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

I don't disagree with Ut but I do think it depends on the expectation. If people think you are going to relive an experience by playing a game or concept from 20 years ago while you, yourself personally travel 20 years ago are probably fooling themselves.

However, if you are willing to accept a similar feeling through a similar experience that possess much of what was with some creative modifications, that is possible. To me, that's what's missing. People are just completely changing the concepts without at least attempting to make old ideas work or at last put an old skin or face on new concepts.

It is also completely acceptable to make the same EQ but understand you can't play it that same way. I'll use the EQMac server for example. I changed a lot, as a person and circumstantially. Not everyone has changed the same way and there may even be a few that are stuck in time (for better or for worse). That didn't stop me from reliving some nostalgia, doing a dungeon here and there, and participating in a pick up raid once a week or every other week. I was having fun, had similar experiences with new people, but it didn't come through the same methods or play styles.

This can be done but game companies and the players have to be willing to put their heads together and find that middle ground. A true sequel to EQ could work but are game companies and are we willing to experience it a little differently. For whatever reason, game companies can't seem to get it right. I think as a player, we would very easily morph into a new type of player.

Carl_sl said:

We've had this discussion literally a million times, and the conclusion is actually that no you didn't have lots of options, you don't get to be the first to do something and then point to all the competition you had when you did it. Dumb.

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I said don't try to say there weren't other options.

You said no, you didn't have a lot of options... then call me dumb.

So, we agree, there WERE other options....?

You conveniently ignore the other part of my quote that provides context. That having a ton of time and the lack of motivation necessary to waste it on stupid shit wasn't something EQ created, just something it benefited from. EQ didn't invent young, dumb people wasting their times on nerdy shit. It just took advantage of it and created something that was easy to hyper-focus on. Meanwhile, there were a ton of people NOT playing EQ and instead playing a ton of other games, many of them quite similar. Many people refusing to play EQ with me because they thought the time investment was ridiculous and would keep them from playing other games or doing other things.

Those were the rational people. Those of us playing EQ weren't as rational, I would argue, as it's not like we all sat down, considered the options and whether it was worth playing that one game in lieu of just about everything else in life, and made a calculated decision that yes, due to the EQ winning a pros and cons vs the competition and being a 3D manifestation of the fantasy genre then it definitely deserved the very acute attention we gave it.

Nope, We did what young, dumb fucks are still doing: we saw something cool and started wasting a ton of time on it, ignoring other hobbies, ignoring our parents telling us to do something productive, ignoring girls in real life, calling life outside our bedroom doors 'real' life......... and then years later want to pretend like it was just the only thing around to do to justify our poor decision making. You know, the same thing all young people do when they get old and are smart enough to at least attempt to account for their lives. Reminds me of my grandpa who is literally just an alcoholic but says he only ever drank because there was nothing better to do. Yet most of his peers weren't drinking, nor are alcoholics. Oh, let me guess, alcohol just hit the scene at the right time and nobody through the entirety of history were finding things to drink, lick or smoke to fuck themselves up.

EQ, like alcohol, benefited from human nature, but certainly didn't create it nor can its success be attributed to being somewhat novel in its existence. EQ was just a new way in a plethora of other ways for people to submerge themselves in a fantasy world, the same way nerds had been doing for decades and all people have always done in one form or another.

Speaking of all people, let's also conveniently ignore that plenty of internal reports and comments from SOE show demographics that the young/dumb weren't the majority of people playing EQ, which I don't mind ignoring, since I'm only trying to counter the people who infer the only reason EQ was successful, and thus that no other similar game would be, is that it was the only option at the time and that we were all young and dumb with free time to burn.

People with free time will find something to spend it on. Young dumb punks lacking motivation to do better things will spend more time on it than older farts with responsibility they can't ignore. The same way it it has always been. That something just has to be worth their time. Pantheon will just suck so badly even people with a ton of free time and the lack of motivation to burn it will feel it's not worth playing.

Next, we should all swing our dicks around with the argument that a hard, challenging group-based game like EQ.... Shut up, EQ was fuckin easy and a ton of people soloed!

Utnayan_sl said:

Jesus Popsicle you are better than that -- use your head for a minute.

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There are no options and no competition for anything at all if you want to look at that singular thing and claim nothing else is like it enough to warrant calling it an option.

And I still don't not agree, completely.

EQ was the first of its exact kind, which certainly helped it's success. .... .... ... and that's why a game in today's market won't succeed!

Instead of shouting over and over about the premise, try connecting a few of the dots?

Is it that a group based, challenging blah blah etc can't be successful because, um, we, one tiny spec of players in a huge market these days aren't in college anymore but have grown up and have less time. How fucking dumb is that? Yet that's an argument we hear constantly. Oh, yeah, that EQ sucked and was only successful because there wasn't literally nothing else better to play and people HAD to play a first-person jaggy as 3-D fantasy game, they just had to, so we played EQ, and now there are a ton of options for that style game (still, not really) but nobody will play any of them for some reason?

Let's all just agree Pantheon won't be a success because it will suck, not because people who wasted their youth on EQ can't see it was a waste and there were plenty of other things they could have been doing, simply chose not to.

A true EQ reboot would never be financially viable without bastardizing the core elements of the game which in turn will make you not want to play it. Daybreak is not going to make a game with the potential ROI that small which in turn means you will never be able to play it.

popsicledeath_sl said:

I said don't try to say there weren't other options.

You said no, you didn't have a lot of options... then call me dumb.

So, we agree, there WERE other options....?

You conveniently ignore the other part of my quote that provides context. That having a ton of time and the lack of motivation necessary to waste it on stupid shit wasn't something EQ created, just something it benefited from. EQ didn't invent young, dumb people wasting their times on nerdy shit. It just took advantage of it and created something that was easy to hyper-focus on. Meanwhile, there were a ton of people NOT playing EQ and instead playing a ton of other games, many of them quite similar. Many people refusing to play EQ with me because they thought the time investment was ridiculous and would keep them from playing other games or doing other things.

Those were the rational people. Those of us playing EQ weren't as rational, I would argue, as it's not like we all sat down, considered the options and whether it was worth playing that one game in lieu of just about everything else in life, and made a calculated decision that yes, due to the EQ winning a pros and cons vs the competition and being a 3D manifestation of the fantasy genre then it definitely deserved the very acute attention we gave it.

Nope, We did what young, dumb fucks are still doing: we saw something cool and started wasting a ton of time on it, ignoring other hobbies, ignoring our parents telling us to do something productive, ignoring girls in real life, calling life outside our bedroom doors 'real' life......... and then years later want to pretend like it was just the only thing around to do to justify our poor decision making. You know, the same thing all young people do when they get old and are smart enough to at least attempt to account for their lives. Reminds me of my grandpa who is literally just an alcoholic but says he only ever drank because there was nothing better to do. Yet most of his peers weren't drinking, nor are alcoholics. Oh, let me guess, alcohol just hit the scene at the right time and nobody through the entirety of history were finding things to drink, lick or smoke to fuck themselves up.

EQ, like alcohol, benefited from human nature, but certainly didn't create it nor can its success be attributed to being somewhat novel in its existence. EQ was just a new way in a plethora of other ways for people to submerge themselves in a fantasy world, the same way nerds had been doing for decades and all people have always done in one form or another.

Speaking of all people, let's also conveniently ignore that plenty of internal reports and comments from SOE show demographics that the young/dumb weren't the majority of people playing EQ, which I don't mind ignoring, since I'm only trying to counter the people who infer the only reason EQ was successful, and thus that no other similar game would be, is that it was the only option at the time and that we were all young and dumb with free time to burn.

People with free time will find something to spend it on. Young dumb punks lacking motivation to do better things will spend more time on it than older farts with responsibility they can't ignore. The same way it it has always been. That something just has to be worth their time. Pantheon will just suck so badly even people with a ton of free time and the lack of motivation to burn it will feel it's not worth playing.

Next, we should all swing our dicks around with the argument that a hard, challenging group-based game like EQ.... Shut up, EQ was fuckin easy and a ton of people soloed!

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Fuckin' A!

Muligan_sl said:

I think as a player, we would very easily morph into a new type of player.

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I think part of the problem is that many players can't do this easily, at least not the ones of forums choosing to discuss games more than actually play them.

Many of us had our 'holy shit this is amazing' moment and have been chasing that high ever since. But I don't think all people who got their cherry popped with EQ are stuck on it. I think a very small segment of the gaming population can never get past their first love, whether EQ or not, which is why we're here discussing our first love and lamenting that she got old and fat. I think most gamers actually manage to have that 'holy shit' moment plenty of times. All the more reason the people still obsessed with their own first and only such moment are so damn salty all the time.

We get an old developer trying to recapture that first 'holy shit' moment for a very small minority of people that only ever had that moment in that very first game the developer also had it. Thus is born the train-wreck that is McQuaid and any discussion about EQ over the last 10 years.


And we're so damn salty and forlorn looking into the past we don't realize there are plenty of game studios out there creating games that give players that initial 'holy shit' moment we all experienced at some point. And there are plenty of players that experience that more than once, even in similar/same genres.

Meanwhile, crusty old EQ players are basically saying (over and over): a game can't succeed because I've already had that 'holy shit' first high that I'll never reach again. While other either agree and lament the old days, or have given up ever getting that high again and spend their time telling their former peers they're losers. Either way, most of the gaming population is out there having fun and getting high.

The questions should be: can Pantheon reach a new audience and have the chance to provide that initial 'holy shit' moment? Can Pantheon finally be THE game that replicates the first and only initial high many EQ players ever experienced? Is it possible to even create a game that caters to both the new and former? Can Pantheon ever succeed with the inevitable links to EQ, it's crusty old addicts desperately trying to replicate their first high, Brad included, both figuratively and literally in his case?

Without EQ, is there hope for Pantheon?

Pantheon is in the unique situation that without EQ it could have never been, but it's only hope of success may be if EQ had never existed.

Does anything bound by that enigma ever succeed?

Utnayan_sl said:

EverQuest succeeded mostly by accident and poor design.

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No offense to the resident geniuses, but I don't think any of us are really qualified to say with certainly 'mostly' why EQ succeeded. Success and failures of most things in life are more complicated than the few easily explainable things one sees parroted and argued about.

So, EQ development was just an accident? It's not like they woke up one day and gnomes in the night had written a bunch of code the developers didn't understand without Joe Smith magic spectacles. They had a design, coded a game, and yes, unintended gameplay elements arose, as they have in every game pretty much ever. Where it counts is how a developer reacts and one could argue a lack of over-development is a style of development, especially when argued it's what made EQ fun. Ut, how do you discredit a developer for creating something that ends up being fun for players, while at the same time often discrediting developers for over-controlling things and not allowing the players to create fun. Seems to me the point isn't to explain or comprehend EQ's perceived successes or failures, and instead just discredit any and all game development.

So, yes, we've all seen the arguments made by the intelligent and criminally retarded alike that EQ development was just an unintended accident. But again, it's parroted because it's an easy thing to argue, not necessarily because it begins to comprehensively explain

If EQ was mostly successful due to the unintended gameplay elements that allowed players to create their own fun and the development style that allowed those to exist, then what percentage of the pie is reserved for EQ only being successful because people apparently had few other ways to socialize online? We're going back to the argument that people were demanding something that they didn't know existed and realized EQ was the only thing that provided what they knew would exist in 10 years and expected immediately? EQ was online socializing at its best, and worst, but it wasn't the only horse in town. Fuck, I knew people who I'd have to beg to log into EQ to heal for our group because they had a hard time pulling themselves away from fucking chat rooms. Fucking ICQ. Ah, but nobody knew about those and only played EQ because social media sucks without jaggy ass orcs. Again, socializing in a 3D fantasy setting was cool as hell, but trying to cite that as one of the 'only' reasons EQ succeeded and as a way to discredit anything else about its success is short sighted.

Not to mention, people these days seem to be increasingly sick of social media. What about a game where if you wanted to socialize with your in-game friends, you logged into the fucking game, and without threat your every 'achievement' in the game was going to automatically be posted to every social media site you've ever had an account with. If anything, we should be arguing that socializing in EQ was a huge boon for it, but in retrospect the limits on that interaction are more sought after than ever before and could be welcomed in today's gaming landscape.

So, unintended gameplay elements that were supported in development and online socializing that players at least had some control over. Sounds like good things, and things that may not exclusively make a game succeed, but could definitely be accepted by today's gamers. Doesn't sound impossible to do, either!

We all agree Pantheon is going to rock like kidney stones. It's not going to fail because people came up with a couple simplified arguments to explain away everything that was the success of EQ because they want to argue things and there are easy arguments to be had. Pantheon will fail because Brad is a thief and addict and pissed away a multi-million dollar budget, stole a tens of thousands of budget on a new game, and is now seemingly being funded so has a new source of income to either piss or pill away.

Utnayan_sl said:

I also agree with you. EQ was not a hard game.

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And I didn't argue EQ was hard. Arguing something so simplified and black and white as 'it was hard' 'no it wasn't' is pointless. It's more complicated than that. EQ was at least open enough it could be hard and challenging if someone wanted it to be. Again, because they didn't over-design and over-control everything. Some current games don't even let you try to be challenged. EQ was designed such that there were at least fewer restrictions on where you could go, with whom, and the tactics you could succeed with (at least core design). Again, I don't think simple design or allowing player freedom is a design defect, but a style that also led to people being able to find more challenge in EQ than most other games where shit is scaled or hard-locked.

We should probably keep our focus on why Pantheon will certainly fail, though, not why EQ was a success whether you want to explain it away as nothing or not.

I was never making an argument EQ was or wasn't hard. I was pointing out that's yet another argument that goes on forever where each side have made their mind up that a completely black and white, extreme answer is probably correct when that's stupid. It's stupid arguing something so simplistic and black and white as 'yes, EQ was hard' or 'no, EQ wasn't hard.' The only reason to do it is people want to win an argument and/or think they're smart, and it's an easy argument to think you're winning because nobody can disprove it when you're in one of the extremes because the answer is 'sometimes' and 'it depends.'

Same with the inane arguments that EQ was only successful because of the follow 1-3 very simplified reasons. Bullshit. I consider you to be pretty smart when it comes to gaming, Ut, but even you're not smart enough to explain EQ so simply. It was a success for a million different reasons, and different reasons for different people at that. It had good luck, sure, but good luck is usually just a simplified way to describe the combination of effort and opportunity, which are of course more complicate, so, yeah, it's easy to say they just got lucky.

Nobody disagrees that a unique aspect of EQ was a playerbase that found their own ways of doing things. But that exists in every game ever made. The difference was it was allowed to continue to exist, to some degree, in EQ, while more modern design philosophy is to try to control and predict every aspect of a game design and then remove something when it's not exactly as written up in the design docs.

Again, people will shit on EQ design because it was broken and let players do shit outside the expected bounds. And then people will shit on modern design because when the game breaks and players do shit outside of the expect bounds the devs stop it. Basically, no matter what, certain people are so pissed at the industry (or themselves) they'll cite a basic fact then use it to shit on any and all game design. Yeah, we get it, nothing is perfect and it drives those certain people crazy because they played something that wasn't perfect for a long time, and had fun doing it.

Instead of just shouting 'but it was broken and unintended' over and over as a reason to shit on a game/industry, why not look at it and let the fucking light bulb go off that maybe the problem wasn't so much that unintended gameplay was found by creative players, but the genius in not instantly stiffing that all the fucking time like in current games. Shitting on EQ and trying to dismiss it's success because it was under-designed is like trying to say Hemingway or Carver were shitty writers because they were chronic minimalists who didn't over-write.

Do I think a design philosophy could shape a modern game to have the unintended elements of EQ and help it be a fun, interesting game? Yes, because that happens in every game until the devs freak the fuck out that their precious design isn't being followed exactly and stop it. So, maybe it was the case that EQ design was from a point of incompetence or innocence. Doesn't fucking matter, really, as everyone agrees it was something that contributed to the game in a positive way. So the only reason to shit on EQ because of that is because you want to shit on EQ, not because you want to actually comprehensively explain EQ's success or how it could be applied to modern game design that has gone in a different direction.

And I hate giving EQ any credit at all, but they could have removed or stopped all sorts of shit in EQ that wasn't intended. Credit to them that they didn't, completely or immediately like most games have since and have suffered for the fact.

It's why the biggest issue with Pantheon isn't game design, or even that Brad might fuck up and unintentionally produce a design or inattentiveness that lets players find their own strats and methods. The problem is it will never get to that point to even have the chance because Brad is a thief and addict.

Didn't Everquest rock?

Lammy_sl said:

Didn't Everquest rock?

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Unintentionally!

Vanguard rocked inconsequentially!

But Pantheon is going to rock intentionally!

popsicledeath_sl said:

Unintentionally!

Vanguard rocked inconsequentially!

But Pantheon is going to rock intentionally!

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..Vaginally. Pantheon is going to rock Vaginally.

Utnayan_sl said:

Sure it did. We all had a lot of fun with it for it's time. Looking back at what made it fun for a lot of people though wasn't what the developers did, it's what the developersdidn'torcouldn'tdo either out of a lack of experience and know how, or system glitches they couldn't fix. The players ended up creating 80% of the play styles and game modes on their own which were completely unintended from the design docs. That's what made it fun. It is also where the term "Working as intended" came from. Initially a joke and it just kind of stuck with the game.

Pulling the Dain through a wall and having him teleport to the bottom of the zone - "Sounds good. We do not know how to fix that shit". But the players figured it out.

Multi-Questing: "Hey bud. Do you have that no-drop piece? Here turn it in and I'll turn in the rest of the quest items, and I'll get the item" Dev: Can we fix that?" Answer; "Fuck no. it's amazing we can still get this thing to compile"

Feign Death Pulling: Never, ever intended to even be a game mechanic. Rather than break the ability to mem wipe, they just left it in and said, "Hey that's a cool feature. Wish we had thought of that"

Keying: Some idiots out there think keying for zones was some sort of design idea in which players would feel worth when needing to go through trials and a large quest chain to get into a new zone. Reality? It was an artificial show stopper meant to control (by breaking key parts on purpose) to allow their live team to finish 30% of an expansion they had already sold as complete and make sure players didn't get there before it was done. Anyone remember the large Vex Thal patch about 5 months into Shadows of Luclin? Mysteriously the key piece from Maiden's Eye, which was not dropping and "being looked at" started dropping the same time the VT patch hit and people were able to complete that quest after that patch. Wow. Goofy. :trainwreck:

Kiting: Never even existed as a possibility for a play style for the designers. Thought of by players. Another "Hey cool - look what they did" moment.

The only time they ever did give a shit was when they were trying to protect their ass on selling unfinished product expansions. Ex: Artificially buffing the 4th warder in Sleeper's Tomb because if players killed it, it would trigger a half finished script they never got to work on as they were finishing 30% (Plane of Mischief, the loot table, card questing line, and 99% of TOV) of the expansion after it launched. We all saw what happened when Conquest bugged it on purpose triggering the proof that the entire end of that area still wasn't complete when the default naked human kerafyrm popped out of no where, SOE got egg on their face, and banned the guild.

This is all a broken record from cloth caps to leading people on with the Fiery Avenger quest when it never existed, to more unethical shit done every day. But the crux of it is, these guys had no fucking clue what they were doing, and the players ran the world. Which would have been awesome if it was by design (And very ingenious) But it wasn't.

Game was fun for it's time. But it's time for Popsicle here to be real with himself that the majority of the game systems that made EQ what it was, was by pure accident and/or inept show runners. Or, hilarious side effects of a 3D game world running on a 2D tank simulator engine.

In other words, it won't happen again.

Pantheon Off.

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This guy gets it, you are the one who ROCKS!

Mr. Ut,

When did I ever once say the unintended shit that came out of EQ was intended, intentional game design? I literally don't know anyone, even forum Brad worshipers, who believe that. So what's the fucking point in arguing against it or claiming that's what someone said when it's very clearly not if you would take the time to actually read what they wrote instead of getting excited to copy/paste the same 'fuck-EQ' arguments you've been making for the last.... decade?

Hell, I don't care if you want to rant and actually enjoy it despite having heard it a million times. But don't say I said shit I didn't say. Especially when it's exactly fucking opposite of what I'm saying.

I'll say it again (and for the love of god don't copy/pasta more FD pulling was never intended!!!!1 rants):

EQ was pretty loose design. They thought of cool features, had a very general idea how they would work, and put them into the game to see what happened. What happened was, I believe, often what they could expect because most of the design was mundane shit one should expect. Sometimes the design resulted in unintended consequences. Sometimes they were too imbalanced and completely broke the game and shit had to be nerfed. But sometimes the elements became fun, dynamic, game-defining stuff that was left in.

Now, whether this was all the result of amazing genius or incompetent accident, or more probably somewhere in between, it doesn't change the fact it was a POSITIVE aspect of EQ that modern game designers should take note of. Over-designing your mmorpg and then over-reacting when unintended things occur, banning people and calling it exploiting because you're embarrassed you didn't actually intend it, doesn't make a game better or more fun most of the time. In fact, the opposite.

Also, what is the point? It's easy to just rant for a fucking decade about how FD pulling and Kiting wasn't intended (when nobody disagrees), but at some point come to a conclusion. And that's why you think what about Pantheon and/or Brad?