Let's travel back to the Summer of 2003(?) for a moment, and remember a game that came out called Star Wars Galaxies. I liked that game, and one of the things I liked most about it was one little feature called "cantinas". In these cantinas, you had a very rich and robust bustling social environment. Why is this, you may ask? ...Entertainers and Dancers. Players could learn to dance or play instruments in a band. These bands would play and the dancers would dance...and when adventurers came in to the cantina and hung out and watched/listened, it filled up thier energy and gave them buffs to go out and kill things better.
It may be too late in the development cycle to add this now, but is it something you could think about for an expansion or patch in the future. It could work in an MMO like this one and would fit in with your vision to make this game community driven and social...and make the overworld and little towns actually mean something.
You could add Dancer or Musicians as say, a side job like a crafting gathering type thing, and we could set up shop in inns around the world..and when people come in and hang out, it could re-energize them or buff them significantly enough where people would come in and watch/listen. They could then leave after a bit fully set up and buffed to go camp monsters or run a dungeon.
In SWG, the dancers and the entertainers could be tipped money as well...and really what this did was set up large social areas for people to hang out, good dancers and bands made names for themselves...and they could collect cool dancing outfits and instruments.
I was wondering what you guys think about something like this in Pantheon. I think it could work.
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Cyradus Hateborn
Lord Regent, League of Shadows
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I could see Singing and/or Dancing being just like any other skill that you level up by using it, just like 1H Slashing or whatever. Bards of course would either start off with a bonus to these skills or level them up faster or both. But I don't see why every character shouldn't at least be able to learn to sing and dance to some degree. Shouldn't necessarily have to be a bard. Especially if you're a halfling or dwarf, who traditionally always enjoy a good bar song, no matter the class. I'm reminded of the several scenes in Lord of the Rings where Merry and Pippin are up on the tables in a tavern singing and dancing. In fact, Archai also have a tradition of joyous celebration, so that would make sense too. And yeah, these skills could be significantly more effective in taverns. And perhaps if there are multiple people using the skills within a certain area of each other, the effects are compounded. People that stay within a certain radius of singers/dancers for a certain amount of time get some sort of morale buff as you said. And of course the higher your level in that skill, the better bonuses you grant and therefore people should generally tip you more as you level it up. Regardless, of course these effects shouldn't be anything that make you feel like you always need to spend X amount of time in a tavern before going on any adventure, but just feel like nice little perks.
Suffice to say, I think it's a cool idea.
I completely support this. In fact, I like the idea of just being in an inn providing some minor (but stackable) buff that helps lower downtime or some such. "Rested" might give a small mana/health/stamina boost. I also think that logging out and in to an Inn or similar place designated as a safe resting place should have a similar effect. These all give incentive to players meeting and congregating in Inns and promote social interaction. Allowing player performances to slightly enhance this would do so even more.
Obviously, it should all be balanced. Whether or not someone did their time at an Inn shouldn't make the difference between wiping or not on level appropriate content. It should be more about out of combat downtime reduction.
While I'd love to see SWG-style music/dancing systems, I'd also be ok with keeping the spirit of the original* system intact and linking it to consumable food. I think I mentioned this somewhere in the crafting forum as well.
- If you're out in the field you can use food/drink to stave off the effects of fatigue, but you won't replenish any fatigue you've already gained. It just stops you from getting more fatigued.
- If you visit an inn/tavern/camp/outpost/freehold/etc, you can (in those areas) use different food/drink in order to regenerate lost fatigue, maybe even some bonus on top of that, and get a nice buff or two.
* - By way of explanation just in case anyone was confused: Originally in SWG (2001), musicians and dancers cured battle fatigue, which was sort of a progressive debuff you'd accumulate very slowly while you were out fighting. The goal of the debuff was to get players to stop periodically and socialize, which had mixed success once people realized all they had to do was have someone put some skill points in a basic instrument and buy a couple of camp kits from a crafter. Shortly after that the system was changed to where battle fatigue was removed, and you just got buffs from entertainers instead.
It's probably obvious but personally I think the concept of fatigue still works when it's something people can mitigate individually with a consumable item (but will still eventually need to go back to a population center). That said, I'm totally not opposed to buffs as positive reinforcement either.
And I would *love* to see SWG-style player entertainers again. All the best player cities had a good cantina with a local band - heck, some bands even did tours.
Honestly I feel like one of the problems with older MMO was that at any given time you had too many minor buffs on your character and it really watered down the feeling that buffs actually mattered.
I don't want to feel like I have to go to the cantina to get all buffed up before I go on an adventure.
Less buffs in general so that when I do get one I actually feel a difference.
From what I remember of SWG sitting around in a bar waiting for people to buff was a real boring job.
Kiz~
Bards aren't in the game right now and maybe a reason like this is why. They don't want bards to just be a speed buff and fake magic class, they want them to have meaning.
It would be neat to have a game with classes that aren't at all adventure (kill mobs) type of classes. You're role as a Bard or Entertainer is to level up in the cities via doing shows or something.
Anyway, I remember SWG and those cantinas and always thought it was a very novel idea.
Kittik said:Bards aren't in the game right now and maybe a reason like this is why. They don't want bards to just be a speed buff and fake magic class, they want them to have meaning.
It would be neat to have a game with classes that aren't at all adventure (kill mobs) type of classes. You're role as a Bard or Entertainer is to level up in the cities via doing shows or something.
Anyway, I remember SWG and those cantinas and always thought it was a very novel idea.
If they did this to Bards there would be a revolt. It would be like making Necromancers have a seance tent.
Personally, I think they are taking the time to make a unique mechanic for the songs. I would be perfectly happy if they went along the EQ route, where practice paid off.
Especially when you kiting several Dwarves outside Kaladim 8))
So if you were adventuring as a bunch of lowbies and weu didn't have a high music skill yet we set up a campfire in a dangerous area (50 yards from the city gates, where the large bats are) would we only be able ot play the spoons? *clickety-clack* and provide a tiny buff. We would admire someone who had a harmonica, heh
It would be cool if there was a faint but audible music loop once the instrument came out
(can't find it) I too opted for stages to perform upon (stage = too many search hits, lol)
maybe this post then:
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2702/favorite-live-game-event/view/post_id/39070
So eq1 was limited by just the stages that were put in cities by devs and sometimes used by GM's for shows.
Traveling stage + AoE mana/hp regen bard song performed on stage = Bard-specific relevancy.
If bards could play actual music that'd be even better! I am not a fan of the cantina shows because of the stock looped music. In LotRO you can sync up playing with other musicians, as well as autoplay arrangements (which you can identify because those produce hollow music notes) via plugins. Of course, this kind of gaming tech is still in its infancy so I wouldn't expect to see it in Pantheon on release, but it would be really neat to have.
The main reasoning behind my original post was another way to make the overworld and towns relevant again in an MMO title. Pretty much all of them that are around nowadays end up being everyone standing around AFK in a central hub waiting for duty finder to pop...like zombies. A lot of them are more like console-type lobby games with this giant overworld map that is useless to gameplay.
I think finding ways to get people travelling around the map and stopping at places like local inns would be a great thing in a new MMO.
Female Ogre Belly Dancers...oh yeah. If you don't tip well, they crush you.
