IDk if it matters at all,i see a different mindset in gamer's since the turn of the century.
I see a lot of gaming that is like chickens running around with their heads cut off,like ADD gaming.Me i thinks it is horrible game play but to the young kids,they like it hyper fast,like i said like ADD gaming. I was just watching some twitch streams and the players were literally run shoot die run shoot die,there was no mind or reason just keep shooting and keep dying.
The same goes for rpg's,i remember players wanting run around exploring,NOW....MUST level as fast as possible,MUST get best gear,ask chat "what is best dps at end game?".World firsts,ME ME ME.
So even if they played old school games,whatever that means,they would still think the same and seek out games similar to what is popular now.
I am not even sure if more than 1% of young gamer's know who Fatality is,you know the guy who put $$$ out of games on the map.When i watch Hearthstone EVERY single stream people ask "what is the deck code"where can i get this deck!!.You think playing a certain deck makes you a better player,well apparently they don't get it.
So just like the new generation of gaming,people have changed as well and why we see these new type of games that old school look at and think wtf is this crap.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Man, I know just what you mean. I tried to watch that Overwatch World Cup they had on TV, just to see what the game was like since I hadn't played it. It was literally just people bunny-hopping non-stop all over the place the entire time.
It felt more like watching a kangaroo documentary than a video game.
When i watch Hearthstone EVERY single stream people ask "what is the deck code"where can i get this deck!!.You think playing a certain deck makes you a better player,well apparently they don't get it.
Well, this is true of pretty much any professional showing their skills, etc. If you go watch a drawing tutorial, for example, half the comments will be asking "what kind of pencil do you use?"
Everyone wants to do what the veteran is doing, but they don't grasp that those guys put in time to learn and develop a skill. Nobody has the attention span to want to do that part.
This mmo will be as highly successful as a remastered Windows 95 would be. Will it launch? Maybe, but if it does in what state? They only get one chance, and I doubt they will have the funds to stay afloat if the game isn't polished at launch. Those few on these forum's who think it will take off and be a massive sucess are either very naive or under the impression that their view is ubiquitous among gamers. The truth is that traditional mmos are dead. That is easily proven by the lack of any reputable studio developing new mmos.
I spoke with my niece recently about mmos. She didn't even know what they were lol. She is 12. She definitely knows what roblox and fortnite is. Pantheon isn't going to change this. It will have to rely on the older gamers. Which most won't have the time to invest into an MMO like they did in their youth playing EQ1 etc.
I've said it before, the only way an MMO will be a huge success again is something revolutionary that hasn't been seen before. This game will be niche at best. And with a niche player base, when content gets consumed. The typical gamer will play something else till more content releases. After all there are more game options out there than time to play them all. Will a niche mmo survive an exodus like that? We are not in the early 2000s anymore. Back then people stayed with their mmos because they didn't have many options to migrate to in between content patches.
I have no animosity towards this game or it's fans. I just honestly believe they should temper their expectations.
It's true a mass exodus would be an issue for a niche game, but on the other hand a niche game is exactly that because it caters to a specific market - a market others ignore. Where would these players go? There may be lots of games around, but to these players they are shit. Most would sooner hang around without content and do stuff with the friends they have made (maybe make alts or help newbies) than bounce from crappy game to game like they have had to do for the last decade
This mmo will be as highly successful as a remastered Windows 95 would be. Will it launch? Maybe, but if it does in what state? They only get one chance, and I doubt they will have the funds to stay afloat if the game isn't polished at launch. Those few on these forum's who think it will take off and be a massive sucess are either very naive or under the impression that their view is ubiquitous among gamers. The truth is that traditional mmos are dead. That is easily proven by the lack of any reputable studio developing new mmos.
I spoke with my niece recently about mmos. She didn't even know what they were lol. She is 12. She definitely knows what roblox and fortnite is. Pantheon isn't going to change this. It will have to rely on the older gamers. Which most won't have the time to invest into an MMO like they did in their youth playing EQ1 etc.
I've said it before, the only way an MMO will be a huge success again is something revolutionary that hasn't been seen before. This game will be niche at best. And with a niche player base, when content gets consumed. The typical gamer will play something else till more content releases. After all there are more game options out there than time to play them all. Will a niche mmo survive an exodus like that? We are not in the early 2000s anymore. Back then people stayed with their mmos because they didn't have many options to migrate to in between content patches.
I have no animosity towards this game or it's fans. I just honestly believe they should temper their expectations.
It's true a mass exodus would be an issue for a niche game, but on the other hand a niche game is exactly that because it caters to a specific market - a market others ignore. Where would these players go? There may be lots of games around, but to these players they are shit. Most would sooner hang around without content and do stuff with the friends they have made (maybe make alts or help newbies) than bounce from crappy game to game like they have had to do for the last decade
By this logic, EQ1 would have a lot more population than they do and Daybreak would love you forever.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I only ever tried one mmo prior to World of Warcraft , it was the Ultima Online two week trial but I was on dial up in 2001 which I shared with my girlfriend of the time ( who also wanted to use it for other things ) and that had a two hour cut off before you had to redial . I quite enjoyed what I saw of it but my PC was such a toaster by that time having been brought in 1997 that it really struggled to run it . So I really didn't get much of a chance to view the first generation of mmos .
What I have heard from friends about them is that they offered a depth of gameplay you just don't see in modern triple A titles and given I am bored with games that offer a lack of challenge and depth I am very interested in the likes of Pantheon which is one of the games that seem to be endeavoring to offer an old school experience . I think possibly the closest I got to it was vanilla WoW which was a game that felt far more like a living breathing virtual world than the current version but from what I have heard, I doubt even that was anything like the real old school experience .
It is why I decided to buy Project Gorgon in the winter sale on steam , I am hoping to jump into that in the next week or two once I have got my lotro character to 50 on the progression servers . At least I can get to play that now , I think it is going to be a two to three year wait for Pantheon .
This mmo will be as highly successful as a remastered Windows 95 would be. Will it launch? Maybe, but if it does in what state? They only get one chance, and I doubt they will have the funds to stay afloat if the game isn't polished at launch. Those few on these forum's who think it will take off and be a massive sucess are either very naive or under the impression that their view is ubiquitous among gamers. The truth is that traditional mmos are dead. That is easily proven by the lack of any reputable studio developing new mmos.
I spoke with my niece recently about mmos. She didn't even know what they were lol. She is 12. She definitely knows what roblox and fortnite is. Pantheon isn't going to change this. It will have to rely on the older gamers. Which most won't have the time to invest into an MMO like they did in their youth playing EQ1 etc.
I've said it before, the only way an MMO will be a huge success again is something revolutionary that hasn't been seen before. This game will be niche at best. And with a niche player base, when content gets consumed. The typical gamer will play something else till more content releases. After all there are more game options out there than time to play them all. Will a niche mmo survive an exodus like that? We are not in the early 2000s anymore. Back then people stayed with their mmos because they didn't have many options to migrate to in between content patches.
I have no animosity towards this game or it's fans. I just honestly believe they should temper their expectations.
It's true a mass exodus would be an issue for a niche game, but on the other hand a niche game is exactly that because it caters to a specific market - a market others ignore. Where would these players go? There may be lots of games around, but to these players they are shit. Most would sooner hang around without content and do stuff with the friends they have made (maybe make alts or help newbies) than bounce from crappy game to game like they have had to do for the last decade
By this logic, EQ1 would have a lot more population than they do and Daybreak would love you forever.
Well I cannot speak for others, but myself and the friends I had certainly never left due to lack of content. We left because after so many years the game was aged and it's game play was changing for the worse - so it was a good time to leave and try other games as at least back then games being made were more that just shallow cash shop crap. It was no mass exodus from eq1, more a bleed, though to be fair, with big game names like Wow and EQ2 coming out, it was inevitable a population drop would happen- based on the lack of AAA games being produced these days, that is unlikely to be an issue
1st Gen MMORPGs also had the benefit of being... well, first to the scene. I often feel the fondness of people's memories come from this idea and now that technology and methods have improved quality of life for the better in a lot of areas, these MMO's can't thrive nearly as well since choice is there.
Do you go back to a time where things were less flexible? Do you choose to make things more arduous? I suppose there are players out there that thrive in these kinds of environments, but judging by the current state of affairs in gaming, they are a minority.
I'm of the opinion people don't know what they want, but think this is it. Once they get in, they'll lose interest and leave the niche players to it.
There was much more flaws and bigger ones then the UI and AI
Remember back then EQ UI and graphics was cutting edge
I was there at the start and let me say this most could not get into a raid or kill the dragons we all had about
Heck most could not even get to the hard areas of certain dungeons
It meant loads of time and loads of commitment
Wow Changed that and for all the rubbish thrown at it ,that was the main reason it exploded the market
Also WoW did not start with the 10 million subs ,it got that after changing the way raids are done and making difficulty level based on your time and style .
Look at wildstar which had interesting raids (for those who played it) and it flopped.why ?It made raids quite hard rather then diffculty levels
I think if you want millions there a lot to change rather then a modernized graphics 1999 EQ.
I still recall my guild in 2000 talking about moving from EQ but the options were limited back then.
WoW came out and it did and most of my guild migrated there
On a side note pantheon does not need millions or even 100k to be profitable
Worth keeping in mind Wildstar raids were the least of its problems - they promoted a game for those that wanted challenge then offered the same tedious easy quest hub lvling style followed by irritating attunement requirements. They took the worst aspects of mmos. As a result most it's population were sick of the game long before they reached the raids that were supposed to be great.
Pantheon faces a similar risk, if they take all the worst aspects of EQ1 to try make a challenging, Social game then people will not want to play. Knowing the player type they want to attract is great, they just need to think carefully on how they grab them, because despite what some think, a carbon copy of EQ1 won't do it
This mmo will be as highly successful as a remastered Windows 95 would be. Will it launch? Maybe, but if it does in what state? They only get one chance, and I doubt they will have the funds to stay afloat if the game isn't polished at launch. Those few on these forum's who think it will take off and be a massive sucess are either very naive or under the impression that their view is ubiquitous among gamers. The truth is that traditional mmos are dead. That is easily proven by the lack of any reputable studio developing new mmos.
I spoke with my niece recently about mmos. She didn't even know what they were lol. She is 12. She definitely knows what roblox and fortnite is. Pantheon isn't going to change this. It will have to rely on the older gamers. Which most won't have the time to invest into an MMO like they did in their youth playing EQ1 etc.
I've said it before, the only way an MMO will be a huge success again is something revolutionary that hasn't been seen before. This game will be niche at best. And with a niche player base, when content gets consumed. The typical gamer will play something else till more content releases. After all there are more game options out there than time to play them all. Will a niche mmo survive an exodus like that? We are not in the early 2000s anymore. Back then people stayed with their mmos because they didn't have many options to migrate to in between content patches.
I have no animosity towards this game or it's fans. I just honestly believe they should temper their expectations.
It's true a mass exodus would be an issue for a niche game, but on the other hand a niche game is exactly that because it caters to a specific market - a market others ignore. Where would these players go? There may be lots of games around, but to these players they are shit. Most would sooner hang around without content and do stuff with the friends they have made (maybe make alts or help newbies) than bounce from crappy game to game like they have had to do for the last decade
@asteldiancaliskan fair enough. But one thing I think you are overlooking is that gamers have evolved. Back in the day this was very true. Today majority of gamers play more than one game. Everything from multiplayer games, to open world single player games. The options are rather endless. So while I agree they will most likely stick to their mmo of choice. That doesn't necessarily mean they won't bounce around between different genres or from PC gaming to console gaming etc. Gone are the days of playing one game for years(maybe a small minority). That's where the health of a cash shop free, subscription MMO might run into trouble. It's something I hope VR is taking into consideration.
So common sense tells us that if you were to use say a buff of Protection 5 million times,you would or SHOULD be quite skilled at doing that,so your skill level should show that.You wouldn't become more proficient at casting protection by running 1500 fetch me errands in which time you may have never cast protection even once.
Thats what TES does, and thats why TES sucks BIG TIME and why I simply level my character per console to maxlevel in TES games now, so I dont have to bother with that absurd PITA of a rulesystem anymore.
Realism doesnt matter. Hitpoints aint realistic, for example. Classes arent realistic. Etc. Who cares ?
A game has to work as a game. Realism isnt part of that formula.
Something very important you are missing is the type of people that played these games then vs. now. When EQ launched the only people playing it were RPG nerds who did tabletop RPGs before the internet came around. They already had a lot in common in terms of specific games they played, books they read, music they listened to, etc. Most likely they all had very similar demographics, upbringings, and values as well.
Today everyone from toddlers to the elderly play these games from every demographic and walks of life. The connections are much much more difficult to make for most players, especially for the very first demographic, imo.
Even if this game can attract large portions of those old-schoolers back, its too late. They are old now. They have families. Their values have changed. Years of games and dealing with a more and more all-encompassing community that swallowed up what was once a very tailored experience has jaded most of them beyond repair, imo. So, the game might be cool, but recapturing that time and essence will only come about with some new revelation in tech or society such as virtual reality or the discovery of sentient alien life, imo.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Vanguard was good only insofar as it was the "spiritual
successor to EQ," and many of us were just coming off of EQ back then -
so that type of gameplay was quite comfortable to us. Outside of that,
it was awful. The engine was awful. It had hilariously high system
requirements (even more so than EQ2, which was AWFUL in that regard).
It didn't even look that good. It was beyond buggy.
It was all that but it also was absolutely awesome to play. It had a huge gameworld to explore, with an extreme amount of quests, well done crafting and extreme fun gameplay, including the most well design combat system, and very challenging raids, many of which I didnt manage in the seven years the game was up, and a diplomacy system that I personally didnt liked too much (I hate card games with a passion) but which opened a lot of lore.
I would instantly play it again if someone would restart it.
And yes the graphics requirements should have been lower. That was a main error of the game design.
- Difficult solo play like EQ but it can be done if you are really stuck for a group or just anti social ( wrong game for you )
- Harsh death penalty’s, dying is an adventure in itself , corpse runs , xp loss . One change I would make is instead of corpse disappearing after week and losing gear , make corpse disappear and give your gear back to you.
- Super slow leveling, the adventure is not rushing to end game . Take weeks to level not hours. Bring back the mini dings.
- Travel was hard , require keys , passes, faction etc to earn your way into new content .
- Gear that is bind on equip. Twinks are fun but I prefer to find gear not buy it with Real money from gold seller and trading . I think alot of people will hate this because trading was a big thing in EQ.
AC was my first MMO. I tried other older ones shortly after that one came out to see what the genre had to offer, but I honestly felt like it had the most "advanced" mechanics of it's time. Subsequent titles that more closely reflected the EQ style of play felt like they'd stepped away from progress for me in several large ways, while only really evolving the formula for a narrow band of what MMOs were or could be.
WoW was such a title. Rather than broadening the genre, it felt like it'd sought out and abandoned the more unique portions like, the "live" ecosystems, physics elements, or other aspects that made some games like AC have gameplay ahead of it's time. It's taken from then in the late 90s up until the latter half of this decade to even consider games like that one, made ~20 years ago, to be viable to produce on modern hardware.
And yes there were drawbacks, like distribution of mobs and content in order to balance the computational load of mapping different target regions on a body and having all arrows and projectiles be real-time projectiles you could react to.
I bring this up largely because "Pantheon doesn't represent this facet of the genre's history." for me as a once-consumer of these old titles. It does help bring part of the past into the modern age, but it ironically leans on much the same side as the rest that became the "mainstream" of the genre.
Which, for me, leaves several longstanding niches and elements of the genre yet unfilled or revisited.
- Harsh death penalty’s, dying is an adventure in itself , corpse runs , xp loss . One change I would make is instead of corpse disappearing after week and losing gear , make corpse disappear and give your gear back to you.
Why even bother trying to get your corpse back at all? Just go play an alt until the week is up.
If you want a harsh death penalty, XP/gear loss is the way to go.
If you die, you lose a percentage of XP, gear loses durability, if it hits zero you lose that piece of gear, and you gain a death penalty debuff.
Die again while having the debuff, you lose a higher percentage of XP/durability.
Lose enough XP you delevel, lose enough durability you lose all your gear.
It is a funny world we live in. We had Empires run by Emperors, we had Kingdoms run by Kings, now we have Countries...
- Harsh death penalty’s, dying is an adventure in itself , corpse runs , xp loss . One change I would make is instead of corpse disappearing after week and losing gear , make corpse disappear and give your gear back to you.
Why even bother trying to get your corpse back at all? Just go play an alt until the week is up.
If you want a harsh death penalty, XP/gear loss is the way to go.
If you die, you lose a percentage of XP, gear loses durability, if it hits zero you lose that piece of gear, and you gain a death penalty debuff.
Die again while having the debuff, you lose a higher percentage of XP/durability.
Lose enough XP you delevel, lose enough durability you lose all your gear.
Both seem good options.
I believe in harsh death penalty. I really never sat down and gave it a lot of thought, mainly because my opinion wouldn't count anyway.
I would like it so the group doesn't suffer waiting for someone to show back up. This causes a lot of arguing !...... Theirs always a hot head in a group.
A successful mmorpg should be good for pick-up-groups. 90% of players will not have that "Good Guild".
- Harsh death penalty’s, dying is an adventure in itself , corpse runs , xp loss . One change I would make is instead of corpse disappearing after week and losing gear , make corpse disappear and give your gear back to you.
Why even bother trying to get your corpse back at all? Just go play an alt until the week is up.
If you want a harsh death penalty, XP/gear loss is the way to go.
If you die, you lose a percentage of XP, gear loses durability, if it hits zero you lose that piece of gear, and you gain a death penalty debuff.
Die again while having the debuff, you lose a higher percentage of XP/durability.
Lose enough XP you delevel, lose enough durability you lose all your gear.
Both seem good options.
I believe in harsh death penalty. I really never sat down and gave it a lot of thought, mainly because my opinion wouldn't count anyway.
I would like it so the group doesn't suffer waiting for someone to show back up. This causes a lot of arguing !...... Theirs always a hot head in a group.
A successful mmorpg should be good for pick-up-groups. 90% of players will not have that "Good Guild".
It's fine if the content is challenging, but the logistics of forming a group or raid, finding or keeping the slots filled, and recovery afterwards shouldn't be unnecessarily tedious or it will alienate many.
Will be a fine line to walk for Pantheon to maintain, and I do believe Brad learned the lessons of Vanguard all too well.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
- Harsh death penalty’s, dying is an adventure in itself , corpse runs , xp loss . One change I would make is instead of corpse disappearing after week and losing gear , make corpse disappear and give your gear back to you.
Why even bother trying to get your corpse back at all? Just go play an alt until the week is up.
If you want a harsh death penalty, XP/gear loss is the way to go.
If you die, you lose a percentage of XP, gear loses durability, if it hits zero you lose that piece of gear, and you gain a death penalty debuff.
Die again while having the debuff, you lose a higher percentage of XP/durability.
Lose enough XP you delevel, lose enough durability you lose all your gear.
Die five times wo retrieving your first corpse and the game uninstalls itself. I’m all for consequence, but loss of xp and currency is enough of a deterrent for me. I would never spend more than 15 min on a corpse run these days unless the game had some very cool ghost mechanics.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I see a ton of posts about gameplay, mechanics, and UI. But these are not my memories of what made old school MMO's great. It was the sense of community, a living world that you missed while you were at work. I don't feel like I am missing anything in any MMO these days because they all feel like single player games to me. The community changes every time I come online because I rarely see the same person twice outside of my guilds due to megaservers and phasing crap technology. You can't make a name for yourself crafting because it has turned into something everyone can max in one day and on multiple toons so they are self-sufficient. No one player should be able to thrive in an MMORPG without interaction with the community, period. You can literally login and max level then do end game content in today's MMOs without interaction with one other player. That is where things have changed, imo.
I see a ton of posts about gameplay, mechanics, and UI. But these are not my memories of what made old school MMO's great. It was the sense of community, a living world that you missed while you were at work. I don't feel like I am missing anything in any MMO these days because they all feel like single player games to me. The community changes every time I come online because I rarely see the same person twice outside of my guilds due to megaservers and phasing crap technology. You can't make a name for yourself crafting because it has turned into something everyone can max in one day and on multiple toons so they are self-sufficient. No one player should be able to thrive in an MMORPG without interaction with the community, period. You can literally login and max level then do end game content in today's MMOs without interaction with one other player. That is where things have changed, imo.
Interestingly I'd call this a design regression as well.
Notably because it's MMOs following the classic CRPG design philosophy rather than trying to build new systems that directly cater to it being a persistent online world. So instead of community, you have a single player experience wrapped in an MMO with some matchmaking features.
I would sorta fault the EQ MMO train for this development, as they did utilize discrete player quests to achieve stuff rather than sweeping community events. Yes, there were community events, expressly GM run, that didn't impact the overall game world.
I would contrast that to AC again where major content changes came at the consequence of combined developer intent and community input. The direction community leaned in their reaction to the game's narrative was the direction the studio leaned in evolving the plot, which helped reciprocate that your actions as a player and a community bore weight.
Kind of hearkens to that old "holy grail" of gaming where an AI might eventually be advanced enough to act as a dynamic Dungeon Master. Just seems we've lost that as a pursuit to some degree and instead fell back on the closed/linear single player narratives instead of pushing that concept harder.
I see a ton of posts about gameplay, mechanics, and UI. But these are not my memories of what made old school MMO's great. It was the sense of community, a living world that you missed while you were at work. I don't feel like I am missing anything in any MMO these days because they all feel like single player games to me. The community changes every time I come online because I rarely see the same person twice outside of my guilds due to megaservers and phasing crap technology. You can't make a name for yourself crafting because it has turned into something everyone can max in one day and on multiple toons so they are self-sufficient. No one player should be able to thrive in an MMORPG without interaction with the community, period. You can literally login and max level then do end game content in today's MMOs without interaction with one other player. That is where things have changed, imo.
Interestingly I'd call this a design regression as well.
Notably because it's MMOs following the classic CRPG design philosophy rather than trying to build new systems that directly cater to it being a persistent online world. So instead of community, you have a single player experience wrapped in an MMO with some matchmaking features.
I would sorta fault the EQ MMO train for this development, as they did utilize discrete player quests to achieve stuff rather than sweeping community events. Yes, there were community events, expressly GM run, that didn't impact the overall game world.
I would contrast that to AC again where major content changes came at the consequence of combined developer intent and community input. The direction community leaned in their reaction to the game's narrative was the direction the studio leaned in evolving the plot, which helped reciprocate that your actions as a player and a community bore weight.
Kind of hearkens to that old "holy grail" of gaming where an AI might eventually be advanced enough to act as a dynamic Dungeon Master. Just seems we've lost that as a pursuit to some degree and instead fell back on the closed/linear single player narratives instead of pushing that concept harder.
Yeah the EQ style game is fine for what it is and can be a fun game if done right. The fun part depends a lot on the community which is very different from what it was in 1999. But I will hope for the best and probably try this game. Early on many first generation games tried different things. For example Horizons had the players unite to fight the evil undead invading the world. In it at least early on, you could rebuild cities but you had to guard them. They planed to have weekly events run by AI but unfortunately in 2002 or so technology and/or the teams programming skills were not up to that task. Anyway we did have world events like digging a tunnel to access new areas or building a bridge to access new zones. Of course the blight or undead would attack so you end up with people defending the crafters who were building the tunnel or bridge. World events also opened up new playable races and other things. The fun thing about it was that everyone was working together. The game was also had lots of bugs which caused the combat to be slow and jerky and many other issues which lead to it not being a success. Was a great idea though. It might be possible to create such a game today with AI run weekly events but I don't expect to see such a game as it is too different from the norm for MMORPGs of today.
I see a ton of posts about gameplay, mechanics, and UI. But these are not my memories of what made old school MMO's great. It was the sense of community, a living world that you missed while you were at work. I don't feel like I am missing anything in any MMO these days because they all feel like single player games to me. The community changes every time I come online because I rarely see the same person twice outside of my guilds due to megaservers and phasing crap technology. You can't make a name for yourself crafting because it has turned into something everyone can max in one day and on multiple toons so they are self-sufficient. No one player should be able to thrive in an MMORPG without interaction with the community, period. You can literally login and max level then do end game content in today's MMOs without interaction with one other player. That is where things have changed, imo.
Interestingly I'd call this a design regression as well.
Notably because it's MMOs following the classic CRPG design philosophy rather than trying to build new systems that directly cater to it being a persistent online world. So instead of community, you have a single player experience wrapped in an MMO with some matchmaking features.
I would sorta fault the EQ MMO train for this development, as they did utilize discrete player quests to achieve stuff rather than sweeping community events. Yes, there were community events, expressly GM run, that didn't impact the overall game world.
I would contrast that to AC again where major content changes came at the consequence of combined developer intent and community input. The direction community leaned in their reaction to the game's narrative was the direction the studio leaned in evolving the plot, which helped reciprocate that your actions as a player and a community bore weight.
Kind of hearkens to that old "holy grail" of gaming where an AI might eventually be advanced enough to act as a dynamic Dungeon Master. Just seems we've lost that as a pursuit to some degree and instead fell back on the closed/linear single player narratives instead of pushing that concept harder.
Yeah the EQ style game is fine for what it is and can be a fun game if done right. The fun part depends a lot on the community which is very different from what it was in 1999. But I will hope for the best and probably try this game. Early on many first generation games tried different things. For example Horizons had the players unite to fight the evil undead invading the world. In it at least early on, you could rebuild cities but you had to guard them. They planed to have weekly events run by AI but unfortunately in 2002 or so technology and/or the teams programming skills were not up to that task. Anyway we did have world events like digging a tunnel to access new areas or building a bridge to access new zones. Of course the blight or undead would attack so you end up with people defending the crafters who were building the tunnel or bridge. World events also opened up new playable races and other things. The fun thing about it was that everyone was working together. The game was also had lots of bugs which caused the combat to be slow and jerky and many other issues which lead to it not being a success. Was a great idea though. It might be possible to create such a game today with AI run weekly events but I don't expect to see such a game as it is too different from the norm for MMORPGs of today.
Like an open playground, give the kids toys and let them play as they see fit.
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I see a lot of gaming that is like chickens running around with their heads cut off,like ADD gaming.Me i thinks it is horrible game play but to the young kids,they like it hyper fast,like i said like ADD gaming.
I was just watching some twitch streams and the players were literally run shoot die run shoot die,there was no mind or reason just keep shooting and keep dying.
The same goes for rpg's,i remember players wanting run around exploring,NOW....MUST level as fast as possible,MUST get best gear,ask chat "what is best dps at end game?".World firsts,ME ME ME.
So even if they played old school games,whatever that means,they would still think the same and seek out games similar to what is popular now.
I am not even sure if more than 1% of young gamer's know who Fatality is,you know the guy who put $$$ out of games on the map.When i watch Hearthstone EVERY single stream people ask "what is the deck code"where can i get this deck!!.You think playing a certain deck makes you a better player,well apparently they don't get it.
So just like the new generation of gaming,people have changed as well and why we see these new type of games that old school look at and think wtf is this crap.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
What I have heard from friends about them is that they offered a depth of gameplay you just don't see in modern triple A titles and given I am bored with games that offer a lack of challenge and depth I am very interested in the likes of Pantheon which is one of the games that seem to be endeavoring to offer an old school experience . I think possibly the closest I got to it was vanilla WoW which was a game that felt far more like a living breathing virtual world than the current version but from what I have heard, I doubt even that was anything like the real old school experience .
It is why I decided to buy Project Gorgon in the winter sale on steam , I am hoping to jump into that in the next week or two once I have got my lotro character to 50 on the progression servers . At least I can get to play that now , I think it is going to be a two to three year wait for Pantheon .
Do you go back to a time where things were less flexible? Do you choose to make things more arduous? I suppose there are players out there that thrive in these kinds of environments, but judging by the current state of affairs in gaming, they are a minority.
I'm of the opinion people don't know what they want, but think this is it. Once they get in, they'll lose interest and leave the niche players to it.
Pantheon faces a similar risk, if they take all the worst aspects of EQ1 to try make a challenging, Social game then people will not want to play. Knowing the player type they want to attract is great, they just need to think carefully on how they grab them, because despite what some think, a carbon copy of EQ1 won't do it
Today everyone from toddlers to the elderly play these games from every demographic and walks of life. The connections are much much more difficult to make for most players, especially for the very first demographic, imo.
Even if this game can attract large portions of those old-schoolers back, its too late. They are old now. They have families. Their values have changed. Years of games and dealing with a more and more all-encompassing community that swallowed up what was once a very tailored experience has jaded most of them beyond repair, imo. So, the game might be cool, but recapturing that time and essence will only come about with some new revelation in tech or society such as virtual reality or the discovery of sentient alien life, imo.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
- Difficult solo play like EQ but it can be done if you are really stuck for a group or just anti social ( wrong game for you )
- Harsh death penalty’s, dying is an adventure in itself , corpse runs , xp loss . One change I would make is instead of corpse disappearing after week and losing gear , make corpse disappear and give your gear back to you.
- Super slow leveling, the adventure is not rushing to end game . Take weeks to level not hours. Bring back the mini dings.
- Travel was hard , require keys , passes, faction etc to earn your way into new content .
- Gear that is bind on equip. Twinks are fun but I prefer to find gear not buy it with Real money from gold seller and trading . I think alot of people will hate this because trading was a big thing in EQ.
WoW was such a title. Rather than broadening the genre, it felt like it'd sought out and abandoned the more unique portions like, the "live" ecosystems, physics elements, or other aspects that made some games like AC have gameplay ahead of it's time. It's taken from then in the late 90s up until the latter half of this decade to even consider games like that one, made ~20 years ago, to be viable to produce on modern hardware.
And yes there were drawbacks, like distribution of mobs and content in order to balance the computational load of mapping different target regions on a body and having all arrows and projectiles be real-time projectiles you could react to.
I bring this up largely because "Pantheon doesn't represent this facet of the genre's history." for me as a once-consumer of these old titles. It does help bring part of the past into the modern age, but it ironically leans on much the same side as the rest that became the "mainstream" of the genre.
Which, for me, leaves several longstanding niches and elements of the genre yet unfilled or revisited.
If you want a harsh death penalty, XP/gear loss is the way to go.
If you die, you lose a percentage of XP, gear loses durability, if it hits zero you lose that piece of gear, and you gain a death penalty debuff.
Die again while having the debuff, you lose a higher percentage of XP/durability.
Lose enough XP you delevel, lose enough durability you lose all your gear.
We had Empires run by Emperors, we had Kingdoms run by Kings, now we have Countries...
This is one of the first race cars. It went an incredible 35 mph! Have you seen Indy cars lately?
Just like watching one of these old races, old game play is too to slow to hold the attention of today’s gamers.
For better or for worse the genre has moved on.
People automatically thinking stick figure 3D, awful drop down menus and slash everything for chat and guild members.
It's 2019... Why would anyone be hung up in 1999 ?
I believe in harsh death penalty. I really never sat down and gave it a lot of thought, mainly because my opinion wouldn't count anyway.
I would like it so the group doesn't suffer waiting for someone to show back up. This causes a lot of arguing !...... Theirs always a hot head in a group.
A successful mmorpg should be good for pick-up-groups.
90% of players will not have that "Good Guild".
Will be a fine line to walk for Pantheon to maintain, and I do believe Brad learned the lessons of Vanguard all too well.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
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Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Notably because it's MMOs following the classic CRPG design philosophy rather than trying to build new systems that directly cater to it being a persistent online world. So instead of community, you have a single player experience wrapped in an MMO with some matchmaking features.
I would sorta fault the EQ MMO train for this development, as they did utilize discrete player quests to achieve stuff rather than sweeping community events. Yes, there were community events, expressly GM run, that didn't impact the overall game world.
I would contrast that to AC again where major content changes came at the consequence of combined developer intent and community input. The direction community leaned in their reaction to the game's narrative was the direction the studio leaned in evolving the plot, which helped reciprocate that your actions as a player and a community bore weight.
Kind of hearkens to that old "holy grail" of gaming where an AI might eventually be advanced enough to act as a dynamic Dungeon Master. Just seems we've lost that as a pursuit to some degree and instead fell back on the closed/linear single player narratives instead of pushing that concept harder.
Early on many first generation games tried different things. For example Horizons had the players unite to fight the evil undead invading the world. In it at least early on, you could rebuild cities but you had to guard them. They planed to have weekly events run by AI but unfortunately in 2002 or so technology and/or the teams programming skills were not up to that task. Anyway we did have world events like digging a tunnel to access new areas or building a bridge to access new zones. Of course the blight or undead would attack so you end up with people defending the crafters who were building the tunnel or bridge. World events also opened up new playable races and other things. The fun thing about it was that everyone was working together.
The game was also had lots of bugs which caused the combat to be slow and jerky and many other issues which lead to it not being a success. Was a great idea though. It might be possible to create such a game today with AI run weekly events but I don't expect to see such a game as it is too different from the norm for MMORPGs of today.
Freedom, not auto generated.