Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Pantheon - What You Need to Know from July 30ths State of the Game
System
Member UncommonPosts: 12,599
Pantheon - What You Need to Know from July 30ths State of the Game
On July 30th, Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen developer Visionary Realms put together a comprehensive State of the Game as they head into Pre-Alpha 5. The hour-long session covered a ton of topics, from when the game will be streamable, to the status of where particular game features are in their development cycle. If you haven't had the opportunity to partake in the State of the Game, fear not, as we have distilled and summarized a good portion of it for your reading pleasure.
Comments
Yet there's an equally vocal crowd saying the proposed death penalty is sissy shit since there's no de-leveling or electric shock delivered through your keyboard.
"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
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
Oh i know! Death should be used as an instant teleport back to where your bound for easy access! /sarcasm
I have ideas that i need to see in a game,being unique is one or doing something better or more exciting/fun than the other games are doing the same ideas.
Part of the problem recreating top notch games is that MOST of the simple,lower cost ideas have already been flushed out so now gaming in all genres is same old new skin.
There is only one route left and it is not the TESTING route,it is to put more effort into your game design.I could lay out what we should be seeing in mmorpg's but i am not making the games i am just buying them and playing them.
Devs know what would make a great mmorpg,they simply will not deliver THAT game,either because they can't afford to or don't have the know how,employees,skills to pull it off.
One area we SHOULD be seeing is one i noticed looking at the Avengers footage and that is world interaction.We can do much better than simple one off target items to interact with,we should see the ENTIRE world as being interactive.
Know what needs testing?ECO systems,where are they,why do NONE of the mmorpg's have ECO systems?What do i care if you have 2 classes near finished and want to see if their abilities work,i EXPECT them to work on release day,do whatever you need to do to make it work,no need to tell me.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
If you want a WOW clone then go play a WOW clone, this was stated from the beginning that they are going the old school root.
I like where they are right now. I didn't like anything as harsh as the naked corpse run and a chance to lose all your gear because that can take you out of gameplay for days or weeks depending on the game, but I also don't like light penalties that allow you to zerg through content without thinking. I think Pantheon is right at the sweet spot.
It will also make them make the game F2P or B2P before shutting it down as no more than 500 people will be bothering to play such a game, let alone buy the game and they pay a monthly subscription for such a painful experience.
Project 1999 is mostly alive because of nostalgia, it's not like new people who never played the game back in the day are starting to play every day. Same goes for Star Wars Galaxies private servers, at least for the Pre-CU Pre-NGE versions - the only ones playing it are all old players, most of the new players are playing the Post-CU Post-NGE SWG Legends version and it's the server with the largest population.
I never played SWG back in the day and the only reason I could get into SWG Legends was because it played like WoW and wasn't unforgivable. I could explore the new mechanics and learn the new things without being punished for not having 800+ hours of experience from the get-go.
There is a fine line between challenge and forced, artificial inconveniences like the ones EverQuest 1, Old School RuneScape and Pantheon have. Project 1999 doesn't even have 1000 people playing it and that's because it's free. Now imagine Pantheon, being B2P and subscription-based - the population will not surpass 300 players, 500 if we're being optimistic and that's on launch, after that it will decline and eventually shut down.
Still not enough information on the actual game is being released, so my expected release date of 2125 is not being moved.
1. Subscription model.
The best subscripion model is B2P plus subscription. This is proven clearly by the biggest MMO ever. The reason why F2P is often used is because the games aren't good enough. GOOD ENOUGH is only and will ONLY EVER be based on what's good to the TARGET MARKET. So, is the MMO actually good enough for the target market? Well then B2P+Sub is the BEST pricing model. People will pay because it's such a good game for them, people it's not for will stay away, and the devs will make enough money to make the game even better and bring in more of their audience while keeping their old players and not shutting down.
And comparing the population of a F2P private server of an old game to the potential of Pantheon is bordering on absolute insanity.
2. Death penalty.
This is simple. Since they're not cash-grabbing devs making a subpar or generic MMO with a F2P model, they want to make sure that the game is good enough for their target audience, like I mentioned above. To not have a good death penalty would make the game worse for their target audience. This is clearly true since they are trying to make a next-gen MMO that is still challenging and hasn't lost touch with what made MMOs so fun and deep. People who want that, want a good death penalty. For example, consequence for failure is my favorite thing in MMOs, but I still want something that's not full on perma-death/full-loot.
Lastly, it seems people always forget about target audiences. To paraphrase my favorite author, Brandon Sanderson, you make something for people that want that thing, not for those that don't. And the people that want it, want it because of their current circumstances, not because it's better than something else or because it's the 'best MMO'. But because maybe they want to try something new, or they miss something old, etc. Whatever brings you in, if you're met with good execution and something that lives up to the potential of what you wanted, then it's amazing. There is no definitive best and if something turns you off of this game, then it's NOT FOR YOU NOW. But maybe it will be someday.
So, what I'm trying to say is that anyone who complains about a tough but fair death penalty is a wimpy casual that doesn't even deserve to know about Pantheon. Grow up first and then come back! Love ya!
1. Pre-Alpha 5 date will be announced next week.
2. 2 classes will be available, Dire Load and Shaman
3. Climbing will be available and more polished and endurance system added to climbing
4. New ability system added and rdy to be tested and mastery system
5. Perception system added for testing
6. Streaming of the game may come late in Pre-Alpha 5 as they work things out, by permission
7. More story added
8. Some dungeons have been updated
9. Duration of play will be longer then past Alphas but set amount of time is not decided yet
10. Fog, water effects and lighting has been reworked, still working progress (showed some screens raw)
Things they are working on now
1. Adding skill sets to NPC, skill timing, functionality and skill co-oping.
2. Player Characters Animations, this is continus
3. Raid Bosses and progression that comes with that, environment system playing into that, make sure people are afraid and having fun
4. Adding more NPC's, flushing out the world as the world is large.
Other facts mentioned
1. Questing and Story is non-linear - open world zone design
2. New Website coming soon. Forums will not be updated yet but coming
3. Quest Sharing, some quests yes, if it has pre-requisites no, unless they are met.
4. Silent Plains zone, will be going in depth on that sometime
5. Racial Actives: They want to revel it when its fully flushed out. Working progress. They are coming
6. Crafters will be able to repair damage gear. How will be discussed later. Will be really cool system not just repair kits.
Death Mechanics
1. What was stated earlier stands
2. They want the game to feel hard, death penalty is part of that
3. No naked corpse run because they are making a different game, corpse dragging by a rogue will be much harder with their stealth system. Balance is needed
4. Some classes can bind anywhere, other classes will have location they can bind to, more info coming on that.
5. Exp loss will be a % of what current level you are working on, not total exp gained
6. Fighting back to your corpse is what they want as part of the game play
7. This was set this way because of the game they designed. It fits into the system they have in play and building
8. De-leveling may or may not be a thing, said they leaving that for us to figure out when we play
Current Patch Notes worth mentioning
1. Die Lord and Shaman skills and mastery all updated
2. Chat window options
3. Updated ability bar and inventory UI, mostly "Quality of Life" things we would expect
4. New 2 Hand animations added.
5. Casting animations
6. Updated character creator
7. Audio systems updated
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
A lot of civility and essential community building atmosphere is caused by fear and the need for other people to help you. If you need other people's help the motivation to be dick will diminish exponentially. I am a firm believer that humans behave always selfishly and they are motivated by that one creed and making corpse retrieval in a dungeon something you need help with builds a better character online. One that attempts to engage and observe the social requirements to succeed.
a) your whole group must stay together to get back after wipe, or
b) you need to shell out some cash to others for the rescue
Neither of which really builds a community. However knowing today's players it will build out-of-game addon for buying and selling escorts to corpses unless Pantheon's devs make good enough in-game tool for that.
Just a further sad footnote to how things have changed since Everquest and not for the better.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
No kidding! Love Pantheon BUT god the streams are so boring! They need to learn marketing and sales lol. Heck even public speaking could help this team, way to dry
Wildstar proved there is no market for "Hardcore", This game will die the same death.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
If you die to AI that should make you question those things without a death penalty. I mean, you died to AI.