Originally Posted by Aradune
We have a solid vision for what we want Pantheon to be, and I'm sure you've read the high level descriptions of the game, like it's group oriented, the challenge is coming back, working together as a team is key, items will be very important, travel will hopefully be meaningful and you won't be teleporing all over... non-global banks, etc. and a focus on a player driven economy. Classes and races should mean something. Most items will be tradable or sellable. We're going to have huge dungeons, but places where it's safe to log off for the evening, so you can continue deeper the next day with your friends. Less player cities and therefore more dungeons... dungeons aren't just underground, but could be overland, could be a whole city filled with NPCs that is very faction heavy, where you need to work to get your factions to the point where the inhabitants will work with you or give you quests.
We're not trying to make a game that appeals to everyone all of the time, but have instead defined our target audience, and even if that means the game is 'niche', then so be it. By keeping the team lean and mean, we don't need massive funding to make a great game. We want a long alpha and beta, giving us plenty of time to tune the game and make it both challenging and fun. Your appearance will refelct the items you earned that you are wearing -- you can't just play dress-up. If you see a player walk into town all decked out with killer items, you can safely assume he worked for those items.
We're probably going to have fewer levels, but introduce the idea of a tier, where to level up it takes more than experience, but also accomplishing various tasks, so you can't just sit there and power level all day in one spot -- you'll need to explore, travel, and *play* the game. There will be camping in some cases, because we know some people like that, but then other mobs will move around or appear in different areas, so camping on one place is not always the answer -- you will need to move around and 'do' a dungeon.
There's the idea of situational gear, so that there shouldn't be, say, one best sword for a mid-level Crusader. It really depends on where he is, what he is fighting, etc. So a region can have climates, where it's super hot and you need to wear fire resistance gear there, but another area might be totally different and so you'll want to wear other gear.... lots of inventory management where you can define 'outfits' that consist of the items you want to wear and wield in certain situations or climates. We want to use physics and make climates or regions actually affect gameplay and tactics. For example, there will be a lot of underwater content, where physics and tactics will be different... think Ender's Game, where they had to learn different tactics in a 3d environment, where there was no 'up' or 'down'... or think Star Trek 2: the wrath of Khan, when they are in the nebula looking for each other, and Kirk attacks from upward, confusing Khan who was more used to fighting in a 2d setup.
The game will have lots of quests, epic quests, etc., but it is not quest hub driven like VG... in terms of quests it's more like early EQ 1. No quest bangs above NPC heads -- you'll need to talk with NPCs to find out what's up. Twinking is doable, but there will also be lots of reasons not to twink, like fantastic long term buffs you can get by sacrificing your items at a temple. Likely there will be multiple colors of mana (think Magic: the Gathering, kind of). So a cleric or healer might normally accumulate White Mana, and the vast majority of his prayers will use White Mana, but then he discoveres a rare prayer that requires both White and Green mana... he then must locate an orb that he holds in one hand, that when held he also accumulates Green mana. Speaking of finding spells and abilities and prayers, this is what you're going to need to do to get the good stuff -- the basic trainers will be just that, basic. Part of exploring the world and taking risk will not just yield cool items, but you may well find an ancient Crusdader in the depths of a dungeon and, upon freeing him, he teaches you a Crusader ability or prayer that *ONLY* comes from him. So abilities can be rare, not just items.
You'll be able to counterspell other casters... even deflect a fireball back at the NPC or one of the other NPCs. Where you are will matter -- not in a twitch way, but you will be able to get out of the way of, say, an area of effect spell. There will be 'tells' during combat that will help you realize what the NPCs are planning on doing to you, so you can be ready to have an answer to their attack and defend against it.
The game is built on the foundations of what made early MUDs, EQ 1, etc. great, plus with ideas that came later that you saw in VG, like offensive and defensive targets, etc. And then there will be modern ideas in the game too, so while the foundation is what made earlier challenging MMOs so compelling, that doesn't mean we are just trying to make an EQ 1 or early MMO clone; rather we want to build all sorts of cool, new ideas upon that proven foundation.
So I could keep going and going, but will stop there. Part of your question to me seemed to be asking, what is there that is sacrosanct, that's part of the Vision(TM), that cannot change, vs. what is changable, adaptable, etc. That's a great question, but hard to answer explicitly. I think what is unmutable is the higher level vision. We're not going to suddenly change Pantheon into a sci-fi game focused on PvP. We're not going to wimp the game out and make it much easier to play. We're not going to abandon the idea of groups working together and being rewarded for good teamwork. We're going to try to leave out tedious stuff, but challenge will remain... you will need to travel. You won't be teleporting everywhere with ease. The game will be item-centric. High level stuff like this is just not going to change.
But the details, those are more mutable. There's the issue of whether our target audience wants more player towns and cities and less dungeons vs. less PC cities, but more adventure areas. One or the other is not set in stone. The 'mini-map' you saw in some earlier screenshots... it's not going to be an exploration tool, makig mapping dungeons super easy. We want it to be more tacitcal, and to be useful in combat. But what if it does end up spoiling stuff? Then we'll pull it. What if something is just too powerful, or we make a mistake and don't balance some critical areas in alpha or beta... we will nerf even if it upsets some players, but the overall health of the game necessitates a nerf, we're going to do it. What if we see some cool player emergent behavior? If it doesn't violate the Vistion at a higher level, then we're going to imbrace it, as long as it's balanced or can be balanced.
We will be very involved with the community and not just reading feedback on the game from the boards, but we'll be playing the game right along with you, sometimes with you knowing, and sometimes with you not knowing. And we'll gather data and tweak and balance and polish. So a lot/most? of the details are not set in stone and can be changed. But not the Vision, or the 100,000 foot view -- we know the game we want to make at that level, and it's the one we want to make, play, and what we are convinced a decent number of MMO players, both old school and noobs, really want. We're ok being more niche and keeping costs down and the size of the team down, so we don't have to have a million subscibers to be profitable. We will actually be very profitable at 25k-50k subscribers.
Anyway, I could go on and on, but that's kinda of a quick overview as I stop coding gameplay this evening (working on the new Inventory UI) and get ready for bed. You may have some specifics, and I can try to answer, but at the same time I don't think there's a realistic way of splitting the whole game into two columns, one mutable, the other immutable. I think from what I wrote here and have written elsewhere, and if you've followed my earlier games, and the tons of posts I've done in the past talking about MMO game mechanics or philosophies, you should be able to put together a pretty good idea of what's part of the Vision(TM) vs. details that I'm fine tweaking and changing.
-Brad
