Balanz said:For me, the two most important factors are Verisimilitude, and Sense of Place.
Verisimilitude is like in-game "realism." The world and the game need to "make sense," I need to be able to reason about things adequately, with as few inconsistencies and as little arbitrariness as possible. I want to be able to play the game "in character."
The thing that really gripped me about EverQuest so long ago was the sense of being some place. Not just discovery, as awesome as that it, but also a sense of familiarity, of being home, or at least a familiar neighborhood.
Of course it's really the other players that make the game alive. I am hopeful for decent NPC behavior, and the Lore is already compelling, but if the world serves as a stage for me to act our my character's story, then that is what I want most.
You are so right about that "home" thing.
I started in EQ in 2000 as a Human Paladin in Freeport. No matter how many characters or races in new areas I tried after that, none ever had that "homey" feeling like it did when I would come to the Commons/Freeport area. That initial experience in those early zones, really set it to have that familiarity of home.
Two points to add to what has been said.
1. A feeling that the world is a real world, not centered on my character. It existed and had an active history before I came upon the scene. I would like, especially in starting areas, to see some of this history explored and to know why things are as they are. WoW did this very well by having quests as well as NPC dialogue letting me know something of the history and problems, and hopes, of my race, at least for some of the races.
2. But important as realism and immersion are, keep your eyes on gameplay and convenience as well. A LOTRO developer just wrote about this in answering questions about whether a particular town belonged in a new area. The answer was essentially that it did NOT belong there but that they felt it was worth having it anyway so that players in that starting area would have a place to buy, sell, get quests, cash-in quests, and the like without having to leave the zone entirely and ride off to a major city and interrupt the "new player experience".
What they did and why they did it may not apply to Pantheon but the concept is a valid one. Thus, and returning to the topic of realism, it may be realistic to have important NPCs available only at limited times or in places that are not especially easy to find. Abd some of this should quite likely be done. But especially for new players - it can be enormously frustrating to be unable to find NPCs you need because of e.g. a day/night cycle especially if the cycle takes hours of real world time. It can be even worse if they don't even know the NPC is there to be looked for since they spent half an our checking every room of every building and think they know all the conveniences the town offers. It can be worse yet if slow travel means they cannot get to any other areas to see what amenities those other areas offer without spending a lot of time to get there and a lot of time to get back. Best, perhaps, to offer more conveniences and less frustration until players are hooked on the game.
Grobobos said:We had some great ideas here. For me, a world that is alive is a dangerous world that I respect, where I am part of it (and not, as mentioned, some super entity) and that actually lives. I understand that it is early still, but I was a bit sadened by the sight of Cohh's streaming where the starting point masters where static (I know, they will be relocated, and it is not that easy since you do not want the players to have to chase the master and scroll vendor all over the city... but you could very well imagine that masters and vendors sleep at night), and by the goblin cave streaming where the goblins were just static cave dwellers. Don't they patrol, go eat, go hunt outside the cave just to come back with some food for the rest of the colony ? It felt very EQesque with camps and pull tactics and named placeholders, but it feels artificial.
And as someone else mentioned, towns also should feel alive. A tavern should have people that laugh and drink and play cards or dice. Once you have all these people going about their scripted life, you can add quests that will feel that more immersive.
i feel the same about the static mobs on the Cohn stream. However VR needs (and has stated as much) to keep some things to reveal at launch.
i would think it nothing less than glorious to have these static mobs all through alpha and beta, only to log in on Launch day to a bustling alive world of NPC's
seems to me animations would be something that didn't require a lot of beta testing, and wouldn't be that game breaking if there were a few issue.
I cannot overstate how important ambient sounds are to immersion in gaming. Sound of wind on high peaks, owls during the night in forests, frogs around swamps, chatter in taverns, distant bell chimes at midnight…. I could literally fill pages with ideas that might not make combat more exciting but does a hell of a job making a world feel alive. Its also critical for these to be relevant to the location they are in. For example maybe one of the towns or cities has a bell tower in it. The closer you are the louder it would be. If you are way out in the countryside maybe it is just a faint sound, you might miss unless listening carefully.
Another important point under the umbrella of ambient sounds is diversity. Hearing the same dog bark noise every time I pass by a point in the road can feel artificial after a few times so having it happen more unpredictably helps a lot along with variation if possible.
dorotea said:What they did and why they did it may not apply to Pantheon but the concept is a valid one. Thus, and returning to the topic of realism, it may be realistic to have important NPCs available only at limited times or in places that are not especially easy to find. Abd some of this should quite likely be done. But especially for new players - it can be enormously frustrating to be unable to find NPCs you need because of e.g. a day/night cycle especially if the cycle takes hours of real world time. It can be even worse if they don't even know the NPC is there to be looked for since they spent half an our checking every room of every building and think they know all the conveniences the town offers. It can be worse yet if slow travel means they cannot get to any other areas to see what amenities those other areas offer without spending a lot of time to get there and a lot of time to get back. Best, perhaps, to offer more conveniences and less frustration until players are hooked on the game.
You are most certainly right. I was one that suggested that NPC could even go to sleep... but as someone already pointed out. Night and Day cycles are too long for that. One person suggested that shops could very well be open day and night, after all... that is something that exists in a lot of places. And realism is certainly not something that you can enforce everywhere. You will never be able to see goblin or orc offspring in camps that can be attacked by players... At some point, you have to draw a line if the sand.
That being said, I wouldn't be against seeing some difference between day and night cycle in a town or an outpost. May be some quest givers would only come out in the night because they are doing black market, and some others are only there during the day on the contrary... and so on...
"That being said, I wouldn't be against seeing some difference between day and night cycle in a town or an outpost. May be some quest givers would only come out in the night because they are doing black market, and some others are only there during the day on the contrary... and so on..."
Agreed, though it would be best to keep day only or night only quests away from major quest chains. If there are any major quest chains. Only a completionist would be very bothered by missing one stand-alone quest because she came through town at the wrong time of the day. And this would give her an incentive to go back to old content just to check again - or if she read about a quest she had missed. But if a 20 quest chain leading to better faction with a significant group started with a quest that could only be done at night - someone that logged on to run the chain and saw the sun rise as she was racing to the questgiver would be ...imperfectly pleased.
As to baby orcs or goblins - the topic has, as you know, often been debated by paladins and others. If they are intrinsically evil, as they were in D&D, the phrase "nits make lice" comes to mind and outright genocide can easily be defended. Now had you said "cats" on the other hand .....
dorotea said:"That being said, I wouldn't be against seeing some difference between day and night cycle in a town or an outpost. May be some quest givers would only come out in the night because they are doing black market, and some others are only there during the day on the contrary... and so on..."
Agreed, though it would be best to keep day only or night only quests away from major quest chains. If there are any major quest chains. Only a completionist would be very bothered by missing one stand-alone quest because she came through town at the wrong time of the day. And this would give her an incentive to go back to old content just to check again - or if she read about a quest she had missed. But if a 20 quest chain leading to better faction with a significant group started with a quest that could only be done at night - someone that logged on to run the chain and saw the sun rise as she was racing to the questgiver would be ...imperfectly pleased.
As usual, there has to be some balance... and the game has to have clues, like someone at the inn speaking about the black market opening at night and such, or a guard that is unhappy because he has an upcoming night shift to go after those smugglers.
dorotea said:As to baby orcs or goblins - the topic has, as you know, often been debated by paladins and others. If they are intrinsically evil, as they were in D&D, the phrase "nits make lice" comes to mind and outright genocide can easily be defended. Now had you said "cats" on the other hand .....
Nahh... you'll never see a regular game where you are going genocidal on kids, even ugly ones, when the mobs are humanoidal types such as orcs or goblins. Spiderlings on the other hand... I hate spiders... As for that cat stuff.. I am team dog so.... no touching these nice little wolfies...
A good example of small details that increase how a world feels can be seen in Zelda BOTW. The little birds that fly around. The fog and lighting effects during sunrise/sunset. The fox and other animals that are of little real use to the player but add a welcome feeling of biodiversity. It is only a few assets and they are repeated throughout the world but it's welcomed and effective.
If VR could add chipmunks, squirrels and other creatures that can not be harvested it would help the world feel alive.
Also any random event that can't be explained. A loud crack or boom in the distance that no one can explain, little mysteries are part of everyday life we all learn to ignore but are registered in our heads as "something happened but I have neither the time nor inclination to investigate" life goes on.
What I find most interesting about this discussion are the people who insist that voice chat breaks immersion. For me, it does the opposite. When, in Discord, the persons with whom I'm grouped use the same in-game name as their Discord name and if I've only ever known then as the name I see in discord/in-game, my strong suspension of disbelief makes all those things be the true representation of that character I see on my screen.
Now, that said, I will admit that a person playing a character of the opposite gender probably doesn't have a voice which matches so there can be a disconnect there. Also, the potential for audible real-world intrusions (background noise, kids, etc) can also cause issues. I get it and understand it yet in my experience those are few and far between and when we're all in the game we're talking about what is happening from our character's point of view as if we were actually experiencing this in real life.
"What I find most interesting about this discussion are the people who insist that voice chat breaks immersion"
I have not said that - not in this thread at least - and certainly not "insisted" on anything. Clearly it breaks immersion for some and enhances it for others and the whole thing is subjective so there is nothing to insist on.
But for more than a handful of us it does make immersion far harder and in a number of ways. Firstly, it interferes with hearing the game sounds, including NPC voices if the game has such, that the developers spent a lot of time and money creating partly to help immerse us. Some of these sounds, in a good game, help with combat as well. I would far rather hear them than hear other people. I have plenty of time to hear people in "real life" I do not need or want it in a high fantasy game.
Secondly, while it may not bother you, a deep male voice from the person playing a tiny female avatar sure as heck does nothing positive for me. Nor do the background noises you mention.
You aren't "wrong". You cannot be wrong on such an intrinsically subjective topic. But my reaction is at the far opposite end of the spectum.
Vandraad said:What I find most interesting about this discussion are the people who insist that voice chat breaks immersion. For me, it does the opposite. When, in Discord, the persons with whom I'm grouped use the same in-game name as their Discord name and if I've only ever known then as the name I see in discord/in-game, my strong suspension of disbelief makes all those things be the true representation of that character I see on my screen.
Now, that said, I will admit that a person playing a character of the opposite gender probably doesn't have a voice which matches so there can be a disconnect there. Also, the potential for audible real-world intrusions (background noise, kids, etc) can also cause issues. I get it and understand it yet in my experience those are few and far between and when we're all in the game we're talking about what is happening from our character's point of view as if we were actually experiencing this in real life.
That is an intersting point and way of looking at it. I could get behind that. One hang up I'd still have with it is that the character I create in this fantasy world is nothing like me in real life. I get to make all kinds of choices about him, but I do not get to choose what his voice sounds like....I'm stuck with my actual real life voice for my character.
Maybe this is an opportunity here, someone could create a bunch of different kinds of voice filters and let players choose one for their character. That way when I speak it actually sounds like my character speaking. haha