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

  • Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!



    Go here and give us your nominations!
    Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
tad10

tad10

Elisha Dushku
5,533
599
Big Flex_sl said:
Remember when this thread was funny instead of mad?
Click to expand...
What's wrong with mad? Are you a sanist?

rrr_img_91424.jpg
 
Maric

Maric

N00b
98
15
So all this talk about possible VC funding is interesting. I thought the sudden take down of the Store was bizarre. I actually had some back and forth with people on the project about it, because all of the sudden the ability to see my Pledge was gone (although a monetary value is still posted). Yeah yeah I backed it yeah yeah... that was before the big crash and all the Kickstarter team were still on board. I liked their ideas. So sue me! But very curious to see if they have some cash coming in to actually get this thing made. Interesting...
 
Furious

Furious

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
2,950
5,026
Convo_sl said:
I think the VC talk may have been a troll

Joppa?? Give me details
Click to expand...
Not a troll. I heard from a very reliable source that money is INC.

Tens of dollars will be delivered before next week.

Tens.

Plus all of Eq's good features were bugs or broken things. I loved all the pathing exploits on my necro but I doubt brad did that on purpose.
 
R

Raidan_EQ_sl

shitlord
52
0
Convo_sl said:
I think the VC talk may have been a troll

Joppa?? Give me details
Click to expand...
I think regardless if the money is coming or not, to sustain any sort of subscription model and to even obtain an investor - the lifetime sub option had to be taken down.

No investor would want to give money without a chance to return on investment, which wouldn't happen with the lifetime subscription option.
 
E

etchazz

Trakanon Raider
2,707
1,056
Arden_sl said:
Vanguard was built like some kind of wacky museum. Elements of the game were groundbreaking (offensive/defensive targets, class design, diplomacy) but those elements were set in a framework that vacillated between haphazard and outright broken. It's like the museum had some amazing exhibits, but you were just as likely as not to get stuck in the elevator, or take a flight of stairs that lead to nowhere. On top of that, the museum was way too big for its contents, and the exhibits were scattered about in no discernible order.

That's what happens when you have so many different people working on the project with no real lead architect at the helm to pull things together. Sure, you've got some talented people who can bring some great things to the project, but you've also got completely untalented, unmotivated people that are only there because they are friends with soandso. You've also got huge parts of the project that were started by one person and then finished by someone else entirely. Not to mention, your source of funding changes halfway through the project- along with the expectations/demands of the group funding the project. Add onto all of this a mandatory deadline for completion and you've got one hell of a fucked up, wacky building/game.
Click to expand...
I liked how big VG was. There was plenty of just vast, open space to explore, and find out of the way dungeons and crypts. Don't understand why every square inch of games nowadays have to be choked with content. I'll take SOTC open world style any day.
 
zzeris

zzeris

King Turd of Shit Hill
<Gold Donor>
20,955
90,981
etchazz_sl said:
I liked how big VG was. There was plenty of just vast, open space to explore, and find out of the way dungeons and crypts. Don't understand why every square inch of games nowadays have to be choked with content. I'll take SOTC open world style any day.
Click to expand...
Easy. Because all that world uses resources which cost money. While it is cool to explore vast areas, good designers of a game usually give you things to do. The games that have lots of space and areas of little content are unfinished and poorly directed(bad leadership). There is a reason Brad has his prints on two games that have lots of unfinished and buggy content. I'd much rather have WoWs vast world with a master plan than Brads "I have no clue what's going on but I'll let you know after my month long bike ride.This buggy and unfinished mess had a ton of great ideas but I was never bothered to worry about finishing it."
 
Khane

Khane

Got something right about marriage
20,741
14,508
zzeris_sl said:
Easy. Because all that world uses resources which cost money. While it is cool to explore vast areas, good designers of a game usually give you things to do. The games that have lots of space and areas of little content are unfinished and poorly directed(bad leadership). There is a reason Brad has his prints on two games that have lots of unfinished and buggy content. I'd much rather have WoWs vast world with a master plan than Brads "I have no clue what's going on but I'll let you know after my month long bike ride.This buggy and unfinished mess had a ton of great ideas but I was never bothered to worry about finishing it."
Click to expand...
I agree that it's sort of a waste of resources but I definitely think there's something to be said about unused space and it doesn't necessarily have to be about bad leadership. Vanilla WoW was full of these types of areas and it was cool just from a speculation standpoint. Of course Blizzard eventually filled in all those areas with content which added even more richness to the world. You didn't necessarily need an expansion to see the game world changing. Silithus was a good example of this. As was Darkwhisper Gorge and the green raid portals in UBRS/Darkwhisper/Naxx.
 
tad10

tad10

Elisha Dushku
5,533
599
zzeris_sl said:
Easy. Because all that world uses resources which cost money. While it is cool to explore vast areas, good designers of a game usually give you things to do. The games that have lots of space and areas of little content are unfinished and poorly directed(bad leadership). There is a reason Brad has his prints on two games that have lots of unfinished and buggy content. I'd much rather have WoWs vast world with a master plan than Brads "I have no clue what's going on but I'll let you know after my month long bike ride.This buggy and unfinished mess had a ton of great ideas but I was never bothered to worry about finishing it."
Click to expand...
The wide open spaces were fine - the bigger problem worldwise was every area was a separate little world that had nothing to do with any other area. You do the CIS area having never seen CIS lore before and after CIS you never see it again. No continuity.
 
popsicledeath

popsicledeath

Potato del Grande
7,547
11,831
What I liked about Vanilla WoW was they had a ton of areas that were worth just grinding in, or exploring, or named hunting to go along with all the quest-rails areas. Few cared about the non-quest areas, though, for better or worse depending on your playstyle and preference. From a design standpoint, though, the assumption that resources were wasted on content that didn't have quests were born and even in games like Rift you saw them desperately trying to create quests for everything and anything you did despite there being a pretty cool world and non-quest-by-the-numbers content.

The problem seems to be the perception that if you have one quests, you better not ever let the quest log run dry or players will get confused or frustrated. That isn't giving much credit to players, or maybe players don't deserve much.

I've personally felt quests should be to get you to areas, but not lead you through them. But then again I haven't been a serious mmorpg player in so long I still call them mmoRPGs.

Vanguard was cool when you found areas to explore, got drops, good exp, even if there weren't quests. The problem was that was hard to find and not worth the effort, because there might have been no drops or suddenly no mobs. It was safer to just follow quests because at least you knew there was some level of dev attention. Furthering the stigma that without quests content isn't content.
 
tad10

tad10

Elisha Dushku
5,533
599
popsicledeath_sl said:
What I liked about Vanilla WoW was they had a ton of areas that were worth just grinding in, or exploring, or named hunting to go along with all the quest-rails areas. Few cared about the non-quest areas, though, for better or worse depending on your playstyle and preference. From a design standpoint, though, the assumption that resources were wasted on content that didn't have quests were born and even in games like Rift you saw them desperately trying to create quests for everything and anything you did despite there being a pretty cool world and non-quest-by-the-numbers content.

The problem seems to be the perception that if you have one quests, you better not ever let the quest log run dry or players will get confused or frustrated. That isn't giving much credit to players, or maybe players don't deserve much.

I've personally felt quests should be to get you to areas, but not lead you through them. But then again I haven't been a serious mmorpg player in so long I still call them mmoRPGs.

Vanguard was cool when you found areas to explore, got drops, good exp, even if there weren't quests. The problem was that was hard to find and not worth the effort, because there might have been no drops or suddenly no mobs. It was safer to just follow quests because at least you knew there was some level of dev attention. Furthering the stigma that without quests content isn't content.
Click to expand...
I hate Quest-to-level and in an ideal world Quests wouldn't give XP, but the reality that I've come to accept recently is that Quests are the current best solution to the "Content for 30 minute-1 hour playtime Guy" problem.

For the guy or girl who can only play an hour a day quest grinding gives that person a feeling of accomplishment and keeps them coming back to your game. Quests are not a good solution for the "Content for the 30 to 40 hour playtime Guy" problem. At the high-end raids are the best solution for those guys and girls, Vanguard tried to implement low-level mini-raids (for example the Temple of Dailuk guy and to an extent mobs like the original Hounds of Gorm) but I don't think that was well understood and once SOE massively up the XP rate the low-level raids/uber-difficult mobs became pointless.
 
T

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
607
I can't speak for VG but it felt like they designed things in very large horizontal slices instead of vertical slices. Which means they built the landmass, they added the structures, they added the content. So when the game was released we were left with this massive, sprawling continent in place with all the structures and LOOK like they should have a point but we never got to the phase where the content was added. It wasn't uncommon when VG was released to walk around ghost cities which had beautiful doodads and cool structures but absolutely nothing in them and nothing pointing you towards them. Same with huge landmasses of just pointlessness. I just got the impression they made the overmap first then worried about fleshing it out later. I'm sure they had ideas for all these places and things but the rushed timeline towards the end meant they were shipped out and just left a confusing feeling for the players.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.