Zorkon said:.This topic hits home with me. EQ late 1999 a friend and I took on a quest to help a same level Euridite Mage that was 3-4 levels behind on her spells find her way back to Odus. One of the greatest adventures I ever went on in early EQ and continues even today whenever I speak to said mage even to this day.
Exactly. Perfect opportunity to make new friends while traveling to meet old friends.
I believe in a recent stream they actually mentioned portals near the starting areas and that they didn't know what to do with them yet (nor are they functioning, just shiny). They serve a lore purpose only, for now.
It seems like the concensus so far is that portals are bad. It will depend on how the zones connect, among many other variables. If they have all the home cities somewhat interconnected but then all subsequent zones going up in level as you get farther out, portals could work. However, the devs have also stated wanting to slow people down to smell the roses, and blipping around between cities with only a few zone lines to cross at most doesn't sound like it would be in keeping with that. Perhaps something in the middle, where you can only go through the portal once per day or only up to adventuring level 20 without a prohibitively large cash sink? Lowbies, crafting characters, and the like could still get around without an escort, but adventurers would need to bind themselves on the other side ASAP or risk continental runs upon death. Lots of design decisions to take into account though. For instance, if red mobs will aggro a lowbie from a football field away, that would kill the opportunity for them to go anywhere. How are soulbinding/gating going to function? When will mounts be available? Are roads safe-ish? Do mob behaviors change between day/night cycles? What classes, if any, get solo/group ports? All of that can impact travel.
Personally, I love risky runs, and I hope they can keep the world feeling nice and vast by not overusing fast travel. Player ports are my favorite solution for necessary fast travel. Keeps players communicating and working together. Waiting for a Scion to announce your boarding call, clicky tomes, translocators... meh. I'd rather have a broken boat that I can sit around waiting for and maybe snag some buffs from fellow travelers. Anything that keeps people needing/interacting with each other is fine in my book. Perhaps the city portals could even be made to work by requiring players to act as the punters, buffing you against getting torn apart in the gating process or something, requires reagents or a significant cooldown per player. I dunno. We shall see though!
I am of the opinion that evil should somewhat get along, but be KOS to good. And vice-versa. Having a continental divide should help to give you that understanding that once you travel to those lands you will need to be careful. This way there are large portions of evil races that can group together rather than having each evil class KOS everywhere and Good is able to walk around unmolested anywhere. I think if they plan out the cities well enough there will be certain area's that certain classes and races wont be able to enter unless they faction up. And this should go for EVERY city. Also, if dungeons are just as dangerous for good and evil then they can meet up in a neutral area away from cities and traverse onward.
I liked how Velious handled faction in EQ1. I would like to be able to raise my faction on the evil side if i choose to. And vice-versa. But make sure you implement a need to jump the boat if you aren't the correct faction. I loved that aspect of EQ1.
I want to be able to level my faction in a city that i shouldnt belong in and watch as others marvel that i accomplished that feat. So make it meaningful, but possible.
Zorkon said:I don't think the Devs should even consider it at all past the point of not putting any intentional barriers in place to prevent it.
What I mean is that there is already a choice for players to play together. Don't play a different race and problem solved. If some players choose to play different races then the players need to figure it out how to make it work within the WORLD the Devs create for us.
This topic hits home with me. EQ late 1999 a friend and I took on a quest to help a same level Euridite Mage that was 3-4 levels behind on her spells find her way back to Odus. One of the greatest adventures I ever went on in early EQ and continues even today whenever I speak to said mage even to this day.
Reminds me of a quote
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." - Winston Churchill
I Truly hope the Devs don't spend a lot of time figuring ways to take these opportunities from us.
Well put. I agree. I hope each race will have it's own starting area/city and if we want to meet up with a friend playing another race then we can either risk the journey or wait a handful of levels and meet up with them when our paths naturally cross. Some of my best EQ memories are making high-risk runs through dangerous or unfamilar zones to get to a destination I wasn't really prepared for. Usually this was to meet up with friends but it was a heck of a lot of fun doing it. I wouldn't mind if it took a few hours of play time to achieve, either. I'd consider that a great adventure for the night.
DagNabbit said:Personally, I love risky runs, and I hope they can keep the world feeling nice and vast by not overusing fast travel. Player ports are my favorite solution for necessary fast travel. Keeps players communicating and working together. Waiting for a Scion to announce your boarding call, clicky tomes, translocators... meh. I'd rather have a broken boat that I can sit around waiting for and maybe snag some buffs from fellow travelers. Anything that keeps people needing/interacting with each other is fine in my book. Perhaps the city portals could even be made to work by requiring players to act as the punters, buffing you against getting torn apart in the gating process or something, requires reagents or a significant cooldown per player. I dunno. We shall see though!
I can't tell you how many memorable and fun times I had taking the boat (raft) over to The Overthere or while waiting for the boat to arrive. Getting buffs, talking to others, avoiding spectre trains, on and on and on. Good times. I hope Pantheon will foster an environment where these types of situations will be commonplace.
kreed99 said: I am of the opinion that evil should somewhat get along, but be KOS to good. And vice-versa. Having a continental divide should help to give you that understanding that once you travel to those lands you will need to be careful. This way there are large portions of evil races that can group together rather than having each evil class KOS everywhere and Good is able to walk around unmolested anywhere. I think if they plan out the cities well enough there will be certain area's that certain classes and races wont be able to enter unless they faction up. And this should go for EVERY city. Also, if dungeons are just as dangerous for good and evil then they can meet up in a neutral area away from cities and traverse onward.I liked how Velious handled faction in EQ1. I would like to be able to raise my faction on the evil side if i choose to. And vice-versa. But make sure you implement a need to jump the boat if you aren't the correct faction. I loved that aspect of EQ1.
I want to be able to level my faction in a city that i shouldnt belong in and watch as others marvel that i accomplished that feat. So make it meaningful, but possible.
Why do we always think of things as "Good vs Evil". Why does everyone assume that Trolls and Ogre's are inherently evil and Humans and Elves are inherently good? Seems sad to me that we pre-judge these races just because they are different. I guess this is a human flaw, since we do it in the RL too. People of other races must be bad because they aren't us... puts a frown on my face. Wait... wouldn't this mean the Humans should be the Evil ones. But I digress...
As for the actual question of this thread. I do see the problem with players being seperated from their friends early on, but I do think back to my EQ1 days and really loved the adventure of traveling across the world when low level.
There was this one friend of mine in EQ1 who really struggled with the traveling around. She was not very spacially aware and often got confused with the landmarks around her. So she got lost very easy, even within a zone that she had played in a lot. So in those early days before EQ created maps, it was a very huge deal for her to make even short trips to meet us out at dungeons only a few zones away from town. Often she would simply rely on others to get her to where she needed to go by using the handy /follow feature to have her character follow us out to the dungeons. But if you clipped her off on a tree (classic /follow problem) she could get lost in seconds. It wasn't that she wasn't skilled in the game, as she was the very best Cleric I ever played with. She just had trouble moving around a zone.
So I could see how a player like this being forced to level up alone without her friends for the first however many levels could be a big challenge. Her friends would probably out pace her in levels and need to come join her as soon as possible just so she didn't get too far behind.
GoofyWarriorGuy said:There was this one friend of mine in EQ1 who really struggled with the traveling around. She was not very spacially aware and often got confused with the landmarks around her. So she got lost very easy, even within a zone that she had played in a lot. So in those early days before EQ created maps, it was a very huge deal for her to make even short trips to meet us out at dungeons only a few zones away from town. Often she would simply rely on others to get her to where she needed to go by using the handy /follow feature to have her character follow us out to the dungeons. But if you clipped her off on a tree (classic /follow problem) she could get lost in seconds. It wasn't that she wasn't skilled in the game, as she was the very best Cleric I ever played with. She just had trouble moving around a zone.
So I could see how a player like this being forced to level up alone without her friends for the first however many levels could be a big challenge. Her friends would probably out pace her in levels and need to come join her as soon as possible just so she didn't get too far behind.
Was her name Breeanna? :)
GoofyWarriorGuy said:kreed99 said: I am of the opinion that evil should somewhat get along, but be KOS to good. And vice-versa. Having a continental divide should help to give you that understanding that once you travel to those lands you will need to be careful. This way there are large portions of evil races that can group together rather than having each evil class KOS everywhere and Good is able to walk around unmolested anywhere. I think if they plan out the cities well enough there will be certain area's that certain classes and races wont be able to enter unless they faction up. And this should go for EVERY city. Also, if dungeons are just as dangerous for good and evil then they can meet up in a neutral area away from cities and traverse onward.I liked how Velious handled faction in EQ1. I would like to be able to raise my faction on the evil side if i choose to. And vice-versa. But make sure you implement a need to jump the boat if you aren't the correct faction. I loved that aspect of EQ1.
I want to be able to level my faction in a city that i shouldnt belong in and watch as others marvel that i accomplished that feat. So make it meaningful, but possible.
Why do we always think of things as "Good vs Evil". Why does everyone assume that Trolls and Ogre's are inherently evil and Humans and Elves are inherently good? Seems sad to me that we pre-judge these races just because they are different. I guess this is a human flaw, since we do it in the RL too. People of other races must be bad because they aren't us... puts a frown on my face. Wait... wouldn't this mean the Humans should be the Evil ones. But I digress...
As for the actual question of this thread. I do see the problem with players being seperated from their friends early on, but I do think back to my EQ1 days and really loved the adventure of traveling across the world when low level.
There was this one friend of mine in EQ1 who really struggled with the traveling around. She was not very spacially aware and often got confused with the landmarks around her. So she got lost very easy, even within a zone that she had played in a lot. So in those early days before EQ created maps, it was a very huge deal for her to make even short trips to meet us out at dungeons only a few zones away from town. Often she would simply rely on others to get her to where she needed to go by using the handy /follow feature to have her character follow us out to the dungeons. But if you clipped her off on a tree (classic /follow problem) she could get lost in seconds. It wasn't that she wasn't skilled in the game, as she was the very best Cleric I ever played with. She just had trouble moving around a zone.
So I could see how a player like this being forced to level up alone without her friends for the first however many levels could be a big challenge. Her friends would probably out pace her in levels and need to come join her as soon as possible just so she didn't get too far behind.
Hey I know her! Was her name Valtra? When she got stuck on a tree you can just bet she would turn towards the heart of a Mob camp and run directly into it. Tad bit directionaly challenged she was.
We as "friends" always came back for her, that's what friends do! And it's not a good reason to compromise or otherwise dumb down the world. I'm hoping for a game that makes us need each other.
No come to think of it, Val is an Enchanter.
These types of things are NOT flaws that need fixed. There features that need embraced. They have all been "fixed" already in WoW.
GoofyWarriorGuy said:kreed99 said: I am of the opinion that evil should somewhat get along, but be KOS to good. And vice-versa. Having a continental divide should help to give you that understanding that once you travel to those lands you will need to be careful. This way there are large portions of evil races that can group together rather than having each evil class KOS everywhere and Good is able to walk around unmolested anywhere. I think if they plan out the cities well enough there will be certain area's that certain classes and races wont be able to enter unless they faction up. And this should go for EVERY city. Also, if dungeons are just as dangerous for good and evil then they can meet up in a neutral area away from cities and traverse onward.I liked how Velious handled faction in EQ1. I would like to be able to raise my faction on the evil side if i choose to. And vice-versa. But make sure you implement a need to jump the boat if you aren't the correct faction. I loved that aspect of EQ1.
I want to be able to level my faction in a city that i shouldnt belong in and watch as others marvel that i accomplished that feat. So make it meaningful, but possible.
Why do we always think of things as "Good vs Evil". Why does everyone assume that Trolls and Ogre's are inherently evil and Humans and Elves are inherently good? Seems sad to me that we pre-judge these races just because they are different. I guess this is a human flaw, since we do it in the RL too. People of other races must be bad because they aren't us... puts a frown on my face. Wait... wouldn't this mean the Humans should be the Evil ones. But I digress...
If we really wanted to get into philosophy on the whole “Good vs. Evil” thing it would take a *few* more pages and time to discuss. But what I believe he’s saying is the races that appear to be less “civilized” or more western culture as we know, are inherently going to be misunderstood by their counter parts.
A large ogre or a scaley skaar I would say would scare some humans, elves, halfling, etc that would judge based on racial lines.
I will be coming to Pantheon with friends, but none of us feel the need to be with each other at level 1. We come to the game knowing we will spend a few levels apart learning the ropes. As long is there is a viable way to get to each other in the world (i.e. not blocked due to faction, level gates, or artificial means) we should be OK, even it the travel time is a bit extreme.
Then again, if the game is intentionally built in a way where "evil" races and their starting cities and surrounding zones dont mix with "good" races, due to faction for example, then we'll plan accordingly.
To be honest i just meant in the roleplaying realm of races that were presented to us by VR as good versus evil. I base my idea of good vs. evil on what VR has told us. Dark Myr could be good and Elves good be Evil. It all comes down to what the Dev's have decided. I just want a robust and working faction system that allows us to break these basic tenants of good vs. evil.
Good to know there is another planned continent to explore.
(Removed angry message. Wrote it before i calmed down.)
kreed99 said:And by the fact that they have Dark Myr, Ogre, Skaar, and Archai (neutral) starting on one continent. And the rest on another.
Not to get into the good vs. evil discussion, but we have 3 continents with 3 races each starting on them. Archai, gnomes and dwarves are starting on Whitethaw, a continent south of Reignfall. Yes, it's not on the map yet. But it's been described by devs.
In EQOA, I personally loved the run as a Dark Elf from Neriak to Freeport as a level 1-8ish. Lol. It was scary, long and dangerous, especially if you didn't have SoW. I made the run multiple times on multiple toons, and each time felt just as rewarding as the last. I have 0 issue with having to run from my starting city/zone in order to meet up with friends. I mean, that's what you'll have to do when you group up later, anyway, right? Meet up at a location?
Also, as far as long runs go, the run from Freeport to High Pass was a good 15 - 20 minute run on foot, even when cutting corners with SoW. Every time it had to be done, I would be like oh boy, here we go. And then I'd get there, and I'd feel so satisfied with myself for making the run, lmao.
EQOA had coaches that you could collect after you ran to a location, too. WoW has flight paths. I don't mind either of these things, as long as it's like you have to do the paths in certain orders, rather than getting there instantly. Like, if I was in place A and wanted to get to place F, I'd have to coach to B then C then D then E then finally F. At which point, I'd have to run to the grouping location in zone F, which could take another 5 - 10 minutes. I don't mind this at all. It's part of the experience. It's part of showing us how big the world is. PLUS DANGER! And the satisfaction of getting from one place to another in one piece.
I have no issues with any of this, lol