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

Frenzic_sl said:

Question about Kickstarter in general. The money I pledge, does it check to see if I am capable of paying that amount prior to the ending date? If not, what stops everyone from pledging insane amounts and then lowering at the last min? Sounds like a good plan if you want to get people to jump on board. The closer it gets the more people will jump on the gravy train.

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It does not check, and there is nothing to stop someone from doing that other than personal honor and integrity.

cinge_sl said:

I disagree, that wasn't engaging, just another tediousness. Yes quest interaction could be made more immersive, but not going through the 5 Ws with bracketed words.

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You're not wrong there. There were times it just didn't work well. I think that was just an issue of either poor delivery phrasing, not making it clear what should be asked, on top of a spotty parser. When it did work though, I really enjoyed what it brought to the experience. Especially when you were walking by someone else and you see them talking to the NPC. "The wolves ate your wife?! Congratulations!".

The tech just isnt there to make it worth a switch from a menu based quest system to a text based one. Going from ! back to NPCs that send you mail or yell out to you as you pass maybe, but back to who wolves, what wolves, why wolves is just not worth it. Trying to interact with a retarded npc through type is not immersive at all, baring them contracting with apple or ibm for siri/watson as the backend of it lol.

EQ1 factions were all about every action having a consequence even one that might not impact you until many levels later. You just do not see games which allow the players to make a decision who's consequence isn't directly applicable to the immediate situation. When you killed an NPC had read the list of who thinks better or worse of you sometimes you just scratched your head when the names were completely unknown to you. Short term actions having long term effects is brilliant.

I do think however that some (not all) faction standings should be fixable by some means though repairing ones horrible standings with a given faction should be a time consuming and difficult process. After all, you're trying to convince a group that all the slaughter and mayhem you've committed against them for years should be forgiven. That is one tall order.

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Long term consequences/impact is fine. As long as the player has some kind of tiny idea of the impact in all but the rarest cases. Decisions don't mean much when you as the player have no idea wtf you are deciding without hitting up a website, asking someone to pick right or left with no context given to the decision and then later on telling them it had a massive impact on them is stupid. Also EQ1s decisions were almost overwhelmingly negative. Very rarely did you run across some faction hit you didnt recognize and then find out wow now these guys like me this is pretty cool, it was almost always kill someone and then realize you are kos somewhere far away.

Fedor_sl said:

Your Kickstarter Sucks - Tumblr

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Painful link. It's like watching dreams be crushed in list format.

Creslin_sl said:

The tech just isnt there to make it worth a switch from a menu based quest system to a text based one. Going from ! back to NPCs that send you mail or yell out to you as you pass maybe, but back to who wolves, what wolves, why wolves is just not worth it. Trying to interact with a retarded npc through type is not immersive at all, baring them contracting with apple or ibm for siri/watson as the backend of it lol.



Long term consequences/impact is fine. As long as the player has some kind of tiny idea of the impact in all but the rarest cases. Decisions don't mean much when you as the player have no idea wtf you are deciding without hitting up a website, asking someone to pick right or left with no context given to the decision and then later on telling them it had a massive impact on them is stupid. Also EQ1s decisions were almost overwhelmingly negative. Very rarely did you run across some faction hit you didnt recognize and then find out wow now these guys like me this is pretty cool, it was almost always kill someone and then realize you are kos somewhere far away.

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Not for nothing but they can point the faction hit out all they want and some players will still miss it. It's not hard to tie faction hits into the local town NPCS but there will still be players who skim what they are saying and go make all the wrong faction choices... Sometimes it's just on the player..

On the combat speed and downtime , I'll admit I'd prefer a happy medium on both.

While not EQ level downtime medding and hp recovery , there should be some , if a group is fighting hard mobs it should require at least a bit of a pause to get up and ready for the next. Bard/other class abilities to help speed this up is great but never should be where the hp and mana bars just fill right up instantly before you can even get to the next mob.

Actual combat speed , I lean towards wanting it slower in mmo's but will be ok as long as it's not constantly requiring rolling/dodging and have to basically watch the hotbars and hp bars etc every second of the fight or you go down. I just actually like being able to watch the party's spell effects to the mobs attacks and so on during the fight. I can play FPS/fighting games fine , and enjoy them at times , but don't want that fast of combat style in this mmo.

Paid $45. And now we wait (3 years)

Lithose had some really good ideas/thoughts on mount implementation. Devs should definitely look hard at his posts regarding that topic.

btw, does anyone know why I don't get sound on the kickstarter page? Is there a specific player needed?

Tuco_sl said:

When you roll into your 5th quest hub and load up 15 quests there's no way to keep those quests interesting.

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That's true. I was thinking more of EQ timeline though, before quests hubs was even a thing. I don't love quest hubs though. Or rather I don't like the formula of gather up the 15 quests and heading out to do them as fast as possible.

Then again maybe it's just that I don't like "tasks". I like quests! Adventures! Or maybe I just don't like tasks being labeled as quests.

Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen by Visionary Realms, Inc. Kickstarter

update

Gavinrad_sl said:

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We are all quite aware that you have no integrity or honesty.
/aside

I think rerolled should consider collectively donating 10k to design a raid. I'd be willing to donate 100 to Draegen via papal to start it off if there is community interest. Draegen can collect the money via rr PayPal and he or Tuco can take the trip. but we all design the raid here (roughly). Only issue obviously is if it doesn't get funded.

Jooma_sl said:

You're not wrong there. There were times it just didn't work well. I think that was just an issue of either poor delivery phrasing, not making it clear what should be asked, on top of a spotty parser. When it did work though, I really enjoyed what it brought to the experience. Especially when you were walking by someone else and you see them talking to the NPC. "The wolves ate your wife?! Congratulations!".

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Can we talk about something else?
I don't think I brought it up. but its something that always stuck in my craw. and the recent complaint on "fucking zombies..." brought it back up with me.

why is it always the same shit over and over?
Basically in order. spiders, wolves, bears, rats.
Oh, fire spiders, crystal spiders, dire spiders, spitting spiders, etc....

Can we get a little more creativity?

zzeris_sl said:

Ugh, I'm just hoping Brad isn't wearing some of the rose colored glasses that are prevalent here.Some slight downtimeis definitely wanted in groups but 'watching the wizard's ice comets, shitting it up at a campfire, etc?" Fuck no. Mumble and other voice chat allows you to actually 'communicate' with each other without sitting around half the damn time. If YOU want to do that with some friends then by all means do it! Don't make everyone sit around all the time just because you need friends. I also like combat to actually be a bit intense and hectic. It's combat right? Slow ass combat just sounds wrong. That's just one of many reasons feign pulling is shitty.

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I don't think anyone asked for EQ's down time. I think what people are pointing towards is the need for downtime in order to bring about a larger strategic meta-game play. For example, do you remember all the problems Blizzard had with balancing mana regen? No matter what they did, the mechanic was shit. I think a large portion of that is due to the fact that "Mana's" key strength was the "tactical" portion of the game (IE in combat) and it's weakness was the strategic portion of the game (IE down time.) When downtime got eliminated, you had a world where mana was either unlimited within encounters and therefor ridiculously overpowered, or limited in encounters and therefor complete dog shit compared to discreet energy systems. Or unlimited and so the casters spells were made into dog shit that couldn't be spammed enough to balance it. (And it often shifted between those levels of crap).

In a gamewithdowntime though, it adds another level to play. Combat isn't all just about difficulty paradigms, it also becomes aboutefficiencyas well. For example: Having a Wizard which can one shot mobs gives you anenormoustactical advantage on on a fight, but if he needs to med for 2 minutes afterwords, it slows down your total progression in terms of getting shots on named mobs. Conversely, a rogue might force you take 30 seconds to kill the actual mob, but he's ready to move on the moment combat is done. (I know you can probably see tons of problems with balance here--I'm obviously not being specific, just illustrating really broad points.) That variable in strategic or "long term" thinking--create entire variables for how groups operate. Extra Credits has a great episode on this in terms of stealth games. Stealth games that force you to sit there and yank on your dick in a forced down time, are often poorly designed. But stealth games that build the downtime into your strategic choices? Makes a more compelling, albeit slower game.

And I think that's what people want. Downtime that is a natural and organic obstacle to game play--and thereby something the group works together, or recruits members, in order to defeat. By having that draw back, you allow for players to hold a lot more "cards" in alleviating it--there by adding another layer of play to your game. I mean, how much do you knee cap support by making the strategic part of the game nothing? Downtime should be a planned weakness that you give certain players the ability to reduce, in order to give them compelling tools *outside* of combat.

Which brings us back to WoW--a lot of the problems with mana system, again, was because mana was designed to emulate the table top version of memorizing spells. And the power that spells offered was offset by enormous down time and rigid practical application. This created a great dynamic where different character types needed to be used for different areas of the game. (You going to waste your big spell on those goblins? Nope, most likely you didn't even memorize a combat spell, because the fighters can dispatch the bullshit and you need to go open the portal back to dildo kingdom.) By removing one of those areas of play, IE the strategic or "bigger picture", you kind of lost something in translation.

Now, again, that isn't saying everyone wants big downtime back. But what I want is for someone to look at that strategic/longer term portion of the game, and see how they can iterate on it to make it more compelling. Make it feel like downtime is an organic reward/penalty system. I want these negatives mainly because I want tons of permutations on how they can be overcome. I don't want them there "just to have them". As someone else said, if downtime was just some immutable, unchanging control that wasn't really integrated into the game? Then it's bad. If it is, however, a natural process that can be overcome, or arises from mistakes, or (best yet) a trade off people make for short term advantages? Then that, I feel, is a good design (Within certain limits.)

I mean, yes, combat should be hectic but most "combat" is laced with downtime in the real world for a reason (It's exhausting, mentally too.)...That "downtime" is often filled with periods of tactical formulation (IE planning) and recovery--and I think there should be elements in the game that simulate that in a fun, compelling way (Make planning and recovery aspects of the larger game, reward efficiency and make it compelling for players to plan how to reduce downtime.) Anyway, just my .02$. I don't want downtime mainly for social reasons. I want some downtime so it can be exploited as it's own meta game and yeah, the benefit is that it makes people talk. And that's good, but up to a certain point, of course. I don't think anyone wants to be forced to stare at a wall for 10 minutes and hope that it will be good "social" time.