small scale, minor, UNANNOUNCED GM type-events
randomly throwing in an orc warband of 12-15 mobs that will roam around a zone (lasts as long as the orcs survive - an hour, a day, a week, whatever), an additionlal boss in a dungeon area (gone after one kill), a forest that gets overun with wolves (population doubles, after the extras are killed back to normal spawn rate)
things like that, not world changing events, but adda little shake n bake to the game on a regular basis.
I would love to see Multiple tabs for Different Types of Gear like what those used in VG. One tab for each type of activity... Adventuring, Crafting, Harvesting. You click the tab option to swap to it. I thought this feature on VG was amazing and have not seen anything similar in a game since. The ability to tweak gear for crafting and harvesting as well as "regualr gear" was a great touch IMO. The fact that that each gear type was relavent and needed to do your best was also a great touch. (The crafting gear especially needed to be paid attention to in order to be successful in processing).
Player Crafted Horse gear. Horse shoes would add speed, sadddles could improve regen as though you were resting, and there could also be appearance gear to personalize your mounts look.
Player Housing ~ The best player housing decor system I have seen in any MMO to date has been EQ2. That game has a whole niche following of decorators... I'd love to see something similar.
Harvesting ~ Would love to see a benefit while "group harvesting" Similar to what was done on VG would be great. This also makes sense to me since one of our main Tenents it to promote socialization and grouping !
Perhaps even uber rare raw materials that are only possible to harvest in a group? (Something I have never seen in an MMO but again given our focus on promoting socialization, makes total sense ! )
1) No global or continental chat -- limit the power of the Trolls. This is one of the largest problems in MMO's in my view. Make people talk to each other locally. Larger methods of chat can be done in /guildspeak and players can regulate conduct within their own guilds.
2) Some kiting / Tethering only where it makes sense. -- Some mobs chasing you down to the ends of the earth should happen. Some mobs getting tired and stop chasing also makes some sense. But there should be some place within the game for Kiting in my view. Solo kiting mobs in the Planes with my Necro back in the day -- took time to kill them, but was awesome and fun.
3) Camping -- This will probably get some jeers but I think some rare items or quests should occasionally involve lengthy camps. The fatal problem with lengthy camps in my view is a lack of other things to do at the same time. Make some mobs rare spawns, make people earn it. Just try to have other things to do at the same time like other xp to gain, or other mini quests to do to mix it up. If I'm camping a mob that can spawn once in 12 hours I prefer not to be surrounded with only grey mobs with no value. But if I'm camping a rare mob and there are tradeskill items to farm, or a faction to work on or a fishing pond... something! ;)
4) Random/Non Obvious Agro -- One big change from EQ1 to EQ2... you could tell whether a mob is solo agro or group agro just from targetting it. Whether its an easy mob or a medium mob. I don't want to know its part of the excitement. Pulling also isn't for everyone, it can be stressful. Don't make it so hard that only 10% of the populace wants to play a Tank/Puller but keep the surprise in the system.
5) Difficulty/rarity obtraining even mediocre loot! -- I had a caster in EQ1 still at level 35 in cloth pants... because getting quality mage pants is hard! I want items that give me 2 AC only when I'm a newb. Oh whats that? Your level 18 and get +1 Str on an item? You go boy! I remember equipping some items just because it gave me +5hp vs an empty slot! Love it!
6) Diverse and lengthy quests -- I'm sick to death of 'Kill mob X 10 times, talk to NPC' and 'Go from X to Y and Hail NPC' type of quests. Unless there is a smidge of lore involved, or some sort of entertainment factor in the dialogue or the task... leave it out. If you just want to kill 10 mobs then just kill them for the xp and call it good.
7) Restricted travel -- Is so funny how some of the things that bugged me the most years ago are now some of the things I love. Travel being one of them. I remember starting in Qeynos and getting to level 13 or so and having to take the shoeleather express all the way from Qeynos to Freeport -- what an adventure! Sure I died a couple times and cursed the game but the adventure and challenge of it are what kept me going. Sitting on a dock with a couple people waiting for a boat to arrive, or even worse just seeing it leave as I show up and cursing the game again -- Make people be intelligent with where they camp, where they go, and not flying all over the game world easy peasy. I think you can potentially apply some of the same concept to the camping idea I mentioned -- boat ride boring? Maybe have random ship to ship combat or random things that can happen like an adventure zone. Or mini quests on the ship. Or tradeskill options under the deck for players to do while they wait. Maybe escort quests or reasons for people to courier goods from one place or another. Reward travel in some minor way, mix it up!
8) No cosmetic slots -- if someone wants to equip a leather BP and a chainmail arm set -- they should look odd ;)
Kilsin said:We do have a thread similar to this but it is what people don't want to see, I would personally much rather see threads like this as it helps us with development more so feel free to add to this folks. ...
No spoiler tags, so I apologize, as this is a bit of a long list.
I guess I don't have a list of things I want to see that are not in the tenets, but there is an idea I had related to maps that I posted on another message board that I think would be cool. It would likely be the type of thing that would come after release though.
It would be interesting if there was a cartography system where, for the people who love to explore, maps can be created and sold. I think that for the players that decide to either map an area, or decide to purchase crafted maps they should be able to stop, equip a compass, and, depending on skill level, attempt to determine their location. Once the book is open and the compass is out, a certain amount of time will pass, (goes back to skill level (maybe even the quality of their map)) and they will eventually see a rough approximation of where they are including orientation, or if they are skilled enough and/or have a high quality map they will have an exact location of where they are with orientation.
The two elements that should to be taken into consideration by the folks that are against maps:
a) You will be immobile in 1st person looking at a map while you try and determine where you are, thus making you vulnerable to attack.
-and-
b) You are only seeing your location temporarily, and you have to drop your map to start moving again. This takes away the constant GPS system, and makes it more like how people use maps in real life.
A system like this would only be available to people who can map their own areas, or the people who can find and purchase the zone map they want.
Cartography, as a craft and skill, could build immersion in addition to creating player commerce. High level zone and dungeon maps should be hard to make, and even harder to be completed accurately; many maps would become hard to find plus they would be pretty pricey. This type of system becomes even more interesting if certain zone maps become a rare commodity, and additionally, if each map has a % completion quality per zone allowing for some maps to be more valuable than others. You would find low level area maps very common and affordable, and beyond that the sky is the limit. I could see maps being particularly nice to have in a confusing dungeon.
Obliquity said:1. Hell Levels. ( bring back hell levels they give a sense of accomplishment making it thru them )
2. Individual Itemization. (items should be unique )
3. Everything Attackable. ( adds flavor and risk )
4. Line of Sight. ( Soon as youre out of LOS, it should block any spell casting or song from effecting you )
5. First Person View.( If you want an immersive game experience, scrolling out you watch the character, FPV you see through the characters eyes )
6. Character Collision. ( for grouped players this will give you another way to add flavor to encounters )
7. GM Events. ( Random spontaneous events of all level ranges never planned, players really liked these random interactions )
8. Xp Bar Control. ( You can set it to a % to slow leveling and wait for friends and still be able to adventure )
9. Spell Components. ( A spell doesn’t consume its material components unless its description says it does but bring needing them back. Bat wings, bone chips, fish scales etc.. can give casters a pouch just for spell components, also creates player interaction, higher level players buying from lower levels )
10. Tracking. ( Classes with this skill, should not just get a list to click on and then it just guides you to it. When tracking you gain skill ups for using it, have it work like perception you following tracks but only know if its humanoid or beast til you see it )
Things I would like to see in the game. (not in any particular order of importance)
1) The ability to search for a word in the chat box and have any lines of chat with that word in it show up in a separate box. /searchchat Moonstone Ring ; All of the chat flying past does not matter because I can concentrate on the three people offering Moonstone Rings and see that the cheapest one Lefty Woodentoes has to offer is at torch #3 in the area that the selling is happening. If I had this ability in the Commonlands tunnel (EQ) it would have been so nice.
2) Artifacts , rare items that have historical significance based on lore of the game that a person can find or loot. Most will be valuable and maybe even beautiful, some will be deadly.
3) A couple "dungeons" that are just cities that you fight into and have to fight with a group or raid and it is just like invading a regular city with merchants and soldiers, Archers and ballistas on the walls.
4) Ethical Quests that can have a permanent or long lasting impact on your character if you are not smart and careful.
5) A newspaper that can be purchased with ads that are placed in it by players and news that pertains to terminus.
6) Things to find in places you can go. I hate huge amounts of cool nooks and crannies to explore but it is just dead filler.
7) Special Group quests that requires a full group to start and it takes you on an amazing and possibly dangerous >wink< Adventure that takes a weekend to complete. (maybe 8 - 10 hours total)
8) A mini pet Aradune for all pledgers
9) Many Many dynamic Camp spots; you actually build a small camp so everybody knows it is camped. Your camp can be improved upon and gives small advantages when you have set it up. Maybe the weather can go from bad to worse in some of these spots and a camp provides protection.
10) Skellynados !
Well I have a few things to add to the list myself. Some of these may or may not have been listed already but here goes.
1. Creepy Zones: One thing EQ did pretty good was bringing the spooky element to some zones. Najena had the torture room with dismembered dwarves and some other zones had a horror theme with some fairly freaky creatures. I tend to enjoy this greatly.
2. Mysteries and Easter Eggs: Been watching the EverQuest Mysteries videos again recently and they reminded me how well some of the little things hidden around Norrath were done. I'd like to see some similar things around Terminus. Things like that give the world character and its own personality.
3. Camp Sites: One thing I liked about Star Wars Galaxy was the ability to set up a camp and let the group or strangers come over to rest and recover. This could be handy in Pantheon by allowing players to craft or buy different kinds of camps that may provide buffs or some other little perk that can benefit players. It also adds a nice little social dynamic to the wild.
4, Strong Crafting System: I'd like a system similar to Vanguard's crafting or better. I hate click-it-and-forget-it crafting systems. They bore me to tears.
5. A Strong Guild System: It be nice if we have a system for guild's to earn perks or something similar to EQII''s writs or RIFT's system. Something else better is a bonus.
6. Good Quests: Epic Quests and the Coldain Ring War come to mind.
7. A Live Event Team: This one may not be possible but I'll pitch it all the same. The Matrix Online for all its flaws did one thing very right by being a pathfinder in MMORPG interactive story. They had a team that was responsible for writing content that pushed the overall world story forward and then going into the game to interact with players in character. Whether that level of interaction is possible for Pantheon or not is up to VR, but content updates that move the world story forward and maybe even make dynamic changes to it would be a nice tough.
8. No Game play Add-ons: I’m fine with custom UIs, but let us not even tread down the add-on territory that tells you when to dodge, where to stand, how far you are from that guy, this attack is coming so move, big flashy text, ect. These take the play right out of the game and it becomes a game of watch the UI.
9. Kicking Snakes
That’s a few for now. I may add more later. :)
Edit: No idea what happened to the post backdrop here. So in what is sure to be a long line I'd like to be the first to say; I didn't do it.
Obliquity said:6. Character Collision. ( for grouped players this will give you another way to add flavor to encounters )
I can agree with just about everything in this thread, except this. This was discussed a long time ago but character collision creates yet another way of harrassing other players. Blocking doors/merchants/mobs/etc. Especially with large races in the game it can be infuriating. IE Ogre walling the entrance to a room to block a raid target from another guild until yours can get there, going afk for 6 hours in the doorway to the bank ....
People have named so many things that i would like to see as well - so instead of making a list and duplicating what others have said, I'll just talk about abstract stuff and hope it helps :)
I like breadth in games. By breadth, I mean having a lot of different things to do and ways to advance my character. So many games just focus on adventuring, and anything else that is there (like crafting) is anemic and basically just viewed as a minigame for characters to pass the time. I feel like this is the wrong way to do it. If you're going to have crafting, it should be fully-developed and an integral part of life in Terminus. Advancing crafting should be just as challenging and fulfilling as advancing adventuring. I can't say strongly enough how in favor I am of having actual crafting gear and crafting gameplay. The same goes for gathering - gathering should have its own mechanics, its own challenge, its own gear, its own progression. I haven't heard that PRF will feature a diplomacy system like Vanguard had, but if it did, same applies there. (Actually, that would be kind of awesome. Expansion feature?)
I like depth in games. By depth, I mean that stuff isn't quick or simple to master. In gameplay terms this might mean lots of different gear to get, some common, some rare, so that you always have a "next thing" you could get to progress. In adventuring tems, it might mean lots and lots of skills and spells to learn, some easy to find... some, not so easy to find. The bottom line - advancing in whatever we choose to do shouldn't just be a matter of experience, numbers, and stats - but there should be real player skill gained along the way, that comes from really understanding the different abilities we get and how to set up our character for success.
I am an Explorer so I would be remiss to not talk about the world. I have played so many games where, after a few months, the world just felt too small. I want Terminus to feel huge, vast, and untamed. I want to be a year into this game and not to have run out of places to go and see. I want for there to be secrets and mysteries, when I come across that statue, or ancient ruin, or whatever, it should *mean* something. Places and things should have history to them, and should matter in some way, even if it's not obvious at first. Nothing should just be "window dressing". Likewise, there should be reasons to go to places other than just "let's see what's there." Whether it's to obtain items of power, or for story/lore purposes, nothing should feel like "filler". Travel should be meaningful. I'm totally ok with giving players the means to reach each other quickly when needed but the journey should be just as much a component of the adventure as the destination apart from that. Moreover, travel should be immersive. Not just drop to a loading screen and poof you're there. I miss riding boats between continents (though I don't miss falling through their decks). This isn't to say we can't have limited teleportation, flying mounts, and so on - but this sort of stuff should never become so common and ubiquitious that we players start to take it for granted - and places and regions should be built in such a way where travel boosters don't give people a significant advantage in the completion of adventuring content. I realize that's hard, and there's a balance there. But that balance is important.
When it comes to quests, I want detailed, meaningful quests. I don't think any of us really want to be off killing X number of rats, but we fondly remember things like the old Epic questlines of EverQuest. I'll also say that I don't want to enter a new town and be flooded with quest markers over NPC heads. Quests should be rare, and special. Further, quests should just be the start. If the old guy in town asks you to recover the Amulet of the Mists, it really should just be a hook to get you to go into the nearby dungeon - not a golden path that leads you to a specific named NPC or something like that. There should be twists and turns. Maybe you get there but the amulet's already been stolen. Things that seem innocuous and simple for seasoned adventurers should rarely be so simple to achieve. In addition, quests shouldn't hold your hand. They shouldn't tell us where we need to go and what we need to do step by step, and the hints we get from NPCs should be lore-related, and sometimes vague and cryptic. Completing the quest means solving the riddles, unraveling the mysteries, and most importantly... working with other players.
I know that Pantheon will have a group focus but I want to emphasize that players need to need each other. Whether it's grouping together to take down those low-level monsters that are too tough to handle alone, or grabbing friends to delve deep into a dungeon, or setting up a raid with your guild on larger targets, the different social mechanisms we have need to have impact on our gameplay. I am tired of games where 90% of your gameplay is solo, where guilds are just a chat channel full of friendly/nice people, where people join groups to complete an objective, never talk, and then just leave as silently as they came, and where raids are simply harder versions of instanced group content that require more people. I want to see the game pushing players to interact, to socialize, to talk and become friends. I want the game to be set up in a way that rewards players for playing nice and helping each other, and penalizes players for not making those social connections. It's harsh to say, but there's so much bad behavior I see in many other games because people simply don't care about how they treat others. It doesn't impact their gameplay. In this game, it should impact their gameplay (and before anyone suggests it, I don't really believe people are more polite in PvP games or on PvP servers - I played EVE Online for 11 years :) )
I'm short on time. This is what I get for making posts in the morning before work. Really quickly - Progression should be slow. Don't let us shoot up to max level in a few weeks or even a few months. Make us commit for the long haul. Progression should be meaningful. Reward us for contributing to the world and the success of other players, not just for grinding whatever seems easiest or most efficient. In crafting, don't make a system where we make things for NPCs in order to advance, force us to participate in the economy. Support roleplay, provide lots of emotes, social clothing, let us sit in chairs, give people spaces for things like weddings and parties and contests and fun stuff. Give guilds things to do and goals to achieve beyond just being a vehicle for raiding. Make dungeons challenging. Nothing we fight should be "trash". Make "boss" encounters epic however.
For expansion features, please please please meaningful, fully integrated housing with player towns/cities (see my post in the Farmville in Pantheon thread). Building and sailing ships like in Vanguard. Housing-related items and rewards from adventuring like EQ2. Diplomacy (or something similar) like Vanguard. The ability as a crafter to set up an actual shop to sell my wares like SWG. Collaborative crafting where players have to work together to build huge and awesome things like Vanguard, EVE, or a few other games.
... ugh, so much more I could say, but fortunately for all of you, work awaits. :)
That damn Ogre blocking the bank again... he sure is annoying!
I've experienced this before, more than once. I tried everything couldn't get in. Or at times had to gate out. So I understand.
But I still would like them to keep character collision in. I think they need to find another way of dealing with the griefing it creates. I think just removing collision is a phony way out and I would rather see us deal with griefers in game than to turn everybody into ghosts that you could just run through crowds of people.
Maybe timers before a player fades to non-collision?
Maybe initial impact has collision but continue to press and you walk through?
Maybe they can come up with an algorithm that could tell a collision grief in situation?
Designated areas of no collision?
Don't pull the tooth because of a cavity, put in a filling.
1 progress in numeric style instead of just a bar that gets filled up and you have no idea what kind of exp you are recieving from the mobs.
2 more camps in newbie zones. if this is going to be a game like eq then you need more camps for more groups.
3 I would realy like to se the character creation phase released a day or so early so we can create our characters early without the hassle of hurry-hurry-hurry so you can get in game faster
Things I want, in game.
1. A public square with a place for trophies taken by guilds. I.e. In Halas there should have been a town square where the first guild to kill Lady Vox was able to mount her head and have a sign promoting the fact that they took her down. This comes from a trophy drop from Lady Vox. Also a replica of her head should be able to be mounted in their guild hall. This promotes a sense of purpose and glory in the kill. Each subsequent guild to kill Lady Vox gets to mount her head in their guild hall as a trophy, but not in the town square. VR can decide how many or which mob can drop a trophy head to mount. One per zone, more than one per zone. A guild can start three years after launch but Lady Vox is still worth getting.
2. Guilds can buy public places. Guild X saves up 10,000,000 plat and buys Ben's Beasts and Brews. Becomes Adventurers of Terminus Beast and Brew. The guild must staff the place in order to sell Brews for plat. This is a good thing for people who want to socialize without actually adventuring. Gives a guild prestige. Advertises your guild. Meet people, make friends, craft food and drink, not in a guild hall which removes people from the city, but in the city. The guild could rent space for players to sell, or take a percentage of the sale. No guild can own more than one business per town. This instead of auction houses. This keeps people going to the city, allows for more avenues for play. Risk v reward is still kept because the brewing still may fail etc.
3. Guild buff drops. Lady Vox drops a Golden Cup of Constitution, a +1 of constitution for the guild. Anyone in Adventurers of Terminus gets a +1 constitution buff from entering the guild hall. The buff lasts for 4 hours. Any guild that takes out Lady Vox gets it, if they have a guild hall. No hall, no buff. A guild hall is a great money sink/time sink. Get enough trophies, and it matters. Keeps old content relevant. Each guild wants each old zone boss.
4.Maps and notes. I want to make maps and keep notes of where I've been. I want to scribe more than one map and sell them. Making a map with notes should be a low level scribe ability. Anybody can take pencil to paper and draw Brewery here, next to it is the bank, next to that is Ben's. No glowing path, but a real world ability that any adult human could make.
5. Pack animals. Unlikely, I know. But I'm gonna go down swinging on this one. An adventurer that can carry five complete sets of armor does not fit into a bag, in my world. Five sets of armor on a donkey that may run during combat does. I know it won't happen but wth.
6. Go anywhere. I know this has kinda been covered, but I want to climb mountains. Why, just for the hell of it. Because it's there. I'd like a climbing rope, with a grapple.
7. Spells/abilities from a seer. When guy X has spells/abilities/attributes to teach I'd like for it to be a mystical experience. Guy X has transported you to your god, you may choose from these spells/abilities/fight styles/increase to wisdom/Dex etc. to learn. There is a choice you can make I want to learn to "gate", learn to med faster, increase your wisdom.
8. Gathering/farming. A real farm can take many forms. Chocolate only grows in certain areas, with the right temperature, rainfall, in a dangerous area, requires fertilization, grow time and gathering to make hot cocoa +2 strength drink. There is weather and different mana, this is built for farming/gathering.
9. Unblockable public doors. I hate it when someone/guild can block access to a public place, just to be dicks.
10. A grief record by VR. There must be a way to some how track griefing. I have no idea how this can be done, but I am tired of Group X camping mob Y only to have The Guild of Golden Griefers swoop in and overwhelm/take away mob Y. I hesitate to add this one because it is somewhat controversial, but it would make the game more fun for me.
Thanks.
I felt the need to rez this one for one more.
Nemesis System
Hear me out. While it's highly unlikely, I think that it would be great if Pantheon had a Nemesis style system that was a kind of offshoot of the one used in Middle-earth Shadow of War. Picture if you will, as a player, you kill hoards and hoards of orcs and other enemies. But one of those ends up just taking a special kind of hatred of you. Maybe you defeat it and it cheats death and from that point on it grows in power with you. When you're out in the world hunting, there's a chance that this enemy might pop up and ambush you and your party at some point. Then persist that interaction through the leveling experience. Your specific nemesis gets a name and some sort of coded random dialogue based on your encounters. He kills you he gloats; you kill him he's none too happy and quite salty. Play with it and make it fun, engaging, and comical at times.
It would have to be coded in such a way to only allow a possible interaction every so often so we don't have everyone's special enemy showing up in spams wrecking the grouping game. But a few here and there would be fun and keep things interesting as you level. Just a thought.
If you guys are lost have a look at this video for one example and a good chuckle. The only thing is that it would have to be conveyed through text. VR just doesn't have a big budget to fill up voiced dialogue for something like this if it were to ever happen in the first place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGKRSBaZ9oU
Also, I still think we need craftable or purchasable SWG type camp sites to use out in the wilds. :)
2. Individual Itemization. (items should be unique )
3. Everything Attackable. ( adds flavor and risk )
4. Line of Sight. ( Soon as youre out of LOS, it should block any spell casting or song from effecting you )
5. First Person View.( If you want an immersive game experience, scrolling out you watch the character, FPV you see through the characters eyes )
6. Character Collision. ( for grouped players this will give you another way to add flavor to encounters )
7. GM Events. ( Random spontaneous events of all level ranges never planned, players really liked these random interactions )
8. Xp Bar Control. ( You can set it to a % to slow leveling and wait for friends and still be able to adventure )
9. Spell Components. ( A spell doesn’t consume its material components unless its description says it does but bring needing them back. Bat wings, bone chips, fish scales etc.. can give casters a pouch just for spell components, also creates player interaction, higher level players buying from lower levels )
10. Tracking. ( Classes with this skill, should not just get a list to click on and then it just guides you to it. When tracking you gain skill ups for using it, have it work like perception you following tracks but only know if its humanoid or beast til you see it )
that is spot on with everything for me totally agree
Kratuk said:I felt the need to rez this one for one more.
Nemesis System
Hear me out. While it's highly unlikely, I think that it would be great if Pantheon had a Nemesis style system that was a kind of offshoot of the one used in Middle-earth Shadow of War. Picture if you will, as a player, you kill hoards and hoards of orcs and other enemies. But one of those ends up just taking a special kind of hatred of you. Maybe you defeat it and it cheats death and from that point on it grows in power with you. When you're out in the world hunting, there's a chance that this enemy might pop up and ambush you and your party at some point. Then persist that interaction through the leveling experience. Your specific nemesis gets a name and some sort of coded random dialogue based on your encounters. He kills you he gloats; you kill him he's none too happy and quite salty. Play with it and make it fun, engaging, and comical at times.
It would have to be coded in such a way to only allow a possible interaction every so often so we don't have everyone's special enemy showing up in spams wrecking the grouping game. But a few here and there would be fun and keep things interesting as you level. Just a thought.
I would love to see dynamically spawned/triggered encounters in general, but this would be a great way to leverage that and add some sense of continuity to the game - your past deeds are remembered ;)
Kratuk said:
Also, I still think we need craftable or purchasable SWG type camp sites to use out in the wilds. :)
I was actually envisioning this as being somewhat how outposts would work, although more permanent.
I'd support the idea of usable camp kits though, that a party could throw up to help speed up downtime. The corollary to that is that if you can build a camp to speed up downtime, then downtime without a camp should take a while.... ;)
Obliquity said:1. Hell Levels. ( bring back hell levels they give a sense of accomplishment making it thru them )2. Individual Itemization. (items should be unique )
3. Everything Attackable. ( adds flavor and risk )
4. Line of Sight. ( Soon as youre out of LOS, it should block any spell casting or song from effecting you )
5. First Person View.( If you want an immersive game experience, scrolling out you watch the character, FPV you see through the characters eyes )
6. Character Collision. ( for grouped players this will give you another way to add flavor to encounters )
7. GM Events. ( Random spontaneous events of all level ranges never planned, players really liked these random interactions )
8. Xp Bar Control. ( You can set it to a % to slow leveling and wait for friends and still be able to adventure )
9. Spell Components. ( A spell doesn’t consume its material components unless its description says it does but bring needing them back. Bat wings, bone chips, fish scales etc.. can give casters a pouch just for spell components, also creates player interaction, higher level players buying from lower levels )
10. Tracking. ( Classes with this skill, should not just get a list to click on and then it just guides you to it. When tracking you gain skill ups for using it, have it work like perception you following tracks but only know if its humanoid or beast til you see it )
Since the thread got necro'd, just to say it. I agree with all of this except hell levels. I want every level to be meaningful, not just every 5th/10th/whatever level.
I have my own list of things i could tack on but most of you are probably already sick of hearing about them :)
Nephele said:Since the thread got necro'd, just to say it. I agree with all of this except hell levels. I want every level to be meaningful, not just every 5th/10th/whatever level.
I have my own list of things i could tack on but most of you are probably already sick of hearing about them :)
That's what the threads for, Nephele. Kilsin made it clear a while back he'd prefer necroing a thread over starting a new one as it keeps the discussion easy to find and easier for him to read and jot down any notes he might want to pass on to the devs. So post away.
Okies, here is my list. The first and foremost is a robust chat system. I've yet to have a chat system in an MMO that I've liked as much as I used to like EQs. And if we want this to be a solid social game, a fully featured chat system is important.
1. Multiple, resizble, movable chat windows. You should be able to filter which chats go into which window. I usually would make one chat window for party, tell, and guild chat and put it right center middle of my screen. And then leave all the other text for the one to the side. This way I don't miss important discussions in scroll junk.
2. Easy replies. I should be able to easily hit a key to do a reply and another key to cycle through reply targets. I can't understand why so many MMOs do not get this feature down. If I'm having tell conversations with multiple people, I don't want to have to type their name out over and over again. It is all about very fast and rapid replies to fit the conversation into the game play.
3. Persistent chat groups. I'd like to be able to establish chat groups that persist through log off and log on. This could be ones dedicated to friends or people I group with a lot or leaders of my guild, etc. It would be even better if they were treated as an element that you could see and manage in a UI. So able to be a leader of it, control who can join, password protect them, etc.
4. Time to chat. Give me bits of downtime. Don't make me move constantly in an effort to "keep me engaged". A lot of MMOs now you constantly have to move and it makes it very hard to get social with those you are with. You have to choose between gameplay or social. You need time to fire off a comment now and then or be carrying on a tell conversation with a friend. In the old EQ camp days, you always had those bits of downtime or when the puller was pulling that you could get quick messages in before the next fight.
5. Integration with offline systems like Discord. I would love to be able to hook my discord ID up to Pantheon so that I can exchange messages with people when I'm not in the game. And maybe even have the persistent chat channels like above tie into discord channels. This way if I'm out and about but have my phone and a quiet moment, I could still talk to my guildmates and friends. This would kind of be like the old EQ Messenger app that was released back in the day.
6. Multiple guilds. I'm not totally sure on this, but I've played Trove a lot recently and kind of like being able to have multiple guilds. When I ran Rutabaga Paradox back in EQ, it was a casual guild and we would lose people as they got higher level so they could join a guild that was more high end/raid focused. Being able to be a member of more than one guild would allow someone to join that higher end guild for the high end content, but still be a member of a casual more social oriented guild for the friendship and talking.
7. Costmetic slots. I love costmetic slots. I like to be able to tailor my look and not have to throw how I look out the window because it is dictated by the gear I need to wear to be effective in the game. I would love a system that lets me build up a series of styles in my inventory over time so I could then choose my look and even be abel to change it now and then. LOTROs sytem I felt worked really well for that. And having a few different style themes built up so I could switch between them just adds fun to the game.
8. In game note taking. Others have mentioned this. It seems like I often end up with a spreadsheet and note file that I have to keep with a lot of MMOs. I would love to have the ability to keep that data in game so I don't have to page out all the time. Notes on friends and guild members is a must so I can remind myself of details about them. Notes on the map so I can remember where something was. Notes for quests and such. Notes on where to get craft materials or what to do with them. Notes on what I should be buying or selling items for.
9. Camping. I'm loving the idea of camping again. I miss sitting and killing giants in Kunark. Or working into that zone south of the elven area. I know some worry that it gets repetitive. But getting into a good camp spot and being careful on killing the mobs was a good feeling. And you never knew if a pull was going to go wrong and chaos would arrupt. If we want to spice it up, do a little randomness in it. The idea someone had of a nemesis above would be a great one. Or have a slightly tougher mob spawn now and then. Or mix the pathing up a bit. That little bit of uncertanty would be all that is needed to keep it from getting too grindy.
10. Combat that is not twitch. If I want to play an FPS, I'd go play an FPS. Instead it should be about knowing my character, how to play it, and doing it right. Having to twitch to the side every 3 seconds or having to spam my mouse button in just the right way is annoying. I like the idea of auto attack with maybe now and then some modification like activating an ability. Also avoid carpal tunnel. Having to uber click like I'm playing Diablo messes up my hands these days. :P
11. Abilities that are meaningful. Don't just toss in more spells or abilities because I leveled and you feel there has to be several with each level. MMORPGs where you end up with like 50 spells but you really only use 5 is annoying. Have each ability serve a clear purpose and just make them more effective as you level up.
12. GMs. You never see GMs in MMOs anymore. Having the GMs interact with the players in EQ gave me a lot of fond memories. Skeleton hordes on halloween showing up when a GM comes in. Having a GM come to officiate my wedding in Kelethin (I still have screen shots of that). Seeing that green name show up was always a "oooh! look!" type thing. It just lent an atmosphere that made it feel like it was more than an impresonal company running something on servers.
So there have been ALOT of suggestions here, many of which are great! I'm not gonna list them since they've already been suggested. Below are a couple of things I HAVEN'T seen suggested that I think would be interesting and possibly useful tools for the devs.
1) Delayed Rewards - One of the things I dislike about online games is that you can find an answer to every question somewhere online. For some things that is understandable, but maybe there are some things that the developers want the players to figure out for themselves. Let's use the "Orcslayer" title as an example. Obviously, if you want to become an Orcslayer, you need to kill orcs, but maybe the devs dont want everyone to know exactly how to accomplish this. . . Let's say the requirement to get the title is collect 500 orc ears, kill 20 elder orcs, 5 legendary orcs, and Brogh Gnome-eater. So instead of getting the title as soon as you kill them all, the game determines a random amount of time (1-300 hours) and starts a timer, at the end of which you receive a piece of in game mail stating that you have been recognized as worthy of the title and it becomes available. That is a fairly trivial use of the idea, but it would make it very difficult to determine the exact requirements for completing the quest, therefore making the title more difficult to get and in a sense, more valuable.
2) Varied Crafting Results - This is something I have not seen since maybe Dragonrealms (not even sure they actually did it this way). I would love to see each crafted item have unique qualities. . . for example, lets say you craft a steel dagger. You use 2 pieces of iron and 1 piece of coal OR maybe you want it to be harder so you would use 2 pieces of iron and 2 pieces of coal. . . this would make the dagger harder (can be sharped to a better edge therefore may do a bit more damage) but also more brittle (reduced durability/damage resistance). In addition a character with 100 in weaponsmithing should make a better steel dagger than someone with 20 in the skill. Finally, I'd love to see minigames that have a small but slightly significant effect on the final product, with different minigames for each craft. . . . smithing might be rythmic, while enchanting might be reactive. I'm simplifying all of these suggestions, but I think people should get the idea.
3) Death Penalties - Okay, so everyone has their ideas of what is the ideal death penalty. . . my suggestion is that there can be different penalties depending on situations. Let's say you enter "The Deep Wilds". . . the character could get a notification stating "You feel the endless energy of verdant life all around you. . . upon death, life will return to your body without aid." or you enter "The Creeping Doom" and a message says "The cold and darkness threatens to tear your soul from your body. . . you can no longer ressurect without magical assistance". The point of this is that you can now make some areas safer or more dangerous. . . making it easier to have soloable areas, probably with reduced rewards, as well as deadly areas with greatly increased rewards.
Thanks for listening! I know you only have a few thousand suggestions to go through, so I only expect you to enact 2 of my 3 suggestions ; )
Mostly in order of desirability: