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

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popsicledeath

popsicledeath

Potato del Grande
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The problem is those hour-at-a-time quest mechanics have to be good, so whether you're playing 1 hour or 8 hours grinding quests because the best or sometimes the only way to experience the game because the devs have made quests the primary vehicle for advancement. It would be great if your playerbase were all hour-at-a-time players, though.

Not that it matters, but imo the better mechanic is to make it easier to join groups. If your guild has a group crawling a dungeon, and you get online and only have an hour, and someone in the group is leaving, make it easy to swap out people. The notion of having to break up a group because someone leaves or restart at the entrance of a dungeon to let one person joined is the other half of what killed social, group content.

Vanguard did it pretty well for dungeons and group play with any healer being able to summon others into the group. If you only had an hour to play, you could still often get into a group, because they'd just summon you in and then put out feelers when the next spot was opening up.

The notion to put in short quests to appease the casuals, and let the 30 hours people grind to max and then raid is what makes current game design so shitty. Why not just make a game with a ton of content that people who play more, will experience more of it faster, but everyone experiences the same way, with similar accessibility, particularly by not having game mechanics that cock block people who can't spend half their play time getting to a place where they can start playing.
 
Sevens

Sevens

Log Wizard
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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.
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The sad truth is the majority of MMO players dont deserve much credit...when Guild Wars 2 was designed and tested there were no "hearts" (if youre familiar with the game) but the testers of the game were actually confused and didnt know where to go or what to do so they had to add the hearts as markers to lead the players around the map
 
popsicledeath

popsicledeath

Potato del Grande
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Sevens_sl said:
The sad truth is the majority of MMO players dont deserve much credit...when Guild Wars 2 was designed and tested there were no "hearts" (if youre familiar with the game) but the testers of the game were actually confused and didnt know where to go or what to do so they had to add the hearts as markers to lead the players around the map
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Yeah. The difference is the early generations of games forced you to figure it out or suck. Now, developers are afraid the few people who will suck so bad to ragequit are their most important customers, so add in crutch mechanics instead of just trusting that a game will be better overall for the majority of players if those players are encouraged and/or forced to actually engage and participate in the game their playing. The difference between having to play the game, and letting the game play you.

I guess I don't blame the players or hold it against them because developers took the easy way out at the first sign of opposition.
 
T

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
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I don't really mind quests leading you to new zones. It wasn't exactly fun nor did it take much skill for me to bust out my level range-by-zone map I had for DAoC and figure out where I had to go after stuff conned too low for XP. I do wish there were alternate leveling paths instead of just burning quests. WoW's WoD is pretty bad about being forced to taking the questline. The game really assumes you have taken the quest line when you max out.
 
E

etchazz

Trakanon Raider
2,707
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popsicledeath_sl said:
Yeah. The difference is the early generations of games forced you to figure it out or suck. Now, developers are afraid the few people who will suck so bad to ragequit are their most important customers, so add in crutch mechanics instead of just trusting that a game will be better overall for the majority of players if those players are encouraged and/or forced to actually engage and participate in the game their playing. The difference between having to play the game, and letting the game play you.

I guess I don't blame the players or hold it against them because developers took the easy way out at the first sign of opposition.
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I agree. I'd love for another MMO to come along that would just have the balls to say "fuck it, if you suck at this game, then you suck, but we're not changing it or holding your hand through it." EQ had that mentality and it worked just fine for all of us. The first time I logged in, I had absolutely no idea how to do anything. I spent five minutes trying to talk to a guard in felwithe, thinking it was another player.
 
zzeris

zzeris

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Tenks_sl said:
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.
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That's exactly how I felt. I enjoy huge plains, unexplored cave systems that may not be inhabited, etc, but it's got to feel designed that way. Both EQ and VG had huge areas where you knew they just didn't get the shit finished. I don't like areas chock full of quests to lead me like paint by numbers. At the same time, I really want that new area I'm exploring to look like a developer spent more the bare minimum developing that area. Why make a huge world just for a sound bite for reporters? "We have over 10 square miles of environments for our players". Like Tad has mentioned, focus. Make your smaller world full of things to do, or at least have a plan.
 
Ukerric

Ukerric

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zzeris_sl said:
At the same time, I really want that new area I'm exploring to look like a developer spent more the bare minimum developing that area.
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What you want is "meaning". You want the world to have meaning, whatever meaning is to you.

And it's difficult to do. Meaning is what gives us stories to tell. I mean, I still remember exactly where, in WK, I heard that floppy sandal sound for the first time as three of us were crossing it (without SOW, Bard Song, or any boost), and we suddenly had a Giant on our heels. That encounter brought meaning to what is an absolutely nondescript stretch of road in a zone that's universally considered as mostly boring. But that meaning arose entirely by chance. Without having that Giant coming on to us from behind, we'd never really remember the area.

Procedural content is something that skirts the balance between having boring areas where you'll never ever have meaning associated with it, and something that maybe, just maybe, might make a meaningful impact on you. Whether it's because you die stupidly, or get an incredible view you didn't expect, or stumble upon a mob you don't see often, and get the rare loot. But it's hard to generate and guarantee. And that's difficult in this era where you have people with low boredom threshold, and people that have only an hour here and there to play.

The best approximation to giving meaning to an area is making content. By making specific content, you have something that the player may or may not remember, but will associate with that area if they do. But making specific content is costly, which means you can't afford to make lots and lots of it. And part of that cheapens it. You know that absolutely everyone on the Alliance side had that vision in Karabor with Velen (otherwise, they're still stuck with a level 1 garrison). So its content, but its not as memorable, because everyone has the same story.
 
Muligan

Muligan

Trakanon Raider
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Funny Brad's other games are discussed more than Pantheon in the Pantheon forums lol. If I was in his shoes, I would have gotten out a long time ago while my name had some appeal (i'm talking a microscopic amount) and hooked up with either Daybreak, Crowfall, or CU. I would have begged for a design position and promised not to really touch anything and prayed they gave me a steady pay check while my name became affiliated with something successful.
 
Convo

Convo

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Muligan_sl said:
Funny Brad's other games are discussed more than Pantheon in the Pantheon forums lol. If I was in his shoes, I would have gotten out a long time ago while my name had some appeal (i'm talking a microscopic amount) and hooked up with either Daybreak, Crowfall, or CU. I would have begged for a design position and promised not to really touch anything and prayed they gave me a steady pay check while my name became affiliated with something successful.
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Smed should have put him on EQ3 for name purposes only, and let some of the better devs run the show. Brad has some good ideas, he just can't lead or manage. It appears he's embracing that truth with his new team.
 
T

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
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Muligan_sl said:
Funny Brad's other games are discussed more than Pantheon in the Pantheon forums lol. If I was in his shoes, I would have gotten out a long time ago while my name had some appeal (i'm talking a microscopic amount) and hooked up with either Daybreak, Crowfall, or CU. I would have begged for a design position and promised not to really touch anything and prayed they gave me a steady pay check while my name became affiliated with something successful.
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Well there isn't much to discuss with Pantheon. If Brad has some aces up his sleeve design wise he won't just release them. So we're left with some minimal effort screens and nothing eles to really discuss.
 
Convo

Convo

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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I didn't get to listen to it all but I don't think they decided on colors, seemed like they were leaning towards EQ styles? as for locked encounters, you can still train. I'd imagine.. plus they were kicking around the idea of raid mobs resetting or calling for help if there were too many people

This project has a long way to go with public opinion. I suggested to Brad that he should reach out to several of the MMO communities and ask a few of the more respected people to jump into the pre alpha. I nominate UT. But really, that's probably his best shot as some kind of legitimacy. They could at least provide basic feedback to the community. Assuming Brad feels confident on what he has. Obviously, It would be pre alpha but there would still be a general idea of direction and how capable this team really is.
 
Bruman

Bruman

Golden Squire
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0
Convo_sl said:
I didn't get to listen to it all but I don't think they decided on colors, seemed like they were leaning towards EQ styles? as for locked encounters, you can still train. I'd imagine.. plus they were kicking around the idea of raid mobs resetting or calling for help if there were too many people

This project has a long way to go with public opinion. I suggested to Brad that he should reach out to several of the MMO communities and ask a few of the more respected people to jump into the pre alpha. I nominate UT. But really, that's probably his best shot as some kind of legitimacy. They could at least provide basic feedback to the community. Assuming Brad feels confident on what he has. Obviously, It would be pre alpha but there would still be a general idea of direction and how capable this team really is.
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Oh, I didn't listen to that shit, I just quickly read the summary. Here's what I'm reacting to:

Colour codes/Rarity - Yes we will have weapon and item rarity to define the quality/grade of a weapon or item, we are not sure about colour or how we will display them in the UI.
we will most likely have 6/12/18/24 man raids and possibly other combinations or size limits depending on the zone, the encounter, the content etc
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The color one was admittedly iffy from them, but I'm just going to go ahead and take it at its worst possible value. I'm pretty torn on item quality in general. I liked the simplicity of EQ's "your X is X the end", but then again Vanguard's item quality levels when crafted were nice. Maybe I just don't like dropped items with a baked in rarity. Makes things too cookie-cutter/item level/ePeen.
 
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