Abacda said:I am hoping the cities are alive that if I'm a Skar shopping in the Ogre city I have to go to the Skar ward/quarter to interact with merchants until I build sufficient faction to use the Ogre section. I mean as a fellow evil race I assume I will be on a non-KoS faction and can enter and then do quests and activities to start working my faction to be offered more and more.
The more likely process here is there is no Skar quarter in the Ogre city and you won't even be able to go in until your faction is high enough.
Dhampir said:Abacda said:I am hoping the cities are alive that if I'm a Skar shopping in the Ogre city I have to go to the Skar ward/quarter to interact with merchants until I build sufficient faction to use the Ogre section. I mean as a fellow evil race I assume I will be on a non-KoS faction and can enter and then do quests and activities to start working my faction to be offered more and more.
The more likely process here is there is no Skar quarter in the Ogre city and you won't even be able to go in until your faction is high enough.
Agree. The whole "quarter" thing seems too WoW-ish.
Now for example, I wouldn't be surprised to see a dwarven bartender or blacksmith in the human city - some diversity like that can make sense in some cases. But "quarters" are more common when there is a central hub for all players or each faction (good vs. evil). That's not really how it works in Pantheon. Each city is going to stand more on its own. It doesn't really make sense that Ogres would allow an entire community of Skar to live within their walls if they don't like Skar enough to even talk to you.
Bazgrim said:Dhampir said:Abacda said:I am hoping the cities are alive that if I'm a Skar shopping in the Ogre city I have to go to the Skar ward/quarter to interact with merchants until I build sufficient faction to use the Ogre section. I mean as a fellow evil race I assume I will be on a non-KoS faction and can enter and then do quests and activities to start working my faction to be offered more and more.
The more likely process here is there is no Skar quarter in the Ogre city and you won't even be able to go in until your faction is high enough.
Agree. The whole "quarter" thing seems too WoW-ish.
Now for example, I wouldn't be surprised to see a dwarven bartender or blacksmith in the human city - some diversity like that can make sense in some cases. But "quarters" are more common when there is a central hub for all players or each faction (good vs. evil). That's not really how it works in Pantheon. Each city is going to stand more on its own. It doesn't really make sense that Ogres would allow an entire community of Skar to live within their walls if they don't like Skar enough to even talk to you.
Yeah, I'm not sure the ogre would allow a Skar district, but The Dark Myr might. The Dark Myr seem like an EQ Dark Elf type race. And Dark Elf hometown Neriak had a foriegn quarter that all the other "evil" races could barter in.
CanadinaXegony said:Hoping for several starting cities, I plan to experience all of them, and as for trying to find a way to meet up with friends, your friendly druid or wizard could help you with your challenge. :)
In EQ (group) porting spells came way later. Level 24? or higher and not everywhere. Also sow was only available at level 14 (sooner for rangers iirc)
So, you're going to have to wait a little bit.
With respect to porting, I hope they never make potions, or hubs, or whatever, to facilitate everyone able to port everywhere. (I did like the guild portal idea though) I beta'd eq and rolled a druid for the specific purpose of the ability to port eventually. I didn't mind being the taxi for my friends and whenever I logged in, it was great to be "needed."
I'm all about the individual starting cities and agree that it makes the world feel much larger or at least deeper. The norm lately in games of just a few starting areas is terrible. The first few weeks of launch just have these areas teeming over with new characters piled up on the first few levels of quest givers as they begin their rollercoaster path. I think this is the first step to immersion loss. Seeing the sea of new players on the same path with no reason to interact with each other sets players on the sad race to fly through content. This obviously isn't where Pantheon is going with their release and I'm very happy about that.
If we want to play with friends in different areas then I'm hoping we're going to have to make the dangerous journey to the port or across the dangerous plains and figure out how to make our way.
*Archai - Su'Roa
* Dwarves - Strontian Mountains (Thronefeast) - new map?
* Elves - The Falmyrys (Faerthale) - new map?
* Gnome - Skyfen Mountains
* Halfling - The Blackwoods (Wilds End) - new map?
* Humans - Kingsreach, Plains of Triundia, Desert of A'Moka ?? One perhaps leaning towards Kingsreach. (Ru'Lun) port?
* Ogre - Icehammer Steppes
* Skar - Lost Lake ?? (Skargol) - new Map ?
* Dark Myr - Lost Lake ?? (Syronai's Rest) - new map ?
These are based on original game concepts, I might be inaccurate so please do not quote :)
Homercles said:Bazgrim said:Dhampir said:Abacda said:I am hoping the cities are alive that if I'm a Skar shopping in the Ogre city I have to go to the Skar ward/quarter to interact with merchants until I build sufficient faction to use the Ogre section. I mean as a fellow evil race I assume I will be on a non-KoS faction and can enter and then do quests and activities to start working my faction to be offered more and more.
The more likely process here is there is no Skar quarter in the Ogre city and you won't even be able to go in until your faction is high enough.
Agree. The whole "quarter" thing seems too WoW-ish.
Now for example, I wouldn't be surprised to see a dwarven bartender or blacksmith in the human city - some diversity like that can make sense in some cases. But "quarters" are more common when there is a central hub for all players or each faction (good vs. evil). That's not really how it works in Pantheon. Each city is going to stand more on its own. It doesn't really make sense that Ogres would allow an entire community of Skar to live within their walls if they don't like Skar enough to even talk to you.
Yeah, I'm not sure the ogre would allow a Skar district, but The Dark Myr might. The Dark Myr seem like an EQ Dark Elf type race. And Dark Elf hometown Neriak had a foriegn quarter that all the other "evil" races could barter in.
I think that's actually a bit of a stretch. The Dark Myr are an extremely proud race. They very distrusting of other races because they have been screwed over in the past by other races destroying their homes. The Skar are probably the most recklessly destructive race of them all, so I highly doubt the Dark Myr would allow themselves to be so vulnerable to the Skar. The Dark Myr are actually probably the least likely to have quarters for any other races. Not to mention the Dark Myr's home city is underwater so that's not really condusive to housing other races that can't breathe underwater, including Skar haha.
I think that's actually a bit of a stretch. The Dark Myr are an extremely proud race. They very distrusting of other races because they have been screwed over in the past by other races destroying their homes. The Skar are probably the most recklessly destructive race of them all, so I highly doubt the Dark Myr would allow themselves to be so vulnerable to the Skar. The Dark Myr are actually probably the least likely to have quarters for any other races. Not to mention the Dark Myr's home city is underwater so that's not really condusive to housing other races that can't breathe underwater, including Skar haha.
Its because they're "extremely proud" that I equate them to the Dark Elves. Both races share an arrogance that sets them apart from the other races of they're respective worlds. The Dark Myr are angry, but I dont think its an anger toward the other races, as much as it is an anger at the world of Terminus. When they were brought to Terminus, they were treated to an ocean that was poison to them. They couldnt breath it in. Theyre god sacrificed herself to give them lungs and legs so they could exist..but on land, not underwater. This tainted the Myr's view of this new world.
And early on, they were part of an alliance with the 5 other races. Dwarves, Humans, Elves, Ogres, and Archai. It was only after the defeat in the war that they developed a "vast disdain" for the other races. Disdain....to look down upon in disgust. They view the other races as theyre lessers.
Now, a culture that defies this belief would become a rival. Humans, Elves, Dwarves all develop great cities and cultures. Archai, may not develop great cities, but theyve always been contentious with the Dark Myr due to the close arrival of both races to Terminus. That leaves the ogres. Tribal by nature. Dark Myr can safely view them as "lessers" by way of culture, economics, and intelligence.
Now enter the third batch of races. Halflings, Skar, and Gnomes. They arrived after the great war that caused the DarkMyr to isolate themselves. So they have no beef with them other than their typical, "im better than you" attitude. The gnomes are even more reculsive than the Darkmyr. And they arrived in a spaceship, so theyre obviously more technically advanced than the Dark Myr. For this reason the gnomes would be shunned. The halflings. I can see the Dark Myr tolerating them. Tree dwelling people. Youthful in appearance. The Dark Myr may view them as lessers, or maybe an adolescent race that they could manipulate and lord over. And then we have the Skar. The most violent of races. When they arrived on terminus they wiped out the nearby indigenous peoples, and then they turned on themselves. They Dark Myr would view them as mindless savages, even lower than the tribal ogres. This is a race the Dark Myr would feel superior too.
Ogre, Skar, and Halflings. Now it would be beneath the Dark Myr to send out envoys to these three races, but they very well could establish a trading district within they're Kingdom, and allow these three races to set up shop within this district.
But theyre kingdon is underwater? This may be true. In the Frail Age (current) it is said they, "subdued their realm of the ocean and built a glorious city in honor of Syronai." Is this the Dark Myr home city? or is it more of a monument to Syronai? If its theyre home city, how did they gain the abilities to breath the Terminus waters? But the lore also states, "Dark Myr ambitions are a pregnant mystery, their kingdom quietly advancing on land and sea." Land and Sea. So they very well may have established outer regions of theyre city that is on dry land.
But these is just my wanderings. I turn to Jimmayus for deeper clarification of the Dark Myr lore.
Durp said:CanadinaXegony said:Hoping for several starting cities, I plan to experience all of them, and as for trying to find a way to meet up with friends, your friendly druid or wizard could help you with your challenge. :)
In EQ (group) porting spells came way later. Level 24? or higher and not everywhere. Also sow was only available at level 14 (sooner for rangers iirc)
So, you're going to have to wait a little bit.
With respect to porting, I hope they never make potions, or hubs, or whatever, to facilitate everyone able to port everywhere. (I did like the guild portal idea though) I beta'd eq and rolled a druid for the specific purpose of the ability to port eventually. I didn't mind being the taxi for my friends and whenever I logged in, it was great to be "needed."
That was EQ might be different in Pantheon. I can see maybe for the first 15 levels or so no group ports..but I leave that up to the Devs. We will have to discover the places on foot first ..that's my understanding. And if you wish to get somewhere, coax your friends to come with you..in case of dangerous mobs ahead. :) I will be a wizard for sure. :) Fly Air Canadina! :)
It's not like the cities were that spread out in EQ. There were just a few basic clusters. Elves, dwarves, wood elves, humans and dark elves could all make fairly safe runs to play together as they were all connected by starter zones. Erudites, humans, half elves on the other coast depending on race/class restrictions. Then you had the ogres pair up with the trolls early on. The only ones that were somewhat secluded were Barbarians and Gnomes. Otherwise the only thing separating you was a 20-30 minute run. You had to coordinate a little bit, but generally everyone could be as unique as they wanted to be.
You may be limited on your options starting out... but I have trouble believing that they are only going to make starting areas be short certain roles.
Now, all this said, I hope they limit portals and travel so that the world does keep the feeling of size. Even if the trip is peaceful, I don't mind making a 30-45 minute run to start leveling with a friend because the world has size and it takes time to get through. I remember PoP was where I felt EQ really went downhill, because everything seemed to feel instanced and close together. From Freeport to Qeynos in 5 minutes... pathetic.
Rubezahl said:Now, all this said, I hope they limit portals and travel so that the world does keep the feeling of size. Even if the trip is peaceful, I don't mind making a 30-45 minute run to start leveling with a friend because the world has size and it takes time to get through.
/agree with this. I like the idea of planning to go to a new area of the world, with the intent of staying there for a while- like 2-3 months- and learning the things of that area. This will need some planing because I would have no faction so I would want to stock up on food and water stores until l have enough faction at least to trade there, and then maybe decide if I want to do more for the community, or move on
Starting cities are hugely important to me - I hope Pantheon's are unique enough to have that feeling that each city is memorable. I also think a good newbie area/starting city is an important hook to keep a player engaged and subscribing.
Also, I think it is important that there is no fast travel or starting options that trivalize the scope of the world near launch. A large part of the feeling of a virtual world is that it is "huge" and that traversing it is deadly. I think a lot of that is lost if players had the option to choose their starting cities based off there friends were located, or there is a magical teleport that links all the starting cities together - I'd much rather that decision be made at character creation.
Should I start an Ogre and be nearby my buddy? Or, should I start an elf because I prefer one, but may have to cross that deadly ocean I see on the map to find my friend? Make choices matter even at launch. Lastly, if different races can choose different starting cities, that poses another set of questions as well - is faction watered down to accomodate etc.?
Raidan said:Starting cities are hugely important to me - I hope Pantheon's are unique enough to have that feeling that each city is memorable. I also think a good newbie area/starting city is an important hook to keep a player engaged and subscribing.
Also, I think it is important that there is no fast travel or starting options that trivalize the scope of the world near launch. A large part of the feeling of a virtual world is that it is "huge" and that traversing it is deadly. I think a lot of that is lost if players had the option to choose their starting cities based off there friends were located, or there is a magical teleport that links all the starting cities together - I'd much rather that decision be made at character creation.
Should I start an Ogre and be nearby my buddy? Or, should I start an elf because I prefer one, but may have to cross that deadly ocean I see on the map to find my friend? Make choices matter even at launch. Lastly, if different races can choose different starting cities, that poses another set of questions as well - is faction watered down to accomodate etc.?
I am hoping faction will matter as much as it did in EQ. Thinking ahead about choices would be a good thing, when considering what server and what race your friends are playing. I might do a character to join up with my friends where they are located, and one that I am particularly interested in playing, in the offtimes when they aren't online. I have no qualms about creating new characters, they will all be useful to me at some point. :) Looking forward to the fun, exploration and social aspects of Pantheon. :)
Beefcake said:I would love for each race to have a choice of a couple starting cities. It would greatly help people of different races start the game together. I doubt any of my friends will choose the same race I will. So, we may be prevented from playing with each other for a while.
However, I don't Pantheon will go this route.
This is something that I would like to see also.
Perhaps the best way of giving a choice of cities isn't to "water down" racial cities with other races just to let people play together immediately instead of waiting until their characters can travel more easily. Perhaps it is to have the racial cities kept pure but add one "mongrel" city welcoming all races. It might not have a racial identity but it certainly could have its own unique identity. Mercantile oriented would be obvious. Or a frontier town desperate for defenders and not all that fussy what they looked like. Or a religious rationale a la New Halas.
dorotea said:Perhaps the best way of giving a choice of cities isn't to "water down" racial cities with other races just to let people play together immediately instead of waiting until their characters can travel more easily. Perhaps it is to have the racial cities kept pure but add one "mongrel" city welcoming all races. It might not have a racial identity but it certainly could have its own unique identity. Mercantile oriented would be obvious. Or a frontier town desperate for defenders and not all that fussy what they looked like. Or a religious rationale a la New Halas.
Sorry, but I don't see how that's any better. There would have to be some detriment to starting there or else almost everyone would just start there. And then that's just completely counterintuitive. That's what happened with Crescent Reach in EQ when Serpent's Spine was released. The unique starting cities still existed and players had the option of starting there, but CR was just more convenient, so there was no real reason to start in your home city. Even if you can somehow make it work with the lore, hubs tend to dumb down gameplay.
Many of us would start in the "real" starting cities just for the ambiance and the lore. But I phrased it poorly. I should have said that *if* the team doesn't want to let people start in racial cities other than their own and *if* they do want to accomodate people that can't wait a bit to play with friends but that insist on playing different races from said friends one way to do this is a racially neutral starting point.
I'm just hoping they release starting factions for each race. I'd hate to roll something KoS to a friends race if I run the whole way over and end up with no way to sell anything, especially since at the start I am assuming getting a bind will be near impossible so getting offed by a roaming guard would blow.
Iksar said:I'm just hoping they release starting factions for each race. I'd hate to roll something KoS to a friends race if I run the whole way over and end up with no way to sell anything, especially since at the start I am assuming getting a bind will be near impossible so getting offed by a roaming guard would blow.
At the very least, this is something that will be able to be determined during testing and is unlikely to change afterward. So you can experiment to see which factions do/don't like other factions before the "real" game begins.
Bazgrim said:At the very least, this is something that will be able to be determined during testing and is unlikely to change afterward. So you can experiment to see which factions do/don't like other factions before the "real" game begins.
True, but I still think it would be nice to have listed on the main site under each race as "Starting Race Relations" for just the playable races. Kind of like having the race/class chart and I imagine the eventual racial bane/boon chart for planning characters.
Wait? I get that there shouldnt be a million quarters so all the races can pick their favorite city and spend their lives there, but haven't you heard of places like China Town? Heck I know New York City has plenty of different areas populated by different ethnic groups, many of which formed back during times of intense racism so the people could stick together. Pantheon races strike me as decently racist.
So long as it sticks to lore and a particular race has a reason to make their own China Town in another city, I see no reason not to have it.
BeaverBiscuit said:Wait? I get that there shouldnt be a million quarters so all the races can pick their favorite city and spend their lives there, but haven't you heard of places like China Town? Heck I know New York City has plenty of different areas populated by different ethnic groups, many of which formed back during times of intense racism so the people could stick together. Pantheon races strike me as decently racist.
So long as it sticks to lore and a particular race has a reason to make their own China Town in another city, I see no reason not to have it.
I am not 100% on the lore but I imagine race relations are a bit more tenuous and drawing a parallel to the real world doesn't quite work. We are all of the human race; we don't have anything quite like ogres or elves, yet we historically have distrusted even other humans upon first contact. From my understanding, many of the races are relatively new to the world of Terminus which would make relations even less likely. If we were going real world comparison then consider the resistance to other cultures from ancient societies when introduced to other human civilizations, many of which still ripple into the present.
Iksar said:BeaverBiscuit said:Wait? I get that there shouldnt be a million quarters so all the races can pick their favorite city and spend their lives there, but haven't you heard of places like China Town? Heck I know New York City has plenty of different areas populated by different ethnic groups, many of which formed back during times of intense racism so the people could stick together. Pantheon races strike me as decently racist.
So long as it sticks to lore and a particular race has a reason to make their own China Town in another city, I see no reason not to have it.
I am not 100% on the lore but I imagine race relations are a bit more tenuous and drawing a parallel to the real world doesn't quite work. We are all of the human race; we don't have anything quite like ogres or elves, yet we historically have distrusted even other humans upon first contact. From my understanding, many of the races are relatively new to the world of Terminus which would make relations even less likely. If we were going real world comparison, consider the resistance to other cultures from ancient societies when introduced to other human civilizations which still ripple into the present.
I tend to agree with this. Each of these races are from DIFFERENT PLANETS. Not just different parts of the same planet. There's a lot of barriers to overcome. Especially since they haven't been together in Terminus for very long. As I said before, I would expect there to be some diversity in some of the cities. For example, dwarves that make a living as blacksmiths or bartenders in the Human city. Or humans that make a living in the Elf city. There's plenty of possibilities for some diversity that make sense. But I would expect that to be the exception rather than the rule.