Aena said:The more things that encourage socializing, the better.
And the more things that give that interaction a chance of being positive, the better.
A rather sweeping statement. You know what they say about intentions. Certain mechanics can have the exact opposite effect.
1. love the idea of capping mentoring to lvl 10 and below. This gives you 10 lvls to learn how to play the game and judging my the stream from the end of march, you should know the basics by 10. Also a great cut off if there is a chance to demo the game for free from lvls 1-10. This is a great way to cut down on possible abuse to the system, as well as probably limit the amount of people mentoring down and taking a group position in a group. Side note, once all people in the group hit 10, the mentor buff or debuff however you choose to see it, should break so that you cant continue helping them, again to prevent abuse.
2. I feel the community as a whole needs to realize that; yes we want a much more difficult game than the current single player MMOs the industry is offering us, but Brad is right to point out that if the game isnt sustainable financially in the long run, then we wont have our dream game very long. We NEED new players to come to Pantheon, and we need them to subscribe and stay. As Brad has pointed out they did not grow up on the same types of MMOs we did, and will need to be introduced to how to play this type of MMO. So to some extent, in the earliest parts of the game, we are going to need something as obvious as a pop up message that says - Congo-rats! you beat the tutorial, before you head out of town you will want to find a few friends to adventure with. The outside world is not forgiving to lone adventurers.
3. Guys.... there are going to be systems purposed at this point in the game making process that you are going to think are a HUGE mistake, but relax, its Brad and his team trying things out. Remember, they are gamers just like you and me, thats why they are making THIS game, and not WoW2. They want the same game that we want. They have played the same games we have, and have had similar feelings about them. Lets give them the benefit of the doubt until we get in game and play with the system that they implement, not the ones they talk about. And if some system in game is broken, how about we try and fix it, instead of shitting on the Devs. If a system in entirely broken, and 85%+ of the testing population agrees, then we can talk to them about pulling it from the game.
Aradune said:*warning* Long post ahead!
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Anyway, 'nuff said, my verbose mode was certainly ON so hopefully you actually made it to the end of this post, but I wanted to cover it all and then bring it all together, so you guys understand why we're doing what we're doing. I look forward to any comments, questions, etc.
Awesome post. This is why I am so excited to play this game. There are always thousands of details but this overall philosophy is what will make this game a success.
Aena said:More positive socializing is a "sweeping statement"? Huh. Seems really limited to me.
Certain mechanics can have the exact effect intended.
lol okay. "the more the better" is a pretty cut and dry statement. What about mechanics that encourage socialization but ruin immersion? As always, people don't seem to think about the impact of the things they want (or don't want). Everquest didn't have server wide chat and it promoted and increased person to person communication. You actually had to reach out to people in other zones over tells, make a personal inquiry, instead of just spamming a channel and hoping you got a response.
You do not need handholding mechanics to make people be social. If the game is good, and people like playing it, and the game funnels success through social interaction, people will be social because they want to be successful. It is a means to an end. If people want that end they will do what it takes to get it in the best way possible. And those who aren't social will have less success. You will have a Darwinian effect. It will manifest itself organically.
Kalgore said:Aich said:Good Post Brad. I like timesinks in the groupign for social building etc. Bathroom break and drink break.
I have no problem with some time sinks to allow for social building and bathroom breaks. But if I have to wait 45 minutes for a boat to take me someplace thats a serious time sink that does nothing because I will have my screen minimuzed working on something else most likely. Long zones requiring stopping to recharge and things are great. There needs to be a balance between what was and what is
It makes the trip worthwhile. Maybe work on fishing.
Nero'd :P. Lot of Ardune posts in this. Searching on myself finds alot of cool stuff.
To me on this subject, I think the mentoring system should simply just me a rep thing that gives you some cool items but aren't totally nesscary but nice to have, and maybe a ranking system for some titles to wear, but again nothing fancy, that way you can show you are using the system, but don't gain vertical progression while doing it, that is one of the few parts of the system I don't like, I don't mind it being their to help out your friends of guilds or even random people but I think doing it and gained exp at the same time shouldn't be a thing.
Also is this whole veteran shards and non veteran shard thing still in the works or not, haven't heard anything on that for a really long time.