Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

After Zone-in Protection

    • 115 posts
    October 11, 2019 9:05 AM PDT

    Anyone that has played EQ experienced this: You zone, and when you appear on the other side, a monster kills you dead because someone trained it to the zone line.


    To me, there is no good reason to punish people for just *zoning into a zone*.


    Just an opinion, but I think that it should be as follows:

    • You zone in as a "camera", invisible, and invulnerable.
      • You can freely look around without breaking that state.
      • If you move at all, it breaks that state.
      • If you cast or attack, it breaks that state.


    Thoughts?

    • 1428 posts
    October 11, 2019 10:14 AM PDT

    this might be irrelevant.  there won't be 'zoning' i think which is similar to instancing on a grand scale.  some older, weak infrastructured or server sensitive mmos probably do it to lighten the networking and computer resources, but i think we have technology that allows a continous open world seamless exploration.  w.e i don't know enough about the way vr build the world, but if it's unity, it'll probably going to be seamless unless your traverse large distance instantly.

    • 438 posts
    October 11, 2019 10:15 AM PDT
    Eh. Doesn’t sound great to me. Just seems like a cheap way to break immersion and water down any dangers in the game.
    • 54 posts
    October 11, 2019 10:15 AM PDT

    Risk in exploring the world is a core game mechanics to me and this removes too much risk IMO.  There were plenty of zones in EQ, where being able to peek into the zone with no risk of agro would take away most of the risk.  I hope there are similar zones in Pantheon and that we will need skill to break or enter the zone successfully.  Part of learning the world was learning what zonelines were likely to have trains.  And in EQ, you could often zone out quickly without agro if you were paying attention and didn't walk away to get a drink.

    Besides, it's the Monk's or Necro's job to zone in to dangerous areas and FD at the entrance to give a scouting report.  You don't want to take that away from them. 

    • 115 posts
    October 11, 2019 10:16 AM PDT

     

    stellarmind said:

     

    this might be irrelevant.  there won't be 'zoning' i think which is similar to instancing on a grand scale.  some older, weak infrastructured or server sensitive mmos probably do it to lighten the networking and computer resources, but i think we have technology that allows a continous open world seamless exploration.  w.e i don't know enough about the way vr build the world, but if it's unity, it'll probably going to be seamless unless your traverse large distance instantly.

     

     

     

    20.0 Will you be dividing the world into zones or will it be entirely open?

    Pantheon is a zone-based game as opposed to having a truly seamless world, although this could change as technology and tools evolve, either before or after launch. Regardless, however, our current technology and tools allow us to create truly vast, rich, and detailed zones. Players will not be running frequently into zone borders. Our larger zones also allow us to create long vistas and views, and in almost all cases, if you can see a location you can travel there.


    We have lots of overworld adventure areas and overland dungeons where players don’t need to zone into but there may be several groups hunting there. Even in underworld and dedicated dungeon areas, they will be open world as well. It is all part of the shared experience we really want to capture.

     

    https://www.pantheonmmo.com/game/faqs/


    This post was edited by Bonechip at October 11, 2019 10:17 AM PDT
    • 1428 posts
    October 11, 2019 10:19 AM PDT

    Bonechip said:

    20.0 Will you be dividing the world into zones or will it be entirely open?

    Pantheon is a zone-based game as opposed to having a truly seamless world, although this could change as technology and tools evolve, either before or after launch. Regardless, however, our current technology and tools allow us to create truly vast, rich, and detailed zones. Players will not be running frequently into zone borders. Our larger zones also allow us to create long vistas and views, and in almost all cases, if you can see a location you can travel there.


    We have lots of overworld adventure areas and overland dungeons where players don’t need to zone into but there may be several groups hunting there. Even in underworld and dedicated dungeon areas, they will be open world as well. It is all part of the shared experience we really want to capture.

     

    https://www.pantheonmmo.com/game/faqs/

     

    there u have it XD  it's up in the air.  hm.  this would be nice as a pvper if zoning is going to be a thing.  i could probably exploit this :o

    • 1281 posts
    October 11, 2019 10:25 AM PDT

    Bonechip said:

    Anyone that has played EQ experienced this: You zone, and when you appear on the other side, a monster kills you dead because someone trained it to the zone line.


    To me, there is no good reason to punish people for just *zoning into a zone*.


    Just an opinion, but I think that it should be as follows:

    • You zone in as a "camera", invisible, and invulnerable.
      • You can freely look around without breaking that state.
      • If you move at all, it breaks that state.
      • If you cast or attack, it breaks that state.


    Thoughts?

     

    Here's my two cents...

     

    Zone-In death should be a thing...  You don't get a free pass just for zoning.  That said, given that you can see the area on the other side of the zone line before you zone, as evidenced by several times they have zoned in the videos, I think that you should be able to see that there are mobs on the other size of the zone line, and thus either be ready to fight them, or wait until they are gone.  They shouldn't be invisible to you on one side of the zone line and ganking you on the other.  The only time I think that the whole "you don't know that they're there" should come into play is if you are teleporting or zoning into an area that you can't directly see across the "zone line".

    • 3852 posts
    October 11, 2019 10:25 AM PDT

    ((Eh. Doesn’t sound great to me. Just seems like a cheap way to break immersion and water down any dangers in the game. ))

     

    I don't follow this at all. If you can see the mobs through the zone border there is no issue. Enter the zone next to them and you deserve what you get.

    If you cannot look through 20 feet of empty air and see mobs because of the artificiality of a zone boundary - isn't *that* what broke the immersion?

    I can understand an argument that training is good because it adds danger. Not agree in the slightest but understand it.

    But I consider mobs 20 feet away standing there invisibly NOT to be a legitimate or acceptable danger.


    This post was edited by dorotea at October 11, 2019 10:26 AM PDT
    • 523 posts
    October 11, 2019 10:26 AM PDT

    Arbeor said:

    Risk in exploring the world is a core game mechanics to me and this removes too much risk IMO.  There were plenty of zones in EQ, where being able to peek into the zone with no risk of agro would take away most of the risk.  I hope there are similar zones in Pantheon and that we will need skill to break or enter the zone successfully.  Part of learning the world was learning what zonelines were likely to have trains.  And in EQ, you could often zone out quickly without agro if you were paying attention and didn't walk away to get a drink.

    Besides, it's the Monk's or Necro's job to zone in to dangerous areas and FD at the entrance to give a scouting report.  You don't want to take that away from them. 

     

    100% nailed it.  All of these dangers and quirks are what made EQ1 the greatest game of all time.  As we have learned from lessons in the industry over the years, including Warcraft, don't make the damn games easier.  Taking the risk that you could get blasted zoning into a dangerous area is all part of the charm and risk/reward.  They actually made zones where the break-in was chaotic and ultra-dangerous, and those were the best zones.  And to be fair, we're only talking about a handful of dungeon type zones where this might even be an issue, and even then, few and far between.  But I always liked Karnor's Castle, if you zoned into the left, be prepared to die.  And vice versa, on the inside, If you trained mobs to the right entrance, the server was going to label you a moron.  That dynamic had a fair amount of charm to it.

    • 1428 posts
    October 11, 2019 10:31 AM PDT

    Kalok said:

    Here's my two cents...

     

    Zone-In death should be a thing...  You don't get a free pass just for zoning.  That said, given that you can see the area on the other side of the zone line before you zone, as evidenced by several times they have zoned in the videos, I think that you should be able to see that there are mobs on the other size of the zone line, and thus either be ready to fight them, or wait until they are gone.  They shouldn't be invisible to you on one side of the zone line and ganking you on the other.  The only time I think that the whole "you don't know that they're there" should come into play is if you are teleporting or zoning into an area that you can't directly see across the "zone line".

    :o  it's not going to be a really big deal then i suppose.  i'm guessing their zoning is going to be like wow where there's not going to be mobs just sitting at the border.  i mean if they put mobs or allow mobs to be leashed that close then it's kind of a poor design.

    • 1281 posts
    October 11, 2019 10:34 AM PDT

    stellarmind said:

    Kalok said:

    Here's my two cents...

     

    Zone-In death should be a thing...  You don't get a free pass just for zoning.  That said, given that you can see the area on the other side of the zone line before you zone, as evidenced by several times they have zoned in the videos, I think that you should be able to see that there are mobs on the other size of the zone line, and thus either be ready to fight them, or wait until they are gone.  They shouldn't be invisible to you on one side of the zone line and ganking you on the other.  The only time I think that the whole "you don't know that they're there" should come into play is if you are teleporting or zoning into an area that you can't directly see across the "zone line".

    :o  it's not going to be a really big deal then i suppose.  i'm guessing their zoning is going to be like wow where there's not going to be mobs just sitting at the border.  i mean if they put mobs or allow mobs to be leashed that close then it's kind of a poor design.

     

    Even if they do have mobs parked at or near the zone line as their "starting point", you should still be able to see them "through the zone line".  It's not like the zone line is some magical barrier of non-seeing.  That was always one of my gripes about EQ.  I could see the landscape on the other side of the zone line, including buildings, but I couldn't see people or mobs.  They should have the same "draw distance" through the zone line that they would if you were standing on the other side of it.  I'm just not sure how difficult the technicalities of pulling that off are.

    • 115 posts
    October 11, 2019 10:40 AM PDT

    Kalok said:

    Even if they do have mobs parked at or near the zone line as their "starting point", you should still be able to see them "through the zone line".  It's not like the zone line is some magical barrier of non-seeing.  That was always one of my gripes about EQ.  I could see the landscape on the other side of the zone line, including buildings, but I couldn't see people or mobs.  They should have the same "draw distance" through the zone line that they would if you were standing on the other side of it.  I'm just not sure how difficult the technicalities of pulling that off are.

     

    What if the zone line is a door?

    • 1428 posts
    October 11, 2019 10:41 AM PDT

    Kalok said: 

    Even if they do have mobs parked at or near the zone line as their "starting point", you should still be able to see them "through the zone line".  It's not like the zone line is some magical barrier of non-seeing.  That was always one of my gripes about EQ.  I could see the landscape on the other side of the zone line, including buildings, but I couldn't see people or mobs.  They should have the same "draw distance" through the zone line that they would if you were standing on the other side of it.  I'm just not sure how difficult the technicalities of pulling that off are.

    i couldn't tell ya XD i'm no programmer, but i assume that the purpose of a zone is kind of like seperate compressed file?  if they were able to program a window to see through the zone, then they could just make it seamless instead of having the zone in/out deal.  eh it's getting over my head i might just backseat this one now >.>

    • 1281 posts
    October 11, 2019 10:44 AM PDT

    Bonechip said:

    Kalok said:

    Even if they do have mobs parked at or near the zone line as their "starting point", you should still be able to see them "through the zone line".  It's not like the zone line is some magical barrier of non-seeing.  That was always one of my gripes about EQ.  I could see the landscape on the other side of the zone line, including buildings, but I couldn't see people or mobs.  They should have the same "draw distance" through the zone line that they would if you were standing on the other side of it.  I'm just not sure how difficult the technicalities of pulling that off are.

     

    What if the zone line is a door?

     

    I covered that in my first post.....

     

    "The only time I think that the whole "you don't know that they're there" should come into play is if you are teleporting or zoning into an area that you can't directly see across the "zone line"."


    This post was edited by Kalok at October 11, 2019 10:44 AM PDT
    • 1281 posts
    October 11, 2019 10:46 AM PDT

    stellarmind said:

    Kalok said: 

    Even if they do have mobs parked at or near the zone line as their "starting point", you should still be able to see them "through the zone line".  It's not like the zone line is some magical barrier of non-seeing.  That was always one of my gripes about EQ.  I could see the landscape on the other side of the zone line, including buildings, but I couldn't see people or mobs.  They should have the same "draw distance" through the zone line that they would if you were standing on the other side of it.  I'm just not sure how difficult the technicalities of pulling that off are.

    i couldn't tell ya XD i'm no programmer, but i assume that the purpose of a zone is kind of like seperate compressed file?  if they were able to program a window to see through the zone, then they could just make it seamless instead of having the zone in/out deal.  eh it's getting over my head i might just backseat this one now >.>

     

    Yeah.  I'm not a coder either.  I'm a hardware and network guy.

    That said, I don't see why they couldn't "project" the images of the mobs onto the "wall" of the zone line like they do with the lighting, scenery, and buildings.

    • 3852 posts
    October 11, 2019 10:48 AM PDT

    ((What if the zone line is a door?))

    Then being met by a train doesn't bother me (other than my core opposition to training as a concept, of course). When opening a door it is entirely reasonable that one will be met by hostile forces, in position, waiting for intruders. The door opener needs to be ready to immediately judge the situation and be prepared to either fight or run.

    • 1584 posts
    October 11, 2019 10:58 AM PDT

    I say the easiest way to solve this problem is you can see mobs on the other zone line before you even zone in, you don't need a monk, necro to feel special by being able to FD at a zoneline, if they can FD that by itself gives them a huge value, but being able to seeing into the zone before you actually zones in would make it feel a little.bit more seamless than seeing nothing but a bridge and than when you actually zone in it a bridge with an army standing in front of it, so is this regard I have to agree with kalok.

    • 1921 posts
    October 11, 2019 11:52 AM PDT

    Kalok said: ... That said, I don't see why they couldn't "project" the images of the mobs onto the "wall" of the zone line like they do with the lighting, scenery, and buildings.

    Even if, in the worst implementation, it was a separate process per zone?  All you need to do is take a radius from a given point in the destination zone and based on NPC presence in there, give some form of visual indication in the source zone.  Just enough that players know.. You know what? Maybe I'll wait a sec..

    As an example many will relate to.  Say you were zoning from Dreadlands into Karnor's Castle.  Say, using terrible names, it's essentially handing a session from dreadlands.exe to karnors.exe, at the network layer.  This socket goes from here (dreadlands.exe) to there (karnors.exe).

    So, all you need to do is have dreadlands.exe receive (again, worst case) interprocess communications or operating system signals or some other kind of between-processes-message from karnors.exe that says " Ok, at the moment, there are 10 drolvargs within 30 meters of the zone line.  When this is no longer the case, I'll let you know."

    Then, dreadlands.exe shows 10 drolvargs, or flames, or placeholder shadowy npcs all milling about randomly, or any other visual indicator other than nothing, to all the players still inside dreadlands.exe.  Once they're gone, karnors.exe sends an update message to dreadlands.exe that says "they're gone, clear your zone-line danger indicator" and voila, it appears peaceful/clear again.

    That's pretty much all there is to it.  What the visual indicator would be isn't as important as: it's totally possible, and reasonably easy.

    • 1281 posts
    October 11, 2019 11:59 AM PDT

    vjek said:

    Kalok said: ... That said, I don't see why they couldn't "project" the images of the mobs onto the "wall" of the zone line like they do with the lighting, scenery, and buildings.

    Even if, in the worst implementation, it was a separate process per zone?  All you need to do is take a radius from a given point in the destination zone and based on NPC presence in there, give some form of visual indication in the source zone.  Just enough that players know.. You know what? Maybe I'll wait a sec..

    As an example many will relate to.  Say you were zoning from Dreadlands into Karnor's Castle.  Say, using terrible names, it's essentially handing a session from dreadlands.exe to karnors.exe, at the network layer.  This socket goes from here (dreadlands.exe) to there (karnors.exe).

    So, all you need to do is have dreadlands.exe receive (again, worst case) interprocess communications or operating system signals or some other kind of between-processes-message from karnors.exe that says " Ok, at the moment, there are 10 drolvargs within 30 meters of the zone line.  When this is no longer the case, I'll let you know."

    Then, dreadlands.exe shows 10 drolvargs, or flames, or placeholder shadowy npcs all milling about randomly, or any other visual indicator other than nothing, to all the players still inside dreadlands.exe.  Once they're gone, karnors.exe sends an update message to dreadlands.exe that says "they're gone, clear your zone-line danger indicator" and voila, it appears peaceful/clear again.

    That's pretty much all there is to it.  What the visual indicator would be isn't as important as: it's totally possible, and reasonably easy.

     

    Yeah.  A basic API between the processes.  That would make the sharing of information between them much simpler.  As you get within "x feet" of the zone line, it triggers the zone process you're in to query the next zone's process, via the API, for information of anything within a "y feet" area of the zone line, its information, and its location.

    • 1399 posts
    October 11, 2019 12:00 PM PDT

    I played a Wizard in EQ, About as squishy as you can get. And i walked (zoned) in on some pretty big trains,in my day.Any time this happened it was a simple press of the down arrow key to back right out of the zone. Rarely if ever did I die from it.

    Now the exception was as somebody already pointed out, hit the zone, and go AFK to get a beer.... your own fault, you need to die.

    I like the idea of being able to see any actual mobs for a given distance on the other side of the zone line....IF this would be doable it would be great.

    A simple 3-5 second immunity would work as well, for the OP's problem and not have the exploit problems. Theres no real need for invis

    • 1921 posts
    October 11, 2019 12:05 PM PDT

    Kalok said:Yeah.  A basic API between the processes.  That would make the sharing of information between them much simpler.  As you get within "x feet" of the zone line, it triggers the zone process you're in to query the next zone's process, via the API, for information of anything within a "y feet" area of the zone line, its information, and its location.
    Yep, exactly.  There are a few available now, some ~20 years old, some newer.
    A great book on the subject, if the server will be running Unix/Linux: https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0130810819/acmorg-20


    This post was edited by vjek at October 11, 2019 12:06 PM PDT
    • 1428 posts
    October 11, 2019 12:06 PM PDT

    thinking out typing here... but if i can see it... why not just make it seamless?

    • 1921 posts
    October 11, 2019 12:08 PM PDT

    Not their design.  They want trains, ~infinite leashes, and zone lines. /shrug

    • 2419 posts
    October 11, 2019 12:17 PM PDT

    Bonechip said:

    Anyone that has played EQ experienced this: You zone, and when you appear on the other side, a monster kills you dead because someone trained it to the zone line.


    To me, there is no good reason to punish people for just *zoning into a zone*.


    Just an opinion, but I think that it should be as follows:

    • You zone in as a "camera", invisible, and invulnerable.
      • You can freely look around without breaking that state.
      • If you move at all, it breaks that state.
      • If you cast or attack, it breaks that state.


    Thoughts?

    Back in the early days where internet speeds were slow, zone load-times were slow, etc there were times where the server would put you into a zone before your client updated.  There you stood, unable to respond or perform any action.  These days though?  With blistering fast broadband, beefy computers, etc such a situation would be an extremely rare exception.  You don't need that type of protection.  Zoning in is a risk, accept it and think about your own means to offset those risks:  Use an invis potion before you zone, perhaps.

    What you are really asking for protection for going AFK while you zone in.  A quick trip to the bathroom or to the kitchen for a drink.  And if you need to go AFK, either log out quickly or have friends watch over you.  There is no need for such a gimmicky mechanic.

    • 1281 posts
    October 11, 2019 12:25 PM PDT

    Vandraad said:

    Back in the early days where internet speeds were slow, zone load-times were slow, etc there were times where the server would put you into a zone before your client updated.  There you stood, unable to respond or perform any action.  These days though?  With blistering fast broadband, beefy computers, etc such a situation would be an extremely rare exception.  You don't need that type of protection.  Zoning in is a risk, accept it and think about your own means to offset those risks:  Use an invis potion before you zone, perhaps.

     

    Yes and no....  So in the first of the two-part Monk videos with Cohh, they have an issue that he has to work through.  Once he works through that, when he finally does zone into SSP, Brad sees him, and mentions it, before his zone loading screen has completed.  So, at least currently in the pre-alpha, and the pre-pre-alpha in the video, it is still possible to pop into the zone before you can do anything about any mobs that beat on you.

    That said, I *DO* agree with you about *NOT* having a protection mechanic.