For me, immersion is textures, shaders and lighting. High quality shading and lighting are pivotal to an immersive 3D environment.
Liav said: Unfortunately, around this era of EQ is when the accelerated HP/mana regeneration while rested debuted. All of the downtime was gone from the game and instances were the status quo. Velious era EQ with the activated ability spectrum of the later expansions is a nice middle ground that I feel could work really well. I could be wrong, however, it's just my opinion.
I could be in complete agreement with this and it could be a very good compromise as long as the resources were finite and it wasn't just constant button rotations.
Liav said: In regards to the death penalty, well, we'll just have to agree to disagree. I don't want it but I'll deal with it one way or the other because it won't make or break the game for me. I still play P99 occasionally despite the extreme annoyance of the mechanic.
Fair enough
Liav said: As for everything else, I think we're pretty much on the same page, I just have a poor way of expressing it.
No worries - my meaning can come off poor in text also - but, if you presented your postings like this - I think you expressed your opinions well.
And, @Amsai, I suppose I take for granted often when I mention an EQ mechanic players would be able to understand it in "EQ terms" versus at face value. I'll try to be more aware of it in the future when I'm describing mechanics I enjoyed in EQ and "why" they worked. And good point on the perception system, once that is rolled out it may give a unique twist on the UI.
Wow, take an evening off and come back to all these thread exchanges?? lol
I would love to believe that all of our vocal posts will define what Pantheon will become. It won't... The Dev team has a plan / vision WELL underway right now.
I am sure with the help of Kilsin there will be "expressions" and "feedback" to some of the great ideas / comments in these forums, however, we all need to trust that the end result will be something we can all enjoy very much that will support social dependance. I would bet big money that it will be different in comparison to modern MMOs, but still, probably take some of the "good" that works in them. The end result will not satisfy everyone's exact needs, that is an impossible task... I think everyone needs to trust what the team is building and put a lot of these comments into the Alpha phase before we jump to too many conclusions. If in Alpha there are "actual" issues that we dislike greatly, that is a different story that I hope they listen to.
Krixus said:itvar said:Krixus said:Your insistence on absolutes and generalizations undermines whatever valid point you might be trying to make. "any game mechanics that could be considered modern"? Come on guy, that's just a straight up troll job. You talk like you have a point, but you can't seem to ever make one without absurd hyperbole.
Hyperbole aside, they do sort of have a point. A lot of legitimate discussion gets sidetracked or even stonewalled by people chiming in with objections about it being "immersion breaking", without ever really explaining exactly what they mean by that.
I'll be honest though, immersion isn't that important to me, but I certainly wouldn't want to spoil it for others who do deem it an important factor in their enjoyment. I will say though I think the two most immersion breaking things are dungeon finders and guild halls. Between the two of them they make the world feel completely dead.
Wandidar said:If you played EQII, you will likely recall that one NPC in one of the suburbs who had a quest for you... she waved frantically at you when you passed her beckoning you over. Awesome the first time it happened. When you passed her for the 1000'th time, and she long since didn't have that quest for you, and she was still waving at you like a giddy little fool... it was annoying - and thus, immersion breaking.
I remember Vida Sweeps constantly complaining about needing a new broom. She still does it, she's just been relocated to Qeynos Harbor now, I think. I miss those old suburbs...
When you can do something like the consider system which takes one click or one keypress, why would you need to have a HUD that tells you LEVEL 27. And when you've fought the mob once or twice, why do you need an on screen display that says CLASS: WARRIOR. You know it's a warrior. And when that warrior backstabs you, oops, you were wrong. And now you know it's a rogue. Why should you have been told up front on your screen? Why do we need visual indicators for things we already know or can figure out easily?
The whole "war against modernizing" is so disingenuous. This is a high fantasy game, not mechwarrior. We don't need a HUD. We can take our cues from the world around us.
You've just defeated a rare bear in its cave for your level 30 class breastplate quest, up on this beautiful forested mountain. suddenly it becomes dark and cloudy and starts raining. The trees become thicker as you swiftly descend, you bonk your head on a low hanging branch and lose your balance. When you get to your feet, the first thing you see is a clutch of giant eggs. You hear an all too familiar screech and spin around. The Griffin Matriarch is home, guarding her brood. She atacks!
And then yellow and red and purple numbers start flying up your screen and your targeting stats say it's a level 47 Druid with 4480/4500 HP and 600/600 mana and has skin like steel, thorns, and strength of earth buffs. Is that what you want? I'm no roleplayer, but some things belong in the console, not IN the world. The first time you whack that griffin you're going to know it has a damage shield. You con it and know what level it is, or hell, you've been killed by these a million times. You already know. You knew it had buffs the first time you cast dispel magic on it and "its mystical shield crumbles and its strength fades". Why do you need these things spelled out for you in plain english on the screen?
Right on Krixus !! Man, I could not have said it any better :)
The logic that I don't get here is that all of this information is/was already available in the chat window. The damage numbers are there, and typing /con or right clicking a mob gives you the difficulty level and all this other stuff. You have a giant window on your screen with a bunch of numbers in it. What is taken away from the game by moving that information to different places so you don't have to spend several seconds figuring it out using / commands before you engage your enemy?
The information is available either way, so I don't really see immersion as a viable argument in this instance. If I smack an enemy and a small red number appears by its head indicating the damage dealt, and my target window has the mob's level on it, how is that different from having to use the chat window to figure out the same information?
Liav said:Dullahan said:I've heard a lot of people claim there are "other ways to make death meaningful" or immersive, but to this day I've never heard one example that improves upon the EQ system and doesn't stand to remove the strategy, intensity and sense of accomplishment that death with corpse recovery had.
On the same topic, I haven't heard much justification for why the death mechanic has to be equally as punishing, either. I've played P99 a lot recently and the corpse runs are just really annoying. I don't feel like they have the same impact that they used to, instead they just make groups split up earlier when we're strapped for time and have to spend the next 30 minutes getting our stuff back because we're unlucky enough to not have a 60 Cleric nearby.
Yes Liav let's base our opinions of a live game on an emulator of that game that sat in the same expansion for over 7 years, and has pretty much overpopulated every zone to such saturation that people fight over goblins. Corpse runs make exploration of dangerous areas ACTUALLY dangerous, with nothing to lose, you risk very little for very high reward. Exp loss is not enough, we have actually tested these theories on emulated EQ servers with different rulesets, and when you remove the corpse run and keep the exp loss, players take an entirely different approach to playing the game, they become emboldened and see very little disadvantage to death.
There are tons of 60 clerics on p99, i would guess somewhere in the 1000s, and with any number of players currently playing with access to them, that's why people wait 30 minutes or more, they KNOW they will get a rez. On live that's not how it worked, I would guess that most players including myself, ate many exp deaths right away simply because we knew we took that risk, and it was unlikely for a cleric to come to that area.
Rallyd said:Yes Liav let's base our opinions of a live game on an emulator of that game that sat in the same expansion for over 7 years, and has pretty much overpopulated every zone to such saturation that people fight over goblins. Corpse runs make exploration of dangerous areas ACTUALLY dangerous, with nothing to lose, you risk very little for very high reward. Exp loss is not enough, we have actually tested these theories on emulated EQ servers with different rulesets, and when you remove the corpse run and keep the exp loss, players take an entirely different approach to playing the game, they become emboldened and see very little disadvantage to death.
I don't really see how p99 sitting at the same expansion for 7 years matters in this context.
It's worth noting though that EQ was built from the ground up, mechanically, to support the corpse run mechanic. If you alter the mechanic, you can alter the rest of the game to compensate. That's the point of being involved in a pre-alpha, kind of.
I just don't like the mechanic and there is literally nothing you can do to convince me otherwise. I detest corpse runs. Always have, always will. Make the game challenging in other ways.
Rallyd said:There are tons of 60 clerics on p99, i would guess somewhere in the 1000s, and with any number of players currently playing with access to them, that's why people wait 30 minutes or more, they KNOW they will get a rez. On live that's not how it worked, I would guess that most players including myself, ate many exp deaths right away simply because we knew we took that risk, and it was unlikely for a cleric to come to that area.
You're not wrong, but it doesn't change my opinion.
I find that strange. You offer no solution, concede that corpse runs have a powerful and important effect on so much of the game, yet your opinion is not changed. That is the definition of being closed-minded.
Its simple. The issue is time. In a virtual world, time matters. In another type of game, fun is the only factor that matters. When MMOs attempt to remove the impact of time, the game loses its sense of purpose, sense of realism, sense of adventure, sense of mystery, and sense of achievement. It becomes a less fun, less rewarding game than other genres like MOBA or FPS where the core gameplay revolves around being instantly back in the action.
Liav said:The logic that I don't get here is that all of this information is/was already available in the chat window. The damage numbers are there, and typing /con or right clicking a mob gives you the difficulty level and all this other stuff. You have a giant window on your screen with a bunch of numbers in it. What is taken away from the game by moving that information to different places so you don't have to spend several seconds figuring it out using / commands before you engage your enemy?
The information is available either way, so I don't really see immersion as a viable argument in this instance. If I smack an enemy and a small red number appears by its head indicating the damage dealt, and my target window has the mob's level on it, how is that different from having to use the chat window to figure out the same information?
I 100% see where you're coming from now. Thing is, I think in EQ the only reason it was like that is because the technology of the time forced it. At the time, they were mostly building a MUD/DnD style game, only it ALSO had a 3d video component to it, which had never been done before. EQ was on such a bleeding edge of technology, that it literally crashed the Internet at launch, and many players didn't have computers good enough to run it well at all. They had a variety of new challenges, like having and engine for the first time ever that couldn't predict the "on screen control variables" like you could in the past. There was suddenly nothing stopping 300 people from all being on screen at once, and nothing like that had been tried before. It was truly amazing.
The problem is, nothing has really changed from the EQ model since EQ. You can still see all the numbers fly by. You still get a text based message to show emotions. In many ways, all the bleeding edge 1999 mechanics are still in place, and the only thing that's improved with each MMO is graphics. Why? It's been 16 years. There is SO much that can be done with gaming now that couldn't be done then. Most people have very powerful gaming rigs. The disparity between a bleeding edge PC and a "dated" PC is NO WHERE close to as diverse as those two points were in 1999. Basically everyone has broadband. Everyone has a hell of a lot more computer, and server technology is lightyears ahead of where it was.
So why the hell are so many MMOs still basically a MUD text game with a 3d video component? Because honestly, it still sells. But with that said, if games always just did what has worked historically, Everquest would have been just another MUD, with maybe a 2d component like UO. I want to see an MMO go next level thr way EQ did in 1999. I want to see the numbers go behind the scenes. We have the technology now, let's do it. I bet that if the technology existed in the 90s to have animations show the weight of your attack and the current strength of your foe, that's how they would have built the game. The numbers were just a means.
I love that there are people who like to crunch the numbers to be the best, but a swordsman in real life has no such luxury. They gauge their improvement in hindsight. I think it would be awesome to see that in a game. No numbers on screen, no numbers in a chat. You know you landed a hit when you see the mob react. You know you landed a critical when they stagger. You know when they're near death because they look exhausted. You know you won when they are dead... or maybe they can feign death, and REALLLY catch you off guard when they suddenly spring back up! Oblivion and Skyrim do this very well. I say we start bringing that sort of standard into the MMO world.
That, to me, would be a truly immersive experience, the likes of which the world has yet to really see. To the people who think "that's not feasivle," or "the technology isn't there" I think it is, and I think that those same critiques were thrown around when EQ was in alpha. EQ was actually almost canceled many times in development because of naysayers thinking it couldn't be done. I'd love to see them push the boundaries again, and since this team has a vision in mind that goes beyond just earning money (which is rare these days), it might just be the team that can pull it off.
sdcord said:For me, immersion is textures, shaders and lighting. High quality shading and lighting are pivotal to an immersive 3D environment.
thumbs up.
add music, and positional sound effects. a clear ui with no minimap and no additional tracking bars like xp or faction.
Don't show me how many xp points i got from a kill and how many i need. Level up should be a surprise.
Don't pretend i can carry 17 oak chests filled with gear and weapons and still pretend i can deftly leap from rock to rock.
Let me carry primary and secondary weapons. let me have a backpack and pockets to fill ..... if i equip something to quickslot on my belt i should be able to SEE it.
edit : typo
there is so much more but that is my first cut.
Also agree that combat text should be hidden.
Narben4 said:sdcord said:For me, immersion is textures, shaders and lighting. High quality shading and lighting are pivotal to an immersive 3D environment.
thumbs up.
add music, and positional sound effects. a clear ui with no minimap and no additional tracking bars like xp or faction.
Don't show me how many xp points i got from a kill and how many i need. Level up should be a surprise.
Don't pretend i can carry 17 oak chests filled with gear and weapons and still pretend i can deftly leap from rock to rock.
Let me carry primary and secondary weapons. let me have a backpack and pockets to fill ..... if i equip something to quickslot on my belt i should be able to SEE it.
edit : typo
there is so much more but that is my first cut.
Also agree that combat text should be hidden.
So basically a game with no user interface.
This is all pretty impractical, honestly. What purpose is there in hiding all of this information? This just sounds like you want to play SIMS in a high fantasy setting. I don't mean that offensively, I just don't get why you want to go to the opposite extreme of having literally no information.
So basically a game with no user interface.
This is all pretty impractical, honestly. What purpose is there in hiding all of this information? This just sounds like you want to play SIMS in a high fantasy setting. I don't mean that offensively, I just don't get why you want to go to the opposite extreme of having literally no information.
Not at all, but minimal fluff. I expect there to be action bars of course, an dof course there would be health, energy, mana bars for character. I guess my question in reply, is what is the purpose of having a screen full bars that constantly scream information at you?
I guess my view is the more crap on the screen the less time i spending looking at graphics (which will be spectacular). All of the fluff which is non critical information just clutters your screen.
I am a long way from wanting play SIMS - i am after something that draws me into the world not keep me at arms length watching bars
Liav said:So basically a game with no user interface.
This is all pretty impractical, honestly. What purpose is there in hiding all of this information? This just sounds like you want to play SIMS in a high fantasy setting. I don't mean that offensively, I just don't get why you want to go to the opposite extreme of having literally no information.
It's not that the information is not there, it's just presented to you in a different way. Instead of representing damage as numbers that fly off above the creatures head it could be shown by how the opponent reacts as well as increasing damage to their armor and their bodies. Why? Because it's more realisitic and intuitive. Perhaps not as straightforward as you-hit-and-see-a-number to represent how much damage you do but as you get more experienced the better you would become at judging damage and health. Personally, I would love this sort of thing. Don't think it's gonna happen though so really, this is probably a pointless conversation. Buuut, I think it relates to the bigger picture of what this thread was supposed to be about in the first place. (I could be wrong, it happens :)) And that's immersion. Maybe this is why there has been such difference of opinion within this thread.
To me, for a game (or movie or book for that matter) to be more immersive it has to be consistently believable. I think what Tolkien said about creating fictional worlds can easily be applied to this situation. He wrote, "In order for the narrative to work, the reader must believe that what he reads is true within the secondary reality of the fictional world. By focusing on creating an internally consistent fictional world, the author makes secondary belief possible." True within the secondary reality of the fictional world... Just substitute "player" for "reader" right? Perhaps I am more sensitive to stuff like this but to me, numbers flying off a creature as we hit it are not "internally consistent." (if we were in a sci-fi game or fps, that would probably be different) It's not a deal breaker and obviously I overlook a lot of that stuff out of necessity but, the more and more internal inconsistencies we can reduce the better and the more immersive the game becomes.
Malsirian said:It's not that the information is not there, it's just presented to you in a different way. Instead of representing damage as numbers that fly off above the creatures head it could be shown by how the opponent reacts as well as increasing damage to their armor and their bodies. Why? Because it's more realisitic and intuitive. Perhaps not as straightforward as you-hit-and-see-a-number to represent how much damage you do but as you get more experienced the better you would become at judging damage and health. Personally, I would love this sort of thing. Don't think it's gonna happen though so really, this is probably a pointless conversation. Buuut, I think it relates to the bigger picture of what this thread was supposed to be about in the first place. (I could be wrong, it happens :)) And that's immersion. Maybe this is why there has been such difference of opinion within this thread.
To me, for a game (or movie or book for that matter) to be more immersive it has to be consistently believable. I think what Tolkien said about creating fictional worlds can easily be applied to this situation. He wrote, "In order for the narrative to work, the reader must believe that what he reads is true within the secondary reality of the fictional world. By focusing on creating an internally consistent fictional world, the author makes secondary belief possible." True within the secondary reality of the fictional world... Just substitute "player" for "reader" right? Perhaps I am more sensitive to stuff like this but to me, numbers flying off a creature as we hit it are not "internally consistent." (if we were in a sci-fi game or fps, that would probably be different) It's not a deal breaker and obviously I overlook a lot of that stuff out of necessity but, the more and more internal inconsistencies we can reduce the better and the more immersive the game becomes.
None of this is practical in a game like Pantheon.
Gloria Victis is striving to be this kind of game. Camelot Unchained too, perhaps. Unfortunately these types of mechanics don't work in a game like Pantheon. The "vision" for the game is already well outlined and this is a massive departure on so many levels from that vision that it's hardly even worth discussing outside of a general mechanics discussion.
Liav said:Malsirian said:It's not that the information is not there, it's just presented to you in a different way. Instead of representing damage as numbers that fly off above the creatures head it could be shown by how the opponent reacts as well as increasing damage to their armor and their bodies. Why? Because it's more realisitic and intuitive. Perhaps not as straightforward as you-hit-and-see-a-number to represent how much damage you do but as you get more experienced the better you would become at judging damage and health. Personally, I would love this sort of thing. Don't think it's gonna happen though so really, this is probably a pointless conversation. Buuut, I think it relates to the bigger picture of what this thread was supposed to be about in the first place. (I could be wrong, it happens :)) And that's immersion. Maybe this is why there has been such difference of opinion within this thread.
To me, for a game (or movie or book for that matter) to be more immersive it has to be consistently believable. I think what Tolkien said about creating fictional worlds can easily be applied to this situation. He wrote, "In order for the narrative to work, the reader must believe that what he reads is true within the secondary reality of the fictional world. By focusing on creating an internally consistent fictional world, the author makes secondary belief possible." True within the secondary reality of the fictional world... Just substitute "player" for "reader" right? Perhaps I am more sensitive to stuff like this but to me, numbers flying off a creature as we hit it are not "internally consistent." (if we were in a sci-fi game or fps, that would probably be different) It's not a deal breaker and obviously I overlook a lot of that stuff out of necessity but, the more and more internal inconsistencies we can reduce the better and the more immersive the game becomes.
None of this is practical in a game like Pantheon.
Gloria Victis is striving to be this kind of game. Camelot Unchained too, perhaps. Unfortunately these types of mechanics don't work in a game like Pantheon. The "vision" for the game is already well outlined and this is a massive departure on so many levels from that vision that it's hardly even worth discussing outside of a general mechanics discussion.
Not really. You could easilly express different actions with consistent graphics and no numbers - and players would quickly get used to them. For example, if you hit a mob and it suddenly started wobbling around like a drunken sailor, that might equate to "Stagger" or whatever... so long as that action is consistent everywhere in the game. The same can be true (generally speaking) for how "big" a hit the mob has taken. Small hit, keeps fighting like nothing happened. Large hit it takes a step back from the force of your blow before attacking again. It becomes enraged, it rears back and lets out a mighty bellow.
You can easily convey the message of what has happened without showing the exact numbers.
More, I think that even the number crunchers want stuff like this. For example - which is more exciting... if the game basically had paper dolls on the screen that didn't move as you were fighting but had the richest set of numbers displayed that any game ever made ever displayed... or a game in which no numbers are shown at all, but you can tell what happened via that compelling and consistent graphical system that is part of the broader combat system?
I'm not advocating no numbers here - there is cleary a happy medium. The number crunchers should have a way to show as much numerical data as accumulated during the game (AND perhaps change the way they see that data via skinning - not mods, but skinning)... the people who don't want to see the numbers should be able to turn them off and still rely on that rich set of graphical queues to know exactly what is happening.
A bit of a separate commentary on those mob actions. Some people (and I used to be one of them) consider the "fires" in modern MMO's a lazy form of what I expressed above - that is, non-numerical data about the fight. But it really wasn't that. "Fires" in modern MMO's are really a way to "drive the dance" as it were. They give you specific places you must move to or move away from. Stand in the green fire. Avoid the red fire. The little red fires will kill you instantly. The big red fire you can get out of. The white fires will amount to you gettting frozen in an ice block. Each encounter had it's set of "fires" and you learned how to react to those specific events.
But while all that was going on, the mob was still emoting some action that let you know it was going on. In this case, in modern MMO's, the mob's casting action could be seen as telling you WHAT was going to happen, and the fires could be seen as telling you WHERE it was going to happen.
To my personal tastes - that's non-numerical data gone wrong. I really, really, really hate "fire dancing" in regard to what it does to me personally as it relates to immersion most of the time. Because when I'm in those events, I typically scroll out to varied degrees (depends on the fight) and change the camera angle of that scroll out (depending on the fight)... and for me personally that becomes "me playing that little avatar on the screen" rather than "me playing."
For me personally - that can be an immersion break.
That is not to say there is no room for fire dancing. But I do wish the tells weren't big circles flashing all over the ground.
Nice posts Wand and Narben.
Liav, this game is in pre-alpha. MOST THINGS could still change. Saying "this game is well defined and can basically not change at this point" is a little naive. Games changes a lot during alpha, and quite a bit during beta. I'd also like to see where you saw the post that said ANYTHING about how the UI will work in this game? I haven't seen anything at all. Maybe I legitimately missed it, but they haven't even fleshed out the roles of the classes yet, much less designed a UI that will work for said classes. Maybe they're in the early phases of planning, but to say "this idea goes against the very clearly spelled out design of the game" is simply not true because the game is very clearly not fully designed yet. What we know about this game is that it aims to be hard core. It aims to make the mechanics challenging. It aims to make the game social. So we CAN infer a few things from this. Like, you can probably say that "soloing to max level goes against the tennants of the game and likely won't be possible," but you can't say things like "it will be impossible to do anything without a full group." There is a difference in those types of statements.
Also you keep taking ideas presented by others and finding the least-likely, most-extreme way to interpret said idea, and then calling it stupid. That's why people keep using the word hyperbole. Example:
Narben4 said:
sdcord said:
For me, immersion is textures, shaders and lighting. High quality shading and lighting are pivotal to an immersive 3D environment.
thumbs up.
add music, and positional sound effects. a clear ui with no minimap and no additional tracking bars like xp or faction.
Don't show me how many xp points i got from a kill and how many i need. Level up should be a surprise.
Don't pretend i can carry 17 oak chests filled with gear and weapons and still pretend i can deftly leap from rock to rock.
Let me carry primary and secondary weapons. let me have a backpack and pockets to fill ..... if i equip something to quickslot on my belt i should be able to SEE it.
edit : typo
there is so much more but that is my first cut.
Also agree that combat text should be hidden.
So basically a game with no user interface.
This is all pretty impractical, honestly. What purpose is there in hiding all of this information? This just sounds like you want to play SIMS in a high fantasy setting. I don't mean that offensively, I just don't get why you want to go to the opposite extreme of having literally no information.
None of this is practical in a game like Pantheon.
It's actually pretty naive to think any more than the extremely fine details of the game will change between now and launch, especially when the vision for the game is already explicitly outlined and the mechanics being discussed here are so removed from even a game like EQ that it's almost comical.
Honestly, I should probably just stop using these forums until the game comes out. These discussions make my blood boil with the non-stop stream of naivette and hypocrisy.
Liav, the thing is, there almost certainly aren't even fine details to change yet. I'm not sure how closely you follow game development, but I would be SHOCKED if this game even has a UI yet, much less THE UI yet. The flow usually goes
Pre-alpha: Basic level design. Basic game mechanics. That's where this game is. They have 10 playable levels, which is exciting, but also tells us that it's still VERY early in development. Then once you have something to work with,
Alpha: Start fleshing out class definition. Put some classes into the game. Start testing basic fundamentals of the game. Then, once you have all the classes in, a basic interface ironed out, mechanics to work with, you move on to
Closed Beta: Select outside testers invited in. Start really fleshing out mobs, quests, items, various details. Tweak classes/balance/UI etc. based on player feedback. Then, when you have a game pretty close to ironed out,
Open Beta: Let lots of people come in to stress test and crowd source unforseen bugs.
You're basically claiming this pre-alpha game is in the open-beta stages of development, and that's just not how games traditionally work. Now once again, you are referencing an allegedly very outlined mechanics/ui etc and once again, I am asking you to please post a link to where you're reading such details. I'm not saying you haven't seen them, I'm saying I haven't and would like to. If you want people to stop "contradicting" these mechanics, please show me where I can read up on said mechanics. I'd like to see for myself. If you can't provide such a link, then please stop saying that other peoples speculations/wishes/desire are contrary to "the way" and your equally plausible speculation is "rooted in fact." We're all speculating here as far as I'm aware, but having beta tested some of the biggest name MMOs over the last 16 years, including EQ, WoW, Vanguard, Warhammer, ESO, and a whole slew of lesser titles, I can tell you that I have NEVER seen a game go from pre-alpha to release without some massive changes along the way.
Hell, ESO had a complete UI overhaul in beta for crying out loud. They had pretty well fleshed out the classes and had all the levels pretty much in at that point and they totally revamped a core fundemental of the game. And that was a highly anticipated title, in a massively established AAA franchise.
Please feel free to speculate and disagree with the speculation of others, but unless you're going to start posting links to dev posts that back up your claims, please respect that your speculation is equal to anyone else's speculation, and that's perfectly ok. Your blood doesn't need to boil just because your hypothesis is different than someone else's hypothesis. Also, if you provide links for us to read as to why your theory is not a hypothesis, then the rest of us can read so for ourselves and we won't approach your posts as the speculation that I'm fairly certain right now that they are.
Liav said:It's actually pretty naive to think any more than the extremely fine details of the game will change between now and launch, especially when the vision for the game is already explicitly outlined and the mechanics being discussed here are so removed from even a game like EQ that it's almost comical.
Honestly, I should probably just stop using these forums until the game comes out. These discussions make my blood boil with the non-stop stream of naivette and hypocrisy.
This sort of isn't true. I'll point to Vanguard for this one. The death penalty was hotly contested in that game all the way through beta - and there were several (and that's being generous because it was more than "Several") ideas about death penalty ideas put forth by devs before they finally landed on a death penalty.
Further, Brad himself has said, basically, "We have ideas we are going to try out as we develop the game. If they work, great. If they don't, we'll throw them away and try something else."
I think the only thing set in stone right now is that they aim to make a game that "old school" gamers will like... and the only reason I think that's set in stone is because Brad's 2 for 2 track record with MMO's fits that mold, and he has said that they want Pantheon to appeal to people who liked the first two.
Having said that - forum banter is just that. Forum banter. I'm sure they watch the forums for ideas, thoughts, etc... from us - particularly since the community is still small, but we should try not to take ourselves quite so seriously :)
Liav said:It's actually pretty naive to think any more than the extremely fine details of the game will change between now and launch, especially when the vision for the game is already explicitly outlined and the mechanics being discussed here are so removed from even a game like EQ that it's almost comical.
Honestly, I should probably just stop using these forums until the game comes out. These discussions make my blood boil with the non-stop stream of naivette and hypocrisy.
I am here to express my ideas in topics that mean something to me. While i acknowledge the devs have the master plan, i expect that they may do not have all the answers.....yet :) Worst case i get to chat with like minded people about how i like things, how i would like to experience things.
As i have stated in many forum posts i did not play EQ at launch - my life at the stage was very different and i wasn't playing games particularly often. I did discover it late in 2003, through a friend and felt that i had missed out on something, never stuck with it as i find starting anything midway is difficult. As such, i bring with me an idea to go back to something i never really had. My MMO experience in full started much later and unfortunately i have lurched from game to game that has let me down, by either poor lore, poor group play, poor graphic/sound combination, lack of a player base, poor combat and by being just plain awful. It is with this in mind that i can safely say that my impressions of what has been introduced post 2004 have been generally far from good.
to better qualify my previous answer, let me give you a bit more insight. I started WoW at the beginning when it was much much better than what it has become. Subsequent games have longed to have issues linked to too many players wanting to log on. the irony, as WoW became more popular it became LESS social. the convieniences and homgenization of classes, the loot give away, the nerfing of content because the crowd that played were not committed ruined in a big way MMOs at that time and what as followed.
With that in mind:
Immersion:
no minimap and no quest icons. no quest tracking unless you have an ability to track someone/something. If you don;t have the ability find a friend who does.
naming conventions that mean something - if i see one Captain Angrypants - i may rage quit and punch my monitor (trust me one raid cost me $200 see incoming point)
as game develops no ability to max level a toon instantly, no set of insta epics so you faceroll content with two abilities - your future raid leader will find out how rubbish you are when you don't even know your class has an interupt!
sound/music/shading/graphic details - this is a combination that must work together - oh yeah and no super upbeat fighty music - let combat have its own sounds
UI (look out) - remove the redundant things that are purely fluff and only designed to keep you in your chair. Exp bars/factions bars they are part of design based around time=success to keep you hooked.
in depth harvest nodes - i hate poorly design globs of colour being utilised as ore just sitting next to mountains - Skyrim has this won hands down with it's ore veins.
How much can i carry????? silly bag design that has me lugging around crates/chests/bags. Make me think about what i want to take with me when i go out?
I could list a thousand things and i am sure some people would nod and others would grimmace. Isn't that what these idea based forums are about - there is no right and wrong?
Too much to comment on, so just one thing in particular.
UI - I would prefer for the devs to give us everything, flying numbers, critical hits , auras, time outs, everything on screen and then the option to turn things off you dont like, so your screen can be as full or as empty as you like, same with the chat , damage info.
Provide everything and let the players use it to personnalise the look of the game to suit their tastes.