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Nthing the love for old school Ogres and Trolls. I do have two silly suggestions for the devs:
Good luck, devs.
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Jan 19, 2014 07:04
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cmdrk posted:I don't think anyone wants this game to flop, but I really wish for a "Plan B" to release the server binary (or the code Apparently one of their stretch goals is for people to be able to run their own private servers.
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Jan 19, 2014 07:16
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) to the community in case things go belly up.
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returnh posted:Apparently one of their stretch goals is for people to be able to run their own private servers. I am interested to see what that would be like. Curious if there would be tooset provided to help create the custom content and what scope you have to change mechanics, classes, etc.
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Jan 19, 2014 07:27
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Mayor McCheese posted:Nthing the love for old school Ogres and Trolls. You forgot fun abilities like how Druids could change the Weather. e: 10k tier now has 2 additional slots added. Lemon King fucked around with this message at 07:35 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 07:31
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Lemon King posted:You forgot fun abilities like how Druids could change the Weather. Yeah, these too! Turning yourself into a tree or a chair, putting a mask on that changes your race, shrinking things -- those kind of things were great.
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Jan 19, 2014 07:43
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Mayor McCheese posted:Nthing the love for old school Ogres and Trolls. Both of these are awesome suggestions, especially the first one. It sucks in certain games when, as you level, your spells get stronger but they look just as they did at level one.
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Jan 19, 2014 08:50
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G Prestige posted:Both of these are awesome suggestions, especially the first one. It sucks in certain games when, as you level, your spells get stronger but they look just as they did at level one. In classic World of Warcraft your spells did change graphically as you trained up ranks but I don't think many players noticed. I can think of two good examples: Arcane Missiles gained more projectiles the higher the rank and Fireball's casting particle fx increased in detail and size as did Fireball's trailing pfx. Lemon King fucked around with this message at 09:02 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 08:54
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The only things I want out of this game are classes that are actually unique and quests that will potentially take more than 6 minutes to finish. Part of what made social interaction in EQ so strong was that each class was needed specifically for something and you got to know who was good at what. Not this "everybody can do everything" bullshit that severely dilutes the player-base. LONG. loving. QUESTS. Logging into a game for a few hours a day with a distinct goal in mind that has an actual VALUABLE reward is something that games don't do anymore. And the only time it happens in WoW is at max level and requires weeks of grinding the exact same thing repeatedly. Epic Quests in EverQuest should be the blueprint to every quest in this game. I've been playing EQ since '99 and I will play this game regardless.
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Jan 19, 2014 11:09
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Zombones posted:The only things I want out of this game are classes that are actually unique and quests that will potentially take more than 6 minutes to finish. Part of what made social interaction in EQ so strong was that each class was needed specifically for something and you got to know who was good at what. Not this "everybody can do everything" bullshit that severely dilutes the player-base. I agree about the quests. The 2nd Q&A video has a question about this. There aren't an abundance of quests where you collect 7 boar assholes (that you can only magically see and loot after accepting the quest) and turn it in for faction and currency. He said they are going quality over quantity, most quests will be long and involved, contribute to the story of the game, and have an appropriate reward at the end. I'm sure there will be quick filler quests for people that want to log in for a bit, but it sounds like the polar opposite of World of Warcraft for questing, thank goodness. I loved getting my key for Veeshan's Peak. It took forever. God drat, did it feel rewarding to step into that zone when I collected all the pieces of the old iksar tribes. If you have been playing since '99, surely you are in contact with one person or more who played too. If so, let them know about this game and its kickstarter. It's the genre's only hope, I believe. I love Brad's game design philosophy. No one tries to copy it because they are too scared to try to be unlike World of Warcraft, so if you want a game like EQ or Vanguard, you have to rely on him, and whoever is on his development team. Node fucked around with this message at 13:03 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 13:00
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Zombones posted:The only things I want out of this game are classes that are actually unique and quests that will potentially take more than 6 minutes to finish. Part of what made social interaction in EQ so strong was that each class was needed specifically for something and you got to know who was good at what. Not this "everybody can do everything" bullshit that severely dilutes the player-base. This, I agree with this so goddamn much. If the "quest" is just "go bring this thing to this other guy two meters away from me" or "Go collect these five bear asses from mobs that can't even hurt you", then why the gently caress even include those? The first one is a complete waste of time nobody has ever considered in any way fun, the second one can just be included in the exp / coin rewards you kill from the bears normally and removed altogether.
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Jan 19, 2014 13:23
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Brad McQuaid is doing another mmo based on the things he made in the past. So is lord British. I kinda feel like this is the mid life crisis of mmo devs.
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Jan 19, 2014 13:41
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Lemon King posted:In classic World of Warcraft your spells did change graphically as you trained up ranks but I don't think many players noticed. the biggest issue I have with spells in modern MMO's is that everyones poo poo looks EXACTLY the same at level cap. just copy paste over and over and over. zero flavor difference within class.
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Jan 19, 2014 15:04
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sinewave posted:the biggest issue I have with spells in modern MMO's is that everyones poo poo looks EXACTLY the same at level cap. just copy paste over and over and over. zero flavor difference within class. The difference in playstyle for a priest in wow between discipline, holy and shadow is marked. I don't know how you feel 20 clerics sitting in line to cast full heal then wait for a minute until it is their turn again is somehow flavourfully different.
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Jan 19, 2014 15:13
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I was pretty happy to see the info in the Kickstarter. I'm interested in EQNext for sure, but there's an awful lot of us that have been asking for a game with exactly what he's proposing here - a more balanced risk vs. reward formula, group-centric gameplay, a focus on social structures, content that will challenge you outside of the raid level, design favoring immersion over spectacle, etc. There's a huge perception that no one actually wants that kind of game anymore, but I've never been able to really believe that. It'll likely be niche, but provided it's well-executed and they stick to the precepts being proposed, I can't see this game actually failing.
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Jan 19, 2014 15:21
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Third World Reggin posted:Brad McQuaid is doing another mmo based on the things he made in the past. Richard Garriott isn't making a pure MMORPG, it's sort of a single player and big/massive multiplayer hybrid. But him and Brad are the two founders of modern MMORPGs so I'm glad they're back. UO and EQ gives me a nostalgia overload. I need to lie down.
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Jan 19, 2014 16:06
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I do like the idea of getting abilities and traits from fighting mobs/bosses. One of my favorite classes in games is the Blue Mage, and it kind of sounds like everyone is a bit of a blue mage in a way.
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Jan 19, 2014 16:42
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I hope that extends to weapons too. It was always cool to see the mob you were waiting for actually pop up holding the weapon you wanted. I wish more games would do that.
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Jan 19, 2014 16:58
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Third World Reggin posted:Brad McQuaid is doing another mmo based on the things he made in the past. You're not exactly wrong, but at least Garriott is trying to make something a little different in regards to how we make friends and adapting the game world to fit that (and in that way it isn't exactly an MMORPG). He's interested in furthering game design. Brad probably isn't doing anything different. He's in it purely to satisfy a niche market. At the very least, it'll be interesting to see how each approach holds up after release.
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Jan 19, 2014 19:07
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For people who haven't followed the Kickstarter that closely. Here is a dungeon design Vu has been working on.
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Jan 19, 2014 20:24
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What?! It's not in an L with a boss room every turn! TERRIBLE!
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Jan 19, 2014 20:32
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Freakazoid_ posted:You're not exactly wrong, but at least Garriott is trying to make something a little different in regards to how we make friends and adapting the game world to fit that (and in that way it isn't exactly an MMORPG). He's interested in furthering game design. This is what I was getting at about user experience design. I'm 100% positive from the way Garriott has been communicating ideas, that they have a UX designer on staff contributing to the game design. They are considering UX goals along the way, for each Release Test and each game system as it's being presented to us in their updates. I would love to see modern takes on oldschool mmo systems, but just listening to Brad talk in the videos "it's a UI.. thing, yes we'll have a UI" makes me cringe. Good UX stands out - Brad knows this, he wants to telegraph mob 'tells' using red rings and such. However, bad UX in a challenging game can be difficult to address. It's often assumed to be an intended part of the challenge. It's 2014 now and we can afford to think about the user experience in each game system and all the way down to the structure of the product, not just at the surface in the UI. To make a modern, challenging mmo you have to look back at Vanguard and EQ and evaluate which aspects of the challenges (and sometimes frustrations) came from intended designs or UX/UI limitations due to tech/time/money. As a UX'er I realize I'm tooting my own horn here. It's just frustrating to hear him kind of ignore UX under the assumption that it's just part of the challenge they're shooting for. sinewave fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 20:38
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sinewave posted:It's 2014 now and we can afford to think about the user experience in each game system and all the way down to the structure of the product, not just at the surface in the UI. As excited as I am about the idea of a MMO with a truly large, explorable world, this is one of the things that concerns me quite a bit about the actual implementation thereof. Some of the other comments the devs have mentioned, like not having maps, seem like exactly the wrong way to go about it; why not have a system where your map fills out as you explore (possibly even with the ability to add customized annotations, e.g., "orc patrol here at noon"), making careful exploration provide tangible benefits for the player and providing an opportunity for social/economic interaction via sharing or selling maps? I realize that they've said they are deliberately targeting a niche audience, and I do think that some things aren't done any more in MMOs simply out of the desire to attract the widest audience possible, but some things aren't done any more because there are better ways of doing them. I have similar concerns about the "designed downtime" idea. To me, that calls to mind two things: medding for MP and waiting for boats, and the former is basically a deal-killer for me. After playing games where combat resources regenerate at a reasonable rate, I have no desire to return to the days of staring at a spellbook page for most of a fight, popping up to cast a couple of spells, and then sitting right back down again--or, on the other side of the coin, doing virtually nothing but maintaining a MP recovery cycle a la Red Mage from FFXI. It's possible to make resource management an interesting part of combat without punishing MP-dependent classes (see the Coercer class from EQ2, where the focus is more on manipulating party MP pools as a whole rather than just flat MP recovery), but I'm not sure how that fits in with the stated desire for downtime. Waiting for travel is also something that has to be handled carefully, I think. Again looking back at FFXI, because I played it for longer than I did EQ, you had to wait for airships and ferries to arrive and then go through the trip in real time; at first, it was new and exciting, and it really did fill the role the devs seem to want for it here: a social gathering opportunity, where you got the chance to interact with a lot of players who you wouldn't necessarily otherwise meet. As time went on, though, and people got more and more locked into their linkshells and chosen circles of friends, waiting on airships just became a hassle you did only when there wasn't someone nearby who could teleport you; eventually, I just ended up leaving my character on auto-run pointed at the door to the airship dock and went AFK to do other things for a little while--and, judging by the number of fellow characters running beside me, that was hardly uncommon.
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Jan 19, 2014 21:21
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Ariannaid posted:As excited as I am about the idea of a MMO with a truly large, explorable world, this is one of the things that concerns me quite a bit about the actual implementation thereof. Some of the other comments the devs have mentioned, like not having maps, seem like exactly the wrong way to go about it; why not have a system where your map fills out as you explore (possibly even with the ability to add customized annotations, e.g., "orc patrol here at noon"), making careful exploration provide tangible benefits for the player and providing an opportunity for social/economic interaction via sharing or selling maps? I realize that they've said they are deliberately targeting a niche audience, and I do think that some things aren't done any more in MMOs simply out of the desire to attract the widest audience possible, but some things aren't done any more because there are better ways of doing them. My two core tenets when approaching these kind of UX challenges are: *Sell the concept with narrative. I have long wanted to see the idea of the map and journal expand alongside your interaction with the world over time in non-trivial ways. I have complete designs for this ready to go for my own Dune MMO once I win the lottery. (You see a Sandworm: your codex entry for "sandworm" grows and you get a stub entry on Thumpers. You craft a Thumper: your codex entry for thumper gets fleshed out and hyperlinks to new stub entries on related tools and locations.) *You can get away with more depth/complexity the more you link different game systems conceptually. By reinforcing a concept from one system by leveraging it in another, the player perceives the added depth as integral to the experience as opposed to just an additional 'tacked on' facet of the game system itself. Let me be super clear about UX: there is no single ideal solution for any particular problem, only varying degrees of 'fit' based on criteria and constraints. UX methods help core design iterate more effectively and allow the team to 'see' what aspects of a design contribute to specific player perceptions. sinewave fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Jan 20, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 22:42
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sinewave posted:My two core tenets when approaching these kind of UX challenges are: Warhammer Online had something similar where your journal or codex or whatever they called it grew and expanded with your exploration and information on mobs would grow the more you killed them, other games had you dissecting them to learn more about their weaknesses, etc. It is a lot of effort for fluff really. It is a great level of detail if the rest of the game is a solid product but you need a lot of core aspects of the game to be done right for the extra fluff bits to become a factor in terms of enjoyment and playability. The problem with MMOs is a lot of things sound cool but end up not playing very well or being significant enough features to retain interest in the game. WAR in particular was one of the most disappointing MMOs given the level of expectation they created with the features they talked about. Hype is great for creating interest but it also raises the level of expectation, if you vary significantly from what you promise it creates a lot of resentment. I think for that reason, especially given it is a kickstarter project, they would have to be careful about what features they would promise or hype about, everything that sounds cool takes time and money to develop.
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Jan 20, 2014 01:10
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Ariannaid posted:As excited as I am about the idea of a MMO with a truly large, explorable world, this is one of the things that concerns me quite a bit about the actual implementation thereof. Some of the other comments the devs have mentioned, like not having maps, seem like exactly the wrong way to go about it; why not have a system where your map fills out as you explore (possibly even with the ability to add customized annotations, e.g., "orc patrol here at noon"), making careful exploration provide tangible benefits for the player and providing an opportunity for social/economic interaction via sharing or selling maps? User Experience doesn't always have to be about making everything as convenient for the user as possible; if you take it too far, you'll have the game or interface fulfill roles that essentially rob the player of his gameplay and responsibilities, ultimately leading to a less challenging and rewarding experience. While useful, in-game maps can be a crutch, a distraction, and cheapen the exploration. In more recent MMOs that have an in game map system, like Rift or FFXIV, I found myself constantly staring at the in-game map at all times while traveling. It was just so useful and perfect; I never had to look at my character, his surroundings, or landmarks that I may use to help direct myself. All I had to do is turn on auto-run and occasionally steer to the left or right and watch the little arrow on the map moved me to my destination without fail. Now that I've stopped playing both of those games, I couldn't tell you what 90% of the outdoor zones in either of those games look like. However, I can describe the landmarks and now to navigate plenty of zones in EverQuest despite not having played it for over a decade. A lack of an in-game map system--or an ever-present, omniscient radar--rewards players that take the effort to maintain situational awareness and learn how to navigate based off of landmarks and other static features in the world. If an in-game map system was available for the original EverQuest I believe it would have made the world feel smaller and diminished the pleasure of exploration; I would be able to tell what parts of the world I hadn't discovered yet. If there was a map and/or compass I would have never had to use my sense heading or tracking skills, wouldn't have gotten lost in the Karanas as often, and would have had much easier times recovering my corpse and equipment when being lost led me into a hill giant. While those were some frustrating experiences, I probably wouldn't have had as much fun as I did, or retain the nostalgia for EverQuest either.
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Jan 20, 2014 01:43
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I agree. A lot of the "quality of life" features people are hampering for in mmorpgs basically ruined them. Turned them into pseudo lobby dungeon crawlers. Not that those are bad games in their own right, but they strayed away from being true mmorpgs. More like rpg lite.
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Jan 20, 2014 03:03
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Haha, love the avatar change on the kickstarter page. Aradune with the green splint mail and the Fiery Avenger.
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Jan 20, 2014 03:31
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An admin at Rerolled gave that to him, actually, hah.
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Jan 20, 2014 03:51
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If you didn't follow Vanguard in the years leading up to its release and then buy it, I'll save you a lot of time, money and effort: close your browser window and forget you ever heard of Pantheon. The bullshit Brad is spouting about how he's making the true  spiritual successor to EQ and the solution to terrible WoW-esque MMOs is exactly what he was saying in 2005 as he was literally lighting Microsoft/SOE's money on fire while collecting pre-orders from desperate aging nerds blinded by the nostalgia of playing EQ back in the day. Open beta will come and you'll realize the game is 90% incomplete and the 10% that is there is unplayable due to bugs and performance issues. But you won't cancel your pre-order because its Brad McQuade! He made Everquest, you know! He just doesn't want to spoil the launch so he's saving the fix everything patch for launch day!Or you can contribute to kickstarter/pre-order/cling to the empty concept art/screenshots they will drivel out to you over the next few years while you wait for launch and continue discussing in Pantheon threads/forums how fun EQ was back in the day and golly this is going to be just like it! On the 1% chance he actually pulls through and makes a playable game this time (what makes you think he can do this with $800k if he couldn't do it with tens of millions of dollars and many years with Vanguard) you can buy it at launch. Swingline fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Jan 20, 2014 |
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Jan 20, 2014 04:02
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Swingline posted:If you didn't follow Vanguard in the years leading up to its release and then buy it, I'll save you a lot of time, money and effort: close your browser window and forget you ever heard of Pantheon. The bullshit Brad is spouting about how he's making the true e: nevermind. FreeWifi!! fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Jan 20, 2014 |
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Jan 20, 2014 04:13
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xZAOx posted:An admin at Rerolled gave that to him, actually, hah. I'm almost certain that is cropped from a screenshot during Everquest's Shadows of Fear content update, when he was briefly back at EQ as a developer.
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Jan 20, 2014 04:36
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Node posted:I'm almost certain that is cropped from a screenshot during Everquest's Shadows of Fear content update, when he was briefly back at EQ as a developer. Yeah, but an RR admin changed his avatar to that when he was posting a few weeks ago, so looks like he liked it and decided to roll with it, haha. A lot of people this is targeting know the green ranger with the soulfire. I approve. Meow Tse-tung fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Jan 20, 2014 |
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Jan 20, 2014 04:43
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Well, this is a good way not to get him to reply to the thread anymore, which many of us would like him keep doing, but you guys are obviously allowed to post whatever you want. I would hope to keep the conversation about Pantheon and how it relates to other games, but wishes are fishes, whatever the hell that means. I'll say this: you can't place blame on the way Vanguard turned out on one person. SOE has a love affair with doors, and pushing things through them. Plus: in the interviews we have seen about Pantheon, the man you are talking about has admitted to making mistakes and been more specific than most as to what mistakes those were.
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Jan 20, 2014 04:46
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Node posted:I'll say this: you can't place blame on the way Vanguard turned out on one person. SOE has a love affair with doors, and pushing things through them. That's what was so frustrating about  , especially in that era. I felt like if they didn't just try to poo poo out franchises, there was a lot of potential. Stuff like Matrix online, Star wars galaxies, EQ2 (This one did get fixed up a lot, eventually.), and Vanguard could have made for an amazing all-access pass, if they just took more time to keep polishing those titles instead of moving onto the next thing and creating MMO graveyards.
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Jan 20, 2014 04:50
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Third World Reggin posted:Brad McQuaid is doing another mmo based on the things he made in the past. Nah, This is just another bubble cycle. Brad saw that DAOC and the old Black Isle guys got a 5x promote on their nostalga vehicles and decided to cash in. This being said, I really do wish Brad the best of luck in the kickstarter. I personally feel that (and I have said this to him on Rerolled before) the best way to get goodwill going again is to spend some time on Goon/Rerolled/IGN boards to develop a strong loyal grassroots which can then pump the brand. It worked wonders for the Star Citizen crew.
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Jan 20, 2014 04:57
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Ensis posted:User Experience doesn't always have to be about making everything as convenient for the user as possible; if you take it too far, you'll have the game or interface fulfill roles that essentially rob the player of his gameplay and responsibilities, ultimately leading to a less challenging and rewarding experience. This. Good UX for challenging niche mmos is different than good UX for widely accessible massively-singleplayer games like wow, etc. What concerns me is that no one has really tried good UX for niche mmos so far its been lovely UX due to lack of time/money or an attitude that "good UX" implies hand holding 
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Jan 20, 2014 04:58
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Hal_2005 posted:Nah, I was surprised that Camelot Unchained got the public funding it did, $2.2m for a game that really was never 'that' popular. I played DAOC a bit, mostly as a fill-in between downtime with other games. Darkness Falls was probably one of the most memorable dungeon experiences but outside of that the RvR became pretty repetitive, and you had to change server if the server you started on was remotely incompetent. Although I do miss one-shotting noobs as an archer, from stealth... didn't see that getting nerfed. :p That kickstarter got a fair bit of media though from memory, I think Pantheon needs some more press. I would have expected it to be higher than it is at present, although still early days. Zvim fucked around with this message at 08:55 on Jan 20, 2014 |
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Jan 20, 2014 08:53
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Kickstarter was updated with a new layout and images for goals.
Lemon King fucked around with this message at 09:04 on Jan 20, 2014 |
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Jan 20, 2014 09:02
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Zvim posted:I was surprised that Camelot Unchained got the public funding it did, $2.2m for a game that really was never 'that' popular. I played DAOC a bit, mostly as a fill-in between downtime with other games. Darkness Falls was probably one of the most memorable dungeon experiences but outside of that the RvR became pretty repetitive, and you had to change server if the server you started on was remotely incompetent. Don't underestimate DaoC's German following and the lack of good PvP/RvR in recent MMO's. Also; like I mentioned earlier, Mark Jacobs was literally living and posting feedback on the big MMO community boards. Unfortunately he's now using that time to show that he's an awful writer by posting Backer updates every week with horrific lore fluff.
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Jan 20, 2014 11:01
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Cnaiur posted:Don't underestimate DaoC's German following and the lack of good PvP/RvR in recent MMO's. Also; like I mentioned earlier, Mark Jacobs was literally living and posting feedback on the big MMO community boards. Unfortunately he's now using that time to show that he's an awful writer by posting Backer updates every week with horrific lore fluff. He has to do something while everyone else does the work.
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Jan 20, 2014 12:36
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