Random thought, what if they made an agreement to not post any information, guides, maps, wikis, walkthroughs, outside of the game. I remember orignal EQ1 prior to people posting on the internet everything you had to discover it or ask for help. This way you don't have to race to be the first to make it feel orignal. You can only get in game help?
Item drops off names would be exciting again even after the first player finds it and posts it.
It would be hard to track and rogue sites would pop up, posts would come up but imgagine if no one creates any guides or wikis outside of the game but worth a shot?
I hope no in game map exists either. People could build a map as an explorer and sell it as an item.
I don't think this is likely. They've said they're going to leave that up to the player. They're not going to spell everything out for you, but if you want to go look something up on a fan site, they aren't going to stop you. They already have an entire forum dedicated to fan sites.
The issue I have isn't really the guides etc. It's the people TELLING you the guides etc. You'll just have to pre-warn your group with:
"No spoilers!" :) - If they're kind they might listen and not say anything. But the chances are slim as they'll want the gear/no deaths. ;/
This game is about community. Trying to gag people and stop them discussing the game outside of it is completely antithetical to that tenet.
Stop trying to control how people will play the game.
How about no maps, wikis, or full websites dedicated to walkthroughs? Community and forum discussions for sure. It would be a lot of fun to not have to be the first to a boss or dungeon to avoid the following: "hold on let me google how we should play this situation". Okay, walk over to the right, line up against the wall, cast this spell, and go.
Most people wouldn't take the risk just for fun if you can google the solution.
ezhaya said:How about no maps, wikis, or full websites dedicated to walkthroughs? Community and forum discussions for sure. It would be a lot of fun to not have to be the first to a boss or dungeon to avoid the following: "hold on let me google how we should play this situation". Okay, walk over to the right, line up against the wall, cast this spell, and go.
Most people wouldn't take the risk just for fun if you can google the solution.
ezhaya said:How about no maps, wikis, or full websites dedicated to walkthroughs? Community and forum discussions for sure. It would be a lot of fun to not have to be the first to a boss or dungeon to avoid the following: "hold on let me google how we should play this situation". Okay, walk over to the right, line up against the wall, cast this spell, and go.
Most people wouldn't take the risk just for fun if you can google the solution.
I think you're just assuming what "most" people would do. Perhaps that is the case for MMO gamers at large, but this game already attracts a specific demographic that prefers a less guided, more immersive experience. So you're FAR from the only one here that wants to explore things for yourself. Sure, there will be some people that always follow a walkthrough, but it shouldn't be that hard to just not group with those people. Even without official wikis and such, there would still be skilled players that just have the best strategies and areas memorized from experience. It's not that different from the in-game, community-based help you were talking about.
I understand and appreciate the play experience you're trying to achieve, but a post-launch NDA is simply not going to happen. Those types of websites are going to exist. In fact, some of them are already in the making this early. But it won't be that hard to separate yourself from that and play relatively spoiler-free.
I am supremely optimistic that the need for this kind of action will be redundent!
Many 'modern' Massively Solo-Player Online RPGs have challenge levels set so low that only a few picked encounters even begin to require a 'formal strategy' at all. Even these 'strategies' are more akin to learning a set of dance moves or even a cycle of skills in order to obtain a simple, 'flawless' victory.
Pantheon is not aiming to emulate this! The level of challenge should prove high enough that players will have to use tactics ... will have to understand their skills and how they work in concert with the others in their group to ensure even simple mob pulls don't go badly! For greater challenges, a mere 'walkthrough' will probably not prove effective unless the Raid leader (or equivalent for the encounter type) knows how to marshall forces effectively, delegating activities and responses to unexpected changes to sub-leaders who know their team's strengths and weaknesses.
It seems highly unlikely that
'Stand at X, cast spell Y and you get the loot'
type instructions will prove of any use!
Evoras, thinks high challenge needs understanding of your character and how it works with others....
The Fair Use Act would prevent this idea from ever coming into fruition. Because players are consumers of the product, they are entitled to share their opinion or critique said product. This includes specific experiences within the game, etc. It's impossible to enforce an NDA as proposed, and even if it were possible, it would do far more bad than good. As others have mentioned, your best option is to play without peeking. You may also want to tell people you group with about your playstyle so they know ahead of time not to contribute anything that can spoil your experience. Personally, I would recommend rolling a tank. No better way to lead a group than being the front line. If you play anything else you'll be forced to follow the tank wherever he decides to go ... and in many circumstances, that will be the path of least resistance or wherever their guide is telling them to go.
It's all fun and games while you're just posting on forums.
Try leading 50-72-100 people on a raid, all of them expecting you to guide them to phat lewt and fun, failing, getting the whole raid wiped, repeating that a few times, and listening to bitching, to everyone trying to give you advice, and to people saying how they're tired and want to call it a night.
Extrapolate that over a couple months of raiding, think about whether you will manage to keep your current guild members and get new ones (and keep them too).
Then you'll find yourself following a walkthrough.
Sure, sometimes you have enough good people, people who don't mind getting wiped and learning... and it's fun when you figure out a strat within your own guild, without relying on outside info. As long as you can pull it off. You can't always. I did it both ways - figuring out on our own (back when WoW was new and there were no guides for Molten Core) and also using walkthroughs (EQ 1, partially). In some places in EQ, had I used more walkthroughs, we would have advanced more.
You can't have a guarantee that your A-team will always show up. You can try to recruit only the best, but such people go to the top guilds, and in order to keep your guild among those, you have to keep winning. In order to keep winning, sometimes, you will use walkthroughs. Or you can spend a month trying something, while other guilds get further ahead of you, then you play catch-up.
Have you felt the pressure from people in your raid/guild, the emotional pressure, when they expect you to keep delivering successes? All is well as long as you do, but the moment you wipe a few times... and it's back to walkthroughs.
It's a war. And if you aren't cheating, you aren't trying hard enough.
I'm glad I get to be the first person to say this, but ...
The first rule of Pantheon is: you do not talk about Pantheon.
Aside from it being impossible to police that kind of thing in today’s world, it seems to me that this would kind of go against the whole purpose of community driven content and shared resources. The game itself is designed to be challenging. If you have a walkthrough of how someone else did it that may not necessarily work for your specific party, in your specific situation, but it at least give you a place to start. I love the fact that people can discuss what works and what doesn't. I think one of the game's aims is to not have a single way to do most things. So to that end, a walkthrough that was more extensive that a general guide wouldn't be all that helpful anyway.
As for the no map thing, I think you may be confusing quality of life changes versus making a game easy. I don't expect to hit "M" and see the whole world all at once but I like to be able to see where I've been without having to refer to external resources. So it would be a major detraction for me, not to have some sort of in game map or cartography capability. Isn't the whole point to create a modern MMO with the things that were actually fun about old MMO's and not recreate, relive, and reuse old mechanics that just simply weren't fun simply because "it's always been that way"?
Please don't take what I'm saying the wrong way there isn't any maliciousness in my tone or intent. After all I'm pretty new here so why go out of my way to tick people off? :)
JDNight said:Easier, cheaper solution: Just change all of the maps, mob locations, loot tables, and quest lines every six days.
Sorry folks, tough day at work and I am feeling a bit... saucy.
A bit extreme...you could leave maps and mobs same. Changing loot tables and quest lines would be enough to wreck things, perhaps randomize mob mechanics as well
Gragorie said:JDNight said:Easier, cheaper solution: Just change all of the maps, mob locations, loot tables, and quest lines every six days.
Sorry folks, tough day at work and I am feeling a bit... saucy.
A bit extreme...you could leave maps and mobs same. Changing loot tables and quest lines would be enough to wreck things, perhaps randomize mob mechanics as well
Was a joke about how difficult such an NDA would be to enforce. It's why I mentioned the part about me feeling a bit stressed and saucy.
We have already stated that we will not be stopping anyone from creating community sites that showcase guides, maps, info etc. we actually encourage it and the community effort/teamwork that goes into those sites but we will not be giving that info in game.
That means those who dislike it can continue playing the game without having to worry and for those who need help or want to look something up, they can. We already have a community site in the works by Orselfelt - https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/4209/pantheon101
I have always enjoyed the creativity that players put into the external gaming stuff they make. Some people truly enjoy doing such as part of their total gaming experience. You cannot take that away from them. If you don't want a spoiler, don't look.
As for players in game spoiling content for others. Politely tell them to shush. I think many would agree to help without spoiling the game for others if they were warned to do so. I know I would. On the flip-side. I sure enjoy asking for help from others from time to time and finding a good friend to lend me a helping hand.
If players want to experience the game without any spoilers at all they should look for a like-minded guild. Not all guilds and players are hardcore. Some, like me, enjoy the ride, but I don't mind a little friendly help along the way from time to time.