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Keeping Beginner Zones Alive
Gyva02
Member RarePosts: 499
I touched on this in another thread but think it deserves its own.
I always hate jumping into a new game and seeing the starter zones dead. It immediately makes one think "ohh man should I invest all this time into a dying game?" I hope Pantheon brings back the starter zone roaming random spawn mobs that are worthy of end game players to be killing. Give them a rare chance to drop something cool. This way when new folks log in they are seeing some action when these spawn. And also fearing for their life as these things will one shot you if they sneak up on you. Being scared back in the day is also what made it so much fun.
Also hope you follow EQ's lead and have end game craftable's needing mats from low level mobs. (WTB Stack of bone chips) That way newcomers could have the chance to farm and get a little coin if they wanted too maybe even making a friend from a repeat buyer. Having the trades happen being face to face would help this socialization.
So do you love to see an active and busy starter zone? Wouldn't it be cool to save the newbies from what ever epic mob was stomping around in the forest killing them all? ha ha 
What do you guys think?
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Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
I hate comparing things to Wow but this is a good example, I was running around in darkwood ( think that was the name ) around a high 20's low 30's area, went into a clearing in the wood and low and behold there was a world dragon sitting in the middle, ( first time I had seen a world dragon at this stage ) looked awesome.
Anyway on the other side of the clearing was a bunch of max level people getting ready for a 40 man raid on the dragon, I sat myself up on a little hill set back from the fight and had a blast getting to watch a 40 man raid as a lowbie, first time I had seen a raid in WoW.
The first and best way to keep beginner zones alive is having camps of higher level mobs in lower level zones. Then in addition there could be rare spawns which always bring people back to an area.
Beyond that, zone wide events could stir things up. Pantheon is going to be a heavily factioned game, much like EQ. There was often places where different factions would fight each other. With Unity I've heard its fairly ez to create events. Perhaps a faction of bandits could attack a city caravan or the giants could raid an enemy outpost. They could even be a campaign that span multiple zones depending on the outcome, and players pledged to certain factions could attack or defend their allies.
Some of my best memories in EQ were of GM events that happened every so often. If there was a way of creating such events in a scripted fashion I think it would really add a lot of flavor to Pantheon. Instead of wasting time and money crafting thousands of simple quests that most people don't even read, they could have a developer that does nothing but create scenarios that play into the lore of the world and tell a story in a more engaging fashion.
That's awesome Zandil. Probably thinking, "one day I'm gonna kill me a dragon too"
p99 low leveling is still very active even though their Kunark era has been out for many years too long. I've never seen Orc Hill without players and that's lv 5-8. Five reasons:
1. The game doesn't suck
2. Even low levels are slow
3. Twink gear
4. Classes are unique enough to make you want to reroll
5. End game is an insane timesink, again makes you want to reroll lol
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
I'm just going to go out on a limb and bet the 15 year old graphics and animations played a part. At least as a caster, throwing spells around, albeit slower than modern games, is really not all that different. I guess its a rude awakening though when mobs are actually on equal footing with the player.
What does the average MMO player have to do with it? Pantheon is going after the group oriented, non hand holding crowd. That already disqualifies 90% of today's MMO gamers so not really seeing your point here.
Love the idea of keeping lower level tradeskill materials relevant throughout the game. I know in Everquest, I spent a lot of time farming silk and such from lower level spiders. The silk was in demand and I was rewarded for it by earning some decent coin through trading with others.
The way EQ worked was fine. Keep it that way and be done with it.
Implementing "whatever" else would take away from more valuable and important features. As people suggested: It is enough if the classes are different and fun enough that rerolling is fun. Allow highlevel buffs / powerleveling and we are golden.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
What do I think? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,,,, It sounds like your trying to create an argument where one doesn't exist.
Back in the day when world PVP happened... starter zones were always the most active areas. Didn't have to be a PVP server either, people just did it.
You see, back in the day, players had to come up with ways to amuse themselves. There were no achievements, no dailies, pokemon games, dungeon finders, or an endless array of instanced battlegrounds to go do. People went out in the world because they wanted to, not because some laundry list of things to do told them to do it. World map completion? Players did that long before it became a thing. Achievements? Players came up with their own amusing statistic chasing long before it was vogue.
Players can be the most creative people in the world... if you let them be. Back in the day, developers created a game world for you to explore and conquer. They didn't lead you by the nose like they do now. You came up with your own fun, like summoning a fellow guildie out into the middle of the ocean to die or into the middle of an enemy faction's city. Like gathering enforce around a lowbie area and killing all the NPCs until the other faction arrived to try and run you off of their land.
There were rare spawns that required a group to kill, not soloable. Class quests that required a group to complete. Attunements that also required a group to complete. The whole game was about bringing people together, not segregating them apart. You can't have an open world and tell people what to do in it. If they can't find something to do all on their very own, the world is closed, not open. There are no open worlds anymore. They've been so roadmapped out for you to such an extent that it is nearly impossible for you, the player, to come up with your own idea as to what to do in them.
That's what's killing the world in MMOs these days. A lack of player creativity because all the creativity has been spelled out for them. When it becomes a list produced by someone else, it's merely a task, not an adventure of your own. MMOs lack adventure because the developers have smothered the players with to-do lists.
Just don't make them "beginner" zones, make them new starter zones.
Make 3 or 4 cities more friendly to new players with more things for them to do. But have high level stuff there as well.
This way new players will just be in "a city" as opposed to "a special place tuned only for them".
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
FFXI did this well. (Pre Abyssea Lv 75 Cap)
-Mix of level ranges in alot of zones.
-Rare Notorious monsters that dropped amazing gear that was used at high levels as well, lv7 Leaping boots anyone?
-Crafting items & Harvestables all scattered about in the different zones, starting or not and on monster types with wide level and zone ranges.
-Job Changing, being able to play every class on the same character as long as you unlocked the class. People with alt-itis would be going back to the old zones so many times or even pick a different zone in the same level range this time around .
(Also really love Job change over alts because it forces the player to play their one character and make a name for them self not make tons of alts to either hide on if they are a server ass hole or just not knowing your friend is actually online because they are playing a alt you dont know about, and i always liked having all my stuff in one place, no muleing of items or having to redo some of the harder story missions to advance the game, some of those are once is enough at least in ffxi lol.)
The thing is, if I were a developer, I would ask the people who run P99 for internal numbers for active players and donations, and I would use them in a business plan to justify the viability of my game, based on the idea that if I could be effective in appealing to those players then I could count on having some target minimum number of subscribers and minimum income. So in that sense it could be a critical component in making the business case for Panetheon.
Thats what EQN is doing. Starting areas will still have content for top tier chars. There are so many ways to make stater zones worth playing again and more MMOs need to do that. I would love to see games move to horizontal progression. Large level gaps IMO are not needed now days.
I'm not sure what you mean by large level gaps.
I don't think we need to worry about the above considering the Vanguard connection.
Lets take WoW as most know it well. Think of a level 100 coming to a newbe area. He hit a wolf 97 levels lower then his char and smokes it for 230k damage and it dies in a blink of an eye. Now lets lower that level gap between starting areas and a top level char. Make it 4 levels. Now a top level char thats level 4 goes to the starter area and attacks a wolf. Its not hard but it takes a few more hits to kill a wolf. The danger level of running though a pack of wolves is still dangerous enough the risk/fun factor is still there. Then add in some level 4 mobs on the map that level 1 chars need to watch out for, maybe a few bosses and you have a fun magic zone. Now you have top level chars and low level chars mixing it up.
IMO we need to stop playing games to level, we need to start playing them for fun. Why create 90% of your content for leveling when a few months down the road 90% of your players are crammed into 10% of your top level zones? IMO if devs can start moving towards horizontal progression that would be even better.
I agree that the level of power should progress at a much more gradual rate, but you can't expect newbie mobs to be any real challenge to a max level character. Doing so means your game lacks any meaningful system of advancement.
The problem with WoW's progression was (and is) powercreep. The strength of items skyrockets every expansion. Instead of increasing just a few stats or providing a few new abilities, the very first quest armor replaces the previous expansions raid level items and by the time you reach raids in the new expansion, the rewards are several times more powerful.
Thats broken on two fronts. First, the level of power increase should be far more gradual, or power creep becomes a huge issue (like it is in WoW). Secondly, its imperative for content to scale successively from one dungeon or raid to the next. Otherwise, all old content becomes irrelevant and you're forced basically give away high level characters to allow players to immediately partake in the relevant content. Trivial solo content provides rewards substantial enough for players to circumvent all previous raid level content. Both of these blunders are examples of gimmicky themepark game design that have no place in a virtual world. Its a matter of convenience vs realism and genuine gratification.
You miss the point of my post. Games need to be less about advancement and leveling and more about playing the game. We keep advancing ourselves out of every game we play. 90% of the content is built just for that when later 10% of the content is being played by 90% of the people. We need to turn that system on its head. Why not make all content relevant for a top level char? Or have we been trained for so long to chase a carrot we can no longer chase what is fun game play?
I agree, but playing the game doesn't in and of itself provide a great enough sense of accomplishment without advancement. I do agree though, it should be far more gradual if games intend to have any longevity whatsoever. I look back to early EverQuest and believe they did it right. Even in the third expansion, vanilla dungeons were still occupied and the items from them still had value. For players to raid, they had to work their way up through all the content basically starting at the beginning. I think this is the closest you will find to slow, yet meaningful progression. I don't believe you'll find a way to make that level 5 wolf hard at max level without rendering content in between void of meaning.
I know only one MMO that, thats their goal.
Just play a sandbox mmo, then there's need for players in newb zones at all times, unlike a level based linear themepark game.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"