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

Jarek said:

I'm old as fuck, almost 50, been a gamer for 40 years. I hate shitty graphics. However, it's more about the artistic style than polycount most of the time.

Vanguard SoH had computer melting graphic specs, with polys and shaders and shadows and whatever, but to my eyes it looked like shit mostly. Also the updated EQ character models, another good example. The new models were higher everything, but the artist completely ruined the style. They were hideous, stood is awkward unrealistic poses, sat like some kind of Japanese fuckbots or something, just completely ruined.

Sure the original EQ models looked archaic, but the art style was much, much better. Anyway, highly stylized, almost-cell-shaded-looking-that-runs-on-a-toaster is better than ugly, high res in my opinion. Of course beautiful art and high-res is the ultimate, but then you begin to run into performance issues.

Best is to have a highly stylized art which can be heavily modified via ingame video options. Then you run into development costs of hiring best artists and using Dev time for implementing various levels of graphical fidelity and the UI to support it.

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You're talking about atmosphere vs poly count. I'll admit, old school EQ did have loads of atmosphere and not much poly count. But then again, it did have its quirks that came along with loads of atmosphere, too.

When I log into EQEMU I was surprised that the graphics didnt feel as dated as I thought they would. In fact - the opposite, it was almost better than many modern mmos with superior graphics.. This puzzled me at first.
What I realized is that for me, the graphics while simple, were easy to process. Mobs were clear and distinct from the background environment. My brain could interpret what was important and not get distracted by details such as grass.

I find many modern games distracting. Clear models that dont blend into the environment is key for an immersive experience. Maybe thats just me and I have tuned my eyes to EQ after so many hours logged.

Tredge said:

When I log into EQEMU I was surprised that the graphics didnt feel as dated as I thought they would. In fact - the opposite, it was almost better than many modern mmos with superior graphics.. This puzzled me at first.
What I realized is that for me, the graphics while simple, were easy to process. Mobs were clear and distinct from the background environment. My brain could interpret what was important and not get distracted by details such as grass.

I find many modern games distracting. Clear models that dont blend into the environment is key for an immersive experience. Maybe thats just me and I have tuned my eyes to EQ after so many hours logged.

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Feel the same way. In most games I turn all the flora off if possible. One thing for me with EQ though, is that old world, Kunark, and Velious zone graphics all have a great "feel" to them. My brain and eyes enjoy all the zones in those eras, however, every zone after feels super harsh. The lighting sucks, the terrain is too smooth and featureless; feels like everything post Velious was done lazily and rushed.

What I hate about recent games is the exaggeration in making everything easier to you it almost blinds me. The accent bright border surrounding targets, quest items, important characters/items in the world it just detracts from the world and destroys immersion. It makes you feel like you're playing a game. The over saturation of pointers and marks whether on maps, UI or even in the world itself just becoming too much. There's so much noise in recent games you really can't get engaged in the experience anymore it just feels like smartphone cheap application. I'm a fan of simplicity and clean UI. I despite the over use of borders and indicators.

When I played EQ back in the day, I did so in first person, probably like most if not everyone else. For starters, the third person camera in the game was buggy as hell and poorly designed. However, playing the game that way went a looong way to promote immersion. It felt like less of a game and more of a world to me.

Most MMOs today though seem to be designed and/or played in third person,. And honestly, why wouldn't you play it that way when it's designed well, the camera works as intended and you get to see so much more of the area around you. Unfortunately, the price is that now it feels a whole lot more like a game and less like a world when I play it that way.

I've tried to play newer games in first person but it never sticks like it did in EQ. I always end up reverting back to third person. I also have never felt so immersed in a game world as I did back in EQ either. No game has captured my attention the same way (for a variety of reasons but that is certainly one of them).

Confirmed.

It's going to be a reskinned EQ or close to it with some new ideas. So far they have given us a glimpse of the colored mana system and the perception system. Would be nice if they would provide more frequent updates like other studios who crowdfund but Brad is special.

The first Twitch video is probably still the best demonstration of what players can expect from this game. Personally, I loved it. It definitely had an old-school EQ feel to it. Part of that may have been due to the devs re-using many of EQ's original sounds (including the DING for leveling) but also because you can see how similar the game's mechanics will be and the importance of player interdependence.

Hell, they even had some named lich wipe the group towards the end of the demo and then (unintentionally?) train them back at their re-spawn point and corpse camp them. That particular part brought down the house from the EQ faithful, myself included.

I think that's exactly it though. After Vanguard, they may be reluctant to reveal too much, too fast in fear of creating false expectations, whether they might be announced features, game mechanics, or beta/launch dates. Especially beta/launch dates!

It's been a few months since that first Twitch demo. As much as the gamer in me would like to see more of the current progress, I say they should continue to fly under the radar for as long as they can. Keep your head down and focus on getting the design/development done right. Right now, that's all that matters. Beyond that, there seems to be little upside, IMO, for them to reveal too much more than what they already have shown.

Show us just enough each month so we continue to see the game moving forward, which seems to be the approach they've taken thus far. I'm perfectly fine with that. For now.

Six months from now? Well, that's a different discussion.

Vinjin said:

I think that's exactly it though. After Vanguard, they may be reluctant to reveal too much, too fast in fear of creating false expectations, whether they might be announced features, game mechanics, or beta/launch dates. Especially beta/launch dates!

It's been a few months since that first Twitch demo. As much as the gamer in me would like to see more of the current progress, I say they should continue to fly under the radar for as long as they can. Keep your head down and focus on getting the design/development done right. Right now, that's all that matters. Beyond that, there seems to be little upside, IMO, for them to reveal too much more than what they already have shown.

Show us just enough each month so we continue to see the game moving forward, which seems to be the approach they've taken thus far. I'm perfectly fine with that. For now.

Six months from now? Well, that's a different discussion.

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Little upside? They are crowdfunding while looking for investors, they could significantly increase their income if they released some information on a semi consistent basis like some of the other more successful crowdfunded games. It doesn't have to be a show us thing, they don't need to make monthly videos, etc, there are plenty of little tidbits of information they could release to keep people interested in its development while appearing they are doing:

• Class reveals, one a month - that's a year's worth of information right there, they started and stopped after what, 3 classes? I know people who got incredibly reinvigorated about the project when they started doing that, but then they stopped......
• Basic combat mechanics reveals, could easily break this into melee, range, caster, etc.
• How they envisions role expectations in groups, etc.
• Perception system information
• Death Mechanic information
• Travel information
• Crafting

There is so much they could do that to keep people more actively interested in the game's development, which in turn could increase their crowd funding. I can't imagine they have gone this far without having some formalized design documents by now, but they have half assed it this far, so who knows.

I understand the crowdfunding argument. I suppose I just don't see it as impactful to their development plans as others do. Sure, the $100 here and there doesn't hurt but it's probably not going to be what keeps this game afloat. The real financial backing will undoubtedly come from VCs and other private investors with real stake in the company/game.

And all of those suggestions are awesome discussion topics. As a gamer, I absolutely would love to hear them discuss them in more detail. They also help illustrate my point though. At this stage in the development, the upside to revealing too much detail about their plans for these mechanics is small compared to the enormous risk of doing so. You're talking about grabbing a handful more crowdfunders in the best case scenario versus pissing off/alienating tons of other potential subscribers if the details change too much in the worst case scenario. Or possibly don't even make it into launch or the game at all. And again, at this stage of development, shit is definitely going to change.

My bet is people are going to largely remain "actively interested" in this game's development regardless of any new info they release. It's still early enough that most reasonable players understand they are still fleshing shit out right now. I say, play it safe and don't do anything to screw it up. Again.

qwertyqweqwertwqert said:

They are? I thought they got an investor ages ago that brought them to where they are now? Either way I just wanna know what the combat will be like. I am hoping like Vanguard but better. Then I can die happy, playing Pantheon.

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They got some seed funding, but Brad has repeatedly stated they are still looking for an investor.

Another topic to add to the list above is the overall size of the game world. Looking back on Brad's previous MMOs only, I thought EQ was perfect. It was enormous regardless of where in the world you started with tons of content available for each continent (ok, maybe Odus was a little small). Part of the fun (at least for me) was finding the zones connecting those starting areas so you could figure out how to group with others and find some of the places you'd hear about in chat. I still remember, as a newbie warrior who had started in Freeport, hearing people in EC talk about all of the awesome loot in Unrest, a lower/mid level dungeon in the middle of Faydwer. Finding the place was difficult enough (thanks EQ Atlas) as the travel was long and dangerous (as it should be, IMO). Just zoning in felt like an accomplishment in itself. And God forbid you fucking die in there without means for a rezz. That's when it went from fun adventure to outright fear of losing your shit.

Vanguard, on the other hand, was also a very large game world but it lacked the same feel to me as EQ. For starters, the continents were horribly unbalanced in terms of size and content. I recall many players flocking to the largest continent for that reason alone. Travel was long but I don't recall it feeling very dangerous. The worst part though was exploring the world and running into seemingly endless miles of vast emptiness. Zones that were largely unpopulated were validation that the dev team had run out of time and money. Huge areas reserved exclusively for housing plots that were completely barren did the same but were also reminders of poor design choices the team had made. Now I'm not saying housing in an MMO is bad. But that iteration of it certainly was.

Having said all of that, I totally recognize that in today's market, this is a tricky design. Most of us watching this space probably love long, dangerous travel the first few times but over time, want a means to minimize that travel and danger. I think we've seen enough MMOs out there incorporate far too many methods that effectively reduce travel time down to nothing. Hell, even EQ is guilty of this when they introduced PoK during PoP.

Personally, I'd like to see them return to the EQ model - huge game world with multiple, self-sustaining continents, and zero travel shortcuts outside of player interdependence (i.e., druid/shaman SoW, wizard teleports, self Gate, etc). Mounts should definitely be included but should be level-based by speed and should cost a small fortune. Force players to save their gold if they want to buy conveniences like that, instead of just blindly giving it to them for a small fee or even free just because they reached level 10.

The races and starting areas were just a fundamentally important part of EQ. Even to the point, that people would re-roll the same class, as a different race because it felt like a different game experience. The towns were living & breathing and felt like places that you belonged to.

I know it is a lot of work, but if you want to create an immersive world, the starting towns are really important. WoW also did a very good job with this. Probably the best of any MMO. They had an intro area that led you to the larger town. Packed with lore and story unique to your race. The look, the feel, the music... all distinct and sets the mood for the rest of the game.

Zones might feel like an outdated concept in this day and age, but they did serve the purpose of having a distinct look and feel. Again, WoW probably provided the model for merging open-world and zones. Sprawling landscapes without any distinction might feel like a real world, but they don't serve a game-world well.