Aye, the bigness of the game, has nothing to do with how many people the server can support.
Ideally, they have a target in mind and are building out to that. I would think their business model is 4x that of 17 years ago and are roughly targeting 20k per server, with 8k~10k concurrent. But it remains to be seen how ambitious Chris and Brad are going to be.
I wouold prefer a larger community, than what EQ/EQ2/VG had.
Hieromonk said:Aye, the bigness of the game, has nothing to do with how many people the server can support.
Ideally, they have a target in mind and are building out to that. I would think their business model is 4x that of 17 years ago and are roughly targeting 20k per server, with 8k~10k concurrent. But it remains to be seen how ambitious Chris and Brad are going to be.
I wouold prefer a larger community, than what EQ/EQ2/VG had.
I highly doubt we'll see 10k players concurrently on a single server. EVE Online which is a game made famous for just having a single server only has about 35k people concurrent and they have some pretty cool tech in order to get that working.
Of course this is all speculation but 10k sounds unreasonably high to me.
Kalgore said:Hieromonk said:Liav said:Krixus said:Dead horse beaten much? You seem to be missing the point. It's about the integrity of the world and NOT having "an exact copy of another zone" regardless of those distinctions between shard and instance. They don't matter, it's about not duplicating content which waters down the world, ruins immersion, leads to item inflation, devalues content as a whole, etc, etc, etc. That's the fundamental issue.
I don't think it's as much of an issue. Phinigel would be dead if not for picks and instanced raiding.
I believe anyone who thinks that Pantheon won't be overcrowded is naive. You'll either need 50 servers, or an unreasonably large world.
Everquest is 17 years old this month...
Everquest and Kunark combined.. are extremely small surface area for some 10k players.. who already know the world, know the raid mechanics and are RACING to get all the known items in the world. Add the fact, that Veloius and EQ is still a small world by Todays 64bit standards means Phinny is not a good comparison to anything Pantheon..
Pantheon will release with more landmass than Original EverQuest ~ Velious, and overcrowding will not be a problem, because you guild will not have even visited all the dungeons, or zones... and will not be in the same dungeons as everyone else. Or may be in the same dungeon, and taken a different path than the other guild, and are now miles parts from each other.. Please back this statement up with something Brad or another Dev has said
Picture Guk, with 3 more deeper levels, that may require a mini-quest to get past the first throne room, etc.
Simple put, Brad himself said too much upward content was a flaw he made when designing EQ, & that Pantheon will have more outward content (kunark/velious) , than upward content (PoP, etc). So people and guilds will be asble to expand out, well before they expand upwards.
I have predicted, that it would take less than 12 Pantheon sized zones for all of original EQ. That is how big a zone can be in Pantheon. You could have guilds in the same zone, that never see each other. Overcorwding is a problem when a developer makes a game, that has no landmass to house the populace. Pantheon will be big and deep.
How will a guild choose where to raid, when they have 60 choices..? Instead of 6.. (Sky, Hate, Fear, Solb, Guk, etc..) Even more funnier, is how would a guild even know about the other dungeons that are found out in the wild.. tyhese guilds are expecting other people to tell them about these sites. They are hoping the internet tells them where these other newly found dungeons are. Please back this statement up with something Brad or another Dev has said
How you going to get your guild to those places... So a guild will most likely have a regional presence, not a global one because of the logistics and mechanics invloved in moving 50 people across the game world...
Please back this statement up with something Brad or another Dev has said
Because Kilgore, if I (or any other hard core Dungeons & Dragons player) was designing dungeons, that is exactly what would happen....
1) Dungeon will be more organic and when you enter them, most will have NOT have a single path for all to follow, but mulitple paths like Keasora, Guk, Sol B, Sol A... etc. Not to mention, some will have DIFFERENT entrances to these dungeons as well, like Sol B, or Lower Guk, etc. (All actual examples of Dungeons Brad built 18 years ago).
But I will play along with your questioning, because you may be new to all of this and have ZERO history on Dungeons, or Dungeon building, or playing through Dungeons... (ie: AD&D / MUDS / etc)
So... if Dungeon are MUCH.. MUCH bigger in Pantheon, than in EQ... (which brad has siad they are.... and brad has told us how big zones can acutally be, and brad has told us how deep dungeons can actually be... (and I research the unity engine and understans 64bit memory addressing know what they equates to actual in-game space)... Than One looks at Brad's statements of waiting all his life to make a game like this... = devious and hard dungeons, that are NOT on rails.. (go look at the pics)
Very Odd kilgore.... That you think Brad's Vision is not greater than, but EXACTLY like EverQuest... and he (and Visionary realms) will not lift a finger to make Pantheon more exciting, or deeper, or better than EverQuest, or Vanguard. Perhaps that is your nearsightedness speaking through as you are fixated on old games, not new 64bit worlds. Pick the biggest dungeon you have ever seen in before... chances are those Developers ran out of space... in Pantheon, the amount of space a Dungeon could be, would actually be too big.. So size is one thing, but that alone doesn't make a great dungeon, you have to have theme and reason for that dungeons existance (Ghoul lord and undead frogs?), and build out to that theme.
Picture OOT x 5... that is how much SPACE Visionary Realms has to work with, for each zone. They will probably never use all that space for one zone, but there is essentially no limit to their creativity in building a dungeon. They can go on forever..
That does not mean they will... but there is no design limitation like there was before. (DX12 hardware will make MMORPG fun again)
2) Not sure if you are trolling, but it is quite evident, that most younger and newer players play these games as a connect-the-dot style of play. I have witnessed it first hand, from the early days of EQ & WoW. Most do not go out into the world and play... they sit on the internet learning all they can, then find something they want, and try and get it. Most of these types of players do this, because they started playing these games many years after release. These types of players need carrots.
There has to be a database and a dangling carrot, for most of these people to have direction. Most newbies do not know what open-ended means, they are too overwhelmed by the possibilites. So they revert to the internet to find focus. And do understand people know this... that is whay what is on the internet, could be false, or only half ther story. Carrot & stick players are not on the forfront of questing, or learning to break a boss mob, etc. The most single-minded carrot stalkers do not know anything... other than what others are talking about on the internet.
I can't know everything and look stuff up all the time, too. But when a game is newly released, that info will trickle in. It might take a month for some newbie quests to be solved... then a months later everyone is using that guide... and running into each other, because they are all using that guide. That is all many players know and not how to find their own quest & include friends to figure it out and solve it and get the reward and move on..
Proof?
Raise your hand if you ever solved a quest. Before it was posted on the internet... Kilgore?
3) Hmmm, have you not read the posts about Fast Travel..?
If so, then please explain to us al, how YOUR GUILD is going to assemble and get everyone to the entrance/Mouth of a dungeon so quickly..?
It is Friday night, Pantheon has been released for 5 months now... and an adventurous Scout in your guild who has been aloof from your guild & scouting... finds a new dungeon along the coast with an underwater entrance.
But, 15 people in your guild are all still back in another region, or continent (look at map) trying to hold down a mob in a small starter dungeon when they get word of the Scout's discovery. How is your guild going to maintain presence in that dungeon, and kerplunk down threw the new dungeon.
How are you going to get everyone to that new dungeon. Please explain...
For added color:
OH.. and that dungeon your scout found is massive..(ie months of exploration) and oddly enough a friend of yours Tells you the next night, their guild found a new dungeon somewhere too... that your guild should come check it out someday, or help them..
Now... how is YOUR GUILD going to maintain a presence in those 3 Dungeons... ? (.. what about when it is 6 dungeons, or 12, or 25..? And specially if there are regional banks, & things have weight, etc)
Do you understand the logistics involved..?
Cromulent said:Hieromonk said:Aye, the bigness of the game, has nothing to do with how many people the server can support.
Ideally, they have a target in mind and are building out to that. I would think their business model is 4x that of 17 years ago and are roughly targeting 20k per server, with 8k~10k concurrent. But it remains to be seen how ambitious Chris and Brad are going to be.
I wouold prefer a larger community, than what EQ/EQ2/VG had.
I highly doubt we'll see 10k players concurrently on a single server. EVE Online which is a game made famous for just having a single server only has about 35k people concurrent and they have some pretty cool tech in order to get that working.
Of course this is all speculation but 10k sounds unreasonably high to me.
EVE is built using a different technology and is 13 years old. There is no landmass in EVE... completly different animal.
Hieromonk said:Kalgore said:Hieromonk said:Liav said:Krixus said:Dead horse beaten much? You seem to be missing the point. It's about the integrity of the world and NOT having "an exact copy of another zone" regardless of those distinctions between shard and instance. They don't matter, it's about not duplicating content which waters down the world, ruins immersion, leads to item inflation, devalues content as a whole, etc, etc, etc. That's the fundamental issue.
I don't think it's as much of an issue. Phinigel would be dead if not for picks and instanced raiding.
I believe anyone who thinks that Pantheon won't be overcrowded is naive. You'll either need 50 servers, or an unreasonably large world.
Everquest is 17 years old this month...
Everquest and Kunark combined.. are extremely small surface area for some 10k players.. who already know the world, know the raid mechanics and are RACING to get all the known items in the world. Add the fact, that Veloius and EQ is still a small world by Todays 64bit standards means Phinny is not a good comparison to anything Pantheon..
Pantheon will release with more landmass than Original EverQuest ~ Velious, and overcrowding will not be a problem, because you guild will not have even visited all the dungeons, or zones... and will not be in the same dungeons as everyone else. Or may be in the same dungeon, and taken a different path than the other guild, and are now miles parts from each other.. Please back this statement up with something Brad or another Dev has said
Picture Guk, with 3 more deeper levels, that may require a mini-quest to get past the first throne room, etc.
Simple put, Brad himself said too much upward content was a flaw he made when designing EQ, & that Pantheon will have more outward content (kunark/velious) , than upward content (PoP, etc). So people and guilds will be asble to expand out, well before they expand upwards.
I have predicted, that it would take less than 12 Pantheon sized zones for all of original EQ. That is how big a zone can be in Pantheon. You could have guilds in the same zone, that never see each other. Overcorwding is a problem when a developer makes a game, that has no landmass to house the populace. Pantheon will be big and deep.
How will a guild choose where to raid, when they have 60 choices..? Instead of 6.. (Sky, Hate, Fear, Solb, Guk, etc..) Even more funnier, is how would a guild even know about the other dungeons that are found out in the wild.. tyhese guilds are expecting other people to tell them about these sites. They are hoping the internet tells them where these other newly found dungeons are. Please back this statement up with something Brad or another Dev has said
How you going to get your guild to those places... So a guild will most likely have a regional presence, not a global one because of the logistics and mechanics invloved in moving 50 people across the game world...
Please back this statement up with something Brad or another Dev has said
Because Kilgore, if I (or any other hard core Dungeons & Dragons player) was designing dungeons, that is exactly what would happen....
1) Dungeon will be more organic and when you enter them, most will have NOT have a single path for all to follow, but mulitple paths like Keasora, Guk, Sol B, Sol A... etc. Not to mention, some will have DIFFERENT entrances to these dungeons as well, like Sol B, or Lower Guk, etc. (All actual examples of Dungeons Brad built 18 years ago).
But I will play along with your questioning, because you may be new to all of this and have ZERO history on Dungeons, or Dungeon building, or playing through Dungeons... (ie: AD&D / MUDS / etc)
So... if Dungeon are MUCH.. MUCH bigger in Pantheon, than in EQ... (which brad has siad they are.... and brad has told us how big zones can acutally be, and brad has told us how deep dungeons can actually be... (and I research the unity engine and understans 64bit memory addressing know what they equates to actual in-game space)... Than One looks at Brad's statements of waiting all his life to make a game like this... = devious and hard dungeons, that are NOT on rails.. (go look at the pics)
Very Odd kilgore.... That you think Brad's Vision is not greater than, but EXACTLY like EverQuest... and he (and Visionary realms) will not lift a finger to make Pantheon more exciting, or deeper, or better than EverQuest, or Vanguard. Perhaps that is your nearsightedness speaking through as you are fixated on old games, not new 64bit worlds. Pick the biggest dungeon you have ever seen in before... chances are those Developers ran out of space... in Pantheon, the amount of space a Dungeon could be, would actually be too big.. So size is one thing, but that alone doesn't make a great dungeon, you have to have theme and reason for that dungeons existance (Ghoul lord and undead frogs?), and build out to that theme.
Picture OOT x 5... that is how much SPACE Visionary Realms has to work with, for each zone. They will probably never use all that space for one zone, but there is essentially no limit to their creativity in building a dungeon. They can go on forever..
That does not mean they will... but there is no design limitation like there was before. (DX12 hardware will make MMORPG fun again)
2) Not sure if you are trolling, but it is quite evident, that most younger and newer players play these games as a connect-the-dot style of play. I have witnessed it first hand, from the early days of EQ & WoW. Most do not go out into the world and play... they sit on the internet learning all they can, then find something they want, and try and get it. Most of these types of players do this, because they started playing these games many years after release. These types of players need carrots.
There has to be a database and a dangling carrot, for most of these people to have direction. Most newbies do not know what open-ended means, they are too overwhelmed by the possibilites. So they revert to the internet to find focus. And do understand people know this... that is whay what is on the internet, could be false, or only half ther story. Carrot & stick players are not on the forfront of questing, or learning to break a boss mob, etc. The most single-minded carrot stalkers do not know anything... other than what others are talking about on the internet.
I can't know everything and look stuff up all the time, too. But when a game is newly released, that info will trickle in. It might take a month for some newbie quests to be solved... then a months later everyone is using that guide... and running into each other, because they are all using that guide. That is all many players know.
Not how to find their own quest, & include friends to figure it out and solve it and get the reward and move on..
Proof?
Raise your hand if you ever solved a quest. Before it was posted on the internet... Kilgore?
3) Hmmm, have you not read the posts about Fast Travel..?
If so, then please explain to us al, how YOUR GUILD is going to assemble and get everyone to the entrance/Mouth of a dungeon so quickly..?
It is Friday night, Pantheon has been released for 5 months now... and an adventurous Scout in your guild who has been aloof from your guild & scouting... finds a new dungeon along the coast with an underwater entrance.
But, 15 people in your guild are all still back in another region, or continent (look at map) trying to hold down a mob in a small starter dungeon when they get word of the Scout's discovery. How is your guild going to maintain presence in that dungeon, and kerplunk down threw the new dungeon.
How are you going to get everyone to that new dungeon. Please explain...
For added color:
OH.. and that dungeon your scout found is massive..(ie months of exploration) and oddly enough a friend of yours Tells you the next night, their guild found a new dungeon somewhere too... that your guild should come check it out someday, or help them..
Now... how is YOUR GUILD going to maintain a presence in those 3 Dungeons... ? (.. what about when it is 6 dungeons, or 12, or 25..? And specially if there are regional banks, & things have weight, etc)
Do you understand the logistics involved..?
So nothing to back up your insights besides thats how you would do it huh. Well you are not ARE NOT a devolper for this game and you spouting stuff that has no basis for being true will make it that much harder for VR to be successful. People will read your comments and assume you are correct and be sorely dissapointed.
Again FACT for backup not talk about a thread that has ZERO conclusive evidence or how you would do something.
Actually Im pretty sure a dev either here or over on one of the news sites already gave a target server size and If I remember correctly it was a lot smaller than what you are saying. Ill try to look for the source but I dont remember which site I read about it. Its possible that could have changed but I doubt it.
(Still cant find it but Im thinking it was maybe related to one of the many discussions dealing with what to do about perserving challenge and not having zergs. As in ways to do this without resotring to instances or other anti-community systems.)
So nothing to back up your insights besides thats how you would do it huh. Well you are not ARE NOT a devolper for this game and you spouting stuff that has no basis for being true will make it that much harder for VR to be successful. People will read your comments and assume you are correct and be sorely dissapointed.
Again FACT for backup not talk about a thread that has ZERO conclusive evidence or how you would do something.
So you are a troll..?
Please read, Brad himself said these things. I have taken a creative license on it, and used several mechanics and dungeons as proof of what is to come...
Secondly, how do you know that I am not a developer, or in development..?
And why do you keep assuming things... and attacking me for YOUR assumptions, of what others will think...? Why not let those "other people" speak for themselves, instead of assuming they can't read between the lines, like you are unable to do.
I have not heard ONE idea of how your guild is going to do the things you say they are going to do. Best way to thwart my suggestions, if prove them false through an in-game mechanics. There is no conclusive evidence, that you know anything you are talking about, because you have not even attempted to explain to all of us... HOW your guild is going to do those things you say they are. You keep rambling on, & on about other people ideas, with none of your own. (ie: troll)
Hieromonk said:
So nothing to back up your insights besides thats how you would do it huh. Well you are not ARE NOT a devolper for this game and you spouting stuff that has no basis for being true will make it that much harder for VR to be successful. People will read your comments and assume you are correct and be sorely dissapointed.
Again FACT for backup not talk about a thread that has ZERO conclusive evidence or how you would do something.
So you are a troll..?
Please read, Brad himself said these things. I have taken a creative license on it, and used several mechanics and dungeons as proof of what is to come...
Secondly, how do you know that I am not a developer, or in development..?
And why do you keep assuming things... and attacking me for YOUR assumptions, of what others will think...? Why not let those "other people" speak for themselves, instead of assuming they can't read between the lines, like you are unable to do.
I have not heard ONE idea of how your guild is going to do the things you say they are going to do. Best way to thwart my suggestions, if prove them false through an in-game mechanics. There is no conclusive evidence, that you know anything you are talking about, because you have not even attempted to explain to all of us... HOW your guild is going to do those things you say they are. You keep rambling on, & on about other people ideas, with none of your own. (ie: troll)
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2764/unity-5-question/view/post_id/40506 sounds like you arent in development
Please explain how it was a personal attack?? I have asked for proof of what you say is true and not your word which hurts this game because people expect something that hasnt been stated. Im sorry if you think asking for real facts is attacking but it is simply asking for facts. You are the one that accused me of trolling im just asking for Links Screenshots podcasts something to back up stuff like it will take your guild months to explore one dungeon.
This post was edited by Kalgore at March 9, 2016 10:32 AM PST
My ideas do not hurt this game... that is only your opinion.
You should stick your neck out there and come up with some answers, to your own questions. This is an idea board, like to hear some of your ideas. And BTW... just ask the community, I do not have time to answer all your questions, most of this stuff is old hat and known by most here. You should spend about 30h reading everything Pantheon, so you don't look so green.
We are all friends here and discussion about topics is good, about me is off-topic... and not necessary.
Dullahan said:To me the modern, casual, instanced mmorpg is fast food gaming. I understand why its there. The same reason the drive through in McDonalds is there - convenience. Its much harder to orchestrate the huge open world and spread and balanced all the content in such a way that there is competition, but no so much that the player feels stifled.
The truth is, casual mmos aren't created to promote immersion or to simulate a virtual society. They are there for quick and easy fun. I'm not knocking that, I'm just disappointed in the decision so many studios have made to abandon the mmoRPG and the depth that goes with it, especially in light of the fact that casual mmos haven't been particularly profitable for anyone outside of Blizzard.
I'm looking forward to a restaurant quality game in Pantheon and all the ambience that goes with it!
Hey Dullahan,
Good to see you here from MMORPG.com.
Anyways I want to disagree with you on the Instance vs open world arguement. In Vanilla\TBC WOW I met a lot of people by doing Instances. The root of why MMOs have become fast foot restrutants is the fact that Dungeons have become a part of the treadmill and todays MMOs force you to do X amount of Dungeons to get to the Raid instances. Instances are NOT the problem. Its how they are designed. I think Pantheon should have instances but make them non-liner and maybe something a group could save if it is a hour or longer Dungeon\Instance where players will come back later to. The same can be said about Instanced like raids.
So lets talk about the CORE issue with Instanced play. The problem when WOW WOTLK came out is you needed to gear up from Normals to do Heroics to do raids. While at first this was fun people didnt want to go back to Normals or Heroics after they were geared. So grouping for these instances became very slow and hard to do. Its because they became obsolite and players got tired of playing mash AOE button instances. So WOW brought in the LFD tool which completely killed MMOs because the social aspect of MMOs was removed.
So how do we fix this. First I think the problem is the path from Max level to X amount of Dungeons to Y Raids. During Vanilia WOW and TBC is was easy to reach a base core state needed to get into the raids, example is Tanks needed X amount of Defense so they could not take a crit hit. This was able to be done buy crafted gear, quest gear, and Dungeon gear. There were options out there to get into raiding and it was not a long or treadmill like process. Yes the treadmill did start from Tier 1 to Tier 2 and so on. Thats is Fine thats where the treadmill should be because you can do things in an instance with a set or range of players that cannot be done in an open world raid boss. Example is look at FFXIV's boss Fates, when there are 100+ people beating on Odin the boss could be a little tough but he would die fast. The boss fight was a fast roll fight.
I Personally feel we need to really look at group size and raid size. They have to be manageable in the way of numbers PLUS look at flexiblity. Maybe a group dungeon should be scableble from 4 to 8 members. Then Raids scalable from 8 to 16 members. Then have the flexablity to save the Dungeon\Raid at a save point within the instance where no mobs spawn behind you and when the group comes in you start right at the save point. Also make tiered dungeons as well as tiered raids and make them equal in the way of progression. The first Tier of Dungeons should equal .5 of a Raid tier, then dungeon teir 1 equals Tier 2 of the raid. Also have Crafted gear as an option to help players to get from Dungeons into Raids and max level into Dungeons.
Also there should be a Looking for Group tool, BUT not a WOW Automated Looking for Group tool. The tool should be something that I could list myself as looking for a group for X Dungeon or Dungeons, or Raids or Camping group. The tool should also let me list my group if I have one. This allows players to see who is looking for a group and who has a group that needs people. I dont think people will stick around if they have to do /LFG Looking for group I been here for an hour someone please take me. People today need some level of convienance and listing themselves as looking or list the group as looking can fill the role of enough convienance without being an MMO breaking tool.
HelzBelz said:Dullahan said:To me the modern, casual, instanced mmorpg is fast food gaming. I understand why its there. The same reason the drive through in McDonalds is there - convenience. Its much harder to orchestrate the huge open world and spread and balanced all the content in such a way that there is competition, but no so much that the player feels stifled.
The truth is, casual mmos aren't created to promote immersion or to simulate a virtual society. They are there for quick and easy fun. I'm not knocking that, I'm just disappointed in the decision so many studios have made to abandon the mmoRPG and the depth that goes with it, especially in light of the fact that casual mmos haven't been particularly profitable for anyone outside of Blizzard.
I'm looking forward to a restaurant quality game in Pantheon and all the ambience that goes with it!
Hey Dullahan,
Good to see you here from MMORPG.com.
Anyways I want to disagree with you on the Instance vs open world arguement. In Vanilla\TBC WOW I met a lot of people by doing Instances. The root of why MMOs have become fast foot restrutants is the fact that Dungeons have become a part of the treadmill and todays MMOs force you to do X amount of Dungeons to get to the Raid instances. Instances are NOT the problem. Its how they are designed. I think Pantheon should have instances but make them non-liner and maybe something a group could save if it is a hour or longer Dungeon\Instance where players will come back later to. The same can be said about Instanced like raids.
So lets talk about the CORE issue with Instanced play. The problem when WOW WOTLK came out is you needed to gear up from Normals to do Heroics to do raids. While at first this was fun people didnt want to go back to Normals or Heroics after they were geared. So grouping for these instances became very slow and hard to do. Its because they became obsolite and players got tired of playing mash AOE button instances. So WOW brought in the LFD tool which completely killed MMOs because the social aspect of MMOs was removed.
So how do we fix this. First I think the problem is the path from Max level to X amount of Dungeons to Y Raids. During Vanilia WOW and TBC is was easy to reach a base core state needed to get into the raids, example is Tanks needed X amount of Defense so they could not take a crit hit. This was able to be done buy crafted gear, quest gear, and Dungeon gear. There were options out there to get into raiding and it was not a long or treadmill like process. Yes the treadmill did start from Tier 1 to Tier 2 and so on. Thats is Fine thats where the treadmill should be because you can do things in an instance with a set or range of players that cannot be done in an open world raid boss. Example is look at FFXIV's boss Fates, when there are 100+ people beating on Odin the boss could be a little tough but he would die fast. The boss fight was a fast roll fight.
I Personally feel we need to really look at group size and raid size. They have to be manageable in the way of numbers PLUS look at flexiblity. Maybe a group dungeon should be scableble from 4 to 8 members. Then Raids scalable from 8 to 16 members. Then have the flexablity to save the Dungeon\Raid at a save point within the instance where no mobs spawn behind you and when the group comes in you start right at the save point. Also make tiered dungeons as well as tiered raids and make them equal in the way of progression. The first Tier of Dungeons should equal .5 of a Raid tier, then dungeon teir 1 equals Tier 2 of the raid. Also have Crafted gear as an option to help players to get from Dungeons into Raids and max level into Dungeons.
Also there should be a Looking for Group tool, BUT not a WOW Automated Looking for Group tool. The tool should be something that I could list myself as looking for a group for X Dungeon or Dungeons, or Raids or Camping group. The tool should also let me list my group if I have one. This allows players to see who is looking for a group and who has a group that needs people. I dont think people will stick around if they have to do /LFG Looking for group I been here for an hour someone please take me. People today need some level of convienance and listing themselves as looking or list the group as looking can fill the role of enough convienance without being an MMO breaking tool.
You seem to be missing the fundamental issue with instancing that we've mentioned a few times in this thread.
Krixus said:HelzBelz said:Dullahan said:stuff
other stuff
You seem to be missing the fundamental issue with instancing that we've mentioned a few times in this thread.
Pretty much this. I appreciate that you took the time to offer a way to make instancing better, but even the best case scenario doesn't mesh with a virtual world or Pantheon. See the first post in the thread where I feel like I covered the major negative aspects of instancing. Unfortunately, @HelzBelz I don't feel like your solutions adequately address those things.
Dullahan said:Krixus said:HelzBelz said:Dullahan said:stuff
other stuff
You seem to be missing the fundamental issue with instancing that we've mentioned a few times in this thread.
Pretty much this. I appreciate that you took the time to offer a way to make instancing better, but even the best case scenario doesn't mesh with a virtual world or Pantheon. See the first post in the thread where I feel like I covered the major negative aspects of instancing. Unfortunately, @HelzBelz I don't feel like your solutions adequately address those things.
Let me bring up from another post why I feel this way with a few other solutions. The problem is Camping the way I am seeing it from FFXI will cause the game to become too niche that Pantheon will not be able to keep the lights on.
Now When I played FFXI a game I loved but the camping was a major problem. I was working to get a shield off the Orcish Barricader. I remember for 3 months I tried every day to get that shield, not once did I get a shot at killing the Barricader because there was always 50+ people there and the respawn happened every 2 hours if I remember. The largest guild ran that spawn and controlled how many shields were on the market because they had the people to do that.
If I was to go through that again I will just quit the game. That type of BS is why instances were built. HOWEVER I have a solution to the problem that is not instanced. What if that Barricader spawned in 10 or more places throughout the world and the spawns were fast enough that 1 guild could not run the spawns? Also that drop rates would be high enough there was no benefit for Guilds to do this? Also what about making gear that is crafted that could be as good or not better than a boss drop? This way someone is not spending so much time trying to get 1 piece of gear because there is little to no replacement and that boss spawn is located in 1 part of the world?
If that was put into place then I wouldn’t end up frustrated because some guild with 1000 members keeps my guild of lets say 15 members away from doing things we want to do?
Another option is to Phase certain areas to groups running through them. For example I played SWG and I loved when player created bases would become active to blow them up, when not actived my friends and I would pick an Imp base somewhere and try to do it like we do with Player run bases. Problem is it was not the same with 20 or so other people running around shooting stuff up. So why not Phase a few of these bases to allow people like myself and my friends to go run a WOW Dungeon like base? What I am invisioning for Pantheon, lets say there is some big bad ass warlord that drops Big Bad Ass sword. We all want a shot at it and if he spawns in Fort BAD ASS in the throne room we are likely to see endless camping by the largest guilds. Well why not for this fort put a bubble around it and instance it out so that any group of any size can go in, get their own instance of Big Bad Ass Warlord and his Fort where we can all go through it and try to kill him. This allows groups of any sizes to take a crack at the boss lets say once a day and move to something else.
I am not saying all bosses should have this or that these phased/instanced bubbles should be there forever. Maybe after several months it becomes a open world boss. This makes it so larger guilds cannot control a spawn. What I am trying to solve is **** that happen against me and that I did. I controlled the Shadow Wyrm room on UO for weeks with my friends and didnt allow others into it. It hurt the community because people quit because of it. At 18 years old I didnt care but at 36 I know that type of behavoir is not acceptable, but I know too that I cannot stop problematic people in the game by wishing.
FFXI did not do rare spawns well, imo. If that is what you are basing your experience with contested content on, I'm not surprised you have come to the conclusion that instances are the solution. EQ did it much better.
With FFXI, you had hard timers on many rare spawns instead of making it random. That meant players, as you said, just showed up and had a show down. This still happens on emu servers, and it was something of a rude awakening for me. The fact that players had a complete disregard for anyone who might have been sitting at the spawn, of the level, killing the mobs that triggered that rare spawn. They cared not and would just kill it with the people looking on who just spent hours there clearing the triggers.
Beyond that, and more of an aside, the FFXI system did not encourage players to keep playing. I actually experienced this just this week on an FFXI emu. I learned that the spot I was grinding had a rare, but that it could only spawn every 2 hours. This ended up causing me to just log out when with an EQ spawn system, it would have given me a reason to press on.
EQ had its issues, but they had the right idea. Yes, it was still contested but both the way EQ was itemized was better (offering more alternatives on particular item types), and the way rares spawned gave people hope that if they managed to get in a camp, they could get an item. If VRI can make sure there are item alternatives or that a spawn or item can appear in multiple places within a dungeon, I do not believe it will be a problem. Certainly not a problem that will result in them struggling to keep the lights on...
Dullahan said:FFXI did not do rare spawns well, imo. If that is what you are basing your experience with contested content on, I'm not surprised you have come to the conclusion that instances are the solution. EQ did it much better.
With FFXI, you had hard timers on many rare spawns instead of making it random. That meant players, as you said, just showed up and had a show down. This still happens on emu servers, and it was something of a rude awakening for me. The fact that players had a complete disregard for anyone who might have been sitting at the spawn, of the level, killing the mobs that triggered that rare spawn. They cared not and would just kill it with the people looking on who just spent hours there clearing the triggers.
Beyond that, and more of an aside, the FFXI system did not encourage players to keep playing. I actually experienced this just this week on an FFXI emu. I learned that the spot I was grinding had a rare, but that it could only spawn every 2 hours. This ended up causing me to just log out when with an EQ spawn system, it would have given me a reason to press on.
EQ had its issues, but they had the right idea. Yes, it was still contested but both the way EQ was itemized was better (offering more alternatives on particular item types), and the way rares spawned gave people hope that if they managed to get in a camp, they could get an item. If VRI can make sure there are item alternatives or that a spawn or item can appear in multiple places within a dungeon, I do not believe it will be a problem. Certainly not a problem that will result in them struggling to keep the lights on...
I think we are on the same page now. Yea FFXI was really bad with the rare spawns. At least if the Rare spawns spawned every 15 minutes to 2 hours randomly throughout the zone kind of like FFXIV then it's not a problem but **** I got to a point I hated FFXI because of the rudness. I loved the group game play like no other outside of Vanilla\TBC Dungeons, nothing beat some of those groups I enjoyed. I guess we will see. I just dont want to find myself back in the same realm where I was with FFXI where I hated standing around for hours hoping I might get what I was trying to get only to have no chance.
HelzBelz said:I think we are on the same page now. Yea FFXI was really bad with the rare spawns. At least if the Rare spawns spawned every 15 minutes to 2 hours randomly throughout the zone kind of like FFXIV then it's not a problem but **** I got to a point I hated FFXI because of the rudness. I loved the group game play like no other outside of Vanilla\TBC Dungeons, nothing beat some of those groups I enjoyed. I guess we will see. I just dont want to find myself back in the same realm where I was with FFXI where I hated standing around for hours hoping I might get what I was trying to get only to have no chance.
FFXI was more of a group play game than any modern MMO, but it was far more solo friendly than EQ. As such, players were able to progress and enjoy the game alone if they chose, and with little regard for others or what they thought. In EQ, grouping was the norm. A few classes could get away with snubbing groups for leveling and they could even make money farming lower level camps, but progression was largely dependent on how well you got along with others. That created accountability. That meant stealing a mob from a group camping an area would come back on you and hinder your ability to get in groups or guilds down the line.
Whether a player's reputation will really matter in 2017 remains to be seen. I can only say based on my observations, that the more you can accomplish alone (or anonymously - instanced/megaservers anyone?), the less player reputation matters. If you don't have to rely on others to fully explore the world or reach max level, most people won't worry about what others think. Accountability goes out the window unless players need each other.
Amasai he doesn't know much about FFXI. I actually ran into one of his group on said EMU server ( that is, assuming you were with rallyd, I play there myself) and most of them really didn't try to understand it. Much of what you just said dullahan is factually wrong.
Only a FEW NMs (notorious monsters, bosses, whatever you would call them) are timed. The VAST majority of them in FFXI were what people called lotto NMs which means they were in fact random. They often had a MINIMUM cooldown after being killed to spawn but after that cooldown it could take 5 minutes to 18 hours. Some of them had very set spawn places and others had much wider and more random conditions. Even on timed spawns many of them had windows (for example behemoth 20-23 hours so a 3 hour random window).
As for being able to progress solo that really was not possible in FFXI as it really was back when it was good. Most of the time you would struggle to fight monsters a good few levels under you when you were going solo. From level 10 - 75 (then cap) it was 99% group everything. I will thank you to not make sweeping judgements about a game you barely played.
Dullahan said:
Whether a player's reputation will really matter in 2017 remains to be seen. I can only say based on my observations, that the more you can accomplish alone (or anonymously - instanced/megaservers anyone?), the less player reputation matters. If you don't have to rely on others to fully explore the world or reach max level, most people won't worry about what others think. Accountability goes out the window unless players need each other.
I feel this part really matters on how good you are. If you suck at your class and you are an ass Yah you are SOL. But if you are a top player in your class lets face it most guilds groups would be asking you to join regardless.
Mephiles said:Amasai he doesn't know much about FFXI. I actually ran into one of his group on said EMU server ( that is, assuming you were with rallyd, I play there myself) and most of them really didn't try to understand it. Much of what you just said dullahan is factually wrong.
Only a FEW NMs (notorious monsters, bosses, whatever you would call them) are timed. The VAST majority of them in FFXI were what people called lotto NMs which means they were in fact random. They often had a MINIMUM cooldown after being killed to spawn but after that cooldown it could take 5 minutes to 18 hours. Some of them had very set spawn places and others had much wider and more random conditions. Even on timed spawns many of them had windows (for example behemoth 20-23 hours so a 3 hour random window).
As for being able to progress solo that really was not possible in FFXI as it really was back when it was good. Most of the time you would struggle to fight monsters a good few levels under you when you were going solo. From level 10 - 75 (then cap) it was 99% group everything. I will thank you to not make sweeping judgements about a game you barely played.
First, you have no idea when or how much I've played FFXI. Minimum cooldowns are timed, btw. Maybe those timers are shorter for some mobs, but not common, thus what I said stands. Are you trying to say that as early as the first few expansions, you couldn't solo mobs below your level and gain xp? That you couldn't progress without grouping?
Either way, the proof is in the pudding. If people were really that dependent on one another, people wouldn't just roll up and **** on others. People had to retire characters and start over for that kind of stuff in EQ.
Dullahan said:Mephiles said:Amasai he doesn't know much about FFXI. I actually ran into one of his group on said EMU server ( that is, assuming you were with rallyd, I play there myself) and most of them really didn't try to understand it. Much of what you just said dullahan is factually wrong.
Only a FEW NMs (notorious monsters, bosses, whatever you would call them) are timed. The VAST majority of them in FFXI were what people called lotto NMs which means they were in fact random. They often had a MINIMUM cooldown after being killed to spawn but after that cooldown it could take 5 minutes to 18 hours. Some of them had very set spawn places and others had much wider and more random conditions. Even on timed spawns many of them had windows (for example behemoth 20-23 hours so a 3 hour random window).
As for being able to progress solo that really was not possible in FFXI as it really was back when it was good. Most of the time you would struggle to fight monsters a good few levels under you when you were going solo. From level 10 - 75 (then cap) it was 99% group everything. I will thank you to not make sweeping judgements about a game you barely played.
First, you have no idea when or how much I've played FFXI. Minimum cooldowns are timed, btw. Maybe those timers are shorter for some mobs, but not common, thus what I said stands. Are you trying to say that as early as the first few expansions, you couldn't solo mobs below your level and gain xp? That you couldn't progress without grouping?
Either way, the proof is in the pudding. If people were really that dependent on one another, people wouldn't just roll up and **** on others. People had to retire characters and start over for that kind of stuff in EQ. I can't beleive that about EQ I could do and say anything I wanted and I never got rejected from any group. Hell I did and said such nasty thigns to enemy guilds in EQ and EQ2 and they still asked me to join over and over.
Well you can believe it, it happened. There were many people who could not join any of the major guilds because of their misconduct (Tarew Marr). If anyone in our guild had an issue with a player, they did not get in. Frankly, based on your statements @Kalgore, I have a hard time believing you even played EQ early on.
It was especially prevalent on Rallos Zek with PKs. If you randomly killed other players, you had the option of joining a PK guild or creating a new character if you wanted to see the inside of a high level dungeon or raid zone.
Dullahan said:Well you can believe it, it happened. There were many people who could not join any of the major guilds because of their misconduct (Tarew Marr). If anyone in our guild had an issue with a player, they did not get in. Frankly, based on your statements @Kalgore, I have a hard time believing you even played EQ early on.
It was especially prevalent on Rallos Zek with PKs. If you randomly killed other players, you had the option of joining a PK guild or creating a new character if you wanted to see the inside of a high level dungeon or raid zone.
I dont really care what you think. Im just saying from my experaince wasnt an issue. Pande never seemed to have an issue killing stuff and being a guild full of assholes and PKers