I would like to see some real mountain landscapes such as one might see with Skyrim for example. No mmo has done a mountain range justice. There should be trails, mines, caves, valleys, waterfalls, creeks and streams feeding into rivers. Should be ruins, towers, keeps and castles. A few mountain passes to actually get to the other side of the range.
Whether outdoor or indoor, it has to feel claustrophobic - not necessarily from simply being cramped, but more from the sense that you don't know where danger is, and you aren't even sure you could high-tail it out if you found any.
There is a reason as others stated for why narrow, tight corridors and stairs and ramps would be more prevalent underground, due to construction difficulties. Large atrium-sized rooms only are almost always just on the surface level, before descending underground. Or even above ground in large structures like any pyramid (take your pick: Egyptian, Aztec, Mayan, ...).
EQ classics like Guk and Sol and MM worked so well because they were large, complex layouts with many choke points, blind corners, traps and long escape routes. Mobs intent on wiping you out of their home, not patsy content for solo special snowflakes to mow through. Some of the clearest memories came from realizing a wipe is imminent, the wizard or druid is already dead for evac, and finally calling it and trying desperately to run for our lives all the way from the Eye or Archmagi area all the way up, past the Assassin area, back acrosss the bridge, past the undead and spiders, run through the bedroom annd dive into the water and swim your ass off (that's when many would scream and curse about not leveling swimming yet), then run that last stretch of hallways for the zl - all the while trying to autorun while typing TRAIN DEAD SIDE because you didn't think you'd need it macro'd. Those things happened 15+ years ago and I still remember many of them.
You should aways have to worry to yourself "Are we too deep, can we hope to make it out alive if we encountered overwhelming mobs?". And you have to make dying deep in a dungeon have CONSEQUENCES like having to return to your body for something. Because it isn't just design, it is the atmosphere and fear along with the design that makes a place more than what it would otherwise be. Try going back to lguk with mercs in the modern game, and waltzing through everything - it isn't remotely the same place you remember from 1999 is it?
So if you want a game like EQ that people remember forever, put the same twists and fears into this one. If the player isn't as afraid and in awe as the character they are driving would feel, then this game won't be as fondly remembered as EQ still is.
Cynwulf said:I would like to see some real mountain landscapes such as one might see with Skyrim for example. No mmo has done a mountain range justice. There should be trails, mines, caves, valleys, waterfalls, creeks and streams feeding into rivers. Should be ruins, towers, keeps and castles. A few mountain passes to actually get to the other side of the range.
I would love to see something like this, a zone that's a huge rocky mountain, with loads of intersting areas, hidden pathways, and multiple ways of climbing it and moving around.
jpedrote said:Cynwulf said:I would like to see some real mountain landscapes such as one might see with Skyrim for example. No mmo has done a mountain range justice. There should be trails, mines, caves, valleys, waterfalls, creeks and streams feeding into rivers. Should be ruins, towers, keeps and castles. A few mountain passes to actually get to the other side of the range.
I would love to see something like this, a zone that's a huge rocky mountain, with loads of intersting areas, hidden pathways, and multiple ways of climbing it and moving around.
I agree. Skyrim had an amazing landscape and terrain. The snow got a bit boring after some time but the actual layout was pretty damn impressive and it did questing pretty well.
I'm actually enjoying playing ESO at the moment. It isn't the same sort of MMO as Pantheon but it is fun to play for the short term while I wait for testing. It just gives you something else to do. The quests are good but I actually find the voice acting annoying as I could read the quests so much faster than they are voice acted and I find myself listening rather than reading so on that front I'm glad Pantheon isn't being voice acted.
Liav said:Tundra.
Halas, Everfrost, Permafrost, and other such zones were always favorites of mine in EQ. As a matter of fact, I personally believe that the Halas/Everfrost of EQOA was superior to the EQ version. Finding the caves of goblins under the ice was a magical experience, as well as the run from Halas to Diren's Hold which eventually lead to Darvar Manor, which was necessary eventually as Darvar Manor was an amazing XP hotspot from level 17-20ish all the way up to the late 20s by heading deep into the gnoll caves.
That was a bit of a nostalgia trip but yeah, I'd love to revisit something comparable to that again.
LFG Bandits/Treants/Gnolls?? I loved Darvor Manor. Big nostalgia
Start with a large flat plane, think Everquest "The Overthere" now hollow the entire underneath out as deep as the cavern in "the Overthere" was. Add full of floor to ceiling Stalagmites then drop everything from the top thats not held up by Stalagmites down into the bottom leaving pleanty of room both top and bottom to travel all the way accrost the zone (as upposed to just the big hole in the middle like The Overthere".
Google "sidewalk painting images" and you will see what I'm refering too (not suppose to link are we? Or I would)
This would allow a mix of low levels on the top, high levels on the bottom. Many passages along the edges connecting the two to get back up or two get down.
Jason said:If you could choose one or two specific types environments or settings that would make it into the world of Terminus, what would they be?
Myself I am hoping for a really spooky zone full of graveyards, undead, moonlight, werewolves, howling, cobwebs, crypts and everything else that denotes a creepy, spooky area. It would even be cool if there were vampire bats that if you got bitten by one you had a chance of being inflicted by a curse in which you too would become a bat, vampire or a werewolf during the moonlight hours. This curse would remain permanent until you were cured, if indeed you even wanted to be cured.
I really miss the Desert of North Ro. So id want something like it. My husband wants rainforesty stuff. (i think hes going to love wilds end then.)
-Todd
To this day I still have recurring dreams of running across the Plains of Karana. Deep grass with small rain storms you can actually track with your eyes as they move across like you. Always on the lookout for Cracktusk knowing full well that no matter WHAT I did he was goring me in the back at any instant...
Cynwulf said:I would like to see some real mountain landscapes such as one might see with Skyrim for example. No mmo has done a mountain range justice. There should be trails, mines, caves, valleys, waterfalls, creeks and streams feeding into rivers. Should be ruins, towers, keeps and castles. A few mountain passes to actually get to the other side of the range.
Fully agree. I love that feeling of not really knowing if that next step around a rock face is going to reveal a valley, a keep, a waterfall, or a plunge to certain death.
I do really like ancient desert civilization zones too. The Eqyption-inspired "The Grey" and Sssrawhatever Temple come to mind.
Jason said:If you could choose one or two specific types environments or settings that would make it into the world of Terminus, what would they be?
I want a much scarier and far more dangerous Dragon Necropolis. Mistmoore was scarier than Dragon Necropolis. It was just too spacious and didn't have nearly enough undead in it.
I'd like to see low level zones near cities / starting areas that are settled, civilized lands, farmlands, villages etc, then you got forests and mountains and the farther you get, into higher level zones, the more fantastic it can get.
I'd definitely like to see dungeons, large sprawling dungeons like Guk, Sol A/B, Chardok. Underground cities, maybe ancient, abandoned cities. The Hole. Shadowhaven. Echo Caverns. The Deep. Fungus Grove. Not copies of course, but that feeling. Smaller, more focussed places like Befallen - ancient temples and crypts and what not.
Dark, gothic city / castle / dungeon zones. Plane of Hate.
Something like Plane of Earth - sand, stone, rock, dust - sandstorms - massive stone fortresses - stone/earth creatures.
A massive city / stronghold - think for instance Divinity's Reach in GW2 - with lots of functional buildings, tunnels, ramparts, secret passages, sally ports...
And much, more more ;)
You know... when you read fantasy there's a particular environment that only really seems to exist in fiction. The Inn/Tavern in the middle of no where. So, in real life when you had a long road that couldn't be traversed in an acceptable timeframe, you'd end up with ... well a settlement, eventually. Maybe it started with the Inn in the middle of no where, but it eventually grew into a settlement, a farming community (or logging community, or trade center, or whatever was appropriate for the area) grew up around the settlement, and you no longer had the tavern in the middle of no where. In fiction however, you run into the tavern in the middle of no where... well not often, but often enough. A road that goes through a forest and right smack dab in the middle of that forest, just off the road, is a tavern/inn. I don't know why, but I'd like to see something like that in game. Maybe go so far as to make it a bind location. Put some general supplies there, food, drink, ale (of course), and maybe some things that the innkeep stocks just because he knows he has adventurers passing through, throwing daggers, bandages, a spare backpack. It's not an ecosystem, sure, but... it's a feature of the landscape that is a part of the type of work we're running around in.
I'd have to go with a zone almost exactly like Nek Forest in EQ. I could not for the life of me ever know where I was going in that zone, and there are many a time I walked into something that one shotted me. I always remember trying to skirt along the edges as tight as I could just to make it through that zone.
Another zone design I like was in EQ2. It was of an icy dungeon of sorts where the floor were icy and you slid on them. One of my friends wasn't very good at countering this and she always, always died at least once in that dungeon from slipping off the edge.
Lavastorm, but with updated graphics. Anything with volcanoes, really.
And vast windswept grassy plains. The Karana's were a good start to that, but with updated graphics where all you can see for miles around are grassy rolling hills. If you've ever driven through some of the empty areas of Montana, you'll have an idea of what I'm referring to.
Alexander said: A zone where players walked on rocky cliffs really high up above an ocean or whatever. And players would have to jump to continue forward along the cliffs sometimes.
I'd love to see places that require a certian degree of skill (in some type of aspect) for players to get to. Like you said, if can't WASD move and jump, you dont get to fight here...I'm fine with that.
Kittik said:Alexander said: A zone where players walked on rocky cliffs really high up above an ocean or whatever. And players would have to jump to continue forward along the cliffs sometimes.I'd love to see places that require a certian degree of skill (in some type of aspect) for players to get to. Like you said, if can't WASD move and jump, you dont get to fight here...I'm fine with that.
If you've watched some of the earlier livestreams, they show Kilsin climbing up rocks...there will be a skill like that.
As for my own wishes, a running stream with a current..that ports you directly over a waterfall (ala Vanguard and Leth Nurae area)...with perhaps an achievement if you survive the fall. A living ocean where all kinds of sea critters live, sunken cities where the Myr folks live. Does the Kraken exist? (underwater raid boss)
A forest zone where..ala Kithicor, its deadly creepy at night, where if you can't fight the resident undead, you have to hug the zone walls, to get to another area that is more friendly to the living.
And puzzles, trapdoors, secret passages, creepy castles, zombie hordes. (and that the mobs aren't static, they roam) Those are mine for now, oh and a Dragon or two flying over head, not just griffons. :)
And bring back the summoning mobs, ala Skyfire in EQ. They don't have to be "the same" but something new and novel thought up by the Dev team. :)
Cana
Kittik said:Alexander said: A zone where players walked on rocky cliffs really high up above an ocean or whatever. And players would have to jump to continue forward along the cliffs sometimes.I'd love to see places that require a certian degree of skill (in some type of aspect) for players to get to. Like you said, if can't WASD move and jump, you dont get to fight here...I'm fine with that.
That's basically Amberfaet. We saw some of this in the December stream, but I experienced it first-hand when I was grouping with Aradune in Amberfaet at TwitchCon. It quickly became very evident that if I did not make the jumps, I would not be able to progress. In fact, most of the jumps were certainly fatal if you didn't make it. So one missed step in certain spots and you've got a corpse run to do. Fortunately, I have lots of experience with jumping puzzles and stuff from DDO and was able to make the jumps in Amberfaet, but it will probably be tricky for a lot of people. I would expect some other higher level zones to have some similar aspects as well. But not too much, especially in lower level zones, as that would probably be too restrictive.
Jason said:Myself I am hoping for a really spooky zone full of graveyards, undead, moonlight, werewolves, howling, cobwebs, crypts and everything else that denotes a creepy, spooky area. It would even be cool if there were vampire bats that if you got bitten by one you had a chance of being inflicted by a curse in which you too would become a bat, vampire or a werewolf during the moonlight hours. This curse would remain permanent until you were cured, if indeed you even wanted to be cured.
Certainly that. I'd also add a twist to some of it. I've always been a fan of deep sea horror movies. So maybe a dungeon that's on a large passenger ship at sea. One that was designed to be epic in size, almost like a small multilayered city. You progress through the ghost ship by delving deeper into its hull, where you'll pass through a haunted galley, a flooded crew quarters section, and various other parts of the ship now infested with deep sea monsters and undead. Make your way to the top, and you can fight the undead captain, who incidently made a deal with a dark god to collect souls to ferry to the underworld in exxchange for ultimate power and immoortality. He's all mucked up because he didn't read the fine print.
I'm also a huge fan of icy zones like Permafrost, Everfrost, ect.
Lush Forest Overgrown Ancient Ruins Jungle (think Myth Drannor) - your archetypical high-fantasy romp with maybe a Great Silver Dragon sleeping in some ruined burnt out castle space ...
or
Creepy Cobweb Filled Decaying Decrepit Giant Undercity Catacomb (like ... a catacomb that spans the underside of a city and is filled with all kinds of arcane and undead cults and terrors and weirdness.) Maybe presided over by an Arch-lich and an Undead Council of Eight. Yeah!
Yep. That would do it for me.