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

Pasteton_sl said:

Prediction - tyen/mcquaid combined effort on new eqbrowser mmo

Click to expand...

Well, at least it will always have a ton of people online.

vGrade_sl said:

Will we be theory crafting this thread to 1k pages like the EQN one?

Click to expand...

Seems like a plan now that EQN has crushed are souls by turning into EQDisney we need another thread to theory craft in.

Quaid_sl said:

Vanuard sold 250,000 copies in its first month.

Aside from that, each system doesn't exist in a vacuum. Just because a world is immense doesn't mean you can't create ways to traverse it. Ways that help distinguish classes and promote social interaction and interdependence.

Click to expand...

That was a one time deal. Basically Brad was selling his reputation. He still has a reputation and he'll still get that initial investment, but it won't be 250k worth.

It makes a lot of sense. Without Sony Brad is reduced to kickstarter status. And honestly that's probably a good thing for him and the quality of his product. But if you're expecting more out of this than a "medium" sized world with a few "hardcore" features and low end system requirements you are going to be disappointed. What he delivers, if he delivers it all, will be niche. And when it comes out the discussion will be "if only brad had had the money to do it right (tm)..."

He doesn't and he never will again. For a consumer that's what this industry has been for the past 5 years. Always jam tomorrow.

I'm not even saying it'll be a bad game. If it releases it will probably be passably adequate. Don't expect big things out of it. Especially if he does deliver VG2.0. Whoever does produce him is buying what reputation he does have left. Not his ideas.

Iannis_sl said:

That was a one time deal. Basically Brad was selling his reputation. He still has a reputation and he'll still get that initial investment, but it won't be 250k worth.

It makes a lot of sense. Without Sony Brad is reduced to kickstarter status. And honestly that's probably a good thing for him and the quality of his product. But if you're expecting more out of this than a "medium" sized world with a few "hardcore" features and low end system requirements you are going to be disappointed. What he delivers, if he delivers it all, will be niche. And when it comes out the discussion will be "if only brad had had the money to do it right (tm)..."

He doesn't and he never will again. For a consumer that's what this industry has been for the past 5 years. Always jam tomorrow.

I'm not even saying it'll be a bad game. If it releases it will probably be passably adequate. Don't expect big things out of it. Especially if he does deliver VG2.0. Whoever does produce him is buying what reputation he does have left. Not his ideas.

Click to expand...

If this industry has taught is one thing it's that people that fuck up don't get fired. They get promoted.

Iannis_sl said:

That was a one time deal. Basically Brad was selling his reputation. He still has a reputation and he'll still get that initial investment, but it won't be 250k worth.

It makes a lot of sense. Without Sony Brad is reduced to kickstarter status. And honestly that's probably a good thing for him and the quality of his product. But if you're expecting more out of this than a "medium" sized world with a few "hardcore" features and low end system requirements you are going to be disappointed. What he delivers, if he delivers it all, will be niche. And when it comes out the discussion will be "if only brad had had the money to do it right (tm)..."

He doesn't and he never will again. For a consumer that's what this industry has been for the past 5 years. Always jam tomorrow.

I'm not even saying it'll be a bad game. If it releases it will probably be passably adequate. Don't expect big things out of it. Especially if he does deliver VG2.0. Whoever does produce him is buying what reputation he does have left. Not his ideas.

Click to expand...

I think the long term goal would be to build on the games success. I don't see that argument coming because I think that message might get delivered before the game even releases.
That said.. We don't know what tech he will be using.. If Smed did give him the keys to the EQ IP and all the EQN tech it would allow them to focus more on just building the game and less on the behind the scenes shit.. That's what I'm expecting from all this.

Utnayan_sl said:

/\/\ MMORPG Good Ol Boys club. Members attained since 1997.



Except SOE is backing him behind the scenes and Kickstarter will be a sham way to see what extra money they can generate before a full announcement while "He is on his own"

Don't buy into the on his own bullshit, please.

Click to expand...

I actually don't even mind this KS thing if it happens. It will be a way for SoE to measure the interest. If it's a transparent process from the start anyway. Say SoE matches or doubles what is raised on KS.

Utnayan_sl said:

/\/\ MMORPG Good Ol Boys club. Members attained since 1997.



Except SOE is backing him behind the scenes and Kickstarter will be a sham way to see what extra money they can generate before a full announcement while "He is on his own"

Don't buy into the on his own bullshit, please.

Click to expand...

/agree on bullshit

In the end, when we see something working ( what 2 years from now ? ) I will judge. If he is truly making a VG2 type game I would certainly love to see it and try it.

Arden_sl said:

Don't think for a second that most of the "modern day conveniences" are things they couldn't have equipped us with back in the day- they just wisely chose not to.

Click to expand...

The designers didn't have super-duper powers of foresight and an 18 wisdom score. It was a matter of the gaming landscape at the time and the game "genes" they had inherited from the previous generation. As time goes on, certain designs become a given part of a genre until someone comes along to prove that those designs weren't necessary after all. Likewise, other designs have a hard time proliferating until they've been proven. This is especially true now that video games are big money. Most of the innovation of EQ compared to the previous generation came from the fact that it had to develop complementary systems to account for the shift in space model (room-based to 3D). On top of that, you have an audience who has developed certain expectations. The most successful new franchises strike a balance between innovation and familiarity. It's not that they technically couldn't have implemented "modern conveniences," but that "modern conveniences" didn't really make much sense at the time.

Am I the only one that doesn't mind if every square inch of the game world isn't packed with a player and/or mob ? The size of Vanguard was one of the things I never had an issue with. In a virtual fantasy mmo world , I honestly prefer to actually see landscape that isn't trampled at all times by mobs and players. I guess I just liked the idea of travel from one continent to another was going to be an actual journey and so on.

I like a big world even if its partially empty - they can provide reasonable shortcuts between some areas that are better fleshed out. Then have a couple of features that rewards players for going off the beaten path so exploring an area that doesnt actually have much content is still worthwhile (growing resource nodes for crafting, mobs giving much more xp the longer they lived, and so on). Some areas need to give the impression you are out in bumfuck nowhere - the Karanas or Stonebrunt mountains come to mind, or most of Velious. I'm sure its a side effect of the quest hub design but in more modern games you are always near a civilized outpost, no matter how dire the environment. The recently resurfaced undead-infested island of Orr in GW2 has more vendors then all of Velious combined I bet.

Mr Creed_sl said:

I like a big world even if its partially empty - they can provide reasonable shortcuts between some areas that are better fleshed out. Then have a couple of features that rewards players for going off the beaten path so exploring an area that doesnt actually have much content is still worthwhile (growing resource nodes for crafting, mobs giving much more xp the longer they lived, and so on). Some areas need to give the impression you are out in bumfuck nowhere - the Karanas or Stonebrunt mountains come to mind, or most of Velious. I'm sure its a side effect of the quest hub design but in more modern games you are always near a civilized outpost, no matter how dire the environment. The recently resurfaced undead-infested island of Orr in GW2 has more vendors then all of Velious combined I bet.

Click to expand...

I think VG needs to be taking with a grain of salt. It never really got the full attention it deserved. If the project was not plagued with all it's issued and actually finished we would probably not be talking about it.. That said.. Dynamic content can fill in nicely. I like a vast openness myself. They just need to do a better job sprinkling it with some interesting things.

Kid Sized Coffin_sl said:

The designers didn't have super-duper powers of foresight and an 18 wisdom score. It was a matter of the gaming landscape at the time and the game "genes" they had inherited from the previous generation. As time goes on, certain designs become a given part of a genre until someone comes along to prove that those designs weren't necessary after all. Likewise, other designs have a hard time proliferating until they've been proven. This is especially true now that video games are big money. Most of the innovation of EQ compared to the previous generation came from the fact that it had to develop complementary systems to account for the shift in space model (room-based to 3D). On top of that, you have an audience who has developed certain expectations. The most successful new franchises strike a balance between innovation and familiarity. It's not that they technically couldn't have implemented "modern conveniences," but that "modern conveniences" didn't really make much sense at the time.

Click to expand...

You've hit the nail on the head here. You've described exactly what?s wrong with the mmo genre. Things like ?genes? and ?expectations? are precisely what?s watered down the genre and what has allowed terrible design ideas to proliferate from failed game to failed game.

?Modern conveniences? (as we are describing them) make no more sense now than they did then. It?s not that the ?landscape has changed.? It?s not that the genre that has evolved to the point that it has developed certain requisites, called ?modern conveniences?, that we can no longer live without. I?m sorry, but that?s exactly the type of industry doublespeak that got us where we are. The reality is that the mmo industry has simply painted itself into a corner and is too paralyzed with fear to figure out a way to innovate itself back out.

You?re right about one thing though, yesterday?s designers didn't have ?super-duper powers of foresight and an 18 Wisdom score?- what they had was a clear vision of what they wanted and the balls to toss ?expectations? and ?genes? out the window in order to make it happen.

Arden_sl said:

You're right about one thing though, yesterday's designers didn't have "super-duper powers of foresight and an 18 Wisdom score"- what they had was a clear vision of what they wanted and the balls to toss "expectations" and "genes" out the window in order to make it happen.

Click to expand...

What?

Ha, no. No one, including the developers, really had any idea what they were doing and what they were making. It was all one giant clusterfuck of an experiment, of which players were very actively involved. That can never happen again no matter how much many of us wish it would. And when something like that DOES happen again none of us will see it coming.

You are chasing the Dragon.

No doubt luck played a role in EQ- it plays a role in any great game. Lots of stars have to align for something like that to happen. It's also true that a fair amount of experimentation went into the game's creation. Frankly, the 'balls' I'm talking about largely have to do with the willingness of the game's designers to experiment.

On the opposite end, you are dead wrong if you think EQ was created by luck alone. For as much luck went into the game, twice as much passion, intent, skill, and creativity went into it. Would EQ have been what it was without luck and unintended coincidence? Probably not. But it certainly wouldn't have been what it was without vision and guts either.

Sorry to double post, but I want to make this clear. I don't mean to deify EQs game designers. They had their faults like everyone else and they made their fair share of mistakes. But to dismiss the entire game as luck and coincidence is just foolish.

Dahkoht_sl said:

Am I the only one that doesn't mind if every square inch of the game world isn't packed with a player and/or mob ? The size of Vanguard was one of the things I never had an issue with. In a virtual fantasy mmo world , I honestly prefer to actually see landscape that isn't trampled at all times by mobs and players. I guess I just liked the idea of travel from one continent to another was going to be an actual journey and so on.

Click to expand...

I don't mind empty spaces but three continents at release was too much. Even with two continents there was a lot of empty space in Qalia.

Brad gets one more shot at this - and that's only because EQ was pretty good and VG despite being super buggy had the best classes (at release, not now) and combat (with OT/DT) of any Diku system (even though Brad was on Vicodin in the last year of development).

VG had the right balance of soloability and grouping - 80% of the coolest adventuring shit required grouping (anything from major dungeons to Griffon quest). But there was still a lot of stuff people
could do solo (anything from solo grinding to Levitation cloak quests).

But it was too freaking large - if Brad tries anything that big again it will end up being bug-ridden. Moreover, if Sigil taught us anything it is that Brad can't be in the CEO position.

Anyway, color me really dubious on this unless a good producer steps up.