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

1) A challenging game from day one level one mob one. No ez-mode for 20 levels bullshit.
2) No wizards and melee doing the same DPS with unlimited low-damage spells
3) no super fast OOC regen. No 'modes' that disable abilities in or out of 'combat mode'
4) ZERO instances
5) weather
6) forced first person
7) powerful buffs that require resources to cast
8) large expansive world with few (if any) teleports
9) no reaching the level cap in a week
10) something to aid players in selling items, but no full-blown WoW auction house
11) meaningful, 'hand-crafted' non-formulaic loot. I.e. no replacing every slot every two levels from candy loot you don't even remember the names of. Quest rewards are relevant to the quest
12) no quest exp. Exp comes from combat, NO LINEAR QUEST GRIND. I want the freedom to wander the world and exp anywhere with blue cons. Quests for items and faction only.
13) no making me mash combat buttons every 1.5 seconds just for the sake of making me push buttons. Every action by a player should be hard to script. i.e. no brainless SS SS SS evisc combos.
14) some risk of loss for high reward areas. See plane of fear.

Tmac47_sl said:

I think you're being liberal with the term we, but I'm not naive. Brad has a track record. There's precedent. The chances of success (aka. a game that's playable/fun/meets expectation) for this project are calculable.

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So you've succeeded 100% of the time... every time? Maybe that's where some of us are more optimistic. I think his odds are better a second time around. Just my opinion. I'm hoping doubters like yourself motivate the guy. Sounds like you give this no chance.. I'm curious does a game like EQ/VG even interest you? He's the only one even talking about making something like it..Some of us have been hoping/waiting for someone to step up and do exactly that. We don't need someone to constantly point out what happen with VG.. lol people get it already. But how many times does the guy need to admit he screwed up before he gets a second crack at it? Let's wait and see how it plays out a bit.

Wants. (EQ1)
1. Old EQ travel make everyone use wizards, bards and druids to get around.
2. No auction house. make players have to meet to trade and know crafters.
3. Make almost everything need groups.
4. Contested content (everything)
5. Harsh death penalty.

Don't want. (EQN)
1. Pay2win or unthought out money grabbing cash shop.
2. To feel epic/heroic at level 1.
3. Pointless quests and hubs.
4. Fast leveling/progression or combat.
5. To back the kickerstarter wait 5 years and see no game and lose my money have everyone say we told you so.

Tmac47_sl said:

You can call me a "doubter", but I'm just being realistic.

Agreed, for now, we shall play the waiting game.

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I edited my post but I'll just ask here.. Does a modern EQ/VG game interest you? For those of us it does it's a good thing no matter what happens.. Yea, I want him to succeed but more importantly I'm hoping enough hype surrounds this that other studios jump on this train and we start getting some real MMOs made again.

I just don't want every raid encounter to be "avoid the red circles" bullshit like every other new MMO.

Want:

1) Game designed around 1st person, meaning it's well rendered and not just a zoomed in camera where you have to stare at the ground to see that you're a body and not just a floating camera. Work on giving visual combat cues from the target, mobs and other players, so we can actually pay attention to those things instead of staring at the ground to see if a mob is going to do anything. Everything about third-person combat, from red rings to the fucking fireworks shows, makes me not want to play most current mmorpgs. Remember when positioning of your character mattered more than positioning of your camera angle? I want that.

2) A world also designed around 1st person. The local bank doesn't need 50 foot ceilings. World design has sucked in so many games because they had to make room for a 3rd person camera view, and I'm sick of the bad, ugly designs. This also helps dungeons design, letting them go back to being the cramped, claustrophobic, exciting places they once were.

3) Quest CHAINS instead of fucking quest hubs. If there's an outpost in the middle of nowhere it should be because the game and/or your race's central threat is threatening that spot. None of this bullshit where there's just a random military outpost in the middle of nowhere with nothing more important than fending off wildlife. I'd like a mmorpg that tells its story not via cutscenes, but because you're constantly being reminded of the major threats of the game via quest chains that progress, as opposed to quest hubs that just introduce isolated threats over and over.

4) A return to more class/role specific gameplay. Not to the point of EQ where you were too limited, but definitely not the shit nowdays where everyone can dps, cc, heal, etc (it seems). Something more like Vanguard, but with about 20% less abilities per class removed in a way that would add a bit more specification. I shouldn't have to pick my role in a group because I simply have too many hotkeys to press compared to global cooldowns. A class or two can be a jack of all trades (bard, beastlord kind of thing), but too often too many classes these days can just do everything, which falls into the trap of seeming good on paper, but in practice is either overwhelming because you're expected to do everything or underwhelming because you simply can't (or come across people who wont).

5) Gear that is interesting, even if it's just aesthetically pleasing or a novelty. Stuff you spend time finding, camping, earning and not just getting because there was a quest reward, but because you decided you wanted to figure out how to get it (almost like self-guided questing, setting your own goals instead of just following the next carrot). I spent ages in Vanguard grinding mobs to get the schematics for super jump boots and levitation clicky. And my blood mage has raid gear and stuff, but it's those little things that make me want to keep playing, because they were sometimes useful, often fun, both in and out of combat. And while sometimes only a minor convenience, things like this give progression that is more fun and interesting than simply getting +1 gooder raid stat. Bonus if the items are aesthetically focused and not even all that useful. Rogue illusion masks in EQ were awesome fun. And I remember searching for ages getting my dark elf wizard the robe/pants combo that looked like leather, and with a parry dagger in offhand, so in pvp people thought I was a rogue, which wasn't game breaking, and probably more a perceived advantage, but it was still fun. I want to go to zones/areas/mobs because they have an item I want, not just because a quest sent me there, and I want to always have random items that I want to get even when I've maxed out all my raid-level upgrades.

Your second point about designing the game for 1st person view was something I hadn't thought of but am completely with you on.

Basic examples would be going into one of the inns in the east common lands , or the buildings in freeport it actually appeared more "realistic" because the ceiling was just a few feet over your head like most buildings actually are. I hadn't thought of who every single building in every mmo seems to have the 50ft ceilings for everything now.

I would like to go back to playing 1st person if everything was designed to actually be played that way.

popsicledeath_sl said:

Want:

1) Game designed around 1st person, meaning it's well rendered and not just a zoomed in camera where you have to stare at the ground to see that you're a body and not just a floating camera. Work on giving visual combat cues from the target, mobs and other players, so we can actually pay attention to those things instead of staring at the ground to see if a mob is going to do anything. Everything about third-person combat, from red rings to the fucking fireworks shows, makes me not want to play most current mmorpgs. Remember when positioning of your character mattered more than positioning of your camera angle? I want that.

2) A world also designed around 1st person. The local bank doesn't need 50 foot ceilings. World design has sucked in so many games because they had to make room for a 3rd person camera view, and I'm sick of the bad, ugly designs. This also helps dungeons design, letting them go back to being the cramped, claustrophobic, exciting places they once were.

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Agreed, Also this one simple feature makes combat difficulty go up ten fold. but also leaves tanks looking at all the mobs groins.

Dahkoht_sl said:

I hadn't thought of who every single building in every mmo seems to have the 50ft ceilings for everything now.

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Or they have normal sized ceilings and clipping is all fucked up and the camera gets all herky-jerky and you end up zooming into your character anyway.... but then you can only see your character and not the npc/room, so it's no better... so you zoom into 'first person' mode and it's just a floating camera and is even worse looking/feeling.

I'd even be happy with a hybrid system that lets you zoom into third person while outside, and then is forced first person in dungeons. Only reason I don't like this is for open world pvp, but I doubt open world pvp will ever exist in a meaningful way again, so it seems a fair compromise that keeps indoors and dungeons from being absurd.

I mentioned mechanics I want back earlier, but the big point is what kind of game this will be. Others have brought up similar ideas: I want it to be an immersive world first and foremost. That comes with a few stipulations that would be seen as a step back by most players:

1. First person only and a world design that keeps that in mind and takes advantage of it (could have a the option to move the camera while the character isnt moving/in combat for screenshots I guess)
2. No gps mini map (but mapping in game, preferably as a trade)
3. Weather and seasons (seasons for post-release I guess but gotta plan for it or you redo alot of work)
4. Decisions bring good and bad consequences, through an intricate faction system
5. No instancing (or if at all, then for very exceptional, rare situations)
6. Many non-combat activities/abilities/trades
7. Only "in-character" fast travel, and rare at that

Tmac47_sl said:

I think you're being liberal with the term we, but I'm not naive. Brad has a track record. There's precedent. The chances of success (aka. a game that's playable/fun/meets expectation) for this project are calculable.

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And based on Brad's history wouldn't those chances of success be 50%?

I'll take those odds in this genre.

Draegan_sl said:

For your wants:
What is really complex combat? Is it action based where complexity is a form of movement, placement, and reaction time? Is it turn based where you set up resources turns in advanced? Do you want typical global cooldown combat and hotbars full of abilities?

I can agree with most of this on the surface. The MMORPG genre is really lacking difficult content except for some version of high end raiding in some games.

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Yep its dumbed down for kids and sales figures, not something made for real gamers to enjoy. The guy above who said its a 1 month slot machine is so right. As for the specifics about combat, I really don't mind, which is why I didn't mention anything specific, because I like both slow strategy type games and fast action ones. Both types can be fun and challenging if they are done right. All I really care about is that it's not just spamming buttons to win. I want to actually screw up or even die if i press the wrong thing at the wrong time. For example you are in a group and some nab steps on a trap and suddenly 10 Fire Elementals show up. The wizard panics and spams his 1,2,3 rotation which just happens to be Fireball, Firebolt, and Flame Lash. He heals all the elementals back to full health and then dies like the nubcake that he is. Now they all come at you and you are going to die in 5 seconds. You can only cast one spell, what do you pick? You might try to cast a big group heal but the cast time is too long, and they interrupt you and you die without doing anything. Or you might choose an AoE grasping roots spell, and you then die in the corner of the room, but now all the mobs are stuck here next to your corpse for 30 more seconds. Meanwhile it keeps them away from the healer and tank who are the only ones left alive, and it buys the healer enough time to manage to get the tank topped back up on health and then gives him a chance to cast a damage shield or something to help them win the rest of the fight, and then rez all the dead groupmates.

The problem with modern games is that they just hand you the victories. If this happened in a modern game the wizard's fireballs would have just nuked everything anyway, even fire on fire. Or at the least, someone just casts an evac and teleports the whole group to the altar just outside the dungeon and you run back in, back to work as normal 2 minutes later.

I just hate how dumbasses can succeed now. Yesterday I was playing Vanguard and I'm a Psi now which is crowd control. In almost every fight, 3 mobs show up and the tank aggroes them all and I don't even need to mez because the game is so stupidly easy anyway. But just to keep the dps flowing I would always mez one of the three, and the mezzed mob turns in to a kind of ghost and looks at the ground with stars twinkling around it. And yet the second tank in our group always kept fighting it! It gets held at 100% health which is a side effect of my mez, but this kid just wasn't paying attention to what was going on or was just stupid. And in fact, he was obviously getting bored because while the group would pull 2 mobs and start fighting, this kid would run to a nearby bunch of mobs and start fighting them too - he is an offtank and wanted something to do. But on occasion he would fight 3 or 4 new mobs making the total 6, and he would fight them near a doorway which has wanderers going past so sometimes we would end up with 8 or 9 mobs all of a sudden. Again, it's modern Vanguard so it aint nothin but a thing anyway, tank just AE aggroes them all and rips them all up, healer barely goes below 99% mana, casters all nuke hell out of shit. But I want a game where this offtank dies horribly and wipes the whole group because he didn't notice the wanderers. That's what happened in EQ all the time and it forced people to have the difficult confrontation with people in their group of saying, you realise you just wiped our whole group? And the dumb second tank says, "me? no how?!" And they explain you aggroed another bunch of mobs and fought them near where wanderers are. We all noticed the wanderers when we got here but you didn't. Bad pally! But at least the game had consequences and people learned and moved on.

Again in Vanguard last night, it was all going smoothly for hours (far too smoothly) and then the main tank got bored or suddenly decided to smoke a whole bunch of crack or something, and just starts running off in random directions. So we all follow him fighting whatever comes our way. He seems to be exploring, anyway we go through a narrow doorway in to a room and he takes a look around and there are mobs everywhere, he runs through a bunch of mobs - just outside their aggro range, and then takes a right, going around a group of mobs in the near right corner, and starts fighting some other bunch of mobs. Meanwhile the healer is hurrying along behind the group trying to keep up with us, and he sees the fighting and rushes in the room and runs straight towards the fight, not noticing the group of about 8 Fire Sprites in the corner. He dies in about 2 seconds. But the group just kills everything, and then we just rez the healer (we had a second healer but we also have little stones we can use to rez the healer anyway), and off we go again. Not a word is mentioned about any of this - because it doesn't matter. But really the healer fucked up by not watching where he is going, and the tank caused it all by charging into the unknown and not clearing as he goes. But again, no consequences anymore. People just want to bash buttons, watch lights flash, get their quest looots and then make some excuse about having to change the baby.

Draegan_sl said:

For your don't wants:
In regards to regeneration, I can see the desire for slowing things down and I can almost agree with that. It really depends on how things are balanced and rewarded. To use some random number, if I have to kill 100 mobs to level but I have to rest 5 minutes in between every 2 mobs, I don't want that. That's really boring. But if I had to kill 10 mobs to level and I had to rest inbetween, that would be better.Essentially, if I get a significant reward from killing something, that I can visibly see then I don't mind sitting around waiting for the next bit. But if I have get small rewards (xp, whatever) and still have to wait then the wait doesn't really psychologically feel worth it.

I always wanted to go back to my MUD days in Sojourn/Duris/Toril where as a caster you had spell slots and had to memorize spells before casting them and you got more spell slots as you leveled. I also liked the way DDO does spells and mana too. For me it really ties in to your #1 don't want, they are both the same for me.

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Exactly.

It can go too far, but EQ was actually a lot more sane than some people remember it. There was some stuff that is inexcusably shit... like if you found yourself in the very unfortunately position of being a solo Warrior. You would fight a mob and it would take you down to 10% hp, and then you just had to sit for like 5 full minutes to slowly tick back to 100%. Then do the same thing all over again. Aint nobody got time for that shit anymore.

But in general EQ really wasn't too bad with downtime. Because in a good group, first off someone tends to have a group mana/hp regen spell up, but also, good players tend to only use the most efficient spells. So you maybe only use 20% mana in a fight, then immediately sit and it starts ticking up.. 82%... 85%... 88%... and as the tank is fetching more mobs, maybe he pauses a second to adjust his pants wedgie and suck down some beer, by the time he gets back to the group with more mobs, you are already back to 95% anyway. So maybe over the course of an hour or with a huge fight that takes you by surprise or something - in those cases yeah you end up 0% and have to sit for 5 minutes as a group and recover. But I'm ok with that. The plus side is that it made everything matter so much! If you have a big fight with the group and you PEW PEW PEW with all your most awesomest wizzy spells, you would then be out of mana. Then someone accidentally aggroes a wanderer and the wanderer agroes a nearby room of 5 more mobs, suddenly your group is now fighting another whole bunch of mobs and nobody has any mana. That dumbass wizard is now fucked. Whereas a good player would have been using more mana efficient stuff, and now he gets to save the group by blowing up the entire room while everyone else is shitting themselves.

And it made dungeons very dangerous because after every fight, the group needs to sit and rest for a while, so if you aren't being very careful with the route you take and clearing your way, you can easily end up with constant fights and you'll just run out of mana, and all die horribly. EQ was all about consequences. Nowadays you rarely run out of mana, and if you do, you rest for 20 seconds or click your stack of muffins or whatever and its back to 100% in 5 seconds. There is no tension, no consequences, no excitement. There's also no chatting because the action never ends.



p.s. As for f2p, im sure it can work in some cases but I just dont think it works unless the population is huge. If you have 1m people or more, then 5% of them occasionally buying cosmetic shit is probably enough to keep the company going. But in a niche game, I just dont see it happening. I think the GW2 model is cool, get people to buy the game and then make it f2p, that would work. I would occasionally buy some bling for my mount or whatever but even if you dont, at least you bought it. But in stuff like Vanguard now, where anyone can just download it for free and play it for free, they aren't making ANY money off anyone, unless people start buying stuff in that shop. And of course, they cant resist the temptation to then fill the shop with insanely awesome zomg-must-have gear. And they did. And now everyone just throws 20 bucks down when they start and you get to start off with unlimited inventory space, a flying dragon mount, and all kinds of other stuff that more or less trivialises the whole game.

I remember in brads blog he said that for a niche game to compete with WoW style quality and content, its going to need to charge about 60 bucks a month. I know that was just a kind of theoretical thing, but still. Damn. I hope not lol. But I'm sure it will all be fine in the end. I will pay whatever he wants if its a good enough game. As a laymen I gotta say though, gw2 seems like the best thing to me. Get a few hundred thousand sales and they all spend 20 bucks right from the start. Big fat cash injection to stfu all the accountants. And then it takes the pressure off with the store. Let people pimp out their rides or whatever, just cosmetic stuff. It wont unbalance the game and yet it will keep the money coming in.

want:

Vanguard classes - unique, all different gameplay styles, all add something to a grp ( buffs, util, CC, heals ) other than DPS
Vanguard combat with better animations
Group based pvp ( like eq2 where tanks are tanks )
Group based content either ALL or a high percentage.
Content be more dungeons, less overland ( see vanguard 100s of dungeons )
Multiple leveling paths ( as many as possible )
Long leveling, i want to measure max level in # of months it takes u
Contested content ( raids or group does not matter )


Do not want:

Another take on the freakin action MMO crap. THERE ARE ENOUGH.
Button smashing "action combat"
Any Battlegrounds or Arenas or any PVP that is not in the world
F2P - i would pay 50 a month for what you see above.
Mainstream MMO gamers having any input into this game.
30 day slot machine game.

I think the primary problem is that you were playing Vanguard. That game is just not good. No trolling, it's just not good. Bloodmage and OT/DT were the good things about vanguard. That's the complete list.

The problem is also the playerbase. You don't have the hardcore online D&D nerds like you used to. They're still there, but the genre no longer has them. They've moved to console FPS, not Elfses and Swerds.

That dumb shit you describe happens in every MMO. But the really important thing is that if you throw a hard encounter at a group of those people they can't compete and they quit, even when it's fun to lose. EQ sadistically punished bad players, WoW realized that casual money spends just as well as uberduber, and no one has really had much of an idea of what to do since. Besides EVE. If only eve weren't such a boring game!

So I guess what I want is a fun version of EVE. Skin it however you want. Fantasy, Sci-fi, Steampunk, Pseudo-modern adderal deranged Day-Trader game. The skin is less important than the internal integrity.

Iannis_sl said:

I think the primary problem is that you were playing Vanguard. That game is just not good. No trolling, it's just not good. Bloodmage and OT/DT were the good things about vanguard. That's the complete list.

The problem is also the playerbase. You don't have the hardcore online D&D nerds like you used to. They're still there, but the genre no longer has them. They've moved to console FPS, not Elfses and Swerds.

That dumb shit you describe happens in every MMO. But the really important thing is that if you throw a hard encounter at a group of those people they can't compete and they quit, even when it's fun to lose. EQ sadistically punished bad players, WoW realized that casual money spends just as well as uberduber, and no one has really had much of an idea of what to do since. Besides EVE. If only eve weren't such a boring game!

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Vanguard had a rough implementation for sure, however I have not seen an MMO with better dungeons, world design, classes. ( crafting almost but swg wins that for me ) since well do the math.... But yes the stairs sucked !

and yes the Bloodmage was my favorite class, of all time in ANY MMO so i get that.

Tmac47_sl said:

It does, actually. However, the reality is that when most people try to reproduce the past, they literally end up reproducing the past in a lesser form.

The Richard Garriot UO remake, for example, is exactly that, a remake. There's no new tech, it literally has the same bag systemfrom sixteen years ago, the art is identical... Call me callous, but it does nothing to "build" on what made UO great, it's just remaking a twenty year old game. I wish I could at least use the term reskin...

From the lists that people are posting, it's easy to see that people want a foundationally old-school MMO. Which means that there's both risk and reward and not a WoW quest/item clone.

In addition to the mechanic wants, I'm sure they don't want old clunky tech, dated art and broken code. Yet, every time someone takes up the bastion of bringing the old school back, they drag a 20 year old carcass into the middle of the room and expect people to get excited.

Vanguard was a husk of what it could have been and it lacked a solid foundation. And because of that the code suffered.

Despite what it seems, I'm not burning effigies of Brad up in hurr. I just refuse to get on the hype wagon when it's the guy, who created Vanguard, campaigning to be the savior of the old-skool MMO.

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Well shit, he is the only one in the last what 10 years that has designed and actually went live with such an animal... yes the animal was a bit wounded, but no other game has even freakin tried.... so ya... perhaps that is where it comes from or ? or perhaps the market is so saturated with the same shit ( action MMO in LaLa land or shitty WoW impression ) that his may be different ... finally.