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

Tolan

Member of the Year 2016
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In EQ they gave you a fig leaf and a stick, and then you battled rats for 10 hours straight.
Hyperbole man. I remember a short orc hatchet quest at level 1 that involved hoping to find, hoping to kill, and hoping to loot the piddly orc hatchets. The reward was most likely a particular rusty weapon that was like 5% better than the shit sword I started with or, rarely, a bronze (I think) short sword that was 10% better than my starting sword. I wouldn't consider that a real EQ quest though, since it involved one zone and took about an hour or two. It was a challenge to complete though, at such a low level. It was a lot more fun than the start of wow, where there would have been a static orc hatchetman camp, where orcs respawn every 2 minutes and drop the hatchets every time. There's no sense of accomplishment when the game hands rewards to you for no challenge at all.
 

popsicledeath

Potato del Grande
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Well imo, you pick one of the 2. You either have to work for your spells, by requiring certain subquests, certain mob kills, or large amount of money to upgrade them, meaning you don't get access to everything and there's a real effort to it and that's fine, or you give all of them for free directly upon leveling. The middle ground fucking sucks and is pointless as shit, basically wow vanilla system or wildstar, where you have to go back to a trainer to unlock your skills, but they're so cheap you always have the money for them, so there is really no fucking point other than as a shitty timesink(and not even a goldsink since you can just adjust drop rates plus goldsinks are pointless as fuck while leveling, the point of goldsinks is for endgame).

From the initial descriptions of their systems though you'll have to kill mobs and what not for skills. It kinda sounded a bit like what Rift wanted to do originally, where you go around and collect souls instead of unlocking them at a NPC but it's even more than that since you collect the skills themselves, not the classes that unlock a bunch of skills.
I'm not a fan of WoW systems where you run to the trainer and buy all your spells without even looking at the cost because you want them all and they don't cost enough to matter.

I also don't think a system where you solely fight for your spells/abilities will be good. You'll end up having to give the basic ones away with canned quests, or specific dungeon rewards, and that starts to feel a bit too quest-based vending-machine style of rewards.

I think a combination could work, though:

Basic spells your class inherently knows because it's in your blood and you get when you level up and are a result of your literal and implied 'experience' you've been gaining. Other, rarer and more powerful/specialized spells you have to save up to purchase from spell vendors, maybe even having different areas with different spells. Other even rarer, more specialized or powerful spells you have to adventure for, and can be learned through pretty typical areas/mobs/content. Other even rarer, etc. you have to adventure for in the hardest areas of the game off the toughest mobs, battling the lowest drop rates.

And by spells I mean all class abilities, not just cast ones.
 

popsicledeath

Potato del Grande
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Hyperbole man. I remember a short orc hatchet quest at level 1 that involved hoping to find, hoping to kill, and hoping to loot the piddly orc hatchets. The reward was most likely a particular rusty weapon that was like 5% better than the shit sword I started with or, rarely, a bronze (I think) short sword that was 10% better than my starting sword. I wouldn't consider that a real EQ quest though, since it involved one zone and took about an hour or two. It was a challenge to complete though, at such a low level. It was a lot more fun than the start of wow, where there would have been a static orc hatchetman camp, where orcs respawn every 2 minutes and drop the hatchets every time. There's no sense of accomplishment when the game hands rewards to you for no challenge at all.
One of my favorite quests in EQ was a Dark Elf one, I think just for rogues, where you had to sneak into Freeport and kill some woman. The reward was a whip that I'm pretty sure was a piercing weapon because it had snake fangs at the end. It was awesome, even though the whip wasn't even really good. Hrm... almost worth pledging enough to help design my own weapon, because ever since then I've always wanted to be a whip-wielding rogue...
 

porkchop sandwiches

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Pledged my $45, loved me some EQ
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Sev_sl

shitlord
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Always loved the researching required for spells in EQ - admittedly it became irrelevant as the game aged, but that's a design issue that could be easily remedied. Words of Sausage + Words of Uberness to make my level 24 necro pet spell = frustratingly fun gameplay
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tad10

Elisha Dushku
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Since this morning been going at 10 new backers an hour (825 at Noon Eastern), still over $100 avg, which would get Pantheon funded except I doubt it will stay at 10/hr for US midnight to 8am. Need to reach those Ozzies.
 

Mr Creed

Too old for this shit
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I prefer mob movement/animations as telegraphs similar to TERA.
Yea. Like someone above said, you only need them for things that you cannot see coming otherwise. If you need a telegraph because something is bursting out of the ground, make it a rumbling area or show cracks in the ground. If something is falling from the sky have a spell effect or debris or something else suitable coming down first. In essence, you can have your telegraphs either take the playing into the game world, or out of it (playing the UI). I would very much prefer them to take me into the world.
 

popsicledeath

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My girlfriend came in, saw Pantheon's Kickstarter page and said "Oh, so that's what Kickstarter looks like... why does the website look so low budget?" I had to explain that she wasn't looking at Kickstarter as a whole, but that each project has their own page, and can customize that page however they like...

She's no theorycrafting expert like we all are, but was decidedly unimpressed!
 

Merlin_sl

shitlord
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Yea we need to figure out a way to get Europe and Japan involved. Those guys are psychotic about gaming and would invest. Just not sure if Brad is willing to put servers overseas.
 

Sev_sl

shitlord
69
0
Since this morning been going at 10 new backers an hour (825 at Noon Eastern), still over $100 avg, which would get Pantheon funded except I doubt it will stay at 10/hr for US midnight to 8am. Need to reach those Ozzies.
We are here mate, doing our bit
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