At least a few responses here seem to include this idea, which isn't unique to the response I'm quoting it from:
"if I want to celebrate real life festivities, I'll just log into real life"
I merely wish to point out that plenty of people in our world today - perhaps many more than is realized by those who are imbedded in family & community already - do not HAVE 'real life festivities' that are available to 'log into'. Either they don't exist at all, or are simply not available for whatever reason.
I'm all for respecting the interests of those who have no wish to engage in holiday fare within Pantheon. I detailed my thoughts on that in my previous post.
I only wish that those who seem to be against any trace of it in game would give a thought to how much burden it would really place on them, versus what they would deny to other players.
Jothany said:I only wish that those who seem to be against any trace of it in game would give a thought to how much burden it would really place on them, versus what they would deny to other players.
That's a fair thought, but then where do you draw the line? VR, and the community at large, are primarily from Western and Christian cultures, but there are certainly players in the community that do not come from Western and Christian traditions. Should VR have to incorporate a Hannukah holiday to represent Jews? Ramadan for Muslims? Qingming for Asian players?
I oppose the inclusion of real world holidays for two reasons; that I would not want anyone to feel left out, for one cultural tradition being over-represented than another, and because I would like VR to be more creative than just plagiarizing traditions that already exist.
Just celebrate them all!
1/1 New Years - drink
2/2 Ground hog - drink
2/7 Super bowl - drink the worse my team does
2/12 New Years 2.0 - drink more
2/14 Valentines - lonely drink
3/14 Pi day - eat pie (and drink)
3/17 Saint Patricks Day - Drink the most
Rest of the year gets kinda fuzzy after that but you get the point.
Nothanks.
Now I have thought about this a bit and after reading the posts here, I think it is more complicated to replicate real-life holidays in game than many imagine. Depending on where you are marketing the game, you would need to incorporate that market's favourite holidays. It could easily get to a point where you have a festival every few weeks which could really get in the way of the game. Also, the development of such game holidays would (at this point) take away from lore-based game development, and that is a "no thank you" from me.
I think it much more appealing to have lore driven holidays that may or may not fall in line with some real-life holiday periods. So a mid winter celebration makes game sense as it does in real-life. A harvest festival makes sense. Celebrations for each of the game deities makes sense. Keep it lore bound rather than a mirror of real-life. But it should be one for down the road in Alpha or even Beta.
Possible.
Keep the celebration localized and incorporated into the lore.
By localized I mean not every race will celebrate the same holiday, just because the Dwarfs are celebrating something that means a lot to them does not mean the Skar will celebrate the same holiday.
By incorporated into the Lore I mean holidays/celebrations that make sense to each race. Just because one city (race) is celebrating a holiday does not mean every city/race has to celebrate the holiday. Keep celebrations themed for each race.
Take the made-up holiday "Founding Day" where every race celebrates their arrival to Terminus. One race may remember those left behind or killed on that day while another race may celebrate the day because on that day new enemies appeared worthy of fighting. The important thing is each race celebrates in their own way depending on what is appropriate from the lore even though they share the same day of celebration.
eunichron said:Jothany said: ...That's a fair thought, but then where do you draw the line? VR, and the community at large, are primarily from Western and Christian cultures, but there are certainly players in the community that do not come from Western and Christian traditions. Should VR have to incorporate a Hannukah holiday to represent Jews? Ramadan for Muslims? Qingming for Asian players?
I oppose the inclusion of real world holidays for two reasons; that I would not want anyone to feel left out, for one cultural tradition being over-represented than another, and because I would like VR to be more creative than just plagiarizing traditions that already exist.
Not being the govt. they can draw the line anywhere that works for them.
There's no obligation to include every known cultural tradtion. I can't honestly see people from other cultures really expecting that from a game made by an American company, run on servers based in America, where most or all the people are speaking English.
(And to be fair, my first post made it clear that I would prefer lore-based holidays at the appropriate seasons over the real-world ones.)
Also to be fair, if putting Christmas and some other US holidays into Pantheon is plagiarism, then pretty much every aspect of gameplay that existed in Vanguard, EQ, D&D, ect.... as well as every class and almost every race currently in the game would count as plagiarism.
Merry Christmas!
:)
Jothany said:Also to be fair, if putting Christmas and some other US holidays into Pantheon is plagiarism, then pretty much every aspect of gameplay that existed in Vanguard, EQ, D&D, ect.... as well as every class and almost every race currently in the game would count as plagiarism.
I know you were going for a, "Gotcha!" But I think it's actually pretty sad that high fantasy hasn't really evolved much beyond Tolkien.
Not that I'm expecting a scrappy group of game devs from California to introduce as many fantasy tropes as he did, but there is a difference between putting in the effort, and being lazy about it.
Throwing in Christmas, and calling it something, like, I don't know, "Winter Veil," is lazy.
Lazy.
The name of the game is Pantheon. I’d really have to laugh if the only holidays celebrated in-game dealt with the Earthly pantheon of gods and not the in-game pantheon of gods.
In retrospect however, I remember a time when putting holidays into an MMO that mimicked real-world holidays was considered really cool. I guess the concept has just gotten overused in the past 20+ years.
Jothany said:I merely wish to point out that plenty of people in our world today - perhaps many more than is realized by those who are imbedded in family & community already - do not HAVE 'real life festivities' that are available to 'log into'. Either they don't exist at all, or are simply not available for whatever reason.
And yet a sizable portion of those people would probably like a place to escape from the constant reminder of the holidays/lack of family/festivites/etc. Especially when every store, gas station, or neighbors house is reminding them already.
Iksar said:Jothany said: ...And yet a sizable portion of those people would probably...
"And yet a sizeable portion of those people would probably [want what I want]"
I'll not bother debating made-up statistics.
In this thread ASKING for our opinions, I offered a plea for others to consider compassion and understanding while forming their own opinions during this holiday season that focuses on kindness and community.
I told NO ONE that their opinion was wrong.
It's sad that some feel the need to 'prove' that MY opinion is wrong.
Lots of folks here seem surprisingly negative about holidays, so let me try to convince you to like holidays in a way that doesn't actually require you to like holidays.
People assume their logical brain decides do or don't when it comes to buying/using a product.
It doesn't.
You have fun watching a movie, THEN you might logic out why you enjoyed it.
You approach your friend's lunch table first not because you logically worked it out before school, but because the faster part in your brain decided it was the most safe, beneficial, and good emotions thing to do on the spot.
Holidays have plenty of pre-conscious stuff in them that a marketer likes.
Specifically:
All of these happen in your brain long before you say "I like holidays but I'd rather VR work on something else".
Basically, the part of your brain that makes you buy stuff just cares about the first "I like holidays" part.
______
The only reason Pantheon shouldn't have holiday cheer is if most of their target audience has pre-conscious reasons to feel bad during a holiday.
For example, as Iksar mentioned those who feel lonely on holidays. Maybe VR could skip Valentine's celebrations.
Otherwise, putting familiarity, fun, and urgency in Pantheon (as much as is financially efficient) is probably a good idea for marketing.
Consider it marketing fees every company should pay.
Just like those annoyingly wise companies near you that all play christmas music and set up christmas trees.
It's not like VR will go under if they don't celebrate Christmas, it's just an easy way to seriously expand their marketability.
BeaverBiscuit said:Lots of folks here seem surprisingly negative about holidays, so let me try to convince you to like holidays in a way that doesn't actually require you to like holidays.
While this is a One-word thread, (Sorry Kilsin) I'll reply shortly here.
Kilsin's statement was to celebrate Real life Holidays and directly insert that same holiday into the game.
Kilsin said:In One Word - Tell us what you think about real-life holidays being celebrated in-game? #MMORPG #CommunityMatters
This forum has several threads concerning other celebrations or events occuring in this game. One of the topics/debates in those are; should ingame celebrations occur at the same time a real life celebration occurs.
I for one, am very positive about having events and celebrations that relate to ingame content and lore. And I believe many others are too. But to purely reply to Kilsin's question at hand. Than my response is a negative one.
Barin999 said:Kilsin's statement was to celebrate Real life Holidays and directly insert that same holiday into the game.
Apologies my wording was not clear enough. Inserting real life holidays into the game is just like decorating a store for christmas. It is celebrating that holiday in a way that your customers understand.
Not wanting to celebrate that holiday in the game is a negative feeling towards the holiday (in the game-a statement I should have included to make it more clear for you).
BeaverBiscuit said:Not wanting to celebrate that holiday in the game is a negative feeling towards the holiday
You might consider going back and reading through Kilsin's "what-does-gaming-mean-to-you" thread.
Nekentros said:BeaverBiscuit said:Not wanting to celebrate that holiday in the game is a negative feeling towards the holiday
You might consider going back and reading through Kilsin's "what-does-gaming-mean-to-you" thread.
I think you mean that some people want the game to be an escape from reality. Which is great. But Pantheon is a product being marketed to people within reality, and my argument is that VR should market as well as they can by taking advantage of real life holiday celebrations, unless they want to market ENTIRELY to people who want to escape from reality.
Not wanting something is a negative feeling towards it. That's why in the military "negative" means "no". I'm not sure why it's even this important to you guys to argue the point. What is your goal?
BeaverBiscuit: Not wanting something is a negative feeling towards it. That's why in the military "negative" means "no". I'm not sure why it's even this important to you guys to argue the point. What is your goal?
Positive and negative are flip sides. Yes you could argue that not wanting a RL holiday in game is negative to the holiday, but by the equal amount you could claim it is positive to keeping the game in line with its lore. To answer your question though, it is important because people want a great game and it shows that we are passionate about the little things in it. Everything that is to be include or excluded should be discussed and I dont understand why any topic should be considered unimportant.
The main arguments I can see for Pro holidays or Con holidays is whether we should keep the game lore bound or allow RL cross over. My real problem with RL holidays where you draw the line. Any exclusions will be felt by someone somewhere. Do we really want every month to have some sort of festival? In a real world where equality and inclusion are more and more important (and rightly so), how can you cater for everyone. Simple answer is you cant. So make it easy and keep it lore based.
Personally I dont mind events that occur at the same time as a RL holidays, but I do think that it would be more immersive to give them a Terminus reason and flavour. Celebrations dont have to be game wide either, you could have factions celebrating specific lore occasions too, specific to a city or a culture. I probably think having larger game holiday events in mid season of spring, summer, autum and winter is more than sufficient and then having smaller city/culture/deity related events dotted around.
I dont have a problem with festivals in game, just make them lore-related.
BeaverBiscuit said:I think you mean that some people want the game to be an escape from reality. Which is great. But Pantheon is a product being marketed to people within reality, and my argument is that VR should market as well as they can by taking advantage of real life holiday celebrations, unless they want to market ENTIRELY to people who want to escape from reality.
What is your goal?
The question I would ask is, why was the question asked in the first place?
What is their goal? What motivated them to ask the question?
While I can't speak for them or anyone else, I can say that for me, I would enjoy a purely fictional world that is unadulterated to explore and immerse myself in.
It could be that we are just looking for different things in our gaming experience and that is just something VR is going to have to navigate on their own.
Looking at this from a financial point of view though, I do think it would be wise to offer holiday themed discounts that take advantage of the boost in sales that typically happens.
Nekentros said:The question I would ask is, why was the question asked in the first place?
As has been said time and time again, which Kilsin even re-iterated in his last Dev Roundtable interview, these threads are just to engage the community and get us talking. The devs do read them to get a sense of what the community is thinking and feeling, but it's unlikely they're going to be basing any major design or business decisions based on what's said in them.