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PANTHEON: Everything you need to know (Features and FAQs)
ste2000
Member EpicPosts: 6,194
Cosidering that the juicy informations about Pantheon are not easy to find in the official website, I decided to list the features I find more interesting about the game:
MAIN FEATURES:
POST LAUNCH FEATURES:
FAQs LINK (Read it, interesting stuff):
http://www.pantheonmmo.com/game/faqs/
MAIN FEATURES:
An MMO Evolved
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen will likely be a fundamentally different game compared to what you may have experienced playing other modern MMORPGs. From the moment you log in you will notice that the game is more social and has an emphasis on cooperative play. The monsters are often tougher and exploration is more involved. You will need friends in the game and your reputation can either help you progress or hinder it. Death in-game is meaningful and you’ll want to avoid it when possible. You’ll learn your surroundings and the lay of the land, spending meaningful time in each area and not just running through as quickly as possible to collect ten hides. You will need strategy, cunning and endurance to uncover all that Pantheon has to offer. You will find yourself in group and guild chats as you strategize or even just to pass the time between battles. Pantheon is social, thought-provoking, and the memories from your experiences in Terminus will last a lifetime.-
Atmosphere/Climate System
One of Pantheon’s tenets is ‘Engage the World!’ When we talk about being a PvE MMO, our definition of ‘environment’ means a lot more than just fighting NPCs -- players will be contending with the world itself. Some regions will be very hot or cold. Some areas within a zone might be enchanted with complete darkness, or silence (meaning spoken spells won't work), or poison or miasma. Small tornados could travel through a region, compelling players to work their way around them, not through them, lest they take significant damage. Also, certain spells may work better or worse (or even only work) depending on the climate or atmosphere -- for example, a 'Call Lightning' spell could deal more damage than a typical ‘lightning bolt’ spell but could only be cast if there is a storm in the region. -
Powerful Spells and Abilities: The Living Codex
In MMOs it is common to find rare items out in the world, by adventuring or by crafting, but abilities and spells are more often learned from trainers or even just given to player when his or her character levels up. In Pantheon, however, many of the more rare and exotic spells and abilities are found not at the local trainer but from a wise sage hiding in the depths of a dungeon or at the top of a remote tower. -
Dynamic NPC Encounter Groups
The world is not static and unchanging – every day is not ‘groundhog’ day. Events occur that can completely change the population of a zone or the population of a group of NPCs within a zone (and the rarer the event, the rarer the rewards -- many exotic items can only be obtained when one of these zone events occur). An example: after you kill some key mobs guarding a hill giant camp, this triggers a zone event that loads up an invading force of Storm Giants who then proceed to attack the Hill Giant camp. -
NPC Dispositions and Behaviors
An area we have not seen much innovation in MMORPGs, almost since their inception, is the area of NPC AI. What if certain enemies had different “dispositions” that had to be discovered by the player? Many NPCs in Pantheon will have advanced behaviors, like the propensity to flee if possible, or to stand and fight to the end. Some NPCs will be inclined to help other NPCs in the area, while some will not. Some will target certain classes within the group that is attacking them. NPC’s movement speeds may vary if they feel they are outmatched. While it is too early to go into a lot of detail, some of the different dispositions we are working on include: the Alarmist, the Bully, the Craven, the Opportunist, the Protector, and the Strategist. -
Colored Mana System
Different classes will use different colors of mana. Some rare abilities, spells, and prayers will use more than one color of mana. These exotic abilities create an opportunity to sub-class your character, allowing players to customize their class to a degree, but without removing the interdependence between classes that is key to group content and building community. -
Progeny System
Players will be able to 'retire' high level characters and then create their children as new characters, but these new characters, the 'progeny', will have certain abilities, stats, etc. that make them slightly yet noticeably better than a completely brand new character (but not to the point that it unbalances things). -
Situational Gear
In Pantheon, there often won't simply be a weapon or piece of gear that is the absolute best item for your character’s class and level. Instead, many items will be more situational, and the player will need to ask himself, 'where am I?', 'what am I going to fight next?', and 'who in my group is what class, and what items do they have that may help defeat the next encounter?' Items that protect against climates/atmospheres (areas of extreme heat or cold, or disease, or absolute darkness) will often be important. So also will 'bane' items that are especially effective against certain types of mobs (for example, the Undead, or Dragonkind). -
The Perception System
One of the most profound things about Pantheon is how we are designing the game from the ground up so that the Environment truly matters – we want players to care about the world they are in, and why things are the way they are. When you think of MMOs, when is the last time you discovered the meaning, or the history, or the secrets of a person, place or event without being told by a text box? What if we’ve conceived of a way to bring players back to exploring because they are compelled by what they see in front of them - not because a blinking light tells them to go there? In Pantheon, Wizards will be able to perceive things that a Warrior cannot. Through prayer, a Cleric may gain insight into an area, or a creature, that a Rogue could never know. Through our perception system, Pantheon will redefine how the game world becomes known, and how players will work together to progress.
POST LAUNCH FEATURES:
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Building Outposts
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Non-Instanced Housing
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Player-run dungeons and regions
FAQs LINK (Read it, interesting stuff):
http://www.pantheonmmo.com/game/faqs/
Comments
Will there be many quests?
Story and lore elements are essential to our Quest system – they need to be meaningful and give purpose. But as a player you should never feel overwhelmed with a bunch of quests that are nothing but mundane tasks. When you get a quest the intent is that it will be epic in nature and reinforce the fact that you are a resurrected hero. More specifically, Pantheon is not a ‘quest hub’ game, where you move to one level appropriate hub, do a bunch of quests in that area, and then move to the next hub; rather, you will need to search out and find quests by interacting with PCs and in a less linear and more ‘sandbox’ style setting.
How will I know if an NPC has a quest?
If you want to find out if an NPC has a quest all you have to do is… talk to him. We will NOT be utilizing the ‘over the head icon’ approach. We want you investigate your surroundings and gather information and interacting with NPCs is a big part of that. So don’t be shy, speak with the inhabitants of Terminus and engage the world!
Will I be able to freely trade my items?
We recognize that the items you gain from your adventures or hard earned gold coins are yours and that you should be able to do with them whatever you want. This means that no-drop and bind-on-equip items will be the exception, not the rule. Epic weapons or items used for quests may be restricted, but the majority of items will not. That said, some quests may require you to turn in an older item in order to complete them. You will also be able to sacrifice items at altars in temples in return for valuable and long lasting ‘buffs’. So while the game will not stop you from handing down most items to other players, it will also encourage you to remove older items from the player-driven economy by rewarding you accordingly.
Will the game have instances?
Pantheon will support instancing to a limited degree, using it primarily for storytelling in a linear fashion, perhaps at the end of an epic quest. The vast majority of content, however, will exist in non-instanced shared zones.
Without instancing, are you concerned about overcrowding and/or too much competition for resources and content?
Overcrowding and too much competition are indeed problems that have plagued both MMOs with and without instancing. If there are not enough players around, it can be hard to group and socialize. But if there are too many people around, the world feels crowded and people have to wait for encounters or spawns, or even compete for them. Our answer to this issue is twofold: first, primarily during the later phases of beta, we will determine how many people online at one time in our game world feels right -- neither under crowded nor overcrowded. Second, if and when a server’s/shard’s population grows too large, we will launch a new shard with incentives for players to spread out. And with our harnessing of cloud hosted servers/shards, this is actually something we can do dynamically, easily, and quickly.
Will there be PvP?
Pantheon is primarily a PvE (player vs. environment) game. In fact, when we say ‘environment’, we don’t just mean NPCs, but also contending with climates and atmospheres, the very world itself. That said, we understand that a portion of our target audience also enjoys player vs. player. Our experience is that separate PvE and PvP shards is the answer, however it is too early to predict how many PvP servers we would launch with. It is also worth mentioning that, when we do eventually focus on PvP we will do so such that tweaks and changes to classes and races in order to make PvP more fun will not affect the balance of Pantheon’s PvE experience.
Has Pantheon been funded? How are you guys going to address the development costs of making an MMO?
In addition to money coming in via crowdfunding, Visionary Realms received a significant first round of funding from an angel investor earlier this year. This enabled us to put the team on payroll as well as bring on additional developers. We are currently seeking a second round of funding to enable us to continue to build the team, specifically more artists and world builders. If you are interested in investing in Visionary Realms and Pantheon, click here.
In War - Victory.
In Peace - Vigilance.
In Death - Sacrifice.
Star Citizen – The Extinction Level Event
4/13/15 > ELE has been updated look for 16-04-13.
http://www.dereksmart.org/2016/04/star-citizen-the-ele/
Enjoy and know the truth always comes to light!
It sounds good as you presented it,sounds almost identical to what FFXI was striving for.
There is only one aspect that really concerns me.When mentioning advanced AI,that is all good,but it still need to have some randomness,i do not like npc's that react automatic like computer code.
I'll use one example.If for example you are fighting a mob it is ok if another mobs is within range and sees it or relies on hearing it.it is NOT ok if you pull a mob and the other mobs are bound on the same Ai,meaning every single mob on that AI chain comes running.
The latter is the mistake,poor game design MOST games do,example EQ series.
To be honest i can't keep track of all the games anymore,tomorrow i will likely forget this game as well.I mention this because i did not know this was primarily a PVE game which makes me happy.
I will try to keep a closer eye on this game,seems ok.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
For sure it will be different from EQ, mobs having some kind of personality (some will run off, some will focus on the healer) it makes it already different from EQ and most of the new MMO.
Anyway Pantheon will resurrect the classic EQ group set up (Tank, Healer, DPS, Crowd Control, Buffer) and Pulling and Splitting the mobs will be a big part of the group strategy, so controlling mobs running after you would be the Crowd Control job (Enchanter, Bard), that's part of the fun.
Which is really the only bit in that whole thing that matters. And of course not telling the whole truth, either. What is the burn rate? How soon until the the funding that is there runs out?
If they get no more funding, the game will either release around 2024, or never see the light of day.
People really need to temper their expectations and hype about this title.
Optimism is fine, blind optimism in the face of a large negative factor, like say, NOT ENOUGH EFFIN MONEY TO MAKE THE GAME, is nothing less than naive stupidity.
It's unnecessary text that could just as easily have the person/npc's name and their text based on color so we can identify where they're speaking. All i need is the name and what they're saying. It really clears up the chat log.
Again, a small aspect. If we ever get to a point when that's my only concern about the game then we'll be in good shape.
When Pantheon launched their Kickstarter campaign last year, it failed miserably.
At that time the game was pure vaporware, lots of words, very little to show, not very thought through.
I was the first to criticise it openly.
As I mentioned in other posts, I am a fan of Brad Mcquaid games, but even I couldn't bring myself to support his latest enterprise in the state it was at that time.
That's because unlike what you suggest in your post, generally people do have better common sense than you think, and many do not throw money at the first developer that tells them they going to make their dream game (though unfortunately some do)
Anyway I said all of that just to clarify, that all Virtual Realm is doing at the moment, they are doing it with their own money (an Angel Investor chipped in), they didn't even started to collect money via crowdfunding yet, and that's because this time they wanted to have something more solid in their hand to show to the public rather than just words.
During those 6 months Brad and co. were hard at work to rebuild a team that could deliver and most importantly they worked hard to build the game, and right now they are in a good place in the development process, and that's without crowdfunding help yet.
In the next few weeks they will release a gameplay video and some other cool stuff, and only then they will try again with crowdfounding, probably though their website in form of pledges.
And this time I can guarantee you it will be successful.
So don't worry bro, the real money is yet to come, I wouldn't worry about VR bank account running dry just yet.
At this point, VC or angel investors just means more people, more features/content, and a faster development process. This game isn't hanging on by a thread.
When I first started MMO gaming, I didn't have anyone to game with. In my real life (although I have real life friends) I dont have anyone else who enjoys MMOs. Through the years I have met friends online. Some of these friends I have now known for a decade, others under a year. It constantly evolves. It is actually easier to make friends in an MMO that promotes socialization (because they want to group up with you) rather than a game where its just quicker to do things yourself. Guilds will play a stronger role here vs other games.
I have played a lot of different MMO's and they all have different communities. The ones where grouping is required are they ones that have the more open and friendly player bases.
I didn't even read the rest of the post, because that is the core issue that many "new players" don't get about older MMOs.
We don't like old school MMOs because of their crappy graphics, clunky interface, or their grindy nature.
We like them because they were built to be social games........a place where you make new friends, you didn't need friends to play them.
That's exactly what it is missing in new MMO and why so many players want the "old scholl" MMOs to come back.
All those new players are scared of "forced grouping" because they think they need lto bring their friends in order to enjoy it.
The truth is that actually the best thing about old school MMOs is that you were able to make friends with random people on the internet.
I really want one of those games to succeed so finally the new generation understand what we are talking about, because it is hard to convince someone who is used to play GW2 and SWTOR, how special the old school MMOs were by suggesting they play ancient games like EQ.
I would't play myself today, so I don't blame them for not understanding what the fuss for old school is all about.
But yea, I agree with you, well said.
Star Citizen – The Extinction Level Event
4/13/15 > ELE has been updated look for 16-04-13.
http://www.dereksmart.org/2016/04/star-citizen-the-ele/
Enjoy and know the truth always comes to light!
Excellent job with the FAQ - one of the best FAQ's I have seen on a pre-launch game's website.
I asked you all for FAQ questions and you all delivered, we just sifted through hundreds of them and picked the ones that we thought would be more helpful for new players and veterans alike to look up quickly and get the answers to much-asked questions, so thank you to everyone that helped!