Player Village:
The goal of player villages would be to untie a lot of the milestones/crafting skills/achievements/progression/flagging/keying from a single character, and then tie them to an account instead. The majority of MMO players only play 1 or 2 classes of the 10-20 usually available in MMOs due to time constraints OR the amount of repeat work they would have to do for each new character. That is a massive shame considering all of the gameplay they are missing out on. With player villages, you would be looking to improve various things about your own village instead of your single characters, and the repeat work would be minimal. This would encourage exploring all of the crafting and all of the classes the game has to offer.
Progression and Flagging/Keying:
We all have played many games that have great character progression in the form of quests, dungeons, and raids. We all have also had to decide if playing another character was worth it due to all of the reflagging needed to gain access to the contain you are wanting to experience with a new class. I would argue that more often than not, we choose not to do it. Player Villages would encourage a player to experience as much of the progression as possible, knowing that they are progressing for their whole account instead of a single character.
Crafting:
No longer would you have 1 character that is good at X and another character that is good at Y. You could have those crafting skill be tied to stations in your village that you improve through various ways for all of your characters to make use of. You could also allow your guild access to visit and use them at any time. I think this type of thing would encourage people to gradually experience crafting even if it wasn't their thing. Maybe looting a pattern of something on any character allows your village to now produce that thing.
Housing:
With an instanced account-based home, there would be a massive amount of opportunity for things like customizable player housing. There is also an opportunity to implement things like refreshing mining nodes, farming crops for tradeskills/food, and even seeing your characters living in your village as NPCs when you are not on them. The possibilities here are endless, and so are the in game cash shop options to support it.
Class/Role Availability:
A lot of games end up having a flaw where there aren't enough of a certain roles available at that time to play through the needed content. Taking all of the progression off of one character and putting it on a village would allow players to have many characters in different roles available to slide in when needed to play through some content. The game wouldn’t be as reliant on even class distribution to succeed. I am picturing playing with friends, and not having a tank or something. One of us could just hop on our tank and play that for that session. This would be WAY more viable if there were less barriers of entry for alts to be effective when needed.
Storage:
You could easily have account-based storage and banking systems that would support all your characters instead of individually.
In summary, there are about a million different things you can do with this idea…I have just highlighted a couple. But, in my opinion, it is clear that games need to get away from having players only experience 10% of a games basic mechanics/systems because it would be too much repeat work so support for alternate characters. And I think a form of Player Villages would fix that.
Some of these things are kind of counter to the experience Pantheon is seeking to angle toward. Things like being social or present in the world (existing in towns/cities & not hiding in instances), relying on other players/strangers, and single characters/accounts not being able to do it all (crafts, classes, etc). I am not really sure players often only playing a couple classes/roles on average is really a big problem so long as those players enjoy the class(es) they do pick.
There may be some subtle point I am missing but I see the entire post about "player villages" as being a suggestion that almost everything be made accountwide not per character. So that, as in games like Rift or FFXIV or DDO one character can do anything and there is never a need for any alts.
I agree to this extent - in a game with a very slow progression speed there is likely to be a strong barrier to having more than one character because it simply takes so long to get a second one up to maximum level and geared up.
I disagree to this extent - in a game focused on the journey not the destination - the world not "endgame" this may be a solution to a non-existant problem. Getting to maximum level will not be a constraint it will be something some people want to do and others do not want to do.
I disagree to this extent also - the more one character can do anything the less need there is for social interaction.
On balance IMO the nays have it.
I have no clue what you read, but it couldn't have been what I posted. Nothing stated here implies anyone "hiding from people" or being anti-social. The entire point of the very basic idea to provide a more attactive way to play many classes without having a single-character multi-class system. The devs are working very had to create meaningly classes, and it's sucks to know that most people will only play 1 or 2 at or near max level/all skills aquired.
I am not sure what games you have been playing...but...in every MMO I have ever played, in every group of friends I have ever played with, and in every guild I have ever led...there has been issues with players being stuck playing 1 or 2 characters based on the time they had already invested into them, the current raid flagging those characters had, and what was needed for a fight or an event. I have also seen a TON of players never experience more than 1 or 2 classes because they would lose out on improving their main character. I think that is sad.
A lot of people end up picking a class without playing more than 1 or 2, then just never go back to play any others due to the repeat basic stuff they would have to unlock/flag for.
I think it's a bit niave/idealistic to say that Pantheon will not have the same issues other MMOs have in this respect simply because you dont want them to. Nobody is here to nitpick Pantheon. No need to get defensive of it.
The suggestion was NOT to enable 1 person to do everything, it was to enable you do to what you want...but not tie everything to a single character's identity.
Examples:
Shared Bank for money/items
Housing space for you characters on your account
Shared Crafting skills that you improve
Shared raid flagging if that will even be a thing
Shared Achievements
I am not suggesting that it be easy to level alts or anything, it would just be nice to have account progression for a lot of things instead of character progression is all. It would suck to switch mains or something and then have to re-level smithing as an example.
Tomwandro said:I have no clue what you read, but it couldn't have been what I posted. Nothing stated here implies anyone "hiding from people" or being anti-social. The entire point of the very basic idea to provide a more attactive way to play many classes without having a single-character multi-class system. The devs are working very had to create meaningly classes, and it's sucks to know that most people will only play 1 or 2 at or near max level/all skills aquired.
I am not sure what games you have been playing...but...in every MMO I have ever played, in every group of friends I have ever played with, and in every guild I have ever led...there has been issues with players being stuck playing 1 or 2 characters based on the time they had already invested into them, the current raid flagging those characters had, and what was needed for a fight or an event. I have also seen a TON of players never experience more than 1 or 2 classes because they would lose out on improving their main character. I think that is sad.
A lot of people end up picking a class without playing more than 1 or 2, then just never go back to play any others due to the repeat basic stuff they would have to unlock/flag for.I think it's a bit niave/idealistic to say that Pantheon will not have the same issues other MMOs have in this respect simply because you dont want them to. Nobody is here to nitpick Pantheon. No need to get defensive of it.
The suggestion was NOT to enable 1 person to do everything, it was to enable you do to what you want...but not tie everything to a single character's identity.
Examples:Shared Bank for money/items
Housing space for you characters on your account
Shared Crafting skills that you improve
Shared raid flagging if that will even be a thing
Shared Achievements
I am not suggesting that it be easy to level alts or anything, it would just be nice to have account progression for a lot of things instead of character progression is all. It would suck to switch mains or something and then have to re-level smithing as an example.
The hiding from people bit comes from the idea of a "village" or player housing with luxuries like harvesting nodes and crafting stations etc. This removes a lot of the player population feel from the greater world and cities in particular.
I am not entirely sure how the shared systems would allow players to engage multiple classes very easily. It would still take massive amounts of time to level different characters which I'd argue is the number one thing that stops players from leveling multiple alts. There might be some flagging sort of things for Pantheon but I doubt it will be the same as other quest-hub based (WoW) games or main story quest (FFXIV) style. I think players will be locked out by characters skills (or friends who can help) more than not having done X questline, things like climbing skill or perception or acclimation etc. Though for some players engaging these things again is enjoyable.
I am not sure what shared crafting does to entice as players can still do multiple crafts with separate characters. If the idea is one character can level/max all crafting "stations" in their village than I am not a fan. Part of the limitation on players crafts is to encourage reaching out to others instead of being able to do it all oneself.
Shared bank I can imagine might be a thing. I'd personally prefer just a couple shared slots (with limitations like not being able to place "no-drop" items in them) but otherwise individual banks.
It's nothing new in MMOs to allow players ways to save time when making alts. EQ was one of the earliest MMOs and despite having no in-game mechanic built specifically for this purpose, inflation was huge due to almost all items being tradeable and nothing having a repair cost, so twinking your alts with high-end items was easy and made early content trivial. WoW had several mechanics that facilitated multiple characters, be it rested XP or just being able to buy a boost for your character. Several other games have implemented similar boosting mechanics for alts. Perhaps most interesting is FFXIV's system where you can change classes as easily as switching gear, but you have to level each one independently. This allows the player to "roll an alt" without having to do all the quests all over again - they only need to gain xp as their alternate class(es).
Really, the best system is going to depend on the game. FFXIV would be extremely prohibitive to alternate characters if it didn't have the system described above as the game revolves around a main story quest that takes many hours to complete and at times is quite tedious. For a game like Pantheon, the best system is really going to be up to the devs - they know their game better than any of us, after all. How heavily will the game rely on quests, and will doing the same quests on a new character feel like a total chore? Will people want to put in the time and effort to master every crafting skill? Is it even feasible to do so? Is the goal to make it prohibitively time-consuming to do so?
I think that VR probably doesn't want to make switching classes (or mastering every crafting class) as easy as it is in FFXIV, but they would be foolish to make your 2nd, 3rd, etc characters take as long as your first. We've heard of the progeny system before, and while they haven't mentioned it in a while, I would imagine if they are looking for a way to speed up the process of leveling additional characters then the progeny system will be how they do it. Maybe we will be able to make a 2nd character that is the "progeny" of our main and thus gains XP at a faster rate until they are the same level as our main or something. Maybe they have access to the same bank space, or have some of the same quest flags done. Or maybe simply knowing the quests ahead of time on your 2nd character will make it much easier to complete them since they've said before you don't necessarily have to go through all quest dialogue and can jump into a quest mid-way through.
Either way, we can certainly think about different ways we would like to see it done, but in all likelihood this is something VR has already thought of and planned around, so I wouldn't worry too much.
Disclaimer (I should add this to every post I make because they all seem to go the same way!): If this post seems over-defensive or even aggressive I don't mean it that way.
If it seems I'm targeting you as 'responsible' for everything I am criticising, I don't mean that, I'm just responding to you, then waffling away.
I feel relatively strongly about the MMORPG genre, and the way it has changed, but it is just a hobby.
If we were discussing it at a bar I would be smiling and buying you a pint as we chat ;^)
To the post...
I believe I understand, but, as Iksar said, things like interdependancy are intentional design choices that VR is making so that Pantheon is an MMORPG that brings back some great aspects that have been lost or diminished over the years. You might not mean your ideas to diminish interdendency or social aspects or whatever else VR are aiming for, but they would, I believe.
Sharing keying: Removes the desire to 'replay' pivotal parts of the game. Not that it will necessarily work the same in Pantheon, but 'getting keyed' was fun in itself, in my experience, in games like Everquest. Doing it on multiple characters is only a problem if the game itself isn't fun or doesn't have much variety or the classes aren't distinct, such that doing stuff again feels exactly the same.
Yes in some more modern MMOs, where the endgame is what it's all about and the grind to get there is uninteresting and unvaried, I can well imagine players might want to avoid as much of the journey to endgame as possible. If this is a problem in Pantheon, something fundamental has gone wrong way before keying is an issue.
Crafting: Interdependancy is vital to social gaming. Having shared guild crafting stations that only one crafter has to level removes a whole load of inter-guild socialising that is arguably even more important than socialising between non-guilded players.
Housing: I don't care much for player housing - it seems it would simply be a convenience to be able to put items in there that all your alts have gained. This is effectively the same as sharing banks, to me.
Class/Role Availability: Shared progression? Like shared XP? That you can transfer to whatever class you like? Would this not result in people playing high level characters very badly, because they haven't played them from level 1? Twinking can be problematic enough, but this sounds quite a bad idea. No offense intended.
If you don't mean shared XP, I'm not sure what you mean, as the barrier to people having alt classes is time to level them, not them being distinct characters.
Banking: I've never been against shared banking, in concept, but only because people find the workaround of using other players to swap items, or having 'mule' characters or even seperate accounts, which has its own problems. There's another post at the moment about the economy that suggests fees/taxes to control the economy. It seems to be that moving items between accounts should be allowed but taxed, just like trading is. Shared banking is a classic 'convenience' thing, but might be reasonably harmless.
In summary: Yes there are lots of things that can be done like these. There are lots of things that have been tried by MMOs over the years. Some have been ok - some have had a detriment to the concept of MMORPGs that have lead us here, wanting Pantheon, a game that will restore much of the MMORPG goodness that has been lost over the years.
As I've said, I think twinking is an issue and things like powerleveling is an issue, but those things will probably exist in Pantheon, because to stop them would probably stop other related social aspects we want. I'm ok with that. It should also help people that might find leveling alts feels like a chore.
VR have talked about a Progeny system and a Mentoring system, though they may not make it in at launch, partly because they are something that become more relevant later, they are thinking about replayability and alts.
I could imagine aspects of the Progeny system perhaps allowing things like shared character housing, banking and even, yes, an 'ancestor' being an NPC crafter in your shared home, but that would hopefully all be balanced with a 'cost' so it wasn't just a 'convenience'. Mentoring would be a kind of formalised, limited twinking/powerleveling/XP 'sharing' system, but *with* friends, not on your own.
"I think it's a bit niave/idealistic to say that Pantheon will not have the same issues other MMOs have in this respect simply because you dont want them to. Nobody is here to nitpick Pantheon. No need to get defensive of it."
Pantheon *will have* some of the 'issues' other old school MMOs have had in this respect. Those issues can be modernised and mitigated to some degree, but are more than worth it, if it means a return to a social, challenging, group-based, immersive MMORPG.
I know you're not nit-picking Pantheon and I'm not really being defensive of it - we're just hear discussing shizzle in a fan forum - but I am defensive of the principal of not introducing (what has become broadly known as) 'convenience' or 'QoL' features that could well diminish intended fundamental qualities of any MMORPG, including Pantheon. When people suggest that these things can be introduced in a wholly benign way or are somehow 'needed', then I will disagree, and somewhat strongly, given the way I think that kind of thing has been to the detriment of the genre as a whole over the years and left me without an MMORPG that is even slightly satisfying.
I understand what you're saying I simply disagree that it is a problem for me, the core target audience of Pantheon, or will be much of a problem for the non-core audience that Pantheon will gain.
There is lots of discussion about Pantheon being too 'niche' or needing to tone down the 'old school' aspects or it will 'fail' or not be as 'successful' as it could be. It has been talked about in other threads, so I'll summarise here:
In my not-so-humble opinion, and I believe I am aligned with how VR approach things (according to the FAQ, tenets and various comments over the years), there are more than enough 'old school' players desperate for an 'old school' MMORPG, after many years of the genre going a way they don't enjoy, that Pantheon would be a success just with them. Maybe not as big as WoW, but still a success with a loving loyal fanbase and a happy VR. Also, though, there are many players that don't feel strongly enough one way or another about old school aspects, that will enjoy the game. There are many more that have never played an 'old school' MMORPG, but will love it it when they do. There are many that think they don't like 'old school' features, but will try Pantheon and find they do, or at least that the positives are worth it.
Yes, some will be put off, just like some don't like Fortnite, but do like Battlefield. Don't like FIFA but do like
Basically, VR is not saying modern MMORPGs are bad. But they are saying a lot about old school MMORPGs are good and there's more than enough desire for a new old school MMORPG to make it very well worth doing.
*I* am saying modern MMORPGs are bad hehe, but I accept that is subjective and personal. The problem is - and the reason folks like me might seem overly defensive - is games studios these days appear to make games for the mass-market, not to make games they think are good and hope gain a big market because they are good. So we end up with homogenised mediocre flashy-but-unsatifying poop. And then when people like VR choose to design a product *they* actually want, not some marketing department thinks will be 'a hit', gamers come along and criticise on the basis that it won't be 'popular' or might put off 'the average gamer'.
TL;DR: "in my opinion, it is clear that games need to get away from having players only experience 10% of a games basic mechanics/systems because it would be too much repeat work"
In *my* opinion, games need to get away from marketing departments designing them as what the mass market of casual players would find a relaxing to play while watching Netflix and what the board of directors hopes will be trendier and more profitable than Fortnite.
I appreciate your reading an understanding my post, and I appreciate your detailed response with examples and such. To be clear, I dont know how Pantheon is going to be at all.
My suggestion of Player Villages has a very broad scale. It could mean simply shared player housing with bank/storage, could mean shared key progression, could mean shared achievements, could me shared XP (didnt mean that and am not for it). I am just proposing structure that can actualy be dialed in and adjusted at the will of the devs.
While we all have played other MMOs, lets not kid ourselves and act like this isn't going to be very similar (hopefully) to EQ. If you look at the 1st 5 expansions or so of EQ, you will quickly see that there are very extensive flagging/keying (think PoP) required to experience the content. That progression system is amazing imo. However, the downside of that would be you have to flag all of your alts as well for them to be able to participate. Of course that discourages players from starting new characters. I'm not talking about like sharing things like faction or Epic Quests. I am just talking about the extensive barriers to progression put in place with the intent of making the player beat/complete something to see. I am not asking for multli-classing or multi-specing, just a way to not have to repeat the same extensive grind work (housing, tradeskills, raid progression) I already did on another character. It shouldnt feel terrible to role a new class because you aren't feeling the current one anymore is all.
Examples:
Share Housing - Let's say, similar to every other game with any house AND EQ itself, Pantheon has some sort ofwall trophy setup. Be it weapons/armor, quest drops, heads of bosses. It would be a huge shame to decorate a house with all of that achievement and not be able to enjoy it on all of your characters.
Tradeskills (I have absolutely no idea what is planned for this) - It would be a shame to level up/improve your smithing skill with a lot of hard work and dedication...and then ever have to do it again on any alt ever. It would be a shame to go camp patterns/recipies to finally get them...and then find yourself unable to make use of that on alts or something. I understand that the goal is to be social, but you are kidding yourself if you think people doing tradeskills (likely very reliant on each other) wont have alts doing them all. And, making them accessible to your guild...is social gameplay.
Progression - Stated above in PoP in EQ, people hate note having access to zones/content on their alts even after having completed the massive quests needed for it already.
Class Dependancy - I am not saying we should multiclass, but making it more accessible to have many playable characters is amazing for a game that is going to require group play and group makeups. I mean, EQ implemented bots you can summon to play with. I am under the impression that the game will be better off if I have 3 characters to choose to play in a session than 1. I am just asking for an easier time of it than any game the devs have ever created in the past.
Player Villages is just an idea that would provide the RP background for the implementing things that may be wanted/needed. I get that Pantheon isn't going to have a massive following...but it would be nice if some of the things preventing spouses and children from playing were looked at. Would it be that terrible of a thing if we had a little less hardcore requirements (work) and double the players (family and friends playing with us)?
Anyways, thanks for reading it.
disposalist said:Housing: I don't care much for player housing - it seems it would simply be a convenience to be able to put items in there that all your alts have gained. This is effectively the same as sharing banks, to me.
Tomwandro said:Player Villages is just an idea that would provide the RP background for the implementing things that may be wanted/needed. I get that Pantheon isn't going to have a massive following...but it would be nice if some of the things preventing spouses and children from playing were looked at. Would it be that terrible of a thing if we had a little less hardcore requirements (work) and double the players (family and friends playing with us)?
Housing - not at all the most important of the points raised above but one that many of us find interesting.
I hope that we get housing - and I hope it is a purely cosmetic thing.
By this I mean - essentially useless with the possible exception of extra storage. No crafting stations. No merchants. Nothing that would encourage us to spend more time in our houses and less in the shared world.
In fact - a good housing system can encourage us to do more in the shared world. Take an example from LOTRO (whose housing system is far from one of the best). There is a small percentage chance to get a trophy from an animal (and certain other enemies) that can be taken to a taxidermist and turned into a housing trophy. Not any animal - just a few. A bear killed in a small section of The Shire. A bear killed near Esteldin. A bear killed in Forochel. Around half a dozen other animal trophies.
Lower the percentage chance of a drop to make these *really* rare. Quite a few of us may spend a lot of time going for these trophies either to display or to sell.
Should housing be shared - heck yes, of course. Less of a strain on many things if each account only needs one house - and perhaps only is allowed one house. And if VR finds it needs to have some in game micro-transactions (I am definitely not a fan of this but it could happen) or amenities sold on its website selling the ability to have a second house or selling housing decorations is about as far from "pay to win" as one can get. As are cosmetic clothing, mounts that differ only cosmetically from in-game mounts and the like.
I see what you are saying from a QoL perspective espesially regarding Keying/flagging for alts or people with more than one account.
From a crafting perspective, if the IP owner spent the time IF- and this is a HUGE IF- crafting is the same kind of drudgery that I have a bias to? which I dont think it will be in pantheon with Nephele looking at things? then yes if that crafting skill is carried over to alt chars as linked to IP then I can see that. But I doubt Crafting will be alot of Netflix and carpal tunnel in pantheon. It also assumes that each class will need the same crafting skills which may not be the case and crafting wil not be a "business" but rather something the player wil do for themselves for the joy of it and the benefit of it and will be something all players will desire to do thereby negating the need for a "business" leaving the poor "business"person behind in levels and experience whilst they try to hawk their wares no one needs for having enjoyed making their own.
Housing- meh. Glorified static storage. No one looks at it. Personally, I dont think it belongs. better resolved with world resource management. I know they talked about "silk road" but I think that should be happenstance: I have a bunch of silks from hunting in amberfaet and those darned nuisance drop-soiders, but I am heading to syronai Rest for adventure and once there plan to spend a few RL months because that is how the game is. They dont have silks in Syronnais rest. it took me 3 days at 2 hrs a day casual play finding grps or with my regular grp to get there on foot. I am NOT about to go back to get more silks but isnt it nice they are paying well for this item they dont have- kinda thing. but ok.
Shared bank- Red flag. I remember thatw as the precursor to RMT and the ruin of MMO's and the begetting of the attitude and things that lead to what has evolved to micro transactions, you dont like micro transactions or Games opn a phone? then you dont like shared banks because that si where it came from. Or at least one of the things that started it, no you cannot police it. Ask the guild players who did NOT have their expenses paid by a known TV making japanese game publisher to go to a convention and didnt know their guild leader DID have his expenses paid by a known TV making japanese game publisher- what, they didnt put in as much effort? Shared banks came out of that. All to facilitate the budding lucrative RMT business. which begat Krono, which begat Micro transactions, which begat loot boxes. Oh sure, everyone now says he was a *******, the leader, but...he went. That behavior was reinforced.
Which leads to role availability- possible red flag. You played them up from level 1 right? if not how can you be so good at that class? I had direct experience with players who clearly bought their accounts (RMT) and ruined groups because it was obvious they did not know how to play their class from not having learned what their spells or skills did from having learned on the way up, thanks to the clever and veiled descriptive writing making the player need to experiment and discover what it actually did, coupled with a severe death penalty you tested new spells in a certain area FIRST prior to actually using them and even then with a trusted group that you told you were going to try new spells which begat AE groups which were quite impressive when done well. A bard wondering why we would take two steps and grab aggro on 5 mobs with double invis in PoHate because he didnt know his AE damage song was also running, a warrior in a raid assigned one target because certain others needed to be mezzed and uses whirlwind blade to grab aggro, waking 5 mobs and wasting 20min on the wipe, the wizard duoing with a mage and managing 2 even cons and a third joins and punts, not nukes, but punts the one at 5% and wonders why we died when we were doing so well. All this because they Bought their accounts instead of played their accounts from level 1. Now, if you are a pro? bless you, all for it, alt-away, bring your needed class, great. If not? then we do something else with the classes we have. I think that way, do you? Im not one of those people that will stand around for 40min waiting for just the right buffs or the right classes, waste of time to me. If I cant get the gem of uverness for this awesome quest I am working on then I'll go help the Otters with some hokey kill task on the shore for clams besides their cute and its DB and can still get some exping in, in the meantime. Maybe others will come around and they usually do, often strangers. But if we start at the same time and you want other alts? I expect to not see you when I get to higher levels, but I do expect to see how you fare with the new friends you are making on your slow and methodical progress, I will even pass down some gear to the one playing the same class as me out of respect for the thing you are doing which I see as bringing your expertise to a constant flow of new players that will all suprpass you but have the benefit of fighting with you at whatever level you are at that time and inso doing learn crucial aspects of the game while you level all your alts. That's awesome.
Heebs said:I want to clarify that when I talk about shared bank space, I mean shared between my characters on my account, not shared with my guild or other accounts.
I might be wrong, but from what I have seen it seemed like most items in the game won't have a soulbound effect and will be freely tradeable to other players. It should be just as easy to hand stuff to other players as it is to hand stuff to your alts. I like the idea of an account shared bank slot because handing your alts stuff shouldn't require finding a third person to hold on to it while you relog your other character, or hiding it on the ground behind a hut and hoping nobody finds it before you get back with your other character.
"I like the idea of an account shared bank slot because handing your alts stuff shouldn't require finding a third person to hold on to it while you relog your other character, or hiding it on the ground behind a hut and hoping nobody finds it before you get back with your other character."
Two significant points that could affect this.
If they have unlimited mail service you can mail things to alts and not need a shared bank. How mail will work remains indeterminate.
If one can only pick items up at the branch where they were deposited - no magical effect that allows any item to be withdrawn from any bank anywhere in the world - a shared bank adds very little to convenience. How banking will work is also indeterminate, as is the auction house/broker - if any.
dorotea said:Two significant points that could affect this.
If they have unlimited mail service you can mail things to alts and not need a shared bank. How mail will work remains indeterminate.
If one can only pick items up at the branch where they were deposited - no magical effect that allows any item to be withdrawn from any bank anywhere in the world - a shared bank adds very little to convenience. How banking will work is also indeterminate, as is the auction house/broker - if any.
I'm not actually too hung up on how easy it is. If there is no shared bank or mail then I am happy to do it the hard way. I will get items to my alts one way or another lol.
Back to the topic of the OP. While I do really like player housing and guild halls and the community area you describe, I have seen a problematic trend in games that employ that. Every game that has implemented that kind of thing always sees a substantial drop in how "alive" the world feels because everyone end up spending the majority of their time outside of dungeons in those halls rather than in public places. This has been by design in a lot of cases because of hardware limitations. Developers wanted a way to spread out player load among many instances rather than deal with the performance issues caused by congregating in common places, but from an immersion perspective it tends to detract from the greater feeling of community in an MMO. I would much rather visit towns that are a little bit laggy because they are filled with live players, than to visit those towns at peak FPS and the feeling that I'm on a dead server.
Heebs said: I feel like in the year of our lord, 2022, I should not have to mail items to myself or find a third party to hold them while I switch characters. Let's be real with ourselves and understand the difference between immersion and tedium. I see no reason why account-wide bankspace shouldn't be a thing.
If it's possible via other-account characters, then it may as well be a bank transfer to avoid the possible scamming that used to occur.
That bank transfer should be taxed though, if a P2P sale would be ;)
Also shouldn't be possible between different banks, unless that would be possible between other-account characters (which I don't hink it will be). If characters on different continents can pass items around via shared banking, the localised banking/trading system would be broken.
Tomwandro said:I appreciate your reading an understanding my post, and I appreciate your detailed response with examples and such.
Glad you took it for what it was intended and didn't take offense ;)
Tomwandro said:My suggestion of Player Villages has a very broad scale. It could mean simply shared player housing with bank/storage, could mean shared key progression, could mean shared achievements, could me shared XP (didnt mean that and am not for it). I am just proposing structure that can actualy be dialed in and adjusted at the will of the devs.
Yeah the concept itself is interesting for sure, but from a role-playing point of view, there would need to be non-game reasons that possibly very disparate characters are 'associated' so closely.
I like the idea of the Progeny system giving some of the benefits you are after. Characters would have an actual family relationship.
Tomwandro said:While we all have played other MMOs, lets not kid ourselves and act like this isn't going to be very similar (hopefully) to EQ. If you look at the 1st 5 expansions or so of EQ, you will quickly see that there are very extensive flagging/keying (think PoP) required to experience the content.
Similar, yes, in many ways, hopefully, but improved upon. VR have spoken a few times over the years about 'keying' and it will be done differently, mostly, from what we hear. I would much prefer that the nature of keying is improved rather than the whole progression system and alts concepts made 'easier'.
Tomwandro said:Progression - Stated above in PoP in EQ, people hate note having access to zones/content on their alts even after having completed the massive quests needed for it already.
Kinda the same point, but prompted another thought which is "what people?". Planes of Power was pretty much when I stopped playing Everquest. The super easy teleport system altered the game in a similar way that the Dungeon Finder altered WoW. It became so easy to zap around that the game became an anti-social dungeon speedrun 'game' rather than a 'world of adventure'.
Yes, I get that repeated similar travel isn't very interesting, but the answer is to make travelling more satisfying and interesting, not remove it and fundamentally alter the nature of the world.
Tomwandro said:Player Villages is just an idea that would provide the RP background for the implementing things that may be wanted/needed. I get that Pantheon isn't going to have a massive following...but it would be nice if some of the things preventing spouses and children from playing were looked at. Would it be that terrible of a thing if we had a little less hardcore requirements (work) and double the players (family and friends playing with us)?
Anyways, thanks for reading it.
Understood. Not, it's not a terrible thing to have a little less 'hardcore requirements', but VR need to be very careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We've found that removal of 'hardcore' 'old school' features and addition of 'convenience' 'QoL' features fundamentally altered the way MMORPGs played. Some feel for the better, some for the worse. The point is, there are no longer any MMORPGs for those that appreciate the hardcore/oldschool are needed in order to keep the qualities and character of MMORPGs that we enjoy. Aspects that are social, challenging, group-focused and immersive have all been chipped away at over the years and we want them back. Pantheon will deliver what we want, as long as they remain true to their tenets and their vision.
It's a tricky line to walk for VR! They have dozens of years experience in various old school and modern MMORPGs to draw upon in order to bring the old school stuff into the modern age with care.
There's a fair amount of resistence to one of the core concepts, to make content consumable in 2 to 3 hour sessions (to be able to make 'meaningful progress', anyway). Some players would love a return to the many-hour camps of the past, but most acknowledge it would alienate even many old school players who have 'grown up' and don't have that much free time.
There has been compromise already hehe. Many players are wary of further compromise that might turn Pantheon into yet another 'modern MMORPG' is all, if you seem to get pushback on 'progressive' ideas.
I hope people aren't put off from commenting, though! Some ideas will always meet resistence, but that doesn't mean it's not interesting to talk about and that new ideas don't crop up from them.
Manouk said:But I doubt Crafting will be alot of Netflix and carpal tunnel in pantheon.
Best description ever
Yea, I get that the housing thing isn't everyone favorite thing...but there are a TON of people that love that type of stuff, myself included. I can tell you right now that My wife and all my kids would likely play if there was some sort of "home" they could decorate and spend time customizing. It would be nice to provide that for the people looking for it, but not making it a HUGE part of the game. I would of course look for it to be instanced.
