In every MMO, as parts of daily in-game life were automated, there was less and less human interaction, leading to an easier and more efficient but a lot less satisfying game.
Example 1: Trading / Auction houses.
Originally, we traded in EQ in the EC tunnel. We talked to people. People talked to us. We looked at their bags of stuff. I chatted with some of widely known traders on the server. It was something to remember.
Then came the Bazaar, with player characters being automated vendors, no talking of any kind.
Then came WoW auction house, and ever since, trading in MMO looked more like querying things in a database (Ebay? Amazon?) than anything else.
My opinion: no auction houses please. No automated trading of any sort.
Example 2: Teleporting.
Originally we asked people for port, bought ports, joined sort of buses, where a single porter would port in a chain to several places (cheaper ticket than if you charter him just for yourself), and we talked to them. It was quite common for a druid porting people around to toss in a SoW and other buffs.
Then we got Nexus portals, and then... modern games just let you queue from wherever you are, and you pop into the dungeon. No people, no travel, no zones, no nothing. Result? No memorable experiences either.
My opinion? No automated teleporting, please. Put a ship in a couple places, where people have to get there and travel on it together, if you must.
Anything else has to be handled by humans, for humans.
Example 3: Binding.
We used to ask for, or buy, a bind at a bind point. Then it was automated through binder npcs. Again, less interaction, less talking to people.
Example 4: Grouping.
We used to look for group, and look for players/replacements in chat channels. People talked. They compared what's needed for a group in a specific place, who brings what to the table, who's from what guild, and whatnot. People discussed how will the new member get there, will someone port him, how will they clear to zone or otherwise get him to the group.
Nowadays it's automated in game UIs, resulting in reducing the human interaction yet again.
I don't want that.
I hope that Pantheon team understands that human interaction is the good part of the game, not something to be automated.
I agree with most of that but would differ a bit on the trading system and say a modified version of EQ2's approach would be best. Allow for automated/offline trading but with a steep commission so that people are still encouraged to trade and chat face to face. Set up a physical auction house in each town (and each house having their own inventory to encourage trade between areas). Have an NPC charge an up-front nominal cost for listing something plus some 20-40% commission on the final selling price if it is sold.
A steep commission will encourage face-to-face trades for big ticket items while not putting an undue burden on the crafter who wants to spend 3 hours each evening crafting hundreds of different potions, put them up for sale, and login again in the morning to see who has bought his wares.
I really hope to see some form of auction house. Standing somewhere for hours and spamming "WTS" isn't exactly my idea of fun. Sure if you have a really nice item it can be nice to auction it that way, but much more often you'll have smaller, "uninteresting" stuff you may want to get rid of. I don't remember selling much if anything in EQ, just because I found it so exceedingly boring to stand in one place and spam ooc.
The other points of Aethor are very true however, especially the teleporting. I would also add (necro) corpse summoning vs. graveyards to the list. Anything that strengthens interdependence and encourages interaction is good for the game.
In principle I'm not in favour of auction houses as I agree they kill one of the primary opportunities for interacting with your fellow players. I think Gemdiver's suggestion of levying a heavy tax or commission on AH sales to encourage face to face trading is a sound idea and a reasonable compromise provided the percentage is high enough to be effective.
Automated teleport or bind systems - definitely evil.
I'm not quite prepared to give up on LFG tools entirely however. For any system that was totally automated I would agree with Aethor. I think the traditional LFG in zone chat suffices quite nicely. I do think there's room for some sort of well thought out bulletin board system interconnecting between taverns where people could do the equivalent of sticking a note on a wall asking for assistance or offering same. I'd envision that it would have a system where spam posts could be reported and an automated system which would mute the poster if enough complaints are raised against the account. I'd also think it should include something that would allow me to toggle whether I wanted to see posts from people who were offline and whether to show LFA (looking for assistance) or WTH (willing to help) posts.
Sarim raises an excellent point regarding corpse runs and necros. While no necro class has been announced for Pantheon, I would like to see one or two classes that have dedicated skills for corpse retrieval. Any sort of graveyard system that automates CR, if it did exist, should only pull corpses automatically after some lengthy period like ten or more days and should have a major penalties associated with it: no experience recovery possible, lengthy recovery debuff, etc...) GYs should only exist within the zone and not be global. I'd hate to see someone lose their gear entirely because they got too ambitious exploring or wound up in an exceptionally bad pickup group. On the other hand, those actions need to have serious consequences. The GY should be a measure of last resort and not something players rely on routinely for recovery.
I'd like to add one more partially automated system that I hope does not appear in Pantheon - quest sharing. Some games have had the ability for group members to share the quests they have for a particular zone or dungeon with eligible group members. This did not bypass quest level requirements or allow you to skip quest chain steps, but it did allow you to get quests that originated from task boards or quest NPCs which you had never visited. It allowed one person in the group for example to run to a quest hub, grab all of the relevant quests, then run back and share them with everyone in the group. I give two thumbs down on quest sharing and would add a third thumb if I had one to quest hubs. This of course assumes that the process of getting a quest is meaningful and not merely something where you run up to every NPC with an exclamation mark over their head. If that's all there is to getting quests, then you might as well enable quest sharing.
Add my +1 to just about all you have said.
So many of my gaming memories revolve around the player interaction from EQ. The hustle and bustle of EC tunnel and trading in person.Waiting on the boat and if you arrived at the dock just after it set sail swimming like mad after it hoping you can catch it so you wouldn't have to wait for the next one.Heck I even miss the zone shout outs from folks asking about the timing of the boat. I would be ok if in addition to the old school EC tunnel trading if they did add in local auction houses that you would have to travel to in person to view the goods players are selling in that specific town.
Meeting up with players for buffs and ports and even keeping track of player names for when you were in need of those services they provided. Now a-days I barely even remember the players names that get auto added to my group from the group finder features. If it is decided that some port NPCS are put in game I would love to see a new twist added to them. Instead of them porting you for gold you need to pay them in magic items to fuel their magic. The farther the port the more powerful the magic item. Example would be say you wanted the NPC to port you from Kunark to Velious your talking the magic item would be on the power level of a staff of resurrection.
Working on building a reputation on your server so that when those shouts go out for a camp group replacement you would have a good chance of being chosen out of all the folks responding. Will be nice to be in a camp group where there is time for chatting and getting to know the players that your grouped with. As opposed to todays groups where your lucky if everyone that gets atuo grouped even say hello.
Corpse retrieval. Boy oh boy do I hope that this is added in. The joy of finding a monk to corpse drag you back to zone in or finding a kind necro to corpse summon you so you could then find someone to rez you. This type of player interaction is so sorely missed in today's games.
I'm tired of today games that throw game immersion and player interaction out the window in the name of convenience. Same way I view all this "social networking" texting, tweeter, face book, as actually being anything, but socializing. Why automate socializing to the point that you don't even have to speak to someone on the phone or in person to find out what they have been doing.But I digress that is a topic for another discussion entirely.
Less is more.
Social interaction is the main part of the challenge in the game we 'want.' The more we try to get creative, change, or revolutionize a mechanic, the more we start to take away from it. We know what worked in the games that brought most of us fans here. No matter how much of a pain in the ass a corpse run is, no matter how much time we wasted looking for a port, and no matter how many days it took to sell that Iksar Breastplate, the whole experience was built off of those minor challenges. It's human instinct. Secretly, no one wants to get her panties off on the first date, because it's not attractive.
Aethor said:
In every MMO, as parts of daily in-game life were automated, there was less and less human interaction, leading to an easier and more efficient but a lot less satisfying game.
.....
I hope that Pantheon team understands that human interaction is the good part of the game, not something to be automated.
Good points by all. I have to believe that with these devs we are in good hands when in comes to these sorts of issues. My impression is (and I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth so correct me if I'm wrong) that they are coming from the same mmo background as the players, with the same memories and interests and they are doing their best to recapture a lot of what made past games so great and memorable. This includes reducing automation of tasks and increasing human interaction. It's kinda the whole philosophy behind the game. I'm not worried about there being too much automation in Pantheon. :)
I agree with everything here. I am all about making a game more challenging and a big way to do that is with less automation. It's not something I really ever thought about, but now that I am, it's likely a big reason that I get bored with newer games incredibly fast. I also might be a little biased since I was a druid and made most of my money through player interaction by undercutting the other people offering porting services! :)