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

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Dahkoht_sl

shitlord
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Kirun_sl said:
It won't matter. Even if the game is widely regarded as a total flop, the religious-like zealotry present amongst these people will have them denying it, until the bitter end. Look no further than Vanguard for your evidence. They'll also have the, "Well, there's still a niche market out there! It just has to be doneright" to cling to.

We've already seen multiple attempts at "old-school, hardcore" MMORPGs. Shadowbane, Darkfall, Vanguard, etc. They've all been total failures in one way or another. At some point, you have to quit making the, "It just wasn't done properly!" excuse for these titles, and realize that the genre has moved past those gameplay systems.
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Kirun_sl said:
Exactly. You people are no better than the religious. You've just chosen EQ as your "god". No matter what evidence is presented, it'll always be met with "Well, it just wasn't done right!". It's a completely infallible argument, because if it comes out and sucks, you always have that caveat to cling to.



It doesn't matter how they were "rescued". If they are turning a profit, I'd consider that a success. Be it F2P, P2W, subscription, whatever. Vanguard and the rest of them weren't, which is why they were shut down/are shutting down.
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Jesus Christ are you really this dense or just trolling, your examples of Darkfall/VG etc prove the point the shit wasn't even close to done "right". Vanguard is regarded as THE train wreck of mmo development and is the closest thing to having an EQ/VG style game launched even close to "right". It's not an infallible argument , name one fucking old school style game launched what wasn't a train wreck or a PVP niche low cost game , that's all I want is one true decent game to launch old school EQ/VG style and if it fails then there's zero way to argue there is the market for it. Currently there are zero non train wreck attempts at such a game.

Big Flex_sl said:
On the KS page
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Draegan_sl said:
Well now this thread will go on forever. We'll see how poor their scheme will be.
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So this is them unofficially saying they've abandoned the KS ?
 
Kirun

Kirun

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popsicledeath_sl said:
We get it, EQ raped your mom as you watched and you're still confused because instead of being angry, you were just jealous.

And you spend how much time in threads on video games telling other people to move on?
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No, I actually enjoyed my time spent in EQ. However, I also realize that the past is the past, and I can look back on it and reflect with clarity. The whole hindsight being 20/20 thing? Seeing what the genre has offered since, I realize what a horribly awful game EQ was, in retrospect, and I'm sick of people clinging onto it like it was the proverbial Holy Grail of MMOs.

I'm also completely sick and tired of industry "has beens" asking for handouts to make themselves rich(er), on the backs of "investors", which is really no more than donations to their bank accounts. I'm all for these guys trying new things and making new games. However, they need to be doing it on the risk of their own dimes. If they truly had amazing, innovative ideas, investors would be more than willing to give them the capital needed. The problem is, they don't, so they've started reaching out to the public to foot the bill and assume all the risk for their hobbies, hoping to strike it rich again. The minute a KS campaign offers me stock options for "investing" in their game/startup? That is the minute I'll invest in one. Until then, I see it for exactly what it is; game designers who's ideas have little/no mass market appeal, and want to eschew any financial risk.

Btw which game are you playing right now? I can almost guarantee its not a wow clone because deep down inside you know they all suck.
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Mostly single-player stuff, with a bit of Marvel: Heroes thrown in.

EDIT:
Dahkoht_sl said:
It's not an infallible argument , name one fucking old school style game launched what wasn't a train wreck or a PVP niche low cost game.
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It absolutelyisan infallible argument, because this will be your retort, no matter how many games are released promising "old school" mechanics/gameplay. They'll always be buggy, unfinished, or whatever other blame you attempt to pinpoint. If it doesn't live up to the "standards" of EQ, it'll be considered "Not done right!". If it isn't wildly successful and doesn't turn a profit, you will point tosomethingthat makes it not a "true" successor to the vaunted EQ.

But, I'll play devil's advocate for you and pretend they were all just buggy, unfinished messes. Did you ever think that an MMO like that doesn't get made anymore, because the genre has moved beyond it? That perhaps there's no appeal for it, outside the 5000 or so of you that can't let the past go? I think this KS blunder is a pretty solid indicator of that. Was it mismanaged and mishandled? Absolutely it was. However, even with a perfectly smooth KS campaign, how many more "backers" do you realistically think this game would have gotten? At this point, it's pretty apparent that it goes far beyond the fault ofjustthe KS campaign. It's pretty glaringly obvious that there just isn't much interest.
 
Vandyn

Vandyn

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This will get the neckbeards all up in a lather. From that interview:

There?s definitely going to be modern elements. We want to stick to the core of what made early MMOs so popular but we also recognize the need to include some modernizations.Dungeon finders and anything group-related (LFG tools, guild searches, etc.) are high on our priority list.We?re a group-centric game so we need to make sure that players have the tools to be able to find and join those groups. That being said, we also aim to innovate a bit on this front. We understand that some of these tools, as implemented elsewhere, can have the potential to break some of what we?re going for in terms of meaningful travel and immersion. So there is a lot of thought going into these tools.
 
Convo

Convo

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Vandyn_sl said:
This will get the neckbeards all up in a lather. From that interview:

There's definitely going to be modern elements. We want to stick to the core of what made early MMOs so popular but we also recognize the need to include some modernizations. Dungeon finders and anything group-related (LFG tools, guild searches, etc.) are high on our priority list. We're a group-centric game so we need to make sure that players have the tools to be able to find and join those groups. That being said, we also aim to innovate a bit on this front. We understand that some of these tools, as implemented elsewhere, can have the potential to break some of what we're going for in terms of meaningful travel and immersion. So there is a lot of thought going into these tools.
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Doesnt seem to of gotten a rise.. Probably b/c the team has already discussed the issue with the backers on various forums, including here.
 
Vandyn

Vandyn

Blackwing Lair Raider
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Convo_sl said:
Doesnt seem to of gotten a rise.. Probably b/c the team has already discussed the issue with the backers on various forums, including here.
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And yet not a damn thing on the KS page itself. I think the backers are delirious to be honest with you.


Sterley about 1 hour ago
Yay Ben! And Yay 360k (to the penny even!)
Seems to me to be a bit of steam building the last day or so ... let's keep the momentum going! Everyone who's already pitched in, dig deep and throw a few more bucks in!
 
Convo

Convo

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Draegan_sl said:
I don't think even Brad knows "what kind of game" this is. There is a huge audience for challenging, difficult and fun games. The keyword is fun though. I don't think there is a large audience for a game where all you do is grind mobs all day unless it's a facebook or mobile game that you can play on the bus or on the toilet.
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He has never really thrown around the word hardcore.. Mostly old school.. Just going off the info available it looks to be a system made up of the typical XP grind, achievement system and some questing..I think they are basically eliminating your typical quest hub and replacing it with the achievement system to make sure players get to see the majority of the content. What people find fun in a MMO varies.. What I find fun is grouping, dungeon crawling and finding the bulk of your better gear/abilities out in the world. Pantheon is offering that. They really need to nail combat and classes tho. That's a give me for any MMO, long term anyway.
 
shabushabu

shabushabu

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The simple thing that i hold onto with Pantheon is that by design it will be a group centric game. Not solo to cap like everything else... MMOs were fun when grouping was the game either questing or grinding or whatever... it doesn't really matter... since then they have become single player experiences that are worse than single player RPGs.
 
Vandyn

Vandyn

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shabushabu_sl said:
The simple thing that i hold onto with Pantheon is that by design it will be a group centric game. Not solo to cap like everything else... MMOs were fun when grouping was the game either questing or grinding or whatever... it doesn't really matter... since then they have become single player experiences that are worse than single player RPGs.
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There's going to be ways to solo, it just probably won't be the most efficient. You could solo in EQ depending on class.
 
shabushabu

shabushabu

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Vandyn_sl said:
There's going to be ways to solo, it just probably won't be the most efficient. You could solo in EQ depending on class.
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Its more than that... If you design a game to have the majority of its content group based and work on good group dynamics and abilities, then you have something. Old games were built that way, new ones are not.
 
Convo

Convo

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Vandyn_sl said:
There's going to be ways to solo, it just probably won't be the most efficient. You could solo in EQ depending on class.
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That's fine with me. It's very EQish in that sense. The carrot being added is the rare chance of a world drop. That's a feature where I like how new meets old. The game basically needs to fall somewhere in between EQ and vanilla wow but closer to EQ. ;-)
 
B

bwuceli_sl

shitlord
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Dahkoht_sl said:
If they did their homework and still produced it as is or are lying about doing their homework , I'm not sure which is worse.
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In their enthousiasm they probably assumed the KS was a done deal, money in the bag, a formality. It usually happens when idealists as opposed to realists are running the show. I've seen this shit happen in various companies more than I'd like to in the past, including my own. I'm asuming (I can't do anything but asume at this point) this is what happened. You need the nay-sayers at your round-table brainstorming sessions, they put shit in perspective. And this thing needs a lot of perspective.
 
K

Kedwyn

Silver Squire
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Not looking good for the kick starter to fund at this point. Not surprised with how they winged it but a little disappointed.
 
Mr Creed

Mr Creed

Too old for this shit
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Kirun_sl said:
Exactly. You people are no better than the religious. You've just chosen EQ as your "god". No matter what evidence is presented, it'll always be met with "Well, it just wasn't done right!". It's a completely infallible argument, because if it comes out and sucks, you always have that caveat to cling to.



It doesn't matter how they were "rescued". If they are turning a profit, I'd consider that a success. Be it F2P, P2W, subscription, whatever. Vanguard and the rest of them weren't, which is why they were shut down/are shutting down.
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Your position is just as shaky, because the simple truth is the KS did (does) suck, and that cant be dismissed and is at least partially to blame. If the KS was great and failed I'd agree with you. We'll never know because they blew it. Last year in this very thread I said I think they could get like two million dollars but that's about it, and that wouldnt finance a MMORPG. Today I have to amend that into 'they could have gotten two million with a well-done KS' but that still wouldnt finance a MMORPG. And I still think a different team with an actual plan and a good kickstarter could get 2 mill to make the game this thread is about - it still wouldnt be enough in the end.

And I'm not Dumar - I'm looking forward to EQN as the shake-up this genre needs so badly. But I also think there's room for a 50k subs game in the vein of EQ1. But even if someone were to make it, could that finance a company's ongoing operations from then on? I have no idea.
 
T

turbo

Molten Core Raider
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While I don't represent the masses from a marketing perspective, the things that I miss greatly from EQ are:

1) Rare loot from contested spawns

2) Community and gasp...accountability

3) Extremely group centric (see importance of item 2)

4) Average mobs that didn't have various dots etc (VG tried and made it kinda work but) - I was playing might and magic and I can't begin to say how exhilarating it was to be killing some mobs and then take 5 steps and run into a specter at level 5 and just get ass plowed. Then spending the next 2 hours trying every trick in the book and leveraging every consumable, skill, etc to beat them only finally going to power up more with the key motivator of coming back and killing them. My last round of EQ was SoD i think and after the casual MMO's of late holy hell did it blow my mind. As a tank I could get just utterly squashed trying to touch some of the more difficult tiers just general mobs. You had to react extremely quick and you went down extremely fast without debuffs and heals in place etc.

5) No fucking god damn horse shit ilvl's....one of the worst things I've ever seen implemented in MMO's even though I fully understand why they are. It just ruins it on so many levels for me. The whole concept that 99% of MMO's now do of essentially equal quality gear on all bosses (maybe a minor upgraded on last boss if you are lucky) is just disheartening. Going into Ssrea and having Rhag1/2 for early loot and then AL/cursed etc being a shit ton harder but having great jumps in gear progression etc was just such a better design to me. Also having some of those rare drops that might be out of place and abit OP on some mobs...it created allure and desire. Token system loot may be one of the best and worst things to ever happen to MMO's. It ruins such a critical part of the game for me but it also addresses many huge issues tied to trying to handle loot as far as loot rots, class make up disparities, etc. I think the best solution is intelligent loot that has rare drops, very custom and unique items etc but also drops took into account your class make up, existing gear, etc to derive a loot table that had high %'s to drop what you need but not just let you pick essentially what you got. OR have a lotto style, start of the boss lets say there is 4 pieces of gear that drop and 30 options or something, 15 of the options are random rolls and you get to pick what 15 draws are OR if you win and meet certain conditions on time, lack of deaths etc etc you get rewarded with more draw picks etc. So many options but loot systems now in MMO's is a top 3 downers for me, WoW started the downward trend of making gear just meh....and now everyone since has made it worse.

6) Tying into 5, power scaling. PoP had some of the greatest gearing to-date in MMO's outside of semi garbage on a few of the early gods. Various items had significant power gains. They had alot of semi unique abilities etc that at least created the illusion of variety. Sometimes the arguments over +1 stats just makes me laugh now when it has like a <.01% impact on your dps. Believe me I am a hardcore min/max guy but fuck, even I know when to say "hmm it just doesn't fucking matter"

7) I know it introduces entry level issues as the game progresses but honestly. AA's might have been EQ's greatest gift to the MMO world that just ignored the genius that was AA's. The few games that have tried to mimic always either make the abilities just so minimal in power gains, have very limited caps or turn it into almost skill tree decisions not just straight power gains. I'm all for having some diversity in individual people's class make up etc so some level of decision tree with skills etc is fine but keep AA's themselves as a very long term method to increase power. First it gives people a reason to grind and continue to play your damn game. It creates a non gear power track and when based off exp gain it rewards those who have better raid gear etc since you can kill faster etc. Ever got done raiding and thinking hmm...what the fuck is my new fancy triple fanged star of uber staff really going to do for me other then kill the next raid boss and serve as a jerk off image for some of you sick fucks! Games already make it so all your pve work goes useless in pvp, so at least having it help impact your ability to improve your power gains is a nice touch. (Yes i know we could spend days talking pro's vs con's on AA's, bottom line though is for me they added such longevity to the game and were well worth the negative aspects which smart modern design could help minimize more anyway now a days.

I'm not a EQ zealot and i'm probably the most critical individual you will ever meet when it comes to vendors and people I spend my money on (business related or pleasure). However, I'd be lying if I said there hasn't been 4 things that have kept me coming back to MMO's in the last 15 years

1) EQ/VG's general concept and design even with all glaring issues

2) MMO releases so at the very least I can get satisfaction of racing to the top to try and be first as well as take on challenges that there isn't 4 hour utube vidoes on how to beat something. Relative to the gaming masses, I'm extremely well balanced and adjusted into the normalities of society and 99% of people that know me have no clue I am a hardcore gamer. But when an MMO is released I go all out nerd; I attack it like Lindsey Lohan goes after a Gucci bag full of coke. I'll go 6-7 days averaging less then 1-2 hours of sleep a night and break my pretty health diet and buy a shit ton of bad food (FFXIV i think i bought $500 of just pure junk food and drinks, it was bliss

3) The challenge of raiding, everyone tries to always down play PVE raiding because its scripts etc. Well bottom line its still competition and of 100,000's of people trying to accomplish something if you can be in the first 100 or so there is some damn satisfaction. Most the dumb asses on the board that try and down play it and say its just about getting out of fire tend to be the guys who also A) follow the youtube vidoe guides who haven't had to spend days on end trying to just understand bosses abilities and come up with unknown strats or B) Are people who have never led or been an officer in a high end guild; there is alot of organizational skills outside of just standing out of fire that separates the bad boys from the rest.

4) The illusion of what you do matters and has lasting effect; everything ends but working really hard to get into a high end area and then working to kill a really hard mob etc and then getting lucky on his rare that you would use for the next 9+ months just is more rewarding then other games for me which is why I hate fucking hard gear resets every fucking mini patch

Am I an outlier to a business analysts marketing data? Yep....Do I think Brad should not be allowed to manage picking out his socks let alone a MMO ? Yep....Am I willing to throw away $250 at a small chance to hopefully help shape and have a game that recreates some of the joys I've had in VG/EQ and the joy I am chasing to find in about every MMO that continues to let me down? You bet your ass I am, its not nostalgia or any of that bullshit, its the fact over the 15 years I still enjoy the same things. I'm open to new recipes as long as the recreate the level of enjoyment I've had in the past. Someone living pay check to paycheck? I wouldn't expect them to make that gamble with the present lack of information and general piss poor KS they have provided. But I gladly will and will donate directly knowing it has a small chance of winning but if I hit my proverbially "21" it was a great gamble because its something I'll spend a significant amount of free time in.
 
T

turbo

Molten Core Raider
1,238
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Oh lastly, I MISS large guilds. They created so many issues but they also really did create the community feeling and again created large amounts of accountabilit. If you got a bad rep then it was very hard to get into alot of guilds unless of course you were a cleric, then you just had to be able to sit or lay while your dick/vaj was being pleasured and you got a spot. I actually liked the idea WoW had with split raid forces, I just think alot of the other aspects of WoW that I hated about it caused that to fail. In todays world, id

1) Make 10 & 40 man raids, not duplicates but unique raids for the small core friends and guilds and full blown 40 man raids for the rest.

2) Gear, no minor upgrades or similar gear. 10 man raids would be more casual focused period.....it sounds like such a good idea for HM and all that shit but that just trys to do too many things at once. You consider yourself a hardcore raider? You need to be in a 40 man raid team that really has minor incentive to do 10 man raids period outside of maybe start of launch/expac to get an advantage on 40 man raids if they need it. Small raids just tear guilds apart etc but on the flip side casuals and those not interested in large guilds do need some form of entertainment. But keep gear FAR superior for the 40 man content and keep the content itself different
 
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misery_sl

shitlord
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The terrible tragedy in trying to make an MMORPG for a niche audience seems to me to be issues with return on investment for the developers. The cost to create such a game, to keep it moderated, updated, and running smoothly are simply astronomical compared to other games. It seems like a recipe for disaster.
 
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Oloh_sl

shitlord
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To me, EQ's shining achievement was that it was an extremely well done PvP game, yet no one playing it (and perhaps even making it) realized the game as such. To me, step one of PvP is to make a great world that people cared to fight over and, indirect as it was, EQ is the closest to a great PvP experience as has been captured in a MMO. I am talking about all servers, not just the Zeks.
 
Big Flex

Big Flex

Fitness Fascist
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Oloh_sl said:
To me, EQ's shining achievement was that it was an extremely well done PvP game, yet no one playing it (and perhaps even making it) realized the game as such. To me, step one of PvP is to make a great world that people cared to fight over and, indirect as it was, EQ is the closest to a great PvP experience as has been captured in a MMO. I am talking about all servers, not just the Zeks.
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agree 100%
 
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