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

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Ichu

Molten Core Raider
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You'd end up with some pretty baller stuff if you opened it up to the community to design some dungeons/quests/etc. Now there's a real idea: If your shit gets chosen for the game, you get X amount of free game time.
 

tyen

EQ in a browser wait time: ____
<Banned>
4,638
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You'd end up with some pretty baller stuff if you opened it up to the community to design some dungeons/quests/etc. Now there's a real idea: If your shit gets chosen for the game, you get X amount of free game time.

Database editor with wiki-style editing for quest/database creation. Moderator approves shit.
 
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pharmakos

soʞɐɯɹɐɥd
<Bronze Donator>
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Having the consumers also be the content creators makes a lot more sense in Unity than it does building it all from scratch like EQN.
 

Sithro

Molten Core Raider
1,497
197
You'd end up with some pretty baller stuff if you opened it up to the community to design some dungeons/quests/etc. Now there's a real idea: If your shit gets chosen for the game, you get X amount of free game time.

Exactly. Put out the concept art, put out the assets, give them goals, let them go to work. And yeah, the winner can get a year of free game time and maybe some other neat shit. Weaponize the shit out of that autism.

Add to the fact that these people will be doing this out of passion. I bet you'd see some amazing shit.
 
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Arden

Blackwing Lair Raider
2,731
2,055
I too hope they will reconsider the item scaling. If they do skills and caps like EQ, weapons scale naturally. Basically any overpowered ability or item can be controlled through a skill system. Even something like a fungi tunic could be throttled by a "recovery" skill if they wanted to reduce the effectiveness at low levels.

I say keep all that stuff under the hood. The player doesn't need to know everything. That was part of the mystique.

Absolutely agree that the players shouldn't know everything. Keep plenty of info under the hood. Let the guessing turn into rumors and the rumors turn into legends. It was the unknown and guessed at that made Norrath seem so big and daunting. The days of knowing the exact impact and numeric value of everything in game have ruined the mystique- as you said. Having all that info out there made it too much about number crunching and spreadsheets. It also greatly impacts your ability as a player to discover cool and interesting things about mechanics/spells/items etc that may not be advertised.

Back to the scaling thing-- I think the world should be the world, period. Item X should look the same to me as it does to you. The environment should never "read" my "level" and change itself based a metric like that. Item scaling is just one example, but it's ultimately a slippery slope that leads down the path to a lot of other undesirable things that go against the philosophy of eliminating artificially restrictive mechanics.

I'll give you an example, item scaling is in the vein of "trivial loot code." Trivial loot code is a few steps away from instancing, which is just a few steps away from playing a single player game. An mmo world should be static, constant, and reliably the same for everyone.

I think it's probably fair to say there are occasions where you are forced to restrict content to certain players. But I also think those restrictions should be extremely rare, and should come in the way of character limitations, rather than environmentally responsive limitations.
 
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zzeris

King Turd of Shit Hill
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Back to the scaling thing-- I think the world should be the world, period. Item X should look the same to me as it does to you. The environment should never "read" my "level" and change itself based a metric like that. Item scaling is just one example, but it's ultimately a slippery slope that leads down the path to a lot of other undesirable things that go against the philosophy of eliminating artificially restrictive mechanics.

I'll give you an example, item scaling is in the vein of "trivial loot code." Trivial loot code is a few steps away from instancing, which is just a few steps away from playing a single player game. An mmo world should be static, constant, and reliably the same for everyone.

I think it's probably fair to say there are occasions where you are forced to restrict content to certain players. But I also think those restrictions should be extremely rare, and should come in the way of character limitations, rather than environmentally responsive limitations.

I agree to a point about a static world. This means a knight should be able to tank every single thing a warrior does. Maybe in a different way, but the ability to tank should not be different. Same with DPS vs DPS, heal vs heal. I don't agree that one thing is a few steps away from another thing and then suddenly you are playing a single player game. That's a simplistic take. Blizzard has a robust single player at the behest of its players. While instances reduce the ability to immerse oneself, it does not lead to single player. I'm not promoting instances because I like the wide open dungeons but that statement was a bit wrong.

Most game designers don't want OP items affecting their ability to produce new content at a decent pace. That is why item scaling, loot level, etc are in games today. I doubt Brad goes back to early EQ itemization. EQ was based on D&D which didn't push for OP itemization in their RP game either. The need to feel like a God should be fulfilled by just going back to a newbie area and crushing mobs there, not twinking your low-level turd to preen around newer players(or other peacocks).
 
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In that they were clearly the best utility class in the game?
Yeah. And nothing even came close. I was super pissed off because I was a Druid and in beta and for a while after release, our Hybernate spell was bugged so you could cast it on anything. So I was almost as good as a psi because I could mez a mob, while healing and doing damage. It was awesome. But then they fixed Hybernate to only work on animals which was like 0.1% of group content. All the archetypes were pretty well balanced but Psi was a winner by miles.
 

Fyff

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
2,728
5,380
I want 75% of EQ. What I don't want is to stare at my spellbook while meditating or have to advance my skills if I get a new weapon. New items should help you progress, not be a temporary detriment. Just an example. I hope they get rid of all of the truly archaic things. I have WoW so I don't want WoW. I don't need a quest hub type grind or fast and flashy. I want an updated EQ and updated means getting rid of some of the chaff.
 
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Reht

Molten Core Raider
1,115
317
I want 75% of EQ. What I don't want is to stare at my spellbook while meditating or have to advance my skills if I get a new weapon. New items should help you progress, not be a temporary detriment. Just an example. I hope they get rid of all of the truly archaic things. I have WoW so I don't want WoW. I don't need a quest hub type grind or fast and flashy. I want an updated EQ and updated means getting rid of some of the chaff.
I think most of the people who want this game feel the same way, however there in a small, vicious and overwhelmingly vocal minority over on their boards who want every single mechanic that was in classic EQ to be in Pantheon.
 

2002User

Bronze Knight of the Realm
310
43
I want 75% of EQ. What I don't want is to stare at my spellbook while meditating or have to advance my skills if I get a new weapon. New items should help you progress, not be a temporary detriment. Just an example. I hope they get rid of all of the truly archaic things. I have WoW so I don't want WoW. I don't need a quest hub type grind or fast and flashy. I want an updated EQ and updated means getting rid of some of the chaff.
Looking at book to med hasnt been in EQ for like 15 years and isn't in Pantheon fyi.

Also--did they remove skillups from WoW? because I remember having to do that same exact thing there too. Archaic I guess, but not so bad it's going to make the game unplayable.

Some of the unreasonably tedious stuff is being stripped out, while some older mechanics (such as possible CRs, exp loss, etc) are being kept in interest of maintaining the depth of certain things such as death and feeling of danger in the game world.

I realize there's a lot of idiots who want 1:1 EQ Vanilla but they are delusional and will not get their way. The game being is dubbed a spiritual successor with new mechanics (which they are already prototyping), not a clone.
 
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Scoresby

Trakanon Raider
791
1,467
Exactly. Put out the concept art, put out the assets, give them goals, let them go to work. And yeah, the winner can get a year of free game time and maybe some other neat shit. Weaponize the shit out of that autism.

Add to the fact that these people will be doing this out of passion. I bet you'd see some amazing shit.

I would go a step further and pay people for content that you accept. It can then be a hobby, but one that you can get compensated for if you are good enough. In the end it is still an order of magnitude cheaper than hiring artist and developers to do this full time and the competition / variety you get from making this a viral effort would be great. Not to mention you get buy-in from your community as they were part of making it.
 

Fyff

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
2,728
5,380
Looking at book to med hasnt been in EQ for like 15 years and isn't in Pantheon fyi.

Also--did they remove skillups from WoW? because I remember having to do that same exact thing there too. Archaic I guess, but not so bad it's going to make the game unplayable.

Some of the unreasonably tedious stuff is being stripped out, while some older mechanics (such as possible CRs, exp loss, etc) are being kept in interest of maintaining the depth of certain things such as death and feeling of danger in the game world.

I realize there's a lot of idiots who want 1:1 EQ Vanilla but they are delusional and will not get their way. The game being is dubbed a spiritual successor with new mechanics (which they are already prototyping), not a clone.
Skill ups other then tradeskills haven't been in WoW for 11 years.
 
1,678
149
They seem to just be keeping the good bits of EQ without the over the top tedium. A modern MMO with no minimap, endless quest grind, and mobs that go splat in a few seconds, is really something that hasn't existed since EQ.
 

2002User

Bronze Knight of the Realm
310
43
Weapon skills were in, actually leveling them (ie them not being maxed out automatically) was removed before that breh
No, that's wrong too. They were removed simultaneously.

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    Patch 4.0.1 (12-Oct-2010):
From blue post
latest?cb=20061231181034

Cataclysm - Stat Changes | Ancilorn
Planned Stat and System Changes

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Weapon Skill - This stat will be removed from the game completely. Classes will start with all the weapon skills they need to know and will not need to improve them.
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  • latest?cb=20090403101742&format=webp
    Patch 3.0.8 (2009-01-20): You can no longer skill up weapons on mobs that are immune to damage.
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^^ As you can see by that last patch note, the need to level up skills was still present in WoTLK. So my point still stands, it wasn't 11 years -- it was merely 6-7 years ago. Funny that such an archaic mechanic didn't ruin the peak of WoW. In fact, WoW went on the decline after Cataclysm, maybe removing the need to level up Weapon Skills was the turning point! :p

On a more serious note, no one is saying that weapon skillups should be in, but playing a game or not should be related to core mechanics. The book-in-face meditate was shit and a common occurrence (it's not in Pantheon). Some uncommon and minor nuisance like leveling Weapon Skill that hardly effects gameplay ever won't make or break a game (and it certainly didn't for WoW).
 
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ZyyzYzzy

RIP USA
<Banned>
25,295
48,789
No, that's wrong too. They were removed simultaneously.

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From blue post
View attachment 106450
Cataclysm - Stat Changes | Ancilorn
Planned Stat and System Changes

...
Weapon Skill - This stat will be removed from the game completely. Classes will start with all the weapon skills they need to know and will not need to improve them.
...
View original post


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^^ still present in WoTLK.

Funny that such an archaic mechanic didn't ruin the peak of WoW :p Not saying that weapon skillups should be in, but playing a game or not should be related to core mechanics, not some random thing that hardly effects gameplay ever.
I stand corrected. Good thing they kept EQs mechanic of needing hours upon hours upon hours to level weapon and spell skills!