When you log into Pantheon and see thru your avatar's eyes for the first time, where do you want to be ? Near your class guild with a note in your pocket saying report to your trainer ? In the middle of a battle ? Alone ? Amongst other level 1 characters ? What sort of experience or atmosphere are you hoping for in the first few gaming moments ?
Just on the outskirts of say my racial city, I love walking into the big gates of my racial city for the first time and looking like a kid in a candy store as i run around with my jaw open in amazement.
This is going to sound goofy as all get out.
I want to be in front of my trainer. Why? Because when I left EQ, I ended it where I began with Wandidar - in front of my trainer. And each time I go back, I do the same. It's sort of fitting to me - you begin your journey as a brand new, untested character in the game... and at the end, you can sort "go home" back to your trainer. Older. Wiser. Sort of a fitting place to see the difference from where you started, to where you ended.
Now - hopefully Brad's vision of "Pantheon growing into Pantheon II" or whatever - maybe that means there is never an end. Who knows! But I do like the idea of virtually going back and sort of "showing" your first teacher in the game how far you've come.
Jason said:
When you log into Pantheon and see thru your avatar's eyes for the first time, where do you want to be ? Near your class guild with a note in your pocket saying report to your trainer ? In the middle of a battle ? Alone ? Amongst other level 1 characters ? What sort of experience or atmosphere are you hoping for in the first few gaming moments ?
I think I would want to be near people. But hoping we are all spaced out as we spawn not ten people on the same spot. So the game or server places you in a spot where there isn't another person already. Is that possible? Don't know, same for arriving on a main portal in a city, space the player characters out so that they don't all clog the same exact spot in the game. Makes it easier and less laggy to zone in. Plus being near other people and possibly learning from them right off the bat.
I want to appear in the middle of a cataclysim/planar collision with the voice of Nexus ringing in my head telling me "Welcome and time to begin again. Head to XXX to learn more..." Let the world be fuzzy and out distorted somewhat for a few seconds until you have regained your senses and things regain focus..
Kazingathi said:
Lol it would be funny to start out in a dungeon, insta death just get it out of the way! No I would prefer to start out in racial city just like VG and work my way out into the world.
Hahaha can you imagine ? Being put basically naked into a dungeon and making you think there is hope for you to get out but in reality only death awaits at all ends by design . After that you awaken where the real journey starts.
Well considering Pantheon is titled Rise of the Fallen, I thought this scenario would be fitting: Log into the YOU HAVE DIED message and then like Sogotp said, wake up distorted, in a bed at the Racial starting guildhall with the player having no knowledge of whether it was a dream that you awoke from or really had "died" and have to regain or gain all your strength back through RoPs/leveling.
Sogotp said:
I want to appear in the middle of a cataclysim/planar collision with the voice of Nexus ringing in my head telling me "Welcome and time to begin again. Head to XXX to learn more..." Let the world be fuzzy and out distorted somewhat for a few seconds until you have regained your senses and things regain focus..
I like this idea. It is different. Let the player get a feeling of being "born". Awesome idea Sogo honey. It is a lot different from all of the other games I have ever played befored that is for sure!
Raidan said:
Well considering Pantheon is titled Rise of the Fallen, I thought this scenario would be fitting: Log into the YOU HAVE DIED message and then like Sogotp said, wake up distorted, in a bed at the Racial starting guildhall with the player having no knowledge of whether it was a dream that you awoke from or really had "died" and have to regain or gain all your strength back through RoPs/leveling.
Ok work this idea, with Sogo's and the one by who posted about dying first , (sorry didn't catch your name), bring them together and you have your beginning. Booyahaa baby!!!!! The best start in gaming ever!!!!!! Let's see WoW and EQ Next and everything else top that one from Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen!!!!!
Ooooh!! I got chills, and their multiplying!!!
I'm hoping to have half a dozen tutorial windows pop up into my face the moment I log in...NOT.
As for Jason's question: I don't want to start in the middle of a fight. Better to have enough time to acclimate to your surroundings, check your inventory etc. Starting in a war zone also tends to immediately push you onto a given path, which is something I hope to not see in Pantheon.
Raidan said:
Well considering Pantheon is titled Rise of the Fallen, I thought this scenario would be fitting: Log into the YOU HAVE DIED message and then like Sogotp said, wake up distorted, in a bed at the Racial starting guildhall with the player having no knowledge of whether it was a dream that you awoke from or really had "died" and have to regain or gain all your strength back through RoPs/leveling.
I LOVE this idea! I hope to start anywhere EXCEPT a tutorial. Put me somewhere in game and then leave me alone!
Jason said:
When you log into Pantheon and see thru your avatar's eyes for the first time, where do you want to be ? Near your class guild with a note in your pocket saying report to your trainer ? In the middle of a battle ? Alone ? Amongst other level 1 characters ? What sort of experience or atmosphere are you hoping for in the first few gaming moments ?
This is a hard thing for me to answer, as it largely depends on the vision of the team and also lore/mechanics that we have no concept of. That said, I will never forget logging into Vanguard for the first time on my Half Elf Druid, and being in pure amazement at the beauty of Kojan. I was quite simply in awe with the tiny little fishing village; villagers going about their business, fisherman tending their nets, the walls of Tanvu on the horizon, the music etching its self on my soul. That has left a mark on me, and as cliche as it sounds, quite literally changed my perspective. I can only hope that it will one day be replicated in another game.
Man I hate to beat a dead horse here. But once again, I think EQ march 16th 1999 had it right.
I was a High-Elf Wizard.
Starting as another renegade, misguided child of the city Felwithe. I ran along, talking to as many Non Player Characters I saw/could. Eventually finding my way outside... to experience a whole different world... game.
Matter of fact, it was a few weeks, before you even saw other opposing races. That coincidentally, you couldn't even speak to..
I think that a good MMORPG brings you into the reasons, you are choosing that race. The starting experience of a homeland is important, I think that is somewhat obvious in a typical Roleplaying stye game.
A breeding ground is... the reason we have elfs, or dwarves, & humans, etc.
Their homeland is important. Having a game where start in a remote area and find the main city is less desirable, because all roads lead to Rome. In that, that adventure is not as fun as starting in a metropolis and seeking out a cave...
After some thought, I like the idea of Logging in to a generic "you have died" screen and then you have the voice of Nexus start while the screen is still all black. Then Nexus explains that your talents are being wasted in the old world and you are presented with the various races that you can choose and it puts you into the game at a scene where a planar collision has occurred and everything is out of focus and distorted as nexus' voice says, "Welcome to Terminus. it is time to begin again. I know you want to know more but to do that you must go speak to XXX" XXX=whatever starting racial emissary is...
I like the idea - but remember that the premise of RIFT is that at the very start you are essentially a risen fallen hero... so it's not new ground.
Tongue in cheek comment here: If you want it to be a case where death stings, have the first thing that happens when you log in be you "dinging" level 2, getting killed, and de-leveling all the way back to the start of level 1.
That would sort of be an easter egg that fans of EQ would get and appreciate :)
/giggle @ Wandidar!
Starting zone imho should be where you log in and just that: No tutoral, no cutscene- let us get acclimated and figure out what to do. It is only proper since this game aims to have a sadboxy feel to it.
A letter or short message of purpose and direction could be included, especially helpful when it is one's very first toon. But our alts usually run straight to a mailbox, or a friend who hands you stuff, or we just may log in looking at our appearance or spells, or seeing how the animations are.
God I love the smell of a fresh toon with no gear or money!
I think the most important thing for starting a new character is the “Zero to Hero” feeling. In EQ you really started as a no body and it was only through* YOUR* action did you go up in the world. So many games start you already as the hero, like before you have done anything you plop in the world as if you are a seasoned veteran. They make it so you aren’t really starting a character from scratch but you are more picking up from where the backstory left off which to me is kind of defeating the point of making a new hero.
This is an excellent question Jason.
What is happening at this very first moment is a birth. Something non existing comes in being.
The way the laziest and cheapest RPGs treat that is amnesy. As you recall nothing, they don't need to explain anything about the time before your birth.
A variant of that cheap trick is transsubstantiation - your soul is transported to a body. As this body becomes you, it is not necessary to explain anything about its past either because it is irrelevant.
What I would want and what I have never seen is an analogy of a real birth. I want to feel that I belong from the very first second. There is really a past, I authentically live in 2 parallel worlds.
So I would see the first scene like that :
You sit at a table in a dwarven room. A Young dwarf plays in the corner. An old dwarf enters and waves a letter :
"By my beard son ! The honorable Master of the Temple has just written you. The results of your tests were not the best but you are accepted to study. They are awaiting you tomorrow. Do honor to our name."
An older female dwarf enters and holds a backpack.
"Be careful son. Don't catch cold in those icy temple rooms. I have knitted you a nice warm hood."
The dwarf child stands up and looks at you : "When I grow up, I will be like my brother too.
...
So you are a dwarf. Unexperienced and Young. You have a father and a mother. A family. A culture. A past. You belong.
This start would be instanced because as these are your parents, they can't be parents of anybody else.
When you leave this zone, you will be anywhere in a dwarven village or city with your back pack, an axe that belonged to your father and to his father before that and a vast ignorance of the wide world out there. Your journey begins.
I like it Deadshade. I think you are saying "Use the initial setting for your avatar to give it the beginnings of it's own back story / history."
Much in the same way you might open a fantasy novel an read something like:
"The room was dank and dark. The stench of old, stale ale clung to Baradon like sweat on a mid-summers day."
In a matter of two sentences and less than 25 words, you've met Baradon, and you know he's someone sitting in a rather seedy place. Which means you know he's someone who WOULD, for some reason, sit in a rather seedy place - and makes you curious why.
In short - just that fast, you want to know more about Baradon.
You are wanting them to create that sort of an introduction for your character, correct? (With different races / classes perhaps having a different launching point for their story?)
In an odd sort of way, I think EQ accomplished this with the simple expedient of dropping you in front of your trainer and telling you NOTHING. You started EQ, and the first thing you realized was that you had no clue... but hey, here was someone in front of you with text over his head indicating he (or she) DID know what you were supposed to do.
Not nearly as rich in concept as your idea - and perhaps was only effective because none of us had yet played 40 billion different MMO's...
Another way of doing this would be for the player/person to answer a series of questions after picking their starting race and based upon the answers, that determines how you start the game. That way for those that want more Lore or backstory to their character then they can have it, for those that want no help whatsoever they just get put into the world, and for those that want/need some help from the questions they get that help. That way EACH character/toon that is created would have a different way to start the game more or less.