We know you liked Amberfaet from our December stream, so here are a few more screenshots to show off just how big and awesome it really is, enjoy!
OMG I have visions of having to run into the central courtyard looking up desperately to avoid the constant rainfall of falling dwarves!
I do think it will look fantastic with 8-10 groups all fighting up and down the whole place....
UNIQUE ITEM : Umbrella of Amberfaet
SLOT: Left Hand
Weight: 2.0
Effect: Protection from Dwarf-Rain
When eqipped, this has the effect of deflecting any
falling dwarves that would otherwise land onto the
player, reducing damage taken by 95%.
Above is a quested necessity!
Evoras said:OMG I have visions of having to run into the central courtyard looking up desperately to avoid the constant rainfall of falling dwarves!
I do think it will look fantastic with 8-10 groups all fighting up and down the whole place....
UNIQUE ITEM : Umbrella of Amberfaet
SLOT: Left Hand
Weight: 2.0
Effect: Protection from Dwarf-Rain
When eqipped, this has the effect of deflecting any
falling dwarves that would otherwise land onto the
player, reducing damage taken by 95%.Above is a quested necessity!
Hahaha, absolutely! The bodies raining down, the screenshots and videos would be wonderful to view :D
Evoras said:OMG I have visions of having to run into the central courtyard looking up desperately to avoid the constant rainfall of falling dwarves!
I do think it will look fantastic with 8-10 groups all fighting up and down the whole place....
UNIQUE ITEM : Umbrella of Amberfaet
SLOT: Left Hand
Weight: 2.0
Effect: Protection from Dwarf-Rain
When eqipped, this has the effect of deflecting any
falling dwarves that would otherwise land onto the
player, reducing damage taken by 95%.Above is a quested necessity!
...and I was thinking the Umbrella of Amberfaet would allow you to go all Mary Poppins and safely float down from the top.
'Comfortably handling around 100 people' is pretty exciting for the size of a zone... I'm more nervous about my slowly-becoming-a-dated-potato computer becoming a fried potato when this zone is full. Totally loving design direction this game is taking with the size and magnitude of the zones, though!
Coda said:'Comfortably handling around 100 people' is pretty exciting for the size of a zone... I'm more nervous about my slowly-becoming-a-dated-potato computer becoming a fried potato when this zone is full. Totally loving design direction this game is taking with the size and magnitude of the zones, though!
Up until I read this I had thought that there might be a population-to-content issue, but a single dungeon supporting 100 people? That sounds awesome. If this is the standard for zone size then that would calm my doubts.
It was great to see. The presentation and theme are well done graphically. It made for a great show-off demonstration in the cohh video.
Having said that, and I know this is not going to be well received, I have personal concerns regarding the amount of designer time & effort going into zone creation of this style.
I know it's important, I know this is the point in the process where it needs to be done. Yet, I look back at Lower Guk, Solb, and Permafrost and consider them in comparison to Amberfaet. It's not the same feeling, so far. I also understand the technical limitations of the day back in 1998 when such zones were finalized, versus today with all the available "glamour" of Unity.
It's grand. It's impressive. It's beautiful, gorgeous, stunning. It doesn't give me any feeling of danger, threat, or risk. I think it's the openness.
Overall, my impression remains positive, and I look forward to testing and adventuring in this part of the game.
vjek said:It was great to see. The presentation and theme are well done graphically. It made for a great show-off demonstration in the cohh video.
Having said that, and I know this is not going to be well received, I have personal concerns regarding the amount of designer time & effort going into zone creation of this style.
I know it's important, I know this is the point in the process where it needs to be done. Yet, I look back at Lower Guk, Solb, and Permafrost and consider them in comparison to Amberfaet. It's not the same feeling, so far. I also understand the technical limitations of the day back in 1998 when such zones were finalized, versus today with all the available "glamour" of Unity.
It's grand. It's impressive. It's beautiful, gorgeous, stunning. It doesn't give me any feeling of danger, threat, or risk. I think it's the openness.
Overall, my impression remains positive, and I look forward to testing and adventuring in this part of the game.
To be fair, EQ's combat system was super simple, easy to abuse, and easy to trivialize through use of provided mechanics. The zone layouts themselves more often than not contributed to the difficulty of the game than the enemies themselves. For instance, overwhelming yourself with things that you accidentally pulled because the path vectoring was so terrible that you pulled mobs from a corridor you didn't realize had mobs in it. Or you can't see into a room well enough and you pull more things than you were able to see.
I think if the combat system of Pantheon is held to a higher standard, it won't be necessary to make the game claustrophobic to instill difficulty. If the enemies themselves are sufficiently threatening, I think having openness and verticality can only be a good thing.
Designing every zone to be a labyrinth certainly makes things difficult, and it's a pretty logical way to do so with limited technology.
Liav said:vjek said:It was great to see. The presentation and theme are well done graphically. It made for a great show-off demonstration in the cohh video.
Having said that, and I know this is not going to be well received, I have personal concerns regarding the amount of designer time & effort going into zone creation of this style.
I know it's important, I know this is the point in the process where it needs to be done. Yet, I look back at Lower Guk, Solb, and Permafrost and consider them in comparison to Amberfaet. It's not the same feeling, so far. I also understand the technical limitations of the day back in 1998 when such zones were finalized, versus today with all the available "glamour" of Unity.
It's grand. It's impressive. It's beautiful, gorgeous, stunning. It doesn't give me any feeling of danger, threat, or risk. I think it's the openness.
Overall, my impression remains positive, and I look forward to testing and adventuring in this part of the game.
To be fair, EQ's combat system was super simple, easy to abuse, and easy to trivialize through use of provided mechanics. The zone layouts themselves more often than not contributed to the difficulty of the game than the enemies themselves. For instance, overwhelming yourself with things that you accidentally pulled because the path vectoring was so terrible that you pulled mobs from a corridor you didn't realize had mobs in it. Or you can't see into a room well enough and you pull more things than you were able to see.
I think if the combat system of Pantheon is held to a higher standard, it won't be necessary to make the game claustrophobic to instill difficulty. If the enemies themselves are sufficiently threatening, I think having openness and verticality can only be a good thing.
Designing every zone to be a labyrinth certainly makes things difficult, and it's a pretty logical way to do so with limited technology.
Yeah it wouldn't make any sense for every zone in the game to be an indoor dungeon. There are other ways to make it feel dangerous, as you said. I personally love going deep underground and not knowing what's around the next corner. But open zones like Kithicor Forest can still really give you a sense of fear. And you can't really begin to talk about danger if you don't know how the creatures there behave and how hard they hit. Plus, you gotta be crazy to not feel any danger, threat, or risk just from falling off the edge of one of those cliffs haha. From what we saw in the stream, I have literally no doubt Amberfaet will be extremely challenging.
cladari said:I can see that this game is going to give my gamma settings a real workout. Every screen shot I've seen so far the colors are muted and everything is very dark.
Pictures I assume you're refering to have been at sunset or in dark dungeons. The game also has day/night cylcle. The ones here represents abetter idea of outdoor zones during the day:
vjek said:It was great to see. The presentation and theme are well done graphically. It made for a great show-off demonstration in the cohh video.
Having said that, and I know this is not going to be well received, I have personal concerns regarding the amount of designer time & effort going into zone creation of this style.
I know it's important, I know this is the point in the process where it needs to be done. Yet, I look back at Lower Guk, Solb, and Permafrost and consider them in comparison to Amberfaet. It's not the same feeling, so far. I also understand the technical limitations of the day back in 1998 when such zones were finalized, versus today with all the available "glamour" of Unity.
It's grand. It's impressive. It's beautiful, gorgeous, stunning. It doesn't give me any feeling of danger, threat, or risk. I think it's the openness.
Overall, my impression remains positive, and I look forward to testing and adventuring in this part of the game.
I think there are multiple styles of dungeons. This is an outdoor dungeon where youre not turning corners but the danger is in the vertical scaling. Also we've only seen the top/non raid portion of this zone. The stream breifly showed Halinr Caves which seems more the style youre looking for here.
vjek said:It was great to see. The presentation and theme are well done graphically. It made for a great show-off demonstration in the cohh video.
Having said that, and I know this is not going to be well received, I have personal concerns regarding the amount of designer time & effort going into zone creation of this style.
I know it's important, I know this is the point in the process where it needs to be done. Yet, I look back at Lower Guk, Solb, and Permafrost and consider them in comparison to Amberfaet. It's not the same feeling, so far. I also understand the technical limitations of the day back in 1998 when such zones were finalized, versus today with all the available "glamour" of Unity.
It's grand. It's impressive. It's beautiful, gorgeous, stunning. It doesn't give me any feeling of danger, threat, or risk. I think it's the openness.
Overall, my impression remains positive, and I look forward to testing and adventuring in this part of the game.
It's also not done and not populated in any of the pictures. Guk, Seb, etc gave that sense of danger because you would turn a corner and have 4 mobs smack you in the face. You learned to tread carefully. That doesn't mean the same thing can't be done on a grander scheme. I say wait it out and see how you feel come alpha/beta. I'd bet we will be plesantly surprised.
Man it's bloody fantastic how big and epic this place looks!! And remember this is just a taste of what is to come folks!!
Maybe if you let all the raning dwarvs pile up on top of each other you will eventually be able to shortcut to the top level of the dungeon with your dwarf climbing skill!
Liav said:vjek said:It was great to see. The presentation and theme are well done graphically. It made for a great show-off demonstration in the cohh video.
Having said that, and I know this is not going to be well received, I have personal concerns regarding the amount of designer time & effort going into zone creation of this style.
I know it's important, I know this is the point in the process where it needs to be done. Yet, I look back at Lower Guk, Solb, and Permafrost and consider them in comparison to Amberfaet. It's not the same feeling, so far. I also understand the technical limitations of the day back in 1998 when such zones were finalized, versus today with all the available "glamour" of Unity.
It's grand. It's impressive. It's beautiful, gorgeous, stunning. It doesn't give me any feeling of danger, threat, or risk. I think it's the openness.
Overall, my impression remains positive, and I look forward to testing and adventuring in this part of the game.
To be fair, EQ's combat system was super simple, easy to abuse, and easy to trivialize through use of provided mechanics. The zone layouts themselves more often than not contributed to the difficulty of the game than the enemies themselves. For instance, overwhelming yourself with things that you accidentally pulled because the path vectoring was so terrible that you pulled mobs from a corridor you didn't realize had mobs in it. Or you can't see into a room well enough and you pull more things than you were able to see.
I think if the combat system of Pantheon is held to a higher standard, it won't be necessary to make the game claustrophobic to instill difficulty. If the enemies themselves are sufficiently threatening, I think having openness and verticality can only be a good thing.
Designing every zone to be a labyrinth certainly makes things difficult, and it's a pretty logical way to do so with limited technology.
I'd prefer both the environment be difficult, as well as the combat itself. Difficulty in an mmorpg should be more than how well you execute abilities.
Dullahan said:I'd prefer both the environment be difficult, as well as the combat itself. Difficulty in an mmorpg should be more than how well you execute abilities.
Oh I concur. I like the terrain as well as the combat to be challenging and require effort to overcome. My only objection is to the overuse of labyrinthine design as there was in EQ. I guess what I'm driving at is that large, open zones can still offer environmental challenge with proper design.
cladari said:I can see that this game is going to give my gamma settings a real workout. Every screen shot I've seen so far the colors are muted and everything is very dark.
It sounds like you have not been following very closely then, my friend, check these out in the link below plus the ones I post on FB, I have posted at least one a week for the last year or so have plenty of bright outdoor pics for you to enjoy, the more recent darker ones are showing off our latest dungeon from our December stream and if you check out our first two streams you will see the day/night cycle in action in multiple areas :)
http://www.pantheonmmo.com/media/older_images/
I might be wrong but this is a Dwarf made location isnt it? Dwarves int he past (other games) were always known for creating massive towering halls, rooms and structures!
The other dungeon they entered on that quest in the stream was a bit more of a labyrinth from memory
Hokanu said:I might be wrong but this is a Dwarf made location isnt it? Dwarves int he past (other games) were always known for creating massive towering halls, rooms and structures!
The other dungeon they entered on that quest in the stream was a bit more of a labyrinth from memory
Yes, it is Dwarven and Justin and Chris speak a bit about it in the stream and the newsletter. :)