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

Mr Creed_sl said:

Well my position is based on the assumption that they plan to build a very large world. Just a couple of days ago Brad was talking about profiteering from travelling between different market areas, that requires long distances which you cannot easily cross at a whim. IF they change their plan on that then my side of this argument has nothing to stand on and you're right. How they plan to accomplish that with a smaller team, I have no idea. Maybe content design is very fast with Unity, maybe liberal use of copy/paste. But my understanding is that a huge world is absolutely their goal.

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This is where they're starting to make promises they can't keep. They want a large world. They want regional markets. They want players to participate meaningfully in their group-focused game in 1-2 hour chunks. Something will have to give. My guess is regional AHs, because it's the only thing at odds with the travel necessary to make grouping feasible.

Regional AH worked in Vanguard at launch because the quickest, most effective way to get items from the drop location on one continent to the AH on another was to run your ass there. The world design was at an extreme cost to everything else, though, like community and ease of grouping. It was awesome, on it's own. When put into all the other systems in the game, though, it was at the detriment of everything else, really, particularly ease of grouping and community.

Maybe the caravan system will actually save us this time? I thought it was one of the worst ideas ever conceived, because again it was dependent on a huge world that was basically huge for the sake of being huge and not to the benefit of any other mechanic or system in the game.

Pantheon will need to be a smartly designed, fairly tightly packed world that players see as something they're willing, if not eager to venture into. Not as a huge cockblock where they'll not bother until they get SoW and/or a port. Because to have that, which is awesome for it's own merits, you sacrifice the idea of being able to participate with 1-2 hours. The entire world shouldn't have that level of accessibility, but they're going to have to make it a range, where at any given level there are relatively easy places to get to for a short group, and relatively difficult places for long, pre-planned grouping.

But how do you enable feasible, short-session grouping if a world has to be large enough and time consuming enough to make regional markets work? Hell, if they want that, having ports at all is kinda bullshit, no matter how randomly dangerous they make it sound.

In short, the regional market system is the first thing that gets scrapped because it's at odds with too many other aspects of the game.

And are we even sure they want a huge world? I swear I've read several things that said the world will be pretty small and focused, at least to start.

Graye_sl said:

Most people still spammed chat LFG/LFM.

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LFG tool and regional chat. Or no LFG tool and global chat.

I didn't mind VG's system for LFG and Guilds. I dunno.. I like just putting my info up and getting back to business. The chat will happen regardless, me saying I'm LFG wont really add much to the conversation. Sorry Dumar, appreciate the hard stance tho. All ideas should start at the mud/EQ days first and slowly evolve if they dont fi,t but that needs to be the starting point for a lot of this game. It's like research heh. That doesn't mean modern features should be ignored either.

Soygen_sl said:

There should be one big zone where people who aren't in groups have to go. You can't leave this zone until you form a group in the public channel. Maybe add in a really long run back to this zone when your group wipes. Someone hire me!

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And you and everyone else in the zone has to defend a keep from a wave event. You aren't allowed to group until the wave event is cleared and the princess is safe.

Soygen_sl said:

There should be one big zone where people who aren't in groups have to go. You can't leave this zone until you form a group in the public channel. Maybe add in a really long run back to this zone when your group wipes. Someone hire me!

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Hello applicant,

I represent Dumaria Games LTD. You sound perfect for our MMORPG division. Please place these pants on your head and follow us to your new dream job!

Vandyn_sl said:

Again, what is the difference between doing a /who lfg and seeing the results in a chat window vs. seeing the exact same information in a UI LFG window? It's the same exact thing.

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The LFG window you can keep playing the game and not have to make spamming chat your full time job until you find a group or replacement.

zzeris_sl said:

The only way to defend the keep is through the chat channel. The wave is immune to skills abilities, etc. You have to talk it down with amazing typing skillz! Any movement or other interaction enrages the wave! Go!

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Ahh yes, the diplomacy system makes a comeback!!!

Dumar_sl said:

In every case of a 'evolution' of this genre, it's a further limiting of the people you interact with, from soloing, groups, to raids. A windowed list of lfg players requires no interaction whatsoever to find them, to know who they are. A list will show you everything about them: name, class, level, what they're looking for. You've done nothing to find this group of players except bring up a screen.

A chat window is a UI element, but it's one that requires you to interact with everyone to meet your goal of finding a group or another to fill yours. The chat window requires you to interact with possibly tons of different people every single time you use it. The lfg window requires no participation, and all the information that you would've gathered on your own via interacting with others, that socialized process, is all done for you and displayed as a discrete list on a screen.

If we're talking massively interactive, this isn't an evolution of the genre. This functionality is a regressive one because it doesn't facilitate people interacting. It does it for them.

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Can we please stop pretending that spamming " 35 Rogue LFG" every 3-4 minutes was "interacting with tons of players". The interaction came when there was a response, a tell or a invite and you joined the group. The same damn thing happens with a simple LFG UI. Otherwise communication still goes on in chat while both of these scenarios are happening.

Also you are forgetting in EQ you could just /who LFG and read the chat window, which was the same exact thing as a LFG UI but very very simple in nature.

The only regressive thing about this whole conversation is you trying to take something back to the cave man days for some made up beliefs you have in your head.

For those people that are not familiar with the DDO LFG tool (Because it is the best that I have seen):

You see a list of groups that are looking for members, for each groups you see: Party leader name, Location(s) that party wants to go to, comments (if any).
When you hover the mouse over a party you see a list of all member names, classes and levels.
You can click on a party to whisper the party leader or to request an invite.

When you have a party and are looking for members you can specify classes desired and level range.

When you are looking for a party there is a box you can untick to also show parties that you are not eligible for.

It's simple and effective. It can be used along with chat channels, but is more convenient and reduces chat spam.

^^^^

Flank_sl said:

For those people that are not familiar with the DDO LFG tool (Because it is the best that I have seen):

You see a list of groups that are looking for members, for each groups you see: Party leader name, Location(s) that party wants to go to, comments (if any).
When you hover the mouse over a party you see a list of all member names, classes and levels.
You can click on a party to whisper the party leader or to request an invite.

When you have a party and are looking for members you can specify classes desired and level range.

When you are looking for a party there is a box you can untick to also show parties that you are not eligible for.

It's simple and effective. It can be used along with chat channels, but is more convenient and reduces chat spam.

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yep, best LFG tool i have used.

Flank_sl said:

For those people that are not familiar with the DDO LFG tool (Because it is the best that I have seen):

You see a list of groups that are looking for members, for each groups you see: Party leader name, Location(s) that party wants to go to, comments (if any).
When you hover the mouse over a party you see a list of all member names, classes and levels.
You can click on a party to whisper the party leader or to request an invite.

When you have a party and are looking for members you can specify classes desired and level range.

When you are looking for a party there is a box you can untick to also show parties that you are not eligible for.

It's simple and effective. It can be used along with chat channels, but is more convenient and reduces chat spam.

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Its a really tough call here but I have to agree with Dumar. As convenient and painless this is, when you start introducing tools into the game such as this LFG tool, what is happening here? Your reducing the direct communication involved in the process of finding a group. Its all packed nice and neat in a handy little tool and everyone is just "whispering" to each other behind the scenes. What is this doing? It is eliminating the need to use the OOC, SHOUT, etc.. channels. I think of it like the current guild halls. Yes, its very convenient and handy to have portals, healing, vendors, guild banks, and all crafting vendors and supplies right there at your fingertips, but this has created a very closed community where the streets, towns, and cities are all graveyards. They look like your local city on Christmas morning. EMPTY. Meanwhile everyone is hiding out in guild halls porting directly to their destination (via guild flags) in to their own instance where they don't have to see or communicate with anyone outside the guild, then when done raiding, they port right back to the guild hall.
This kind of tool while handy, seems to me to be the first step in having convenience take the place of communication. I wouldn't be opposed per-say, but imagining everyone just sending direct tells to each other then getting on vent just seems to me to be the opposite of where we are trying to go here. Its closing off the community rather than opening it up.