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

Laura_sl said:

Question (trying to steer the discussion to something more productive): Do you want McQuaid's project to be subscription based and why? If you answer yes; how much $$ per month/week or even hour do you think would be a fair price?

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I would pay $29.99 a month. x2 for the wifes account. Fuck FTP then rape my credit card every other day for stupid shit. I pay, I have the same opportunities as everyone else and I don't get my mailbox spammed with crap offers of crap I can buy. One model, one price.

Laura_sl said:

Question (trying to steer the discussion to something more productive): Do you want McQuaid's project to be subscription based and why? If you answer yes; how much $$ per month/week or even hour do you think would be a fair price?

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Yes, 9.89 / mo. =)

i missed qwerty

Big Flex_sl said:

i missed qwerty

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Ah don't jinx us.

I want it to be $1 more than whatever popsicles allowance is off his dad.

Gecko_sl said:

The bigger question is how does one create a design that pushes a lot of immersion, has valid sinks, creates an economy. and yet is casual friendly? Is downtime with a spawn that takes six hours with 60 minutes actually played superior to doing the same thing in 60 minutes with a 24 hour timer afterwards?

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You could just give them something to do in that time. Like if someone goes to find wood, someone finds moss, and then someone can start a fire, you get a camp bonus for resting.

But really I don't think casual friendly is even relevant for this game. The casual audience is the biggest audience but it's also the shallowest. Brad is never going to satisfy that audience with a kickstarter budget. It's just not happening. He should work out what were the bits of EQ and remake that in to a modern framework. Either he can do that, or he's fucked.

Laura_sl said:

Question (trying to steer the discussion to something more productive): Do you want McQuaid's project to be subscription based and why? If you answer yes; how much $$ per month/week or even hour do you think would be a fair price?

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If there is content enough to level that takes on average more than a month and the game is based on player interactions ( group combat and non combat interaction ) then yes I absolutely want a sub based game. I feel like games like VG, and older style with ALOT of content can support subs but if you release a themepark-y small game with I am at level cap solo in a week, then f2p it is.

Multiple leveling options ( paths like WoW or vanguard ) and group based play will increase relationships between people unlike most of what is out there today where you group up for what 5-10 dungeons ? I think the lack of these items in current titles preclude most of them being sub based... if Brad is indeed making a VG/eq type game then it should be fine for a Sub.

As bad as things have been I would pay 50 a month to play the game I really want to play.

shabushabu_sl said:

IAs bad as things have been I would pay 50 a month to play the game I really want to play.

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I think many people would do that (me included) but that'd have to be the game that I want, down to the details. Given the scope and expectations for this project, I'm at $10 or less for a single or two character longterm interest. I'll happily raise that up if there's a game I can properly judge and deem worth $20/month.

Laura_sl said:

Question (trying to steer the discussion to something more productive): Do you want McQuaid's project to be subscription based and why? If you answer yes; how much $$ per month/week or even hour do you think would be a fair price?

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I'm not afraid of either subscription of free to play/pay models. Some people get afraid of the terms, but obviously what matters is how it's implemented. Cash shop isn't a bad thing if it's done in a way that is subtle and respectful. I rather liked GW2's model and think SOE finally ironed out issues making Vanguard's free to play model appropriate (paying a sub for Vanguard never felt right). And I'm not convinced a free to play, cash shop model can't sustain a top quality, even a 'hardcore' mmo, though I think there are less pitfalls and prejudices against a subscription model for such a game. While I don't personally care as long as it's done well, I think from a developer standpoint it would take less resources to do a sub model, and from a general public standpoint a sub model would feel more natural for a pve, old-school type of game and be more widely accepted.

Mr Creed_sl said:

Everquest had some faction rivalry themes, featured prominently in Velious culminating in the coldain war if someone did that quest to conclusion, and more small-scale in luclin where you had owlbears, sonic whatevers and a third faction vying for the same zone. I like stuff like that, and in some ways for example GW2 took it a step further (it also dropped the ball on other things, irrelevant to this point though).

Would you want things like that? They were in EQ, but do they have a room in your own vision?

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I loved that aspect of EQ on a zone level, but I'm not sure how I feel about it on an expansion-wide level. Making entire guilds have to pick one route of progression isn't something everyone is happy with. I guess it goes back to making the rewards relatively more 'equal' so people don't feel they're being cheated and can still experience the fun that is picking a side and following it through a storyline. And that's the sort of thing I loved about EQ. Even if you weren't a hardcore role-player or lore-nerd, you still got sucked into the stories, which was cool.

On a zone-wide level, though, I love stuff like that. I liked how in Vanguard the level 40's armor could come from three different factions who all had cities and their own style and were at war. It was fun even not being entirely fleshed out (could have used more quests and more triggered events instead of just separate static areas of mobs that hated each other). Getting non-kos in some areas over others was fun, and sometimes helpful. And if you spent the time and planned well you could get pieces of armor from all sides as you changed your allegiance.

On a larger scale, though, I could see a lot of people not being happy their progression is limited, especially feeling like it may be chosen for them based on what gear is 'best' or because guild leadership said so. It would be a tough sell, and hard to balance between 'no point because all sides are equal' and people feeling left out of content.

Mr Creed_sl said:

I think many people would do that (me included) but that'd have to be the game that I want, down to the details. Given the scope and expectations for this project, I'm at $10 or less for a single or two character longterm interest. I'll happily raise that up if there's a game I can properly judge and deem worth $20/month.

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Yes I agree.. i should have stated something like this. Take vanguard for instance if Vangaurd ran solidly and had content 40+ at launch and held people as it should have... with the ALTs i played on that game it would have been worth more than 30 bucks a month ( i had 2 accounts ) in addition to the depth of crafting and I still to this day have not tried diplo.

The way i figure it Vanguard had so much content and 3 spheres each with depth in itself it was really almost 3x "bigger" than most games in the 2004-2007 era as far as depth of play and time you can spend. Now, today I would guess you can increase that to 6x or more because the worlds are shrinking and options/depth are being removed from newer titles.

So if the game is solid and provides depth where i can "level" multiple times mostly grouping along different paths ( not only adventuring but crafting also ) then it would be worth more than 15 bucks per account.

Bruman_sl said:

I've said this a bit before, but one of the things that made EQ what it was, is that all your friends played it too. We talk about wanting niche, but we still want all our friends to play with us too. Those two don't coincide well a lot of the time, unfortunately.

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EQ let people make friends due in part to its very slow... umm everything. And at a time when most people were probably not going into the game with a full guild or group of friends like these days. It was the perfect combo for the time, and a reason I believe it was successful (a more important reason that the classic 'no competition' argument). We made friends playing EQ, and that's what we had in common. And then we tried to move on to other games with those same friends, and suddenly not even our taste in games seemed to be in common.

How does a developer create a game that caters to the niche and appeases the variation that exists in pretty much every gaming community and sub-community?

I think a lot of people in looking back with rose-colored glasses at EQ's outdated mechanics are trying to find the answer, but have thought the question is 'how do we make games like they used to be' when I think the question developers have to really think about is 'how do we let people MAKE friends in-game.' Because trying to make a game that is enjoyed by the variety of gaming friends we've made over the years is just not going to happen, imo. We need game design that enables people to make new friendships and convinces people it's worth the effort and uncertainty.

The question is what aspects of past games carry over and add quality to a new game and give players motivation and incentive to make NEW friends, and what aspects are just shit like long spawn times and waiting for boats that, sure, we made the best of but that doesn't mean it was good game design.

Tmac47_sl said:

I am totally capable of paying $20/month for a game, but I would never do it. I simply couldn't justify it, even if it was a badass game. There are just too many F2P or cheaper alternatives.

It wouldn't make any sense in the business model to charge 50% more than the standard for a new niche IP. You either charge the standard rate or less.

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Those F2P and cheaper alternatives are all shit to me , 29.95 a month for a close to perfect game for me would save me money. I wouldn't waste any money on crap games any more , no more SWTOR CE's , no more total waste of money for GW2 , etc. While I'm on a stricter budget with wife/kids and other family responsibilities , the amount of time 30 bucks a month would get me in a modern day EQ style game could easily be justified for me. EQ at it's height (around Kunark) had me not even thinking of spending a single dime on any other video games , I'd very much like such a game again.


If 29.95 a month would keep a EQ4/VG2 style game going well enough for those of us who want that , and keep it from going down the idiot road of catering to the common ADD player , I'd gladly be in for it.

Yea, I don't think the barrier should be that high.. There are games like GW2 that I haven't played b/c I don't want to buy the game.. If anything offer a 2 week trial to your game and add a sub after that. Your game should do all the talking.

The thing is he's not going for LoL numbers or player base ( thankfully ) - again - it's niche.

While it doesn't have to be as high as my example for me - it's missing the entire fucking point of this game to even imply it's trying to get a wide audience.

He said he's not making a game for that - there are other games out there for that - why can some just not fucking understand he's come out of the gate saying this is not going to be for the "millions"

I'd also be happy if MMO hype in general was toned the shit down. Acting like their game is the best thing to come along since the twenty sided dice. Everything these days seem to take a marketing page out of the Cocoa Puffs manual. Don't try to excite me, convey to me facts that will excite me.

Didn't I see a EQN video that had like Churchill quotes or some shit between shots? Come the fuck on.

Dahkoht_sl said:

The thing is he's not going for LoL numbers or player base ( thankfully ) - again - it's niche.

While it doesn't have to be as high as my example for me - it's missing the entire fucking point of this game to even imply it's trying to get a wide audience.

He said he's not making a game for that - there are other games out there for that - why can some just not fucking understand he's come out of the gate saying this is not going to be for the "millions"

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I'll wait to see it to believe it. It's one thing to say it, but its another thing to actually do it and sacrifice a lot of $ for a "Vision".