After watching the Twitch stream last week, I had the unshakeable urge to finally pick P99 back up and suffer through some of that 'old school' design that I had recently been avoiding. Boy, has it been an experience, and it's certainly helping me get back into a mindset for Pantheon. One of the great experiences however has been rediscovering mechanics that I remember in terms of their overall impact to gameplay, but perhaps have forgotten in their more subtle touches.
Yesterday I decided to make the journey to Unrest. After dodging more skeletons than I care to admit, I traversed the long tunnel and emerged into the yard only to be greeted by this (forgive the crappy phone image):
It immediately made me realize that for all the frustrations of corpse runs, leaving behind a corpse - a physical representation of your failure and the danger that lurks beyond - has a value that I'm just now understanding is sorely missing in the modern era. Sure, artists can throw a few bodies at the entrance of a dungeon and call it a day, but there's something to be said about the organic experience of wandering into some cursed depths and finding the place riddled with the bodies of those who tried and failed.
Corpses in-game are monuments to adventures gone awry. They serve to say "here be dragons" in ways no sign or NPC warning ever could. More than a pre-placed body meant to evoke a sense of dread, the remains of players serve to remind us that someone just like us died here. There's no protection for us - we aren't guaranteed victory any more than they were, and we may very well end up serving a similar reminder to the adventures who come after.
So please Visionary Realms, regardless of death penalty let's see some corpses in Pantheon! Not unfamiliar tombstones, not faceless skeletons. Give me something to relate to, and inspire that organic sense of 'maybe I shouldn't be here...' in ways that no game since EverQuest could manage.
Great post and great refrence. I knew I missed the corpses for mechanical reasons but you just put a different perspective on it for me. I love it!
/corpse drag me home!
Nice post! I agree that this is something that many games have moved past for various reasons, but I agree that corpses should be shown in the game world. If a corpse isn’t recovered in a day or two then it should just dissolve or better yet have some rats/buzzards start eating the corpse as it slowly dissolves. Whenever I ran into a zone in EQ and I saw corpses lying about (similar to the photo above…) the first thing I would think is “oh-$hit” that’s a lot of corpses, and immediately I would start to tense up and become more alert with anxiety. The visuals of corpses has a greater impact on player immersion than a tombstones or some other miscellaneous art pieces, and in my opinion it would instill more fear.
Fulton said:Can we have some different positions though? :P
Maybe some face down, some hunched over, some on their back...The fetal position was a little silly after a while. :)
I like this idea. Maybe blackened and charred if they died from fire or missing a limb if they died from slashing etc.
Fulton said:Can we have some different positions though? :P
Maybe some face down, some hunched over, some on their back...The fetal position was a little silly after a while. :)
That was what made the original EQ models great. The Ogres would fall on their butts then flop over flat onto their backs spread eagle, arms and legs spread open.
Would love to see the return of visible corpses. Lot of replies nailed the reasons. I think it also was a nice slice of humble pie served. The ability to recover or revived with corpse dragging was also pretty nice.
Yep I'd love to see corpses in Pantheon. When I first started out in EQ I lost my corpse a couple of times. I never forgot those moments because I just didn't have a clue about how to get back to it. This was before maps existed so I didn't even know my way around zones properly either. Then when a group wiped and you'd have to drag their corpses or when things went really bad you'd need to find a necro to summon your corpse for you. It added so much extra to the game.