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

gogojira_sl said:

Yes, that's what I said. Pushed where it's good to push, don't waste resources on shit people in this crowd don't care about. Auction UIs are a convenience feature and "convenience" is a word people cringe at with new school development.

One sentence summary: Rebuilding classic MMO doesn't mean 1:1 port.

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I guess I just forgot there was a 'this crowd' that was so easily definable and that 'this crowd' wanted to stand around in an EC tunnel /shouting for hours and dealing with a bunch of low-ballers until you finally find someone to buy and have to run around looking for them so you can get close enough to /trade.

I guess I'm no longer in 'this crowd' because even during EQ I thought it was a boring, lacking 'feature' of the game and was glad to see it progress to something else, sometimes good, sometimes bad, but at least something.

I'm not saying it's a system that should or shouldn't exist. If a game is otherwise enjoyable and has a feature I don't enjoy, I can handle it. I'm just saying if they think they've defined any crowd, market or 'core' gamer, and think they can assemble a group of features and have it build up to something precisely for that market, then they've already failed in the creative process. It should be a question of what will work for the game their making, which again, we don't have a fucking clue outside of our own self-reflective hopes and dreams. And not even the devs will have a full grasp on what they made until we play it.

Scary shit. Which is why we toss around vague bullshit thinking we actually said anything at all, until we're ever in the position to actually have to create, and then realize we're fucked and it should be left to the 1% who are either insanely lucky or just insane.

the cruel reality is that theory crafting about MMO's on forums is a fuck ton more fun than actually playing any of the MMO's that are currently out....

I think people coming here and telling us this game might not workout is pretty funny. Lol I think we all get the risk here. Your concerns are noted...For me, it's not just about what Brad is doing. He's creating awareness to a niche that's been overlooked and I support/applaud him for that. Just think...he told his plans to Smed and from what I gather Smed just wished him luck. Maybe SoE will look to add this project down the line but it's obvious they won't throw money at it to get it off the ground. I plan to donate to the KS. It's not just for the game. It's to create attention to a niche game that I enjoy and I hope other companies take notice.

When I play Skyrim, for example, I don't care what level I am, I don't care about leaving on the ground a lot of crappy items, I don't care about finding a customer for my wares, not even a merchant to earn a few more gold coins. I play the game at my pace and the game lets me play at the pace I want right away and through the whole duration.
There is no crap like "the game starts at level cap" or similar things, yet there is a clear sense of character progression, both levelling and crafting are satisfying from the first moment I put into the game onwards to the moment I finally decide to take a break (you can't "quit" until a new chapter is out, can you?).

While there is instant travel, which I learned to cope with since the days I played a wizard in my late EQ years (2003-2004), the world feels massive enough to mantain a sense of wonder and I can choose to travel by feet/horse and find hidden locations and treasures.

In MMOs this magic is long gone: there is some exploration left to do, a bit of experimenting on how to build a character, sometimes quest lines can be interesting for a while, but there are way too many conveniences and everything seems so artificial.
I play MMOs still, but when I want a good adventure I load up a TES game (not TESO!!!) with a gazillion mods to change it all over.

Maybe Brad will try to get back some old school gaming style, maybe not. Maybe it'll be WoW-clone 27.0, maybe not. I don't care anymore to be honest, of one thing I'm 100% sure: read Rerolled before buying to check if it's worth a look, quit+uninstall if it sucks and don't pay for anything until deemed worth of my time.

etchazz_sl said:

the cruel reality is that theory crafting about MMO's on forums is a fuck ton more fun than actually playing any of the MMO's that are currently out....

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The depressing thing is this quote is spot on. I'm bored of P1999, have zero desire to be a WOW lemming, and can't handle doing EVE's spreadsheet wars. We need something new.

You needEver, Jane.

Confirming that Ever, Jane has alot of features "this crowd" is looking for but you ignore because you cling to your pre-conceived genre expectations.

In other news,

gogojira_sl said:

As for defining a market, I think they've got a clear idea who they're gunning for and I don't see why they've failed in the creative process. When you've got no clue about your market other than to say EVERYONE PLZ LOVE US and then proceed to focus group the shit out of your product, you fail creatively. Whatever team he has needs to be creating a game they love and can get behind. They've creatively failed only if their lone intention is to make profit and proceed to shit out a husk of a game. We'll see.

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Is the opposite of not targeting a specific market trying to target every market? I would disagree. Time and again I've seen the success of products that are at least somewhat, if not mostly creative endeavors, succeed because they create a new market. The problem with targeting anything market-wise is your best efforts, like if you're a super-pro, you can only successfully target today's market (and still, doesn't seem easy). And by the time the product gets released? Great job, you've successfully targeted an outdated market.

I guess it's not about semantics, so much as my belief gamers have always been the worst enemies of gaming. The same way audiences who are outside the creative process are often in that same position. Markets and audiences and readers and viewers and anyone consuming a creative product are great at looking back, but in generally are pretty shit at looking forward.

I guess what I'm saying is that I agree it's fun to dick around talking about the past and pondering the future, but I believe the best thing Brad and Co. can do is ignore the shit out of us. Let their experiences and passions both actively and passively inform what I believe is a highly creative process more akin to the Arts than Industry. Basically, they have to let themselves make the game they want to make, that only they can make, that they can't help BUT make.

There's more ways to fail making a good mmorpg than trying to please everyone, despite that being the most blatant example in recent years. If they go into it trying to please anyone but their own artistic egos and pride, they'll turn out soulless shit. If they don't already have enough input and experience and data and ideas to inform their creative and professional process then it's gonna be Vanguard ugly.

And I'm not saying we shouldn't armchair dev all day long and talk about greater ramifications on the industry, etc. I just hope Brad is too consumed in development to pay us any attention.

gogojira_sl said:

Nearly all of the companies trying to bite off WoW's success trying to emulate what made Blizzard's game a hit got fucking hammered.

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So have the companies trying to actively cater to a specific anti-WoW niche, if you think about it. It's a typical cycle. A genre/industry is born from creative visionaries who don't care enough about the ultimate product. The suits come in who care too much about the product, killing the creativity that spawned the genre/industry. Eventually, some creative visionaries either too fed up with the same shit or too naive to know better go back to being creative visionaries. The hope is there is also enough industry experience that at the right time someone from the business side of things is allowed to step into the process.

In general, I think it's best to err on the side of leaving the creative process true and hoping that helps it become a product worth marketing, even if it's a slow starter like Eve, not the other way around where you target a market, focus on a product, and then hope the creative process is up to snuff. That's what we keep see failing, and it shouldn't be a surprise because this is what happens in just about every industry that has heavy creative forces at work. Granted, the business-focused models that follow a creative success often still make money (even if they're shitty mmos), but we're looking for a GOOD game here, right?

And all was well.

Cyber monday maybe? idlk

I heard about this game for the first time over 11 weeks ago now... they better have at least a bit to show in this (supposed) kickstarter.

Quaid_sl said:

I heard about this game for the first time over 11 weeks ago now... they better have at least a bit to show in this (supposed) kickstarter.

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Expect nothing more than a video, opening with dramatic medieval high fantasy music, followed by "Hi, I'm Brad McQuaid, some of you may know me from my blahalaha Everquest and Vanguard." this will occur while Brad is sitting in a generic setting i.e. white background, outside, or behind a desk answering some questions we submitted.

Don't expect a tech demo or concept art of anything IMHO.

Big Flex_sl said:

Expect nothing more than a video, opening with dramatic medieval high fantasy music, followed by "Hi, I'm Brad McQuaid, some of you may know me from my blahalaha Everquest and Vanguard." this will occur while Brad is sitting in a generic setting i.e. white background, outside, or behind a desk answering some questions we submitted.

Don't expect a tech demo or concept art of anything IMHO.

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That made me so angry I almost negged you... but only because you're probably so right.