Please forgive me if this has already been talked about.
I really hope that VR is planning on putting in a good set of tools to help players find groups. I hate to say it but WoW has some done some very awesome work on there LFG tools. The tools really help with out when you have low amounts of time to play.
I know VR should not copy paste the same LFG tools as WoW because the game's are different in many ways, but they should attempt to do an augmented version to fit pantheon, such as if your in the same zone as the group and the tool plances you into it will get COTH right to the group.
A good set of LFG tools will help the game appeal to a lot of people that don't have huge amount time to play non stop for hours at a time.
Porygon said:Everquests LFG tool was honestly pretty good. Most people just never used it. I doubt you will see any sort of auto group, or teleporting in relation to Pantheons LFG tool.
Are you talking about Old Everquest when Brad was there or did you play it more recently? I don’t remember a lfg tool (I didn’t play post-Velious/Verant) other than just typing /lfg and seeing lfg next to someone‘s name in zone. I thought that worked fine, especially since guilds were actually useful and one would just group with guildies or others in zone chat.
I personally am all for tools that help you find other players who might be interested in grouping. I would be for a tool that is some sort of living database where you could send personal messages to people and figure out the logistics of meeting up.
Not that I'm more important than anyone else, but if there are any sort of tools that auto join you to groups to teleport you together or to dungeons, I will not continue to subscribe. It is one of the top 2 or 3 things that has ruined modern MMOs for me. It's not a threat, but it's the way it is for me.
Disscord said:...such as if your in the same zone as the group and the tool plances you into it will get COTH right to the group.
What is COTH? Is that some sort of teleport?... I'm all against teleports outside of major hub connections that are static.
Most of us want to move away from the WoW style design with the automated LFG, LFR, etc. That type of design is not what MMORPGs are all about...players are supposed to interact with each other. It's one thing to have an LFG tool that gives a list of players looking for more for dungeon A. It's another thing entirely to have an automated group/raid finder tool that throws the group together then teleports everyone to the dungeon/raid. Perhaps the worst thing about WoW was that all of the battleground/dungeon/raid finders were cross server, sure it sounds good in theory with a larger pool of players to pull from but in practice there was zero community whatsoever as a result.
Ziegfried said:Most of us want to move away from the WoW style design with the automated LFG, LFR, etc. That type of design is not what MMORPGs are all about...players are supposed to interact with each other. It's one thing to have an LFG tool that gives a list of players looking for more for dungeon A. It's another thing entirely to have an automated group/raid finder tool that throws the group together then teleports everyone to the dungeon/raid. Perhaps the worst thing about WoW was that all of the battleground/dungeon/raid finders were cross server, sure it sounds good in theory with a larger pool of players to pull from but in practice there was zero community whatsoever as a result.
100% agree. As I said in my post above, one of the top few MMO killers for me. Another one is flying mounts... flying mounts ruin MMOs, outside of a special minigame/quest.
Mordecai said: @Kass COTH was a spell, Call of the Hero. You could summon a party member straight to the group
Okay. Is this something any character could do at will? I could support an ability as long as there are limitations that make it difficult or make people think twice before willy nilly teleporting back and forth around the map.
Ziegfried said:Most of us want to move away from the WoW style design with the automated LFG, LFR, etc. That type of design is not what MMORPGs are all about...players are supposed to interact with each other. It's one thing to have an LFG tool that gives a list of players looking for more for dungeon A. It's another thing entirely to have an automated group/raid finder tool that throws the group together then teleports everyone to the dungeon/raid. Perhaps the worst thing about WoW was that all of the battleground/dungeon/raid finders were cross server, sure it sounds good in theory with a larger pool of players to pull from but in practice there was zero community whatsoever as a result.
Yea totally agree. This WoW mechanism, from what I’ve heard, doesn‘t utilize player interaction and would weaken community imo. It may not work well in Pantheon - just my opinion.
Syrif said:Porygon said:Everquests LFG tool was honestly pretty good. Most people just never used it. I doubt you will see any sort of auto group, or teleporting in relation to Pantheons LFG tool.
Are you talking about Old Everquest when Brad was there or did you play it more recently? I don’t remember a lfg tool (I didn’t play post-Velious/Verant) other than just typing /lfg and seeing lfg next to someone‘s name in zone. I thought that worked fine, especially since guilds were actually useful and one would just group with guildies or others in zone chat.
It was introduced later on around the PoP era. It was essentially a window that you could filter levels, classes etc and it would show you all of the people flagged LFG (kind of an advanced /who search). If you were an LFG player. You could also put a small text note next to your name, allowing people to see where you want a group. So they might see Porygon - CLR - Throne Room or Ramparts only ... therefore it eliminates alot of the "hey wanna come heal courtyard?" Tells that I might not want.
It had no functionality other than just allowing you to filter the /who info, you still had to send tells and talk to people in order to invite them etc.
Porygon said:Syrif said:Porygon said:Everquests LFG tool was honestly pretty good. Most people just never used it. I doubt you will see any sort of auto group, or teleporting in relation to Pantheons LFG tool.
Are you talking about Old Everquest when Brad was there or did you play it more recently? I don’t remember a lfg tool (I didn’t play post-Velious/Verant) other than just typing /lfg and seeing lfg next to someone‘s name in zone. I thought that worked fine, especially since guilds were actually useful and one would just group with guildies or others in zone chat.
It was introduced later on around the PoP era. It was essentially a window that you could filter levels, classes etc and it would show you all of the people flagged LFG (kind of an advanced /who search). If you were an LFG player. You could also put a small text note next to your name, allowing people to see where you want a group. So they might see Porygon - CLR - Throne Room or Ramparts only ... therefore it eliminates alot of the "hey wanna come heal courtyard?" Tells that I might not want.
It had no functionality other than just allowing you to filter the /who info, you still had to send tells and talk to people in order to invite them etc.
This kind of tool sounds perfectly reasonable and effective.
I feel the best LFG tool in an MMO I have seen is the one from DDO. Doesn't port you anywhere(you still gotta go to the instance) but shows what individuals and groups are looking to run and allows you to form the group there or send a tell to the group leader for an invite. Groups can also put messages about their needs to help get things moving.
I guess we can all think of situations where it would be convenient to have all of these quality-of-life suggestions available, but the flipside of the coin is that too much convenience reduces the sense of being immersed in a world. I'm all for a tool to make it easy to announce to everybody within a reasonable distance what you're looking for and what you plan to do, supplemented with a point-and-click interface to initiate a conversation. Without this ppl will just spam global chat.
A group-centered game obviously needs guild and grouping tools.
The clear distinction that this thread shows (not for the first time, of course) is that a tool putting players in touch with other players to help form groups is highly desirable and supported by almost all of us. A tool automatically forming groups without the need for people to talk to each other is *not*. A tool that teleports the group to the quest locale is *very* much not desired.
I never played PC Everquest, but for years I played EQOA, and then later moved on to WoW, and have since quit that. That being said, EQOA had a very basic LFG tool that allowed you to just list yourself as available for a group, and you would be registered to a global list across the server. This list could be filtered by level range, class type, etc. When someone needed a healer, they would go to this list and invite a Cleric, Druid, or Shaman to the group. It was then up to the group to tell the new player where they were XPing. Usually it was "Hail blah" whatever mob they were killing. Most people knew where "blah" lived, and thus would head that way. If not though, the group could explain how to get there (unless they were elitist jerks, then they would just kick you and invite someone else...ugh...). I thought this was a very useful and successful LFG tool, that wasn't too immersive breaking. Since someone brought up CoTH, if there was a mage in the group that was above lvl 51 (that was when they got it in EQOA), then they could offer to CoTH the new player to the group rather than having to run or port all the way there.
TL;DR EQOA had a basic, but successful LFG tool that was a list of players looking for group across the server and you could invite them to your group through that tool. No automatic porting or anything, just got them in the group and it was then up to the players to get them to where they were camping.
I'd be fine with a LFG tool, many old school gamers prefer to chat and actully form groups, but im quite antisocial and forming groups can be really challenging, especially if you have no mates in game.
Even if it just found you a group, but didnt port you to the dungeon, would be a good middle ground.
Grimseethe said:I'd be fine with a LFG tool, many old school gamers prefer to chat and actully form groups, but im quite antisocial and forming groups can be really challenging, especially if you have no mates in game.
Even if it just found you a group, but didnt port you to the dungeon, would be a good middle ground.
As long as you are not so anti-social that you would not reply to a tell from someone asking if you would like to join their group, you would be fine.
But I doubt any tool would form a group for you from a random list of people. Typically the type of LFG tool we are all refering to is a list, and then a group leader would browse the list to fill out their group and send out tells to qualified players from the list until they fill out the group.