On the topic of 'wonder' or child-like enthusiasm I'd like to point out something that was not intuitive to me but seems to be true.
When I was young, I did a great many things that I've since revisited and found to be less than I remembered them to be. For example, I played Everquest when I was eleven and remembered it to be this adventure game of magic and mystery where around every corner there were new things to see, new friends to make, and new enemies to beat down. When I revisited it, the game had kept a lot of what made it great in my eyes: It was great socially, high fantasy, combat was fun and engaging, but even when you hear me describe it as an adult (just now) compared to when I described it in the previous sentence as a child there is something missing.
As an adult I see patterns because I have previous experience, I can look up guides online, I can watch videos and I can intuit outcomes or necessities to solve a problem. The mystery is gone. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to understand how things work and be able to self-service my own problems, however it seems to me that when information is missing, circumstances confound us and something super awesome appears in front of us - those are the times we remember as magical when we were children. We imagine the myths around the circumstances that occurred.
Really cool things become cooler with incomplete information because we self-impose myths/magicks around those things through our imagination.
That being said, I think it would be really cool if the only way to gather information about the game were through lore. What I mean is that if you want to know how to get X amazing sword, the only way to know how to get that sword is by delving the deepest dungeons and uncovering lore through the perception system about a legendary hero... etc.
Many games have addons that tell you exactly where each piece of gear is, how to do each quest, etc. I contend that the mystery around the game is really important if you actually want to replicate what you felt as a child, playing an adventure game.
I realize there is kind of like a prisoner's dilema surrounding the use of the internet and it's video game guides as well, but at least don't have anything like that in game.
I'd really like to have an experience like I did when I was a kid once more.
What do you all think?
I think VR is heading towards this direction. Lots of their youtube videos going over dungeons and the perception system leads me to believe that Lore will allow you to understand where key NPC's are or lead you on the path to find those key NPC's. Some of those NPC's will be friendly and some will be deadly. Going through the older Amberfaet videos where the preception pings lead the team to interesting areas is very exciting. I know the internet and wiki's will ruin some of the mystery, but in this day and age it's inevitable. The important thing is that VR is using the Lore and Perception to tell a story and for those who truely want that experience it will be there.
rycid said:On the topic of 'wonder' or child-like enthusiasm I'd like to point out something that was not intuitive to me but seems to be true.
When I was young, I did a great many things that I've since revisited and found to be less than I remembered them to be. For example, I played Everquest when I was eleven and remembered it to be this adventure game of magic and mystery where around every corner there were new things to see, new friends to make, and new enemies to beat down. When I revisited it, the game had kept a lot of what made it great in my eyes: It was great socially, high fantasy, combat was fun and engaging, but even when you hear me describe it as an adult (just now) compared to when I described it in the previous sentence as a child there is something missing.
As an adult I see patterns because I have previous experience, I can look up guides online, I can watch videos and I can intuit outcomes or necessities to solve a problem. The mystery is gone. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to understand how things work and be able to self-service my own problems, however it seems to me that when information is missing, circumstances confound us and something super awesome appears in front of us - those are the times we remember as magical when we were children. We imagine the myths around the circumstances that occurred.
Really cool things become cooler with incomplete information because we self-impose myths/magicks around those things through our imagination.
That being said, I think it would be really cool if the only way to gather information about the game were through lore. What I mean is that if you want to know how to get X amazing sword, the only way to know how to get that sword is by delving the deepest dungeons and uncovering lore through the perception system about a legendary hero... etc.
Many games have addons that tell you exactly where each piece of gear is, how to do each quest, etc. I contend that the mystery around the game is really important if you actually want to replicate what you felt as a child, playing an adventure game.
I realize there is kind of like a prisoner's dilema surrounding the use of the internet and it's video game guides as well, but at least don't have anything like that in game.
I'd really like to have an experience like I did when I was a kid once more.
What do you all think?
I totally agree with you there. As a current World of Warcraft player and the amount of knowledge missing in-game is as I should say "ridiculous", makes me sick to have to look through every single quest, item, Lore and you name it to find information about what I'm doing, is less than appeasing to say the least.
I really hope this game has a way to keep us engaged with the Lore and story about the game and we're able to delve into the game to have us engaged in the game or the way the game plays. I just hope it's not a game where you actually have to look for eveything on Google to have to know how something works.
Honestly, if the game is like that I rather not even bother playing it and starting a game while finishing an MMORPG game I'm currently playing that relies HEAVILY on looking things online all the time. I don't even want to do that right now, as I just keep learning on my own. But having the same concept in another game like this would probably be the reason why I wouldn't want to play this game as I've had my fair share of relying on Google to get to know about the game when it should be in fact something we learn within the game. That's a huge no from me.
I think Perception and Keeping is the answer in Pantheon.
I have always struggled in MMORPGs with the constant desire to progress against my love of being immersed.
I mostly manage to read quest descriptions and not click through to the 'kill 10 rats' summary without knowing why, but I'm not one that would pick up an in-game book and read the background to the political situation that has given rise to the quest in the first place, even though I know it would enhance my immersion and enjoyment of what I'm about to do.
Perception, even if you don't go on to become a Keeper, could be my answer. I can read the quest instructions and maybe ignore the in-game library, but will hopefully get Perception pings that my character 'intuits' from the situation and gain some of the feeling of 'questing' without being nudged too hard and having the mystery completely removed.
To me, the Perception system represents what a good Dungeon Master would be doing in a pen-and-paper Dungeons and Dragons game: Making sure don't miss the fun and intriguing points of the adventure.
When a Perception ping comes up and says "You feel a chill wind from a direction other than the breeze... Did you smell corrupt flesh, or just imagine it?" it doesn't show you a big glowing arrow, but prompts you to look around, listen for changes in the game audio, have a think about what the quest description was, again, that sort of thing.
Then, you notice a crack in the nearby cliff-face covered in a mould that isn't anywhere else in this area... You find you can squeeze inside and there is definitely a smell of decaying meat... Maybe this could have something to do with the missing children of the local village...
You get the idea hehe.
MMORPG questing has often been like reading a book rather than being tantilised by a Dungeon Master.
Maybe Perception will get us back that sense of mystery and exploration that hasn't quite been there in MMORPGs since we were young? I hope so.
As for Keeping, that's the bit where you are actively seeking out and gaining deeper understanding than those just being 'teased' by Perception pings.
I think that will work well in the game, too. I can well imagine have a Keeper in the group being almost as pivotal as a healer in the group - well maybe not a healer... but important anyway.
A non-Keeping group could get the pings and get an idea of what to do, but perhaps only a Keeper could get further info when identifying what the ping alludes to and, say, finding the switch for a secret door to a short cut or activating a shrine that bestows a boon because of the knowledge they learn.
Maybe a Keeper could 'see' what traps were ahead, but a non-Keeper might have to endure springing a few making best guesses from less knowledge.
The non-Keeper group would be able to progress, but with a little more difficulty, just like in some situations having an off-tank or an extra healer would make progress quicker, having a Keeper might often help.
Funz.
My take on this is intuitiveness.
If you want to learn how to cook, and there is a recipe book for sale at a merchant, you buy it and there is some nice lore fluff, but also practical recipe for those that dont have time, Snake rolls: snake meat, rat ears, in an oven. Then if you are a savvy RP'er and you read on and it says "goes well with bog juice"
bog juice? you're already crafting so, why not look for bog juice or how to make it. Once you do, maybe you don't have the ingredients but you hold the book and once you get the: pond scum, water flask, in a brew barrel- you make bog juice.
Then something interesting happens because you have some snake rolls, and now you have bog juice and you have some of both and, lo and behold, you discover you can wade through a swamp easier instead of the knee-high water level slowing your run speed down. Snake rolls DO go better with bog juice.
doesnt need to be in an off-line database because you've learned it. maybe so much time has passed that you dont feel the need to make a database for it, only weasle mccheesy will be asking for combinations from everyone to try to get some pathetic internet endorphin reinforcement. pathetic.
At the risk of simply repeating what others have said - a key to all of this is randomness. Something that MMOs have the tools to do today far better than in 1999 or even a few years ago.
An on-line guide to a quest typically says something like - you get it from Fred at coordinates XY, you kill the mobs or find the item at coordinates YX, and you return to Fred.
If the questgiver was in a random location or, once you qualified for the quest, any questgiver hade a 1% chance to give that particular quest (modified perhaps by perception and/or intelligence and/or wisdom) no guide could remove the uncertainty. If the location where you actually completed it was equally random - ditto. MMOs have a great ability these days of tailoring content to the particular character and allowing a character to see things that other characters in the same location at the same time do not see.
IMO:
If the key to success is information you aren't given, ignorance is not bliss.
Many pen-and-paper frameworks reveal all the formula to the players. It's not necessary to keep them in the dark.
Compared to Pantheon are those frameworks equally fun and challenging, or more fun and challenging, knowing the math behind the scenes?
Some developers of small games ( a few MUDs I've played come to mind) tell the players straight up: I will never reveal that informaton.
Ok, then players play the game, and the mechanics that use those formula are never used, because players can't tell if those mechanics are working properly or not.
A friend of mine recently tried a persistent multiplayer game in development that had stealth, hiding, and similar mechanics. Some players tried to specialize in these mechanics, which took several tens/dozens of hours of effort. When they starting using stealth, people could still see them, despite them doing everything 'right'. They went to the developer and he said "Oh, yeah, detection isn't based on skill, it's based on time". And again, his attitude was "I'm not changing that". So the players invested a large amount of time, and because the details of the mechanic weren't revealed or known, it was a complete waste.
If that's the goal? Change nothing. Do your best to keep your players in ignorance, and they will continue to act in ignorance. And it will be an objectively poor experience for you & them, given history.
For me, and those in my guild interested in Pantheon, we know every bit, byte, string, variable, array, data structure, image and similar useful value of any kind will be data mined out of the client, client-server data stream, and logs as soon as possible. pre-alpha, alpha, beta, post-launch, whenever. It's a game based entirely on math, and so knowing the math will be required for success. Just like every other MMO in the past 25+ years.
Personally, I would prefer to see more details than less, as I've been involved in these 'continous improvement' feedback loops too many times. I've seen developers swear (for months or years) that everything is working as intended, then finally after hundreds of people gather thousands of hours of evidence, they finally actually go and check and yes, the decimal place WAS in the wrong spot, because devs are imperfect humans too. Oops. Sorry! :|
Voluntary ignorance for those who actively want to be ignorant of some thing, be it a mechanic or whatnot, can be bliss for them. They are choosing that of their own volition. But as to what Vjek said, involuntary or forced ignorance is not bliss.
Forced ignorance allows developers to deliberately lie, to code poorly, to be lazy. Developers who aren't these things cannot catch every mistake or error but the tens of thousands of players absolutely can and will. And that makes the game better.
Many people will say knowing all the equations, algorithms, rules and whatnot ruins the experience yet if you look back to D&D (the literal foundation of all gaming such as these) you were given all the rules, every stat, what those stats did, etc. You knew everything about every NPC, of every type of weapon, etc and yet nobody complained that knowing all that limited the fun, limited the immersion.
Where there are non-calculations involved, like the perception ping mentioned above, quest texts/clues, etc, I will fully support some degree of vagueness or uncertainty. But for everything else, more information is better. You can just choose to ignore it if you so wish, I will not.
@Manouk: I love the flow of it, one into another.
I personally hate that phrase. But I understand the context of what you are aiming to convey.
Imagine a surprise party ruined. Holiday gifts without the wrapping paper. A formal letter in the driest worded style as a proclamation of love. "Hello and greetings female/male domestic habitation member, I have become aware of chemical changes while you are in general proximity, it is not unpleasant at times." The surprise embrace and kiss is far more rewarding.
Now besides a personal effort to avoid any wiki and just take the world as it is build by the artists what can one do?
Can there be a legal effort to keep a wiki from being made? Can you threaten any streamer? Clearly not, so we are stuck with the personal responsibility of each individual to take Terminus in however they feel they wish.
I will be acting in a way to preserve as much mystery as possible in this game, with the exception that there had better d@*× well be banana nut bread.
Yes you are given all the rules, stats and what not in D&D but you can also change them to fit the game. Maybe somtimes then dungeon master allows you to find a way to live from a fall that would have killed you. Or they changes the stats of creatures a bit to fit the current level of the group. This is why sometimes when people find a way around certain mechanics in a game they do not out right ban the person because of what is called emergant game play and what was found actually made the game better and more fun.
As mentioned, Perception and Keeping works towards this.
But to keep it fresh, why does it need to be static? Maybe zones can be updated so previous perception pings no longer occur, or new events are added.
I hope VR consider this, in the future, so that existing land masses qnd content can evolve rather than being forgotten as new content is added.
vjek said:
Personally, I would prefer to see more details than less
Vandraad said:Forced ignorance allows developers to deliberately lie, to code poorly, to be lazy. Developers who aren't these things cannot catch every mistake or error but the tens of thousands of players absolutely can and will. And that makes the game better.
Testing makes the game better. Knowing every single under-the-hood algorithm isn't necessary to test whether something is challenging or fun, whether something works or not.
It always makes me laugh when you say that whole "developers lie and are lazy" stuff and imply players need to hold their feet to the fire else they will attempt to shirk and be sloppy.
If VR are liars and lazy then no amount of play testing will make Pantheon good.
VR will test the underlying algorithms. I neither want nor need to try and be some kind of algorithm police and I wouldn't want others to either. The critical code is up to VR.
Vandraad said:Many people will say knowing all the equations, algorithms, rules and whatnot ruins the experience yet if you look back to D&D (the literal foundation of all gaming such as these) you were given all the rules, every stat, what those stats did, etc. You knew everything about every NPC, of every type of weapon, etc and yet nobody complained that knowing all that limited the fun, limited the immersion.
Yeah we did.
It was a royal pain-in-the-A for DMS to have rule-players in the group forever double-checking and nay-saying your actions thinking they knew what *should* be happening according to 'the rules'.
Often as a GM you would throw the rules aside in order to make things better and to keep the game flowing.
Often those rule-players would make pains of themselves and ruin the atmosphere and pace of the game.
One of the best things about a computer being 'the dungeon master's is no one has to know (and apply) the rules anymore, we can immerse ourselves in the adventure and enjoy. The rules can be much more complicated and the game much more sophisticated because people don't have to deal with the complexity.
Vandraad said:Where there are non-calculations involved, like the perception ping mentioned above, quest texts/clues, etc, I will fully support some degree of vagueness or uncertainty. But for everything else, more information is better. You can just choose to ignore it if you so wish, I will not.
I really mean no offense, but what you want from the game appears different to many others, Van ;^)
I would think most want a sense of mystery and wonder and adventure and excitement, not to just beat the game in the most efficient way possible with as much info to help do that as possible.
They want a sophisticate, complicated game, but sure don't want to worry about what nightmare code is being used to achieve it.
Personally, I try my very best to avoid 3rd party spoiler sites and even try not to ask others that would simply hand me the answer rather than maybe hint or help.
The longer I can hold off knowledge of the underlying 'game', the better.
This is not to say I do not try and master my character and learn how to be the best I can be, I simply want to do that by playing the game, not working out how the game works.
Perhaps "ignorance is bliss" is not quite right, but certainly many (most?) players like to have mystery and wonder for as long as possible.
philo said:vjek said:Personally, I would prefer to see more details than less
I'd prefer more details as well. As long as we have access to our characters deep stats info we should be good ;P
I want as much detail as is necessary to know my character and it's abilities. I want as much detail as my character would know and really no more.
That is, however, a bit of a tricky thing.
Should an ability description say "This is improved by your strength stat" or should it give more detail saying "Adds 2 damage per point of strength"?
Should, when describing that ability's damage on a monster, the combat log say "partially resisted" or should it say "monster's resistence reduced damage by 27%"?
What can be annoying if is the game tells you "This is improved by your strength stat" so you put a few points in strength, only to find out later the improvement is 0.5% you strength stat and you have pretty much wasted that allocation.
So, as I say, I would want as much as is necessary and no more, and would like devs to be careful about how much mystery they dispell, but also not allow players to make mistakes that their character wouldn't.
For example, a Warrior would know quite well how much his strength would effect the damage done from an axe cleave, but would have almost no effect on an ability that trips a monster. That doesn't, however, mean that every ability just gives up the exact formula for it's damage output in the tooltip.
Thank you rycid, and disposalist. I am in total agreement with you both.
For those that want to analyze every single datum in game...have at it. Enjoy the game your way.
I will be playing alts and enjoying not knowing where to go, what to do, or how to get there. I will enjoy every minute my way as I hope you will enjoy the game by analyzing it your way.
I will try hard to play well with my in game experience, only. There is no doubt you will know stuff I never will. That's ok.
I think one reason VR is making a game with npcs having different "personalities" or dispositions is to make the game harder to analyze or predict. I think Ya'll will have fun analyzing.
vjek ...and so knowing the math will be required for success. Just like every other MMO in the past 25+ years.
Nope! You do not need to know everything to enjoy or even succeed at a game. Some people like to know every "bit" and "byte", but it is not required at all. I managed to dungeon run, raid, complete quests and epics and be as good as any other on dps meter without knowing the exact algorithms used to calculate my adventure.
D&D and the like give you the calculations because they have to. Someone had to be in control and so the calculations where made public to allow anyone to DM. As disposalist said: "It was a royal pain-in-the-A for DMS to have rule-players in the group forever double-checking and nay-saying your actions thinking they knew what *should* be happening according to 'the rules'." or to put it another way, too much knowledge interfering with the fun!
vjek Forced ignorance allows developers to deliberately lie, to code poorly, to be lazy.
Why would you give your time to anything where you think you are being lied to? If a game doesn't "feel" right (regardless of the maths behind it), then a player knows there is a problem. If enough people report it, then the developer has a choice; do nothing and risk losing your player base, or change it. I think it is a strange view point to expect people to lie immediately upon being presented with a problem. Also, developers do not intend to "code poorly". It happens yes, but it is seldom done intentionally. It generally occurs because of lack of experience or because of imposed limitations of the project and being forced to get something out as quickly as possible. You cannot say that about Pantheon.
Discovery is the key to a good fantasy world. Finding secrets, working out what and why something is the way it is, gives much more joy than knowing my spell hit for 44 when it should have hit for 46. Maths is not for everyone, it is not required to enjoy a game or succeed at a game. If you like it fine, work it out. Read your spreadsheets, but I dont think you should expect to be given every detail on how it is supposed to work or expect everyone to follow that mantra either.
everything is how you see it the mystrey isnt gone you just dont see it anymore guides websites can add to your experience if you see it that way if you dont it doesnt accept how things are and it wont bother you as much but easier said than done
Personally I think the game should offer enough information to make informed choices without going to external sources, but not enough to easiely perform micro analysis from stats.
e.g. Against Skeletons,you would get clear feedback that 'bashing' type damage worked well and 'piecing' not.
However you should not be able to know immediatly if 'Mace of Missey' or 'Club of crushing' which were similar level was better - and would need experiance and judgment.
This of course means replacing things like damage numbers with non exact items like 'Bounced Off', 'Grazed' ,'Hit' , 'Wounded' etc. This wouldn't sit well with some, but actually the real stats nerds would have a field day working out percentage of grazes and how fast skeletons were killed with each weapon. If the game then threw in different mob types (and dispositions) that changed this up, then you end up with the return of mystery, dynamic reasons to use different gear and therefore fun.
Example stats:
Mace of Misery
Level - 40
Damage - Bashing / Pain
Speed: Slow
Proc: Misery
Club of Crushing
Level - 39
Damage - Bashing
Speed: Slow