One thing that i find sad is going into a zone that was once highly populated and it now being like a ghost town. all that hard work the Designers put into making those awesome zones for us and they are totally Empty, i have played more games than I care to remember lol, and a majority of them, having totally Empty zones.
I remember going through zone after zone in Eq and being one of the only people there, where once there were loads. It would be nice to be able to go into a zone Especially starting and lowbie zones and See high level players there also. Maybe have areas of high level mobs in the same zone guarding the enterance to a high level dungeon or something, Or Something that gives high levels a reason to actually go to these zones.
I remember being a low level in Eq1 and seeing a high level ( he was a lvl 25 paladin ) LOL yes i know level 25 was not high, but it was high to my friend and I Especially since the highest person on the server ( Bertox ) at the time was only level 28 and we were only level 7 Anyway, this guy was in East Commonlands and watched us get attacked by a red con Griffon, we were running for our lives begging to make the zone line lol and this paladin Saved our butts, he took down this red con griffon like it was nothing. that was our very first encounter of a high level and watching him in action was thrilling, seeing his weapon and armour was all the more special at the time we were in awe.. My friend wanted to be just like this guy. So much so that he Stopped playing his shaman and made a paladin.
Its things like these that I think make a good game and make zones seem not so empty. if it wasnt for a much higher level mob in a low level zone, we would Never have had such an Awesome experience, my friend would Never have made his paladin and we would Never have met our future guild leader.
What Else could be done to prevent zones from becoming empty ghost zones? What tales do you have of being a low level and coming into contact with a high level player?
You can count on high-level content being dispersed throughout many different zones to keep the interaction you speak of. VR knows the importance of what you're talking about. I would plan on seeing both mobs and quest content for higher level players, showing up in lower to mid level zones.
This is a tricky balance, though. We don't want to end up like most MMOs with zones stuffed with wall to wall quests and mobs, with a two second run between. It ends up feeling like a theme park, with tiny, specific rides/quest hubs and convenient bathrooms/towns.
I.e., you should be able to get lost in a forest, a chasm should be damned inconvenient to circumvent.
I believe VR has this as one of the biggest things they are trying to implement into the game just so things like this can happen, i want to say that they even made it to where certain dungeons increase in lvl by quite a bit to where if your of lvl on the area before you can proceed further due to it being to difficult for you, so hopefully this is true so it would bring back higher level players get to where they came from and interact with some of the newer players that just started the game after they did.
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2226/zones-levels
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/4250/zones-with-different-exits-than-the-entrance
VR is aiming for a mixture ( Low lvl - High lvl ) if i'm not mistaken so that way zones will always stay busy and not become stagnant and empty. I'm all for that :)
Tiberius said:One thing that i find sad is going into a zone that was once highly populated and it now being like a ghost town. all that hard work the Designers put into making those awesome zones for us and they are totally Empty, i have played more games than I care to remember lol, and a majority of them, having totally Empty zones.
I remember going through zone after zone in Eq and being one of the only people there, where once there were loads. It would be nice to be able to go into a zone Especially starting and lowbie zones and See high level players there also. Maybe have areas of high level mobs in the same zone guarding the enterance to a high level dungeon or something, Or Something that gives high levels a reason to actually go to these zones.
I remember being a low level in Eq1 and seeing a high level ( he was a lvl 25 paladin ) LOL yes i know level 25 was not high, but it was high to my friend and I Especially since the highest person on the server ( Bertox ) at the time was only level 28 and we were only level 7 Anyway, this guy was in East Commonlands and watched us get attacked by a red con Griffon, we were running for our lives begging to make the zone line lol and this paladin Saved our butts, he took down this red con griffon like it was nothing. that was our very first encounter of a high level and watching him in action was thrilling, seeing his weapon and armour was all the more special at the time we were in awe.. My friend wanted to be just like this guy. So much so that he Stopped playing his shaman and made a paladin.
Its things like these that I think make a good game and make zones seem not so empty. if it wasnt for a much higher level mob in a low level zone, we would Never have had such an Awesome experience, my friend would Never have made his paladin and we would Never have met our future guild leader.
What Else could be done to prevent zones from becoming empty ghost zones? What tales do you have of being a low level and coming into contact with a high level player?
I also share this concern. It's something I brought up several times in the past. I always attributed the issue to the way the game was expanded. Players left the original starting zones in EQ because the developers put all the amenities of home into the new expansions. Once Firiona Vie and The Overthere came out, high level players had reason to return to the original cities. As players pushed through the content and the population skewed towards higher levels the problem only became worse. The trend continued with Thurgadin and eventually Plane of Knowledge.
I think the best solution to the problem is that when the developer expand the game, they should not create cities and all the things you normally associate with cities in the expansions. That means minimal vendors, trade skills, banking, etc., in the expansions. Give players a reason to return home! Even though players may not be fighting in the zones at least they willbe populated by players as they travel around the world. It will make the starting areas feel more populated and not as empty. I'm sure that really did scare away a lot of new players in EQ. When you started the game the world felt empty because everyone was in other places.
Yep there is supposed to be a good mix of different level activities to keep zones alive. Not to mention, players will be traveling by foot a lot in between the major zones so you should see a lot of players running around. There are other concepts that could happen to encourage social behavior within zones as well.
Should be a lively place when this launches..!
I always loved this part of EQ as well. I loved having Reasons to keep going to my home city. I am sure brad will know that needing your starting city throughout the life of the character is a Good thing.
I loved how Unrest was for lev 14+ (before twinks exhisted), yet right outside was lev 8-14 Goblins and that zone was connected to a Noobie zone (dorf area)
And how people lev 10-12 all the way to Max level HAD to travel thru Nek Forest for Lava, Sol A and Sol B
Innothule swap, troll noobie area, connected to upper and lower guk (all the way to max level characters came thru the noobie area.)
THAT type of thing was just one of the MANY things that made EQ literally the best MMO ever created.
Another reason that lev 24 was likely in East commons was because of the Auctions. No auction house so people had to gather to buy, sell, and trade.
I agree that this is tricky to handle correctly. They are off to a good start by mixing in content for all levels in all zones, but as the game expands we'll still run into the same issue, I reckon. You can revamp zones, or expand them to include higher level content, I guess, but that's not always a good thing. I hate pretty much all of the revamping that was done in the zones from classic EverQuest.
You know, this phenomenon of ghost towns is unavoidable in EVERY MMO which is level based .
It is like getting older - it is sad but it won't stop and there is no way back . You can slow it down by mixing content and providing incentives to return to home towns but you will never escape the fact that with time a server gets more and more top heavy untill low level characters disappear altogether with the exception of a few boxing alts here and there .
It is mathematically deterministic - given the level/XP curve you can compute at approximately what time 90 % of a server's population will be at max level and therefore dedicated to only max level activities . In EQ this happened sometimes around Velious/Luclin . Of course Sony didn't help and accelerated the desertification of zones by creating things like PoK and the Bazaar but it would have happened even without it anyway . And it also will happen for Pantheon . The only thing I'd add is that Pantheon seems to be aware of the problems it poses (what other MMOs were not) and designs measures to keep the desertification slow . However after 2-3 years regardless of the measures initially taken, with new expansions, new zones and new max levels, Pantheon will be mostly ghost towns too .
Kelem said:https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2226/zones-levels
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/4250/zones-with-different-exits-than-the-entrance
VR is aiming for a mixture ( Low lvl - High lvl ) if i'm not mistaken so that way zones will always stay busy and not become stagnant and empty. I'm all for that :)
Thank you Kelem :)
As Kelem kindly pointed out, we have several active discussions on this subject already, so I will go ahead and close this one down so we can keep the discussion consolidated to a few threads which will make it easier to find for others who use the search function ;)