I want to donate to the game at the 100$ level but I'm having a hard time pulling the trigger on it.
I would love for this to be the game I play for the next 10 years. The wife even gave me permission to pledge and buy a new computer around the time it is released (which never happens but she knows how long it has been since there was a game that I really wanted to play).
The issue is that I keep reading things on the pantheon forums that I am unsure about. There is a lot of talk about creating a challenging game similar to how mmos used to be and catering to a niche group of gamers. That sounds great in theory but I'm not sure if it will end up being the reality.
I have a lot of questions.
The problem is, in order to post on the Pantheon forums you have to have donated. I can't even ask questions that would help me decide if I want to donate because I can't post to ask them. Catch 22.
I want to donate to the game at the 100$ level but I'm having a hard time pulling the trigger on it.
I would love for this to be the game I play for the next 10 years. The wife even gave me permission to pledge and buy a new computer around the time it is released (which never happens but she knows how long it has been since there was a game that I really wanted to play).
The issue is that I keep reading things on the pantheon forums that I am unsure about. There is a lot of talk about creating a challenging game similar to how mmos used to be and catering to a niche group of gamers. That sounds great in theory but I'm not sure if it will end up being the reality.
I have a lot of questions.
The problem is, in order to post on the Pantheon forums you have to have donated. I can't even ask questions that would help me decide if I want to donate because I can't post to ask them. Catch 22.
Heya Lego!
Ask the questions here, if you would like. There are a lot of older pledgers, and people who haven't pledged and follow Pantheon closely that may know the answers.
Anything factual I can probably provide, however what your main concern is "The issue is that I keep reading things on the pantheon forums that I am
unsure about. There is a lot of talk about creating a challenging
game similar to how mmos used to be and catering to a niche group of
gamers. That sounds great in theory but I'm not sure if it will end up
being the reality." Is a combination of looking into a crystal ball and opinion If you have more specific questions, perhaps one of us here could answer them?
Ask the questions here, if you would like. There are a lot of older pledgers, and people who haven't pledged and follow Pantheon closely that may know the answers.
Anything factual I can probably provide, however what your main concern is "The issue is that I keep reading things on the pantheon forums that I am
unsure about. There is a lot of talk about creating a challenging
game similar to how mmos used to be and catering to a niche group of
gamers. That sounds great in theory but I'm not sure if it will end up
being the reality." Is a combination of looking into a crystal ball and opinion If you have more specific questions, perhaps one of us here could answer them?
Hope you get the information you need.
Fondly, Zar
Thank you for the reply. I appreciate your offer to help.
I have been following the game for awhile now. I did post on the old forums a couple years back when you didn't have to have donated. I might be more up to date on info than you realized. But I do still have questions.
I have a couple specific questions (that may be unanswerable? )...and I also have a number of more vague, general direction of the game/implementation questions
The specific questions:
1)Exp penalty and level loss. Are both of these a definite? Everything I have read from devs seems like it is likely (though nothing is official that I have seen). These are something that I had assumed were a given to be included...until I read the Pantheon forums on the subject and was surprised to see many people who weren't for both of these.
Honestly, if there is one thing that would be a deal breaker for me was if the game didn't have a fairly significant death penalty, including level loss. That should be a major part of the challenge that has been advertised imho.
2) Max raid size? There has been a lot of talk about the leveling process and having raids targeted at all levels of characters. Great. What is the max raid size?...I won't get into all my thoughts and opinions on raid size. Has this info been mentioned and I missed it?
I do understand that a lot of the information I seek is "a combination
of looking into a crystal ball and opinion" like you mentioned. I'll comment on that briefly below.
Honestly a lot of my
doubts stem from one long dev post by Brad that lead me to questioning
the direction of the game and wondering if that whole...challenging gameplay
for a niche audience...was just lip service? It seemed like it had an
underlying tone of profitability and making the game accessible to as
many new players as possible. I do understand it's a fine line to
walk. I'm of the mindset that "if you build it they will come". Give
the player base some credit. Even players new to the mmo genre are
capable of figuring out how to play/enjoy a challenging game. (of course not all of them...thus the niche target audience). Don't coddle players. That's not what this game should be. That
didn't seem like the mindset that was being presented.
I have gotten my hopes up for a number of games pre-release over the years. This is the next one in line. We'll see how it turns out.
1) Since the game is not out, I can't say it will definitely have level loss, but I believe both mechanics are in the current build and they intend to go forward to testing phases with them. Barring a flood of complaints from modern gamers during the testing phases, I would guess they will make it through to launch. I would say at this point, while it isn't unanimous that people want both exp and level loss, it does seem to be the preference of the majority.
Either way, I'd say at least experience loss is highly probable.
2) This one may be a bit more up in the air, as they've only recently finished class design and have begun the coding the early levels of all the classes. Naturally designing raid content is still a ways out.
The group size is going to be 6 or 8 players, and I have a feeling that raids will probably be on the larger side. Even in early EQ, you had some raids that took 20 or so players, and others that took 50, and some that took even more. Its my personal hope that they don't try to standardize that aspect of the game. They might aim for 36 or so (would be my guess) but then have some encounters requiring more or less.
As to your last remarks about Brad's recent post about profitability and accessibility, I felt the exact same way. The post you are likely referring to was probably in the thread discussing matchmaking (which I derailed to discuss mentoring), and was reposted as a blog entry.
I too think if you build it they will come. I don't believe they need to soften even the early game to make it appealing to a large enough audience. Frankly, I think they should stay as close to EQ as possible because it has a proven track record and I don't believe people have changed in the last 20 years, even if gaming has changed.
Pantheon needs to be different. It needs to feel different from day 1. I think part of the appeal of a real virtual world is that it doesn't guide you around by the hand telling you what to do or make it easy for you to succeed. I believe if, in an attempt to make it easier for players to become "acclimated", it will probably lose that kind of appeal. Players who want a harder "oldschool" game are going to be, whether consciously or subconsciously, turned off if they are hit with a bunch of accessibility systems right out of the gate.
Ultimately, I don't think any amount of early coddling will make a game with "EQ as the foundation" palatable to mainstream MMO players in the long term. That leaves them in a real catch 22 situation and I believe the best approach is to stick to their guns and make Pantheon like the game that was, far and away, the most successful of Brad's previous works.
@LegotheHutt Im on the same boat as you with pledging. I subbed to their forums for a few months but now im just lurking, waiting for much more gameplay footage and a more concrete date for alpha. So far its planned to begin end of this year or early next so hopefully ill be able to pledge by then.
To answer your questions, I believe none of it is set in stone. There want a death penalty harsher than what most modern games have but I dont think they have decided yet. Could be xp loss, could be a good old fashioned naked corpse run... could be both. Im not in the same camp as losing levels, particularly at end game and on a game which will likely have old school level grinds but im cool with the rest.
Same goes for raid sizes, hell, group sizes arent even set yet afaik. I think the latest build we saw in the twitch stream (which should be all over youtube now) was 5. Which makes sense since they also want to add CC as an actual role.
The only problem with "wait and see", is that we've reached the point where its obvious that no big money Studio has the desire or the understanding of how to make an MMO like those we experienced in this genre's infancy. Those modern gamers who are happy with the current state of affairs, I completely understand your reasoning. For the rest of you, I can't help but doubt your love for this kind of game if you haven't gone out and backed something that sounds like a game you would play - be it Pantheon or any other indie title.
If someone doesn't put their money where their mouth is now, chances are we'll still be seeing WoW and Destiny clones 20 years from now.
I find this post really insulting. Surely that "someone" should be the company trying to make the game.
I think in a thread about crowdfunding, it probably should go without saying that MMOs aren't something a small company of people can realistically fund themselves. Its also kind of implied that this crowdfunded money is becoming more necessary as VC and investors in general are wary of this type of game.
Getting the obvious out of the way, that leaves those players who say they want another MMO other than the variety currently being offered. Yes, they should put there money where their mouth is, or shut up and go play whatever korean mmo got ported over this month or the next WoW expansion.
I want this game to come out but its not that simple. Everyone could fund this game and it still has a chance it wont release. Bard could dip into the funds, the game itself may not be fun and not worth releasing. They may release it and not pull in enough fans to float the game. This game as far as crowd funded games go, it high risk. Many people dont chuck out $100 bones on maybe. Myself I could easy but I would rather spend my fun money on something I know will pay out.
And beloved EQN is a good example of a non Indie mmo coming out lol. Still mad because it's not going to be like shit you wanted in EQN.
And it's Brad not bard plus you need to do your home work about who controls funds.
Im guessing some of you may be on the same boat as me. You want to support the game and really want to help make it to release so you can play it yourself. Youre tired of the same overplayed guided gameplay/interactive department stores MMO's have become of late. The tenets of Pantheons development team are one of the few, if not the only, MMO that seems to get what you want in an MMO. To top it off, youll get some in-game goodies and two copies of the game which is more or less going to be what 2 copies will cost you if you wait for release.
On the other hand there is always that risk of dropping down $100+ dollars on something that may never be. To be frank, the 'financial ethics' behind it doesnt exactly build confidence either. Hell, its fully possible that youll hate the game even if it does come out. Yet here you are.
Many have already pledged and are eagerly awaiting their prize. Some might still be on the fence or just waiting for a more sure thing (like me). Others laugh at the idea of just paying for something that not only will make someone else money, but may never happen in the end.
TL;DR Just thought id make a thread to see who else is also deciding and why. Maybe even give the devs some insight on what to "advertise" to us next to convince us to pony up. Those of you on the fence, what do you want/need to see or know before you decide to give away your hard earned cash ($100+ pledge)?
Personally, id at least like an alpha date. Its easier to "invest" if I know ill at least be able to play an early, incredibly limited and buggy version of the game for a while. Meanwhile, more game play videos showing off some higher level dungeon game play or more detailed combat mechanics (and animations!) might just make me impulse buy it just to get it out of my head.
Feel free to discuss, even if you already are pledged or pity us poor gullible fools for flushing our money on a promise.
only way I would pledge a un finished game is me getting part of the profits, if not, launch teh damn thing and if is good and I ahve the time I will play it, not other way to do so
As to your last remarks about Brad's recent post about profitability and accessibility, I felt the exact same way. The post you are likely referring to was probably in the thread discussing matchmaking (which I derailed to discuss mentoring), and was reposted as a blog entry.
I too think if you build it they will come. I don't believe they need to soften even the early game to make it appealing to a large enough audience. Frankly, I think they should stay as close to EQ as possible because it has a proven track record and I don't believe people have changed in the last 20 years, even if gaming has changed.
Pantheon needs to be different. It needs to feel different from day 1. I think part of the appeal of a real virtual world is that it doesn't guide you around by the hand telling you what to do or make it easy for you to succeed. I believe if, in an attempt to make it easier for players to become "acclimated", it will probably lose that kind of appeal. Players who want a harder "oldschool" game are going to be, whether consciously or subconsciously, turned off if they are hit with a bunch of accessibility systems right out of the gate.
Ultimately, I don't think any amount of early coddling will make a game with "EQ as the foundation" palatable to mainstream MMO players in the long term. That leaves them in a real catch 22 situation and I believe the best approach is to stick to their guns and make Pantheon like the game that was, far and away, the most successful of Brad's previous works.
You hit the nail on the head. Your link to the blog is what I was referring to.
While I do agree with some points in the blog, there are multiple other points made that make me think the game might not be going in a direction that will make me want to play it.
I also very much agree with your assessment on the state of the situation in general. It is nice to see that someone else feels the same.
Thank you for the reply. I appreciate your offer to help.
-You are welcome! I see lots of people helped already
I have been following the game for awhile now. I did post on the old forums a couple years back when you didn't have to have donated. I might be more up to date on info than you realized. But I do still have questions.
I have a couple specific questions (that may be unanswerable? )...and I also have a number of more vague, general direction of the game/implementation questions
The specific questions:
1)Exp penalty and level loss. Are both of these a definite? Everything I have read from devs seems like it is likely (though nothing is official that I have seen). These are something that I had assumed were a given to be included...until I read the Pantheon forums on the subject and was surprised to see many people who weren't for both of these.
-Posters can post whatever they want - we have to looks at VRI's vision and right now the FAQ reads:
"Will there be a ‘death penalty’?
We want the player to respect and
even fear the environment, but also to be enticed by it. A big part of
achieving this balance is making sure there is an incentive to avoid death.
While the details of this system are not yet fleshed out (and will likely be
tweaked and changed a bit during beta), you can expect death to be something
you’d rather avoid. That said, if a death penalty is too severe, it can keep
players away from some of the more challenging and rewarding content, and we
are keeping this in mind as well. So death will sting, but it will also not
involve losing an unreasonable amount of experience, or levels, or a
permanent loss of items."
Brad reinforced that this year with "Too early to set the death penalty in stone, but if you know us, read up
on Pantheon, the FAQ, you can get a good general idea: death needs to
sting for victory to be sweet. If the death penalty is too light,
players will not respect the environment, risk vs. reward is damaged, as
is sense of accomplishment. If a death penalty is too great, people
won't take any risks and just try to find the safest, no matter how
boring route to progression. So we need to find the middle ground that
works for our target audience, and I am confident we will dial that in."
Honestly, if there is one thing that would be a deal breaker for me was if the game didn't have a fairly significant death penalty, including level loss. That should be a major part of the challenge that has been advertised imho.
-I agree
2) Max raid size? There has been a lot of talk about the leveling process and having raids targeted at all levels of characters. Great. What is the max raid size?...I won't get into all my thoughts and opinions on raid size. Has this info been mentioned and I missed it?
I do understand that a lot of the information I seek is "a combination
of looking into a crystal ball and opinion" like you mentioned. I'll comment on that briefly below.
Honestly a lot of my
doubts stem from one long dev post by Brad that lead me to questioning
the direction of the game and wondering if that whole...challenging gameplay
for a niche audience...was just lip service? It seemed like it had an
underlying tone of profitability and making the game accessible to as
many new players as possible. I do understand it's a fine line to
walk. I'm of the mindset that "if you build it they will come". Give
the player base some credit. Even players new to the mmo genre are
capable of figuring out how to play/enjoy a challenging game. (of course not all of them...thus the niche target audience). Don't coddle players. That's not what this game should be. That
didn't seem like the mindset that was being presented.
I agree. In my earlier days I coddled some friends (and my husband) and I shouldn't have. New players who are given everything and pushed along in a game do not fully appreciate how to play the game and that lack of appreciation for what they have turns into players who are not satisfied. They do not get the thrill of working hard towards a goal and getting that reward. Later on they expect everything to be handed to them and quit when the going gets tough. Based on his past games I think Brad knows this and I hope his comments are geared towards "lets involve the new player socially" not "give the noob gold"
I have gotten my hopes up for a number of games pre-release over the years. This is the next one in line. We'll see how it turns out.
::Finger crossed ::
I posted my comments above in italics to better follow the conversation.
I found it easier to acclimate to games before developers started trying to help me acclimate.
When I first logged in to EQ, I had a note and I was supposed to go hand it to someone. So I went looking for that guy and handed him the note. Thus began the learning process as I experienced character movement, finding my way about, identifying quest NPCs and quest item turn in.
No flashing lights. No exclamation points. No golden lassos.
I don't understand why that ever changed? I'm not Albert Einstein and I did it. /shrug
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
I want to thank those of you who have answered my questions today. I didn't expect to get the amount of responses that I did.
It can be difficult to read the Pantheon forums and not be able to participate in the discussion because I haven't pledged. It is nice to hear that others feel the same way that I do about some areas of the game that haven't been decided yet.
This conversation has made me want to pledge even more. Maybe I will...
Dullahan said: Yes, they should put there money where their mouth is, or shut up and go play whatever korean mmo got ported over this month or the next WoW expansion.
That's not really a message you want to put out there - help pay for development costs or go away.
Personally I am more than a little put out with the number of posts being made here now to give money, give money, give money. And now the message is, if you don't give money go away?
You are helping no one with that. I'll give money when and if I damn well please, and I am under no obligation to do so.
That isn't what I said though. (Edit) In fact, I just reread everything to see if it could even loosely be interpreted as such, and it could not - Learn to read. I was speaking very much in general of all the people who have for many years now claimed they want a "real" MMORPG again, and who are "so tired of MMOs these days." That has been thrown around here every day for a decade now tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of times. THOSE are the people who need to step up and help make such games (again, since you missed it the first 2 times, NOT necessarily Pantheon) a reality, or shut up and be happy with the gruel they've been served.
Did you even ever consider that those people you are talking about are not looking to go backwards in the mmo world. Some of us don't want 1999 back. Some of us want something new. Not the same rehash and definitely not even older rehashes. They may complain about current mmos, but maybe just maybe they want something completely new.
Dullahan said: Yes, they should put there money where their mouth is, or shut up and go play whatever korean mmo got ported over this month or the next WoW expansion.
That's not really a message you want to put out there - help pay for development costs or go away.
Personally I am more than a little put out with the number of posts being made here now to give money, give money, give money. And now the message is, if you don't give money go away?
You are helping no one with that. I'll give money when and if I damn well please, and I am under no obligation to do so.
That isn't what I said though. (Edit) In fact, I just reread everything to see if it could even loosely be interpreted as such, and it could not - Learn to read. I was speaking very much in general of all the people who have for many years now claimed they want a "real" MMORPG again, and who are "so tired of MMOs these days." That has been thrown around here every day for a decade now tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of times. THOSE are the people who need to step up and help make such games (again, since you missed it the first 2 times, NOT necessarily Pantheon) a reality, or shut up and be happy with the gruel they've been served.
Did you even ever consider that those people you are talking about are not looking to go backwards in the mmo world. Some of us don't want 1999 back. Some of us want something new. Not the same rehash and definitely not even older rehashes. They may complain about current mmos, but maybe just maybe they want something completely new.
Given the alpha gameplay on the twitch stream we were shown and what the team has said - I would say we are most likely going to get a mix of new and old.
Dullahan said: Yes, they should put there money where their mouth is, or shut up and go play whatever korean mmo got ported over this month or the next WoW expansion.
That's not really a message you want to put out there - help pay for development costs or go away.
Personally I am more than a little put out with the number of posts being made here now to give money, give money, give money. And now the message is, if you don't give money go away?
You are helping no one with that. I'll give money when and if I damn well please, and I am under no obligation to do so.
That isn't what I said though. (Edit) In fact, I just reread everything to see if it could even loosely be interpreted as such, and it could not - Learn to read. I was speaking very much in general of all the people who have for many years now claimed they want a "real" MMORPG again, and who are "so tired of MMOs these days." That has been thrown around here every day for a decade now tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of times. THOSE are the people who need to step up and help make such games (again, since you missed it the first 2 times, NOT necessarily Pantheon) a reality, or shut up and be happy with the gruel they've been served.
Did you even ever consider that those people you are talking about are not looking to go backwards in the mmo world. Some of us don't want 1999 back. Some of us want something new. Not the same rehash and definitely not even older rehashes. They may complain about current mmos, but maybe just maybe they want something completely new.
Given the alpha gameplay on the twitch stream we were shown and what the team has said - I would say we are most likely going to get a mix of new and old.
I have yet to see anything in this project I would consider "new". From my understanding it's EQ with graphics upgrade with a twist of some current mmo ideas. That's perfectly fine if that's what you're looking for. Personally, I want to see the next level of mmos. Going backwards isn't always a good idea.
I'll buy it if it's good - I'm not a fan of crowdfunding. However, I do think the project shows promise. If they really make a game that is challenging I'll be both surprised and impressed. By challenging I don't mean high hp and high dmg mobs with low dmg players, while that may be difficult to overcome, its just boring. I don't need it to be twitchy either, if they can manage something where strategic play was what got you the wins I'd be very excited.
When this was first announced I wasn't interested, but as they progress further I could see this shaping up to be a game I would want to play. If (as lego brought up with that blog of theirs) they make it easy and very hand-holdy I'll be very disappointed and will not play it.
I fear there may be less of a market for a more challenging game than I would like though. For example, I think wildstar actually got the leveling right when it first came out, there was easy level appropriate content where you'd get less xp but you didn't have to be good to clear it and there was the ability to take on quests far above your level for much larger xp rewards. I really enjoyed wildstars leveling purely because I could choose to stay doing quests that were challenging the whole way and level at the same rate or even slightly faster than those who did the easy stuff. NCSoft decided to kill that though because of wildstars lack of success, likely so players didn't stray into hard quests by mistake. In today's wildstar, you can no longer get quests way higher than your level. They actually force you to play the easy stuff now. I'm not sure if that speaks to what people are actually feeling about challenging game play or just what publishers/devs believe about what people are thinking.
The problem is we've been looking for "the next level" of mmo's for close to a decade now and nobody has delivered. There's been a LOT of hubris, what with SWTOR and their "4th pillar" of MMO'ness, and then with GW2 and all of their BS speak about how we don't know what "fun" is and they're going to guide us to the light.
I could keep going on, but I think I've provided enough examples.
Sometimes things aren't possible. People don't realize that for the most part in most fields, all of the low hanging fruit has already been picked. It's not like someone is gonna pull Benjamin Franklin and discover the electricity of MMO.
Sometimes you have to look to the past to see the way forward, one of humanities greatest abilities is the option of being able to learn from previous mistakes. Unfortunately the MMO industry seems incapable of doing that.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
The problem is we've been looking for "the next level" of mmo's for close to a decade now and nobody has delivered. There's been a LOT of hubris, what with SWTOR and their "4th pillar" of MMO'ness, and then with GW2 and all of their BS speak about how we don't know what "fun" is and they're going to guide us to the light.
I could keep going on, but I think I've provided enough examples.
Sometimes things aren't possible. People don't realize that for the most part in most fields, all of the low hanging fruit has already been picked. It's not like someone is gonna pull Benjamin Franklin and discover the electricity of MMO.
Sometimes you have to look to the past to see the way forward, one of humanities greatest abilities is the option of being able to learn from previous mistakes. Unfortunately the MMO industry seems incapable of doing that.
I understand what you're saying and if it applies to you then I hope this game pans out and is everything you hope it is. Myself, I don't mind the newer mmos. I think they have evolved in a lot of ways over the years that a lot of vets (bitter ones usually) will never give any credit for. Just like real life evolution, sometimes it takes a long time.
Maybe 10 years of mistakes and new ideas were just trials to get to that new idea. Maybe the next "great" original mmo will be something that takes tech and ideas from a single player game. Time will tell I suppose. I just really don't see this mmo(Path) doing anything to help the genre move forward. The good news is that there is room for lots of mmos. So this one (if it launches) will grab a small niche group and hopefully that will sustain it.
I never pledge anymore. Lots of whales out there did it with too much trust in their hearts. We're starting to see the scrubs in life (those asking for the handouts) have a real world application online now.
I don't necessarily disagree with you. I think both the "new" players and the "old" players tend to get blinded by ideology and are incapable of seeing the merits of both styles. Personally I think the "new" players tend to do this a LOT more than the old, but neither part is bereft of it.
That being said, I have to disagree with you, I think some of the things that pantheon hopes to do are gonna move it forward, in particular having the environment actually be something you have to account for, not just a static backdrop. It's funny because some older single player RPG's did things like if you hit an ice giant with a fireball, it did more damage, because, well, its an ICE giant. And vice versa. Pantheon seems to be taking this and extending it to the environment as well.
Personally I love that kind of stuff because instead of you just hitting a certain level and a certain spell or attack is your best mana/dmg ratio and that's all you use because of it, etc. I like having to adapt your playstyle to changing conditions, and I think it's something the MMO industry has been sorely missing in ill fated attempts to capitalize on lazy entitled players.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
I think some of the things that pantheon hopes to do are gonna move it forward, in particular having the environment actually be something you have to account for, not just a static backdrop. It's funny because some older single player RPG's did things like if you hit an ice giant with a fireball, it did more damage, because, well, its an ICE giant. And vice versa. Pantheon seems to be taking this and extending it to the environment as well.
That's exciting to hear (assuming its true, i have no idea). I'd be excited to not attack fire elementals with fireball and expect it to work. Extending it to the environment could be really cool, especially if they take elevation into account as well.
To be fair though, the general idea of fire not hurting fire creatures isn't new to mmos, it was in the early ones but was taken out cause of reasons. (slime boss in wow for example)
I'm not sure pantheon will be a guiding light forward, but if it delivers what its promising, it could certainly keep me occupied until someone creates the next best thing. I believe that's going to wait til we have a shift from static quests and static fights everyone does the same to a more dynamic set of fights and quests. Emergent AI and an ever changing world where I cannot look up the guide to a quest or a boss would really bring back the living world feel where you actually have to think instead of following the bright arrow.
All it took for me was one read through of the tenets and one other document, pledged right then and there. For another pledge I'd need to see some gameplay that lives up to a good chunk of those tenets. Gotta show me you aren't just marketing geniuses.
Comments
I would love for this to be the game I play for the next 10 years. The wife even gave me permission to pledge and buy a new computer around the time it is released (which never happens but she knows how long it has been since there was a game that I really wanted to play).
The issue is that I keep reading things on the pantheon forums that I am unsure about. There is a lot of talk about creating a challenging game similar to how mmos used to be and catering to a niche group of gamers. That sounds great in theory but I'm not sure if it will end up being the reality.
I have a lot of questions.
The problem is, in order to post on the Pantheon forums you have to have donated. I can't even ask questions that would help me decide if I want to donate because I can't post to ask them. Catch 22.
Ask the questions here, if you would like. There are a lot of older pledgers, and people who haven't pledged and follow Pantheon closely that may know the answers.
Anything factual I can probably provide, however what your main concern is "The issue is that I keep reading things on the pantheon forums that I am unsure about. There is a lot of talk about creating a challenging game similar to how mmos used to be and catering to a niche group of gamers. That sounds great in theory but I'm not sure if it will end up being the reality." Is a combination of looking into a crystal ball and opinion
Hope you get the information you need.
Fondly,
Zar
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
Thank you for the reply. I appreciate your offer to help.
I have been following the game for awhile now. I did post on the old forums a couple years back when you didn't have to have donated. I might be more up to date on info than you realized. But I do still have questions.
I have a couple specific questions (that may be unanswerable?
The specific questions:
1)Exp penalty and level loss. Are both of these a definite? Everything I have read from devs seems like it is likely (though nothing is official that I have seen). These are something that I had assumed were a given to be included...until I read the Pantheon forums on the subject and was surprised to see many people who weren't for both of these.
Honestly, if there is one thing that would be a deal breaker for me was if the game didn't have a fairly significant death penalty, including level loss. That should be a major part of the challenge that has been advertised imho.
2) Max raid size? There has been a lot of talk about the leveling process and having raids targeted at all levels of characters. Great. What is the max raid size?...I won't get into all my thoughts and opinions on raid size. Has this info been mentioned and I missed it?
I do understand that a lot of the information I seek is "a combination of looking into a crystal ball and opinion" like you mentioned. I'll comment on that briefly below.
Honestly a lot of my doubts stem from one long dev post by Brad that lead me to questioning the direction of the game and wondering if that whole...challenging gameplay for a niche audience...was just lip service? It seemed like it had an underlying tone of profitability and making the game accessible to as many new players as possible. I do understand it's a fine line to walk. I'm of the mindset that "if you build it they will come". Give the player base some credit. Even players new to the mmo genre are capable of figuring out how to play/enjoy a challenging game. (of course not all of them...thus the niche target audience). Don't coddle players. That's not what this game should be. That didn't seem like the mindset that was being presented.
I have gotten my hopes up for a number of games pre-release over the years. This is the next one in line. We'll see how it turns out.
Either way, I'd say at least experience loss is highly probable.
2) This one may be a bit more up in the air, as they've only recently finished class design and have begun the coding the early levels of all the classes. Naturally designing raid content is still a ways out.
The group size is going to be 6 or 8 players, and I have a feeling that raids will probably be on the larger side. Even in early EQ, you had some raids that took 20 or so players, and others that took 50, and some that took even more. Its my personal hope that they don't try to standardize that aspect of the game. They might aim for 36 or so (would be my guess) but then have some encounters requiring more or less.
As to your last remarks about Brad's recent post about profitability and accessibility, I felt the exact same way. The post you are likely referring to was probably in the thread discussing matchmaking (which I derailed to discuss mentoring), and was reposted as a blog entry.
I too think if you build it they will come. I don't believe they need to soften even the early game to make it appealing to a large enough audience. Frankly, I think they should stay as close to EQ as possible because it has a proven track record and I don't believe people have changed in the last 20 years, even if gaming has changed.
Pantheon needs to be different. It needs to feel different from day 1. I think part of the appeal of a real virtual world is that it doesn't guide you around by the hand telling you what to do or make it easy for you to succeed. I believe if, in an attempt to make it easier for players to become "acclimated", it will probably lose that kind of appeal. Players who want a harder "oldschool" game are going to be, whether consciously or subconsciously, turned off if they are hit with a bunch of accessibility systems right out of the gate.
Ultimately, I don't think any amount of early coddling will make a game with "EQ as the foundation" palatable to mainstream MMO players in the long term. That leaves them in a real catch 22 situation and I believe the best approach is to stick to their guns and make Pantheon like the game that was, far and away, the most successful of Brad's previous works.
To answer your questions, I believe none of it is set in stone. There want a death penalty harsher than what most modern games have but I dont think they have decided yet. Could be xp loss, could be a good old fashioned naked corpse run... could be both. Im not in the same camp as losing levels, particularly at end game and on a game which will likely have old school level grinds but im cool with the rest.
Same goes for raid sizes, hell, group sizes arent even set yet afaik. I think the latest build we saw in the twitch stream (which should be all over youtube now) was 5. Which makes sense since they also want to add CC as an actual role.
And it's Brad not bard plus you need to do your home work about who controls funds.
only way I would pledge a un finished game is me getting part of the profits, if not, launch teh damn thing and if is good and I ahve the time I will play it, not other way to do so
While I do agree with some points in the blog, there are multiple other points made that make me think the game might not be going in a direction that will make me want to play it.
I also very much agree with your assessment on the state of the situation in general. It is nice to see that someone else feels the same.
When I first logged in to EQ, I had a note and I was supposed to go hand it to someone. So I went looking for that guy and handed him the note. Thus began the learning process as I experienced character movement, finding my way about, identifying quest NPCs and quest item turn in.
No flashing lights. No exclamation points. No golden lassos.
I don't understand why that ever changed? I'm not Albert Einstein and I did it. /shrug
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
It can be difficult to read the Pantheon forums and not be able to participate in the discussion because I haven't pledged. It is nice to hear that others feel the same way that I do about some areas of the game that haven't been decided yet.
This conversation has made me want to pledge even more. Maybe I will...
When this was first announced I wasn't interested, but as they progress further I could see this shaping up to be a game I would want to play. If (as lego brought up with that blog of theirs) they make it easy and very hand-holdy I'll be very disappointed and will not play it.
I fear there may be less of a market for a more challenging game than I would like though. For example, I think wildstar actually got the leveling right when it first came out, there was easy level appropriate content where you'd get less xp but you didn't have to be good to clear it and there was the ability to take on quests far above your level for much larger xp rewards. I really enjoyed wildstars leveling purely because I could choose to stay doing quests that were challenging the whole way and level at the same rate or even slightly faster than those who did the easy stuff.
NCSoft decided to kill that though because of wildstars lack of success, likely so players didn't stray into hard quests by mistake. In today's wildstar, you can no longer get quests way higher than your level. They actually force you to play the easy stuff now. I'm not sure if that speaks to what people are actually feeling about challenging game play or just what publishers/devs believe about what people are thinking.
@MrMelGibson
The problem is we've been looking for "the next level" of mmo's for close to a decade now and nobody has delivered. There's been a LOT of hubris, what with SWTOR and their "4th pillar" of MMO'ness, and then with GW2 and all of their BS speak about how we don't know what "fun" is and they're going to guide us to the light.
I could keep going on, but I think I've provided enough examples.
Sometimes things aren't possible. People don't realize that for the most part in most fields, all of the low hanging fruit has already been picked. It's not like someone is gonna pull Benjamin Franklin and discover the electricity of MMO.
Sometimes you have to look to the past to see the way forward, one of humanities greatest abilities is the option of being able to learn from previous mistakes. Unfortunately the MMO industry seems incapable of doing that.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Maybe 10 years of mistakes and new ideas were just trials to get to that new idea. Maybe the next "great" original mmo will be something that takes tech and ideas from a single player game. Time will tell I suppose. I just really don't see this mmo(Path) doing anything to help the genre move forward. The good news is that there is room for lots of mmos. So this one (if it launches) will grab a small niche group and hopefully that will sustain it.
@MrMelGibson ;
I don't necessarily disagree with you. I think both the "new" players and the "old" players tend to get blinded by ideology and are incapable of seeing the merits of both styles. Personally I think the "new" players tend to do this a LOT more than the old, but neither part is bereft of it.
That being said, I have to disagree with you, I think some of the things that pantheon hopes to do are gonna move it forward, in particular having the environment actually be something you have to account for, not just a static backdrop. It's funny because some older single player RPG's did things like if you hit an ice giant with a fireball, it did more damage, because, well, its an ICE giant. And vice versa. Pantheon seems to be taking this and extending it to the environment as well.
Personally I love that kind of stuff because instead of you just hitting a certain level and a certain spell or attack is your best mana/dmg ratio and that's all you use because of it, etc. I like having to adapt your playstyle to changing conditions, and I think it's something the MMO industry has been sorely missing in ill fated attempts to capitalize on lazy entitled players.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
To be fair though, the general idea of fire not hurting fire creatures isn't new to mmos, it was in the early ones but was taken out cause of reasons. (slime boss in wow for example)
I'm not sure pantheon will be a guiding light forward, but if it delivers what its promising, it could certainly keep me occupied until someone creates the next best thing. I believe that's going to wait til we have a shift from static quests and static fights everyone does the same to a more dynamic set of fights and quests. Emergent AI and an ever changing world where I cannot look up the guide to a quest or a boss would really bring back the living world feel where you actually have to think instead of following the bright arrow.
PS - great OP.