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

Besides the obvious of a game needing to be good ie fun encounters/combat, etc they really need to bring back timesinks to the leveling curve and most other things frankly. I know several people are going to chime in and say "fuck that im not 18 anymore and have a job and kids" but my response is so what? All these games started going to shit when they decided to make McMmo and speed up every aspect of the game and the result is everyone out pacing virtually every level of the game bar cockblock raids and even those are a matter of a couple weeks if that.

Instant gratification is doing the opposite and making games that take no effort which make virtually everything you do meaningless and frankly no fun. Things should be more challenging and you should have so many things you want to do in game you do not know what to start on first but in todays game shit is so easy and fast you can long in on a weekend and finish most if not all the things on your list with very little to no risk(risk should be part of the fun) and in a month or two of a game coming out you have most people at max level wearing all the same shitty carbon copy gear wondering when the next content patch is gonna hit.

Its no wonder why possible good games in beta end up scraping and watering down everything because they realize how fucked they are on content and run out of cash and time trying to shit enough out to at least make it last past the free month. Putting in a good amount of time and effort also creates a bond with the character your playing. You care about it and are proud of all the work you did instead of just a throw away toon. This one month to max level horseshit is gonna make any game that comes out suck.

Actually, the Zynga types will play other games. MMOs are all about the epeen.

SWTOR pretty much has the same setup as WOW and most other of our current games. I personally think most people do want to be Jedi or 'important'. The problem in SWTOR wasn't the story or being a 'Hero'. It was the complete lack of endgame of any different variety from the other MMOs out there, as well as the lack of challenge and meaning in so much of what is being done in a large persistent world sense.

You start out as pond scum in SWTOR, which is cool especially on the Sith side. For me, the level game was nicely morphed from a single player experience which is far better than WOW or most other games. The problem is there is no real replayability, and the grouping is pretty meh. The MMO side of SWTOR is far, far inferior to WOW and it's only real selling point is it's Star Wars.

Blackwulf_sl said:

I don't have an argument with that. I agree. I was mostly replying to the idea that you should have to group foreverything. I'm an old school RPG player - I fondly remember getting beat up by certain enemies only to come back later and wtf own them. You're right about that. I was mostly saying that if I play smart, i.e., use all the tools available to me, I should be able to earn that strength/heroic aspect by taking on enemies at or slightly above my own strength. I shouldn't need to group up to go out and kill a goblin. Maybe I'm reading too much into the earlier statements that a group should be required for everything. Were they being hyperbolic?

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My biggest issue with the rhetoric of some people in regards to access is they think they should feel like a superhero at day one. That doesn't work for me. There is an appeal, a lure to an area of the world you just can't see until you gain power. That mix between low and high level areas needs to come back.. I want to enter a dungeon and crawl my way through it only to find out that a wing of it has content made for players higher in level. I might have to die to figure that out but I'll note it, wonder what's down there and come back when I feel like I can survive it. I know this is a conversation about solo play but it still stands. I could be working my through a solo area and come across a room that I just can't handle solo at my current level. We need that mix, that constant danger when you're off alone doing your own thing. It has really disappeared from games.

In part this is why I am hopeful of Brad's new MMO. I think he gets that and is willing to sacrifice part of the casual market to make that game.

Rhinohelix_sl said:

You know, I started to post a lengthy list of how I think many of these suggestions are wrong and rose-colored but then I realized A) this isn't my thread; its yours B) Even if such a game was to be made, (and here's to Brad making it, hopefully) I don't have to play it.

Someone pointed out earlier, though, the key missing ingredient for many people: You also want it to be popular. With all the dissing of Rift, this game Brad is making, if it includes the stuff being asked for ITT, its not going to exceed Rift's current pop. The target market is just too small. Its definitely not going to attract the size audiences people here want.

I will now wait for the Eve and Dark Souls counter-examples parade to finish.

Everyone, however, wants and in some cases deserve a new and shinier version of that old thing they loved. So here is to hoping you get it.

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I always say.. It's all relevant. I think time is what most people are concerned about. MMO's have evolved enough where we can come up with ideas to make the game less punishing in regards to time without doing away with that part of the game. My personal opinion on features is use another part of the game to make it work. For instance, CR and death penalty. Keep them but add a crafting recipe that will CR/Rez your corpse. Make it rare and costly so the player has one more option but still feels the sting. Plus crafters the community and the economy will benfit.

I don't care a whit about it being popular , I despise most "popular" music and network TV , most popular comedies over the years in theatrical release would cause me pain to sit through and so on.

All it needs to be is enough to survive financially. Every business doesn't have to shoot for McDonalds or Wal-Mart level/volume and crowd.

Who ever said anyone who wants niche'ish more old school mmo wants it to be popular ? Other than like I said ,financially viable at few hundred thousand subs , why would we care if 300k played or 3 million.

The more "popular" a game gets the more it goes down the lowest denominator , idiot catering route. A few populated servers on a game I enjoy it going to play the same as if it has 30 or 100 servers.

Edit: To add , there's nothing wrong with something being popular , as I'm not one of those who can't like something because it's popular either. Liking/disliking something on it's popularity or not is moronic anyway , enjoy what you enjoy and who gives a shit whether others like it or not.

I wouldnt need the game to be popular really - but I would want it to be successful enough to run a decade. That doesnt mean popular as much as it means a company that knows what it can more important what it cannot do, that knows it's scope and limits. Sigil certainly failed that, maybe McQuaid HAS learned from it (not sure on that).

The sticker for me is that I want it to look good and feel good. That doesnt mean I require triple AAA graphics but a coherent, well executed style that I like. I want it to run well, which means a smooth engine. Many AAA projects fail on one of these two points, so the chances of a low-budget project being able to afford both are slim. Engineers and artists are as important to good design imo.

EQ was a fluke, that was in the right place at the right time. Brad is not coming with anything special.

I dont give much credit to him beyond combining MUDs and DOOM, most of what made EQ great came as a surprise to everyone. But he's worked in the genre for a long time so even without prodigy powers he might make a good world sim.

Here's one of the major things that made EQ good. It was a sandbox where the devs allowed the players to alter there game.
Every other game just bans, or changes there system to force the players to play how they want them to play.

No dev has gotten that yet, and they all fail.

Everything from Pulling, Kiting, reverse Kiting, Ping Ponging, etc etc all came from the EQ devs not banning every new thing the community came up with.

Blackwulf_sl said:

Depends on if you want them to craft a game or a world. A game can have this, but forget immersion; why would you need a group to kill a bandit? A wolf? A dragon, I can understand. If you are trying to create a world that you can get lost in, and this is where the line between game/RPG becomes evident, then you have to have things that people can do solo - just like in any fantasy RPG.

Edit to add: People want to feel heroic. It's not heroic to have your ass handed to you by Bushwacker #21.

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Some things I am sure you can solo, but you should not be able to solo your whole way to endgame, that to me says the game is to damn easy and it will be dead in 3 months.

That's another thing EQ did well was class dependency.

You can only do that in a game with true classes tho, not a game where everyone can be every class.

If for say a Necromancer can solo well on the overworld he needs to be penalized for dungeon play where you get the best risk versus reward.

I really don't feel like going through 26 pages of this. Just curious what happened with him and EQ Next. From what I initially gathered from a twitter post I saw that he did a month or two ago, he helped them get to where they are now and he's not doing that anymore. Thread title pretty much takes care of the rest. Is that pretty much it?

CalhoonJugganaut_sl said:

I really don't feel like going through 26 pages of this. Just curious what happened with him and EQ Next. From what I initially gathered from a twitter post I saw that he did a month or two ago, he helped them get to where they are now and he's not doing that anymore. Thread title pretty much takes care of the rest. Is that pretty much it?

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McQuaid got back together with SOE, probably gave some consulting on EQNext and other projects, then splintered off with well wishes. Now he's apparently getting a team together for an MMO that's under wraps.

CalhoonJugganaut_sl said:

I really don't feel like going through 26 pages of this. Just curious what happened with him and EQ Next. From what I initially gathered from a twitter post I saw that he did a month or two ago, he helped them get to where they are now and he's not doing that anymore. Thread title pretty much takes care of the rest. Is that pretty much it?

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I don't think he had anything to do with EQN ever. Since his return to SoE I believe he was on VG then EQ.

zzeris_sl said:

Honestly, that's just stupid. So, just because a class can solo well, they then get shit on in the more important aspect of endgame? Work something else out as in added utility, possible off tanking, etc but don't shit on the class because of your small penis. If we nerfed every game because a whiner didn't like the power of a certain class then we'd have no good MMOs to play right now....

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That's how the new generation thinks about everything, make everyone equal.

I don't think there was massive class nerfs in everquest at all for that first couple of years.

You shouldn't be able to do be amazing at everything. Let all classes have there role in end game raiding
Let some classes be better at soloing/overworld, and some classes excel at risk versus reward for the non end game content.

That is exactly how everquest was.

Ultracore_sl said:

I don't think there was massive class nerfs in everquest at all for that first couple of years.

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Are you on acid?

Maybe I only remember because I played a Mage.

There were no patch notes back then, everything was hidden. Granted it's been years since I played EQ at launch.

Only major one I remember was Necromancer pets with fine steel daggers.

But every patch people would claim SOW was nerfed, or there class got nerfed somehow when nothing was changed at all.
They did allot of enhancements for the classes through new spells etc.