I remember Brad talking about the good old days a few years ago before this project was in full swing. He mentioned the importance of when travel made an impact. He spoke of enjoyable conversations during the downtime of long-distance travel. He spoke positively about a large world and gave indications that he would lean in that direction should he be involved in making another MMO.
Based on my remembrance of that info, I would assume that Pantheon will measure up.
I do know in lore it mentions snowy regions to south and land to east.
As far as size i have no idea the continents don't look large enough to support 30 zones i was hoping for 12 zones so if i get more i will be pleased. Currently looks like a large percent of launch will be starting areas.
I almost hope they hold out on a few zones so the first expansion comes not that long after launch 8-12 months.
That way the next expansion is being worked on when the first one is released 2-3 year content droughts are rough on the playerbase.
We know we have a port to go somewhere and ship building has said will oneday exist.
Dhampir said:As long as it is as large as vanilla EQ in terms of zone count, the game will be amazing.
I'm easy to please.
Yes and no. Some vanilla EQ1 zones were huge but quite devoid of content (Karanas, OOT) while other were small but could support a fair number of groups (BlackBurrow, Unrest). I hope to see zones that, quite literally, could support more groups than there are groups available. Overcrowing, no matter the number of zones, just ruins the enjoyment. So fewer zones that are quite large and with a lot of content is better than lots of zones only supporting a few (3-4) groups.
I look at it this way. Each race will have its own newbie zone. That is 9 newbie zones for, say, levels 1-~7. For each 'tier' of zones there should still be 1 zone for every race. So at each tier of the game you have at least 1 zone for every race so at level 50 there are 9 zones, hopefully equally spread across the various continents. I disliked in EQ1 where all the best stuff was on Antonica.
That said, there are still zone which while their tier/level spread is the same as another, the difficulty of the zone and the loot you can earn from it must be taken into consideration. Looking back at EQ1 you had SolB and Permafrost, both zones of similar level yet everyone would cram into SolB. Why? The loot was better, the zone was much easier to access and the NPCs easier to fight. Same went for Nagafen and Vox. Everyone killed Naggy the minute he spawned. Vox would have put adds in the The Antonican Daily Gazette telling people she was up.
So, TL;DR. Quality of zone and its content of a sufficient size to support more groups than available is what I hope to see.
((I look at it this way. Each race will have its own newbie zone. That is 9 newbie zones for, say, levels 1-~7. For each 'tier' of zones there should still be 1 zone for every race. So at each tier of the game you have at least 1 zone for every race so at level 50 there are 9 zones, hopefully equally spread across the various continents. I disliked in EQ1 where all the best stuff was on Antonica.))
This seems highly unlikely.
9 starter zones, maybe. I certainly hope so. Though I've seen games with larger staffs and bigger budgets wind up with multiple races sharing the same starter areas and quests to allow the developers to get things done faster and have e.g. three more polished zones rather than nine ...less polished zones. One of the best parts of WoW was the different starter areas and racial backstories/themes so let's hope this concept survives to release.
I have never seen a MMO regardless of budget maintain the differentiation very deeply into the game. That is simply too many different zones at the same level to create and maintain. Characters are funneled together so that by medium to high level you get a realistic choice limited to a few zones. This is even true in games that were strongly faction based - somehow the storyline evolves so that too soon the clashes between factions and the original enemies become less and less important and all sides share common areas and common new enemies. About this point I leave the game since the differences between factions and the feeling that choices matter seem to disappear.
Narrowing the available leveling areas from nine to a much smaller number at higher level is a predicition not a hope but it *is* the way MMOs seem to work. It isn't all bad - fewer choices but more of a feeling of a populous world. Hmnnnnn - I don't like overcrowded worlds with a lot of competition for mobs and resources - okay it is all bad.
I
Vandraad said:Yes and no. Some vanilla EQ1 zones were huge but quite devoid of content (Karanas, OOT)
I couldn't disagree more with this statement. There was a ton to do in all 4 Karana zones. I know this becuase they were the primary zones I used to level my char's from 10-30.
Obviously this is a different game. I only point this out becuase I do not want developers to think "wide open zones" like Karana's are bad because people don't have an enemy breathing down their neck ever 2 seconds. I really like the big, wide open zones.
I agree with bigdogchris here, I loved the Karanas, I found it fun to be in open zones like that, and often would wander about killing roamers rather than camping at the Aviaks, or the Ogres in WK. I would also use the area alot when I felt anti-group and wanted to just kill a few things and chat with friends in /gu or /tells. I could easily find safe spots to pull individual mobs and then safely rest up for the next fight, as a Paladin soloing, I had alot of downtime between fights :) .
I enjoyed the tight dungeons as well when with a good group. I thought EQ1 had a great mix of zone variations.
Speaking of open zones good for soloing, I found Lake of Ill Omen to be great as well, it was very large, had many open spaces, and plenty of roaming mobs for pretty much everyone to share.
I tend to be disappointed in game world sizes in MMORPGs, but I think it's a very cool feature to have the world actually shaped like a sphere - you walk in one direction, you'll end up back where you started. Ultima Online did that. However, I can see why developer's would choose not to, because that limits your possibility of expanding the game world - it'd be hard to add a new continent unless it's completely separate from the normal game world.
bigdogchris said:Vandraad said:Yes and no. Some vanilla EQ1 zones were huge but quite devoid of content (Karanas, OOT)
I couldn't disagree more with this statement. There was a ton to do in all 4 Karana zones. I know this becuase they were the primary zones I used to level my char's from 10-30.
[sarcasm] Yeah, that ramp coming down from HighPass that took you several minutes to traverse was chock full of NPCs to XP off of. [/sarcasm] The Karanas were the 'autorun with SoW so you can go AFK for a biobreak or make a sandwich'.
Don't get me wrong, I too spent quite some time in the Karanas leveling up several characters but, frankly, the population density did leave something to be desired. Without SoW, you do have to admit that crossing those zones was tedious. I hate tedious.
zewtastic said:bryanleo9 said: Vanguard was massive yet empty. I do not want to see that again.... killed immersion. I want to see other players not feel like I am playing a single player game.Not sure what version you were in but there was plenty of content, immersion was not affected at all.
I have to agree with Zew here, there were plenty of towns and outposts and also enough open space that I felt like I was actually out adventuring in the wilderness with enough NPCs that it didn't feel completely empty. Nothing could have been worse for my immersion than running into a town every few steps or an NPC every time I turn around in the wilderness. I remember on day 1 my buddy started in Lomshir and I started in Tursh and after a bit of the starter stuff running all the way to NT and taking the boat to qalia and then getting to Lomshir, it was extremely fun and a heck of a feat avoiding the higher level camps of baddies in my way.
The thing that kinda ruined the large zones for me in Original EQ1 was that there werent more clumps of enemy camps/bosses or structures that they could or would inhabit. This got better with later expansions. My gripe against the Karana's was it had, for the most part, very little going on. Ya it was great for snare kiting and leveling at some of the camps, but like the empy plains look without any grass texture was just kinda boring. And there weren't a multitude of mobs like snakes or other roaming mobs. The mobs were quite sparse. Once they retrofitted a lot of zones with grass and hills and such i enjoyed them much more than the bland vanilla EQ1. I did appreciate the size of them though. They actually got that right. It took forever to run from FP to Qeynos and that is how it should have been.
jpedrote said:I'm not sure if it was monty's job or not, but the old city of thronefast was replaced with a new version, so it wouldn't be a the first time a zone or part of a zone is redone from the ground up.
I personally preffered the old thronefast, it look more grandiose and it had a "cameloty" vibe to it with the dark stone, pointy towers, multiple bridges, columns archways, the new thronefast city looks a bit blander, just a big thick wall around a city, it's defenitly larger, but doens't look as appealing to me as the older one did. I'm still holding out my full judjement until the city gets finished because right now it's in the early stages, although I'm still sad that old thronefast got scraped :(
I don't care for the new Thronefast. Those walls are somewhat ridiculous and completely unrealistic. If the city is in the northern hemisphere the sun would only reach the streets at midday in the summer. The whole thing feels like what a 7th grade kid would come up with to represent a "grand medieval city" rather than anything resembling realism. That, to me, is more immersion breaking than anything involving world size.
Just my opinion, of course.
I'm hoping for large zones that are all connected in open world, not instanced. The number of them isn't necessarily important, but I love my zones to be ginormous. :)
I also think it's important to balance NPC population with empty space. You certainly don't want things to feel empty, but I think it's perfectly fine for there to be areas in a zone that serve no other purpose save for aesthetics: a peaceful glen, a cave, a ruin, whatever.
Oh, and as many ENTERABLE structures as possible.
Lets do some quick and dirty calculations.
By my calculations the giant red door of Thronefast is roughly 70ft ( 21.336m )wide and from the video "Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen "Making of a CIty " the front of Thronefast itself appears to be about 12 -14 doors wide which would be 980ft ( 298.704 m ) across. If we assume all of Thronefast is a complete square ( which I doubt it is ) the city would be 960,400 square feet ( 89224.0796 sm ). If we times that by only 1000 the land mass it sits on would only be a mere 34 square miles ( 88 square kilometers )
The entire continent of Kings Reach looks massive. I hope its at least 400 game miles wide from Wilds End to The Vae Wood and 800 game miles long from Thronefast to The Tower of the Reckless Magician. That's small considering its 2700 miles from Los Angeles to New York. Reignfall is even larger so... yeah.... Big world!!