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

Treesong

Bronze Knight of the Realm
362
29
1. Infrastructures and more importantly, dungeons, should be allowed to have narrow and cramped areas, even if this messes up any 3rd person view. I am kinda tired of every structure in a modern MMO seemingly being built for Giants. Thronehalls, sure, goblin-infested dwarvenmine, not so much.

2. Small races having a lower viewpoint; this works so much for me still in EQ. If only for the fact that a halfling seems to be running so much faster then an Ogre, just because he is so much lower to the ground. Large races should have bigger hitboxes, throw in a Shrink spell for Class-distinction. What I am actually asking here is, do not be afraid to add lots of colour locale and distinctive Class and Racial features, even if this means inconvenience. Asking another player to move his butt is a way to interact.

3. A fantastic 1st person view (next to other views).

4. Vendordiving, i.e. local NPC merchants restock the wares that player sell them. I understand that this probably does not mesh well with most modern MMO economic frameworks, but please find a means to somehow fit this in. It is the ultimate meta-gameplay for me, and gives a lot of colour locale to the PvE environment.

5. Find even more ways for people to interact, not just by making them group up for monsterkilling.

6. I am extremely sceptic but still wish you all the luck.

7. Stilll playing the original on and off! So I do not have much hanging on this. Still, a new and refreshing MMO is always welcome.
 

Laura

Lord Nagafen Raider
582
109
Damn... I can't keep up with this thread and getting busy with work.
Do we know if Pantheon is going to be First Person View or not?
 

zzeris

The Real Benny Johnson
<Gold Donor>
21,267
93,051
Aradune,
What are your thoughts about player growth besides just leveling and the acquisitions? Is the leveling going to be flatter so that content isn't leveled past so easily? Is item acquisition a huge part of player growth where it becomes a gear and leveling race to endgame? AAs did help with variety in the beginning but just became a hindrance later for newer players and guys who didn't 24/7 EQ. Any vague thoughts you want to share?


Rhino,
I agree about higher level mobs in 'zones'. You want the world to be varied and this is an easy way to help bring the feeling of danger. I hate having 'assigned' leveling areas in a game.



I'm 100 % in support of some flagged content especially for classes. You want your class to mean something right? Doing some flagged content is an excellent way to accomplish this. I think just soloing at one stop for a few hours to get that last little bit to 'ding' is lazy and against the spirit of meaningful classes. Same with just doing a regular dungeon run and 'pop, I dinged'. Meaningful class advancement means dong meaningful things. It might mean putting yourself out just a bit. Doing all those things old, hardcore EQ guys seem to love. Flatter levels means this doesn't completely negate all advancement but all meaningful class advancement does halt...until you accomplish this task. Make it hard Aradune! Like class specific weapon hard at top level. I want my paladin to know what it means to be a paladin at 50, 60 whatever. Not grouped the easy dungeons over and over to the top. That's WoW play right there. Don't want to see it here.
 

Convo

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
8,792
664
I like flagged content I just think when it gets into back flagging there should be a better system in place.. I'm talking raiding of course.. We talked about flagging the guild crest after certain requirements were met. So the option would be join a guild or have the individual flag. Make the requirements to flag the whole guild something like so many flag hand ins that are repeatable by whoever wants to do it. Also structure the guild that individual donations to the guild like multiple flag turn ins are recognized through a ranking system.
 

zzeris

The Real Benny Johnson
<Gold Donor>
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I like flagged content I just think when it gets into back flagging there should be a better system in place.. I'm talking raiding of course.. We talked about flagging the guild crest after certain requirements were met. So the option would be join a guild or have the individual flag. Make the requirements to flag the whole guild something like so many flag hand ins that are repeatable by whoever wants to do it. Also structure the guild that individual donations to the guild like multiple flag turn ins are recognized through a ranking system.
Yeah, in the raiding scene I agree. I like that idea for guild flagging. I noticed a few people didn't like anything to hinder their leveling or force certain reqs for leveling but I'm a proponent for that kind of flagged content. Change up the tired old grind with a little variety.
 

Jimbolini

Semi-pro Monopoly player
2,618
995
I am really loving what I am reading here from you Aradune. I'm ready to pledge $150 to this project right now just based on the things you have said so far! Just give me a place to send the money, and it's on the way.
Not to keep bringing up "Star Citizen" again...

They are doing ALOT of things right (At least website, communication and money raising wise)

I like the idea of listening to the investors first (the people that spend money this early in a game are the ones that will tend to stick with it 10 years)
Split forums for general public and investors is a good idea.
Up to date cash totals and goals.
GM or Dev updates every week or so are fantastic way to keep momentum.

IMO at this point peeps want to see how serious your website, concept art, ideas and plans are. (Half done website now? How can I expect a full game later)
 

Quaid

Trump's Staff
11,859
8,265
Soooo.... Is anyone thinking what I'm thinking? We somehow pool our money and buy a guild tier reward?

Edit: wait... Then only 1 person gets the major rewards. Nvm.
 

Ukerric

Bearded Ape
<Silver Donator>
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You'd run into the issue of people min-maxing the achievements for the best combination instead of being forced to use specific ones that are available to you.
No matter what, you WILL have people min-maxing (if you have a choice to make).

What causes problems is when people insist YOU min-max as well. That happens only if the min-maxing process is sufficiently easy to do that people can expect a significant portion of their potential playing partners to be able to do so. See WoW, where the min-maxing is reduced to "maxing ilvl" and thus people require you to have maxed your ilvl (up to the point you're supposed to have it maxed beyond the point you'd be interested in the content).

If the min-maxing is hard to do, the only people who will expect you to do it are the ?ber-raiding-guild recruiters. For the rest, you'll min-max using what you have available instead of what you could have in theory.
 

gogojira_sl

shitlord
2,202
3
Soooo.... Is anyone thinking what I'm thinking? We somehow pool our money and buy a guild tier reward?

Edit: wait... Then only 1 person gets the major rewards. Nvm.
Check my post history.
smile.png
GAF did something similar for Project Eternity.
 

Draegan_sl

2 Minutes Hate
10,034
3
Sounds good and definitely something we'll try. I would just mention that for the duration of the KS campaign we will be primarily focused on bringing people to the KS site. Once the time is up, then we'll focus on driving people to our own site, where we will have message boards and where we can try what you're talking about.
Did you ever play any of the slew of EmlenMUDs back in the 90s? (MPV,LOC,ROP etc.)
 

shabushabu

Molten Core Raider
1,411
187
Agreed. If you're a cleric, you're a cleric. The finding of exotic abilities and spells is going to be a lot of fun. But it's still subject to a solid class based game. It allows you to customize your abilities to some degree (a meaningful degree) but it's not true multi-classing. You're a cleric who has some cool spells that many other clerics may not have. But you're still primarily a cleric and have a role to play. I'm just throwing out numbers right now, but it will be something like you're 90% cleric and then 10% something a bit different because of some crazy rare abilities or spells you've acquired by taking some risks in the depth of a dungeon.

Let me know if that makes sense.
This is a great idea and yes it makes perfect sense... using the content you explore/conquer/etc to potentially add "horizontal" progression is very nice change. It seems like with this approach you are OK with all "insert class here" not being exactly the same while still "mostly" the same... and I like that it goes beyond gear... this is great.
 

Hateyou

Not Great, Not Terrible
<Bronze Donator>
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Brad, the most important thing is to makeeach mob and fight difficultin the vein of EverQuest. Each fight has to require attention and make what buttons you push, and when, matter, not the constant button smashing of WoW. Compound this with an effective death penalty that players want to avoid, and everything else falls into place from this two important goals.

Slow the fights down, make thewhenskills are used more important than how many skills you spam by how many buttons you can push. Essentially, that's what it boils down to when all the design terms are stripped away.
Seriously? EQ fights were easy. When farming AAs everyone in the group was watching tv or playing a playstation rpg or something at the same time. Most raids too unless it was a new fight.

Maybe it was because we were in the top guild and overgeared but I thought EQ was only hard when first starting the game, or once you were on the bleeding edge learning new raid fights. The slow non-interactive combat was pretty simple.
 

Draegan_sl

2 Minutes Hate
10,034
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Agreed. If you're a cleric, you're a cleric. The finding of exotic abilities and spells is going to be a lot of fun. But it's still subject to a solid class based game. It allows you to customize your abilities to some degree (a meaningful degree) but it's not true multi-classing. You're a cleric who has some cool spells that many other clerics may not have. But you're still primarily a cleric and have a role to play. I'm just throwing out numbers right now, but it will be something like you're 90% cleric and then 10% something a bit different because of some crazy rare abilities or spells you've acquired by taking some risks in the depth of a dungeon.

Let me know if that makes sense.
I'm all about customization and making myself either different or finding the new flavor of the month before it's the flavor of the month. You don't need to have multiclassing to do this, and I like the idea of a game giving players hard roles to have and accept.

Thoughts on the trend of games limiting the amount of spells/abilities that you can use at any given time? Like GW2 or what Wildstar is doing where you essentially assembly a series of abilities to bring with you to combat. I highly prefer a system where you don't get ability bloat where you have to manage a host of 15+ abilities at any given time all on separate cooldowns.

Though I wouldn't be against bring back the SojournMUD system where you mem spells into circle slots again. That was a fun mechanic.
 

Hateyou

Not Great, Not Terrible
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This is a great idea and yes it makes perfect sense... using the content you explore/conquer/etc to potentially add "horizontal" progression is very nice change. It seems like with this approach you are OK with all "insert class here" not being exactly the same while still "mostly" the same... and I like that it goes beyond gear... this is great.
This was in vanguard and it was pretty half assed. There were a couple of abilities that didn't amount to much you'd randomly learn while fighting certain mobs in dungeons. I know they dropped the ball with VG though so maybe it'll just be a better version of that.
 

Draegan_sl

2 Minutes Hate
10,034
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Like I've hinted in the past, our Achievement system will be integrated into how you reach your next level, unlike other games where they're just 'cool' to unlock. Unlocking them in Pantheon will have meaning.
Tad, sounds like a hybrid of achievement based progression and level based progression.

That's something I would be very interested in hearing how it's flesh outed assuming it's just not a simple flagging system where you just key/flag your character with something or you're gated from dinging level 10. I would love to see a game where your level/progression metric is based on achievements done like finishing quests (actualy quests, not WOW tasks), killing bosses, finishing dungeons, crafting gear, exploring etc. and not based on filling up a bar that resets once you do so because you just killed 5000 orcs. Give me progression based on deeds and accomplishments, not hours killing 1 mobs only.
 

shabushabu

Molten Core Raider
1,411
187
This was in vanguard and it was pretty half assed. There were a couple of abilities that didn't amount to much you'd randomly learn while fighting certain mobs in dungeons. I know they dropped the ball with VG though so maybe it'll just be a better version of that.
Yes indeed... it was there... would be cool if it was related to the dungeon content you dived into... for example, you are in an ice cave and find a book for some anti-cold buff that is kept and owned by some big old angry ice giant who lives there... etc that sort of thing.
 

Draegan_sl

2 Minutes Hate
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I loved that shit. Those were little touches that made the world feel less narrow.
I've been an advocate for moving as far away from the current world design theory where you have 5x newbie 1-10 zones, 4x newbie 10-20 zones, 3x 20-30 zones, 3x 30-40 zones, and then 2x 40-50 zones and 1x 50 zone. Build a world and then populate it with POIs or areas that are dedicated to certain level ranges, but building a world based on level progression that funnels you into only certain areas is a waste of space in my opinion. I'd like a reason for all players to play in the majority of my world for the duration of their time playing, and not just 2-3 zones.