orb that he holds in one hand, that when held he also accumulates Green mana. Speaking of finding spells and abilities and prayers, this is what you're going to need to do to get the good stuff -- the basic trainers will be just that, basic. Part of exploring the world and taking risk will not just yield cool items, but you may well find an ancient Crusdader in the depths of a dungeon and, upon freeing him, he teaches you a Crusader ability or prayer that *ONLY* comes from him. So abilities can be rare, not just items.

You'll be able to counterspell other casters... even deflect a fireball back at the NPC or one of the other NPCs. Where you are will matter -- not in a twitch way, but you will be able to get out of the way of, say, an area of effect spell. There will be 'tells' during combat that will help you realize what the NPCs are planning on doing to you, so you can be ready to have an answer to their attack and defend against it.

The game is built on the foundations of what made early MUDs, EQ 1, etc. great, plus with ideas that came later that you saw in VG, like offensive and defensive targets, etc. And then there will be modern ideas in the game too, so while the foundation is what made earlier challenging MMOs so compelling, that doesn't mean we are just trying to make an EQ 1 or early MMO clone; rather we want to build all sorts of cool, new ideas upon that proven foundation.

So I could keep going and going, but will stop there. Part of your question to me seemed to be asking, what is there that is sacrosanct, that's part of the Vision(TM), that cannot change, vs. what is changable, adaptable, etc. That's a great question, but hard to answer explicitly. I think what is unmutable is the higher level vision. We're not going to suddenly change Pantheon into a sci-fi game focused on PvP. We're not going to wimp the game out and make it much easier to play. We're not going to abandon the idea of groups working together and being rewarded for good teamwork. We're going to try to leave out tedious stuff, but challenge will remain... you will need to travel. You won't be teleporting everywhere with ease. The game will be item-centric. High level stuff like this is just not going to change.

But the details, those are more mutable. There's the issue of whether our target audience wants more player towns and cities and less dungeons vs. less PC cities, but more adventure areas. One or the other is not set in stone. The 'mini-map' you saw in some earlier screenshots... it's not going to be an exploration tool, makig mapping dungeons super easy. We want it to be more tacitcal, and to be useful in combat. But what if it does end up spoiling stuff? Then we'll pull it. What if something is just too powerful, or we make a mistake and don't balance some critical areas in alpha or beta... we will nerf even if it upsets some players, but the overall health of the game necessitates a nerf, we're going to do it. What if we see some cool player emergent behavior? If it doesn't violate the Vistion at a higher level, then we're going to imbrace it, as long as it's balanced or can be balanced.

We will be very involved with the community and not just reading feedback on the game from the boards, but we'll be playing the game right along with you, sometimes with you knowing, and sometimes with you not knowing. And we'll gather data and tweak and balance and polish. So a lot/most? of the details are not set in stone and can be changed. But not the Vision, or the 100,000 foot view -- we know the game we want to make at that level, and it's the one we want to make, play, and what we are convinced a decent number of MMO players, both old school and noobs, really want. We're ok being more niche and keeping costs down and the size of the team down, so we don't have to have a million subscibers to be profitable. We will actually be very profitable at 25k-50k subscribers.

Anyway, I could go on and on, but that's kinda of a quick overview as I stop coding gameplay this evening (working on the new Inventory UI) and get ready for bed. You may have some specifics, and I can try to answer, but at the same time I don't think there's a realistic way of splitting the whole game into two columns, one mutable, the other immutable. I think from what I wrote here and have written elsewhere, and if you've followed my earlier games, and the tons of posts I've done in the past talking about MMO game mechanics or philosophies, you should be able to put together a pretty good idea of what's part of the Vision(TM) vs. details that I'm fine tweaking and changing.

-Brad

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At *this* point, there will be a limited number of slots on your character to put items into. Encumberance will also matter. The more weighed down you are, once you pass a certain threshhold, you will start moving more slowly.

Now, all that said, this is really important: 1. because you are going to want to have multiple outfits setup while you travel, in general you will be able to carry more items than in other MMOs without the Outfit concept. We're certainly not going to create situational gear, encourage you to use it, make an Outfit system to help organize your gear, and then not let you do so because you are so easily encumbered; rather the game will reward you and encourage you to collect gear, not discourage you.

There will be lots of ways to mitigate Encumberance and also to gain more slots to put items into. First, the STR (strength) attribute is key. The stronger you are, the more you can carry. You will likely want to be wearing +STR gear anyway (as being strong is generally good to be, not just for encumbrance) and there will also be potions and buffs that up your STR.

As for number of slots, the first somewhat obvious way to work around this limitation is the acquisition of containers (bags, backpacks, etc.). A bag may have 8 slots within it, but only take up one General Inventory slot on your character. Acquiring bigger and better bags is part of the general acquisition of better and better items. Also, higher level containers won't just offer more slots, they will also often reduce encumbrance. There will be magical bags that reduce an item within that bags weight, from just a little bit (lower level bag) to totally (the classic Bag of Holding, your personal black hole).

Lastly, I want to talk about slots in general. So yes, you will have a fixed number of slots. You can then use containers to hold more items. You'll also have banks where you can store items (although banks will likely be LOCAL, not global). Then vehicles will have slots -- your horse can be equipped not just with items that make him a better horse, but storage bags as well. And then your house too (although we're not promising housing at launch) will have slots for item storage. And yes, even your ship!

Here's the bottom line: if we want situational gear and outfits to be realistic, and if we want inventory managment to be part of the game generally and making your character better specifically, then we need to support ways for the player to overcome these penalties (just like anything else -- weary of being hit for so much damage, seek out armor that mitigates damage, etc.). Defining Outfits will help you organize your inventory into groups of items that are situationally related, e.g. your cold weather gear, your lava gear, your poison gas gear, your tank gear, your DPS gear, etc. Providing ways to increase your strength, both temporarily and permanently, and thus increase the weight of total gear you can move around with is very important. Containers that give you both more slots and that also, magically, reduce the weight of its contents, are key. Lastly, just as in RL you store camping gear at that cabin you own up in the woods, you will put the right types of items in your banks, in your horses packs, in your ship's inventory, and eventually, in your houses. Inventory management, collecting rare gear, being prepared to enter dangerous climates, etc. is meant to be FUN. Collecting items has always been a big part of a MUD/MMO for me (and single player RPGs, for that matter). What we do NOT want is this additional emphasis on item collecting and organziing to result in inventory management becoming tedious or a pain in the butt. Outfits and other features will make sure it does not.

Oh, lastly, there will be containers that hold only certain item-types. An example: a key ring will hold keys, but not swords and vambraces. Key rings are pretty common and keys don't really weight much. So a key-ring will likely be a fairly common item. On the other hand, a magical backpack that lets you put 12 tons of gold ingots or any other item in it (so NOT item-type specific) but doesn't slow you down at all would be a rare and very useful item to earn while out adventuring in Terminus.

-Brad

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Yes, that's the whole reason behind making the 'outfits' and UI for it -- it's to help you quickly change in or out of an outfit based on going into different areas and needing to have your character equipped differently. Otherwise it would be a major hassle

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Quaid_sl said:

Why does it matter what time he posted that?

Thanks for the update though.

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Frenzic_sl said:

Nope quite the opposite. Dude is more useless than kyndread and that's saying something.

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Kyndread-Pantheon_sl said:

Considering the fact that you were the most useless person to have ever been on the team, you really shouldn't talk.

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Frenzic_sl said:

If you read the quote you'd understand. He said he was up all night coding then posted that at 3 am backing up his claim.

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Frenzic_sl said:

Touchie. The difference was that I'm not willing to work while the boss drugs out and rides bikes. Even more is that money was coming in yet no one on the team was getting any. You and others decided to put in all those hours for nothing. Actually less than nothing as your personal life has suffered and your wife threatens you. Have another beer for me Kyndread lol.

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Kyndread-Pantheon_sl said:

Sometimes you have to try to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Yes, it would be nice to get paid right away on a regular basis like a normal job, but that just wasn't possible. I am looking at it from the standpoint of if we can make the game the best it can be, and it becomes a hit, then that's when the payoff will happen. But I know there are no guarantees. So at this point its somewhat of a hobby. I have become better at balancing everything that needs to be done, some days are easier than others with a toddler in the house, but I just keep pressing on. I think we have come a long way already. I wish you would have at least released that one video. You had some skill in recording decent clips and editing. Brad works hard programming and works closely with the rest of the programmers. He is up late often working. I think he deserves more credit and less flak.

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Kyndread-Pantheon_sl said:

Sometimes you have to try to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Yes, it would be nice to get paid right away on a regular basis like a normal job, but that just wasn't possible. I am looking at it from the standpoint of if we can make the game the best it can be, and it becomes a hit, then that's when the payoff will happen...

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Barraco Bisi_sl said:

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lurkingdirk_sl said:

This made me laugh so hard I very nearly lost my drink. What the actual heck? What is this from?

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