Justin5574 said:Thanks Bazgrim. I know I remember hearing and reading these things before. With so much information to take in and detail to pay attention to it's easy to forget. My greatest fear is that it's not entirely possible to recapture an experience or feeling that you had when you're that young simply because age and experience changes you. But so far all of this is immensely promising and exciting.
I understand. Chasing feelings or emotions of your youth alone is indeed dangerous. You can never really go back home again. I find it better to leave those experience in the past and cherish them as they are, rather than risk tainting their memory by trying to recreate them. I choose to believe that the best times are yet to come. But I still think Pantheon will be similar enough to at least be comfortable for you. The genre has to move forward, so not everything will be exactly the same, but you certainly won't feel out of place :)
Kalok said:zoltar said:Somewhere along the way, leveling in an MMO became about going from town to town and being an errand-boy. And that's sad.
Quests don't have to be "errand boy" runs.
They do when the expectation is that from level 1 there's a never-ending stream of new quests that you chain to level. The one quest we've seen in Pantheon so far was a guard sending the player to find his lost purse... If that's an indicator of the typical quest in Pantheon, I'll be very disappointed. [I doubt this is the case though]
Keno's point was "less is more". Creating a massive quantity of quests makes it extremely difficult to maintain high standards of quality. But even if you're a company like Blizzard or Bioware that has the resources to develop tech for robust quest interaction mechanics and the resources to invest in quality writing/design for thousands of quests, the constant bombardment with quests (even high quality ones) still leads to a theme-park/errand-boy feeling. Eventuall this removes the sense that the game is about your character going off on his/her own adventure. You just go from town to town, churning through the quests exactly like everyone else.
Bear in mind that that simple of a quest could actually be the starter of a real quest chain. What if this guard was actually a talent scout for the king and he gave you a simple quest to see if you were willing to work hard. Additionally if you have the option of opening the purse you can have the option to open it or not, then if you open it you have the option to take what is in there or not, then finally you decide if you want to turn in the quest or not. Based on which of the options: Return it unopened, Return it opened, Return it Empty, or keep it and the quest times out, a different result happens and a different follow quest is available.
Trasak said:Bear in mind that that simple of a quest could actually be the starter of a real quest chain. What if this guard was actually a talent scout for the king and he gave you a simple quest to see if you were willing to work hard. Additionally if you have the option of opening the purse you can have the option to open it or not, then if you open it you have the option to take what is in there or not, then finally you decide if you want to turn in the quest or not. Based on which of the options: Return it unopened, Return it opened, Return it Empty, or keep it and the quest times out, a different result happens and a different follow quest is available.
True. Based on the philosophy outlined in the quotes from VR that Bazgrim supplied, your speculation probably isn't too far off the mark. VR is saying all the right things when it comes to how to approach quests, which is refreshing. As of now I still give them the benefit of the doubt that they will follow through on the design principles they have stated.
But as cool as the idea of giving players multiple choices in a quest that affect how things progress, if that mechanic is over-used, eventually it would become less effective and potentially annoying. If the different choices lead to vastly different outcomes with different values, then players will either feel "burned" when they make the "wrong" choice or they will constantly be looking up guides to find the "right" choice. Alternatively, if you make sure that all choices essentially provide the same value to the players, then the choices end up feeling very superficial.
I've also played games (usually Bioware) that make your choices affect your alignment in terms of being "good" or "evil". The nice thing about having that kind of alignment system is that you can be rewarded for following your chosen alignment path, despite sometimes getting sub-optimal quest rewards. Very tricky to make alignment system work though.
As in many things there are two extremes and a lot of room in the middle.
Ability to get to level-cap by questing is one extreme. In theory I wouldn't mind that if it was very hard to do and took a very long time. Thousands of quests each giving small amounts of experience and many in areas that took days or weeks of fighting and exploring to get to. When we foam at the mouth and say please no quest-driven game that is *not* what we generally have in mind but I don't expect Pantheon to go that route at all.
Pure grinding is the other extreme - all or almost all experience coming from mindless genocide of creatures with no real reason other than to get loot or experience. The old paladin saying - I live to fight evil. Anything that drops loot or gives experience is evil. I consider this extreme easily the worst of all possible outcomes - mindless, boring and amoral.
I am hoping for more of a 50-50 balance. Enough quests and storyline to give a framework for our adventures, but not nearly enough to get us to level-cap. I hope for this not because I *mind* using quests to get to level-cap; I do not. But because without a myriad of quests it would be too fast and easy. That I *do* mind.
And I agree with Zoltar not least on the benefits of having quest choices actually mean something, even if just to faction or alignment.
Kalok said:SilkyWhip said:I'm sure there's going to be some low level quest npcs that ask for 4 scorpion stingers and pay you a couple silver and a tad of exp, that are repeatable so you can get a little pocket change. We might have to find them of the beaten path, ask what they are looking for, and just keep turning 4 in at a time. Eventually you'll outgrow the area and reward, but I don't forsee them being high level quests. Those might require 8 Giant's toes, and not be something you can repeat 100 times.
I don't know if you watched Vress' "after stream", but he did one such quest.
One of the Thronefast guards asked him to go fiind his bag "by the steps". Well, they were nowhere near any steps, but he found the bag near a rock outcropping that vaguely resembled a stepped outcropping. It gave me the impression that it was more of a quest to get you to explore the area, like a level 1 or 2 quest, than anything "super enriching".
I'm pretty sure the area Vress was in was right next to these steps:
and I think they lead down to this tower:
I think he just happened to not see the steps because Joppa summoned him close to the bag.
aronnov said: so just to be clear... for a lot of people You have no problem camping and grinding the same spot/enemies for hours for xp. But heaven forbid quests that would also give you XP for killing those mobs? Tough crowd.
Camping and earning experience is a social activity that is core to the games principles. No one has suggested that A quest to kill said mobs won't exist... but there likely won't be a chain of quests, and we know there aren't quest hubs. Exp given for quests, IF given for quests I think would be a little bonus for the decision to make the effort and no where near enough to be a primary leveling option.
Keno Monster said:I've said it a millions times and I won't stop repeating: less is more. Playing the game itself should be the quest. Travel from one place to another, learn about the mobs and the drops and the locations, those things are all more rewarding than any kill 10 rats quest. If a player has to be told where to go and when to leave, then a team has not created a virtual world, they have created a single player game that people co-op with others. If a sense of wonder and achievement is enough to reward players for exploring content on their own, then a game is on to something special.
Very true.
I want NPC's and quest dialogue to talk to your character like you actually live there. If you are a human in the human city, they wouldn't have to explain to you the absolute basics of the city or game world, or tell you where to go, because they would assume you already know.
That said, I don’t mind quest that encourage you to leave your comfort zone, I just do not want them to hold your hand.
Now, if they want to include additional text where you can ask for more information, I am OK with that. It wouldn't be any different than running into someone in your local community. They are going to assume you know your way around but would be willing to help with directions if you ask.
>Camping and earning experience is a social activity that is core to the games principles.<
Questing is just as social. If the mobs require a group to kill while grinding they equally require a group to kill while questing.
I think you are missing the point here. The problem with quests isn't so much that they are "hand holding" - many quests are not and no Pantheon quests *need* to be. The problem with quests is that in many MMOs they give such high experience that you go from level one to level cap doing nothing but questing.
If a day of questing gave the same experience as a day of pure grinding - using the same content - requiring (or not requiring) a group just as much as the grinding - not speeding progress to level cap in any way just giving an alternative way to get there - would it really bother you? No God requires quests to give excessive amounts of experience. Let those of us that enjoy a bit of structure and a reason to kill things rather than amoral mindless genocide a choice of paths to follow. Just as long as this can't be used as a shortcut to skip content and max out too fast.
