Taking Shape - An Interview with Brad McQuaid & Chris Perkins | Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen | MMORP

Aradune

Sinist said:

Scumm said:

@Niien & Wizardry: I actually really agree with what Wizardry is talking about. The mechanic of requiring people to walk somewhere before they can fast-travel there again doesn't make sense to me. Why does the world care if you walked there before? It kills the suspension of disbelief and detracts from the immersion of a living world. I understand the convenience, but if you want to have fast travel, just have it. Don't trivialize the world by requiring players to 'activate' griffon towers so they can quickly re-travel through a zone.

Exactly, having "visit once" fast travel is a mainstream feature, it is fast travel regardless. In EQ Planes of Power, visiting a place before hand wouldn't have mattered, it was the consistent easy mode travel that killed class interdependence, made the world feel small, and made many coveted spells and abilities of some classes more "convenience" features rather than class defining utilities.

It makes no sense to promote an "intensely social" play style and then turn around and work against it with these features. Everything in the game should point to the need of other people to provide convenience. The game itself should not.

You want to fast travel to various zones "fairly" easy, fine.. play a class that can port, make a buddy who can, or have someone on retainer.

You want to be able to run faster so you can travel through the zones easier, fine... play a class that gets those lines of spells, make a buddy who can, or look for people to buff you while traveling.

Even with these, there should be limitations. For instance, ports in EQ didn't go to every zone, they went to certain ones and you had to travel by foot the rest of the way which meant you needed a class to be able to speed up that as well.

All of this layers game features on top of others, class interdependence, and creates a sense of play where there is always something that one class desires of another in terms of utility, ability, etc..

This is what made EQ "Evercrack".

There will be nothing like the PoK teleporters. Transportation will be much like it was in EQ during the Kunark/Velious era.

Aradune

The 'fallen hero' is really about lore and setting. You absolutely start as a 'nobody', level 1, just like most MMOs. But as you level up, acquire powerful items and abilities, you are becoming the powerful individual you were in a former life. This is true for every player, and simply describes why players are (eventually) so much more powerful than, say, NPC townfolk. There's a lot of cool lore that explains why all of these new people (player characters, entering the world when the game is launched) are, over time, becoming heroic and powerful. It's really no different than most MMOs, except we're explaining the appearance of players in the gameworld, many of whom will become formidable characters. I think it's pretty cool, but would caution against reading more into it than what I've said here. You can remain nobody, or you can make friends, or join a guild, etc., just like any other MMO. We're simply, from a lore and story standpoint, explaining why, in the current age, all of these player characters are appearing.

If you're someone who enjoys immersing yourself into an MMO's lore and story and setting, I think you'll see what we're up to here. If you don't care so much about lore and setting, the Fallen Hero explanation of where you and the other players are coming from is simply something you can ignore.

Thebeasttt

Aradune said:

There will be nothing like the PoK teleporters. Transportation will be much like it was in EQ during the Kunark/Velious era.

That's a relief. The more decisions like these the better.

Tamanous

With more emphasis on horizontal progression will there still be the "best" gear in game still bound to one progression mechanic? 

EQ appears to be the largest template for this game (evolution of oldschool into the modern era ... which I agree was abandoned by developers) but my mmo experience started in Asheron's Call and the best gear in game was not bound to a singular progression mechanic (eg. raiding). I could go to many areas of the world and tackle the toughest creatures in game all sharing the highest drop tables (minus specific items bound to region and named creatures). It allowed me to play the game how I wanted with people who shared my play style.

Explorers could explore. Dungeon runners could dungeon run. Pvpr's could pvp without grinding separate gear paths (very few bound items). Is this part of the horizontal vision or are independent paths meant to separate players from one another still planned?

Aradune

Tamanous said:

With more emphasis on horizontal progression will there still be the "best" gear in game still bound to one progression mechanic? 

EQ appears to be the largest template for this game (evolution of oldschool into the modern era ... which I agree was abandoned by developers) but my mmo experience started in Asheron's Call and the best gear in game was not bound to a singular progression mechanic (eg. raiding). I could go to many areas of the world and tackle the toughest creatures in game all shared the highest drop tables (minus specific items bound to region and named creatures). It allowed me to play the game how I wanted with people who shared my play style.

Explorers could explore. Dungeon runners could dungeon run. Pvpr's could pvp without grinding separate gear paths (very few found items). Is this part of the horizontal vision or are independent paths meant to separate players from one another still planned?

Gear obtained from raiding will indeed be some of the best, but I wouldn't say that's the only source of great gear.  It's all about risk vs. reward.  The more risky and difficult challenges will reward players with the better gear, but risky and challenging doesn't only mean raiding.

Tamanous

Look forward to the lore! I should stress I never cared about best gear in game. I simply want to be powerful enough to participate in the majority of content (in fact, what interests me more, is unique gear options both by regional exploration and crafting). What I miss most are RPG concepts that existed in EQ. I run a D&D 5e campaign in Eberron and things like a Drow or Karnnathi undead citizen should not be allowed to freely walking into any city across the globe. Lore matters and drives content ... or should.

I miss this the most in mmos.