I like the feeling of fear. Like running near a cliff and sitting up involutarily because I felt like I was going to fall of and die. Think Kelethin tree city no hand rails. Everything can kill you, drowning, fire, lava etc.
That level of realism and the PENALTY for dying is key to keep you on your toes and immersed.
Sarim said:I suppose this falls under immersion: For me some realism is important. Sure I realize we are in a world of magic etc, what I mean is, the world and its inhabitants must feel "real". Under this aspect, I really love the screenshots you are showing Kilsin, these landscapes look so great, I just want to put on my wandering shoes and start a walk :)
To what I said about the inhabitants of the world, I mean for example that animals should not "always" fight you until they are down to the magical 20% health and start to run. Very few if any animals should behave that way! Instead most will probably run away the moment you attack them. Similar for most other NPCs..they must act realistic or immersion is broken. From what we have heard so far, it looks like this will be taken care of (npc dispositions and such).
This pretty much takes the words right out of mouth. and I will add a little:
The world needs to feel alive. NPCs and mobs need to fill the land and be plentiful. Think of East Commons in EQ. You pass kos and Non KOS mobs of ALL kinds.
Spiders, Snakes, Orcs, scarabs. Undead: Mummys, skellies, Ghouls. Lions, Tigers(puma) and Bears!! Fire Beetles, Wisps, Dervish Cutthroats, Giants, Griffons, Shadow Men, Named mobs, weak mobs, strong mobs and a whole crap tons of NPCs that wonder around and kill dark elves, Ogres and Trolls... Sergeant Slate and that old man...can't remember his name. I can't tell you how many times I laughed my arse off when my Troll tank for killed by Slate which means the mobs all turn on me, the cleric and we all died. Fun Times !!
"You've ruined your lands, you will NOT ruin Mine!!"
This was the magic sauce that made EQ great. EC was like every zone, mobs everywhere and Lots of different kinds in ever zone.
I want mobs/npc's EVERYWHERE. Crap tons of them. (not all kos) and those wonderful Brad's delight surprise mobs. "wait, why is there a halfling Glaring at me in Nek Forest? !! "Why are there Dark elves in Gfay!!" lol, love that.
So much to name it is hard to know where to begin
Revisitable special places & memorable magical vistas,rather than content *go through once-seen it all*
Impactful choices that can't be undone
Environment being part of the approach strategy and combat;a group trying to rush to the treasure in a trap-filled pyramid will sooner meet death
This not only adds depth to the game,those that try to skip on content(ruining it for the players doing a dungeon for the first time) are in for an unpleasant surprise
Character customization - In order to connect to your character you need to be able to make it your own.If there are too few options to customize character there is the risk of getting detached from it
,losing the desire to play it.
There are probably many more(Immersion and attention to detail without a doubt)Immersion is only achieved by a collection of many game aspects I think.
As some have mentioned realism,impact character <-> world and world <-> character,seasons,day night/cycle,sense of danger lurking, memorable places you want to spend time at
A deeper health system also impacted by environment and climat.Many ailments that will challenge you to survive and seek help etc,different biomes each with their own challenges to overcome.
The ability to be part of or join cults and ingame factions,shifting your alignment in a certain way -> impactful choice
A nice overture for the game and combat music also adds to the experience
Gorgeous pictures too <3
Saw alot of good points already here are mine.
A dangerous world with real consequences. I.e. i want to be able to fall from a cliff (no invisible walls) i want to be able to fail in a timed quest and the char really dies if it would happen in that quest.(Not like i want too many quests at all just for example).
Choices should matter no respeccing with ease no cashshops to change races for 5 dollars, if you include an option, it should be a long and strenous task or you just have to start a new character. Or wait till you can progeny your character and choose a new offspring somehow.
Customizable character, races should really matter alot and classes too i wanna be different vs other characters not just lookwise, combat wise. (Not talking about animations i mean combat mechanics).
Mysteries in all flavors spawn pattern for rare mobs that you cant really explain easily some may be easy but others just mysterious, hidden treasure very rarely but if it appears i prefer it to be handplaced by a GM or have a system in place players wont be able to figure out the next spawn point. So you cant tell this is a treasure chest spawn point.
Something to do at max lvl to make your character even stronger.
If some raid loot is bound i want it to be account bound generally i wanna be able to trade stuff i collected which is bound between my characters.This is something no game has so far, not for all items at least but something i would wish for strongly. I like to think about an account like my avatars soul and stuff should be bound to it. If i collect rare bound items on whatever character = stronger account/soul.
There surely is more to be my perfect game but with thoose points it would be kinda close already. Unless some stuff is added which directly opposes my taste for a game.
For me the 3 most important aspects of a game and what makes me playing it for a long time or not is:
1) Immersion and exploration. The more immersive and the more I can explore a game, the more I love it. I can spend hours trying to reach the top of a mountain that doens't seem reachable at first just to get a beautifull unique view of the landscapre around and if when I reach the top of that mountain there is also a little chest that was abandonned there for who ever took the time to explore that part of the world, I'm in heaven!
2) Gameplay and sense of accomplishement. Gameplay is off course very important. When you start to master your character and you start to get things done and feel like you finally start to be a little good at it. That's really a great feeling. And if you can do that in a group with everyone doing their job/roles the best they can. Doesn't matter if there are failure on the way to victory. No need to be in an elite group at all. But the sense of accomplishement you get when it finally works on is great and what makes me play MMO and not "Second Life" type of games. This is also why I prefer hard games with death penalty and slow progression than games you get top level in a week. I need to feel it took me some hard work to get there.
3) Community. I really love when there is a good community in a game which is rarer nowadays than in the past. So that when you connect it's like going for a drink to your favorite pub. I also like when there are some server events and other means that put people together and not to be stranger anymore.
I agree with dorotea about realism, but I've referred to those as "the immutable laws of the universe". I think that strict and unwavering adherence is important. You can't have the game world's "rules of the universe" malleable - they need to be consistent and unyielding. It drove everyone to madness when EQ wouldn't change things they wanted and would change things they didn't want, but we always knew that we were in THEIR world now. To feel like you ar ein a world, you need to feel that there is a higher power that calls the shots and you can't change them will-nilly. So I would call it consistency. Just because players don't like something doesn't mean you should change it - it's YOUR world. We're just visitor/residents. The world doesn't cater to us.
1) Immersion. Nothing is more important to me than immersion. I don't care if I am tradeskilling, leveling or questing. I don't care if I am sitting on a dock fishing or chatting with passersby. I want to be fully immersed. I want to LIVE in this world.
2) Mystery. I don't want to be spoon fed. I don't want dumbed-down. I want there to be unexplained things everywhere in the world. And, you know what? They don't have to give an explanation (see top paragraph). The real world doesn't make sense - we don't know why everything is the way it is. It just is and, so, we accept it. I don't need to know WHY there is a crumbling castle in the middle of a forest or WHY I get poisoned every time I set foot in this river or WHY I cannot combine this jewelry recipe or WHY my spells don't land on this mob. I don't care. That';s just the way it is. I'll figure something out. And, by the way, mis-informaiton is just as good as real informaiton. Think of all the urban legends, internet myths and wrong info about how to spawn mobs, what weapons worked best, what stats did for what, etc. I want MYSTERY?
3) Challenge. As an adjunct to #2, I want long hard complicated quests that give me a challenge and sense of accomplishment to strive for.
Azotate said:Also, Can't help myself... I always enjoy seeing the awesome pics, but the third one in this series with the arch is causing me fits. It sticks out like a sore thumb. The arrangement of stones seems unnatural with so many hard lines at perpendicular angles it is more like a crafted doorway than a natural structure. Additionally the whole thing seems as if a prop haphazardly dropped into place. It does not blend into the terrain in any way that suggests it was once part of the surronding mountains.
Note: If there is any lore that would account for such a thing, i.e elemental portal or ogre crafting at its finest then kindly disregard the critique.
Yeah, i see kinda where your talking about, but if you look past it, looks likes there's a trial that leads somewhere and the devs hid it from us, i guess i'm going to have to find it for my self and see what up there. lol
Another thing i want to consider is if lets say a village is saying they are being harassed by Orcs/Bandits i wouldn't mind a group of these or 2 actually constantly harass this said village, unlike in WoW where they also seem to be saying these kinds of thing but yet never actually have to fend them off, like ever but maybe at the end of a quest chain or something, if you are being harrassed by them you should see it and know that you have to do something about it.
Great pictures :D
Many good things already posted so ill just mention a few.
To me an important aspect is time. I'd like things to take time. I'd like to explore several 15-20 areas without outleveling them, to be able to enjoy them thoroughly.
I also feel it is important that the wild life looks and moves correctly. Cats attack with their paws, dogs not so much. Wolfs not having teeths sticking out all over like a Viperfisk etc.
-sorte.
stuff which is important to me:
1) nice art style. having good looking faces/hairstyles/beards/armor. especially plate armor (i play tank). i still prefer the looks of the old plate armor of EQ1 over most of modern mmorpg. especially badass looking helmets/swords/axes (but still realistic). oh and hooden cloaks!
2) a unknown, dangerous world, full of mysteries and hidden places. oh and treasure chests! ;)
3) deeeeeep, complicated dungeons where i can get lost, with a wide level range (example lvl 10 to lvl 30).
4) i want RISK again! dieing should matter. i want to bite into my keyboard when dieing. i want that feel of danger everywhere. shall we really go deeper into this cave? when is respawn? shall we risk that 4-mob pull? how is mana/cds?
5) a mature, friendly, helpful community (yes, that's sadly an utopia i guess...:-(.). making ingame friends, talking to people in my group. reputation should matter again. guilds should matter and be more than just something behind my name.
6) the feeling of beeing on an adventure from lvl 1 and not feel the need to rush to the max level to have fun.
7) challenging encounters, even when "grinding". leveling should be a challenge already, not only boss encounters.
8) some endgame which is not already beaten after 1 month.
9) real unique classes which depend on eachother to be successful.
10) no dps meters/ DBM / etc. people should learn to pay attention to the game, not to addon warnings. also i might also like no addons at all (sorry guys!)
11) /shout TRAIN TO ZONE! :D
12) some ultra rare spawns, which people cant camp (example: many different spawn places, very long respawn timers, etc).
13) low lvl raids!
14) traveling beeing an adventure again. often only done with other people. waiting for a boat for 5-10 minutes and watch the sunset (freeport ambience) during that time and chat with friends/guildies/group
15) having very dark nights.
The social aspects are the most important to me, features that encourages players to interact with each other to build lasting friendship's.
For me the most important aspect is a meta quality - the consistence .
The consistence encompasses what other called "realism", "immersion" , "believability", "lore" ....
The reason for that is that a human brain is extremely sensible to (in)consistencies - if mankind has become what it is, it is because evolution has gratified us with this extreme sense of consistence . It applies not only to games but also to books or movies and it is especially important if the set up is a fantasy world (what Tolkien called "sub creation" - "creation" being the real world we live in) . When I play a game or read a book I want to feel like if it was an alternate universe, one of which my alter ego is part . And this obviously works only if this alternate universe is fully consistent because otherwise all red lights go spontaneously on in my brain trained by millions of years of evolution and it screams "this is fake and wrong" .
An example of inconsistence is EQ's PoP and God killing . Indeed it is inconsistent to tell one one hand that deities and worship are important, even race defining, and to allow on the other hand that people kill the Gods they are supposed to worship . There could have been a remedy like f.ex introducing a storyline about apostats and heresy but it didn't happen and continuing to have on my character sheet Mithaniel Marr as the God I worship and who is my patron despite having killed the same Mithaniel Marr didn't make any sense and killed EQ's believability for me .
Another example, although weaker, is the contemplated dwarf enchanter in Pantheon . On one hand Dwarves are supposed to be selfless smiths believing in strength - in our days one would call them pragmatic materialists . On the other hand enchanters are supposed to be intellectuals (scholars) breaking wills with a single word . This is clearly inconsistent because a person (Dwarf or anybody else) is generally either one or the other but not both . Selflessness celebrates the free will and is hardly compatible with a study to break others' will . While exceptions always exist, this generalization strikes me like very inconsistent .
Of course a supreme consistency like the one Tolkien achieved in his Middle Earth is an impossible target and he needed many years to get there . But I hope that there is somebody in Pantheon having an eye on the consistence of the world and able to challenge design/lore ideas X which would clearly boil down to saying at the same time "X is true" and "X is false" .
Morguen said:I like the feeling of fear. Like running near a cliff and sitting up involutarily because I felt like I was going to fall of and die. Think Kelethin tree city no hand rails. Everything can kill you, drowning, fire, lava etc.
That level of realism and the PENALTY for dying is key to keep you on your toes and immersed.
I second a powerful fear factor. For me, a harsh death penalty creates the most fear. I'm not afraid of death in any game except EQ. I don't want it, for certain, but I don't fear it.
Everything i accomplished in EQ means more to me in large part because the risk was immense. I cared more for my gear because I risked it in every encounter. I got it at great risk and kept it at great risk.
On an unrelated note, the first screen shot is my favorite to date!!! Insert happy fangirl squeal. :P
A sense of accomplishment, and something that goes with that... gaps in leveling.
That second one is something most people would hate, so I don't expect it to be a thing, it's just me.
I remember right after Kunark dropped you could level to this point where, if you were leveling in a group, you had two choices for where to level. You could go with some things that were entirely too easy and gave very little xp, which meant leveling would take forever, or you could move up a zone. The problem was the next tiered area for leveling was brutally more difficult than staying where you had been. Not just, "A bit harder," but closer to, "I'm not actually sure we can accomplish this." Why should that matter? Because it rewarded you for doing something you might be a little too low for. Which meant that if you tried it and failed you might go back to the slow grind of the lower area, but if you tried it and succeeded(!)... man. It was a rush. Trying things that were too difficult led to this frenzied gameplay where everyone was doing their best to do their best. You pushed yourself to the limits of your characters capabilities. You'd come out of the fights actually shaking, and you'd feel like... you did something. That feeling is something that most games lack these days. They hold your hand until you're more than ready for the next area. Even the most challenging things leave you feeling ... kind of meh. Like anyone who goes through the proper chain of quests can do this. There's never any real benefit to trying something harder. Sure, the item drops might be a little bit better, but what you've got now can do the job perfectly fine, so why not keep at it? Sure, each kill might be slightly better xp, but the xp here is good, and you can kill them faster. By the time they stop being good xp, the hand holding has brought you to a point in your leveling where the next highest area will be just as easy as the area you left.
I would love to see groups reaching a point in their leveling where they have to choose between safe, slow, and boring, or intense, dangerous, and exciting.
For me, the most important aspect is that sense of accomplishment. Whether it's through leveling gaps, or just making everything that tiny bit harder, or whatever.
Other things include a sense of individuality, options in how you level your character. A sense that you're not just another cookie cutter. Some form of leveling system that doesn't just allow you to make your character a little different from others of the same class/race, but encourages you to try new things. (This right here, of all the things D&DO got wrong, this is something they got very very right).
A story that somehow makes you care. Look, I don't want that GW2 junk of a personalized story that follows your epic quest to become the baddest mofo anyone ever saw. It's kinda ridiculous to have a story that makes you out to be the sole savior of the world when you can look around and see a few thousand other people also being the sole savior of the world. That's just silly. On the other hand if the people and the places have a story that actually matters, and is engaging, that's something else. Sure, if Amazing Sword of Awesomeness can only be found in this place, and off this NPC, and there's a lore reason why, the youtube video of how to get to the sword will appear about 5 minutes after the game launches, so there don't really need to be clues as to who/what/where/when/how/why inside the world's lore, but if there were, I might care a little more. When you're going through the world and discovering the people/places/things... tell us why. I'd love to find a piece of parchment in Upper Guk that hints at the existence of the Fenzied Ghoul, and gives some minor backstory for the fbss, and how it came to be. Giving me an in game reason to explore and search for that ghoul and that item. Not just because everyone knows it's great and has to have one. Not just because the wiki said it was good, and not just because khazams listed it.
- Mystery & Exploration: I like MMO's where there are many deeply hidden secrets waiting to be uncovered by the players.
- Class Path Specialization: I like there to be options for each class as they progress. I want to make this very clear, I don't mean a healer that can spec for DPS. I mean a healer that can spec in extra buffing, or maybe extra healing. Regardless of what they pick they are still healers, but with different specializations.
- Grouping & Social Aspects: A strong community that enjoys working together to achieve goals which one cannot accomplish alone.
Kilsin-
I have stated this many times but it really holds true with me... What I really love, is a "dynamic" fantasy world that I can log into... When I say dynamic, I mean an environment that can offer many different, random things that you can only experience by chance or putting in enough time.
What happens is, you are drawn to an area for a specific purpose, but while there you get involved in many things that happen around you by chance, all the while trying to get your drop. Too many MMOs are so predictable, you could literally write down everything that happens and to the exact second. I love being in a world that is completely unpredictable, one that draws you in, not wanting to miss out on anything.
It is a perfect game when you play it again with an alt and have a completely different experience.
Lots of good points in here. Some things that come to mind:
- a dynamic environment (including seasons; weather that impacts players and NPCs)
- a static world (minimal instancing)
- uniqueness among NPCs and items (as little copy-and-pasting or obvious templatizing as can be gotten away with)
- a staff presence in game (all the way from the top down)
- in-depth story (lots of lore)
- added flavour in the form of EvE (environment vs environment)
Regarding combat i consider this important...
A good amount of unexpected things happening during combat! Through the use of AI during combat is definitely a good way to implement this, but also I would really like to see lots of wandering mobs to the extent that adds are fairly regularly crossing a groups path and there is great need for full awareness of your changing surroundings to survive by avoiding, agro controlling or locking them down with CC!
Maybe to add to this you could have wandering mobs who change their pathing if they think they hear or see something and go to check it out in a way that relates to their AI personality.
@Kilsin great screenies by the way! That rock structure over the water is intriguing! What is/was it for??... hmmmm!!
Some of the bigger things have already been mentioned, so I will mention some of the smaller ones I like.
Sandbox opportunities like the Freeport Arena.
Little easter eggs like "Aradune Stinks" or ... a town crier shouting news named Kilsin perhaps?
These campfires also have my interest.