Aradune keeps labeling this game as a cooperative MMORPG. I'm not sure why you guys think it should revolve around social and political PvP and contested content. In my mind, it should be a very minor part of the game if not at all. Like raiding, only a small subset of gamers are into the contested content thing. If you think otherwise, I challenge you to look at how MMORPG's have changed to be more inclusive and accessible to all play styles and less about exclusivity and player self-policing. That change didn't happen in a vacuum, it happened due to player demand, including many of the so called hardcore gamers who were directly responsible for the changes that came with games like WoW and EQ2 and the greater accessibility paradigm that continues today.
As far as I can tell, Aradune is more interested in creating a game with more challenge and player interdependency and less about the more controversial and divisive mechanics that were more detrimental to EQ in the long run.
That isn't sound logic. The squeaky wheel may have gotten the oil, but if ultra-accessibility was really what everyone wanted, every big budget game created in the last decade wouldn't be struggling and going F2P.
People don't know what they want. They say they want challenge but then cry when its challenging. They say they want competition but then cry when they lose. They say they want everyone to be able to get a free turn on content, but when they do, it lacks the sense of accomplishment to keep them playing.
The MMO was designed around cooperative gameplay and long term goals. Progression was slower, and people played the games longer. Is that for everyone? No, but outside of WoW (which started this way), those are the games that have stood the test of time. When you give players more carrots and less sticks, they go look for "the chase" in another game.
We will have to agree to disagree, its a minor point on the discussion anyway, and as long as Pantheon is sub based, its a totally non-issue. Hell Id even be ok (not great mind you) with a purely vanity cash shop. I just dont think its right to pay for special access to content that you already have access to with your sub. Something about it turns my stomach and activates my shady radar. Moving on!
Ive said it before and Ill say it again. Endgame needs a mixed and varied approach. Providing loot is a challenge to get, has rare drop rates, I see no problems. We need different endgame type activities. Im all for competitve raids, but there can and should be other things. Like 25% of gear progression from each of crafting, epic quests, dungeons, and raiding. And have where you get gear for different slots vary from class to class to mix it up and make people work together even if they dont get loot from a particular activity. Also the methods of going about activities should vary. I think having 10 different Raids that are all about standing around and camping for a few hours is an unimaginative experience. Im a big fan of triggered endgame events, as well as dev sponsored. Hell, why not have quest gated endgame content where your entire guild has to complete a 10 day epic quest everytime you want to do a certain Raid. Lastly, maybe some kind of Raid that requires a gambit of other raid and dungeon bosses to trigger a raid. Oh and I dont think Im nearly worried about how rare an item is as some. Yes it needs to be a low drop rate, and yes the challenge to get to and overcome the endgame content should be great. And thats really good enough for me. Gear will still be rare and special enough that people strive for it. I wouldnt be overly worried about loot flooding into the world in a non-instanced game.
Almost forgot, having a good and involved AA system could help on the non-gear based progression along with the progeny system (though Im a bit skeptical about that but it could be fun). Oh and I guess there will also be various endgame content for getting the Prime skills (per Living Codex) which I suppose is an AA in itself.
I'm not sure why you guys think it should revolve around social and political PvP and contested content. In my mind, it should be a very minor part of the game if not at all. Like raiding, only a small subset of gamers are into the contested content thing.
As far as I can tell, Aradune is more interested in creating a game with more challenge and player interdependency and less about the more controversial and divisive mechanics that were more detrimental to EQ in the long run.
I'm not sure why some think this either. Contested raid content was never deemed fun or enjoyable by anyone I remember, almost all EQ players are PVE focused players. Players griefing others over raid spawns was one lowest points in EQ history.
That is not what classic Everquest was about, and it was much more popular before instanced raids became the norm than it was when everyone got their free chance at items.
False, instancing didn't have a negative effect on EQ.
I'm not sure why you guys think it should revolve around social and political PvP and contested content. In my mind, it should be a very minor part of the game if not at all. Like raiding, only a small subset of gamers are into the contested content thing.
As far as I can tell, Aradune is more interested in creating a game with more challenge and player interdependency and less about the more controversial and divisive mechanics that were more detrimental to EQ in the long run.
I'm not sure why some think this either. Contested raid content was never deemed fun or enjoyable by anyone I remember, almost all EQ players are PVE focused players. Players griefing others over raid spawns was one lowest points in EQ history.
Lol, in what world do you live? The most popular EQ emulators run classic-velious with hundreds of thousands of registered accounts. Pantheon's forums are predominantly filled with people who want a derivative of classic EQ. When Daybreak wants to make money, they offer progression servers which are always most popular during the early expansions.
You don't remember anyone who deemed contested raids fun or enjoyable? Well I don't know anyone who enjoyed EQ after contested raids as much as classic.
First, I played EQ hardcore for the first 3 years, and never once heard anyone suggest instances in game, guild chat, forums, irc or the EQ chat rooms. The competitivenature of EQ was just accepted.
The drama was part of thegame.
lmao, what?
It took me 2 seconds to find people complaining about contested raid content and others suggesting those events should be moved to instances.
That is not what classic Everquest was about, and it was much more popular before instanced raids became the norm than it was when everyone got their free chance at items.
False, instancing didn't have a negative effect on EQ.
Instancing was implemented in 2003, in LDON.
EQ's population peaked several years later.
Instancing was not yet the norm, and it peaked literally a few months later. Nice try though.
That is not what classic Everquest was about, and it was much more popular before instanced raids became the norm than it was when everyone got their free chance at items.
False, instancing didn't have a negative effect on EQ.
Instancing was implemented in 2003, in LDON.
EQ's population peaked several years later.
Not sure what you guys are discussing but I wouldn't put much stock in that site with that data. It's been false on of many occasions.
On another note, you must have not played, or been around EQ during the time LDoN released. It was deemed the worst expansion in EQ's history and still to this day by a huge amount of players and I wouldn't put it past the reason of it being because of instancing. It's a proven fact that Instancing has HURT MMO communities more than its helped it. After instances were implemented, communities in MMO's took a massive shit down the drain. For me personally LDoN was absolutely atrocious. Not because the content was bad while in the instance but it separated you from the game world and disconnected you from what you had been playing for so many years prior to LDoN.
First, I played EQ hardcore for the first 3 years, and never once heard anyone suggest instances in game, guild chat, forums, irc or the EQ chat rooms. The competitivenature of EQ was just accepted.
The drama was part of thegame.
lmao, what?
It took me 2 seconds to find people complaining about contested raid content and others suggesting those events should be moved to instances.
From the DruidsGrove from 2004:
Stop moving the goal posts. The discussion was revolving around the early years of EQ. 5 years later and 6 expansions in doesn't really qualify as relevant.
First, I played EQ hardcore for the first 3 years, and never once heard anyone suggest instances in game, guild chat, forums, irc or the EQ chat rooms. The competitivenature of EQ was just accepted.
The drama was part of thegame.
lmao, what?
It took me 2 seconds to find people complaining about contested raid content and others suggesting those events should be moved to instances.
From the DruidsGrove from 2004:
Stop moving the goal posts. The discussion was revolving around the early years of EQ. 5 years later and 6 expansions in doesn't really qualify as relevant.
Of course it's relevant, you're talking about instances. Instances were implemented in 2003.
Why would anyone be talking about instances in 1999, no one even knew what they were.
Stop pretending people enjoyed contested raids, people hated permacamping guilds. They hated them in 2004, and they hate them on classic servers in 2016.
Why would you want to bring that drama into a new MMO? Jesus, people literally made "I quit" threads over it.
First, I played EQ hardcore for the first 3 years, and never once heard anyone suggest instances in game, guild chat, forums, irc or the EQ chat rooms. The competitivenature of EQ was just accepted.
The drama was part of thegame.
lmao, what?
It took me 2 seconds to find people complaining about contested raid content and others suggesting those events should be moved to instances.
From the DruidsGrove from 2004:
Stop moving the goal posts. The discussion was revolving around the early years of EQ. 5 years later and 6 expansions in doesn't really qualify as relevant.
Of course it's relevant, you're talking about instances. Instances were implemented in 2003.
Why would anyone be talking about instances in 1999, no one even knew what they were.
Stop pretending people enjoyed contested raids, no one did.
And yet Pantheon is being made without instances and with contested content. Obviously someone did they are the target audience.
Lets stop pretending that in 2004 when EQ peaked that it wasn't 95% open world content, and that it tanked from that point on while the design was shifted towards convenience and with a heavier raid focus. Fast travel, instancing and less community focus were what killed EQ, not World of Warcraft. While they would have undoubtedly suffered a loss of players, staying true to the original design and differentiating themselves from the mainstream I believe would have been the better course of action.
Ultimately it doesn't matter which of the two were the best decisions commercially. There is one school of thought, and that produced your WoWs, Rifts and SWTOR line of games, and there is the other one that created your first gen MMOs. Pantheon is catering to those seeking the latter.
Lets stop pretending that in 2004 when EQ peaked that it wasn't 95% open world content, and that it tanked from that point on while the design was shifted towards convenience and with a heavier raid focus. Fast travel, instancing and less community focus were what killed EQ, not World of Warcraft.
The population losses EQ suffered around 2004 are pretty well documented, even by EQ developers.
Instances or fast travel had nothing to do with it. There were instances before 2004 and fast travel was introduced with PoP, in 2002, a popular expansion.
In 2004, Gates of Discord was launched, a very very hard expansion. Gates of Discord had bugs, such as NPC eating reagents.
Even Smedley admitted it was a disaster:
And then both EQ2 and WoW came out in the same year, in 2004. A substantial amount of EQ players went to WoW.
I liked GoD as an expansion, even though it was brutal.
Im not gonna take one side or the other over the instace vs open world like/dislike argument in EQ. But I will say that after 10 plus years in FFXI, instancing wasnt what hurt community in MMOs. XI had both open world contested content and instanced and they worked fine together. If you wanted the best gear or challenges you needed to do both in equal measure. FFXI had a great community.
So based on my experience and other games that came after, the worst offenders to community were LFG type mechanics and increasing how easy it is to do things by yourself in general. By making a solo player able to use an auto grouping for dungeons and other content, as well as lessening the danger of the world, Guilds and just group activities in general became less prevalent and there by the games became less social.
I know this because while XI did have instances you still had to organize groups and physically travel to the instance. And because of the open world and instances were so group centered in that game, you didnt get much of shit done without your Linkshell (Guild). And all the shouts for selling/buying/xp parties/teleport services/etc. Sometimes people would organize random events for fun. As I said an extremely social game.
So based on my experience and other games that came after, the worst offenders to community were LFG type mechanics and increasing how easy it is to do things by yourself in general. By making a solo player able to use an auto grouping for dungeons and other content, as well as lessening the danger of the world, Guilds and just group activities in general became less prevalent and there by the games became less social.
Thats just it though. That design philosophy that makes things more accessible, be it for raids or for the solo player, is what brought us instances. You don't get one without the other. That is why I am so against instancing. Historically, once that barrier is breached, it opens the door to any and all forms of convenience.
There is no arguing that most people want that accessibility; clearly that is the case. The point is that it ran contrary to the original game in the case of Everquest, and undoubtedly changed the game from a virtual world to a raiders themepark where everyone had the "fast pass". At that point, they didn't stand a chance against WoW, which by 2005 was doing everything EQ did, but better.
Visionary Realms intend to steer clear of that kind of design, even if it means the game won't appeal to the masses.
I hate instancing. And i miss open world only raids.
So what? You can not kill whatever boss you want if others are faster then your guild? Improve your guild then, or *gasp*... talk with the other people, they may leave the boss up for you while they push content you would not be able to do anyways.
And yes, i really loved that. And i was in a Nr 10 ish guild on my server. We did not get a lot of mobs, but we improved, we talked with the others and after 2 years we where pushing with the nr 1 guild. Sometimes even beating them to it. It was a fun and we did that talking thing a lot.
No time for that? Don't play a game with other people then.
That being said i also raided WoW for a few years and did not mind the instancing THAT much,... it removed the need to communicate tho and that is a bad thing if you want any form of community.
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?
You say that and all though its a possibility its not a fact that that would happen, it never happened in XI even til this day there are no easy group mechanics. Now I do think they have made a lot of things more solo friendly more recently. But the game is slowly dying and has very few players so I kind of expect that.
Two Points of clarification:
1. I get that you hate instances. Im not advocating for instances for Pantheon, I just wasnt gonna let someone get away with saying that was the reason for communities failing. It was and always has been the solo friendly design philosophy (including LFG).
2. Any developer can do what they want and stick to their guns. So there is no reason to believe that a dev providing instances would 100% add in solo play or LFG functions. It depends on what a game company's goals are.
EQ technically has always had instances. EQ's server system is zone specific, each server holds a few specific zones.
All SoE did to generate the game was create instances of the zones and distributed them behind different server names, but they are nothing more than instances.
Server A holds all instances of Freeport, Quenos, Commonlands Server B holds all instances of City of Myst, Grieg's End etc
The game just creates instances of the zone.
That's why some zones were slow to zone into, all of the same zones were simply instances all residing on the same server, and the zone was just a slower server.
That's why implementing in-game instances was so easy to do for SoE, they had technically been doing it since the start of EQ.
Most MMO don't work like that, most MMO nowadays generate a single world on a single server. That was never the case for EQ. EQ created in-game servers by generating instances of zones on multiple distinct servers holding specific zones.
EQ technically has always had instances. EQ's server system is zone specific, each server holds a few specific zones.
Server A is Freeport, Quenos, Commonlands Server B is City of Myst, Grieg's End etc
The game just creates instances of the zone. That's why two zones can go down on every in-game server but not a single in-game server goes down. The instance server just went down.
That's why some zones were slow to zone into, on every in-game server, all of the same zones were simply instances all residing on the same server, and the server was just a slower server.
That is different than an instanced game world, and irrelevant. If every player went to one place in the world, they would all see each other... right before the zone crashed.
Instances are like pandora's box IMO, once you open them, all hell breaks loose and the game is doomed.
I appreciate that they have stuck to their guns on making sure there will be no instances in Pantheon outside of story-telling where it makes sense. No progression gains should be able to be made from an instance whatsoever.
I would like to mention though that having a lockout timer and then drastically decreasing boss spawn timers since there is a lockout timer is nothing but hidden instancing.
We will have to agree to disagree, its a minor point on the discussion anyway, and as long as Pantheon is sub based, its a totally non-issue. Hell Id even be ok (not great mind you) with a purely vanity cash shop. I just dont think its right to pay for special access to content that you already have access to with your sub. Something about it turns my stomach and activates my shady radar. Moving on!
This isn't a subjective issue, there is no agree to disagree. As I said, Pay to Win is a specific thing, not some subjective definition you just make up and modify to fit your needs as you go along. That is what I showed to Drivendawn. The reason you are saying "agree to disagree" because your definition of Pay To Win is finding trouble with my points and so rather than deal with that, you just respond with "agree to disagree" as if it can still allow your point to be correct, it is not.
As I said, there is no Pay To Win with the features I mentioned. There is no circumvention of content, there is no paying money to progress, there is no short cuts, there is not any sense of paying to bypass play, no "winning" achieved over that of any other server which is what Pay to Win is. Now you can call it "elitist" or can say it is allowing people to buy special treatment, etc... but you can not say it is paying to win. That is a misuse of the term.
A vanity shop is pay to win. It is the direct purchase of appearance items which circumvent the game play to achieve an item in game that would provide a unique look. Since having a certain look is a form of achievement in EQ (it was very difficult to find matching and good looking gear to consistently wear in play), being able to "buy" it is a bypass, a circumvention, "paying to win" a certain look. I am against ALL Pay to Win.
A sub is just a monthly fee, what it contains depends on what you pay. As long as that sub contains no bypass of content, circumvention of play, etc... then it is just a feature of play. With the server I talked about, you paid for services, not game play cheats. It could have very well been an extra server for PvP that they charged extra for because it cost more to do a different balancing of classes and play to have PvP (just using this as an example), yet you or Drivendawn didn't consider that Pay to Win, even though it met your definition of it exactly.
If you want to disagree on what is the best color, on if pie is better than cake, we can agree to disagree, but you can not take a subjective stance with a objective oriented quantifiable argument, it is invalid.
Ive said it before and Ill say it again. Endgame needs a mixed and varied approach. Providing loot is a challenge to get, has rare drop rates, I see no problems. We need different endgame type activities. Im all for competitve raids, but there can and should be other things. Like 25% of gear progression from each of crafting, epic quests, dungeons, and raiding. And have where you get gear for different slots vary from class to class to mix it up and make people work together even if they dont get loot from a particular activity. Also the methods of going about activities should vary. I think having 10 different Raids that are all about standing around and camping for a few hours is an unimaginative experience. Im a big fan of triggered endgame events, as well as dev sponsored. Hell, why not have quest gated endgame content where your entire guild has to complete a 10 day epic quest everytime you want to do a certain Raid. Lastly, maybe some kind of Raid that requires a gambit of other raid and dungeon bosses to trigger a raid. Oh and I dont think Im nearly worried about how rare an item is as some. Yes it needs to be a low drop rate, and yes the challenge to get to and overcome the endgame content should be great. And thats really good enough for me. Gear will still be rare and special enough that people strive for it. I wouldnt be overly worried about loot flooding into the world in a non-instanced game.
Almost forgot, having a good and involved AA system could help on the non-gear based progression along with the progeny system (though Im a bit skeptical about that but it could be fun). Oh and I guess there will also be various endgame content for getting the Prime skills (per Living Codex) which I suppose is an AA in itself.
Well, as I mentioned before, raiding is a small part of the game and focusing so I don't think it should be labored over as if it is the main focus. That is not to say there should not be ideas for different approaches, I just don't think it should have a ton of development effort put into all kinds of gimmicks. That is why I kept suggesting that if people want competition, by all means... compete and accept what competing means. If they just want to raid, then the raiding rotation idea worked well on the Legends server.
As for "Endgame", that is a mainstream term and focus. End game is a failure in design. A game should focus on the entire game, not a small subset of the end of it and if players are rushing through to the end, then you designed the rest of the game poorly. In most play styles, players should not be hitting the end of a content block too long before another content block is provided. So there should be no "end game" where classes are sitting around waiting to go on a raid running dailies and other pointless activities to keep people from getting bored. This design is death for a subscription based game. Pantheon will need to push out timely content that takes lot of effort to get through. Those who have consume the content with extreme intent and sit waiting around at the end of it complaining should not be catered to. They are better fit for mainstream designs of "end game".
Brad talked about side ways progression and lots of other types of progressions outside of traditional level based ones and I also gave tons of ideas on how to detach progression from the character and place it on environments to help as well. I am sure VR is going to come up with some character progression that will best serve a long term play style.
I'm not sure why you guys think it should revolve around social and political PvP and contested content. In my mind, it should be a very minor part of the game if not at all. Like raiding, only a small subset of gamers are into the contested content thing.
As far as I can tell, Aradune is more interested in creating a game with more challenge and player interdependency and less about the more controversial and divisive mechanics that were more detrimental to EQ in the long run.
I'm not sure why some think this either. Contested raid content was never deemed fun or enjoyable by anyone I remember, almost all EQ players are PVE focused players. Players griefing others over raid spawns was one lowest points in EQ history.
Contested content was not enjoyed by most I knew either. The top guilds claim they liked it, but spent all their time trying to cheat the other guilds with tactics that were not competitive. Contested raids on the PvE side of EQ really didn't seem to fit well. It made sense in PvP as the players could attack and interrupt another guild, but on the PvE servers it was simply who can poopsock and who had the most membership who didn't have any real life responsibilities.
Instancing was a horrible idea though, but I understand why it was done. It was a new tech at the time and it seemed like it would solve a lot of problems. It solved the drama issue and gave everyone equal access to the content, but the price was too high in my opinion due its destruction of the loot rarity system.
Comments
People don't know what they want. They say they want challenge but then cry when its challenging. They say they want competition but then cry when they lose. They say they want everyone to be able to get a free turn on content, but when they do, it lacks the sense of accomplishment to keep them playing.
The MMO was designed around cooperative gameplay and long term goals. Progression was slower, and people played the games longer. Is that for everyone? No, but outside of WoW (which started this way), those are the games that have stood the test of time. When you give players more carrots and less sticks, they go look for "the chase" in another game.
We will have to agree to disagree, its a minor point on the discussion anyway, and as long as Pantheon is sub based, its a totally non-issue. Hell Id even be ok (not great mind you) with a purely vanity cash shop. I just dont think its right to pay for special access to content that you already have access to with your sub. Something about it turns my stomach and activates my shady radar. Moving on!
Ive said it before and Ill say it again. Endgame needs a mixed and varied approach. Providing loot is a challenge to get, has rare drop rates, I see no problems. We need different endgame type activities. Im all for competitve raids, but there can and should be other things. Like 25% of gear progression from each of crafting, epic quests, dungeons, and raiding. And have where you get gear for different slots vary from class to class to mix it up and make people work together even if they dont get loot from a particular activity. Also the methods of going about activities should vary. I think having 10 different Raids that are all about standing around and camping for a few hours is an unimaginative experience. Im a big fan of triggered endgame events, as well as dev sponsored. Hell, why not have quest gated endgame content where your entire guild has to complete a 10 day epic quest everytime you want to do a certain Raid. Lastly, maybe some kind of Raid that requires a gambit of other raid and dungeon bosses to trigger a raid. Oh and I dont think Im nearly worried about how rare an item is as some. Yes it needs to be a low drop rate, and yes the challenge to get to and overcome the endgame content should be great. And thats really good enough for me. Gear will still be rare and special enough that people strive for it. I wouldnt be overly worried about loot flooding into the world in a non-instanced game.
Almost forgot, having a good and involved AA system could help on the non-gear based progression along with the progeny system (though Im a bit skeptical about that but it could be fun). Oh and I guess there will also be various endgame content for getting the Prime skills (per Living Codex) which I suppose is an AA in itself.
Instancing was implemented in 2003, in LDON.
EQ's population peaked several years later.
You don't remember anyone who deemed contested raids fun or enjoyable? Well I don't know anyone who enjoyed EQ after contested raids as much as classic.
It took me 2 seconds to find people complaining about contested raid content and others suggesting those events should be moved to instances.
From the DruidsGrove from 2004:
Not sure what you guys are discussing but I wouldn't put much stock in that site with that data. It's been false on of many occasions.
On another note, you must have not played, or been around EQ during the time LDoN released. It was deemed the worst expansion in EQ's history and still to this day by a huge amount of players and I wouldn't put it past the reason of it being because of instancing. It's a proven fact that Instancing has HURT MMO communities more than its helped it. After instances were implemented, communities in MMO's took a massive shit down the drain. For me personally LDoN was absolutely atrocious. Not because the content was bad while in the instance but it separated you from the game world and disconnected you from what you had been playing for so many years prior to LDoN.
Of course it's relevant, you're talking about instances. Instances were implemented in 2003.
Why would anyone be talking about instances in 1999, no one even knew what they were.
Stop pretending people enjoyed contested raids, people hated permacamping guilds. They hated them in 2004, and they hate them on classic servers in 2016.
Why would you want to bring that drama into a new MMO? Jesus, people literally made "I quit" threads over it.
Griefing, permacamping raids, waiting weeks to get access to a raid, and forced PVP for PVE raids, is something most PVE players don't like.
Without instances, EQ would have never lasted.
Ultimately it doesn't matter which of the two were the best decisions commercially. There is one school of thought, and that produced your WoWs, Rifts and SWTOR line of games, and there is the other one that created your first gen MMOs. Pantheon is catering to those seeking the latter.
Instances or fast travel had nothing to do with it. There were instances before 2004 and fast travel was introduced with PoP, in 2002, a popular expansion.
In 2004, Gates of Discord was launched, a very very hard expansion. Gates of Discord had bugs, such as NPC eating reagents.
Even Smedley admitted it was a disaster:
And then both EQ2 and WoW came out in the same year, in 2004. A substantial amount of EQ players went to WoW.
I liked GoD as an expansion, even though it was brutal.
So based on my experience and other games that came after, the worst offenders to community were LFG type mechanics and increasing how easy it is to do things by yourself in general. By making a solo player able to use an auto grouping for dungeons and other content, as well as lessening the danger of the world, Guilds and just group activities in general became less prevalent and there by the games became less social.
I know this because while XI did have instances you still had to organize groups and physically travel to the instance. And because of the open world and instances were so group centered in that game, you didnt get much of shit done without your Linkshell (Guild). And all the shouts for selling/buying/xp parties/teleport services/etc. Sometimes people would organize random events for fun. As I said an extremely social game.
There is no arguing that most people want that accessibility; clearly that is the case. The point is that it ran contrary to the original game in the case of Everquest, and undoubtedly changed the game from a virtual world to a raiders themepark where everyone had the "fast pass". At that point, they didn't stand a chance against WoW, which by 2005 was doing everything EQ did, but better.
Visionary Realms intend to steer clear of that kind of design, even if it means the game won't appeal to the masses.
So what? You can not kill whatever boss you want if others are faster then your guild? Improve your guild then, or *gasp*... talk with the other people, they may leave the boss up for you while they push content you would not be able to do anyways.
And yes, i really loved that. And i was in a Nr 10 ish guild on my server. We did not get a lot of mobs, but we improved, we talked with the others and after 2 years we where pushing with the nr 1 guild. Sometimes even beating them to it. It was a fun and we did that talking thing a lot.
No time for that? Don't play a game with other people then.
That being said i also raided WoW for a few years and did not mind the instancing THAT much,... it removed the need to communicate tho and that is a bad thing if you want any form of community.
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?
Two Points of clarification:
1. I get that you hate instances. Im not advocating for instances for Pantheon, I just wasnt gonna let someone get away with saying that was the reason for communities failing. It was and always has been the solo friendly design philosophy (including LFG).
2. Any developer can do what they want and stick to their guns. So there is no reason to believe that a dev providing instances would 100% add in solo play or LFG functions. It depends on what a game company's goals are.
All SoE did to generate the game was create instances of the zones and distributed them behind different server names, but they are nothing more than instances.
Server A holds all instances of Freeport, Quenos, Commonlands
Server B holds all instances of City of Myst, Grieg's End
etc
The game just creates instances of the zone.
That's why some zones were slow to zone into, all of the same zones were simply instances all residing on the same server, and the zone was just a slower server.
That's why implementing in-game instances was so easy to do for SoE, they had technically been doing it since the start of EQ.
Most MMO don't work like that, most MMO nowadays generate a single world on a single server. That was never the case for EQ. EQ created in-game servers by generating instances of zones on multiple distinct servers holding specific zones.
I appreciate that they have stuck to their guns on making sure there will be no instances in Pantheon outside of story-telling where it makes sense. No progression gains should be able to be made from an instance whatsoever.
I would like to mention though that having a lockout timer and then drastically decreasing boss spawn timers since there is a lockout timer is nothing but hidden instancing.
This isn't a subjective issue, there is no agree to disagree. As I said, Pay to Win is a specific thing, not some subjective definition you just make up and modify to fit your needs as you go along. That is what I showed to Drivendawn. The reason you are saying "agree to disagree" because your definition of Pay To Win is finding trouble with my points and so rather than deal with that, you just respond with "agree to disagree" as if it can still allow your point to be correct, it is not.
As I said, there is no Pay To Win with the features I mentioned. There is no circumvention of content, there is no paying money to progress, there is no short cuts, there is not any sense of paying to bypass play, no "winning" achieved over that of any other server which is what Pay to Win is. Now you can call it "elitist" or can say it is allowing people to buy special treatment, etc... but you can not say it is paying to win. That is a misuse of the term.
A vanity shop is pay to win. It is the direct purchase of appearance items which circumvent the game play to achieve an item in game that would provide a unique look. Since having a certain look is a form of achievement in EQ (it was very difficult to find matching and good looking gear to consistently wear in play), being able to "buy" it is a bypass, a circumvention, "paying to win" a certain look. I am against ALL Pay to Win.
A sub is just a monthly fee, what it contains depends on what you pay. As long as that sub contains no bypass of content, circumvention of play, etc... then it is just a feature of play. With the server I talked about, you paid for services, not game play cheats. It could have very well been an extra server for PvP that they charged extra for because it cost more to do a different balancing of classes and play to have PvP (just using this as an example), yet you or Drivendawn didn't consider that Pay to Win, even though it met your definition of it exactly.
If you want to disagree on what is the best color, on if pie is better than cake, we can agree to disagree, but you can not take a subjective stance with a objective oriented quantifiable argument, it is invalid.
As for "Endgame", that is a mainstream term and focus. End game is a failure in design. A game should focus on the entire game, not a small subset of the end of it and if players are rushing through to the end, then you designed the rest of the game poorly. In most play styles, players should not be hitting the end of a content block too long before another content block is provided. So there should be no "end game" where classes are sitting around waiting to go on a raid running dailies and other pointless activities to keep people from getting bored. This design is death for a subscription based game. Pantheon will need to push out timely content that takes lot of effort to get through. Those who have consume the content with extreme intent and sit waiting around at the end of it complaining should not be catered to. They are better fit for mainstream designs of "end game".
Brad talked about side ways progression and lots of other types of progressions outside of traditional level based ones and I also gave tons of ideas on how to detach progression from the character and place it on environments to help as well. I am sure VR is going to come up with some character progression that will best serve a long term play style.
Instancing was a horrible idea though, but I understand why it was done. It was a new tech at the time and it seemed like it would solve a lot of problems. It solved the drama issue and gave everyone equal access to the content, but the price was too high in my opinion due its destruction of the loot rarity system.