Pantheon kickstarter

[Rec]

At this time the pre alpha tier doesn't include the lifetime sub. They are suppose to clarify a lot of tier stuff this week so i don't know if it will continue to be that way.

[Rec]

new guild tier with pre-alpha for everyone. where are all these super p99 guilds?

[Grozmok]

Out poop socking?

I backed $250 because: nostalgia.

Brad still claims he was the fall guy for Vanguard because his name was tied to it. Professes his innocence and being forcibly required to release six months too early.

[oldhead]

Originally Posted by Grozmok [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Out poop socking?

I backed $250 because: nostalgia.

Brad still claims he was the fall guy for Vanguard because his name was tied to it. Professes his innocence and being forcibly required to release six months too early.

Did you ever read the 3 page blog Brad wrote in 2009 about what went down with Vangard?

Was pretty interesting. MS screwed him on funding. SoE bailed him out but pushed for early release.

Brad made mistakes in the dev and admitted as such but releasing early wasnt one of his.

[oldhead]

meh, he has since pulled them down... can not find them. Were 4 parts

http://www.bradmcquaid.com/Brad_McQu...em_Part_1.html

[stormlord]

Originally Posted by abacab-winner [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Idk bros.

It seems that Brad and crew are wanting static classes, so your warrior will do shit dps, your druid won't be able to do anything but patch heal, your shadowknight is only good for tanking.


Without dynamic classes, shit's going to get stale as fuck unless you got the time to roll a billion alts.

World of Warcraft had static classes and had millions of subscriptions. In fact, the sum total of mmo's with static classes in the past 10 years would yield tens of millions of players.

I think these're the most important things to make an mmorpg popular:

1) Solo-play to max level for all classes with no penalty to experience versus group-play
2) Balance quest and combat experience to favor quests
3) Hand holding everywhere - in-game map/radar, glowing paths, hovering icons, quest markers, etc
4) No downtime or punishment for failure (failure, as in dying)
5) No exclusive content or locked content - all content can be completed on easy/hard
6) Fast travel and fast pickup groups for grouping games
7) Instanced content to reduce or eliminate competition for spawns and to tailor it to the player
8) Less crowd control and more action - crowd control is associated with downtime
9) Semi-dynamic content and sandbox features - becoming more popular
10) Battlegrounds-style PvP - NO open world PvP
11) Eliminate technical bloat - like excessive inventory management

Those're some things off top of my head that're more important than what you brought up. It does look to me like Brad is probably going to fudge many of those trying to make a more niche sort of game.

Besides, most games with static classes have deep classes, so players are occupied with learning them. I think the inclination with dynamic classes games is the classes will lose their depth and thus their distinctiveness. In the end, the developers will spend just as much developing it. It's just a different set of clothes.

Ideally developers would spend MORE time allowing for static classes to be dynamic, but that's not how it will be. They'll actually cut back on the class depth to make room for making them dynamic.

The question is not whether this game can get people playing, but whether it can get enough playing to pay for its planned budget. That to me is the most important part of all this. If Brad sets his expectations too high and the playerbase doesn't meet those expectations then he'll hit bottom and sell out.

My opinion is the kickstarter will fail. Brad will have to find another way or give up trying to revitalize EQ in the modern market. Maybe he should give up developing mmorpgs altogether, if he can't change.

EDIT: Tell ya what, I'll agree dynamic classes are better IF they spent extra time making the individual classes dynamic or combinable rather than cutting back on the classes to make time for it.

[Rec]

Originally Posted by abacab-winner [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Idk bros.

It seems that Brad and crew are wanting static classes, so your warrior will do shit dps, your druid won't be able to do anything but patch heal, your shadowknight is only good for tanking.


Without dynamic classes, shit's going to get stale as fuck unless you got the time to roll a billion alts.

Sounds like you should be playing WoW

[Grozmok]

Seen this?

http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/158...n/#chart-daily

[Grimfan]

Originally Posted by Grozmok [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Seen this?

http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/158...n/#chart-daily

Not to put a fire under anyone, but many kickstarters do not see a huge amount of funding until the last week or so. There are a lot of people like me that are still considering things like the size of their wallets and other things. I imagine that projection will actually go to not making in a couple weeks with the last week being crazy as heck for them.

[baalzy]

What I want in a next gen MMO.

1) Static classes with the ability to blend attributes from other classes. See FFXIs Main/Sub job system.
2) Group combat systems that reward teamwork over DPS-zergs. See how people used to play FFXI before they realized that more DPS = faster xp. By this I mean, coordinated skill usage which results in additional effects beyond what the skills would have done individually. Example, a rogue uses 'Trip' which would normally create a small stun or snare effect just before the warrior uses 'bash' which would do a small amount of damage and a stun. The result is the mob gets knocked down (stunning it for a longer period of time than either individual ability would) AND because the mob is prone it takes increased damage from all sources for the duration of the knockdown.

3) The limited ability to solo, without making it impossible. Encourage group play but don't make solo play impossible.

4) Integrated/meaningful travel. Taking boats back in the day was a wonderful/terrorfying experience the first time or two you did it. Afterwards it was just a tedious task though. Integrate a system where the act of traveling can cause an encounter you have to battle through while you try to reach your destination but provides a spot for people who desire to just passively travel. Allowing for players to travel closer to on demand (10 minute maximum waits instead of 30 minutes) but only between major hubs. Areas that are more off the beaten path still require significant travel time or the help of classes with specific abilities for travel (ports).

5) The ability to reuse and twink with gear without massively retarded random itemization. I despise the Diablo style loot system that Blizzard introduced for WoW. Constantly changing your entire gearset every 2-3 levels and no reusability. Plus blocking equipment via level restrictions. I want to be able to go with a group to an area to gear up in a certain way and I want to be able to be able to pass that gear to other players or newer characters later on.

6) Meaningful deaths. Experience loss that is noticable as well as the travel implications of having died and not having a person nearby to resurrect you. When the worst thing that happens is you lose a trivial amount of money and have to spend maybe 5 minutes getting back to where you died it just becomes meaningless.

7) A crafting system that requires some time and effort but isn't overly bloated with absolute shit. Seriously, these systems where every mob drops 3 items for some random stupid tradeskill and your inventory just gets filled to the brim with absolute dogshit and you have to spend 20 minutes at a time sifting through it to find out if any of it is worth anything.

EQs classic crafting did this fairly well, mobs didn't inundate you with random scraps and before massive amounts of twinkage started to happen people could use tradeskills to gear themselves up at the earlier levels.

8) A certain level of respectability to quests. You don't just come into a 'quest hub' and grind through 50 quests to level up for the next quest hub with 9 out of 10 quests being functionally identical to the set of quests you just came through. Quests which require a bit of a crawl and reward you with something significant. Where there are maybe 1-2 quests you can work on at a time which require some significant investments and reward you with something significant. Instead of training every ability you get at a trainer, do a quest to earn it.

9) The ability to remort/rebuild into a 'Hero' or 'Champion' class. Once you've maxed out a class, you can go on quest which causes you to be reborn as the new class. Starting over at level 1 , naked, and requiring more time to level up but also with more power at your disposal. Make the quest sufficiently difficult that few people ever actually do this. Balance it by making the Champion classes no better than the original class at that classes particular niche (Clerics heal just as good as Champion Clerics, just Champion clerics have more DPS/CC options available type things). Making it so that champion classes are never required to participate in end-game.

10) Varied group dynamics where a group working together to take on a 'really tough' mob gets just as much (or maybe more) experience than a group who is chewing through weak mobs at a fast rate. Allowing for 'uber tanks with no dps' to match up with 'glass cannons with moderate downtime' classes