KickStarter Pantheon - (Brad "EQ" McQuaid's new MMO)

[anvi]

That's not true. Only a small percentage of no lifers are the top in games like this. The vast majority of people are in the same boat together, and a huge number are casuals who barely even play. Also this isn't a PVP world so you aren't going to get ganked by anyone.

 

[Norfleet]

What do you mean, "not true"? You just illustrated it IS true. Like you said: Only a small percentage are winning, everyone else is losing.

 

[anvi]

It isn't true because some loser who plays 24/7 (they do shifts on their character) is not actually winning anything. They might get to kill some boss before anyone else, but there is no advantage to that, and there are many disadvantages to it, especially in this game.

The rush players have fewer people to play with, they also likely reach the point where they can't progress any further without an expansion, and they reach that point far too early and will probably be forced to quit. And they will also likely end up with much weaker characters than everyone else because of all the "sideways progression" this game has. There are important spells and things you learn from taking your time and exploring all of the world, and that is how the majority of people will play the game.

The people you are talking about are basically the MMO equivalent of speed runners. Yeah you can complete Fallout or Baldurs Gate or whatever in 3 minutes, that doesn't mean you win anything. If anything you failed because you blew past a huge amount of content that you paid for.

 

[Norfleet]

I don't think you really understand MMOs. The winning players have all of that, too, because nothing stops them from going sideways. Additionally, many of them are auction house guys and therefore will control massive quantities of wealth, the likes of which a schlub player cannot even imagine. The fact that you're fixated on irrelevant things like "bosses" and "progression" and "expansions" just proves this point. There are winning players in MMOs that straight up never leave the auction house and never bother to fight a single boss monster, but singlehandedly control nearly half the game's entire economy and the entire game economy implodes if anything happens to them. THAT is what winning is. Nobody gives a shit about "killing bosses", that's something for peons who treat the game like some kind of single player RPG played against others. This is about multiplayer, and dominating a multiplayer game means dominating the systems of PLAYERS.

 

[anvi]

I don't think you really understand MMOs. The winning players have all of that, too, because nothing stops them from going sideways. Additionally, many of them are auction house guys and therefore will control massive quantities of wealth, the likes of which a schlub player cannot even imagine. The fact that you're fixated on irrelevant things like "bosses" and "progression" and "expansions" just proves this point. There are winning players in MMOs that straight up never leave the auction house and never bother to fight a single boss monster, but singlehandedly control nearly half the game's entire economy and the entire game economy implodes if anything happens to them. THAT is what winning is. Nobody gives a shit about "killing bosses", that's something for peons who treat the game like some kind of single player RPG played against others. This is about multiplayer, and dominating a multiplayer game means dominating the systems of PLAYERS.

Not sure if trolling or unhinged? They can't dominate other players in any way. If you play on the PVP server then yeah, you might get owned sometimes by hardcore nerds, but even on those servers there are a lot of casuals. But all the other servers are PVE and it doesn't matter if someone has more money than you or got some stuff earlier. Who cares? You can get it too. The second part of your rant doesn't even make any sense. Key items don't get to the auction house until someone can kill the boss that drops it. So the true hardcore nerds are the ones getting those items for themselves, then some extras, and then they start selling them on the auction house. Someone who lives to trade on the auction house could get rich but so what? My buddy was one of those guys in EQ, he had nice gear but never got past level 30, never saw a lot of the best things in the game.

 

[Sergiu64]

I don't think you really understand MMOs. The winning players have all of that, too, because nothing stops them from going sideways. Additionally, many of them are auction house guys and therefore will control massive quantities of wealth, the likes of which a schlub player cannot even imagine. The fact that you're fixated on irrelevant things like "bosses" and "progression" and "expansions" just proves this point. There are winning players in MMOs that straight up never leave the auction house and never bother to fight a single boss monster, but singlehandedly control nearly half the game's entire economy and the entire game economy implodes if anything happens to them. THAT is what winning is. Nobody gives a shit about "killing bosses", that's something for peons who treat the game like some kind of single player RPG played against others. This is about multiplayer, and dominating a multiplayer game means dominating the systems of PLAYERS.

Nobody gives a shit about dominating the Auction house, except maybe in EVE. Hell, in EverQuest you couldn't even buy the decent stuff as most items were NODROP.

 

[deama]

I don't like paying for games cause it clouds my judgment of them.

 

[anvi]

I watched some videos of this game over the weekend, it is really taking shape.

 

[Doktor Best]

Is it dead Jim?

 

[anvi]

Is it dead Jim?

Seems to be going well, I keep seeing the monthly updates. They are even doing more than I think they should, but that mostly just suggests their funding is strong. They have this climate system which is really advanced but in my opinion... a lot of work that wasn't needed. There are real weather systems in the game that travel like real weather, and it affects magic. Fire spells will be weaker when it is raining, etc. They also have been teasing more advanced movement and animations, more like what you get in some single player games like Tomb Raider or whatever. So when you reach a wall you can climb up onto it and also leap onto other things and if you miss, the character will tumble. They are also constantly looking for new and bigger "streamers " to do videos with. I've seen a few already and the game looks promising but the streams are always hours long and I don't like watching stuff like that.

But it is promising. I think it is slow though. People are so used to games being done in 3-4 years, and in the lower budget indie world, that is just a fraction of what it really takes. This game talks about being a "AAA product" sometimes, because I think they found a good investor at some point, but the project actually started 6 years with no budget at all, and a bunch of debts. It is entirely different now. But it is still pre-alpha 4, with another stage left before they plan to move it to "alpha". The slowness makes a lot of people skeptical, but the upside is hopefully a polished game when it finally releases.

 

[anvi]

https://pantheonmmo.com/newsletter/2019_september_burning_questions/

 

[RatTower]

Glimpse at a new zone:

 

[anvi]

Amazing graphics and music. Wish the video didn't take so long to decode and crisp up.

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

I'll give it a go if it turns out any good. But I'm more of a sandbox and PvP MMO guy. Too bad all the sandbox MMOs I've seen in development have turned to disaster. Ashes of Creation is focusing on a mediocre Battle Royal and lying about it, Chronicles of Elyria is the scam everyone thinks Star Citizen is, Archeage Unchained is broken and just as wary of penalising hackers as og Archeage, Camelot Unchained is shaping up to lose the rest of it's funds, but no backers can talk about that due to being under NDA.

Just a whole bunch of bullshit. I'ma go back to Star Wars Galaxies. I cannot understand how such a rushed, haphazzardly made product is still the unrivaled sandbox MMO. And IT'S FUCKING STAR WARS!

 

[Beastro]

What do you mean, "not true"? You just illustrated it IS true. Like you said: Only a small percentage are winning, everyone else is losing.

Games like EQ were enjoyable even if you weren't in the minority clearing fresh content and getting server firsts or seconds.

The thing was originally, raiders were but one aspect of the player base with others doing their own things. Them being the end state all players become as the raiding scene becomes the end game wasn't solidly established until into the expansions, and even then, it took until the second for both players and the developers to really get their ideas set around those things.

Nobody gives a shit about dominating the Auction house, except maybe in EVE. Hell, in EverQuest you couldn't even buy the decent stuff as most items were NODROP.

You won't convince him. Norfleet comes at MMOs from a typical PvPers point of view - if you're not making victims and constantly demonstrating your superiority over others you're not doing anything of worth and aren't a factor.

Such types are annoying, but they have their place and I loved battling them back in the day as well as mourning their loss when they could no longer compete against the raiders due to sheer gear disparity, tried to raid themselves and wound up imploding.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Most mmorpg players dont raid or want to spend most of their leveling experience grouped, and that's one of the reasons EQ was never had as "huge" player numbers as the other AAA morpg's released post it, being blown out of the water by WoW.

WoW hit gold because it new perfectly what players wanted, a single player experience with mmo elements, you could solo from 1-60, then you could do dungeons if you liked, you could do raids, you could pvp.

If this game doesnt allow the same freedom to players, on how they level, it will fail like Brad's other mmo's.

 

[Hobo Elf]

WoW hit gold because it new perfectly what players wanted, a single player experience with mmo elements, you could solo from 1-60, then you could do dungeons if you liked, you could do raids, you could pvp.

If this game doesnt allow the same freedom to players, on how they level, it will fail like Brad's other mmo's.

You do realize that EQ was like this, too? Right? The only real difference of EQ vs WoW that matters to normies enough to make it a hit is how it feels to play WoW compared with EQ. WoW was incredibly smooth with how the camera and character movement works and that's quite significant for people who are less likely to put up with clunky games. WoW was a huge phenomena and I'm not sure if it's entirely hyperbole to say that most WoW players were people who had never played a game before. There's no way most of them would've gotten into EQ simply because how just the basic things such as character movement and using the UI feels like.

 

[Kem0sabe]

WoW hit gold because it new perfectly what players wanted, a single player experience with mmo elements, you could solo from 1-60, then you could do dungeons if you liked, you could do raids, you could pvp.

If this game doesnt allow the same freedom to players, on how they level, it will fail like Brad's other mmo's.

You do realize that EQ was like this, too? Right?

EQ was much more group focused, and their classes were much more punishing and time consuming to play.

 

[Hobo Elf]

WoW hit gold because it new perfectly what players wanted, a single player experience with mmo elements, you could solo from 1-60, then you could do dungeons if you liked, you could do raids, you could pvp.

If this game doesnt allow the same freedom to players, on how they level, it will fail like Brad's other mmo's.

You do realize that EQ was like this, too? Right?

EQ was much more group focused, and their classes were much more punishing and time consuming to play.

Wat. How are the classes "more punishing to play"?

 

[Beastro]

Most mmorpg players dont raid

WoW hit gold because it new perfectly what players wanted, a single player experience with mmo elements, you could solo from 1-60, then you could do dungeons if you liked, you could do raids, you could pvp.

EQ did offer this as well, the only difference was the emphasis of grouping came first and dedicated soloers were restricted to specific classes.

That didn't stop others from soloing. Where the will was people found ways. I knew a warrior who got the enduring breath earring and soloied mobs in Kedge Keep because it was always empty and free of Pks. It took him ages to regen HP from doing it, but he did other things as he medded. Other meleers did the same elsewhere especially when the fungi tunic came along to allow for better HP regen, Chanters played high risk vs reward charm soloing while Clerics and Paladins would use their undead specializations to try to solo in spots.

Was all of that intented? No, and that was the fun of it. You didn't simply play the game, you found out new ways of doing things like that. The best to me was finding exploits and making use of them until caught or they got patched, like my brother playing a Gnome Necro snare kiting the guards in the Gnome city until he discovered they wouldn't follow him into one corner of a room allowing him to sit in one place and dot like mad. He got caught and suspended for a week, but he got like 3-4 levels out of it.

WoW offered that to some degree, but there was less room for people to find ways to doing things unconventionally, especially when it came to leveling where you liked given how directed you were by quests.

 

[Kem0sabe]

WoW hit gold because it new perfectly what players wanted, a single player experience with mmo elements, you could solo from 1-60, then you could do dungeons if you liked, you could do raids, you could pvp.

If this game doesnt allow the same freedom to players, on how they level, it will fail like Brad's other mmo's.

You do realize that EQ was like this, too? Right?

EQ was much more group focused, and their classes were much more punishing and time consuming to play.

Wat. How are the classes "more punishing to play"?

Having way less abilities in EQ, having shit aggro management, and having to run out of the map to avoid mobs, then if you died? be ready to loose exp, run naked back to your corpse. Those made the game boring and at the same time aggravating to play.

 

[Beastro]

Wat. How are the classes "more punishing to play"?

I think what it comes down to is the game being stricter with consequences if things were done badly. You accidentally hit a mezzed mob, you might wipe your group or drain everyone's mana requiring downtime.

Other stuff was what was required to make some classes functional in soloing, like wizards requiring their AoE snare spell that was rougher to use opposed to the druid and necros more effective and efficient single target ones.

 

[Beastro]

Having way less abilities in EQ, having shit aggro management, and having to run out of the map to avoid mobs, then if you died? be ready to loose exp, run naked back to your corpse. Those made the game boring and at the same time aggravating risks higher, the near misses more relieving and the victories all the great to play.

Even losing you corpse and requiring to get it before it poofed with your gear alone was huge. It made you invest in everything about you guy and struggling to get it back could be epic. You would call a prolonged, desperate CR boring and aggravating, but the thrills that came with it were often greater than any piece of loot or raid target downed could give. That was the thing about still learning to grasp MMOs in general that worked so well with EQ as you worked out your own adventures even if it was a group going badly and you spending the night recovering a corpse thanking God you only lost experience from resurrections.

It was a kind of delayed gratification that went well with gameplay, and ironically, wasn't as life consuming as the drip feed of WoW could be given how obsessively sucked in WoW players seem to get.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Having way less abilities in EQ, having shit aggro management, and having to run out of the map to avoid mobs, then if you died? be ready to loose exp, run naked back to your corpse. Those made the game boring and at the same time aggravating to play.

I think what it comes down to is the game being stricter with consequences if things were done badly. You accidentally hit a mezzed mob, you might wipe your group or drain everyone's mana requiring downtime.

Other stuff was what was required to make some classes functional in soloing, like wizards requiring their AoE snare spell that was rougher to use opposed to the druid and necros more effective and efficient single target ones.

I just don't see It. None of that is punishment. It may be less forgiving, but I would definitely not describe that as a punishment handed out for being a bad citizen gamer but more as a set of mechanics to encourage the player to seek out others as combat effectiveness goes up exponentially with just a second player around. And classes having less versatility is a bogus reason to call punishing. The point is that you have a niche that you fill out with other players. It's an online game, you're supposed to play with others. Sometimes it's not possible, but the amount of EQ classes that _really_ can't solo hover in the low 1's, and that's the Rogue class.

 

[ADL]