If this game isn't rated at least T, then it's going to be really embarrassing. Even FFXIV is rated T. Personally, I wouldn't even mind if this game was rated M like Elder Scrolls Online. Doesn't have to be extreme in any way, but make it gritty enough at times that the world feels real. Make dungeons scary. Let my character drink and smoke. Let there be some grotesque monsters. Let there be blood and heads on pikes and other things that make the world actually feel dangerous. I think so many devs miss out on things that can provide quite a bit of substance for the sake of pursuing the T or E rating for their games (same applies to Hollywood in their heavy resistance to spend big on anything rated R).
Sicario said:If this game isn't rated at least T, then it's going to be really embarrassing. Even FFXIV is rated T. Personally, I wouldn't even mind if this game was rated M like Elder Scrolls Online. Doesn't have to be extreme in any way, but make it gritty enough at times that the world feels real. Make dungeons scary. Let my character drink and smoke. Let there be some grotesque monsters. Let there be blood and heads on pikes and other things that make the world actually feel dangerous. I think so many devs miss out on things that can provide quite a bit of substance for the sake of pursuing the T or E rating for their games (same applies to Hollywood in their heavy resistance to spend big on anything rated R).
I'm pretty much of the same mind here. When I was trundling through Grobb the other day in EQ, I went to the bank and marveled at the dwarf torso hanging on a hook for a moment. I felt it added a real sense of what the world was like. You see the result of centuries of hatred, rather than just reading about it in a quest. I hope that where appropriate, we see acts of savagery demonstrated.
I also adore the idea of the pipes and potential collection of emotes that could come from them.
This is something i feel like was done well in EQ1 “if” you had spell effects turned on. They had all sorts of fireworks and random spell effect generated items. I actually liked grabbing the random ones for special events in guild. This sounds like a really good idea to allow non beneficial emote items with special effects. Its really those little things that make the game immersive, but not too immersive. Like do we want to see a flurry of woodchips when someone is fletching or carving a pipe? Thats probably a grey area that can be accomodated, but should we? Ya probably. Rangers go nuts like a looney toons tazmanian devil. Lol
Lotro has the by far best collection of emotes and smoking, drinking, dancing, playing music belongs to them . You can grow special and rare tobacco sorts where the exhaled smoke takes the shape of a sailing ship , a dragon or a butterfly . It was the only MMO among the dozens I played where I created and routinely used shortcuts to groups of emotes which were actually able to express a meaningful sentence without words .
Well done and creative emotes go a long way to enhance immersion and make the world more a living , breathing place .