Monsters and Memories (Project_N) - Old School Indie MMO

Pharone said:

I look at it the same way that Everquest handled raiding... ala there wasn't any until they added it later. I mean correct me if I am wrong here, but Nagafen and Vox did not exist day one in EQ. They were added later.

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You're misremembering history a bit here.

Nagafen and Vox absolutely existed at launch in 1999. They were in SolB and Permafrost from day one. Afterlife had both dragons down by May, roughly two months after release and that was with almost no one having prior MMO experience, no raid templates, no Discord theorycrafting, no 25 years of accumulated genre knowledge. People were literally inventing the playbook in real time.

Fast forward to 2026 and we have twenty-plus years of encounter data, optimized leveling paths, damage modeling, resist breakpoints, spawn tracking tools, and entire cultures built around racing content. You can't compare "we'll add endgame later" today to "EQ figured it out as it went" in 1999. The environment is completely different. Raid content isn't just some optional garnish you sprinkle on after the entree is plated. In an MMO, it shapes progression pacing, class balance, itemization philosophy, guild structures, and long-term retention from the beginning. Even if 80% of players never raid, the mere existence of raid targets influences the entire ecosystem - economy, social hierarchy, aspirational goals, and server identity.

And to your point about not over-promising like Ashes, I agree. Don't sell castles in the sky. But there's a middle ground between wild Kickstarter fantasy and pretending endgame is something you can casually bolt on later. If the core loop is tuned around slow progression, heavy friction, and limited instancing, that directly impacts how endgame will function whether they "define it" now or not.

The genre has matured. Players consume content exponentially faster. Information spreads instantly. Pretending you can defer thinking about endgame until after launch is risky. And not because everyone demands raids on day one, but because the structural decisions you make now determine whether an endgame is even viable later. EQ shipped with aspirational targets immediately, and players devoured them within weeks despite having zero precedent. In 2026, with optimized players and modern expectations, assuming you have years to "figure it out later" feels less like prudence and more like wishful thinking.

EDIT: Looks like Quaid beat me to the raid target thing

Kirun said:

Afterlife had both dragons down by May, roughly two months after release

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But my dude!!! THESE guys are going to DO IT RIGHT and it will take at least A YEAR before anyone doing end game content!!!1!111!1!!1

Even with the ‘hardcore’ vanilla EQ leveling time, the team was having to release content at a break-neck pace to keep those subscription dollars coming in. This all happened before the bazaar, the nexus, or the plane of knowledge were ever implemented, and years before the first ‘instances’ were added to the game.

Kirun said:

You're misremembering history a bit here.

Nagafen and Vox absolutely existed at launch in 1999. They were in SolB and Permafrost from day one. Afterlife had both dragons down by May, roughly two months after release and that was with almost no one having prior MMO experience, no raid templates, no Discord theorycrafting, no 25 years of accumulated genre knowledge. People were literally inventing the playbook in real time.

Fast forward to 2026 and we have twenty-plus years of encounter data, optimized leveling paths, damage modeling, resist breakpoints, spawn tracking tools, and entire cultures built around racing content. You can't compare "we'll add endgame later" today to "EQ figured it out as it went" in 1999. The environment is completely different. Raid content isn't just some optional garnish you sprinkle on after the entree is plated. In an MMO, it shapes progression pacing, class balance, itemization philosophy, guild structures, and long-term retention from the beginning. Even if 80% of players never raid, the mere existence of raid targets influences the entire ecosystem - economy, social hierarchy, aspirational goals, and server identity.

And to your point about not over-promising like Ashes, I agree. Don't sell castles in the sky. But there's a middle ground between wild Kickstarter fantasy and pretending endgame is something you can casually bolt on later. If the core loop is tuned around slow progression, heavy friction, and limited instancing, that directly impacts how endgame will function whether they "define it" now or not.

The genre has matured. Players consume content exponentially faster. Information spreads instantly. Pretending you can defer thinking about endgame until after launch is risky. And not because everyone demands raids on day one, but because the structural decisions you make now determine whether an endgame is even viable later. EQ shipped with aspirational targets immediately, and players devoured them within weeks despite having zero precedent. In 2026, with optimized players and modern expectations, assuming you have years to "figure it out later" feels less like prudence and more like wishful thinking.

EDIT: Looks like Quaid beat me to the raid target thing

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You're right. I misremembered it apparently. I didn't think they added raiding until later.

I don't completely disagree with you here. I just think its nearly as "the world is ending" that the other ones are making it out to be. It's not like their core design sucks such massive dick that they can't add raid content to it.

Am I correct that what you are saying is that the issue is that people are going to get to end game before any raid content is added? If so, you're probably right.

It's not like their core design sucks such massive dick that they can't add raid content to it.

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Agreed. They've shown off a dragon model in their playtests before so I can't imagine they did nothing with it. Pump it full of HP, give it some AE attacks, good loot, and a long respawn timer and you have a raid target. I don't think it has to be rocket science, especially for the beginning.

Kirun said:

You're misremembering history a bit here.

Nagafen and Vox absolutely existed at launch in 1999. They were in SolB and Permafrost from day one. Afterlife had both dragons down by May, roughly two months after release and that was with almost no one having prior MMO experience, no raid templates, no Discord theorycrafting, no 25 years of accumulated genre knowledge. People were literally inventing the playbook in real time.

Fast forward to 2026 and we have twenty-plus years of encounter data, optimized leveling paths, damage modeling, resist breakpoints, spawn tracking tools, and entire cultures built around racing content. You can't compare "we'll add endgame later" today to "EQ figured it out as it went" in 1999. The environment is completely different. Raid content isn't just some optional garnish you sprinkle on after the entree is plated. In an MMO, it shapes progression pacing, class balance, itemization philosophy, guild structures, and long-term retention from the beginning. Even if 80% of players never raid, the mere existence of raid targets influences the entire ecosystem - economy, social hierarchy, aspirational goals, and server identity.

And to your point about not over-promising like Ashes, I agree. Don't sell castles in the sky. But there's a middle ground between wild Kickstarter fantasy and pretending endgame is something you can casually bolt on later. If the core loop is tuned around slow progression, heavy friction, and limited instancing, that directly impacts how endgame will function whether they "define it" now or not.

The genre has matured. Players consume content exponentially faster. Information spreads instantly. Pretending you can defer thinking about endgame until after launch is risky. And not because everyone demands raids on day one, but because the structural decisions you make now determine whether an endgame is even viable later. EQ shipped with aspirational targets immediately, and players devoured them within weeks despite having zero precedent. In 2026, with optimized players and modern expectations, assuming you have years to "figure it out later" feels less like prudence and more like wishful thinking.

EDIT: Looks like Quaid beat me to the raid target thing

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It would be interesting if a game could pull off keeping the price of sharing information high (you share, you get competition) and the value of shared information low at the same time. Like if every server had AI-generated worlds where sharing knowledge is often useless (server to server, cuz each server has it's own random seed) and even if you had high end strategic knowledge to share, why would you? That's essentially what 1999 was like.

Break said:

It would be interesting if a game could pull off keeping the price of sharing information high (you share, you get competition) and the value of shared information low at the same time. Like if every server had AI-generated worlds where sharing knowledge is often useless (server to server, cuz each server has it's own random seed) and even if you had high end strategic knowledge to share, why would you? That's essentially what 1999 was like.

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Per world randomization would be pretty awesome. Drop or spawn locations changing. Or just manually doing it from time to time

That would be cool. Maybe have a handful of raid targets like giants, dragons, griffins that appear in various zones so it's not always the same loc in the same zone. It would still be rushed by high end guilds but you'd need to either have scouts or hear about it from people in the zone who stumble on it firsthand

Hadden said:

That would be cool. Maybe have a handful of raid targets like giants, dragons, griffins that appear in various zones so it's not always the same loc in the same zone. It would still be rushed by high end guilds but you'd need to either have scouts or hear about it from people in the zone who stumble on it firsthand

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Sooooo.... Ancient Cyclopse, Gorenaire, and Quillmane??

Nah, never been done before....

Pharone said:

Am I correct that what you are saying is that the issue is that people are going to get to end game before any raid content is added? If so, you're probably right.

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Yes, and to be clear, I'm not saying "the sky is falling" or that the core design is irredeemable. I'm saying the timing and structure matter more than people are pretending. The issue isn't "can they physically add raid content later?" Of course they can. The issue is what happens in the vacuum before that content exists.

In 1999, the genre was brand new. People didn't know how fast leveling could be optimized. They didn't have decades of accumulated MMO literacy. Even then, top guilds were killing dragons within weeks. Today? Players will hit cap dramatically faster relative to available content because they understand systems immediately. They'll map, parse, theorycraft, and solve the game in real time. If there's no meaningful aspirational layer waiting at the top (whether that's raids, world bosses, horizontal progression, or something equivalent) - then yes, you're going to have people parking at cap with nothing to do except grind the same handful of camps and thus monopolize the scrap of "end game" that exists - until they get bored. That's when burnout sets in. MMOs are ecosystems. The top end pulls the rest of the ladder upward.

And another part people keep glossing over: you can't design "core" systems in isolation from endgame. Class balance, gear curves, resist systems, travel friction, instancing philosophy - ALL of that interacts with how high-level content functions. If you delay thinking about that layer, you risk baking in structural decisions that make later additions awkward or bandaidish.

So no, it's not apocalypse-level doomposting. But it is a legitimate concern that if players reach the ceiling before the ceiling is reinforced, you lose momentum. And momentum in modern MMOs is EVERYTHING - hell, it's nearly everything in gaming period nowadays.

The game doesn't need to ship with ten raid tiers. But it does need a clear understanding of what happens when the first wave of players hits cap - because they absolutely will, and much faster than nostalgia wants to believe.

Kirun said:

Yes, and to be clear, I'm not saying "the sky is falling" or that the core design is irredeemable. I'm saying the timing and structure matter more than people are pretending. The issue isn't "can they physically add raid content later?" Of course they can. The issue is what happens in the vacuum before that content exists.

In 1999, the genre was brand new. People didn't know how fast leveling could be optimized. They didn't have decades of accumulated MMO literacy. Even then, top guilds were killing dragons within weeks. Today? Players will hit cap dramatically faster relative to available content because they understand systems immediately. They'll map, parse, theorycraft, and solve the game in real time. If there's no meaningful aspirational layer waiting at the top (whether that's raids, world bosses, horizontal progression, or something equivalent) - then yes, you're going to have people parking at cap with nothing to do except grind the same handful of camps and thus monopolize the scrap of "end game" that exists - until they get bored. That's when burnout sets in. MMOs are ecosystems. The top end pulls the rest of the ladder upward.

And another part people keep glossing over: you can't design "core" systems in isolation from endgame. Class balance, gear curves, resist systems, travel friction, instancing philosophy - ALL of that interacts with how high-level content functions. If you delay thinking about that layer, you risk baking in structural decisions that make later additions awkward or bandaidish.

So no, it's not apocalypse-level doomposting. But it is a legitimate concern that if players reach the ceiling before the ceiling is reinforced, you lose momentum. And momentum in modern MMOs is EVERYTHING - hell, it's nearly everything in gaming period nowadays.

The game doesn't need to ship with ten raid tiers. But it does need a clear understanding of what happens when the first wave of players hits cap - because they absolutely will, and much faster than nostalgia wants to believe.

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I can agree with that.

The only thing is that I would think that in the third decade of this genre's existence, gamers would know AND understand that it is physically impossible for any developer to keep ahead of the consumption curve simply due to how much work it takes to create content. Short of using AI (and we don't want that) to generate content, no developer is going to ever be able to out develop their consumer's consumption of said content.

I thought we had gotten to the point where it was expected that in this genre the following happens:

1. Content is released
2. Players gobble up the content
3. Players put the end game of said content on farm
4. Players move on to non-end game content (collections, achievements, crafting, housing, etc) until next content release
5. Rinse and repeat

If the game itself is good, the players accept that they have to wait between content drops. If the game sucks, they move on instead of waiting.

I think that's been the issue with most newer MMORPGs over the past couple decades is that the games themselves were so shallow that the players had no interest in waiting for more content to come out for them. They got in, played through it, saw how there was no depth to the game itself, and said fuck this.. what else is out there to play?

I mean isn't this pretty much how EverQuest is played today...

1. Expansion is released
2. Everybody races through it
3. puts the raids on farm
4. and then goes back to playing on their TLP server until the next expansion comes out

It's the norm now.

They just need a core game that has enough depth and enjoyment to become the player's MAIN game. Nobody plays just one game anymore like the old days, but they do have a MAIN game that they go back to over and over as new content comes out.

To your point, I do believe they need at least one set of raids for release to show what their intent with raid content is even if they say they aren't going to do raid content. It doesn't even have to necessarily be called raid content... it's end-game content. Call it what ever you want to call it, but they need to have at least one tier of it in game for release to show people what it is they intend end-game to be.

Pharone said:

I thought we had gotten to the point where it was expected that in this genre the following happens:

1. Content is released
2. Players gobble up the content
3. Players put the end game of said content on farm
4. Players move on to non-end game content (collections, achievements, crafting, housing, etc) until next content release
5. Rinse and repeat

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Everyone agrees with this. NO ONE IS ARGUING OTHERWISE. The PROBLEM with a non-instanced game, is that a small number of people monopolize #2 and short circuit this cycle FOR THE VAST MAJORITY OF OTHER PLAYERS. I don't know why this is so freaking hard for the non-instanced ball-lickers around here to figure out.

Kaines said:

Everyone agrees with this. NO ONE IS ARGUING OTHERWISE. The PROBLEM with a non-instanced game, is that a small number of people monopolize #2 and short circuit this cycle FOR THE VAST MAJORITY OF OTHER PLAYERS. I don't know why this is so freaking hard for the non-instanced ball-lickers around here to figure out.

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I can get behind that for sure. I kind of assumed that the idea of no instances would go the way of the dodo bird eventually IF there wasn't enough valid areas to play through the content. EQ was great, but it had an issue with having a small number of GOOD camps in any level range. I had hoped that MnM would learn from that and make enough GOOD camps so as to not fall in to the same trap. If that's not the case, then, yes, they need instancing.

ps. I don't lick balls. I prefer pussy. Just saying.

Pharone said:

I can agree with that.

The only thing is that I would think that in the third decade of this genre's existence, gamers would know AND understand that it is physically impossible for any developer to keep ahead of the consumption curve simply due to how much work it takes to create content. Short of using AI (and we don't want that) to generate content, no developer is going to ever be able to out develop their consumer's consumption of said content.

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You're absolutely right that no developer can outpace player consumption long-term. That battle was lost sometime around the early 2000s when players collectively realized they could spreadsheet an MMO into submission. Content will always be cleared faster than it can be built. That's just math. But here's the distinction that matters: It's not about "keeping ahead of the curve." It's about not launching behind it. Modern players don't expect infinite content, despite how much people want to shit on "GEN Z WOW IDIOTS!!". They just expect a complete gameplay loop. That means: a leveling experience, a cap, a clear aspirational layer at cap, and a reason to log in after week 3.

You nailed it when you said they need at least one set of raids (or whatever they want to call endgame) at launch. That's not scope creep, it's an important signal to the players that tells them: "Here's the ceiling. Here's the direction. Here's what progression ultimately builds toward." Without that, you don't just have a content drought problem - you have a structural ambiguity problem. Players won't know what they're building toward or what the "point" ultimately is. And when that happens, they disengage faster, not slower.

Where I push back is the idea that "depth" alone solves this. Depth is important, yes. But depth without escalation becomes repetition. Successful MMOs (WoW, FFXIV, EQ, etc.) worked because even if people cleared an expansion quickly, they knew the treadmill structure. There's a cadence, historical pattern, institutional "trust", etc. A brand-new MMO does not have that trust yet and that's the real difference. The top MMOs can survive content droughts because they have 10+ years of inertia and a known rhythm. A new project doesn't get that grace period. It has to establish its long-term loop immediately or risk being labeled "thin" before it gets a second chance.

And you're also right about the "main game" concept. Nobody plays one MMO exclusively anymore. But for a game to become someone's "main game," it needs a strong core loop, a visible long-term ladder and confidence that the ladder continues. If it nails those three, people will accept the content cadence. If it doesn't, they won't wait around to see if it improves. Modern gamers do not "wait and see" the way they did in 1999. Today, if a game launches and the endgame ladder feels vague, thin, or undefined, players don't patiently sit on a promise. They leave. They sample something else. And once they leave, the odds of them coming back are dramatically lower. There is waaaaaaay too much competition for their time now.

This is exactly what we've watched happen over and over in modern MMOs. You get a big launch, strong first month, players hit cap (even "normies" and "dad gamers"), they realize there's no clear progression runway, the population craters, devs promise fixes "in the coming months", and now it's already too late. First impressions calcify fast in this genre. Especially now. Steam reviews, YouTube impressions, Twitch clips - narratives form within weeks. If the consensus becomes "there's nothing to do at cap" or "they'll add raids later," that label sticks.

The ladder needs to be visible from day one - even if it's short and even if it's modest. Players need to see where the game is going, not just where it currently is. Because if they don't see a future, they won't wait around hoping one materializes.

From this morning.

Hadden said:

Agreed. They've shown off a dragon model in their playtests before so I can't imagine they did nothing with it. Pump it full of HP, give it some AE attacks, good loot, and a long respawn timer and you have a raid target. I don't think it has to be rocket science, especially for the beginning.

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It's not and they are. They are heavily focused on end game content. They don't want it to be raid pinata 2.0, but let's be real... what else can an MMO really be before AI is fully realized? They'll cave on this and churn out tons of raid zones and high end group content ala EQ and people will be happy with it. It won't be innovative most likely but it will scratch the itch for those of us tired of Daybreak.

Woefully Inept said:

From this morning.

View attachment 618861

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Surprised they're saying this so close to EA. Feels like too much info that could have a detrimental effect on sales. Let's say it's 2.5 years until 1.0 and you wanna run a continuous sub. That would be $450 before the game even launches.

For reference, a 30 month period is the length of time between EverQuest's original release and the launch of Shadows of Luclin.

None of that is unexpected. They have talked about the various modules coming after ea for ages. Module 2 with the trolls is end of year in best case scenario, but early ish next year is probably more real. Figure another race+ city and surrounding zones every ~8 months or so after that until they are done with them. Other hub cities, and dungeons etc in there as they come.
Easy 2-3 years right there.