Ok, EQNext was a total money grab and failed. I get it. No need to rehash it in this thread.
But, it did have a few great ideas that I would love to see in Pantheon.
For example, they had campaigns planned that would give soloers, crafters, harvesters, groupies, and raid forces something to keep them busy and affect the world.
Since they were starting the building of the cities from scratch, they were starting with a bare bones Qeynos. Then players could do crafting quests, harvest materials, chase away/kill solo and group mobs around they area, and even occasional raid mobs and invading armies. You could also explore to unlock quests that would contribute.
Each task completed would move the city further towards completion, until some unknown triggers occurred that would set something in motion and would start the next phase. For example:
15% of the required harvests
10% of the required crafted items
500 mobs slain
3 dungeons discovered
4 raid mobs killed
When all the requirements were complete, there would be a physical change to the city (grow, etc), and the next phase would begin. When all the phases were complete, the story would move to the next campaign, such as the building of Freeport.
The kickers were that the necessary goals were not known by the players and each server would have different goals. So, one server may have completed Qeynos campaign and moved on to Freeport, while the other server is still working on Qeynos campaign. And, since the mystery requirements were different on each server, you could not just repeat what the other server did to unlock the next phase/campaign.
This would allow for a lot of repeat playability, allow players to change the world, and provide an alternative for guilds to do together when they were not raiding.
I would love to see this done in Pantheon.
It was a very cool idea for an MMO built from the ground up to foster that system. It would be very hard to add something so massive into an MMO not designed for it. Now on a smaller scale I could see it. If I remember correctly in the mmo Horizon you might have new content added to the game and this content normally had some server wide requirement to unlock it. My minds a little fuzzy on it but I think I remember one was building something using crafted goods while players defended you from KOS mobs. It would take hours or even days to finish so it was a multi group activities. When you finished it was like a portal or something that brought you to new content.
This is the wiki about it
“When first launched, the Horizons staff established an event-driven storyline. These events revealed the lore and history of Istaria, and occasionally led to the discovery of new, different events.
Originally the game was slated to have weekly events, but since September 2004, they have been drastically reduced in number due to staffing and financial issues at Artifact and, later, Tulga. Some of the events included digging tunnels and building bridges to access new areas, and the freeing of an entire race from magically maintained slavery. Both the Satyr and Dryad races became player accessible through such large scale, server wide events”
I did really like it because it gave you something new to work on. The game had its flaws but because the entire thing was built with this event driven structure in mind it kind of worked.
Now should Pantheon do this? In small doses yes but don’t bite off or then you can chew by promising something like weekly events as Horizon did. Monthly events would work and they could be combine with the whole “GM Event” structure from EQ1 but make them take multiple days to allow as many participants as possible.
I think everybody would love such an event driven, open ended, diversified MMO .
But as many cool, ground breaking and enoyable ideas, this asks for large financial ressources . Worse, it is not only a high initial investment but also high recurring operating costs . While the former could perhaps be secured, the latter is a real handicap .
I do not think VR has this amount of financial and human ressources and, like it was already said above, this kind of concept has to be planned BEFORE the development starts . For Pantheon, even if the developpers liked this idea what they'd probably do, it is too late .
Hey @Beefcake and everyone else,
we discussed this a while back or at least something very simular to this on our youtube shows. We too would like to see ways to influence a cities status by involving the players to factor in many ways too. It could be something that even gets added in at a later time if the interest and resources are available and viable options and ways are given to insert this mechanic.
I don`t need to always see and Expac come out. Things like this added to the games indepth flavor go a longer way for me perosnally than banging out an expac after such and such a time. Its the little things that matter ;)
It is something that has to be thought about real hard and long though exspecially if it wasn`t planned from the start. But sure i would support this idea.
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The thing about cities is if there's not much to do in them what's the point of spending development dollars to make them better.
I'd rather see small cities and large adventuring zones.
There was a giant city in Vanguard I believe it was named New Targonor and it was a terrible waste of budget designing that area.
You would have to supply a lot of activities to do in a city like this in order to justify the man hours to design it.
I'd much prefer another area like Trengal Keep a ruined castle to adventure in than just a big city to wander around in.
I do like the idea of larger projects people can contribute to though and something like the building of a bridge or a monument could be a great way to bring folks together.
Thanks in advance,
Kiz~
The reason this seemed viable in EQNext was they were banking on the builders in Landmark to create the content necessary to fill those evolving cities. Without that stream of content creators (fans) the development time required just becomes onerous for limited returns.
I recall just a month or so ago Everquest was celebrating someone being the first to discover and complete a Kunark era quest for the first time ever in the game. That kind of development time would simply be wasted if the awareness of the content was not available. Smaller easter egg style hidden quests where there is limited development time is wiser in a MMORPG so you can maximize the usage of what you do spend your time on. WoW's Kosumoth the Hungering (boss and pet) and Riddler's Mind Worm (mount) mysteries are good examples where players band together to find the breadcrumbs and solve the limited clues provided.
I cannot speak with any authority on zone building, but I have to imagine this is some of the most time-intensive parts of MMORPG development. Model creation is as well, but once you have a static zone you can then script the interactions of the mobs and environment together much easier than create a new zone. So if you start with City version A and build a City version B you have spent somewhere between 1.5 and 2 times the man hours to content required to fill one area. That development time will now be wasted and never experienced if you have new players joining the game after the city transitioned from version A to version B.
This is not to say it cannot be done or done for good reasons backed up by lore or the story being told, but it should be used sparingly based on resources available. Either you are re-vitalizing the world to bring things up to modern graphical standards such as the redesign of Freeport or you are negatively impacting the resources available for meaningful content development like World of Warcraft when they redid the world in Cataclysm to reflect the changes Deathwing brought to the world and enable flying everywhere. In WoW's case they were hurt content wise and their subscription numbers fluctuated as a result. Luckily for WoW they were cash rich enough they could weather the negative impacts, but I argue you might not find anyone at blizzard willing to defend that expenditure in resources in hindsight.
Event driven was amazing. I played Horizons for a long time and even though it was a ghost town game, and I seemed to never have anyone to play with, I always had a goal or something to work towards. It was fun, gave me a reason to look forward to loggin in. Progression of characters is one thing, but doing something for the server, or your co-players was a very rewarding experience. More so than any other activities in MMO's I've played.
I just want EQ 1 for ever, EQ next i was hoping to get into when completed, but after i started to see the cartoonish characters i pulled back out.
Everything i want is in EQ 1, and some cool features from the new MMO's are great. The new gen of MMO players want so much more then what i expect. Some of the stuff they want, have added, turns me completly off.
I love to raid, love to group, and love to solo. I also love to box a group, and have fun period. One thing i dont like to do, is analize my characters and constantly button mash to win.
This is the new fad as far as i am concerned. If you cant do XXX damage, go to another group your not welcome.
I really like doing tasks, instanced group tasks, events, raids. I felt the over all raid concept with Instancing was cool.
I am not saying all instancing was done right, some of it linked to links and created problems for EQ.
Ah i thought of another topic too.
Otherwise i hear you Beef...
Crazzie said:This is the new fad as far as i am concerned. If you cant do XXX damage, go to another group your not welcome.
Brother, I am with you here. I recently tried to play EQ2 again after being away for a few years and this was the case way too often. What happened to enjoying the challenge of not being able to burn through mobs like a hot knife in butter? Why is a challenge of having to figure out a way to do it differenly was welcomed?
This may be EQ2's fault where they have it set up in the newest exp pack that if you're group can't get enough DPS on a mob it's a fail event. Thats all any classes aim for now in EQ2 is hightest DPS, class abilites don't matter anymore.
Kittik said:Crazzie said:This is the new fad as far as i am concerned. If you cant do XXX damage, go to another group your not welcome.
Brother, I am with you here. I recently tried to play EQ2 again after being away for a few years and this was the case way too often. What happened to enjoying the challenge of not being able to burn through mobs like a hot knife in butter? Why is a challenge of having to figure out a way to do it differenly was welcomed?
This may be EQ2's fault where they have it set up in the newest exp pack that if you're group can't get enough DPS on a mob it's a fail event. Thats all any classes aim for now in EQ2 is hightest DPS, class abilites don't matter anymore.
This is how I feel about revisiting EQ or EQ2 anymore as well. It just seems like people are more interested in killing everything as fast as possible and moving on. I remember in EQ2 as a new templar crossing a bridge once and just healing the group because they were in trouble. The next thing I knew I was grouping with them. EQ2 these days, not so much as you have already stated. Not high enough dps...your asked to leave the group. Not an experienced raider...sorry can't help you, want to chat with folks, nah they don't have time for that.
The idea of evolving zones/content isn't exactly new, but EQN pushed it to the next level, and I was really hyped for this project... but they dropped it.
I also like the idea of mobs migration, when you farm too much orcs, orcs migrate to another zone.
It constantly refreshes the content and variety of zones and makes the world very much more dynamic, lively.
That was another nice conceptual idea from EQN.
I like the idea of allowing players to have an impact on their world and have made several posts with ideas on how it could be accomplished, but I imagine each server having it's own unique set of variables as being super intense on resources. Perhaps all servers could use the same variables, but depending on how each individual server progresses or interacts, different outcomes could be achieved? Maybe all potential outcomes can be achieved on all servers, but they would be epic scale community endeavors which would allow some servers to progress faster than others, based on overall server community activity?
Beefcake said:Ok, EQNext was a total money grab and failed. I get it. No need to rehash it in this thread.
But, it did have a few great ideas that I would love to see in Pantheon.
For example, they had campaigns planned that would give soloers, crafters, harvesters, groupies, and raid forces something to keep them busy and affect the world.
Since they were starting the building of the cities from scratch, they were starting with a bare bones Qeynos. Then players could do crafting quests, harvest materials, chase away/kill solo and group mobs around they area, and even occasional raid mobs and invading armies. You could also explore to unlock quests that would contribute.
Each task completed would move the city further towards completion, until some unknown triggers occurred that would set something in motion and would start the next phase. For example:
15% of the required harvests
10% of the required crafted items
500 mobs slain
3 dungeons discovered
4 raid mobs killed
When all the requirements were complete, there would be a physical change to the city (grow, etc), and the next phase would begin. When all the phases were complete, the story would move to the next campaign, such as the building of Freeport.
The kickers were that the necessary goals were not known by the players and each server would have different goals. So, one server may have completed Qeynos campaign and moved on to Freeport, while the other server is still working on Qeynos campaign. And, since the mystery requirements were different on each server, you could not just repeat what the other server did to unlock the next phase/campaign.
This would allow for a lot of repeat playability, allow players to change the world, and provide an alternative for guilds to do together when they were not raiding.
I would love to see this done in Pantheon.
I could see this being with guild hall/player housing kind of thing. Clear an area(guild choice) and build a wall. Maybe wood at first and progressing to stone at some point. Then a small guild hall and some player housing. Crafters build crafting stations and you have the start of a small town, as it progressed mabe a vender(npc) moves in to help sell crafted items. It keeps progressing till guild has made a city with player and npc characers making it a bustling town. Size increases as crafter do/
Reminds me of this: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/5269/can-there-be-a-dwarven-racial-epic-quest
I like the idea in theory. It brings people together and it's good to have overarching long-term goals in addition to smaller short-term goals. You'd certainly always have something productive to do. And if done well, it gives veteran players inspiring stories to tell... *in an old man voice* "I remember way back at launch when this city didn't even EXIST... And I helped build it!"
This is something another MMO in development that shall remain nameless seems to be trying to do, but I'm skeptical if it can actually be done well. Especially if those same cities can also be destroyed by future events and the world is constantly in motion. That can get very messy and unsettling.
