Speed run players are rapid because of design of modern mmorpg's
Because of design it MAY NOT BE THE PLAYERS.
Some will say "I don't want any dumb WoW players in my guild" (exaggerating). This is a stereotype impression many old schoolers have.
Remember the saying "if they can they will".
Something else to consider..... Why are they speed running ?
2 reasons:
-to move things along
-to show their more intelligent than the game. Sure it's an odd way of proving intelligence, but it's what people do.
Another stereotype is WoW players will not like Pantheon... Why?
Infact millions are hard core raiders that are dead nuts serious and easy content is only a road block on their way to end game..... They infact want the hard content.
I'm not saying all hardcore WoW players will jump ship, MOST are infatuated with the game itself. But it does prove MILLIONS like a thinking games !...… I'm sure the BattleNet WoW forums are full of furious fans over the simplicity, yet they keep on playing.
It's possible hardcore raiders are sick of WoW, but no other outlets, no other choices.
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World of Warcraft is my "example".
I don't think it will be a drain on any current mmo's playerbase.
Many people play games to have fun, be entertained and feel like winners more often than not.
I suspect both Pantheon and SOL will suffer some in this regard.
"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
In WoW, the main goal is getting better equipment. Yes, some people play it for the story, some play it for the world, some for the friendships. But the core idea is getting better equipment. That is what is implied and reinforced through the whole game.
If getting better gear is the goal, then players will optimise this. You can optimise this in two ways: learn to do content that rewards better gear (Mythic dungeons / raids in WoW) or learn how to do the content faster (speedrun through dungeons, getting more gear per hour).
I know nothing about Pantheon, but if you want to change the formula, you are facing a challenge. The large majority of your player base will be coming from another game. It's very unlikely that the players will be new to the genre completely. Your players will be coming with expectations. Your game design will have to re-educate the player, while keeping them around. This is incredibly difficult and frankly, if you are hoping to attract and retain huge numbers right on release, perhaps impossible. It's more realistic to build up a community gradually if you want to be innovative.
I had a similar issue with my game. It was an open ended design, where the player had a lot of choice. Turns out, most games these days are heavily guided, meaning they tell the player what to do and where to go. Even though my play area had 5 dungeons, players thought this content wasn't relevant, because there wasn't any strong pointer (besides dialogues with NPCs) that would tell them to complete the content. It took a lot of experimenting in me learning how to teach players to do content without being directly sent to it.
So I think you can have content that players go through slowly, but as a developer, you have to be committed to explaining this fully. Wildstar had high dungeon difficulty, but the design didn't explain to players they should try and fail multiple times. You had people coming from WoW, used to racing through content, who suddenly couldn't blaze through the "simplest" of dungeons. As a result, the conclusion was that the dungeons are poorly made and the players left.
In WoW, however, the bar is initially set so low you don't even have to play the game to succeed. There's no feeling of accomplishment - you just go through it until something stops you and the game really starts, and this doesn't really happen until those top raids. And even then, i keep hearing, the raids are not gear checks at all but all about dodging bullets and knowing the boss dance like in old FPS games. So in no point the game is about gearing up and building your character, which to me is #1 reason to play this genre.
Maybe the speeders enjoyed that content 50 runs ago, but now they just want to get it over with.
The design mechanic which encourages this is to make it beneficial somehow to do the same thing again and again and again.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Although I'm not a WoW player, I doubt I will play Pantheon. I've seen videos and everything just looks so tedious. Find a group. How long will this take? On launch, sure, grouping will be easy but months later it will be harder finding groups for earlier content. Always works this way in these type of games. Seems like it takes half an hour to make your way up a hill. NO thanks. I don;t care to spend that long climbing a hill. Ultimately, I want to be able to jump in to a game and not rely on forming a group of players I need to coordinate with for my fun. In my view GW2 is brilliant on this area. You are next to someone and therefore you are in a group. Simple.
Perhaps there are enough "old time" players for this tedious type of play but count me out.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Most players do not like Hard Content, not even "many" in fact, almost without fail less then 10% of a games population will even bother with their "Hard Content"
Speed Runs.
People do Speed Runs, because they have done this content hundreds of times before, and will need to do this content hundreds of times more to get what they want, they are bored sick of this content, but still want the loot that it drops, they have gotten to the point they just speed run through it.
This has nothing to do with challenge, skill, or anything else, this is all about loot, and how fast can they can get it. Speed Runs are not about proving anything, they are the result of a game system that requires grinding.
The more anyone needs to repeat the content, the easier it is for them to memorize, the faster they will want each time to go, as they have stopped personally learning anything from the content, it's just repetition at this point for them.
So they want to get it over with as fast as possible.
This is not a problem by any means, the only time this becomes an issue at all, is if a first time player is running with people who have gotten to the point they have memorized the encounter and just want a completion and loot at this point, so one is trying to learn while the other is just grinding.
(Coke Zero is my caffeinated drink of choice)
"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
I speak from a DAOC perspective mostly, where there was some downtime between fights to heal up and restore mana but when in group combat the pace was fast and furious.
Pulling a camp or dungeon could be a ballet of activity, usually started by either the puller or crowd controllers.
Then it became a race the clock ballet to finish each target before CC was lost, and if lost, for secondary tanks and CC to stop or slow down any break aways.
All through this primary and secondary healers carefully healed just enough to not let anyone die, but not too much as to draw aggro.
These fights became lessons in efficiency, with top groups able to pull for considerable lengths of time, racking up tons of kills before having to finally sit down and rest.
Of course, if anyone slipped up, or unexpected adds showed up decisions had to be made, stick it out, try to recover, or bail and try to get a rezzer safely away or logged out while the rest of the team tried to "die" in a relatively safe spot free of respawns.
Groups didn't move around as much as on modern games, but they were not always at one specific camp, rather moving about between a rotation of sites as each respawned and to maximize camp bonuses when available.
If players get in a good, efficient group I think they'll find more than enough action in Pantheon.
Unless of course they roll DPS, those mostly useless folks aren't much good for anything and always have be told to stop hitting stuff or they'll draw aggro and the healers will let them die.
Those types of former WOW players might not enjoy this sort of game too much.
"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
One of the things that sticks in my mind about my early days of playing EQ is how challenging the battles were when I was soloing at low level. I remember going toe to toe with mobs and having many of the fights come down to me being a hit or two away from falling. It was a rush.
As MMOs evolved (and became less immersive, in my view) the mobs became less of a foe to defeat and more of an obstacle to get past. You just ran up to them, chopped them down in about three swings and then moved on to the next obstacle. Easier for sure, but more importantly, less immersive.
What was this topic about? Oh WoW? Well I can't really speak to that as I hardly played it. But if Pantheon plays like EQ and WoW players don't like EQ, I can't really see them being drawn to Pantheon.
I mean to be fair, there is not much outside minor balance issues that need to be done for PvP, but I think a lot of games put it in, because it is that easy, they pretty much set it up and forget about it, and sadly, it really comes across that they are forgetting about it.