Pan'Theon: Rise' of th'e Fal'Len - #1 Thread in MMO

For levels, I don't think they are bad. But Like Zzer mentioned, I'd advocate going back and seeing why levels are used, their benefits and negatives, before designing a progression system. For example. Levels in Table Tops were meant to mark progression, but not with the end goal of ever reaching a max level. The differences between high and low level characters was far more subtle than most video games today. And the reality is, levels were used less as a gating tool for DM's and more to effect the narrative of the story.

In other words, levels didn't block content--they changed how players had to approach content. A level 20 vs a level 7 had to kill a dragon differently, but they could both kill a dragon, because the game world allowed for an infinite number of variables that the players imagination could exploit--the better your DM, the less relevant levels became. In video games, it's that lack of agency in terms of changing the world that really makes levels seem restrictive and absolute--and I suspect it's for that reason they have been relegated to nothing more than a treadmill to be completed and thrown away.

And on that token, I agree, WoW's levels, are pointless, they may as well not even be in the game--they are tired and meaningless goal posts that do nothing but obsolete content. But I don't think that means levels themselves are bad--rather I think it means systems around levels have turned them into something tired and boring. I think there are probably plenty of ways to go back and recapture that table top feeling levels had as a "road" rather than a destination--especially given the new technology that increases the fidelity of actions in regard to the world (So that cave? I can use it to change the way I fight, rather than simply being a stage to fight on).

Long and short, I do like levels. But I wish they were a lot "softer" in terms of their affect than current games allow. I wish there was more horizontal progression within each level, and the point of getting a level wasn't so much to get a direct power boost, but rather to gain access to that horizontal power.

zzeris_sl said:

Good post but I'm looking for advancement of the genre. I don't expect Brad to do too much of this considering the funding options but I think it's way past time to see some real growth.

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I not looking for that I don't think - for example storybricks looks interesting, but on the other hand a fully dynamic world could get annoying at times. You go off looking for Orcs to get some bronze armor, you get there and they're gone, replaced by Trolls who kick your ass.

It's like the Female Lawyer Episode of Futurama - there's something to be said for shit staying the same, just being a more polished version. That's all WoW was, a more polished EQ using things like instancing to deal what were perceived as problems with EQ (non instanced content causing overcrowding, training/griefing). Now almost ten years later, a bunch of us believe that things like instancing created a lot more problems than they solved. VG was similar - it really was an attempt to be a more polished EQ replacing zones with a seemless world, which was a great idea in theory but in execution that couldn't populate their continents with enough content and what they could do they couldn't debug in time for release.

So I'm personally not looking for a complete re-examination of all systems. I'm actually looking for what WoW (and VG) were trying to be: a more polished EQ. Call it EQ++. Things I think that were good were VG's OT/DT combat and WoW's movement. And both VG and Vanilla WoW were much more friendly to soloers primarily via solo questing or good solo grinding areas - and I appreciated that when I couldn't find a group or didn't have time to group. So I wouldn't say throw every innovation of WoW/VG out the window. But I don't think a truly good EQ++ has been done, and here's hoping Brad & Co. can do it.

Lithose_sl said:

Long and short, I do like levels. But I wish they were a lot "softer" in terms of their affect than current games allow. I wish there was more horizontal progression within each level, and the point of getting a level wasn't so much to get a direct power boost, but rather to gain access to that horizontal power.

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I don't have a problem with flatter levels - in DnD the difference between a level 1 and a level 3 is much bigger than say a level 9 and level 11.

gogojira_sl said:

Pretty much. Let the big studios trying to clobber it out with a $300 million budget try to advance the genre in 500 different ways, 450 of which don't stand a chance. Pantheon is, and needs to be, a very focused experience with a razor sharp scope. There's a lot of things a lot of people wouldliketo see, but the important part is locking in which featuresneedto be in the game and staying within those boundaries. Feature bloat is a terrible idea etc

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I couldnt disagree more. Are you seriously suggesting that we should expect blizzard and soe to innovate the genre? You're equivocating feature bloat with innovation- I agree the game should not go in too many directions, but if the direction is "formulaic mmo but well done" then count me out. Brad needs to radically innovate the core gameplay somehow. "Spiritual successor to eq", in addition to being a vacuous claim, is not a sufficient hook.

Also, quaid and tad and others posting every page....can you please ease up? I'm certainly not reading the thread fully at this point-the kickstarter isnt even up yet and the thread is already drowning in a flood of posters repeating themselves.

JFC this thread moves fast. Any chance people are willing to actually try the game that Brad (take a shot) makes? Or is this thread going to turn into one big hissy fit if things in the KS doesn't fit everyones particular vision? I'm sensing Eq next part deux.

Draegan,

are you considering a sub-forum once the KS starts? Could get too messy just using 1 thread discussing all the info...

Quaid_sl said:

Sorry, but if you haven't levelled a character in EQ to max in a decade you probably have no idea what you are talking about.

As awesome as that little rant was.

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I played P99 (last year? or the year before?) with my old time friends who I played EQ with in 1999 - 2003 and we had a BLAST!!!! Despite the fact that we've done it over and over and over again. It's still a blast. On several occasions while playing P99 my friends mention how great the experience is and wonder how come no one adapted this formula in another game.

Oh and on every progression EQ Live launch we've also rolled new toons and leveled them to max level up till at least Kunark expansion.

If Brad would be the first to adapt the EQ formula; I think he's in for a big surprise on how successful his game will be.

Vanguard was one my favorite MMOs . So hopefully a lot of the ideas there will have some influence on the game. I was in Blade of Wrath/Teds Club and made it through all the dungeons/most of the end game content. One of the things I miss from VG are the dungeons and their complexity and not some twisty theme park crawl. I also like the named spawn system VG used. Basically you could camp a spawn and kill the PH, but there was a system where if the ph was up for a long period of time and not killed, the real named would replace it. This encouraged you to move to another area and let named respawn (if you were the only group in the dungeon. With the population of servers these days I don't see that as being a possibility except for the few server first people that reach the content though. Per group instancing removes a lot of the social/drama/collaboration that made EQ dungeons interesting though.

Etwynn_sl said:

Also, quaid and tad and others posting every page....can you please ease up? I'm certainly not reading the thread fully at this point-the kickstarter isnt even up yet and the thread is already drowning in a flood of posters repeating themselves.

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Uhhhh no, I think ill post as much as I like, thanks.

step 1: get a dev to post in his games thread
step 2: focus all armchair developing in said thred
step 3: ???
step 4: profit?

Byr_sl said:

step 1: get a dev to post in his games thread
step 2: focus all armchair developing in said thred
step 3: ???
step 4: profit?

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Like gogojira said a few posts up, this stuff will pick up and slow down over the next couple years. It's good that people give enough of a shit to talk about it. Wildstar and TESO are 3 months from release and those threads are seeing like 4 posts a day, if that.

And as we all know, as goes rerolled, so goes the nation.

Abefroman_sl said:

JFC this thread moves fast. Any chance people are willing to actually try the game that Brad (take a shot) makes? Or is this thread going to turn into one big hissy fit if things in the KS doesn't fit everyones particular vision? I'm sensing Eq next part deux.

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Of course there's going to be a hissy fit - what Tard and the restactuallywant is for it to be 1999 again. Not just 1999-era design, they want this to be their first MMO, no spoilers, nobody knowing what they're doing, everything hidden, and so on.

They want the impossible, and will bitch when it doesn't happen.

I find Rerolled 100x more usable when all of the arm chair designer/dragon chasing is confined to a single thread. It means I only have to scan giant paragraphs in one place and can read them everywhere else.

I still say EQ had the best quests of any MMO I have ever played. Yes, some were even too challenging! I guess I like a challenge, instead of things just handed to me.