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

Less resource management? You serious?

It’s not a “feature” to get on a wait list to experience content until the top guild or group locking it down says so. They don’t have more actual skill, they just have no jobs and can play 24/7. Being able to straight up block another player or guild from progressing was a HUGE problem with EQ. It was only fun if you were the one in the guild that was blocking others.

Yea but don't forget EQ had tons of resource management. So many more resources to manage than WoW did. EQ had mana for casters and no resources at all for physical dps. WoW had way less though.

With Rage, and Combo Points and Energy and Totems and short duration buffs. Combat was so much less involved and so dumbed down compared to EQ.

I’m not saying I didn’t like aspects of EQ. Slower leveling is ok. Group dependency being encouraged is a good thing.

But I like instancing for raid content. Especially until they find a cure to botters and high playtime dickheads that take pleasure in blocking the progress of others. I’ll take long travel times as a solution if it means one guild can’t lock down every raid mob on the server.

I always found it funny that guilds that claimed to be the best always moved to servers where they have absolutely no competition. Same with the “hardcore PvP” folks ganking lowbies in a noob zone.

Khane said:

Yea but don't forget EQ had tons of resource management. So many more resources to manage than WoW did. EQ had mana for casters and no resources at all for physical dps. WoW had way less though.

With Rage, and Combo Points and Energy and Totems and short duration buffs. Combat was so much less involved and so dumbed down compared to EQ.

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Yes, melee didn't have to, but resource management for any caster was crucial for the entire party, and had much more meta. Fail to conserve mana for that mez or that heal, you're all done. You had to plan and choose your abilities wisely, or else it means less efficiency and more downtime (if not death). When you can basically regain your resources instantly, the management isn't that important...

Or just get KEI or group with a chanter, bard or Necro and stop worrying about it unless you were a complete mouth breather

it is an interesting question. now that we, atleast a typical mmo gamer anyways, isnt really used to chatting/socializing much in mmos anymore. I have my group of peopel i game with, and have been since eq/eq2, and dont really go in and contribute much to a community. So its not the same as the days of eq, when an mmo was a new thing, and social interaction kind of happened more fluidly. So maybe pantheon will answer the question, can a game create community and interaction thru its mechanics? or has that ship sailed and we just wont see that again ever?

Skanda said:

Or just get KEI or group with a chanter, bard or Necro and stop worrying about it unless you were a complete mouth breather

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That was not always available. it was nice to have but even if you did get it, before gear effects, it only lasted what an 40 min to an hour? its been a while, my memory is a bit hazy on the duration.

Pasteton said:

it is an interesting question. now that we, atleast a typical mmo gamer anyways, isnt really used to chatting/socializing much in mmos anymore. I have my group of peopel i game with, and have been since eq/eq2, and dont really go in and contribute much to a community. So its not the same as the days of eq, when an mmo was a new thing, and social interaction kind of happened more fluidly. So maybe pantheon will answer the question, can a game create community and interaction thru its mechanics? or has that ship sailed and we just wont see that again ever?

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In the case of WoW, I still meet funny people, when for example in an instance I drop a one liner, someone says something, I chat while clearing the place and have a good time doing so, because for once I don't feel I'm grouped with bots.
Due to how the game is structured athough, this quick simpathy formed between two players will end up likely with nothing, first because chances are we'll never meet again by the algorithm of the game matchmaking and because we're not on the same server, we can't guild together unless one forks several euros to transfer.

(on these boards someone said there should be an upvote / downvote system for players, so the game could eventually match players with other players when therewas a reason to do so: reciprocal upvote, battle net friends list, etc.)

Playing on a vanilla private server, people act just like in the old EQ / WoW days: in the beginning groups are formed casually and from there anything can happen, guilds emerge and so on and so forth.

I could never get into WoW when it first came out because the art style was an utter turn off for me. That is something I really regret, from what a lot of my friends have told me, I think I would have had a blast in Vanilla and BC. I played a half dozen WoW clones before I ever really gave it a chance, and because of that, I was already bored with the game style when I finally did give it a chance, making a lot of the good stuff that is there have much less of an impact. The WoW clone treadmill is ruining the genre, so many games with some good ideas, designs, or mechanics that just fall flat because the basic way you interact with the world is copy/paste and leaves everyone feeling like you've been here and done that. Then what good things are there go into the trash bin, while most people I know that enjoy MMO's, are all just hoping one day, someone will take all the good parts, from all the different failed MMO's, and frankenstein together a masterpiece. Anyone making a game that doesn't build off of what EQ and WoW are/were, is an idiot doomed to fail, but they are equally doomed to failure, if all they do is try to replicate or synthesize clones of those same games. I mean, where the fuck are these Dev's growing up and going to school at? I thought it was a basic 1st or 2nd grade concept to build and grow from our experiences?

Dullahan said:

I agree with all of this. WoW made clunky things simpler, ugly things pretty, and was more approachable in general. Biggest improvement was probably combat, particularly for melee. Drawbacks were less resource management -> less planning, and less danger stemming from a weak death penalty that made failure unimportant, and success less rewarding.

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Forgive me, but EQ had a little death penalty in the vast majority of the cases. Usually the biggest loss was 4% experience, which you got back in a matter of minutes. Recovering corpses was hard in the first few levels, if no high level was around, but in several years I was forced to call a necro a handful of times (because sometimes it was just faster to get a necro there than do anything else). Resource management was unexistant in EQ, except for healers (read: clerics), but even there it was very binary: either they could sustain the CH chain or they couldn't. I coordinated my healing group for the whole Luclin+PoP era and thanks to mage rods, necros, bards and enchanters, plus the abundance of flowing thought items, mana stopped being a problem early on. If I remember correctly, to find mana drained healers, you have to go back at the very least to Kunark era.

This is where the games differed, and in my personal preference, WoW for the worse. The social aspect was part of the challenge and sort of the original intent of the role playing game itself. Having to interact with people and the uncertainty of where each play session would lead and whether you'd be able to actually win (clear a dungeon, defeat a boss, get a drop etc) was important. It was up to you to maintain your reputation, as well as form relationships with other reliable, skilled players. Much like real life, you could only prepare yourself, but success was not guaranteed. It was those "inconveniences" that made the game less predictable and linear.

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I made good and lasting friendships in both games, it just happened that during combat WoW allowed little typing, so it was less "social" in groups, but thankfully they had guilds and public chat channels. The issue in WoW was generational: younger kids for a reason or another, sometimes just left the place and I was already too old to give a fuck. More often than not we ran out, used our pocket warlock and summoned whoever wanted to replace the bad behaving kid. In EQ it was complicated to leave a dungeon: you could lose the camp, you had to reclear if no one else was around, etc.
This goes to the discussion about Quality of Life features and instances vs open places. It's better if we don't beat this horse again, we ground even the bones of the poor bastard.

In WoW, victory was basically assured. Content was always available. If someone left the party, the game automatically provides replacements. If it was too hard, you change the mode. Everyone is entitled to see and do everything; no more mystery, no more exclusivity. This was less the case early on, but by the end of the first expansion, everyone became a winner. Just buying an expansion also leveled the playing field, trivializing all past achievements. That's a problem.

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In WoW nothing was ever assured, let alone victory. If you had a good group, you just didn't die, which was the exact same thing that was happening years earlier in EQ. Raids were extremely exclusive from Vanilla onwards, only a small portion of the population got to play in them. I'm one of those bastards that didn't even step inside original Naxxramas, mainly because I didn't spend so much time playing to keep up with hardcore guilds, secondarily because it required a fuckton of efforts outside of the simple raiding act, that my "I don't give a fuck factor" skyrocketed quickly.
The dungeon finder and auto replacing of members, happened during WotLK, the game was 5+ years old by then and it reached an all time high population. It was convenient and still is. The raid finder happened at the end of Cataclysm, the last raid if I recall correctly, we're talking about November 2011, basically a bone tossed to all those players that wanted to see the content, but couldn't or wouldn't commit to a raiding guild.
LFR or looking for raid became braindead easy in Draenor, while in Cata and Pandaria, unless overgeared, it presented an environment where the correct interaction was *required*, but it was not difficult for the average raider (which was not the target audience anyway).

I agree, what WoW did was high quality, but they left off important mmorpg elements. EQ was heavy on the social side, and by the time WoW rolled around, the flaws in the "game" side became more apparent. The goal therefore with Pantheon should be to balance it out, not be reducing the social aspect, but by bringing the combat and other gameplay up to par.

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You are either playing correctly or chatting. There is no other option if your combat is on a WoW pace (hell, even a FFXIV pace is fast enough to not let people type much).

Forgotten is an overstatement. There's still a lot of people out there clamoring for a proper successor.

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Define a lot. If it's 50k, I'm not sure the game will be top quality, it would cost too much, if it's 500k, you must find them everywhere, most people I talked to, don't even know EQ xist, let alone wish for a successor. You are victim of these boards, where everyone knows it, but it's hardly the truth outside in the gaming space.

There's always going to be a difference of opinion between players who just want to play an online fantasy game, and those who want to engage in a virtual world with steeper time requirements, more interaction, and a greater sense of achievement. The latter will never rival the numbers of the casual fans who are satisfied with MMO lobby games, but I believe there are more than enough to make a well executed traditional mmorpg successful.

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What EQ did best, was in my opinion, to offer baffling ways to save the day, there was no rez limit, no enrage timer, what was possible in EQ has never been possible in WoW and that I kinda miss. I remember a bard kiting Agnarr in PoP because we had fully wiped, except him and a necro who did a well timed FD in a corner. The necro ressed a cleric and slowly the raid stood back up, then started picking the adds from the bard train and finally the boss himself. It was a great moment. In WoW something always prevented this, also it was usually just faster to reset and restart.

I think one of the unintended side effects of Eq's simplicity is such that if you were a good player, you could occasionally be a hero and pull off some crazy stuff. The toolkit that some classes had allowed for a high skillcap.

WOW has a high skillcap but an individual players impact doesn't feel as significant. Perhaps it is, but I've never felt that way. Part of this might be due to how inactive and lazy eq players can be due to game mechanics versus wow where slacking is obvious due to meters etc.

Skanda said:

Or just get KEI or group with a chanter, bard or Necro and stop worrying about it unless you were a complete mouth breather

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Which required you to be social.. or to have friends. Neither of which was required much less encourage in Wow... especially post vanilla. Some games like FFXIV do enforce it a bit by forcing you to do unsoloable dungeons to progress, but most don't even bother with that level of social interaction.. Faceroll solo to max level and then sit in a city waiting for your McQueue to pop.

I will say that instances as it pertains to raids make more sense, but the issue that raises is the need for no_drop loot which is a shitty mechanic... there has got to be a better way.

Miele said:

Forgive me, but EQ had a little death penalty in the vast majority of the cases. Usually the biggest loss was 4% experience, which you got back in a matter of minutes. Recovering corpses was hard in the first few levels, if no high level was around, but in several years I was forced to call a necro a handful of times (because sometimes it was just faster to get a necro there than do anything else).

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I agree resurrection did eventually trivialize death in EQ, and Pantheon should fix that. Getting all your experience restored should come at a price, if it's a possibility at all. However, you couldn't rely on that until 40+, and only if you were a cleric or you were currently grouped with one. Before that it was a huge inconvenience, and even returning to your bind and getting back to your body or camp was a far greater punishment than games today.

Miele said:

Resource management was unexistant in EQ, except for healers (read: clerics), but even there it was very binary: either they could sustain the CH chain or they couldn't. I coordinated my healing group for the whole Luclin+PoP era and thanks to mage rods, necros, bards and enchanters, plus the abundance of flowing thought items, mana stopped being a problem early on. If I remember correctly, to find mana drained healers, you have to go back at the very least to Kunark era.

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Every caster had resource management, and using the wrong spells could cost you a fight. If you played a wizard and just spammed one nuke without ever downgrading or switching lines, you would run oom. Conservation and planning was a huge part of combat, and EQ's unpredictability (roamers, trains, random pops) and actual downtime it made it even more crucial.

Miele said:

Define a lot. If it's 50k, I'm not sure the game will be top quality, it would cost too much, if it's 500k, you must find them everywhere, most people I talked to, don't even know EQ xist, let alone wish for a successor. You are victim of these boards, where everyone knows it, but it's hardly the truth outside in the gaming space.

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I frequent many forums, particularly mmorpg.com and reddit. The need for another game like EQ is probably the most prominent reoccurring topic for 15 years, rivaled only by a SWG successor. Just look at mmorpg youtube video comments about upcoming games, and you'll see it there as well. No one over the age of 20 who has played an mmorpg is unfamiliar with EQ, even if they've never played it.

No point in arguing, these guys would inject themselves with AIDS needles if Blizzard sold them

"I don't like your opinion! Stop having it! Buy every Blizzard game!"

Raign said:

Which required you to be social.. or to have friends. Neither of which was required much less encourage in Wow... especially post vanilla. Some games like FFXIV do enforce it a bit by forcing you to do unsoloable dungeons to progress, but most don't even bother with that level of social interaction.. Faceroll solo to max level and then sit in a city waiting for your McQueue to pop.

I will say that instances as it pertains to raids make more sense, but the issue that raises is the need for no_drop loot which is a shitty mechanic... there has got to be a better way.

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Yeah, buying KEI from some rando selling buffs in your local server's popular spot was real social. As for grouping with people that is no less social than any other game.

Rezz said:

(Luclin sucked donkey dong)

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Truth. Luclin was about the time soe realized they could purposefully break content to slow down player advancement.
Original eq was a great game. So very unlike anything else. Sadly ruined by the very developers who created it.