I know it's waaay to early to talk about expansions (or is it....)... but one thing I never understood when looking back at EQ was the way expansions made the world so much bigger. At least the first few expansions did (I quit during Luclin). Ofcourse I thoroughly enjoyed Kunark en Velious, but I noted a very obvious downside also. The world population became more and more scattered. 'Old' world zones became ghost zones.
One of the things that made EQ special for me was the fact that the world felt so alive with ppl from all kind of lvls in each zone I travelled to. Sometimes just a few ppl, and some other zones packed most of the times.
I really hope Pantheon will take a different approach to expansions. Ofcourse new zones are awesome. A new expansion based on a new continent/planet/whatever... great.... But I would love it if new content was added to existing zones also. Zones like the Karanas had much potential to add lots more content than they actually had. For dungeons this should be 'easy' to implement... for outdoor worlds it might mean some more refactoring..
Ofcourse it was nice in EQ that there was always a place to go where nobody was... Where you could go hunt undisturbed... But as the years passed and the expansions came... there were too many places like this... Whole expansion became ghost zones...
So instead of ending up with 300+ zones after 10 expansions... I'd settle for 75 with more content;P It will keep the world population less scattered...
How do you guys feel about this?
I generally, come expansion time, want a real change of scenery. New zones, new dungeons, new cities, new race(s), new class(es). I'd like the world to expand and with the lore for Pantheon, they could easily patch in entirely different races/continents via a new collisions into Terminus.
Don't get me wrong, I think adding to existing zones is good too but that is the kind of thing I like to see happen in content patches between expansions more than AS an expansion. Adding another wing to Guk or Sol wouldn't be incredibly exciting when you have been looking at the same textures/mob types for months already and expansions with new lands is a great opportunity to add new things/creatures that just wouldn't fit in the "old world."
I know that I post this in just about every thread.
Iksar said:they could easily patch in entirely different races/continents via a new collisions into Terminus.
Define "easily". There are numerous release schedules you can commit to as a developer. A massive release with additional classes, races, and continents populated with non-recycled NPCs and quests is a massive undertaking.
You might be able to accomplish that in a year with a reasonably sized team. I mean, ESO cooked the Morrowind expansion for well over a year and many people have complained about the amount of content. The content provided is very high quality, but in terms of actual size it is honestly relatively small. Maybe 50% larger than the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild DLCs. As much as it would be cool to turn an entirely new leaf every year or so, that's extraordinarily hard to do while maintaining the quality of the original game.
The original EQ developers managed to get Kunark out in just about a year, and they added one race only, no classes. Velious added no classes or races. Both expansions were sizable in terms of land mass, but in terms of actual content size, it felt a lot larger than it actually was. Going back to early EQ zones on the TLP servers puts into perspective exactly how small the world actually is, but how well they pulled off the massive feeling mostly through setting and stifling progression.
A breakdown of some reasons for EQ's early rapid content model:
1. Most races in EQ share skeletons and animation sets. The only changes in character art are textures. Dark Elf, Wood Elf, and Half Elf all share identical animations, height, build, etc. Vah Shir animations are identical to the Luclin Barbarian animations. Frogloks are truly unique, but the entire Legacy of Ykesha expansion was awful and practically only served to introduce the Froglok race. Drakkins were unique, but the animation/skeleton of Drakkins was copy & pasted to just about every single humanoid NPC in the game from that expansion forward. The only exceptions are NPCs of already existing races.
2. Armor is extremely simple in EQ, with every piece being identical to the previous on the same race, with the notable exception of Velious custom armor textures. Art is generally the most time consuming component of world building, so between 1 and 2, there is a considerable amount of work hours saved.
3. Tons of trees, wall textures, etc. were recycled for expansions all the way up to Planes of Power. Gates of Discord introduced an entirely new artistic style to the game. Gates of Discord contained many NPC models, environmental textures, trees, water, etc. that were all recycled to create Omens of War and more.
While this recycling is common practice through all games, EQ was a far more simplistic game with a heavy amount of asset recycling. World building a photorealistic modern video game is much, much more expensive and time consuming that EQ ever was.
TL;DR: We can barely (if even) get the Bard and Necromancer classes included on launch. Having a rapid deployment of high quality, abundant content in Pantheon is probably not going to happen.
I think rather than entire "expansions" they should stick with more simplistic Lore-based add-ons that intruduce newfound dungeons, mysterious enchanted woods hiden in a snowy valley, new mines the dwarves made and found a pocket of no-no demons or something. there is so much single-line lore you can add to the game with add-ons. Add-ons are usually smaller, and quicker to produce. Also, if they kick the game off right, there will be content in the game that is way beyond achievable for any normal group or guide of people (sleeper), that they can then have some 'event' to unlock your potential (increase your level cap) so you can challenge this previously insurmountable content.
DazL said:I know it's waaay to early to talk about expansions (or is it....)... but one thing I never understood when looking back at EQ was the way expansions made the world so much bigger. At least the first few expansions did (I quit during Luclin). Ofcourse I thoroughly enjoyed Kunark en Velious, but I noted a very obvious downside also. The world population became more and more scattered. 'Old' world zones became ghost zones.
One of the things that made EQ special for me was the fact that the world felt so alive with ppl from all kind of lvls in each zone I travelled to. Sometimes just a few ppl, and some other zones packed most of the times.
I really hope Pantheon will take a different approach to expansions. Ofcourse new zones are awesome. A new expansion based on a new continent/planet/whatever... great.... But I would love it if new content was added to existing zones also. Zones like the Karanas had much potential to add lots more content than they actually had. For dungeons this should be 'easy' to implement... for outdoor worlds it might mean some more refactoring..
Ofcourse it was nice in EQ that there was always a place to go where nobody was... Where you could go hunt undisturbed... But as the years passed and the expansions came... there were too many places like this... Whole expansion became ghost zones...
So instead of ending up with 300+ zones after 10 expansions... I'd settle for 75 with more content;P It will keep the world population less scattered...
How do you guys feel about this?
One thing to keep in mind is that EQ1 was all about vertical growth. You needed those new zones with even higher level NPCs and better gear so that players can gets stronger and better gear, etc rinse and repeat. That is why older content was eventually abandonded.
VR has said time and time again that Pantheon will be more horizontal in growth so that even when new areas and content is introduced older content will remain viable much much longer. I really do like the idea of dungeons opening new wings over time and I expect we would see such content introduced.
I for one agree with the post that new zones aften leave other zones empty. That is often the cold fact of expansions. if you have a fvorite zone to hunt in than it will give you more space to explore and hunt without being trampled bu trains etc. But the fact that adding new content to older zones is that you have to add more levels of mobs and more dnagerous conditions for the level of the existing zone.
But I see no problem with adding more dungeons and maybe a few more "inside" type zones available to the existing zones. These can be added to the zones when they are introduced but not available at time of the expansion release. They could have a major catastrophy like an earthquake that opens the dungeon entrance or a landslide that suddenly reveals a hidden fortress that has been hidden from view for centuries due to an earlier volcano eruption. These zones could have been self sustaining due to vegetation or canibalism that kept the life forms alive for all these centuries..
A lot of these hidden zones can be available in one zone and kept hidden until the content is ready to be released. They can be a part of an expansion for pay or just a content addition in between expansions.
But adding new content to existing zones may well makr the existing zones unplayable for people who are a little slower to level than the average player. Kithcore zone in eq was one example of a 2 layer zone where you could walk araound and enjoy a lower level zone but when the sun went down so did your chances of servival. But i believe that kithcor was also a zone best enjoyed at night by the higher level players. There was never much activity there during the day except traveling to and from high keep. That may have been because it was surrounded by other zones of the same level content.
Liav said:Define "easily". There are numerous release schedules you can commit to as a developer. A massive release with additional classes, races, and continents populated with non-recycled NPCs and quests is a massive undertaking.
Sorry to have you write all that, I was saying lore-wise they can easily write in the new races/areas via collisions as that's how all the player races arrived there already. Not that it is easy to make the content.
Hand and Hand, I really wish you stayed to play many more expansions to see EQ for what it was and still is.
Yes levels, and alts can have a huge impact on leaving zones empty and players start to scatter out.
This is why guilds where so important, to reduce the need to socialize with an empty zone. To go backwards? on the other hand was nice to have Boxing toons.
Your other point about zones being used more. I completely agree and talked about this awhile back. If we used lets say a zone your used to, South Ro. We had revamped version much later on, and some Links to new zones, instances from there. However some of the higher teir zones had expansion changes that created new higher level versions of the orginals.. It was stupid idea in my opinion, and confused the lower tier, higher teir returning. If orginal zones are being used, then link them in some way, not space it out to a virtual version of.
It was a pissoff for the majority of my time returning to EQ.
Just my opinion it was all hashed together as fast as it could for the yr releases. Not thought out at all, poor decisions, and left to the dev "repair' team and not team leaders to decide on.
My only requirement of an expansion is that it has enough content to warrant the price.
I'm a HUGE fan of expansions that DO NOT increase the level cap, like Velious.
I'm a HUGE fan of expansions that DO increase the level cap, but add low level content, like Kunark/Burning Crusade.
I'm NOT a huge fan of expansions that ONLY increase the level cap for the sake of increasing the level cap.